Tag Archives: environment

Texas gets Smaller

Interesting piece from McClatchy newspapers included on the Guardian online today, all about the dramatic change to the Texas coastline that will follow this latest hurricane.

Texas is of course famous for being huge, but also for having a highly developed coastline and generally a very polluted environment. And one of the changes that is mentioned in the article is the rising sea level, they quote an article in the journal Science:

global sea level rise of 31.5 inches by the year 2100 should be the assumption. The highest conceivable rise, they estimate, is 6.5 feet.

6.5 feet..? 2 meters in less than 100 years, at the most.

More disturbing changes for Texas, many of the important barrier islands were washed away during Ike, and other natural barriers have also taken a huge hit. This means the next storms will do even greater damage to places further inland, possibly places that are not prepared to deal with flood waters and dangerous winds.

If you read the article for yourself it gets into oxygen levels in the gulf of mexico, which are also a major point of concern.? Yet somehow since hurricane ike passed you don’t see the mainstream examining these issues and investigating how the coast is going to be OR not be re-enforced and restored in an environmentally sound way.? Much like in Louisiana, once again we are left wondering if there will even be a coastline in 20 years, and why is the federal government not preparing for this reality.

Later this week I’ll be back on this topic, only this time with a focus on the very grim recovery process in Haiti.

bm276 Mauritania, Greenpeace, and Bottom Trawling

I pay a visit to Greenpeace International to followup on what is going on with fishing rights in Mauritania.

bmtv89 The End of Agriculture in California..?

Eating green bean soup (made my mom’s style) and discussing Barcamp Munich in October, VlogEurope Budapest in November, and the larger issue of California’s Agriculture ceasing to produce significantly in the coming decades. That according to several reports about the environmental impacts of the large scale farming going on in certain regions of CA, as well as the global food market which will leave the state an unviable place in terms of costs and profit.? But this is just the initial glance, more research and reporting to come…

bmtv88 Your Lawn, Our Ocean

This video entry is to explain some recent goings-on as well as tell about a good friend who gave up growing a green lawn in suburbia. Around the same time he was telling me this, I had also visited the Jersey shore where there were reports of an dangerous explosion in the Jelly Fish population. The causes? Nitrogen from all the fertilizers people use on their lawns that washes into the ocean. Another cause, warm water from the Oyster Bay nuclear power plant nearby.

My focus here is more on the fertilizer and energy wasted on lawn care versus the price we pay collectively for the damage done to the environment.? This situation was very well illustrated by a recent edition of On Point from NPR.? Wherever you live, I encourage you to stop watering the lawn, stop fertilizing, take a stand in your everyday life and change this rediculous and dangerous suburban tradition.

RAN Video Recommendation

Still in mid conference mode. The Last Hope is going very smoothly and filled with good friends and new faces.? In the meantime I have a recommendation for you:

I’ve spoken in the past about RyanisHungry, Ryanne and Jay’s project dedicated to caputuring aspects of the “green movement” in a video blog. Well they’ve released another classic video, this time the focus is on the work of the Rainforest Action Network. Not only is the organization itself very interesting and doing important work, but the video itself is very produced… hence this recommendation.

Crazy New Jersey Beaches

Having been born and raised in New Jersey, I often take time to read through the Asbury Park Press feed, to have a look at what is goiong on in my homestate in the US.? And if you’re reading the Asbury Park Press, you’ll surely run into stories about the beaches of New Jersey, the subject of many a pop-culture reference, the “Jersey Shore”.

Among the things that fascinates me about the Jersey Shore in relation to the rest of the world, the issue of paying to use beaches – why should we and why shouldn’t we?

In some countries highways do not have tolls, they are paid for solely by your tax money, and that is how it is.? In many more countries, beaches are smiliar… kept clean and surpervised with the help of your tax dollars. Just as the street lights outside, the garbage collectors, the street sweepers, it is all publicly funded and accessible.

Yet the Jersey shore, being both a very free market American phenomenon, and also having strong roots in very extremist christian religious values (many beaches were founded by religious communities who wanted to create perfect little oasis communities following their interpretation of a book or a god), you either get communities that value free beaches and all the benefits they provide. Or you get those who believe strongly in the tradition of paying for using the beach, seeing beaches as an extra cost, a special circumstance, not to be compared with roads or garbage collection or other municipal services.? They also see beach fee’s as a way to raise money for cities and towns that are only able to make real profits a few months out of the year.

And so it goes that as you drive (and of course you have to drive in that culture) the Jersey coast, you will encounter all of this. Besides the free beaches, the cheap pay beaches and slightly more costly beaches. On all sides there are town leaders and citizens both complaining and praising.

Stepping back from that region of the world, you consider the other beaches of the US and the world. I’ve seen a decent number of places, well off and poor, and in either case you rarely hear talk of a beach as being somehow seperate from other public resources. Sure there could be private beaches belonging to hotels or clubs, I’ve seen some examples of that.? But otherwise it is a very interesting and perhaps concerning tradition in that part of the US – where people are raised to see a beach not as a public place, but as something more private or simply an extra that one must pay for.? While politicians and citizens look at access to the beach as something they can control and profit directly from.

And that is just one piece of the tattered and beloved Jersey shore puzzle.? I think I’ll go give it a visit next week.? My flight leaves in a few hours.