17 | November | 2014 | idealisticrebel

The Wine Wankers

As Australia’s capital, Canberra may have a high proportion of public servants and politicians, but when it comes to food and wine, it is anything but boring. Thanks to top class Australian wineries as Clonakilla (Shiraz Viognier) and Helm (Premium Riesling), our nation’s capital has justifiably taken its place alongside Australia’s best growing regions for wine. But two wineries does not a region make, as the Wine Wankers recently discovered when we visited Australia’s Capital of Wine.

Wine has been produced in Canberra for more than 160 years, but it’s only in the past 40 years the region has truly shined. If cool climate, food friendly styles are what you crave, you’ve come to the right place. Riesling, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz and of course Shiraz Viognier blends all shine.

Yes – Canberra wine is exciting.

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We are getting a wake-up call from Mother Earth. It is called climate change. The number of Polar bears is declining by forty percent. This was determined by a study linking the Polar bear population and climate change.

Why, you ask? Well, the answer is simple. Polar bears rely on ice to have access to the seals which are their main food source. They move from ice flow to ice flow. Ice is also used for resting and breeding. The problem is that the ice is melting. As ice melts, we must understand that it becomes more and more difficult to find ice.

So, realistically, the polar bears are finding less ice to feed from, to breed on and to rest on. This is why the polar bear population is declining rather rapidly. As of 2010, according to an article published in Ecological Applications, there are now only 900 polar bears. It is such a sad thing.

Polar Bear cubs need our help with climate change.

We have an urgent call to fix climate control. It is the main reason we are losing our polar bears. Close your eyes, now imagine a world without bears, without any of our wild animals. No bears, big cats, elephants, kangaroos, antelope, or rhinos. We are getting way to close to this being our reality. Now, we need to speak up and demand global action.

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Now, on the other hand, we are making some success in slowing the decline of our tiger population. We have had success even where tiger habitats span national boundaries. India and Nepal have worked together with WWF, World Wildlife Fund, to increase the population of tigers. Their goal is to double the population by 2022.

They are using camera trap images to confirm that tigers use three forested wildlife corridors that provide vital links between protected areas across both sides of the international borders.

Bangladesh has hosted the Second Conference of the Global Tiger Recovery Program. They will do a population count in 2016. So this news is good but there is much to do. You could go overseas and help. You could join the WWF and donate money to save the wild animals. You could work within your own communities to improve climate change. Action is needed. Voices need to be raised to our elected officials here in America.

This world belongs to each and everyone of us. That includes you and I. It also includes our neighbors and our communities. And it includes the animals we share the planet with.