“The Lorax” is a great book and film designed for all ages. Please read the book or see the film.
A Great Solution for New Orleans
A few weeks ago I had the chance to visit New Orleans, Louisiana or NOLA as it is affectionately called. It was fun to walk around the French Quarter and hear all of the live street music and gaze at some of the beautiful French and Spanish architecture. I also enjoyed the warm weather and riding on the old trolley cars. New Orleans has a rich history, being founded by the French and then ruled by the Spanish for 40 years. It was not until 1803 that it was bought by the United States.
New Orleans is well-known for Mardi Gras, and the carnival season of more than 60 parades, music, dances and hundreds of private parties which precede it. Mardi Gras is French for Fat Tuesday, and carnival, from Latin, means farewell to flesh. Carnival season begins on January 6th and ends on Fat Tuesday (which falls 46 days before Easter).
While I can appreciate a great parade, good music and dance, I am dismayed by all of the waste created by millions of plastic beads, drinking cups, and food containers. It ends up everywhere –on trees, in bushes, on fences and in the water. Scientific reports have already warned us of the dangers of plastic. Plastic water bottles leach off toxins into the very water we drink. And eventually, plastic ends up in the stomachs of the very fish we catch and eat. Plastic can cause cancer, birth defects, infertility, obesity and impaired immune function. It is time for New Orleans to change its ways. One solution would be to put a 5 cent charge on water and soda bottles, and start recycling. Another solution would be for New Orleans to totally ban plastic bags, like Mexico City. Come on New Orleans, it is time to reduce your waste!
Why are Bobcats, Coyotes, and Owls Are So Amazing?
Did you ever marvel in wonder at an owl’s ability to completely turn its head around? I always have. Owls can turn their heads almost 360 degrees –to be exact they can turn their heads a maximum of 270 degrees. Or did you know bobcats are excellent swimmers? When you think of cats you probably think of domestic cats, most of whom do not dare to swim. And what about coyotes, did you know they like fruit and vegetables? They do.
Animals mean so much to many of us and through the help of my blogs, my goal is to help you to see new ways of looking at things or get involved in protecting the precious few animals which remain on the Earth. I have already told you, we are in the midst of one of the greatest extinctions on the planet. Each day we lose large mammals in the ocean and on land. And I just heard that bobcats, coyotes and owls are suffering and dying on the west coast, in California, because of certain rat poisons. Sadly, many neighborhoods in the Santa Monica area are using second generation toxic poisons to control rat populations. The poisons are toxic because they are making their way up the food chain. They kill the rats but also kill the animals which eat the rat carcasses And that means bobcats, coyotes, and owls are dying. As Julie Schowitz, resident of Newbury Park put it, “the insanity of it all is that in trying to wipe out rats they are killing the very animals that keep rat populations under control.” The poison causes deathly internal bleeding and destroys precious, intelligent, and beautiful creatures.
Our behavior can have such devastating effects on animals and others. Please, think about your actions and the lives of those around you. Your decisions spread far and wide, and have life or death consequences.
I wish for you…video
Here is a beautiful video with Jeremy Irons .
Sea Lions – update
I am sharing some of the words from a blog I wrote last year because I just heard some news about the sea lions off the coast of California.
A couple of years ago I had the chance to sit at the Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco and watch the sea lions. They made me laugh with their antics. They bark very loud if one invades the other’s space yet don’t seem to mind sitting all squished in alongside one another. And they appear to delight in the attention of the humans watching them. Did you know? Approximately 300,000 sea lions live between the Mexican border and the state of Washington.
Young starving and dying sea lions are again turning up on the shores of California and it looks like the numbers will be similar to last year’s total which was quite bleak.
Normally, sea lions eat squid and sardines. Yet the warmer ocean is pushing those prey deeper beneath the ocean’s surface. In fact, the ocean is up to five degrees hotter. This means sea lion mothers must go further for food. And it means their pups are left alone for longer periods of time than usual. Weakened and devoid of sustenance, the pups wash ashore.
Animal rescue shelter employees and volunteers are rushing to save the sea lions. Unfortunately, they cannot save all of them. Often, they must leave some sea lions on the beach because they do not have space to take them. It is like leaving injured patients at an accident scene because there is not enough room at the hospital.
This is the fourth year in a row for a high number of sea lion pups to die or be stranded. The death number was so high in 2013 that experts declared it an “unusual mortality event” for the species. 2015 was also high. Perhaps you would like to donate money to a marine mammal rescue center or volunteer to help the sea lions. You can also help by reducing your carbon footprint. Make a difference, time is running out.
Nature’s Value
An Ocean Full of Plastic?
Plastics, they are everywhere –we type on keyboards made from them , we drink and eat out of bottles and plates made from them and we use them for cars and all sorts of things. Gone are the days where people like my grandparents used glass bottles and plates, and where cars were composed mostly of metal.
The use of plastic has increased by twenty times in the last 50 years and is expected to double again in the next 20 years. That is staggering. What saddens me the most is that our oceans, by 2050, will contain more plastic in terms of weight, than fish. Whales, dolphins, seals, and sea-birds end up eating the plastic and then die from intestinal blockages, choking or starvation. I once met a beautiful seal at an animal hospital. Her stomach was so full of plastic things that 22 days went by before all of it was out. Fortunately, she was one of the lucky seals, she was saved before it was too late.
Is there any good news? We can work together to produce less waste and slow climate change. Plus, we can make sure we recycle our plastics. Almost one-third of all plastic never gets collected and ends up in our oceans. We can also change how we manufacture things. Instead of plastic we can use hemp. It can be used to make containers and in car production. As I wrote in an earlier blog, hemp is also biodegradable.
Let’s get together and stop using plastics. Our oceans will thank you and so will the animals in them.
A Great Way to Mitigate Climate Change
You often hear that we need to reduce our carbon emissions from fossil fuels to fight climate change. While that is true, we have another way to reach our goals. It is easier and less expensive to save and regrow tropical trees. According to Nature Climate Change, tropical forest conservation and restoration could make up half of the global warming solution.
Cutting carbon emissions and pulling carbon out of the atmosphere (courtesy of rainforests) would significantly reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. According to Dr. Paul Salaman, “the potential of rainforest conservation to address global warming should be enough to galvanize massive worldwide rainforest conservation efforts.”
Dr. Salaman also said “rainforest conservation is also incredibly economical. One acre of Amazon rainforest in Peru, which stores up to 180 metric tonnes of CO2, can be protected for just a few dollars; the same is true elsewhere in Latin America and Africa…for the cost of …a coffee – each of us could save an area of forest about the size of four football pitches and safely store about 725 metric tonnes of CO2. To put this in perspective, the annual emissions of a typical passenger vehicle in the United States is less than 4.5 metric tonnes of CO2.”
Another reason to conserve the rainforests is for the animals. They provide homes for orangutans, elephants, tigers, and many other species. It is time to start saving and protecting our rainforests. They are the key to our future.
Check if Your Favorite Celebrity is on This List
There are nine celebrities who are advocating for climate action.
They are listed below, in no particular order.
Robert Redford
Pharrell Williams
Emma Thompson
Mark Ruffalo
Jessica Alba
Don Cheadle
Ian Sommerhalder
Leonard DiCaprio
Arnold Schwartzenegger
http://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/nine-celebrities-changing-conversation-climate-action
A Poem….
“I am Earth” by Sheryl Lee
I am Earth
and from my body
grow the trees
you chop down
with you careless acts
I am ocean
for from my womb
all beings are birthed
I am desert
my long, voluptuous dunes
now burnt to drought
by August sun
my blood
the dyeing rivers
you pollute
with discarded greed
and selfish denial
my breasts
are sacred mountains
climbed for your egos sake of reaching the top
your summit
my nipple
without soft, tenderness of touch
that is required for such a holy journey
you, who call me home
I am not something to be bought or sold
I am alive
and in the eyes of every living creature
you will find me
their mother
mirrored back to you
do you dare look?
can you hold my gaze?
while you run your fingers through my sunlit hair of wheat at harvest?
that same nourishing grain you paint with poison for your benefit?
and do you care?
when you stain the path of this delicate wrist as you wind your way along my enchanted forest of pine?
you, my child,
who call yourself king
have scratched my skin raw
etching your name across virgin land
dark bruises mark my thighs
as you drill into the deepest marrow of these bones
searching for more gold
more silver
more of my life giving waters
you continue to ask for more
more of my precious milk
more of my cherished stone
you always want more
and I give it
again and again and again
I give
but now, my pets
I have run dry
I crack, I moan and I quake
I break open in pain
I am rain
I burn, I flame, I heat
I erupt with the force of my grief
and then
I cry
for days and days and days
I cry
and you, my dears
still look to my husband’s heavens
asking why