michael lambe

Every year in this season I admire the blossoms on the plum tree behind my apartment.

I particularly like how their natural beauty is complimented by the pylon and traffic cone beside them.

As I was admiring this scene two little Japanese White Eyes came along and began to hop about from blossom to blossom.

They were doing [...]

In an attempt to actually make some money from my unhealthy blogging obsesson, I’ve been tweaking this blog (and Deep Kyoto also) a lot recently; adding an extra column and a lot of amazon stuff, mp3 players etc… Let me know if it get’s annoying. Up on Deep Kyoto tonight there is a fresh post [...]

The current issue of Kyoto’s CF magazine is themed around the joys of cycling and thus, as I have a rather spiffy mountain bike (thanks Helen!) and I’m friends with Taga-san at KTCP there’s a picture of me in there too, cheesing one of my cheesiest of cheesy grins. CF (not a bad little [...]

Here’s a news video from the BBC on the super-enviromently friendly “zero waste” policy of Kamikatsu town in Shikoku, Japan. If only the whole country world would follow suit… LINK

And here’s an amusing video from The Onion: Bush Tours America to Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency.
And here’s my friend Thomas Schwegler’s website Tropical [...]

Here’s the latest campaign from avaaz.org:
Two weeks of global climate negotiations have just wrapped up — with no real progress. The rich nations are the culprits, refusing to take the lead and commit to emissions cuts that will bring the rest of the world onboard. Our best hope: within weeks, those rich country leaders will [...]

Today I found this encouraging news about co-operation between Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to save Gorillas. Very encouraging. Now, if they could get together to protect people in the same region, that would be really marvellous.
Update: Some happy news here: An estimated 125,000 Western lowland gorillas are living in a [...]

This news from Avaaz:
Huge news out of Japan: a top newspaper is reporting a major shift in climate policy, and citing Avaaz members as one of the reasons why!
The paper reports that at a critical, high-level meeting on global warming, the Environment Minister held up Avaaz’s “Titanic” newspaper ad from the Bali summit–showing Japanese [...]

I recently began teaching some classes in the molecular biology department of Kyoto University. I was quite trepidatory about it to begin with; felt like I was getting out of my depth teaching scientists how to talk about science. After all, back when I sat my O’ Levels (yes, I am that old) I got [...]

The greatness of a nation and it’s moral progress can be judged by the way it’s animals are treated.
Gandhi
All beings long for happiness; therefore let all beings be embraced in thy compassion. Buddha (The Metta Sutra)
It’s New Year’s resolution time, so here’s a quick resource guide for those thinking of giving up the [...]

I was reading this article on BBC News about U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki Moon opening the international climate talks in Bali with “a call to action”. He made it pretty plain: the planet is in crisis and we have to do something NOW. However, the thing about U.N. General Secretarys is, they are employed [...]