State of Oceans

Has anyone read this great little new novel called" Last Song of the Whales" . It is a story about a man and a whale and their unlikely partnership to bring awareness of this devastating situation...here is the press release in case anyone wants to check it out and they are donating their profits too!!!!!!!!!!! http://www.prlog.org/10948473

Has anyone read this great little new novel called" Last Song of the Whales" . It is a story about a man and a whale and their unlikely partnership to bring awareness of this devastating situation...here is the press release in case anyone wants to check it out and they are donatign their profits too!!!!!!!!!!! http://www.prlog.org/10948473

 

After spending a week in Venice, Louisiana getting an up close view of the BP gulf coast oil spill disaster, talking with locals whose livelihoods are over, and seeing dead wildlife, I am trying my best to look at the positive side. Keep in mind that I just got off the phone with one of my boat captains in Louisiana and he told me he saw six dead dolphins and ten dead turtles in the past few days. So the idea of looking on "the bright side" is nearly impossible, and most days I fail, but I think it is human nature to try to find something positive in the face of a catastrophe. The only positive thing that can possibly come from this -- the largest environmental disaster in American history -- is if it causes us to change the way we are living on this Earth.

 

When Dale Earnhardt Sr. died on the last lap of the Daytona 500 in 2001, it devastated NASCAR. He was their biggest star and a hero to most of their audience. The one positive thing that came from his death is that racing took a good hard look at safety and they made some really big changes. After his death, all drivers were required to wear full face helmets (Earnhardt wore an open face helmet) as well as a HANS device, a head and neck restraint system. SAFER barriers, or soft walls, were installed in the speedways so that when we crashed, the racetrack wall would help absorb some of the impact. It cost millions of dollars, but it has also likely saved many lives. I have since had wrecks at nearly 200 mph (one impact was so intense it put a crack through my motor) and I have walked away with nothing but bruises and a sore back. I don't know for sure that I would have walked away from those crashes if many years earlier, Earnhardt hadn't passed away and changed the safety rules of racing. His death marked a permanent change to the way motor sports safety was conducted, NASCAR drew a line in the sand and never looked back. That fateful moment made racing safer for all drivers that have strapped themselves into a race car since, including myself. 

 

Perhaps one day we will look back at this oil spill and think "If the Gulf Coast oil spill hadn't happened, we wouldn't have kick started our clean energy economy back in 2010. We wouldn't have made such great strides with solar pv and thermal technology, geothermal energy, wind and tidal turbines, green buildings, hydrogen fuel cell and electric cars, alternative fuels like cellulosic ethanol and algae based biodiesel, and we might not have passed the American Power Act." Perhaps we would look back and incredulously say "Imagine if the gulf coast oil spill hadn't happened, we might actually still be running our country on dirty fossil fuels and spending billions of dollars buying oil from foreign countries! Wouldn't that be awful?!"

 

Charles Darwin once said, "It is not the strongest of the species that survives. Nor is it the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change."

 

And so our time has come -- this is the 11th hour. We either change the way we are living on the planet or relegate ourselves to eventually having our planet covered with oily water, polluted air, dead coral reefs, and cattle pastures where there were once rain forests. I hope that this disaster will wake us up and make those in charge realize that now is the time for us to turn over a new leaf. To check ourselves into rehab to get off our addiction to fossil fuels and start a new sober life with clean, renewable energy.

 

I am a race car driver; my career is currently based around an internal combustion engine, and yet even I can see the importance of energy independence and the move towards the use of clean, renewable energy. We are at a crossroads and I hope we take the right turn -- or maybe it's a left? Let's take a step -- or even better, a leap -- in the right direction. Let's pass the American Power Act and start putting a real effort into capturing clean energy from the wind, the sun, and the ocean. Let's put Americans to work building our new green energy economy. We've been talking about it for years, the technology is already here -- all we have to do now is to make it happen.

 

What in the world are we waiting for? Millions of gallons of oil to spill into the Gulf of Mexico? 

 

My greatest hope in the wake of this ongoing tragedy is that this is our clean energy wake up call. My biggest fear? That we won't answer.

 

My Video from the Gulf Coast Oil Spill and My Message For BP CEO Tony Hayward:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S70cli9tVEI

Do you know where to get the best local, sustainable seafood?  Do you clean up plastic litter, even if it’s not yours and no one is watching?  Do you take reusable bags to the grocery store? In other words, do you live blue? 

 

Well then, here’s a marble.

 

If someone hands you a small blue marble don’t be surprised.  Here’s what to do:  give it away to someone who is also taking care of our little blue planet.  Or give it to someone else along with a tip about how to live blue: where to get the best local organic food, how to avoid plastic waste, or which politicians and businesses are true blue.

 

Then pause for a moment and consider that thousands of similar recycled-glass blue marbles are passing from hand to hand right now, making their way around the Earth, our big blue marble.  If you get one, give one.  And then, please share your story with all of us at BlueMarbles.org and inspire others to live blue.  Next June, we’ll check in on all the stories those blue marbles tell.  

 

Blue Marble is the name given to the most replicated photo ever, it’s the one made by Apollo 17 astronauts as they pointed their Hasselblad camera back at an illuminated Earth.  From up there we looked small, fragile, beautiful…and blue.  Sort of like a blue marble.

 

Understandably, the green patches of our planet get most of the eco-attention—albeit not nearly enough—while the blue expanses quietly take the hit.  I’ve heard it said that less than 1% of eco-funding goes to caring for the blue world. But, the fact is we live on a blue planet, not a green one, or a brown one.  Earth is mostly water, surrounded by a light blue or dark blue sky.  Life came from the ocean, and most of our planet’s life and habitable space is in the ocean.  We know all too well that the ocean gives us our climate, the air we breathe and food to eat.

 

But we’ve treated Big Blue like a giant dump.  Our chemicals, exhaust, emissions and trash are blown away with the breeze or washed away with the tide.  Invisible.  Out of sight.  Out of mind.  Global warming, ocean acidification, toxic seafood and plastic-laden seas and beaches mean that dilution is no longer a viable solution to pollution.

 

But our hope isn't false or shallow.  Soon, the health of the ocean, once the wallflower of the environmental movement, will move center stage, and not a moment too soon.

 

Those in the know say that 2010 is going to be a big year for the blue parts of our planet.  Beginning with World Ocean Day this June 8th (now recognized by the UN) a string of ocean events flows outward including the 100th anniversary of the birthday of Archie Carr, the father of sea turtle conservation, the premier of the IMAX film OCEAN, World Ocean Day 2010 and the anniversary of Jacques Cousteau’s 100th birthday.  Ocean explorer Dr. Sylvia Earle, aka “her Deepness,” has made a global network of marine protected areas her TED Prize wish.  Our new administration is poised to change the way climate change and energy politics are played for the better (to put it mildly).

 

The message is quite clear: we must do more for the ocean, we must do it better and we must do it now.

 

Your local “blue” organizations—the frontline warriors—need your help.  These days “help” means money, so update your memberships at Save Our Shores, Surfrider, O’Neill Sea Odyssey, FishWise and all the other blue orgs today.  While you’re at it, renew your commitment to the national organizations like Ocean Champions, Ocean Conservancy and Oceana, the people who, day-in and day-out, lobby for and shape the plans and policies that will restore healthy oceans.  Hit the beach, roll up your sleeves and volunteer to pick up that trash even when no one is watching.  Without local support these groups are not going to make it, which means neither will we.  

 

If you’re not convinced, just consider what our ocean would look like without the people who have fought for it through the years.  More oil rigs, an extra few thousand tons of trash, lots more runoff, fewer fish, whales and turtles, lack of public access and poorer ocean illiteracy leap to mind. 

 

We all owe these ocean saints a world of thanks.  Maybe your neighbor, teacher, co-worker or partner is one of them.  In fact, I’ll bet you’re one of them, too.  If so, then one day, very soon, I hope someone puts a blue marble into your hand and says, “thank you.”  

 

And then, when that blue marble is yours, you’ll know exactly what to do with it.

 

On June 5th Celebrate World Ocean Day and Ocean Revolution 5 at the Catalyst with the Mother Hips and Hot Buttered Rum (catalystclub.com)

I wrote a blog back in October 2007 about photographic artist Chris Jordan who began a series of digital photographs that present contemporary American culture by way of inconceivable statistics regarding American consumption. In his photographic series, Running the Numbers: An American Self Portrait, each image portrays a specific quantity of consumption: Plastic Bags, 2007 - Depicts 60,000 plastic bags, the number used in the US every five seconds; Plastic Bottles, 2007 - Depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes. Jordan portrays these statistics by incorporating them visually in large, intricately detailed photographic prints assembled from thousands of smaller images.

In his new series, Runninng the Numbers II: Portraits of Global Mass Culture (2009) Jordan depicts mass phenomena that occur on a global scale. The first few pieces in this series depict statistics about threats to the world's marine ecosystems.

Gyre (2009) is the first set of images in this new series which represents the Pacific Gyre, or The Great Garbage Patch. The Pacific Gyre is the largest garbage swill floating midway between Hawaii and San Francisco and is roughly the size of Texas containing approximately 3.5 million tons of trash.

The below photographic image Gyre (2009) is composed of 2.4 million pieces of plastic – the estimated number of pounds of plastic that enter the world’s ocean’s every hour.

  

                              Actual image                                                                    Partial zoom

  

                           Zoomed in further                                                                  Viewed up close

Next in the series is a set of images called Shark Teeth, 2009. If you have read the 11th Hour Action blog about how sharks are under a global threat and yet may be a key to our survival then you may appreciate the significance of these images, and the serious consequences to killing sharks.

The below images depicts 270,000 fossilized shark teeth, equal to the estimated number of sharks of all species killed around the world every day for their fins.

  

                         Actual image                                                                                        Partial zoom

  

                              Zoomed in further                                                                            Viewed up close

To fully appreciate these photographic images you should really view them directly from Chris Jordan’s website. There are 11 images from the Gyre series, and 5 from Shark Teeth. Plus there are 5 images that depicts 20,500 tuna, the average number of tuna fished from the world's oceans every fifteen minutes.

 

LEXUS Challenges Kids to Perform

The Lexus Eco Challenge is a life-changing opportunity for teens across the nation to make a difference in the environmental health of our planet, one community at a time.

The annual Lexus Eco Challenge just began its second year, and it's not too late to participate. Developed with Scholastic, the Challenge is a national competition that invites middle and high school students to devise solutions to environmental problems in their communities through a series of challenge categories: water, land, and air/climate. The student team with the best idea in each category will win $10,000 in scholarships and grants, which go to the students, their schools, and their teachers. The winning teams will then compete for a $50,000 grand prize in a Final Challenge - in all, $1 million in grants and scholarships will be awarded.

Parents, teachers, and students interested in participating should visit http://www.scholastic.com/lexus/to learn more.

American Museum of Natural History
Climate Change: The Threat to Life and A New Energy Future

On Display October 18, 2008 – August 16, 200

If you live in the New York area or are planning a visit to New York City over the next 10 months, you may want to check out a new exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History on climate change.

Climate Change: The Threat to Life and A New Energy Future, will examine one of the most pressing scientific issues of our time—the massive, human-induced warming of Earth, a phenomenon that could lead to drought, rising sea levels, heavy storms, and other events with potentially dire impacts on the health of society and the natural world. This exhibition will explore the science, history, and impact of climate change, and illuminate ways in which individuals, communities and nations can reduce their carbon footprints.

"Evidence has been accumulating for some time that Earth is warming due to human activity," said Museum President Ellen V. Futter, "but we are only just beginning to come to terms with the breadth of the consequences of this phenomenon, and to learn what we can do to mitigate them. The fact is," Ms. Futter continued, "we do have options; but implementing solutions will require individual, national, and global action. Climate Change will examine both the consequences of global warming and possible solutions to this critical problem."

Climate Change will give visitors a scientific context to help make sense of today's most urgent headlines on global warming. More importantly, the exhibition will inspire visitors to participate in the world-changing discussion on how best to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The central part of the exhibition will explore the effects of climate change on several separate but interrelated areas: Earth's atmosphere, oceans, land, and polar ice sheets. Scientists have documented a dramatic increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the past 150 years—especially CO2 (carbon dioxide)—caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and other changes in land use. Climate Change will use realistic dioramas, hands-on activity stations, and dynamic animations to understand the climate's response to the build-up of greenhouse gases and explore the repercussions for today's world and future generations.

One activity allows visitors to investigate raising the sea levels on a dynamic scale, model of Lower Manhattan to graphically illustrate the flooding that would be caused by the melting of ice sheets and warming of oceans. The movements of clouds, ocean currents and seasonal ice that reveal how climate works will be internally projected on digital video globes throughout the exhibition. A ghostly coral reef—a victim of "coral bleaching"—will show how increased CO2 in the oceans and higher water temperatures are killing corals and the communities that they anchor. And a six-foot-tall model that represents one ton of coal will provide a startling visual reminder of each visitor's own carbon footprint: Scientists estimate that every person in the world burns, on average, the equivalent of three tons of coal every year. The exhibition will also explore the options for future energy sources—including coal-burning combined with a CO2 capture and sequestration, solar power, nuclear energy, and wind power.

Climate Change does more than examine a complex and immediate problem—it lays the groundwork for potential solutions, from the personal to the national and global, and shows how these are within our grasp. The exhibition will empower and encourage visitors of all ages to help address the climate change problem by reducing energy consumption in their daily lives, whether by buying energy-efficient appliances, growing their own food, switching to compact fluorescent bulbs, or choosing to walk or take mass transit to get to work or school. Please visit the American Museum of Natural History web site for more information and details.

Source: City Pass

Research Released Today Reports Almost 3,000 Endangered Loggerhead Sea Turtles Washed Up Dead on Baja California Sur Beaches Over Five-Year Period

For Immediate Release: October 13th, 2008

Media Contacts:

S. Hoyt Peckham (hoyt@biology.ucsc.edu; 831.566.0510)
Wallace J. Nichols, PhD (wallacejnichols@me.com; 831.426.0337)

Conservation efforts needed to protect endangered species from accidental and deliberate capture; SEE Turtles conservation tourism offers one solution to high death toll

Santa Cruz, CA - Wallace J. Nichols of California Academy of Sciences and University of California Santa Cruz researcher Hoyt Peckham have been counting endangered sea turtle carcasses; one part of their work to assess and eliminate threats to endangered loggerhead sea turtle populations in Baja California Sur, Mexico.

Their co-authored research, which was published today, yielded shocking results - almost 3,000 sea turtles were found dead along a 27-mile stretch of coast during a five-year period from 2003 to 2007.   The full report can be accessed freely online in the open access journal Endangered Species Research [http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/esr/bycatch/bycatchpp13/].

"We have counted so many dead turtles.  We have piles of data on thousands of carcasses.  What we need now are conservation actions, viable solutions and real alternatives for these fishermen," said Wallace J. Nichols, co-author and Research Associate with California Academy of Sciences.

With publication of their findings, the scientists are increasing awareness of the problems facing sea turtles in this area, which are accidental capture during fishing operations, known as "bycatch", and illegal fishing for turtles, or "poaching". Along with their Mexican coauthors and colleagues, they hope this report will encourage Mexico's government agencies to finalize creation of a refuge that protects turtles and encourages sustainable fishing in the area.

The study underscores that bycatch, and to a lesser degree poaching, are significantly impacting this endangered animal's chances for survival.

"We're seeing what are apparently the highest documented bycatch and stranding rates in the world," commented lead author Hoyt Peckham of UC Santa Cruz. "But the high bycatch rates offer us all an unexpected conservation opportunity. By working with just a handful of fishermen to diminish their bycatch we can save hundreds of turtles," added Peckham.

The authors partnered with local fishermen not only to assess bycatch but also to increase awareness of its far-reaching effects and work towards ending the threat. "Once aware of the ocean-wide impacts of their local bycatch," commented Hoyt Peckham, "fishermen strive to fish more cleanly by switching to different techniques, target species or areas – as a result, bycatch levels were down in 2008." Additionally, local fishermen are calling on the Mexican government to designate a sea turtle refuge that would officially protect the turtle bycatch "hotspot".

One of the best solutions to these problems is to increase awareness among fishermen about the consequences of their actions and to offer an alternative livelihood.  Conservation tourism can help provide an alternative for Baja California's fishermen.  Some fishermen look to turtle conservation tourism as an alternative to dwindling, inefficient fisheries.

Through training and a steady tourism market, many fishermen and former poachers have come to value sea turtles more alive than dead, as giving eco-safe tours can yield more income than fishing.

SEE Turtles is a conservation tourism program that highlights communities protecting sea turtles.  SEE Turtles helps by bringing much needed income tocommunity-based sea turtle conservation efforts, providing economic alternatives to fishermen and poachers, and inspiring travelers to take a more active role in protecting sea turtles.

The program links travelers with critical sea turtle conservation sites so that vacation dollars make a difference for sea turtles and for the livelihood of community residents who protect them.

North Pacific loggerhead sea turtles travel more than 7,000 miles from Japan to Baja California Sur to feed and grow in nearshore waters, spending up to 30 years there before returning to Japan to breed.  The number of nesting females in Japan has declined by 50 to 80 percent  over the past 10 years.

For more information about sea turtle conservation tourism opportunities and how to book a trip, visit www.seeturtles.org  or contact Brad Nahill (brad@oceanrevolution.org)