Prince Charles fuels his Aston Martin with wine
"It is certainly a vintage vehicle. And now Prince Charles’s beloved Aston Martin DB6 is running on vintage too. A nice little white from a vineyard in Wiltshire, to be precise. Aspart of cutting his carbon footprint, the prince has converted the38-year-old classic car – a 21st birthday present from the Queen – torun on […]
Eco Geek
The name says it all. These guys blog about green technology. Our attention was caught by a product review, an electric product producing compost in your apt. or house. Priced around $300, this product is a luxury—you can actually make compost in a 5-gallon pickle bucket (which you can usually get for free by asking […]
A win-win
Do you wonder what the quickest way to get to work might be? Here’s the 7th annual Commuter Challenge in New York City sponsored by Transportation Alternatives. Car, mass transit, and bike go up against each other: we check travel time, carbon footprint, and cost. Elizabeth Press of Streetfilms produced this. She’s also dabbling in […]
ABC News Covers Ocean Acidification
We were glad to stumble upon this report filed by Clayton Sandell for ABC News. The basics on ocean acidification in less than two minutes. Also amused to see corrosive becoming a meme, vis a vis seawater, hitting the mainstream.
Summer Streets in New York City
Regular readers know we don’t limit ourselves to direct reporting on climate change and ocean acidification. No, we gotta take ourselves into the open air sometimes and perk up. Here’s a great carbon-free option for doing just that. Courtesy Streetfilms.
US carbon-reduction goals won’t save coral
The Daily Green is reporting that US carbon goals won’t protect corals, according to a study published in Geophysical Research Letters. Chemical oceanographers Long Cao and Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution’s Dept. of Global Ecology have created a computer model which estimates levels of CO2 in the atmosphere threatening to the ocean environment. According […]
Sylvie Chantecaille at the IUCN World Conservation Congress
The Chantecaille family was well represented in Barcelona, with both mother (Sylvie) and daughters (Alex and Olivia) attending as delegates for the Marine Conservation Biology Institute (MCBI). Mrs. Chantecaille has led the way in leveraging the family’s international cosmetics business into a means of letting women know about marine conservation issues. She said: "We have […]
Olivia Chantecaille at the Oceans Pavilion in Barcelona
Olivia Chantecaille attended the roll-out of a gorgeous booklet called Gems of the High Seas at the Oceans Pavilion. Chantecaille Cosmetics, of which she is creative director, sponsored the booklet’s publication.Gems of the High Seas focuses on six beautiful and endangered regions of the ocean. Ms. Chantecaille said: "The strongest message that I’ve gotten from […]
Information for Action
Information for Action is an environmental website offering a couple of features: An easy-to-use automated lobbying service, allowing you to quickly send emails, letters or faxes to politicians and business leaders all over the world. An educational resourceexplaining the environmental issues, using words, images, maps, graphs,links, and offering solutions and a ‘What you can do’ […]
Our green aspirations
Click to Play Ben Kalina speaks briefly about our plans to produce a film with a small carbon footprint and a big educational footprint, while making art in the process. Yes, and when we’re finished with that, we’ll be balancing the U.S. budget and drinking to world peace. Thanks to Cameron Hickey from Pattern Films […]
Just before the IUCN World Congress
First day in Barcelona. I arrive in the morning, get oriented by the friend I’m staying with.He’s had the foresight to rent an apartment in the old city, walking distance from the harbor. Around 5 pm I go down to Port Vell to meet with Valérie Burgener of the IUCN Sailing to Barcelona Initiative. She […]
McCain weighs in on ocean health
John McCain has now stepped up to the plate presented by the Sciencedebate2008 folks. Hats off to them, by the way, for posing 14 questions to both U.S. presidential candidates.They’ve lined up the answers online, for maximum ease in comparing and contrasting. We of course went right to McCain’s answer on ocean health. FYI, the […]
A Sea Change at World Conservation Congress
We were delighted earlier this week by an invitation to screen the trailer for A Sea Change in Barcelona next month. The occasion is the World Conservation Congress, a four-yearly gathering sponsored by IUCN. They expect thousands of attendees from civil society, academia, and governments around the world. The structure is a four-day Forum, with […]
New species found in Australian reefs
Remember that tongue-eating fish we mentioned? And the dozens of other new species? See them in living color in this story from NTDTV. The species were discovered by an expedition mounted by the Australian Institute of Marine Science. Scientist JulianCaley says they never expected to find so many new species.It’ll take years just to name […]
Reunion Island Students at the IUCN Sailing to Barcelona Intiative
Click to Play Two charming students from Reunion Island talk about the importance of maintaining biodiversity. They were generous enough to speak with me in English; of course, they were much more comfortable in their native language (French, in case you didn’t know). I hope to post their commentary for the francophones among us soon. […]
Sailing to Barcelona
Our hats are off to those who can attend a conference and blog daily. We can only observe dumbfounded as we stumble into bed after a day and evening of screenings, discussions, serendipitous encounters, and hurried visits to email and that huge congress calendar. Luckily someone had the foresight to create a cheat sheet for […]
First US greenhouse gas auction
Yesterday the first carbon auction in the U.S. took place. But we don’t yet know what happened: that news will be released Monday. The auction was organized by a coalition of 10 northeastern states. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative was scheduled to begin online sales carbon credits, sales which would then continue on a quarterly […]
Tongue-eating animal lurks in coral
Exciting news this morning, along with the US government’s bail-out of the stock market, was the reporting on the finding of hundreds of new species in coral reefs right off the Australian coast. Evidently they’ve been under our noses this whole time, because the discoveries have been made in popular diving spots. The Age reports […]
Fraser River salmon returns at lowest ebb in 50 years
The Vancover Sun reports that sockeye salmon in the Fraser River are at their lowest count in 50 years. "The department [Fisheries and Oceans Canada] warned as long ago as December 2007 that this year’srun would be exceptionally weak, based on a low number of fish -521,000 – that made it back to spawning grounds […]
Fuel
We’d definitely like to see this: star power (Julia Roberts, Woody Harrelson, Sheryl Crow) plus humor (how many french fries does it take to run that thing?) plus scary facts plus solutions. We do wonder about biodiesel as the cure-all, but we don’t know if that’s what he’s proposing. We’ll just bide our time, see […]
Obama to Poland? Final invite from 350.org
We think 350.org is running a canny campaign. Can Obama really resist this invite? Want to send one of your own?
Holiday shopping
Oh, my goodness. We are so excited. Last weekend a friend was wearing an awesome T-shirt reading: "Plastic bags blow." And on the back: "BYOB. Bring Your Own Bag." We sourced them at ResusableBags.com. American Apparel. Organic cotton. Water-based ink. $4.95! We usually refuse to wear or give T-shirts with a slogan (though we made […]
Blue Vision Summit begins March 7, 2009
We just found out about this event and are definitely interested in supporting it in some way. Over and over again, ocean scientists, lawyers, and conservationists tell us that we know very little about the ocean and that ocean research is grossly underfunded. We’re also hearing repeatedly that we have very little time to learn […]
Valerie Burgener sums up Sailing to Barcelona
Click to Play Valérie Burgener was instrumental in coordinating the activities of Sailing to Barcelona, one of the initiatives of the IUCN World Conservation Congress. Here she sums up the successes of the initiative. One big problem: the boats were a 40-min. metro ride away from the bulk of the Congress activities (at the Forum). […]
What we don’t know about the ocean is most of it
We know nothing about the ocean, so we don’t care. Which means we don’t act to protect it. Here three ocean lovers discuss the pteropod (yes, our gorgeous old friend), and move on to our ignorance of the ocean. OliviaChantecaille is creative director for ChantecailleCosmetics and a major supporter of ocean conservation. Gwen Alston is […]