Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Thoughts in and about Gold Coast evening tour - Part 2 - Giving back for bright future


The trip advisor who's also the driver of the bus started talking about the journey and the route we will take to reach the mountains

As I said It was sunset. Everyone in the bus can see the Gold Coast Bats starting to fly high up in the sky. The trip advisor said these are called the flying foxes or the fruit bats.


They are called flying foxes because they look like foxes. Unlike the "ordinary" bat we know and fear, which are more like flying mice, the flying fox is big... really really big. Its wings reach one meter length, added up, when spread along.
The trip advisor mentioned that they have functional eyes unlike the regular bats that use sound waves to sense their way. He also said you can distinguish their faces. I'm not sure if he means that each flying fox has a unique face though. I didn't take a "personal" photo of a "flying fox" during my stay in Australia so I can't judge if it's really looks like a fox. Google can help though :) (photo from Google is the one down below). I used to see them every night though I always keep distance. They are really scary


They are called fruit bats because, obviously, they eat fruits. They don't suck blood. Interesting!!
To me it's not interesting... Come on, a bat that sucks human blood and turns into a vampire midnight to kiss pretty woman is much more interesting imho :p


The trip advisor mentioned that unfortunately the number of the flying foxes are decreasing. They are threatened to extinction.  He pointed that it's "interesting" to realize that when the number of people living in the region increase, the number of these animals decrease. That makes me wonder about how amazingly this equation is "true".

I mean the region is rich with resources. Rain forests with huge trees, bats and birds are among them. Human want to live there. Human will develop their powers and science to maximize consumption of the land's resources. Human would cut trees among other resources to build their houses or to make farms.

Animals on the other hand can't adapt to this change. Imaging two flying foxes hanging on a tree. One bat sense something wrong with the tree and would say to his partner "hey mate. Do you think what I'm thinking". the other bat says "oh. WTF NOT AGAIN. THE TREE IS GOING DOWN". Then they would search for another tree
ولم يعم الفرح والسرور

And in another story, you can skip if you couldn't bare the previous story and I know you couldn't, a flying fox is on his way back to his tree after a long night of searching for food. It didn't see its tree. It called its friend over the phone and said "Hey mate. I don't see my tree. All I see is a house and a road beside!!"
اشدعوة
I know when you read the two stories your face like -_________-
So I should stop these silly stories

Back to the main issue. Animals couldn't adapt to this change. They can't survive on a land where human dominates and are consuming the land's resources. Managing to find food is getting much harder for them. Climate is changing. Human are taking and consuming but not giving back.

Realizing that, The Australian authorities and communities are making huge efforts in protecting natural habitat. Reducing cutting trees, taking care of animals and protecting endangered species from extinction.

How does that compare to our country?
In our country, we neither have the green forests nor that much amount of natural habitat or animals. The only natural resource you can think of is "Oil" which will end anyway. So we can't for example take care of oil or grow oil like the way Australia treat their forests and animals.

We are consuming... Are we giving back?
Think with me... What has changed in Kuwait the last say 10 or 15 years... and compare it to Qatar or UAE
New streets and bridges!
New malls!
umm not that much change

but is this how we should give back? What are we doing anyway?
We are still relying on "oil" while UAE and Qatar are buying big companies shares and busy turning their country to a financial state. Not to mention tourism. They managed to make their land, that is basically a desert, attract all the tourists and "shoppers" from around the world.


Can we have another source of energy?
Can we have railways?
Can we encourage ppl to use public transport?
Can we reduce the two million non-kuwaiti workers and start building our country by ourselves?
Can we make our country attract tourists?

Even though we see ads about "Kuwait's Future" showing future projects, ppl here seems skeptical about it. May be because we lost confidence. May be we only care about what we'll get "Now"
Or I should say we're busy in getting more money and "be Muslims" now!

 For how many years our "Oil" would last?
There's no specific number
May be we don't wanna bother ourselves calculating that. May be we don't care about the future

To be continued...
つづく

I'll leave with some more Gold Coast photos
Note 1: For your eyes to enjoy the beauty of the photos click to enlarge
Note 2: For Thoughts in and about Gold Coast evening tour - Part 1 click here










References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pteropus
http://www.gold-coast-aus.com/Bats.html
http://www.mountainsbeyond.org/Nature/Mammals/images/Bats/DSC_7446-GHFlyingFox-211105.jpg 
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YGVLM2i9n6o/TJeWf9d4icI/AAAAAAAAGP8/stNME-i6L9k/s1600/vampirebed.jpg
http://animemiz.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/313-1.jpg

4 comments:

Seema* said...

معهد الأبحاث عندهم مشاريع للطاقة البديلة.. ولكن!

: )

Hope said...

eSalaam 3laikom
Australia is an amazing getaway all year long, lots of good places to be at, lots of places to visit.
I hope I can go there one day..
It makes me feel really sad when I start comparing where my country's at with other countries, I even stopped doing this comparison..
It seems 2 me that the whole world is moving forward, while we're only moving the opposite way, which is really shameful considering the fact that we have all the resources
We have great thinkers, great youth, we do have what it takes,, but unfortunately we lack commitment & a lot of essential basic ethical principles
Lack of the sense of responsibility & the fact that most of us don't really have that sharp long-term view of things, that would be what's holding us back cuz we seem to have what it takes 2 build up our country.

Yasmin said...

YAAAY !! FINALLY U R BACK ON BLOG.. r u still in Australia ? i mean in Ramadhan ? have a Safe ans sound journey :D

Unknown said...

@Seema*
معهد الابحاث عندهم مشاريع للطاقة البديلة وتوصيات لحماية البيئة وتحذيرات على تلوث البيئة البحرية والبرية... بس منو يسمع ومنو يساعد
لو الفلوس اللي قعد تنصرف على تجمعات الكب كيك تتحول مثلا على فكرة عيسى رمضان مالت الحزام الاخضر مثلا
خلاص عرفنا هدف تجمعات الكب كيك والقز والتطبيل للشيوخ عشان البيزات
بغينا شي مفيد بس من اللي يتحرك عشانه
:)

@Hope
Hi friend. Really miss your blog. I just saw a new blog of yours. I'll pass by soon :)
I really recommend every one to visit Australia. It's one of the greatest countries I've ever visited.
and Yeah it's so sad that our country is falling back. I would be happy if we stopped on say 80s or 70s and "rowing where we are" but we're moving backwards so fast to the dark age
I really agree with all what you said. Yes this is what we lack as human, citizens and manpower
Thanx for the great comment

@Yasmin
It's nice to see such an eager reader to my humble blog :))
Am not in Australia. I wish I was there though. Cousins tell me the weather there is 5c daily :)
Cold but better than the 50c daily here. I know if am there I would say I want a hot sunny weather :p
Since the day I graduated from college I decided not to travel in summer. I just wanna enjoy foreign countries with less Arabs
I wish to stay in Australia again but I guess I have to travel to USA enshalla to check how things goes with my brother studies :)
Cheers