Week 12 The ocean clean up (oops deleted! but retrieved)

My heroes are people who seem to have a build in drive for fixing the larger problems in this world. Those people are not hollywood stars, and while they can have money they don't seem to be motivated by it. They are often super smart and...daring.

Elon Musk is one. Recently another person has been Boyan Slat [it seems there may be something in having a slightly strange name]. Boyan is 19 years old and wants to clean the oceans of plastic - you know those giant garbage patches clogging up our aquatic ecosystems.

Boyan went scuba diving in Greece a few years ago and found more plastic bags than fish. It bothered him, but unlike everyone else he decided to do something about it. Instead of the ship with nets idea he thought building a stationary structure and letting the ocean move through it (since the major oceans have gyres - that is they move in a giant circular motion) this could collect the plastic - then a belt would lift the plastic out. Well it is a little bit more complicated than that but that is the general idea.

He postponed his engineering studies to work on this, crowd funding to work on the feasibility study with a large group helping him. Now the study is done, it is feasible. Now into phase II, another round of crowdfunding which is my contribution this week.

"To reduce the uncertainties, to optimize the design and to prepare for the actual implementation, The Ocean Cleanup now commences on the second phase of the project: the pilot phase.
Through a series of up-scaled tests, The Ocean Cleanup will work towards a large-scale and fully operational pilot in 3-4 years’ time. The series of tests will generate new data in a range of structural and physical topics. Furthermore, these up-scaling tests will serve as a platform for the engineering and oceanographic research groups, enabling them to immediately implement newly developed technology or testing equipment in a real-life environment"

https://fund.theoceancleanup.com

Week 13 Engineers without borders

Joined the local chapter pf EWB! The Boston professional chapter seems to be very active.

Very excited. Hope to volunteer a little this year. It would be nice to meet some new people who care about these issues.

Week 11 350.org

350.org was not my original plan for this week but it seems paypal does not like me and that is the only option for donation!!..

So, it is 350.org this week. I was going to get to 350, at a later time. It is another activist environmental group.

A couple years ago I went to Bill McKibbon's "math tour" essentially, finally, the scientist laid out a plan including a firm goal for carbon in our environment - at 350 ppm (actually less would be better - this is the limit), at the moment it is 400 ppm....More math...he explained that if the fossil fuel industry burns what it projects to do -  80-90 years from now this planet will essentially not be livable by humans due to a ~6 degree rise in temperature (we need to keep that rise < 2 degrees). However the fossil industry has included this future "burn" as part as its future earnings. Its is silly that all this fuel, currently in the ground, has an investment price on it.....guys, we may not be here to collect....certainly our grandchildren will not.

This ties into the divestment idea I mentioned in an earlier post.

Here is a proof of sorts...

Week 10 clean out!

This is giving as much to myself as anyone else. Therapy!

Over several days I spring cleaned with some help ;) and at the end there was a small pile of clothes and books and...other.

This week the clothes and books were dispatched (a lot more than shown below!)... hopefully some good will become of it.

Still have to figure out what to do with the other stuff....free on sidewalk possibly.

Week 9 Earthjustice

Another environmental activist organization. Decided to make use of the match available up to July 15th.

Earthjustice http://earthjustice.org/about is essentially an organization made up of...wait for the oxymoron...a group of lawyers concerned about the environment.

What caught my attention is that earthjustice is taking on the EPA for approving he use of a certain pesticide - sulfoxaflor. Sulfoxaflor is a type of neonicotinoid pesticide which are connected to colony collapse in Bees (there are other factors too including other types of pesticides..however). These pesticides also harm butterflies and possibly songbirds. Neonicotinoids have been banned in Europe. Banning them in the US is not only the right thing to do it is the smart thing to do.


Earthjustice has been successful at getting the EPA to disallow other pesticides for example, vinclozolin, which in lab tests showed "sexual behaviors of the offspring of the male rats exposed in utero were impaired"...sometimes I wonder about the EPA....but I will continue to hope especially if carbon trading becomes a reality.

I'd love to see the end of synthetic pesticides. Perhaps I yearn for some utopia, perhaps I am naive. A CSA farmer I know commented that pests on crops is most often a sign of poor soil or imbalance in the ecology. Our current farming practices are scary. Small farms produce much more food per acre than large "mono crop" farms. The system seems so wrong.

People are waking up to this (wholefoods!), mostly from the concern of what we put in our bodies rather than what we are doing to the environment, but really these two things go hand in hand.

Week 8 World Food Program Quiz

Good news, we have enough food in the world to feed everyone. So to help out this week I took a quiz on the World Food Program, in return they will feed a hungry kid for one year.

https://quiz.wfp.org/

Hunger kills more people than AIDS+Malaria+TB, and is prevalent most countries including the US. Here is the comment at the end of the Quiz..

"...
There is enough food today for everyone to have the nourishment needed for a healthy and productive life. The problem is access.
Thanks for taking the quiz!
....
"

week 7 Enviromental Defense Fund

Back to the environment and virtual tree hugging. I've previously supported EDF http://www.edf.org/ in years past but I'm taking advantage of a 2 for 1 match available at the moment.

It's a charity run by proactive scientists. Among other initiatives they lobby congress, its nice to have folks like this in Washington DC rather than the usual Bankers, Oil industry, Big Pharm....etc. In addition to lobbying they work in commercial markets also.

Success stories include fighting AB32 which was a California proposition that would curb the state carbon cap and trade. They also collaborated with Wal-Mart for safer chemicals in their products.

When I'm wondering how well a non-profit handles its money I check out Charity Navigator. EDF scores well.

Proof for this week