Solutions
josh donlan | June 9, 2008Peter Barnes, founder of one of the first social businesses - Working Assets - is full of good ideas. And people are starting to notice. His most recent book Capitalism 3.0 builds on his previous book Who Owns The Sky, which lays out a public trust model for public goods - like the sky and the carbon (and other pollutants) that enter it. His model works much like oil in Alaska: the oil belongs to the citizens of Alaska and thus every year they get a check for it. Well, the sky belongs to you and I, so those who want to spew carbon into it, should do so responsibly and pay for it. And that…
rolson | June 2, 2008I put together this short video of yesterday's departure of Junk Raft. An amazing fellow showed up for the festivities--Redondo Beach resident Don McFarland who in 1958 sailed a similar sized raft along the same course from LA to Hawaii with three other men. Two of them were mormons and did it to prove their idea that Hawaii could have been colonized from America. He said anthropologists at the Bishop Museum had recently said there was simply no way indigenous people from North America could have crossed the distance. It took them 69 days at sea, but they proved them wrong (and he said…
rolson | May 28, 2008Environmentalism needs what Dr. Marcus Eriksen is embarking upon this Sunday.
When I first saw the photo of their raft, I balked. I thought to myself "Doesn't that look a little risky?" and "What if the raft should be lost at sea?" So I sat down with him and asked ten simple questions addressing my concerns. What I concluded is that this project is about what's most essential to the success of environmentalism, which is "the human spirit."
You can organize all the workshops, conferences, protests, get togethers and beach walks you want, but to truly motivate people, you have to have an…
jjacquet | May 21, 2008This month, WIRED magazine offers 10 green heresies, such as the suggestion to buy conventionally grown foods over organic ones and to embrace nuclear power, to save the planet. I certainly support their efforts to bring attention to some fallacies of the green-marketing movement (the authors suggest, for instance, buying used cars over hybrid vehicles) but I also realize, once again, that one needs a Ph.D. in ethical consumption to be a proper environmentalist these days. Furthermore, many of their suggestions focus superficially on energy/carbon issue while ignoring other issues, such as…
rolson | May 19, 2008A six-week drift to Hawaii will call attention to plastics in the sea
Yesterday Dr. Marcus Eriksen, his expedition partner Joel Paschal, and their land-based support coordinator (and fiancee of Dr. Eriksen) Anna Cummins took the newly built "Junk Raft" on a trial run to Catalina and back. All systems are go, so they're now scaling up for the big departure on Sunday afternoon, June 1, at 3:00 p.m. from the Long Beach Aquarium. If all goes according to plans, about six weeks later they should land on the Big Island of Hawaii. It's a straight shot over, mostly along the 25th parallel, just…
jjacquet | May 19, 2008A couple weeks ago, Greenpeace invaded the Brussels Seafood Expo and hung signs calling attention to the dismal state of tuna fisheries. Just a week later, Greenpeace-USA announced its forthcoming publication that ranks U.S. supermarkets in terms of procuring sustainable seafood. This is an analogue to the U.K. campaign that has so far been one of my favorite market-based seafood initiatives (read about it here) because it uses negative messaging to affect reputation.
Last week, I spoke with Greenpeace-USA's John Hocevar, who is spearheading the U.S. initiative. He revealed Greenpeace's…
jjacquet | May 14, 2008Polar bears are threatened with global climate change and, in recognition of this, were just listed as 'threatened' under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Read more here.
jjacquet | May 12, 2008On any given day, the world's fleet of ships are carrying billions of tons of ballast water with up to 7,000 different invasive species as stowaways. About one in every ten of these is likely to be a problem if it's introduced into a new ecosystem, which is why the United Nations has listed "invasive species" discharged from ballast water as one of the top four threats to marine ecosystems globally. In the Mediterranean Sea, for instance, a new species has been recorded every four weeks. More than 400 introduced species now make their home in a Sea that has (or had) one of the highest…
jjacquet | May 7, 2008We know fishmeal has problems. After posting an article back in January on the potential for bugmeal to replace fishmeal in farmed fish production, several readers asked some hard questions and wanted more information. I like readers to get what they want, so I spoke with Dr. Lou D'Abramo, who has a doctorate from Yale University and has been working to create more sustainable aquaculture systems for freshwater prawns. He is also the lead scientist studying how striped bass are responding to insect meal at Mississippi State University and got encouraging results. I pointed Dr. D'Abramo…
jjacquet | May 5, 2008That's all there is to it. Check out the 60 Minutes profile on him that aired last night:
jjacquet | April 15, 2008Plastic bags have some desirable traits. They require less energy and water to make than paper bags. Their impermeability means that they won't become a gooey, soggy mess over a little rotten egg. But the very thing that makes plastic bags so attractive must also make them an environmental catastrophe.
The problem with plastic bags is that they are made of plastic, which can take more than 1,000 years to biodegrade, has a number of ill effects on human health, and, as litter, can kill seabirds and other marine life. Plus, there are just too many of them (check out this bibliography on…
josh donlan | April 8, 2008Here's one for all you beachcombers out there. The organization COASST (Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team) is busy establishing a baseline on a beach near you. And they want your help.
COASST is a partnership between volunteer members of the general public and academic scientists. Carefully trained volunteers walk the same stretch of beach each month, collecting data on beach-cast seabird carcasses, as well as debris, humans, dogs, vehicles, and oil. The data are sent to a University of Washington lab where they are vetted for accuracy and added to a central database. COASST makes…
josh donlan | April 6, 2008Paper or plastic? You know the drill. Well if you live in Seattle, you might want to throw those cloth bags in your trunk so you won't forget them. Otherwise...it will cost you. Seattle mayor Greg Nickels put forth a proposal that would charge Seattle shoppers a 20-cent "green fee" for every new paper or plastic bag. A similar program in Ireland reduced disposable bags by 90 percent. Clearly, the mayor understands what incentives many Americans respond to. And of course, the green fee will make a handy revenue stream for the city. Even better, revenues will be used to distribute free usable…
jjacquet | April 1, 2008Imagine a verdant eight hectares of native Galapagos plants and a misty overlook of a bay dotted with boats.
Imagine fresh lemons, oranges, grapefruit, papaya, pineapple, guava, passionfruit. Imagine yuca, sweet potatoes, corn, beans. lettuce, carrots, beets, radishes, and tomatoes. Then imagine losing half of this crop to Galapagos bugs and birds. Imagine trading bananas for locally-caught fish.
Imagine fresh eggs. Fresh water. Fresh coffee. Fresh compost, including human waste. And an $8 bill for electricity.
This is the life for Scott Henderson (Regional Director of Marine Conservation…
josh donlan | March 30, 2008The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that 25-30% of plant species will be extinct or endangered in the next century. Any way you cut it - that is a very bad thing. Many of those plant species will be crops - food we eat. Some of you may have caught the announcement of the "Doomsday Vault" in the news recently: a vault located 600 miles south of the North Pole on a Swedish Island designed to safeguard seeds from climate change, wars, and other on-coming disasters.
The icy island of Spitsbergen is home to about 2,000 miners and researchers. In a few years, it will be also…
josh donlan | March 11, 2008You can now contribute to the study of climate change by reporting on the trees and plants in your backyard. Project BudBurst is a national field campaign for citizen scientists designed to engage the public in the collection of important climate change data based on the timing of leafing and flowering of trees and other plants. BudBurst participants take careful observations of the phenological events such as the first bud burst, first leafing, first flower, and seed or fruit dispersal of a diversity of trees and other plants, including weeds and ornamentals. Scientists can use this data to…
jjacquet | March 7, 2008Lost, derelict fishing gear as old as 60 years continues to 'ghost fish' and kill lots of marine life across Washington State's Puget Sound all for the sake of nobody. At the American Fisheries Society meeting of the North Pacific International Chapter I attended this week, Ginny Broadhurst the Northwest Straits Initiative spoke on a great project working to remove this web of derelict fishing gear from the waters of Puget Sound. So far, the group has recovered 1286 derelict crab pots and 679 nets. Most of the nets they find are gill nets, which drift and kill fish and other animals until…
jjacquet | March 4, 2008Want to Save a Coral Reef? Bring Along Your Crochet Hook--that's the title of an article in today's New York Times on how the Wertheim sisters are recreating an environmental version of the AIDS quilt. So far, their cochet coral reef spans over 3,000 square feet. Check out more photos of their woolly reef here.
jjacquet | March 1, 2008You might have noticed the new face here at Shifting Baselines along with the new banner (more on that soon) and, in just a little while, lots of new content. Just one month shy of Shifting Baselines' one year anniversary at SEED's ScienceBlogs, we're branching out--expanding our blogging team and the application of the shifting baselines syndrome.
Dr. Josh Donlan joins the blog with an expertise in altered terrestrial ecosystems and a penchant for all things Pleistocene. Don't worry, ocean lovers, Josh also knows a thing or two about the marine environment. In fact, I first met Josh when…
jjacquet | February 25, 2008It's not suprising that the only place you'll find a title like Endless Ocean is in the virtual realm. Endless Ocean was released last year for Nintendo Wii. In the game, players go diving to all sorts of nooks and crannies seeking wildlife and treasure (the game-makers made everything benign--you won't run out of air, get entangled in a cave dive, and even the sharks don't bite). I never thought I'd find any video game inspiring, but this one just might provoke support for the oceans among a very unlikely demographic...