Kermit's Tropical Cousin

Not Geography Geography Lesson 12

The Small and Mighty Poison Dart Frog

I was recently reading a book of '101 Things You Need To Know', and came across today's topic, which is poison dart frogs! I never knew such a teeny tiny little thing could be so interesting, and hopefully you will agree! Here we go...

About the Poison Dart Frog

Generally, frogs are pretty boring things, but not these frogs! There are more than 100 different species of these tiny fellas, and if they could write a Tinder bio for themselves it would read something like this:

• Smaller than Donald Trump's hands - only between 0.5 and 2 inches long. 
• Loves dressing to impress - colours include bright blues, oranges, reds, greens and golden yellow, and can be spotty or stripey. 
• Restricted to warm and damp climates - naturally found in the tropical rainforests of South America, from Costa Rica to Brazil. 
• Great with kids - transports eggs and tadpoles to different areas (like pools of water in big leaves) on their backs, known as 'backpacking'.
• Handle with caution - among some of the most poisonous animals on the planet. 

Joking aside, these frogs (fancy name Dendrobatidae) are really interesting and amazing creatures, and are the epitome of 'small and mighty'. Their beautiful colourings are their way of saying "back off buddy!" to predators, because they can pack a real punch if messed around with - known as aposematic colouring. The golden dart frog is in fact the most poisonous creature in the world, and the toxins on its skin are strong enough to kill 10 grown men. Historically, native American tribes would smear their arrows with the frogs' toxins to make them evenly more deadly (because an arrow to the chest is not unpleasant enough...). Only one creature in the world can survive eating the dart frog, and that is the Leimadophis Epinephelus, which is a Fire-Bellied snake from Brazil. And even it feels super rough afterwards! 

Note, a poisonous creature is one which excretes toxins from its skin or when ingested (like our frog), whereas a venomous creature injects its toxins by biting or scratching (like a snake or spider, which are much less cute). 

One of Nature's Greatest Mysteries

Whilst the toxicity of the frogs is amazing in its own right, the origin of it is the most interesting thing about them. Because, in captivity you could hold a golden dart frog on your palm without gloves, and still make it home for tea. Maybe they could give you a little nip, but really they are totally harmless! How on God's green Earth can that be?

Well...  it is believed that they assimilate their poison from eating another creature or plant, which they can build up and then secrete when a predator comes looking for a snack. The only issue is that as of yet, no one has been able to establish what the other creature or plant is, and it is presumably even more poisonous than the frogs, which would make it the most poisonous thing in the world! Blimey. 

There are also several research projects in the medical community being conducted into our amphibian pals, because their toxin (called Batrachotoxin) is believed to have properties which could be very useful for medicines and treatments. It is a neuro-toxin, which means that it reacts with the electrical impulses which work the nervous system to kill whoever is unlucky enough to be poisoned. Scientists believe that by recreating it, they can explore how the electrical signals are conducted in the nerves to allow the heart to function and stimulate pain signals. This research could help people who have conditions impacted by faulty electrical impulses - including those who cannot feel pain at all, and who suffer constant pain in what is termed 'Man On Fire syndrome'. 

They Don't Make Big Diamonds

As a person of a smaller disposition, I feel a common bond with the dart frog, and clearly they are astounding creatures with exciting opportunities for the health of their human friends. So it is important that we keep them around. 

Sadly, over 75% of the dart frog species are classed as 'threatened' or 'critically endangered' by the World Wildlife Fund. This is due to losses of habitat in the rainforests via widespread deforestation, pollution of their habitats by pesticides used on farms nearby, infectious disease outbreaks, and smuggling of the frogs to be sold as pets. 

The poison dart frog is a triple-threat - it is super cute, very powerful, and could be the cure to some horrid human medical conditions! Unfortunately, the actions of man in its habitat is contributing to rapid declines in numbers, and could even lead to the extinction of some of its species. Hopefully conservation efforts by the WWF and the like will be successful, as the species are so valuable. I hope you enjoyed this week's topic, and have and intoxicating week! 

 

Four-Day Weekends and Tiny Houses

Not Geography Geography Lesson 11

Can De-Growth Save The World?

This week we are going to discuss de-growth and 'downshifting', which is quite current,and has been tipped as the best solution to combat climate change. I think it's a really interesting concept, and hopefully you will too! So here we go..! 

Gotta Grow

Growth is the foundation on which our modern society is built; it is often the thing on which elections are won or lost, it is the engine which runs our modern world. Our global economy has been growing at 2.5% per year since 1800. And all this basically means that we are getting more stuff (money, energy, miles per gallon, TVs, fish fingers...) out than we are putting in. Investment is the key to growth, and when your investment comes back bigger than it was before, then everyone is happy and you can invest again with even more. One of the most obvious examples of this, is that when you whittle all the numbers down you come out with an investment lifetime of 40 years - roughly the working lifetime in the developed world, and you realise that pensions of all things, are the investments which make the world go round. 

And all this sounds like a great idea. You put in some money over a few years, and after a bit you get it back out plus some extra, and you can retire to Benidorm and drink sangria by a pool of screaming kids until you kick the bucket looking like Iggy Pop on a bad day. 

But is it really?

It's Not All Good In The World Of Growth

Whilst growth has allowed us to live very comfortable and pleasant lives, with nice houses and cars and iPads and roast dinners every Sunday, the natural systems on which we rely for these things have been bearing the brunt of our lavish lifestyles. We all know how the greenhouse gas emissions we are pumping out, and the forests we are cutting down, and the waste we are dumping into the oceans, are all destroying the planet we call home. We know that if we don't stop doing those things, we are heading straight into a slow painful doomsday. But what we don't often think about, is how our unhealthy reliance on making more and more stuff is directly contributing to that process. And what is growth? Making more and more stuff. 

It seems simple, just stop making the stuff. But how do we make less stuff but still grow? How can a problem made by stuff, be fixed with more stuff? Even a sausage could realise that it can't be. Even a raw sausage. 

De-Growth: Why?

By this logic we just need less stuff, which means we won't grow like we have been doing, but we also might still be around as a species in a thousand years time. A Canadian economist called Peter Victor has created a v complex model of potential futures, depending on how we choose to grow (or not grow), and he found that if societies begin to de-grow now, and are stable by 2030, then the social, economic and environmental benefits would be brill. Happy days.

Unfortunately, it is not that easy because people do not like the idea of having less stuff, and you can't just take it from them. Not even when you want to, like selfie sticks. So you have to convince people to throw away their iPads and go for a walk or something instead... and here's how!

Downshifting and Elective Simplicity

There are quite a few ways to enable de-growth, but the main one is reducing working hours, and sharing out the work that is being done more equally. In short, do less work, less frequently. But the money! Well yes that means earning less money generally, but it also means having more free time to do stuff. In fact, there are lots of studies which have shown that past a certain point, wealth definitely does not equal happiness or improve well-being. So why make yourself miserable working 60 hours a week, destroy the planet, and have no time? As my lecturer (!) put it, why do more?

In fact, the Netherlands already has a policy of reducing working hours, and I have been to Amsterdam and they all looked super happy so... Additional methods to de-grow include a universal minimum wage, de-centralising banks, buying local products, and investing in community livelihoods through facilities like parks. And people are actually doing these things already, and reaping the benefits. Elective Simplicity is a movement which emphasises doing less and enjoying more, and includes things like living in tiny houses (which are hella cute and I would 10/10 recommend Googling them). 

This whole things sounds very idealistic, very leftie, and very alien in our current world. It is definitely bonkers to imagine a world where we all live in tiny houses, with no big TVs or three cars, and we don't invest in pensions, and only work 3 days a week. But I don't think that it is necessarily a bad world, and a large proportion of environmental, social and economic scientists seem to be coming to that same conclusion. Maybe that is just what we will have to do if we don't want be toast by 3000. On the plus side though, fewer 7:00am get-ups, and you can make a cuppa, use the loo, and hoover at the same time in a Tiny House!