Fish Have Feelings Too

I was reading the news the other day online and saw this picture of a sea lion caught in garbage being rescued by a diver. He was cutting the plastic found around the animal’s neck with his knife. But the worst part was that it wasn’t some isolated incident. In fact the photo was attached to a story regarding one of the world’s largest landfills: the Pacific Ocean.

Of course, I should have realized. But we are all so focused on the damage done by melting glaciers and arctic temperatures rising, we forget that global warming and pollution are not isolated incidents. This “synthetic sea” as Discover Magazine explains is a floating dump of manufactured waste which floats along ocean currents until it either evaporates into oceanic particles or washes up on distant shores.

All that post consumer waste consuming our oceans.

It’s not bad enough that we release carbon emissions for the latest “must have,” the current “have to own” or this week’s “simply can’t live without.” We are spreading our virus to the seas.

Sea lions are inheriting carbon footprints.

Something is definitely wrong with this picture. I don’t know what’s sadder, the fact that the majority of this waste is plastic and therefore not biodegradable or the fact that none noticed this moving island of rubbish until 1997. This floating dump is the same size as this country. Hard to imagine. But given the amount of garbage, packaging and one time use items we discard everyday, its surprising it’s not bigger.

They say they don’t know the full impact on the delicately balanced ecosystems contained within the ocean but it can’t be good. Nature is nature: only confused when interrupted by humanity.

You could toss a plastic coffee cup in the ocean in San Francisco and it could travel along the synthetic sea all the way to Asia then back around to Hawaii. Garbage travels further than any frequent flyer program could possibly allow. This seafill is no anomaly. Apparently, they are everywhere but we are all so focused on the myriad of other planet in crisis problems, the fish often come last on the list.

But fish have feelings too.

In fact, a lot of the human population depends on ocean fish for their health and nutrition. The fish die, the ocean gets sick, we get sick. The double edged sword of the world’s interconnectedness.

And it all comes down to reducing waste, recycling what we can and for goodness sake, offsetting offsetting offsetting. Cause it all comes back to what we do, what we leave behind and the choices we make.

Forewarned is forearmed? I wonder…

First Prize In Science Fair For Experiment Showing Accelerated Decay Of Plastic Bags -- But Is It Science?

Plastic bags are kind of a shamanic religious icon for environmentalists, a kind of inverted symbol of the adversary. Eco-warriors are inspired to ordeals and psychodramas by the mere symbol, and bringing them up in casual conversation might provoke a nearly pentecostal reaction. Their lip will quiver at the corner and they'll lapse into a kind of two minute hate, babbling obscenities and quoting the prophets Al Gore and Ralph Nader, with perhaps a stirring rendition of the Kenny Loggins classic "Conviction Of The Heart".

But we might be saved from Loggins impressions by aging eco-yuppie scum if the hypothesis of a 16 year old boy is correct. Daniel Burd won the top prize at the Canada-Wide Science Fair in Ottawa last month for discovering and demonstrating a simple method of accelerating the rate of disintegration of plastic grocery bags, and he thinks his data shows that the method could potentially be applied en masse to completely erase a plastic bag with minimal carbon output in 3 months.

He perfected a foul bacterial brew of water, yeast and ground up plastic bags over the course of three months, isolating the microbes that most effectively devoured the plastic and making new brews with those bacteria exclusively, increasing the rate at which the bags got munched up. He found that he could degrade whole plastic bags by 46% in 6 weeks time, and he extrapolates that after another 6 weeks, the bags would be gone.

I'm pretty skeptical. The kid has a nice experiment, but you can't just plot a line on a graph and then keep drawing based on an average, without any hard data. You can't extrapolate new data based on a trend. Simply put, that's junk science. That's pseudoscience. You can't sell carbon offsets with science fair exhibits.

Still, the data is promising, if not indicative of a real interest in environmentalism. Daniel was awarded the princely sum of $10,000 as first prize in the science fair, along with a $20,000 scholarship fund. He suspects that his findings may be the first of their kind, as scientists were unaware previously that the bacterium he had isolated could degrade the type of plastic used in grocery bags. While he hopes to continue his experiment to it's conclusion, he's more focused on academics and student politics, not to mention the intricacies of high school social circles. Only time will tell.

Source: http://news.therecord.com/article/354044

Saving the Planet With Global Yard Sales

It was another weekend of yard sales and thrift stores and the dawning realization that in buying a shirt for 50 cents and a baby toy for a nickel, I have discovered another easy economical way of offsetting my carbon footprint.

Yard sales and reusing goods has become popular for two reasons: everyone is broke and most of us are concerned about the impact we are having on the planet (a.k.a our carbon footprint). Manufacturing new products uses up vital energy resources releases toxins into the air, increasing the nation’s overall carbon emissions and contributing to global warming.

So why do it if we don’t have to?

Sustainable goods with low or neutral carbon footprints are also increasing in popularity but they do little to rid us of the billions of tons of waste we already have. Living in a consumer society as we do, we have an urge to buy things we don’t need from companies we don’t really like at prices we can’t really afford. The end result being, we throw these items away and they clog landfills and reduce recycling rates.

But a yard sale is a form of recycling most of us can get behind.

Yard sales, reuses and recycle as they reduce the amount of unsustainable products in landfills. They save money for customers and make money for the owners. The yard sale process feeds our consumer need to buy but doesn’t cost too much and helps a neighbor get rid of their unwanted items responsibly. One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.

The concept of yard sales to reduce carbon emissions has gone viral with waste exchange sites popping up all over the web offering people and companies the chance to dispose of goods in other places than the local landfills. Exchanging goods reduces disposals costs for businesses as it helps ease the carbon emission burden on the planet. Waste.net is one example of this online recycling craze and it offers both exchange as well as purchase of previously used goods and industrial scrap for reuse.

It’s like one huge yard sale for businesses except the yard is the internet and the junk is industrial. A perfect green solution for a consumer society. So rather than thinking a morning at the yard sales is a cheap way to get that extra cooler for camping or save money on clothes your little guy will grow out of in a few weeks anyway, it may be better to see the healthy planet saving job you are doing by spending just a buck to reuse, reuse, recycle and of course, offset carbon footprints.

Recharging to Offset Carbon Emissions

Non rechargeable batteries may seem like a small pebble in the large pond of carbon emissions but the lasting effects they have on our environment en masse is devastating. Clogging landfills with toxic chemicals that leak into ground water, using up metal resources and releasing carbon during the manufacturing process adding to global warming, non rechargeable batteries are cheap, convenient and extremely harmful. Not to mention their effect on the old dead weight of guilt better known as your carbon footprint.

Not everyone can afford solar panels on the roof or a wind generator in the back yard, but we can spend a couple of extra bucks and buy rechargeable batteries. Of course, they aren’t as cheap and less convenient, as they need to be recharged and take time to do so, but they do reduce carbon emissions. We use the same two batteries over and over effectively recycling, reusing and reducing all at the same time.

So what to do with all those non rechargeables we have lying around the house? The ones we feel guilty about putting in the regular trash but don’t get picked up by the local municipality except maybe twice a year? What to do when we are running out of room what with all the broken hairdryers, computers, cell phones, used motor oil and half empty paint cans we are also stock piling waiting for that toxic waste date to show up on the municipal calendar?

What to do? What to do?

Well, turns out there are scrap and salvage yards that will actually purchase these non rechargeable batteries from you for a nominal fee and recycle them along with the large scrap metal waste they collect in the form of rusty pipes, old cars and worn out ovens. Check with local scrap dealers to get specific details for your area. Aaah, another way to offset carbon emissions. Doesn’t it make you want to smile?

And if you are feeling extremely ambitious and even a little flush, you may want to consider the latest in rechargeable batteries, the USB cell battery which actually plugs into your lap top to recharge, reducing energy waste by having a separate recharging unit plugged in.

Finally, I can take my huge box of old batteries out from under the sink and trade them in for just a small pack of rechargeables. One more item off my save the planet checklist.

Reduce Paper Consumption to Reduce Impact and Save Money

The problem with many “green” solutions to helping the planet and reducing one’s carbon footprint is the fact they are unattainable, expensive, impractical and in some cases, elitist.

Well.

Now I have got that off my chest, maybe its time to focus on what we as individuals can do rather than what we can’t do.

We can reduce paper use. It doesn’t take an expensive initial output or proximity to a renewable energy source. It doesn’t actually cost anything except a little forethought.

Despite all our technological advances, we are still addicted to using tree parts for hundreds of different everyday items. Trees provide us with the life sustaining oxygen we need, help counteract the effects of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and of course, are one of the most beautiful things in the natural landscape. Reducing paper consumption save trees, saves energy, reduces the burden on landfills and perhaps most personally satisfying, saves money.

Use both sides of the paper. If you already have the paper, it is best to use it wisely whether at home or in the office. Many of us have gotten into the habit, because of digital printing perhaps or old school etiquette, of only using one side of the paper. But two sided copies is a simple button push on the copy machine. And if the computer printer only prints on one side? Put it back in to print on the other side or put a line through old news on one side and print new information on the other side. If you do this every time, by the end of the year you will have reduced the amount of paper you use for printing by 50 percent.

Greeting cards are a nice thought but they don’t have to be a one time expense. Take old card and cut out the pictures on the front for next year’s gift tags. Use the plain backs for desk notes. Even better, send e cards online. Charities often send out packs of greeting cards to past donors along with useful address labels. These cards should not be dismissed because they were “free,” in fact, going out and buying a card when you have one at home is a double whammy for the planet and your carbon footprint.

A big paper waster is the monthly bills sent out by utility companies, credit card companies and banks. Not to mention the numerous fliers, mailers, catalogs and magazines we receive on a weekly basis. How many of us actually read or utilize these mailers? Do we really need to have our bill printed out for us? Save a stamp by paying bills online where available and reduce your paper consumption at the same time. Put an end to wasteful; commercial mailers by contacting companies (by e-mail of course) and asking to be removed from mailing lists.

Registering your name with the Direct Marketing Association puts an end to a lot of the junk mail by filling out your name and address. I just filled out the form it took 30 seconds. I know that in six months, I’ll have to put in my address again. But really, 30 seconds every six months to put a stop to pointless destruction of trees to send me mail I don’t read about products I will never buy? Seems worth it to me.

Reducing my impact without spending money. That’s the kind of eco warrior I can afford to be.