Friday, March 27, 2009
Earth Hour 2009! (This Saturday 3.28.09)
Earth Hour 2009, this Saturday from 8:30-9:30 pm at your local time! Invite some friends over, have a party, lite some candles (Maku candle holders...) and vote for mother earth!! Most importantly, turn off your lights and remember 1 person can make a difference... :)
We'll be spreading the word here in Carlsbad and will be sure to post updates on Saturday night!
Take Action here.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
A Sea Change
Continuing on with the Ocean related "theme" of recent posts I thought I would try and bring some attention to what posses to be the newest and potentially greatest threat to our Oceans.
Acidification of our oceans has risen 30% since 1900! Yikes, that's a lot of acid in our most precious of natural resources and the cycle that drives life on our little piece of the galaxy.
A Sea Change documents Sven Huseby's travels through the ancient fishing grounds of his Norwegian ancestors and looks at the acidification of our oceans. From both the human element and the scientific element. Mr. Huseby first learned of this emerging disater when he read Elizabeth Kolbert's article in The New Yorker entitled "The Darkening Sea".
A Sea Change debuted to tremendous acolades at the Environmental Film Festival 2 weeks ago in Washington D.C.
I wonder if President Obama attended the film festival or perhaps he was too busy putting his brackets together for March Madness or setting his schedule for his appearance on The Tonight Show... (Sorry, couldn't resist a little dig on our 44th president but to me it seems he should be focusing on the economic and environment problems at hand versus trying to be a media star or dare I say media whore...)
....Now back to our regularly scheduled programing - So check out the trailer below for what looks to be a great documentary on the plight of our oceans. And remember change starts with one person at a time!
Watch A Sea Change Trailer in News | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
Acidification of our oceans has risen 30% since 1900! Yikes, that's a lot of acid in our most precious of natural resources and the cycle that drives life on our little piece of the galaxy.
A Sea Change documents Sven Huseby's travels through the ancient fishing grounds of his Norwegian ancestors and looks at the acidification of our oceans. From both the human element and the scientific element. Mr. Huseby first learned of this emerging disater when he read Elizabeth Kolbert's article in The New Yorker entitled "The Darkening Sea".
A Sea Change debuted to tremendous acolades at the Environmental Film Festival 2 weeks ago in Washington D.C.
I wonder if President Obama attended the film festival or perhaps he was too busy putting his brackets together for March Madness or setting his schedule for his appearance on The Tonight Show... (Sorry, couldn't resist a little dig on our 44th president but to me it seems he should be focusing on the economic and environment problems at hand versus trying to be a media star or dare I say media whore...)
....Now back to our regularly scheduled programing - So check out the trailer below for what looks to be a great documentary on the plight of our oceans. And remember change starts with one person at a time!
Watch A Sea Change Trailer in News | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Plastic in the Pacific
As you have read before on my Blog, I have talked numerous times about the North Pacific Gyre and the HUGE blob of trash floating in the pacific ocean.
I found this article is in Today's Wall Street Journal, page A14. It is nice to see more broad based media outlets covering this potential disaster in the Pacific Ocean.
---------
WSJ
MARCH 25, 2009.
How Big Is That Widening Gyre of Floating Plastic?
In the Pacific, Ocean Flows Sweep Litter Into a Flotilla That Could Be the Size of Quebec or Maybe the U.S. -- No One Knows
By CARL BIALIK
A soup of plastic debris floats off the coast of California, a testament to humanity's reliance on plastic and the failure to dispose of it properly.
Just how big is this oceanic zone? Some say it is about the size of Quebec, or 600,000 square miles -- also described as twice the size of Texas. Others say this expanse of junk swept together by currents is the size of the U.S. -- 3.8 million square miles. Or, it could be twice that size.
The debris floating in a large area of the Pacific Ocean usually isn't visible on the surface.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, as it has been called, has become a symbol of what some say is a looming crisis over trash. But this floating mass of plastic in the Pacific Ocean is hard to measure, and few agree on how big it is or how much plastic it holds. That makes it difficult to determine what to do about it.
That hasn't stopped activists and the media from using only the biggest estimates of the patch's size to warn of an environmental catastrophe.
"We've found it really captures the public's imagination and its focus," says Eben Schwartz, marine-debris program manager for the California Coastal Commission, a state agency. However, "as hard as [environmental advocates] try to characterize it accurately, it is prone to mischaracterization."
The plastic-rich portion of the ocean is a product of swirling currents, known as the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, that gather and concentrate debris. It captured public attention thanks to the efforts of Charles Moore, a woodworker-turned-sea captain who sailed through the zone in 1997 and was stunned to find plastic debris hundreds of miles from land. "That set off alarm bells and made me want to monitor it, made me want to quantify it, made me want to get a better handle on it," says Capt. Moore, a licensed merchant-marine officer. He dedicated the Algalita Marine Research Foundation that he had founded to studying this region of the ocean and publicizing its plastic problem.
The Numbers Guy BlogTaking the Measure of Plastic Soup.
Researchers at the foundation have attempted to quantify the gyre by sailing deep into the Pacific and trawling for plastic and zooplankton using a contraption that resembles a manta ray. Sifting through the entire gyre for plastic would be impossible, so researchers survey a small sample.
But it is difficult to know how to extrapolate their findings to the entire region, or even what that region is. The borders of the gyre shift between seasons, and some scientists, such as Holly Bamford, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's marine-debris program, argue that the high-plastic area is confined to a relatively small part of the gyre.
"I admire Charles," says David Karl, an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii. But Capt. Moore's estimate of the size of the plastic patch -- up to twice the size of the U.S. -- strikes Prof. Karl as guesswork. "He doesn't know the edge" of the area.
Capt. Moore has relied on models of ocean currents from a retired NOAA scientist to help estimate the scope of the concentrated-plastic zone, with debris lurking, often in tiny, barely perceptible pieces, at or just below the surface. "I just did a very crude estimate, by getting a globe and placing my hand over the area defined by this current, and placing my hand over the continent of Africa" to see how the two compared, he says. "The condensed-soup part may be considerably less than the whole," he concedes, but he is frustrated by critics who play down the scope of the problem without doing any fieldwork.
Even as the debate over the plastic patch's size continues, some of the foundation's estimates have been reported as scientific certainty. For instance, a decade ago, researchers found that the ratio of plastic to zooplankton by mass was six to one. A more-recent visit turned up an increase in this ratio, to 46 to one, according to the foundation's Web site. But that is an average of the ratio at each testing site, which included some very high ratios, probably anomalies. A more comparable figure is eight to one, representing a more modest increase when results are aggregated across all testing sites.
In addition, comparing plastic and plankton weight might not be an ideal way to measure the problem, according to Angelicque White, a biological oceanographer at the University of Oregon who accompanied Prof. Karl on a recent voyage to the gyre. Dr. White points out that many plankton are too small for the nets, and might not have been included in the count. What's more, while the heaviest bits of plastic inflate the measure of the debris patch, those pieces pose less of an environmental threat, because they are too large for marine creatures to mistake for food.
Capt. Moore said that his scientific papers have made these distinctions clear. But news articles generally haven't. Dr. Bamford says inconsistent units of measurement of the plastic problem have impeded research. "We're trying to develop a standardized method," she says of NOAA, "so we can really get a handle on how this compares to various locations around the world." It's possible that consistent measurement will reveal that other parts of the ocean without a catchy name are just as plastic-rich, or more so.
Some misinformation comes from other environmental groups exaggerating the alarming research. Environmental advocate David Suzuki has written of a "massive, expanding island of plastic debris 30 meters [98 feet] deep and bigger than the province of Quebec." Asked whether the high-plastic region could really be called an island, Bill Wareham, senior marine conservation specialist with the David Suzuki Foundation, says, "It's not going to look like island in the context of, 'Gee, I can walk across that.' But it is a very high density of plastic." He adds, "David speaks in a way where he's framing the issue in a way people can understand it."
Other advocates object to such terminology. "The problem with superlative statements that this is somehow a huge floating mass of plastic is that they inevitably lead to desensitizing people when they learn the truth of it," says David Santillo, a senior scientist with Greenpeace.
Even if scientists and advocates could agree on numbers for the size and plastic concentration of the gyre, it is unclear what they would do with the information. Plastics can harm ocean birds and mammals who eat it, because they carry toxins, can pierce internal organs and can trick animals into thinking they are full. But hard numbers are tough to come by. "It's so hard to say a bird died due to plastic in its stomach," says Dr. Bamford. "We have seen birds mature and live out their whole life, and necropsies show plastic in their stomach."
Though no one thinks any possible benefits of plastic outweigh risks, Prof. Karl did find some positive aspects of the patch -- a high concentration of microorganisms clinging to the debris. "The microorganisms are good for the ocean, because it turns out they're making oxygen," Prof. Karl says. "If plastics were otherwise neutral to the environment, then they'd be helping by harvesting more solar energy." Dr. Bamford says it is possible that a cleanup, even if it were feasible, would do more harm than good, by removing these organisms.
Capt. Moore says quantifying the plastic could provide a starting point for measuring the effectiveness of land-based efforts to choke the flow of plastic to ocean waters. "I would love to have a government agency form a concerted program to quantify the debris," he says. "It's a tragedy of the commons: Nobody owns the problem."
Write to Carl Bialik at numbersguy@wsj.com
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A14
I found this article is in Today's Wall Street Journal, page A14. It is nice to see more broad based media outlets covering this potential disaster in the Pacific Ocean.
---------
WSJ
MARCH 25, 2009.
How Big Is That Widening Gyre of Floating Plastic?
In the Pacific, Ocean Flows Sweep Litter Into a Flotilla That Could Be the Size of Quebec or Maybe the U.S. -- No One Knows
By CARL BIALIK
A soup of plastic debris floats off the coast of California, a testament to humanity's reliance on plastic and the failure to dispose of it properly.
Just how big is this oceanic zone? Some say it is about the size of Quebec, or 600,000 square miles -- also described as twice the size of Texas. Others say this expanse of junk swept together by currents is the size of the U.S. -- 3.8 million square miles. Or, it could be twice that size.
The debris floating in a large area of the Pacific Ocean usually isn't visible on the surface.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, as it has been called, has become a symbol of what some say is a looming crisis over trash. But this floating mass of plastic in the Pacific Ocean is hard to measure, and few agree on how big it is or how much plastic it holds. That makes it difficult to determine what to do about it.
That hasn't stopped activists and the media from using only the biggest estimates of the patch's size to warn of an environmental catastrophe.
"We've found it really captures the public's imagination and its focus," says Eben Schwartz, marine-debris program manager for the California Coastal Commission, a state agency. However, "as hard as [environmental advocates] try to characterize it accurately, it is prone to mischaracterization."
The plastic-rich portion of the ocean is a product of swirling currents, known as the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, that gather and concentrate debris. It captured public attention thanks to the efforts of Charles Moore, a woodworker-turned-sea captain who sailed through the zone in 1997 and was stunned to find plastic debris hundreds of miles from land. "That set off alarm bells and made me want to monitor it, made me want to quantify it, made me want to get a better handle on it," says Capt. Moore, a licensed merchant-marine officer. He dedicated the Algalita Marine Research Foundation that he had founded to studying this region of the ocean and publicizing its plastic problem.
The Numbers Guy BlogTaking the Measure of Plastic Soup.
Researchers at the foundation have attempted to quantify the gyre by sailing deep into the Pacific and trawling for plastic and zooplankton using a contraption that resembles a manta ray. Sifting through the entire gyre for plastic would be impossible, so researchers survey a small sample.
But it is difficult to know how to extrapolate their findings to the entire region, or even what that region is. The borders of the gyre shift between seasons, and some scientists, such as Holly Bamford, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's marine-debris program, argue that the high-plastic area is confined to a relatively small part of the gyre.
"I admire Charles," says David Karl, an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii. But Capt. Moore's estimate of the size of the plastic patch -- up to twice the size of the U.S. -- strikes Prof. Karl as guesswork. "He doesn't know the edge" of the area.
Capt. Moore has relied on models of ocean currents from a retired NOAA scientist to help estimate the scope of the concentrated-plastic zone, with debris lurking, often in tiny, barely perceptible pieces, at or just below the surface. "I just did a very crude estimate, by getting a globe and placing my hand over the area defined by this current, and placing my hand over the continent of Africa" to see how the two compared, he says. "The condensed-soup part may be considerably less than the whole," he concedes, but he is frustrated by critics who play down the scope of the problem without doing any fieldwork.
Even as the debate over the plastic patch's size continues, some of the foundation's estimates have been reported as scientific certainty. For instance, a decade ago, researchers found that the ratio of plastic to zooplankton by mass was six to one. A more-recent visit turned up an increase in this ratio, to 46 to one, according to the foundation's Web site. But that is an average of the ratio at each testing site, which included some very high ratios, probably anomalies. A more comparable figure is eight to one, representing a more modest increase when results are aggregated across all testing sites.
In addition, comparing plastic and plankton weight might not be an ideal way to measure the problem, according to Angelicque White, a biological oceanographer at the University of Oregon who accompanied Prof. Karl on a recent voyage to the gyre. Dr. White points out that many plankton are too small for the nets, and might not have been included in the count. What's more, while the heaviest bits of plastic inflate the measure of the debris patch, those pieces pose less of an environmental threat, because they are too large for marine creatures to mistake for food.
Capt. Moore said that his scientific papers have made these distinctions clear. But news articles generally haven't. Dr. Bamford says inconsistent units of measurement of the plastic problem have impeded research. "We're trying to develop a standardized method," she says of NOAA, "so we can really get a handle on how this compares to various locations around the world." It's possible that consistent measurement will reveal that other parts of the ocean without a catchy name are just as plastic-rich, or more so.
Some misinformation comes from other environmental groups exaggerating the alarming research. Environmental advocate David Suzuki has written of a "massive, expanding island of plastic debris 30 meters [98 feet] deep and bigger than the province of Quebec." Asked whether the high-plastic region could really be called an island, Bill Wareham, senior marine conservation specialist with the David Suzuki Foundation, says, "It's not going to look like island in the context of, 'Gee, I can walk across that.' But it is a very high density of plastic." He adds, "David speaks in a way where he's framing the issue in a way people can understand it."
Other advocates object to such terminology. "The problem with superlative statements that this is somehow a huge floating mass of plastic is that they inevitably lead to desensitizing people when they learn the truth of it," says David Santillo, a senior scientist with Greenpeace.
Even if scientists and advocates could agree on numbers for the size and plastic concentration of the gyre, it is unclear what they would do with the information. Plastics can harm ocean birds and mammals who eat it, because they carry toxins, can pierce internal organs and can trick animals into thinking they are full. But hard numbers are tough to come by. "It's so hard to say a bird died due to plastic in its stomach," says Dr. Bamford. "We have seen birds mature and live out their whole life, and necropsies show plastic in their stomach."
Though no one thinks any possible benefits of plastic outweigh risks, Prof. Karl did find some positive aspects of the patch -- a high concentration of microorganisms clinging to the debris. "The microorganisms are good for the ocean, because it turns out they're making oxygen," Prof. Karl says. "If plastics were otherwise neutral to the environment, then they'd be helping by harvesting more solar energy." Dr. Bamford says it is possible that a cleanup, even if it were feasible, would do more harm than good, by removing these organisms.
Capt. Moore says quantifying the plastic could provide a starting point for measuring the effectiveness of land-based efforts to choke the flow of plastic to ocean waters. "I would love to have a government agency form a concerted program to quantify the debris," he says. "It's a tragedy of the commons: Nobody owns the problem."
Write to Carl Bialik at numbersguy@wsj.com
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A14
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Revolution in a Bottle
Revolution in a bottle looks like a pretty good read. Tom Szaky is the founder of Terracycle. The company philosophy is great and although I haven't read the book yet, it has gotten solid reviews... I'll post more after I read it.
Monday, March 23, 2009
The Fight for Red Lady goes on...
I was fortunate enough to grow up in an amazing little town called Crested Butte in the high country of Colorado. Back then The Butte boasted a whopping population of right around 1000 people. Ski Bums, Hippies, or those just looking to get away from the rat race. Funny enough the population still hovers around 1000, The Skiing is great, and my moms favorite place to hang out - The Wooden Nickel is still there.
I try and make it back to CB every couple of years and I have a sneaking suspicion that one of these days I'll be back there for good...
Certainly growing up there in the late 60's on through the 70's and beyond is with out a doubt why I have such an affinity for all things outdoors and a keen respect for our environment.
But aside from the unique atmosphere of CB - the long winters, great skiing, mud season and the rest of what most people think of when Crested Butte comes to mind. There were incredible summertime excursions to Irwin Lake, The Maroon Bells, Gothic, fishing in or "tubing" down the slate river or riding our bikes as far as we could on Red Lady aka Mt Emmons.
It must have been when I was around 10 years old in the late 70's that a mining company came to town and wanted to take all the molybdenum out of the Red Lady. The town came together and fought the Amax Mining company and soon after they left. Well it sounds like the fight for Mt Emmons is once again on.
Check out here for more info and the High Country Citizens Alliance Blog to help the town of CB stop the unwanted threats towards The Red Lady.
If you ever have the opportunity to get to CB, stop in to the Wooden Nickle, look for the picture of Botsie and D.P. on the wall and share some time in a truly magical place.
Red Lady from the Historic Crested Butte Train Depot from HCCA on Vimeo.
I try and make it back to CB every couple of years and I have a sneaking suspicion that one of these days I'll be back there for good...
Certainly growing up there in the late 60's on through the 70's and beyond is with out a doubt why I have such an affinity for all things outdoors and a keen respect for our environment.
But aside from the unique atmosphere of CB - the long winters, great skiing, mud season and the rest of what most people think of when Crested Butte comes to mind. There were incredible summertime excursions to Irwin Lake, The Maroon Bells, Gothic, fishing in or "tubing" down the slate river or riding our bikes as far as we could on Red Lady aka Mt Emmons.
It must have been when I was around 10 years old in the late 70's that a mining company came to town and wanted to take all the molybdenum out of the Red Lady. The town came together and fought the Amax Mining company and soon after they left. Well it sounds like the fight for Mt Emmons is once again on.
Check out here for more info and the High Country Citizens Alliance Blog to help the town of CB stop the unwanted threats towards The Red Lady.
If you ever have the opportunity to get to CB, stop in to the Wooden Nickle, look for the picture of Botsie and D.P. on the wall and share some time in a truly magical place.
Red Lady from the Historic Crested Butte Train Depot from HCCA on Vimeo.
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