Entry bubble Save the Fish, Save the World!

By: Ginger | October 03, 2008 | Category: General

Marine lifeSome of the most exhilarating moments in my life have been in our world’s oceans. While snorkeling off Honduras, I watched a huge whale shark swimming in the distance below. As it began to surface directly towards me, I thought of the times I’d practiced speaking whale (like Dory in “Finding Nemo”) in the shower. I said, “Goooo baaaack whaaaale, don’t huuurt meeee”. I must be pretty fluent, because the whale shark gently avoided me. While scuba diving in Turks and Caicos, eight eagle rays swam by us in formation, turning in unison like a squadron of jets at an air show. Diving from a safety cage off the coast of Australia, I watched 20-25 sharks in an incredible feeding frenzy.

These experiences have given me an appreciation for our oceans and the diverse life they sustain. Global warming and the impacts of pollution on our oceans worry me, but it gives me hope to know that there are organizations studying and trying to protect our oceans.

Recently, two EPA staff members joined environmental scientists and the crew of EPA’s Ocean Survey Vessel (OSV) Bold to document science and research in action. Read their blog posts to get an in-depth look at what’s involved in protecting our waters.

The Ocean Observing System, is a network of people and technology from various federal, regional, and state organizations that work together to generate and distribute data on the nation's coastal waters, Great Lakes and oceans.

The NOAA is not only responsible for daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings and climate monitoring, but they are also responsible for fisheries management, coastal monitoring and supporting aquaculture.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a Coastal Program that provides incentives for voluntary protection of threatened, endangered and other species on private and public lands alike.

How can you help? Check out Fish Watch when buying fish to find out which fish populations are listed as sustainable. You can also follow these suggestions to help protect coral reefs. If you are considering a conservation career, check out Careers: Conserving the Nature of America.

So, do you think we are doing enough to keep our oceans viable and to prevent environmental disaster?

| View Comments [5] | envelope E-mail This Entry | Tags: conservation   environment   ginger   marine   oceans   resources  

 

Entry bubble Bald Eagle Status

By: Jake | July 14, 2008 | Category: Travel

Thanks to Jim for posting last week while I was on vacation. I spent some time exploring the Pacific Northwest and from the comfort of my hotel balcony I witnessed our national bird in action. Bald Eagle on a Pole

One morning I noticed a blackbird attacking a bird sitting on an old dock post. I thought it was a heron, and my girlfriend suggested since the bird was shorter and had a beak and legs smaller than a heron, it might be a bald eagle. She was right, as you can tell from our photographic evidence.

It didn't really cross my mind that we were looking at a bald eagle at the time because when I was a kid the only place I had seen a bald eagle was the zoo. The Pacific Northwest has a large population of bald eagles, but they are making a huge comeback in the rest of the U.S. I know there is a pair of bald eagles nesting here in Alexandria, and my brother tells me he spots them on occasionally when he's driving in Eastern Virginia.

It's hard to believe that in 1782, when the United States adopted the bald eagle as a national symbol, there were as many as 100,000 nesting pairs of bald eagles in the nation. In 1967 that number was down to 417 due to shooting, habitat infringement and the use of DDT pesticide. This is why that same year the Department of Interior began to protect all bald eagles south of the 40th parallel under the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966.

Eagle on the sandBy 2006 there were approximately 10,000 nesting bald eagle pairs and the Department of Interior took the birds off the federal list of threatened and endangered species in July 2007 with a promise to monitor the status of the species. Of course we are not back to the 100,000 pairs yet and the recovery process is delicate. By March 2008 DOI had returned bald eagles in the Sonoran Desert of central Arizona to the federal list of threatened species and the birds also grace a number of state-level threatened and endangered species lists. Still I'm happy to know that you don't have to go to the zoo to see a bald eagle anymore.

| View Comments [8] | envelope E-mail This Entry | Tags: bald_eagle   birds   conservation   jake   threatened_species  

 

Entry bubble Go Green: Tips for Conserving Water

By: Sam | January 09, 2008 | Category: Home and Family

While many of you were dreaming of a white Christmas, I think most folks in the Southeast were hoping for a rainy one.  With many states facing one of the most severe droughts in history, any amount of precipitation would be a welcome change to the sunny, blue skies.

Since the drought affects many of my loved ones, I have stayed up-to-date on the conditions thanks to USA.gov.  I can check the local drought forecasts, get weekly drought monitor maps, and calculate how much precipitation it would take to end the current drought conditions in the next three months.  For much of the Southeast and parts of California, it would take 18 to 21 inches of rain! 

At drought.gov, I can get recent news related to the drought as well as impact reports from media, observers, and other sources.  These reports are searchable by state and county, category of impact (environment, agriculture, social, etc.), and time period.  They are also a real eye-opening read on how the drought is affecting individuals and communities from job loss to wildfires to sparse crop growth. 

One positive that has resulted from the drought is the need to be more conscious about conserving water.  While I was home for the holidays, my Mom had to gently remind me to take shorter showers and to turn the water off while brushing my teeth.  To help encourage folks, the state of Georgia has put together a great website, ConserveWaterGerogia.net, which is full of useful tips on conserving water at home, school, and work.

Here’s a few to help get you started:

  • Wash only full loads of laundry and dishes.
  • Fix leaking faucets and toilets.
  • Turn off lights when you’re not in the room since energy is produced using large volumes of water.
  • Don’t overwater your lawn.  Lawns only need to be watered every 10 to 14 days in the winter.
  • Avoid over fertilizing your lawn.

You can also find creative ideas for saving water such as collecting rainwater with rain barrels and test your WaterSense with the EPA’s new interactive online quiz.  And for more helpful advice and resources checkout thedailygreen.com.

| View Comments [3] | envelope E-mail This Entry | Tags: conservation   drought   green   usa.gov   water  

 

Entry bubble You Light Up My Life

By: Sommer | September 28, 2007 | Category: Home and Family

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, if every household in the United States replaced just ONE regular incandescent light bulb with an Energy Star approved compact fluorescent bulb (CFL) we’d save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.  Now that’s all well and good, but come on, let’s be realistic here. How does that really apply to you and me?

I used the Energy Department’s lighting cost calculator* to see how much money my family might save if we replaced all our light bulbs with CFL’s. I tried to do a rough count in my head and I think we have around 25 light bulbs in our townhouse. So, after the cost of new light bulbs (estimated at $3.50 each) we’d save about $134 in the first year.

Now, I have to be honest that I was a little disappointed by that small dollar amount. Especially since we live in a housing co-op and split our utility bills with the other 159 homes in the neighborhood. Our family won’t directly see any of the benefit so what’s the use, right? There has to be a way we could save some money from this, though, so next I calculated the cost difference if all 160 homes in our community replaced their estimated 25 incandescent bulbs with new CFL’s, too. If everyone changes their bulbs we’re bound to see a difference, right? Right! After the first year, our co-op would save more than $35,000 just in electric bills!!! Now that seems like a bargain! Even if the co-op coughed up the money and purchased all 4,000 CFL’s for the homes to make sure everyone switched them out we’d still save around $21,000 the first year. Even better, over the estimated 6,000 hour lifetime of the 4,000 CFL’s we’d save $158,000! And that’s just in our little corner of Falls Church, VA. Imagine the impact we’d have if all 100 million households in the U.S. chipped in and did their part. The results would be astounding – maybe even $600 million dollars!

*The calculator is a Microsoft Excel document so if you don’t have Excel you won’t be able to open the link.

| Post a Comment | View Comments [20] | envelope E-mail This Entry | Tags: conservation   energy   home   money   sommer