Happy Earth Day!

Commonly used Earth Day flag. Source: Wikipedia.

April 22 is celebrated as Earth Day in the United States. (In the rest of the world, the March equinox is chosen.) Please use this day to reflect on our planet, our relationship with it, and how our species can exist in harmony with other lifeforms. Help to ensure our children and their children will be able to enjoy our home.

Make every day Earth Day.

Seafood Watch Helps Consumers Choose Sustainable Seafood

An article in last month’s Scientific American, “Fishing Blues” highlights the problems that fishing poses for our marine life. As Earth’s population swells in both number and appetite, our fishing takes its toll through various harms, from overfishing to habitat destruction. And in addition to the inherent loss of losing biodiversity, this will have major impacts on humans — whether from simple shortages to far-reaching effects of damaged ecosystems.

Governmental regulations are important, but the most powerful force is that of the consumer. By choosing what to buy and what to avoid, consumers set the priorities for the industry. Clearly, eating sustainable vegetarian food in lieu of seafood or other animals is preferable, when possible. But for those times when one does wish to eat seafood, the Scientific American article points out a useful resource: Seafood Watch (www.seafoodwatch.org, Wikipedia), a program run by the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

You can browse through different seafood or search for the one you want. For different areas of the U.S., they have regional guides categorizing common seafood into best choices, ones to select with caution, and ones to avoid. PDF pocket guides are available as well. (You can also access a streamlined mobile version at http://mobile.seafoodwatch.org/.)The tricky aspect, though, is that the same fish can be sometimes be a good or bad choice, depending on where or how it was caught. For instance, U.S. mahi mahi is a good choice, but not necessarily from elsewhere in the world (due to U.S. policies regulating its fishing). This means that you will have to look at labels at markets or ask your server at restaurants to determine if a certain menu item is a responsible item or not. If your server doesn’t know, ask him or her to ask the chef, and if the origin still can’t be reliably determined, select something else. If people keep asking questions, perhaps next time they’ll make sure they know where their seafood comes from.

Seafood Watch also has a lot more information, including highlighting which fishing practices are harmful and why, and other actions you can take.

Earth Hour is Today! Google Gets Involved, Too

Google changes its background color to black in observation of Earth Hour 2008.

Today is Earth Hour! If that time hasn’t already passed for you, please remember to turn off your lights from 8–9 p.m. today. And even if it has passed, please remember that, ideally, this should be part of an overall energy-conserving lifestyle. Plan for regular periods of very low energy use, and learn how much you can do even with turning some things off.

And in case you missed it, Google has redesigned their home page for today. They’ve changed their color scheme to use a dark background. In my memory, this is unprecedented. I have never seen them take up an initiative like this, and while I have seen them change their logo on numerous occasions, I do not recall them ever changing their whole color scheme like this. I am really impressed that they did this—they have the potential to reach so many people and what a great way to really call attention to Earth Hour. Of course, they have a long history of supporting environmental projects. They include a prominent link explaining their support of Earth Hour so anyone will be able to read about why they’re doing this.

Canada’s Seal Hunt is Deplorable

My sister alerted me to Canada’s annual seal hunt. From what I’ve been able to find out, it seems cruel and unnecessary. Seals are either shot or clubbed to death, primarily for the fur. Killing mammals for food is one thing, but killing them for their fur seems ludicrous. Even more disappointing is that the Canadian government shows no sign of restricting it or banning it; in fact, they raised the “quota” of allowable kills this year.

Please read about it at the site of the Humane Society of the United States. They have ways to help, including contacting the Canadian or U.S. government, and participating in a boycott of Canadian seafood.

Mind Map: Solving Global Warming

I came across this neat mind map with a cool way of visualizing various strategies to combat global warming:

Source: Live the Solution. See full-size version.

This mind map was created by Sharon Genovese, founder of an anti–global warming group called “Live the Solution”. The mind map, as well as several others, are featured in her free e-book Global Warming: A Mind Mapper’s Guide to the Science and Solutions (PDF, 5 MB / 103 pages).

3,650 Days

It can be difficult to motivate people to take action to preserve the environment, so I always enjoy seeing especially well-made videos or graphics. Here’s one from MTV Switch, MTV’s international global climate change campaign.

(Thanks to La Marguerite!)

Earth Hour 2008: Turn off the lights for one hour on 29 March

On 31 March last year, the city of Sydney, Australia, turned off its lights for one hour. Coordinated by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) Australia, “Earth Hour” drew participation from individuals, businesses, and major landmarks such as the Sydney Opera House. The goal of the event was to raise awareness of climate change and demonstrate simple ways to reduce energy usage.

This year, WWF is making it a planet-wide campaign. Major cities such as San Fransisco, Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix, Toronto, Tel Aviv, Copenhagen, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, and Christchurch are joining Sydney this year in darkening non-essential lights. And you can join in, too!

Earth Hour’s web site has suggestions on how to get involved. First, turn off your lights from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. (local time) on 29 March. Also, spread the word! Involve your friends and family. Bloggers, do what you do best. You can also encourage local businesses to take part, and even work to involve your town or city.

If you are interested, please sign up and pledge your support!

ACTION NEEDED: Senate Rejects Civil Liberties Checks, Grants Telecoms Immunity

It’s shocking that it’s come to this, but the United States Senate has just passed S. 2248, giving telecommunications companies immunity from lawsuits despite their illegal provision of call information and content (that is, cooperating with warrantless eavesdropping). The only barrier now is the House of Representatives, and President Bush is placing considerable pressure on them to accede, stating he will not agree to extending the current surveillance law (which expires Saturday). Please read the New York Times piece by Eric Lichtblau for more information:

President Bush strongly urged the House of Representatives on Wednesday to quickly approve a surveillance bill passed by the Senate Tuesday evening, saying he would not agree to a further extension of the current eavesdropping law. The president effectively gave the House a deadline to act, since the current authority to intercept telephone conversations or electronic communications expires at midnight on Saturday.…

The president’s remarks came the morning after the Senate handed the White House a major victory by voting to broaden the government’s spy powers and to give legal protection to phone companies that cooperated in President Bush’s program of eavesdropping without warrants. The immunity for the phone companies is the key difference between the Senate bill and the one passed by the House last year. The president said that without that protection, American telecommunications companies would face lawsuits that could cost them billions of dollars. Without the protection, he said, “they won’t participate, they won’t help us.”…

(read full article)

This is a bad thing, and continues along a very dangerous path where our civil liberties are increasingly restricted. Why is this bad? The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects us against unreasonable search and seizure and provides that warrants should be issued based on probable cause. The rule of law is supremely important; granting retroactive immunity to people who have willfully broken the law undermines the rule of law. And placing the President or governmental organizations above the rule of law allows for unchecked power.

Please contact your representative and urge him or her not to approve retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies. It’s easy to do. You can contact your respresentative through the House of Representatives web site. If you are unsure who represents you, it’s still easy: Look up your ZIP+4 code at the United States Postal Service web site. Then, enter it at the House of Representatives web site and you will be taken to the web site of your representative. For an even easier approach, you may send a message through the ACLU’s web site (if you use this option, please modify the text as the Senate has now passed the bill in question.)

For more information about why this is bad and for arguments you can use, please see the some points from the ACLU and The Daily Awesome. Also, if you would like to see if your two senators voted for or against this disturbingly broad bill, please see the roll call at the Senate’s web site.

When are we going to draw the line? At what point do we replace fear of foreign enemies with fear of our own government?

More on the Environmental Costs of Eating Meat

See full-sized image or accompanying article. Credit: Bill Marsh/New York Times.

An article in the New York Times last week further explores the costs that consuming animals has on the environment. (Please see also my previous post, “Vegetarianism vs. Meat-Eating and Global Warming”.)

Here’s a short excerpt:

…But consider: an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation. To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius. …

The only way we can make environmentally friendly changes is to be informed of the impacts those choices will have. This thought-provoking article helps to show just how our food choices can drain resources and contribute to pollution in varying amounts.

So if you’re thinking about purchasing a more fuel-efficient car or trying to think of what else you could do to help the planet, cutting back on meat is another option. In addition to the obvious health benefits and improvements in animal welfare, you can now add conservation of water, ameliorating climate change, and numerous other factors to reasons to reduce your consumption of meat.

(Thanks to my sister for sharing this article with me.)

Google to Invest Hundreds of Millions of Dollars in Alternative Energy

From Reuters:

Google Inc is prepared to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in big commercial alternative-energy projects that traditionally have had trouble getting financing, the executive in charge of its green-energy push said on Wednesday.

The Internet search giant, which has said it will invest in researching green technologies and renewable-energy companies, is eager to help promising technologies amass scale to help drive the cost of alternative energy below the cost of coal.

(continued)

It’s nice to see private groups getting involved like this.