The Cape Ann Vernal Pond Team in Massachusetts announced a reinvigorated fund raising effort last week. Their timing is a little off: we're in the middle of a recession. But, they clearly need the money, their website subscription just expired. Anyone who knows the CAVPT knows they deserve all the help they can get. Primarily, they're dedicated to helping the lowest of the low, amphibians. Cape Ann, MA, is pocked with vernal ponds and laced with roads. The two spell bad news for anything that walks and/or crawls three inches or lower to the ground on dark, rainy nights. Unfortunately, that includes most of the inhabitants of Cape Ann's vernal ponds. The picture here doesn't do the riot of life in vernal ponds justice. This video does. CAVPT will doubtless have their website up and running in the next few days. In the meantime, here's a video about the group.
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Might Outdoor Life be a magazine in search of itself? This former sportsmen's staple now prints an amibiguous alloy that reads like something between Mother Earth News and Soldier of Fortune. Take last week's web issue for example. They sent out this fall foliage contest photocollage coupled with this piece on how to kill your dog when it's too old to hunt. Just for comic relief they provided this photo, which we've only linked here so as not to offend our 4-16 readership. What a bunch of cards, those Outdoor Life editors must be. Careful with that foliage link. That's the first of 125 photos. One could get lost in there.
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12.04.09
The Center for Resource Solutions, a group that verifies sources of alternative energy products as being genuinely green, has a new study out showing the recession has done little to slow sales of the stuff they certify. The 2008 report released on September 13 showed sales of renewable energy it certified were up 45% from 2007 with over 13 million MWh sold. Over 500,000 residential customers and more than 20,000 commercial customers purchased energy they certified, a near doubling from the previous year. Organizations of all sizes purchased 2.9 million megawatt-hours of renewable energy, a record despite the economic slowdown. ( Can you tell that most of this paragraph was cut and pasted from the press release?)
These days there's a lot of money in proving green energy is green. If Cap and Trade goes through, look out. Hopefully this picture above is clear enough. It's a Florida housing developments where a few of the houses have a lot of solar panels. Just imagine outfitting each of the homes with solar panels. That's the potential of solar power today. It's also the potential of this solar credits company. Of course, there are lots of companies out there making sure that green energy is really green and not coming from a back-yard nuke.
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11.27.09
Imagine drinking recycled sewage? It's happening more and more these days and this release suggests getting into the water reuse business is a smart move. The release points out that there are already systems in place that completely recycle sewer water into drinking water. It also notes that there are communities in the world in such need of drinking water that will have to eventually build such systems. However, the release only pays lipservice to what has customarily been a very expensive process. Primary, secondary and tertiary treatments are usually used before sewage is discharge into the environment, and these are expensive systems. (I always thought tertiary treatment was the final step for drinking water conversion but this link says otherwise.)Taking waste water the final step to drinking water costs a fortune. Sorry, couldn't find any firm cost numbers, but there is a reason why nobody is doing it and it's got nothing to do with marketing problems. Yet, this study says new microfilters and reverse osmosis is driving the price down. Here's a 2-minute video that explains the study decently. Here's another video from Orange County, CA, where they are already turning sewage into tap water. What do you want to bet when this system went in, Poland Spring built a new national headquarters in Orange County.
Another study says London is one town where it might pay to go into a career in waste water. (Sorry, we lost the link) Apparently, London is supposed to start running real low on the wet stuff by 2025. Funny, how that date seems so far off. Even a drinking water shortage isn't important enough to be taken seriously when you have 15 years to fix the problem. And that might be why there are so many jobs in the industry now. Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow? Then again, we've talked here before in the 9.02.09 INews about the dangers, real or perceived, from drinking water that's not completely purified. However, this knucklehead is just asking for it. You have to think that one easy fix that hasn't gotten too much attention would be to have in-home recovery systems from your sink, dishwasher and shower. Ski resorts are doing it. This home waste water, called greywater, can be collected and diverted to your toilet. Might look kinda funky, but shouldn't smell too bad with all the soap in it. Maybe it could bleached along the way.
That seems like it should be job No. 1 for the wasterwater jobs available above, recycling greywater in-house before sending it to a treatment plant. Such systems, like solar panels and small wind turbines, should be built into municipal building codes, don't you think? I know, who needs more government regulation. Here's acouple of Brits taking one for the team. How do you get people to dress up like a toilet? I'd rather be the faucet, any day. Is that supposed to be pink toilet paper on her head?
Here's another of those waste water job opportunities opening up right now. These folks are using cellulose screened from sewage to help brew ethanol, a fuel that can be used in cars and such. Ethanol made from corn is already in widespread use. More and more, it seems, mining the gold, even brown gold, from our waste stream is becoming a driver in this economy. And that's a good thing.
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11.18.09
More great stuff from that greatest of government agencies. NOAA released a new database Tuesday that's as bewildering a maze of government record keeping as anything NASA could put together. Before we take too many cheap shots at this latest of government on-line offerings, let's provide a little perspective. It's not necessarily the most user-friendly website. Ten minutes' navigation was enough to realize we would need a couple hours to understand it. However, it's clear there is a fantastic amount of information here. Should you want to know salinity levels in the Gulf of Mexico over the past 50 years, looks like this website can produce it. Ditto for myriad fun facts for locations throughout the globe dating back, according to the release, to the 1800s for some bits of info.
Who could possibly care? Students. This is a wonderful resource for academia. But, can't we be a little more hopeful than that? Just suppose the Kansas City milkman wants to know if this global warming thing really is happening and has decided talk radio may not be the final word on this matter. (One can only hope.) He can go to this site and get the hard data. Unfortunately, it can be hard to get that data without following the directions. Anyway, the database is out there. One less excuse for not doing your own research.
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11.16.09
This just in from the solar Garden State. Some 14 acres of solar panels using 25,000 photovoltaic units will power the Carrier Clinic in New Jersey with half its energy needs. Half! Look at the size of this place, in the Google Earth image at left. It will soon have the state's largest solar power installation on a healthcare system campus. We belabor it here to illustrate the power of photovoltaics and how, as this industry really starts to take root, serious dents can be made into our fossil fuel needs. The concentrated energy in sunlight can be best illustrated by the old magnifying glass trick. If a magnifying glass can concentrate enough solar energy to do this, it means this planet is being bathed in enough power to meet a much larger share of its energy need than is happening now. We just need to figure out how best to harvest it. This Google Earth image of the Carrier Clinic suggests they have plenty of room for more solar panel arrays should this one work out well. Seems like they could power half the surrounding countryside. Which brings up an interesting question. How are they going to keep weeds from growing up in between those solar panels? Hopefully, not with tons of herbicides and hopefully not by paving the 14 acres. Here's one cool solution. Here's another thought: By putting in such large solar arrays, there's less room for trees.
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11.13.09
This just came into our WTHeck file. This fellow is merging social media with Cap-and-Trade into a website that's as pointless as a bowling ball. He's presupposing that if Cap and Trade goes through, carbon credits will be doled out to energy-wise individuals, like you and me. First, there's been nothing we've seen to indicated personal carbon credits will exist under the as-yet un-passed legislation. England is apparently thinking about it and there has been some press about it in this country. But nothing set in the legislation, that we've found.
This fellow is jumping the gun, assuming personal carbon credits will exist and is proposing a system to sabotage it under the guise of an environmental movement of some sort. His website will allow conservation minded folks to pair up with those less so and donate their as-yet undefined individual carbon credits in return for virtual friendship. Why would anybody who is willing to make the sacrifices involved in reducing the fossil fuels they burn be willing to then credit that sacrifice over to someone who doesn't give a darn about the environment? As perfectly senseless as this sounds, Carbontwin.com has some 750 people signed up. There must be something we're missing here. Either that, or P.T. Barnum was right. What is really cool about the website is the carbon credit meter built into it. It's a mystery how he came up with the various calculators for it, but I've got 22 carbon credits available. Any takers? Going cheap.
11.11.09
This article is a little frustrating. NBN is all in favor of protecting small, endangered creatures, but it seems the endangered species act can be abused by strong-willed, but arguably weak-minded individuals. In this case, a proposed rail line along Massachusetts' South Shore is being held hostage by supporters of the blue spotted salamander. In 11.04.09 we devoted half the issue to the need to protect these creatures. Can we possibly now argue the other side of the coin with any conviction? No problem.
In the 11.04 issue we weighed a chemically enhanced, privately owned landscape against a vernal pond that had been neutered to maintain that landscape. Here the balance is different. If you've ever traveled Rt. 3 out to Massachusetts' South Shore, you know why. This road is hopelessly congested just about every hour of the day. Yet one women has promised to insure the future of that congestion by leveraging the Endangered Species Act on behalf of the Blue Spotted Salamander and against the rail project.
This is a hard one. The rail line will travel through some 16,000 acres of marsh, shown above, called Hockomock, home to all kinds of threatened species. This is where environmental discretion should be brought into play. Isn't it as good, or better, for the global environment to have thousands fewer cars on the road than to protect a sliver of habitat for these endangered species? In the Google Earth photo here there is a power line already running through the swamp. Maybe that could be used for the rail line?
11.06.09
Massachusetts has a new publication devoted entirely to habitat restoration. Right up there with Quilt News, only better art. However, if you like this sort of thing, and NBN loves this sort of thing, it's an interesting read. If for nothing else, to see how many ways we can easily improve the damaged marine habitats around us, and the pay off when we do. Here's a national publication put out by NOAA all about the nation's coastlines. Here's another newsletter published solely for conservations commissions. All the above came out of yet another government newsletter dedicated to coastal zone management. These publications don't say a word about Lindsay Lohan, they just help lend a little broader perspective on myriad environmental issues around us. No advertising, but definitely in perpetual praise of whatever politician is holding their purse strings until the next election. These newsletters are chock-full of great stuff, but their readership is right down there with Quilt News. Make no mistake, they are the lifeblood of NBN. Take a moment to find what government officials are doing in your state. You can be sure, every state government puts out similar publications about local environmental issues—with the possible exception of Alaska, it doesn't need too. These newsletters are written by a lot of hard working folks trying to set their surroundings right. Take a moment, it's all on line. You'll see they deserve your time.
11.02.09
Here is Nestle doing more PR about how bottle water isn't so bad for the environment. What's most maddening is, they have 10 different videos out on this subject and only one deals with the recycling of bottle water bottles that Nestle makes by the billion. That video talks all about how the rest of the world isn't doing its part to recycle these bottles they produce. What about the company making the bottles, don't they have any role in this? Nestle is spending $3m a year lobbying Congress to squash any laws that might hold them more accountable for the myriad products they sell in tiny containers with a 10,000-year half-life. Is there anyone lobbying to get a deposit on those bottles? Google turned up this piece on New York State legislation that appears headed for passage. The amazing part is, this group managed to get a court injunction blocking the law. Is $.05 really so much for the bottle water makers to pay to cover disposal costs for all these bottles? The group above pulled in $5m in 2008 and paid its president $400,000. The rest must have gone for the video and all those lobbyists. The Nestle video says bottle water comprises less than one percent of US trash. Is that measured by weight or volume? A case of empty water bottles is the size of a suitcase. It weighs next to nothing but takes up all kinds of room in a landfill. Editors note: we realized after the fact, this is the second issue in a row that we've beat up on Nestle. Apologies. We'll lay off for a while.
10.30.09
Bottle water giant Nestle' is patting itself on the back for a $350,000 donation to build a playground in Brooklyn, NY. This is a $109.9 billion company with $19 billion in revenue. That playground cost Nestle .000018 percent of their profits. What a bunch of swell guys. Meanwhile, they are pumping out billions of plastic bottles from nearly two dozen bottled water companies they own. What do you want to bet that the cost of disposing of all those bottles eclipses every donation this corporation has made since its founding in Switzerland in the 1850s. Aren't the Swiss supposed to be nice people? Read that Wikipedia link above and you might feel differently about this Swiss Mess. That said, this playground is supposed to come compliments of Nestle's Juicy Juice division. Great juice, but another big trash problem. Have you ever cut into a juice box? It's a laminate of plastic, foil, paper and wax that could secure radioactive waste. Shot glasses hold more liquid than some of these juice boxes. They weigh more than the juice they hold. Yet, here we are buying them and tossing them out by the gross. What is it about Nestle' and packaging: a.k.a. trash?
10.26.09
Chemical company Syngenta says 50 years worth of study confirms that its herbicide atrizine, is safe. Why release this news now, after it's been safe for 50 years? Because there is a new study out that says it isn't safe. What do you care? Because, if you have a private well and live near a farm, golf course or love a weed-free lawn, there's a chance you're drinking the stuff. What to do? Like we mention in ONews today, lets lace some common sense into this thing. While we talk about the prospects of birth defects from atrizine, lets not forget to put the spot light on why we use it: weed killer. Lets do the math: we can have birth defects or weed-free lawns. This is an arguably unfair over-generalization. Farmers, apparently, love the atrizine. But, do we need it for lawns and golf courses? The point we're trying to make here is, in all matters environmental, we have to make sure we weigh all the arguments. Not just the dangers of possible birth defects from atrizine, but point out some of the more dubious needs for the stuff that perhaps we can do without. As we note in ONews, today, for global warming issues, the economic benefits of burning less gas are as important, and certainly more immediately felt, than rising tides. With dangerous herbicides, we have to note that birth defects are a very high price to pay for weed-free lawns. These are primary arguments, not after-thoughts.
10.23.09
Hard to imagine anyone would deliberately release a fish from one lake into another, but that's how authorities in New Hampshire think a trophy 18-pound Northern Pike got into Lake Winnisquam. Problem with the pike is it eats lots of other fish. It's a top predator that can throw the whole lake's fish population into a tailspin, so to speak. NHDES says such a fish may be great to catch, but it's a disaster to find swimming where it doesn't belong, like Lake Winnisquam. It's that whole invasive species thing. Hard to imagine a fisherman in the world who wouldn't want to catch one of these. This is not the fish that turned up in Lake Winnisquam. We don't know where this fish is from.
Every once in a while, doing the right thing gets a helping hand from the powers that be. In this case, the very ecologically sound practice of bathroom hand dryers is getting help from the recent swine flu scare, according to this release. The big problem with those hand dryers in the past is they take about 20 minutes to work. However, this company has something called the Air Force and another company puts out something called the Xlerator which works almost quickly enough. But you never quite get your hands completely dry. On the other hand, PTP, paper towel, makes such a mess and, as the release points out, ends up costing more money than the one-time investment in a hand dryer. Then along comes this article which says to avoid the flu you should use paper towel. Go figure.
10.19.09
This might take a little work, so we'll keep it short. These folks at Woods Hole have been placing the marine equivalent of microphones across the ocean floor and attaching them as well to northern right whales to see how far their calls travel and from how far away a whale can hear another whale's calls. There must be a real good reason for this, because it's got to cost a pile of money. It's all in the name of science.
10.09.09
Dammit! We spent 40 minutes reading this release and we're still not sure what it means, but here goes. The Renewable Energy Marketers Association, a.k.a. REMA, has a great point but is doing an awful job making it. It appears they want alternative energy products sold to small users like homes—installations they call voluntary use—to be used in the calculation of energy credits being made available under the Cap and Trade legislation working its way though Congress. Read another way: if you put solar panels on your roof, or put a wind turbine in your back yard, you're entitled to some sort of recognition or alternative energy credit under Cap and Trade. It's uncertain what you can do with this energy credit. Hopefully, you can sell them to big-time polluters, like coal burning power plants which will be required to buy them if Cap and Trade passes. If this is what REMA is saying, what a great idea! Why is it being touted in a poorly written press release that nobody is going to read, let alone understand. Because it's boring as sin and newspaper editors need to find ever flashier headlines to keep their dwindling readerships from jumping ship. Not that anybody is going to read this excoriation of this poor press release author. But, hopefully the few who do, will understand and show an interest. REMA calls it a win-win. We agree.
We'd also like to get our hands on the 21-year-old communications major who crafted this sentence: “Without provisions to account for GHG reductions associated with voluntary renewable purchasing by non-regulated sectors and to clarify the ownership of federal renewable energy certificates (RECs) within existing REC contracts these voluntary purchases could result in no carbon-reduction benefit and could be claimed by entities regulated under the legislation, something called double counting.” Please, someone introduce this person to the comma. Better yet, introduce them to spatula and a McDonalds. Sorry about running the same cartoon again. We did crop it a little.
Speaking of alternative energy, The NRDC is beefing about Obama's failure to more rigorously prevent timber sales in some of the nation's national forests. We agree, but the president does seem to have a lot on his plate. Still, just the idea of clear cutting those forests out west is disturbing. Someone should find out how much profit timber mining operations in the Nation's forests haul in. There must be a lot of money in it, for it to be afforded so much political clout. NBN couldn't find anything on the internet in the 90 seconds we devoted to it. Watching PBS's national park series, the story about Robert Muir's failed effort to prevent dam construction and flooding in Yosemite's Hetch Hetchy Valley is a heartbreaker. Here's a picture of the valley before the flood. There's no room for and "After" shot. Just cut off the bottom half of the picture and you've got it.
10.7.09
Just when you start to get optimistic that folks are starting to wake up to the environmental realities facing us, you come across something like this. The Army Corp of Engineers a few years back permitted limestone mining in 15,000 acres of the Everglades and the NRDC now wants help fighting the plan. Take a walk around Everglades National Park to fully understand what has been lost forever with the agricultural and residential development surrounding it. The picture above just doesn't do it justice.
Here are some more pictures, from USGS. Spend some time on Google Earth to see what's become of so much of Florida's incredible nature resources. It's gone. Never come back. Now, the US government wants to whittle away more of it. For what? Spend sometime on this USGS website to get an arguably more objective overview of limestone mining in Florida. The principal use for the rock is road construction. Florida is already way over-built. For the first time in a century the populations of the place is shrinking. Sometimes you can't help but get the feeling these projects move forward just through sheer economic momentum. Necessity has nothing to do with it.
This is what quarries are converted into when they are exhausted. Do you really think condos on a man-made lake compare in ecological diversity to the Everglades before the heavy equipment arrived. Yet, the mining company deal provides for ecological restoration in exchange for permission to mine the 15,000 acres being eyed. Do we really want this kind of restoration. Couldn't somebody step in and say those Army Corps mining permits should be revoked? Take a look at the NRDC website and see if it doesn't merit a minute of your time to complain to EPA. Here is another article which does lend a little more perspective. Just to drive the point home, you might want to click on this link. Another senseless mining project proposed for an environmentally sensitive area. When they get turned own they sue.
9.23.09
This report is an excellent illustration of what we harp on in ONews today. Based on this report, non-food products and packaging are responsible for 44 percent of U.S. greenhouse gasses. Read another way, the electric can openers, air fresheners, refrigerators and the really cool, little plastic things of jelly you get at breakfast diners are responsible for nearly half of the U.S. greenhouse gasses, not cars. According to this report, transportation is good for 22 percent of the nation's green house gasses.
Look at left at the rather unappetizing glasses of blueberry and strawberry/rhubarb preserves left out for customers at The Farmers Diner in Quechee, VT. The stuff tasted great. In no small part because the diner makes great food. But more to the point, they didn't see the need to put the stuff out in those ridiculous little plastic containers. You want to end global warming? End the endless tide of ridiculous little plastic containers we keep putting our food, soap, toys, batteries and phones in. Editor's note: we recycled this image above of the plastic packaging for the Maximo mouse pad/phone. This is not a brand new photo, it's the one that appeared in NBN a few weeks ago. We also recycled the beach erosion images in ENews today. We're doing our part.
9.16.09
If you thought the folks who went after Moby Dick had a dangerous job, think of what these people face. They spent Labor Day weekend cutting a 45-foot northern right whale free from lines it had become entangled in. They got within 30 feet of an animal with enough power to move 40-tons through the water at about 10 mph. You don't want to be hit with that tail. Most telling about the article is this: 70 percent of whales have some scarring from being tangle in ropes. Look at ENews on 8.5.09, to read a little more about why so many are getting tangled up. Here's another neat article on how to get whales untangled, should you ever need to know. Here's another article the indicates why you should never try to this at home. The photo above has nothing to do with the story. It's shown here for emotional impact only.
9.11.09
Seals are so cute. They've got those great, big black eyes, faces like puppy dogs. Who would have thought they'd present so many problems. First it was seals stealing striped bass right from fishermens' hooks. Now seals are being blamed for closing Cape Cod beaches.
The growing number of seals off the Cape is bringing in great white sharks which eat the things like sardines. Great whites have also been know to nibble on a surfer dude or two.This gets into a gnarly problem. Years ago, seals were given protected status under wildlife laws because we were concerned their numbers were dwindling.
Now, their numbers are rebounding and so are the number of shark attacks on anything that looks like a seal swimming in the water. You can conjure up all sorts of sympathy for seals when you have Canadians clubbing them to make clothing.But, when people start dying in the digestive systems of fish for the sake of saving the seals, lets just say the seal could find itself with a bit of a public relations problem. Especially around the Cape, where beaches were closed for several weeks this summer. Here's another article just to update this story. No surprise the author used the old sea-of-approval line. NBN had it first. This costume is likely to be a hot item at Cape Cod Halloween parties this fall.
9.09.09
Anyone who has enjoyed baked weakfish with seafood stuffing, will weep at this story. The federal government is considering a fishing ban on weakfish, until stocks get rebuilt. This, in and of, itself is newsworthy. The reason we bring it up here is this: look at the number of reasons suggested for the weakfish decline. Everything from too many stripped bass eating all the baby weakfish, to what Tom Fote of the Jersey Coast Anglers Association says are “a number of environmental factors....agricultural runoff, coastal power plants, sewage leaking into back bays, storm-water runoff and pharmaceuticals dissolved into the water that could even be changing the sex of fish.”
Sounds like you have to be a pretty strong weakfish to get by these days. What's interesting is the comments on the bottom of the story. No one seems to object that this delectable dinner fare is about to be taken off the table. Are we finally resigning ourselves to the fact that drastic measures are needed to save the fish we love to eat? Here's a picture of a weakfish. Not only are they delicious, but they are beautiful. They get their name from their weak mouths. When you have one of these on the hook, you've got to be reel careful, PTP.
On a similar subject, this article printed, by the Cape Cod Today, but written by folks upset over trawlers, says the federal government missed the boat this year by not banning herring fishing in vibrant waters full of all kinds of fish. The big issue here is something called by-catch. That's all the other fish that get caught with the herring nets, that are football fields wide and hold more than one million pounds of catch. They can wipe clean whole swaths of ocean and the hook fishermen are getting pretty upset that herring trawlers haven't been banned from the fish rich waters off Cape Cod that are otherwise heavily regulated by the federal government. The hook fishermen may have a point. Indiscriminate fishing practices like open ocean trawl nets do a lot of collateral damage to other species and marine environments.
By-catch is a huge problem. But long liners also have a lot of by-catch. The organization that wrote this particular piece is looking for more monitors on the trawlers to make sure by-catch is kept to a minimum. It's a little surprising to see one commercial fishing organization sniping at another. However, as fish populations continue to dwindle across the board, it's likely we'll see more of this infighting.
This is by-catch: note the number of species of fish. All were caught accidentally by a boat targeting another kind of fish. The real crime here is these fish often can't be sold, they have to be dumped overboard. Maybe, ther should be a penalty to pay for poundage of by-catch. The more by-catch you catch the more you have to pay for dumping it over. That's one way to make sure fishermen have a vested interest in how they catch fish.
Here's is an absolutely disheartening video of by-catch. Unfortunately you have to wait out a bank ad to watch it. Do so. It's worth it. Then take a look at this video and compare it with the satellite image below of the tracks trawlers leave on whole areas of the ocean. Getting heart sick over such footage is natural, but doing something about it is another matter altogether. These trawlers bring in some of the best fish in the ocean. Delicious fish like halibut that we might not otherwise have a chance to eat. That includes weakfish, like those being considered for a moratorium. Farm salmon and tilapia can get old in a hurry. Like everything else, if we want to enjoy these exotic meals, eventually we're going to have to pay for them.
9.08.09
We're living in the age of Ed Norton. The nightly foil for Honeymooners star Ralph Krandem generated plenty of laughs through his fictional job in New York City's sewers, but look who is laughing now. Google “Job Opportunities” and “waste-water” and this is what you get. Look at all those jobs. Pretty amazing. Right now, hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars are being spend upgrading wastewater treatment plants around the country. Mammas don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys, make 'em sewer workers, sanitation engineers an' such.
9.04.09
Outdoor life has this picture of a marlin in a picture gallery in its website. As interesting as anything else about the pictures of the fish are the comments readers made below them. One guy out of Hawaii says marlin is delicious. No it isn't. If it was, you'd see it for sale at $15 a pound like Swordfish. Go to the fishing docks in Maui when the charter boats come in at the end of they day. They all have tourists with Cheshire Cat grins being photographed alongside dead marlin considerably smaller than the one OL has here. When the picture session is over the fish are carted off for catfood. Nobody takes those fish home. Another comment under the OL piece is a little more to the point. It says marlin should be swimming in the water not hung up by their tails. There are any number of taxidermists out there who could make a mock-up of a 1,000 pound marlin, which can then be hung by it's tail for pictures. Or take pictures of the fish while it's alongside the boat. Either way this beautiful fish could still be swimming around making baby marlins. This is a top predator, it deserves more respect.
Here's another OL picture gallery of big tuna, and some not so. Talk to a real tuna fishermen, the folks who boat these things on a regular basis. You won't find them hanging these things from hooks for photographers. No, they are packing them into insulating bags full of ice and sticking thermometers into the meat to make sure it doesn't get too warm. There is nothing better than catching a delicious fish bleeding it, getting it on ice as fast as possible and keeping it on ice until it goes into the frying pan, or grill. There is nothing worse than killing a fish because you want the world to see the monster you've just slain.
Warning! Personal anecdote approaching. This is a picture of Frank Mundus, the famed monster killer from Montauk, NY. He holds the record for largest fish on a rod and reel, a 3,500 pound great white shark. I'm not sure if this is the fish or not. I took a ride out to Montauk to see it. It had been sitting on the dock near the Marina for four days before they got rid of it. All for what? Mundus is dead and I hate to speak ill of him, but rumor had it they caught this fish while it was feeding on a dead whale. The rumor was, Mudus shot the whale to attract sharks. You can argue that circulating such a rumor, as we are doing here, is a lousey thing to do. No more so than killing fish just for the fun of it. And Frank Mundus killed a lot of fish just for the fun of it. It's really not much different than using whales for bait.
9.02.09
This just in from our Good Intentions Paving Materials department. If you've enjoyed the stellar weather in the nation's Northeast this past month, read below what the folks who live along a landfill in Newburyport, MA, have been dealing with. "the noxious smell that lasted all evening last night. My husband had to shut all windows during the night... I know [sic] have 2 sick kids this morning (headaches/nausea) which means I can't go to work today...This whole thing stinks... These emails go back and forth for every summer. Some are heartbreaking.
This is a view of Crowlane landfill. The black region is the capping process
These folks have been living this nightmare for the past five summers because some well meaning folks with the state, were bamboozled by a politically-connected trash hauler who said demolition debris could make the ideal capping material for old landfills. In theory, it makes sense. Construction material is fairly organic. Wood, nails, brick, cement. In practice this idea is proving to be a disaster. The big problem for Crowlane is the sheetrock, which gives off a sulfur smell when it rots. That by itself isn't so bad, from a strictly environmental perspective. It's the lack of regulation that's problematic.
This fellow dumping off the debris should be making an enormous profit. Throwing out construction material can cost upwards of $120 per ton. This guy is building a mountain with the stuff the state is letting him dump. Up until the last year or so, no one carefully was inspecting what he was dumping. He could have been grinding up computer hardware and throwing it out. Newburyport Town Hall, wasn't staffed to oversee this operation.
A real quick check of the internet didn't find any other states with the same program Massachusetts passed. Why did Massachusetts pass it? Nobody has taken the time to track that information down. Who first proposed the policy? That person has a name. Who was his or her boss? Who were the elected officials who presided over any legislative changes needed to allow this dumping. Nobody has taken the time to find this out. Suggesting once again, if you want to find government corruption, the first place to look is in the trash. This a concrete dump at Crowlane landfill. Looks fairly harmless. It is. It's the oversight for who is dumping what at Crowlane, that's the problem. That, and an arguably ill-concieved government policy that allowed the dumping to start in the first place.
8.28.08
This ad is neat for what it doesn't mention. No internal combustion engines anywhere. No hydrocarbons being converted into greehouse gasses. No jetskies, or parasailing. Nature is so much more enjoyable when you are not disturbing it.
Apparently there were other casualties from Hurricane Bill this past weekend. New Hampshire law enforcement is urging beach-combers to leave washed-up lobster gear alone. It's illegal to touch the stuff. Guess, my buoy collection out on the porch will have to go into the basement. Lobstermen who have already lost gear in Bill will doubtless be buoyed by the news that Danny will not be as bad as first forecast.
8.26.09
A bottle of red or a bottle of white? What if you're feeling in a green mood tonight? In keeping with the theme today of unnaturally controlling natural plant and animal growth, we have this release from Paul Dolan vineyards. Paul Dolan might not have the name cachet of Rothschild, but they are doubtless going to win over a few folks opposed to poisoning grapes before squeezing them into nicely labeled bottles.
Walk through a vineyard near harvest time. It will make you think twice before uncorking your next bottle of Pinot Noir. It takes a lot of poison to discourage bugs and mold from taking over the endless supply of sweet, succulent fruit that burdens these vine this time of year. Apparently, these chemical controls don't hurt the flavor, but anything called Thiophanate-Methyl can't be too good for your liver. We give Dolans a Green-thumb UP. Nice glass of '09 copper sulfate, anyone?
8.24.09
Ten years ago, when the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority started pumping hundreds of millions of gallons of treated waste water into Boston Harbor it did so promising to monitor the environmental impact. Now, with money drying up, the MWRA says it's cutting out the $3m program. Opponents say it will kill a useful monitor of Boston Harbor marine health at a time when global warming threats are throwing everything out of whack. The MWRA says 10 years of monitoring have proven the plant's not causing any problems. NBN says it's hard to see how hundreds of milions of gallons of secondary treated waste water isn't having an impact. You want to swim in that stuff? Still, the global argument is uncertain because such problems are going to manifest themselves up and down the coast, not just in Boston Harbor.
How does it help us to know that global warming might make this particlular plant's impact on Boston Harbor worse than it already is. You could argue it shouldn't have been built it in the first place, but it was heralded 10 years ago as being a key to cleaning up the harbor. And what are they going to do if the situation does get worse? Shut down the plant? Maybe it's time for this country to think more seriously about tertiary treatment. Here's a good piece of treatment plants in general.
8.21.09
Native American's were not the environmentalists, living in harmony with nature that Dance's With Wolves would lead you to believe, according to this piece in the Time's today. It says people living along the west coast as far back as 13,000 years ago, were screwing up the delicate balance in nature that seems so viciously out-of-whack today. They note the Indians killed all the sea otters which resulted in a spike in shellfish and sea urchin populations which wiped out all the kelp, a favorite urchin food.
Lets turn the dial forward to 1995 or so and we have New England fishermen whipping out the populations of urchins feeding the nation's insatiable sushi appetite, which caused kelp to grow like wildfire. However, to try and draw parallels outside social behavior between the damage done these days and those, is like trying to draw parallels between a world population of 2009 and 10,000 BC. Take a look at the link
8.14.09
Agriculture secretary Vilsack was stumping for the President's hard stand on climate change yesterday. If the President is taking such a hard stand, why did he capitulate on Cap and Trade? When he let Congress decide to give away the carbon credits, critics argue, he gave away the store. As discussed on 8.10.09 there is something to be said for just establishing the Cap and Trade policy. Perhaps we can worry about auctioning them off later.
Killer seaweed in France? That's what French environmental officials are saying. Normally harmless sealettuce, is washing up on French beaches in such amounts that there's concern hydrogen sulfide produced by rotting seaweed could actually be emitted in dangerous levels. Sounds a little fishy to NBN.
Tomatoes are dying on the vine this summer due to something called late blight. Late blight is a mold of sorts working its way up through the plant, eventually rotting the fruit. This Salem News piece quotes a Massachusetts farmer who said he didn't spray this season in an effort to go organic. Now, he's lost about $35,000. It's useful to point out to you “organic” fans that there is still plenty of herbicide and pesticide locked up in the soils that are no longer being sprayed. It might make a nice study to see how much of these poisons “Organic” produce still has in them. It's got to be less than freshly sprayed fields, but the residual levels might still open a few organic eyes. Here's a Washington Post piece that looks at the problem from a national perspective.
8.10.09
NOAA is saying the Gulf of Mexico could be hit with the same coral reef bleaching that's been epidemic throughout the world. Take a look at the the map on the link above, it's depressing. Caution! Long Personal Anecdote Approaching. I remember so clearly in 1979 the riot of life in the reefs around the BVI, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands when we were sailing through on a boat chartered by Southampton College, on Long Island. (Admission requirement was a signed check but they had a very good marine biology school.) The reefs back then seemed like they teemed with fish and coral, compared to a return voyage 20 years later with my wife and brother's family aboard a private charter.
It's so easy to say things are so much worse now than they were in the good old days. It's a right-of-passage for us old folks. So, I spent last weekend on Long Island snorkeling in front of my childhood home determined to get a good idea how things really were compared to the good old days. I didn't want to just jump in, look around and say: “things are awful,” like I've done for the past 10 years. So, I spent several hours in the water over several days. Here's the prognosis. The wildlife underwater about 20 from the high-tide line isn't great in front of the house, but things looked better than they've seemed in the past. There was a surprising number of baby winter flounder, one pipe fish (sorta like a seahorse) and, most interestingly, there were a lot of tiny blowfish. I also saw a couple of bergals (kinda like a blackfish) hanging around the rock "garden" we've built over the years attempting to provide a rock free path to the sandy bay bottom about 40 feet from high tide.
It was a much better showing than past times snorkeling in front of the house. Still missing however, were the eels, which were common years ago; moon snails, barnacles and surf crabs are also gone. And no adult blowfish, which used to be more common than eels. The chodium grass is still far from as dense as it once was. However, I discovered on another dive that the chodium grass coverage in my old scallop beds a couple miles away was respectable. This, after it had all but vanished afew years earlier. But no scallops. Regarding the baby winter flounder, it's useful to note that, this year, there was no summer creek dredging allowed. The winter flounder spawn in the creeks in the summer.
Perhaps the lesson gleaned from the NOAA study and my prolonged anecdote is this: Nature will recover, and quickly, when it can. I refer you again to Weisman's book “The World Without Us.” But there have also been sea-changes in our marine ecosystems that mean the good old days are gone forever. Things will never be like we remember them but that doesn't mean we're doomed, either. It's certainly going to take generations to get our coral reefs back, if we can at all. But farther north, oysters reefs are coming back strong and that's some of the best environmental news to come down the pike in a long time. Here's another cool link to oyster news.
7.24.09
Sen. Pat Roberts is saying stimulus money is being wrongly allocated to fill Kansas sinkholes while nothing is being done to protect surrounding residents against new sinkholes that could pop up any time. Instead, Roberts wants to use the money to relocate the residents, then Kansas can worry about filling in the sinkholes. This, folks, is good government in action. If ever there was a shovel ready project, sinkholes qualify. Yet the senator is saying it's throwing money away. Sounds like he's right. Not all jobs are good jobs. Even in hard times. Check that! Particulalry in hard times. You wouldn't want one of these in your back yard, or your driveway.There is even a Kansas town named after these things.
July 22, 2009
It's depressing to even have this piece here. Apparently, the Texans for a Sound Energy Policy Alliance is seeking support to stop efforts to tap the Guadalupe-Blanco River for cooling water for a proposed nuclear power plant. TSEPA says the state is asking residents to conserve water while promising the power plant all the cooling water it wants. The power plant company is in Chicago. What do you want to bet there are a couple of dozen local solar panel companies which would happily take the money spent on the plant and build a renewable power source instead of the nuke. Read the release, it looks like the nuke will never be built. But it's food for thought. Do we want centralized power in the hands of a few ,or decentralized power in the hands of many? Here's a glimpse of the river being tapped. The picture is provided by the unfortunately acronynmed TSEPA
I wanted to throw this in here. It's a Christian Science Monitor piece about the gray areas green groups often enter in the effort to survive and save the environment at the same time. NBN did a similar piece on July 14th in ONews CSM is always a great read.
New Hampshire is talking about grants for building rain gardens. These devices trap rain water that would otherwise run off into rivers, carrying all sorts of unpleasant chemicals and bacteria with it. Run-off is becoming one of the most insidious forms of pollution across the country. It's hard to say from the release if the state will provide money for home installations of rain gardens, but I bet businesses and government buildings stand a shot. In case you need a reminder about the problems with runoff, here's a good Patriot Ledger piece about the toll taken on Cape Cod beaches this year.
This also just in from New Hampshire's Department of Environmental Services. Training classes for future conservation officers. Starting pay is $32k, last a year on the job and salary goes up to $42k. With wildlife protection legislation on the rise, sounds like there should be some job security in it.
Another great program that needs more publicity than PRWeb. This is a group dedicated to taking military vets and turning then into soldiers in the war on pollution. These are people who were prepared to sacrifice their lives for this county. How much more are theyprepared to sacrifice for the world. Bravo!
July 14, 2009
Number this group among the unsung heroes devoted to an unsung cause. The whole concept of Green Building and low impact development is about as dull as the names imply. But green planning means watershed protection and urban revitalizing, while green buildings slow global warming. Those are two very important environmental issues. Hats off to groups like this, using vision instead of headlines, and believe me these folks get no coverage. I tried to sell my editors on this story dozens of times and got nowhere. If any folks are working on these issues in your community, please give them a moment of your time.
Speaking of little known environmental issues, tiger farming has officially been opposed by the World Bank. Yes, tiger farming. Apparently, some exotic countries, always in search of aphrodisiacs and tiger bone wine, have been growing tigers to satisfy the market in tiger parts. Advocates for these “farmers” say it will ease the poaching problem. The World Bank says that by sustaining the market with farmed tiger parts, you'll ensure continued poaching. A farmed tiger costs money. Wild tigers are free. Is this conversation really going on? Caution: Personal anecdote approaching! I was shark fishing off Montauk one night when we started noticing a lot of blue sharks around the boat. About 4 am we get one on. It seemed real heavy, but not putting up much of a fight. Turned out to be a big blue shark with its fins cut off. Here's a painful story about this practice.
There's increasingly less room on this planet to accommodate these practices.The photo above is tiger farm tigers lounging around a pool. Seems like a good life. Until we get to harvest time. Sorry, had to include this shot. Actually, it's a lot tamer than the one we were going to use. If you can't make them out, it's tiger in cages prior to slaughter.
July 7, 2009
Here’s a disturbing piece, if it’s accurate. Gulf of Mexico sportfishermen killing dolphins that are stealing fishing off their hooks. How many dolphins have humans killed with tuna nets? Now, when dolphins get a little payback we start shooting them? Caution, personal anecdote approaching: I’ve gone fishing and hunting with some merciless "sportsmen" in my day. I remember one guy using a semi-automatic to kill shearwaters flying in to steal from our chum slick while out shark fishing. Then there were the "drives" to flush deer into the open for fellow hunters waiting in ambush in the Catskills of New York.
Back to the point. Fishermen are also getting real upset in Massachusetts over seals that are stealing stripped bass from hooks in the Merrimack River. Nobody is killing the seals, but would that change if they were fishing far offshore instead of at the mouth of the Merrimack River. It's wrong to paint all sportsmen with the same brush, some are extraordinarily skilled and very sensitive to their quarry's suffering. There is little quite as rewarding as venison stew prepared from an animal you've stalked and killed. But the cruelty illustrated here is another matter. It's the growing clash between man and nature. It's happening more and more and nature loses everytime. This is a picture of a dolphin that was shot in the Gulf of Mexico. What sort of fellow does this? I was on a boat with some one much like him. At the time, it didn't bother me that much.
June 22, 2009
Here's another OutdoorLife Photo Gallery, insects this time. Hey, everybody loves bugs.
June 18, 2009
For those stimulus plan critics this article should clear the air, if it doesn't muddy the waters. It says $185 million is heading to Massachusetts for clean water projects. The article then cites solar panels being installed atop a sewage treatment plant as an example of what that money will be spent on. Nice work AP! What the remaining $184.99 million will mostly likely go toward is storm water run-off. Treatment plants up and down the Merrimack River have been puzzling over how to fund tens of million of dollars in EPA-mandated sewage system upgrades. More specifically, fixing a chronic storm water run-off problem called combined sewage overflow. CSO is where old city sewer pipes collect both, sewage from homes and businesses, and rain water from street drains. When it rains real hard, those old pipes get overwhelmed and sewage-laden rainwater is discharged directly into the Merrimack, or the Hudson in NY or the Housatonic in Connecticut. The picture above is an example of such a pipe. In a heavy rain they are dumping some nasty stuff right into these rivers.
That's how the sewer systems in these cities were originally designed, to collect rain and sewage and discharge it right into the nearest river. Later, when the treatment plants were built, those pipes were just diverted from the river to the plant.
The problem is the old pipes leading to the river were left in place. So, when it rains real hard, and the plants often can't handle the volumn of sewage and stormwater coming in, the old connections to the river take the over flow. Combined sewage and rainwater then are dumped into the river. So, now you know why state environmental agencies ban clamming in areas where these rivers meet the ocean. (Dog doo also contributes to this rain run-off issue). The CSOs are dumping raw sewage where shellfish can suck it up before we suck them down. Sorry for the imagery, but that's what happens. That's why environmental officials are so militant about shutting these clam beds during high rains.
Back to the point. The Greater Lawrence Sanitary District, which dumps secondary treated sewage into the Merrimack in Massachusetts, has been puzzling over how to get rate payers to finance some $30 million in CSO repairs the EPA wants made. Looks like they just got their answer: $185 million in stimulus funds. So, for those saying the stimulus package is excessive tax and socialized government, the money would have had to come from somewhere. Now we've got folks from Nebraska, who have been sucking up massive farm subsidies for the past century kicking something back to us folks in the North East.
Another point, if you will. The Merrimack River's Joppa Flats was once one of the nation's most productive clam flats. It produced a bounty of Ipswich clams a.k.a. softshell clams. Caution! tangential digression approaching. For anyone who has pounded down a few Howard Johnson-type fried clams, you should know this highway seafood staple originated with the Ipswich clam which, compared to the rubbery product most today know as fried clams, is incomparable. Backthe point. The Joppa clam flats, after producing poisonous clams for the past century, are now being considered for re-opening. However, the Merrimack Valley gets a lot of rain, so the Joppa Flats never quite make it open because of the CSO problem. This $185 million might change that. Then Nebraskans can see what a real fried clam tastes like. I'll take the big bellies, please.
Monday, June, 15, 2009
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Keds, the sneaker of record for the nation's blue-collar childhood memories is teaming up with Barney's of New York, the clothier of record for the nation's top 1 percent wage earners. What's this odd couple up to? Environmentally friendly sneakers. The collaboration has produced Keds green line of footware, so titled because the cotton is certified organic and the insoles are recycled.
A word about those agencies the USDA says are certified to certify items as organic. There are 54 different, non-governmental, likely non-profit, entities the government says can rule that a particular agricultural product is organic. Caution, personal anecdote approaching: I was touring an organic apple orchard in Maine when I noticed this white powdery substance on the ground. It was some form of pest or fungus control.
BAck to the point. Certified organic does not mean farmers are shaking the weevils out of their cotton bolls. They are spraying something on them. It's just that the certified organic “something” is deemed by any one of 54 different organizations as being better for the environment than the stuff that organization says is not organic. For your viewing pleasure we have a cotton boll weevil at right.
It begs the question: what sort of quality control is there in the certified-organic industry? That's not to take anything away from Keds and Barney's—they are also recycling the cardboard boxes the green sneakers come in. Making the world more aware of the importance of these issues, especially the top 1 percent, is as important, perhaps, as making sure your cotton really is organic. That said, spraying stuff on you plants, organic or otherwise, is probably not as good for the environment as not spraying stuff on you plants.
June 8, 2009
This press release was pulled this morning from the two-steps-forward-three-steps-back file. Ocean Lakes Family Campground In Myrtle Beach, S.C. announced its iCare program to reduce guest impact on the environment. The program provides plastic bags for campers to clean up after their pets and themselves. The bags are designed for markedly different contents but the message is the same: clean up after yourselves. While Ocean Lakes is quick to congratulate themselves on iCare, take a look at this aerial photo.
Ocean Lakes obliterated a serious section of sensitive barrier beach ecosystem. The Jackson Companies which owns Ocean Lakes specializes in outdoor recreational facilities like campgrounds and golf courses. Weighing the iCare program against the plants and animals The Jackson Companies has killed to cash in on outdoor recreation is an unpleasant equation. This is what Ocean Lakes would look like without the Jackson Companies.
On the other end of the spectrum this company deserves some praise. Apparently, they design software for scheduling meetings and conference calls, yet they instituted a tree planting program that is doubtless doing little for their bottom line. Ocean Lakes on the other hand is getting its guests to clean up its campground for free in the name of environmentalism. Tom Sawyer would be proud.
June 1, 2009
Since News By Nature has often keyed in on the subject of watersheds and inland discharges into open waters I tucked in this release my pal Joe Pal sent over about farms and watersheds. It's a little technical, but if anyone saw the piece 60 Minutes did on chicken farms on the DelMarVa Peninsula you might be tempted to plunge into some of these stats. Click on the “Watershed” link on the home page. Nice work USDA!
Wednesday, May 20
Here's something that hasn't hit the news. Apparently complying with Obama's emissions regulations is going to be more expensive in some areas than others. Kinda straight forward but the results, when they come out, should be interesting. Sorry, couldn't find a link so here is the text:
Geographical Disparities in Carbon Emissions and Political Leanings Assessed in New Analysis Highlights Challenges of Implementing National Climate Change Regulation CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 19 /PRNewswire/ -- In a report released Friday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, economist Michael Cragg of The Brattle Group and professor Matthew E. Kahn of the UCLA Institute of the Environment analyze how, absent mitigation, regulation for reducing greenhouse gas emissions will impose extremely different per capita costs across geographical regions in the United States. The study documents the resulting challenges faced by the Obama Administration in passing climate legislation and demonstrates an important set of constraints for economists to consider when making policy evaluations or recommendations.
Here's the weather channel's 2009 hurricane season forecast. It falls comfortably into the “no sleet” noncommittal sort of report we get every year this time.
This looks pretty cool. Apparently British scientists have found a way to kill algae blooms using ultrasound. These blooms are ruining nice swimming ponds like Lake Attitash on the NH/MA border. And it could be a boon for Redtide problems that have decimated New England's shellfish landings several times in the past few years. Problem is: what else gets killed by the ultrasound?
This is a 2005 redtide outbreak map. The redzone is where the algae has grow in dense enough to make clams poisonous. I milked this tide for about a half dozen stories. New England clammers milks it for several million in federal disaster grants. Wind and temperatures appear to play as large a role in these outbreaks as any other natural or man made factors.
Here's a piece about a young couple kayaking down the East Coast. Couldn't they take up motorcycle jumping instead? It's got to be safer. Just a few weeks back a kayaker died returning from the Isle of Shoals off NH and that not nearly the kind of open water these folks will face. At least not as much of it. Reminds me of a story I did for a Long Island paper about a 20-something kid with no sailing experience who got a an 18-foot sailing skiff and started sailing it down the coast from Maine. He departed Maine in October! On one hand I envied this kid, he was living life while I was writing about it. But the sea can be very unforgiving for thoughtless people.
That's for today folks Have a great day, outdoors if you can.
7/18 This just in from UMassLowell: you can get sick breathing others' germs. Is that why we cover ourmouths when we cough? In fairness to thescientists, there is a great deal of uncertainty regarding disease transmission. The work at UMass does more than confirm what was already widely suspected: illness can be transferred from one person to another through the air we breath. The research provides the hard numbers that let us know how easily such illnesses can be transferred. In this age of bird flu and Legionnaires disease to be properly preparedfor possible pandemics governments need hard science and not folk medicine if they are to prevent movies like "Outbreak" from becoming reality. To learn more, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is funding a series of studies about the germs in the air we breath and theeffectiveness of controlling them through wearing masks and such in areas where there are a lot of sick people around.
The Cape Ann Vernal Pond Team in Massachusetts announced a reinvigorated fund raising effort last week. Their timing is a little off: we're in the middle of a 
Might 
The
Imagine drinking recycled sewage? It's happening more and more these days and this 
Another study says London is one town where it might pay to go into a career in waste water. (Sorry, we lost the link) Apparently, London is supposed to start running real low on the wet stuff by 2025. Funny, how that date seems so far off. Even a drinking water shortage isn't important enough to be taken seriously when you have 15 years to fix the problem. And that might be why there are so many jobs in the industry now. Why do 
More 
Who could possibly care? Students. This is a wonderful resource for academia. But, can't we be a little more hopeful than that? Just suppose the Kansas City milkman wants to know if this global warming thing really is happening and has decided talk radio may not be the final word on this matter. (One can only hope.) He can go to this site and get the 
This 
This fellow is jumping the gun, assuming personal carbon credits will exist and is proposing a system to sabotage it under the guise of an environmental movement of some sort. His website will allow conservation minded folks to pair up with those less so and donate their as-yet undefined individual carbon credits in return for virtual friendship. Why would anybody who is willing to make the sacrifices involved in reducing the fossil fuels they burn be willing to then credit that sacrifice over to someone who doesn't give a darn about the environment? As perfectly senseless as this sounds, Carbontwin.com has some 750 
This 
Massachusetts has a new 
Here is 
Bottle water giant Nestle' is 
Chemical company Syngenta says 50 years worth of study confirms that its herbicide atrizine, is safe. Why release this news now, after it's been safe for 50 years? Because there is a new study out 
Hard to imagine anyone would deliberately release a fish from one lake into another, but that's how authorities in New Hampshire think a trophy 18-pound Northern Pike 
Every once in a while, doing the right thing gets a helping hand from the powers that be. In this case, the very ecologically sound practice of bathroom hand dryers is getting help from the recent swine flu scare, according to 
We'd also like to get our hands on the 21-year-old communications major who crafted this sentence: “Without provisions to account for GHG reductions associated with voluntary renewable purchasing by non-regulated sectors and to clarify the ownership of federal renewable energy certificates (RECs) within existing REC contracts these voluntary purchases could result in no carbon-reduction benefit and could be claimed by entities regulated under the legislation, something called double counting.” Please, someone introduce this person to the comma. Better yet, introduce them to spatula and a McDonalds. Sorry about running the same cartoon again. We did crop it a little.
Speaking of alternative energy, The NRDC is 
Just when you start to get optimistic that folks are starting to wake up to the environmental realities facing us, you come across something like this. The Army Corp of Engineers a few years back permitted limestone mining in 15,000 acres of the Everglades and the 
Here are some more pictures, from USGS. Spend some time on Google Earth to see what's become of so much of Florida's incredible nature resources. It's gone. Never come back. Now, the US government wants to whittle away more of it. For what? Spend sometime on this 
This is what quarries are converted into when they are exhausted. Do you really think condos on a man-made lake compare in ecological diversity to the Everglades before the heavy equipment arrived. Yet, the mining company deal provides for ecological restoration in exchange for permission to mine the 15,000 acres being eyed. Do we really want this kind of restoration. Couldn't somebody step in and say those Army Corps mining permits should be revoked? Take a look at the NRDC website and see if it doesn't merit a minute of your time to complain to EPA. Here is another 
This 
Look at left at the rather unappetizing glasses of blueberry and strawberry/rhubarb preserves left out for customers at The Farmers Diner in Quechee, VT. The stuff tasted great. In no small part because the diner makes great food. But more to the point, they didn't see the need to put the stuff out in those ridiculous little plastic containers. You want to end global warming? End the endless tide of ridiculous little plastic containers we keep putting our food, soap, toys, batteries and phones in. Editor's note: we recycled this image above of the plastic packaging for the Maximo mouse pad/phone. This is not a brand new photo, it's the one that appeared in NBN a few weeks ago. We also recycled the beach erosion images in 
If you thought the folks who went after Moby Dick had a dangerous job, think of what 
Seals are so cute. They've got those great, big black eyes, faces like puppy dogs. Who would have thought they'd present so many problems. First it was seals stealing striped bass right from fishermens' hooks. Now seals are being blamed for closing Cape Cod beaches. 
The growing number of seals off the Cape is bringing in great 
Now, their numbers are rebounding and so are the number of shark attacks on anything that looks like a seal swimming in the water. You can conjure up all sorts of sympathy for seals when you have Canadians clubbing them to make clothing.But, when people start dying in the digestive systems of fish for the sake of saving the seals, lets just say the seal could find itself with a bit of a public relations problem. Especially around
Anyone who has enjoyed baked weakfish with seafood stuffing, will weep at
On a similar subject, 
This is by-catch: note the number of species of fish. All were caught accidentally by a boat targeting another kind of fish. The real crime here is these fish often can't be sold, they have to be dumped overboard. Maybe, ther should be a penalty to pay for poundage of by-catch. The more by-catch you catch the more you have to pay for dumping it over. That's one way to make sure fishermen have a vested interest in how they catch fish. 
Here's is an absolutely disheartening 
We're living in the age of Ed Norton. The nightly foil for Honeymooners star Ralph Krandem generated plenty of laughs through his fictional job in New York City's sewers, but look who is laughing now. Google “Job Opportunities” and “waste-water” and this is what 
Outdoor life has this picture of a marlin in a
Here's another OL picture gallery of 
This just in from our Good Intentions Paving Materials department. If you've enjoyed the stellar weather in the nation's Northeast this past month, read below what the folks who live along a landfill in Newburyport, MA, have been dealing with. "the noxious smell that lasted all evening last night. My husband had to shut all windows during the night... I know [sic] have 2 sick kids this morning (headaches/nausea) which means I can't go to work today...This whole thing stinks... These emails go back and forth for every summer. Some are heartbreaking. 
A real quick check of the internet didn't find any other states with the same program Massachusetts passed. Why did Massachusetts pass it? Nobody has taken the time to track that information down. Who first proposed the policy? That person has a name. Who was his or her boss? Who were the elected officials who presided over any legislative changes needed to allow this dumping. Nobody has taken the time to find this out. Suggesting once again, if you want to find government corruption, the first place to look is in the trash. This a concrete dump at Crowlane landfill. Looks fairly harmless. It is. It's the oversight for who is dumping what at Crowlane, that's the problem. That, and an arguably ill-concieved government policy that allowed the dumping to start in the first place.
Apparently there were other casualties from Hurricane Bill this past weekend. New Hampshire law enforcement is 
A bottle of red or a bottle of white? What if you're feeling in a green mood tonight? In keeping with the theme today of unnaturally controlling natural plant and animal growth, we have
Walk through a vineyard near harvest time. It will make you think twice before uncorking your next bottle of Pinot Noir. It takes a lot of poison to discourage bugs and mold from taking over the endless supply of sweet, succulent fruit that burdens these vine this time of year. Apparently, these chemical controls don't hurt the flavor, but anything called Thiophanate-Methyl can't be too good for your liver. We give Dolans a Green-thumb UP. Nice glass of '09 copper sulfate, anyone?
Ten years ago, when the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority started pumping hundreds of millions of gallons of treated waste water into Boston Harbor it did so promising to monitor the environmental impact. Now, with money drying up, the 
Native American's were not the environmentalists, living in harmony with nature that Dance's With Wolves would lead you to believe, according to 
Killer seaweed in France? That's what French environmental officials are 
Tomatoes are dying on the vine this summer due to something called late blight. Late blight is a mold of sorts working its way up through the plant, eventually rotting the fruit. This Salem News 
NOAA is 
It's so easy to say things are so much worse now than they were in the good old days. It's a right-of-passage for us old folks. So, I spent last weekend on Long Island snorkeling in front of my childhood home determined to get a good idea how things really were compared to the good old days. I didn't want to just jump in, look around and say: “things are awful,” like I've done for the past 10 years. So, I spent several hours in the water over several days. Here's the prognosis. The wildlife underwater about 20 from the high-tide line isn't great in front of the house, but things looked better than they've seemed in the past. There was a surprising number of baby winter flounder, one pipe fish (sorta like a seahorse) and, most interestingly, there were a lot of tiny blowfish. I also saw a couple of bergals (kinda like a blackfish) hanging around the rock "garden" we've built over the years attempting to provide a rock free path to the sandy bay bottom about 40 feet from high tide.
Perhaps the lesson gleaned from the NOAA study and my prolonged anecdote is this: Nature will recover, and quickly, when it can. I refer you again to Weisman's book 
Sen. Pat Roberts is 
It's depressing to even have this 
Speaking of little known environmental issues, 
There's increasingly less room on this planet to accommodate these practices.The photo above is tiger farm tigers lounging around a pool. Seems like a good life. Until we get to harvest time. Sorry, had to include this shot. Actually, it's a lot tamer than the one we were going to use. If you can't make them out, it's tiger in cages prior to slaughter.
Back to the point. Fishermen are also getting real upset in Massachusetts over seals that are stealing stripped bass from hooks in the Merrimack River. Nobody is killing the seals, but would that change if they were fishing far offshore instead of at the mouth of the Merrimack River. It's wrong to paint all sportsmen with the same brush, some are extraordinarily skilled and very sensitive to their quarry's suffering. There is little quite as rewarding as venison stew prepared from an animal you've stalked and killed. But the cruelty illustrated here is another matter. It's the growing clash between man and nature. It's happening more and more and nature loses everytime. This is a picture of a dolphin that was shot in the Gulf of Mexico. What sort of fellow does this? I was on a boat with some one much like him. At the time, it didn't bother me that much. 
For those stimulus plan critics 
The problem is the old pipes leading to the river were left in place. So, when it rains real hard, and the plants often can't handle the volumn of sewage and stormwater coming in, the old connections to the river take the over flow. Combined sewage and rainwater then are dumped into the river. So, now you know why state environmental agencies ban clamming in areas where these rivers meet the ocean. (Dog doo also contributes to this rain run-off issue). The 
A word about those agencies the USDA says are 
BAck to the point. Certified organic does not mean farmers are shaking the weevils out of their cotton bolls. They are spraying something on them. It's just that the certified organic “something” is deemed by any one of 54 different organizations as being better for the environment than the stuff that organization says is not organic. For your viewing pleasure we have a cotton boll weevil at right.
This press release was pulled this morning from the two-steps-forward-three-steps-back file. Ocean Lakes Family Campground In Myrtle Beach, S.C. 
Ocean Lakes obliterated a serious section of sensitive barrier beach ecosystem. The 
On the other end of the spectrum 
This is a 2005 redtide outbreak map. The redzone is where the algae has grow in dense enough to make clams poisonous. I milked this tide for about a half dozen stories. New England clammers milks it for several million in federal disaster grants. Wind and temperatures appear to play as large a role in these outbreaks as any other natural or man made factors.
7/18
