Shark Week Specials the sinister side to Shark Week

Discovery Channel’s Shark Week is a global phenomenon. What started as a week-long series of educational documentaries in 1988, soon after Discovery Channel was launched, now screens in 72 countries and is the longest running cable TV event in history.

It demonstrates just how fascinated we are with all things sharks. A closer look at what the Twittersphere is saying during Shark Week however shows we’ve got a long way to go before this global fascination produces meaningful benefits for sharks and their fight for survival.

A search on Twitter for #SharkWeek reveals large numbers of #savesharks posts by organisations across the world campaigning to protect them. A search for #Sharkweek Specials however show restaurants taking Shark Week in an entirely different direction. Dishes like Mako Tacos at the Wild Goose Tavern in California and Blackened Mako Shark with Mango Salsa at the Boston Beanery in Morgantown are being proudly promoted. To be left in no doubt it’s the real thing, Boston Beanery’s tweet proclaims “it’s actual SHARK! It’s delicious!”

Some have blamed Discovery Channel for not making Shark Week enough about the plight of sharks, whose numbers have plummeted by up to 90 percent globally. However, the increase in demand for shark meat this week can’t be that unexpected considering the reluctance of many governments around the world to give the survival of this, and many other marine species, the attention I’d argue they deserve.

The shortfin mako shark, unfortunately a favourite on forks in many restaurants, is listed as a “vulnerable” species on the IUCN’s ‘red list’ at risk of extinction. So too is the Tiger and the Pygmy Three-toed Sloth. Imagine tiger tacos being served up during Threatened Species Week. Perhaps they would be though any promotion would be sure to say “It’s NOT actual TIGER!”

May Day for the Climate.

How long will we continue to see one weather-related record after another broken alongside the increasing devastation of natural disasters played out on our TV screens, before a single elected representative from the Liberal or National Party breaks rank on climate change?

Other than Malcolm Turnbull. Good ol’ Malcolm has been slugging away trying to shift Liberal audiences for years and in 2009, wisely described the Coalition’s direct action policy as bullshit. I’m not sure to what effect.

Because there doesn’t seem to be any other conservative elected representative willing to publicly take their Party on over this issue that threatens the very future of humanity as we know it.

They’ve been given plenty of opportunities to speak out.

The Morning After

Many of us would be forgiven for waking up this morning and feeling like we have just entered a dark tunnel. Many of us would be forgiven for feeling violated. After all, the country’s wealth and riches have just been cruelly and foolishly plundered by the men too many voters put in charge last September.

Tony Abbott’s government left no stone unturned in last night’s budget. It feels like everything we hold so dear has been violently torn away from us. The #Budget2014 was confirmation for me that our country has been taken over by some frighteningly dangerous men.

These men from the Liberal Party, these right-wing neo-liberal ideologues, are doing the bidding of some of the country’s and the world’s most powerful elite. Those who have made their riches from mining our sovereign wealth and building our city’s congested tollroads and skyscrapers will be slapping each other on the back when next they meet in the country’s boardrooms, airline lounges and gentlemen’s clubs. You can be guaranteed that the lads from the Institute of Public Affairs will be clamouring to join them.