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Save Our Seas Foundation

June 29, 2011 by 3 Comments

In case you didn’t notice, every month I like to share one of my favorite marine science conservation website or blogs. And, even though I just posted on The Daily Ocean I want to highlight the Save Our Seas Foundation.

This is the organization (or ‘organisation’ since they are based in Switzerland) that produces the Naked Oceans podcast (one of the 8 great podcasts listed on the right sidebar). The website for this major player in the fight to save the world’s oceans manages to be in-your-face while still maintaining class and a jovial nature. They cite important messages in large font in the center of the page followed up with bullets and lists (see the threats page for a great example of this).

Also, the blog for Save Our Seas Foundation posts pertinent information (in an easy to digest language) about the research projects their own science team is conducting with pictures they actually took in the field. A lot of the focus of their research is on sharks. Recently they hosted a Dutch film crew doing a documentary between the relations of sharks and surfers (no, they aren’t cousins).

All in all, it seems as though the people working with the Save Our Seas Foundation are dedicated, passionate, and fun and I hope you follow and support them in the future.

Filed Under: Ocean, People, Places, Random Fun!, Sharks Tagged With: , ,

Blue Sway – Paul McCartney

June 27, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Surfrider Foundation recently released a new PSA by filmmaker Jack McCoy with a previously unreleased song, Blue Sway, by Paul McCartney. The song has been released on his McCartney II which was distributed by MPL and Concord Music Group on June 14. If you like this song you should also check out McCartney’s (aka The Fireman) Electric Arguments album (Sing the Changes and Lifelong Passions are my favorite!).

The footage from the PSA was taken from a Deeper Shade of Blue. Director Jack McCoy used a high-powered underwater jet ski to travel behind waves to create mystical and majestic images.

I appreciated that it was not a PSA with an overtly in-your-face message. I think it will speak to each and everyone in a unique way and I look forward to your thoughts! Enjoy!

Filed Under: Conservation, Inspiration, Ocean Conservation, People, Random Fun! Tagged With: , , , ,

Basics on renewable energy

June 27, 2011 by Leave a Comment

This weekend, I went to the demonstration “Hands Across the Sand”. The intent was to declare to President Obama that we demand clean energy and request a stop to offshore drilling (which he promised to do during his campaign).

With all that said, my husband kept telling my mother-in-law that I was going to a protest to “put an end to sand”. Since he is the funniest person I am fortunate to know I can say with certainty that he wasn’t serious in his explanation. However, it got me thinking that a lot of the vernacular thrown around in the environmental industry may not always be so cut and dry to everyone else. I figured I’d take this opportunity to clear up a few misconceptions and put some labels on clean energy terms.

Isn’t natural gas a clean energy? Well, with a name like … no, natural gas isn’t that natural after all. We have to burn natural gas in order for electricity to be generated. This produces harmful emissions which get released into the environment. Therefore, increasing the greenhouse effect on our earth. Ultimately, it all comes down to us to reduce the effects of greenhouse gases. Major contributors of such greenhouse gases are industries and large establishments. It is the duty of the owners of such factories to keep a check on their consumption of electricity with effective utilisation of tools like business electricity comparison.

What is the greenhouse effect? The greenhouse effect is the earth’s natural way to regulate itself. However, when we burn fossil fuels and natural gas we are contributing additionally and warming the earth more so than it naturally intends to be.

What are clean energy alternatives? Water, geothermal, wind, and solar  are all very popular clean energy, or renewable energy,  alternatives. Also, wood, wood waste, solid waste, landfill gas, biogas, ethanol, and biodiesel can be used to power our lives in a sustainable manner. As a matter of fact, more than 150 years ago, wood supplied up to 90% of our energy needs. The pie chart below illustrates our how little the U.S. relies on renewable or clean energy alternatives today.

What are the benefits of renewable energy? Renewable energy production reduces smog (a major health risk) also every kilowatt-hour of electricity produced by a renewable energy system displaces the same amount of electricity produced by conventional power generation stations that are using fossil fuels that contribute to CO2, SO2, NOx and smog.

What are the disadvantages to renewable energy? Right now initial costs are the biggest hurdle to renewable energy taking over our dependence on fossil fuels. For example, solar energy technologies require a significant initial outlay. But, in most cases you’ll make the money back.

Where can you learn more on how to retrofit your home for better energy consumption? ENERGY STAR and Alternative Energy News have a lot of up-to-date information.

Image (c) U.S. Energy Administration 2010.

Also, here are some pictures from the event in D.C.

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North Carolina: The mecca for marine science?

June 25, 2011 by Leave a Comment

We all know North Carolina has research triangle between Raleigh-Durham and incorporates Chapel Hill. But, did you know that there is a marine science research quadrant in the state as well. First, you have the Division of Marine Fisheries in Morehead City (as well as the Duke and NOAA labs in nearby Beaufort). Next, in the center of the state you have the universities in the traditional research triangle. Then there are aquariums, nature reserves and UNC Coastal Studies program in the northeast Manteo area. Lastly, the National Undersea Research Center and the Coastal and Ocean Research and Monitoring Program are both located in the Wilmington area. Wilmington is also home to the state’s Sea Grant program as well as the Cape Fear Community College‘s Marine Advanced Technology Engineering program. Please click on the image below for a far superior version.

Image (c) ncmarinescience.com

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Hands Across the Sand

June 23, 2011 by Leave a Comment

So if you do not have any weekend plans as of yet, what could be better than rallying some friends and family to participate in your nearest Hands Across the Sand event (June 25, 2011). It’s really quite simple. Once you find your nearest participating beach follow these three steps:

STEP 1 – Go to the beach at 11 AM in your time zone for one hour, rain or shine.

STEP 2 – Join hands for 15 minutes at noon in your time zone forming lines in the sand against oil drilling in your coastal waters. Yes to clean energy.

STEP 3 –Leave only your footprints.
This is the poster for the event organized by Oceana I will be attending this weekend.
Also, if you want some great background into the origin of the event read this press release.
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FLASH: Florida Aquatic Science Heros

June 21, 2011 by Leave a Comment

While I was in graduate school in Florida I spent a lot of time in and around the Indian River Lagoon. It is one of the most diverse estuarine ecosystems in North America mainly due in part that it’s expansive length stretches across two geographic zone, the temperate and the tropic zone. This seamless mixing creates some of the most beautiful landscape you’d ever set your eyes on. It is also one of the most fragile environments since it sits on the edge of one of the largest man-made disasters in our country, the Everglades restoration project. Dr. Edie Widder is a deep-sea biologist who founded the Ocean Research and Conservation Association and is featured this video produced by COSEE. Get to know some of her exciting work helping to restore the balance of aquatic ecosystems in south Florida by Making Water Pollution Visible.

Filed Under: Animal Homes, People

How deep is the ocean?

June 9, 2011 by 2 Comments

A picture is always worth a thousand words. So, to illustrate this question I’m using a nifty infographic from Our Amazing Planet relating the world’s tallest mountain to the ocean’s deepest trench. This poster will show you where Denver is in to relation to your average plane flying overhead and how deep sperm whales dive in relation to where the Titanic wreck was discovered!

Our Amazing Planet explores Earth from its peaks to it mysterious depths.
Source

Filed Under: People, Places, Random Fun! Tagged With:

The Majestic Plastic Bag – Part IV

June 1, 2011 by 1 Comment
Thin plastic shopping bags

This just in! Another fine addition to The Majestic Plastic Bag conservation series. A reusable plastic bag company, ChicoBag Company, announced recently that they are being sued by three of the nation’s largest disposable plastic bag manufacturers. Those companies are claiming that a link on the ChicoBag Company website educating citizens about the long term implications of disposable plastic bags to the environment is causing “irreparably harmed” their business.

Some of the statements that the disposable plastic bag companies have issue with are:

  • “A reusable bag needs only to be used eleven times to have a lower environmental impact than using eleven disposable bags.” Source: EPA
  • “Only one percent of plastic bags are recycled.” Source: EPA
  • “Somewhere between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year.” Source: National Geographic
  • “The world’s largest landfill can be found floating between Hawaii and San Francisco. Wind and sea currents carry marine debris from all over the world to what is now known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This ‘landfill’ is estimated to be twice the size of Texas and thousands of pounds of our discarded trash, mostly plastics.” Source: National Geographic
  • “Each year hundreds of thousands of sea birds and marine life die from ingestible plastics mistaken for food.” Source: L.A. Times

We’ll keep you updated on how this plays out via our Twitter feed.

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Filed Under: Ocean, People Tagged With: , ,

The Majestic Plastic Bag – Part III

May 31, 2011 by 1 Comment

Two months ago, the esteemed Carl Safina posted a piece titled, “For Seabirds As For The Graduate, One Word: Plastics“. It seems a suitable tie-in for the The Majestic Bag conservation series.

For Seabirds As For The Graduate, One Word: Plastics.

By Carl Safina
March 10th, 2011

If something can be neither fish nor fowl, for seabirds this is neither feast nor famine: scientists are discovering more species eating more—plastic.

An article in the Ottawa Citizen reports that in the Canadian Arctic, startled scientists “are pulling remarkable amounts of trash from birds in some of the remotest spots on Earth.”

Pacific albatrosses are famous for eating plastic. Now Canadian scientists are finding plastics in sturdy cousins of albatrosses called Fulmars; 85 percent of Canadian Fulmars now have plastic in their bodies. “I find these plastic pieces packed up around the bottom of the stomach and around the sphincter that leads into the intestine,” said Jennifer Provencher, who had been doing dissections. One gull-sized Fulmar, for example, had what looked like a red Coke cap and 20 other plastic pieces in it. Provencher called the amount of plastic she discovered in Arctic Canadian seabirds, “hard to believe.”

But in European waters, it’s worse: Fulmars there are now loaded with an average of 40 pieces of plastic. Virtually all European Fulmars now fly around with plastic in their bodies.

And, it’s increasing. Biologist Stephanie Avery-Gomm, opened stomachs of 36 Fulmars that washed up on Vancouver Island after a storm. One contained several dozen pieces of plastic, including industrial pellets, a chunk of sponge, fishing line and a bristle from a hairbrush. In a study of bird diets done back in the 1970s, Fulmar stomachs had contained no plastic.

“Every time we sample we are surprised by the amount of plastics we find,” said Provencher.

Another surprise: more species now contain plastics, including the normally non-scavening Thick-billed Murre. Fulmars were already known plastic swallowers, but “What was shocking was to open up the murres and find plastics,” Provencher said. Eleven percent of 186 Thick-billed murres examined carried plastics.

The plastics are coming not just from boats. They’re from us all. In North America and Western Europe the average person is now using around 220 pounds of plastic a year. Needless to say, that’s expected to increase. In Asia the average person uses around 80 pounds of plastic per year, and that’s expected to nearly double by 2015.

Read what the United Nations Environment Program’s 2011 Yearbook has to say about plastics in the ocean.

It’s a nightmare.

So my question is: Why do we use an eternal material to package items intended for one-time use? No one expects such items like yogurt and salad to stay in the distribution chain for more than a couple of weeks. Why don’t we package things like perishable food—and everything else not intended to last forever—in plant-based plastic that will break down in a year?

It could easily be done. The materials already exist. For instance: http://www.metabolix.com/

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Filed Under: Birds, People

The Majestic Plastic Bag – Part II

May 26, 2011 by 2 Comments

Yesterday we brought you the “mockumentary”, The Majestic Plastic Bag. As a follow-up today check out this amazing infographic from reusablebag.com. Ireland reduced plastic bag consumption by 90% (1 billion bags!) from 2001-2011 by imposing a tax of 37-cents.

Bag Bans Worldwide
Source: Reusable Grocery Bags

image (c) http://www.reusethisbag.com

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