All right, now take a look at these two satellite photos.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia.org

Now, go dig out your black Sharpie marker, and go back to your globe, and fill in that blue of the Aral Sea.  Because it’s not there anymore. It vanished.  Just like this:

Image courtesy of NationalGeographic.com

What happened, exactly?  How does the fourth largest lake in the world just go away?  Can you imagine if you used to live in Michigan, and you went back to visit one day, and you visited the lake front, and there was NO lake front, because Lake Michigan had just disappeared?

What happened is that people REALLY screwed up their environment.  Specifically, the rivers that fed into this lake were diverted in a Soviet project to boost cotton production in the arid region, and now it’s shrunk by 90%. And that’s not all:

“The shrunken sea has ruined the once-robust fishing economy and left fishing trawlers stranded in sandy wastelands, leaning over as if they dropped from the air. The sea’s evaporation has left layers of highly salted sand, which winds can carry as far away as Scandinavia and Japan, and which plague local people with health troubles.”

I think that the Aral Sea is a phenomenal example of how much humans can really affect their environment.  Regardless of how you think about climate change, whether you think that it’s man-made or just some “natural cycle of the Earth”, I think the Aral Sea shows us that not only are humans as a species capable of vastly impacting the natural environment, we’ve already done quite a job on it.  So if we can muck it up that badly, aren’t we also capable of fixing it?  We can only hope…

Oh and keep your Sharpie-d up globe handy, for the next time somebody says that humans couldn’t POSSIBLY have that big of an impact on the Earth.  Well, yes, actually we can… you can see it right there.  On a MAP OF THE ENTIRE EARTH.

But I digress.  I firmly believe that the Earth is one mega-giant geophysical system and so I’m predisposed to think that movement in the Earth’s crust in one area is likely to affect movement in the crust in another area.  Maybe this is the case, maybe not.  But, like it or not, there are fault lines all over this planet, and a very good number of us live in an area that would be affected by seismic activity.  Including myself, living in the Pacific Northwest, with the Cascadia subduction zone, where “the seismic clock is ticking.”

Which is why I’ve finally decided to take the creation of my earthquake kit very seriously.  Observe:

The beginnings of my earthquake kit - old clothes and lots of coffee

Having never put together an earthquake kit before (despite living in Los Angeles for two years), I looked up how to make a proper preparedness kit on the internets.  I found one, appropriately, on the site for the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFGate. It includes a lot of head-scratching items, like a small fire extinguisher and sunglasses, but for the most part it is all super valuable stuff that would be useful in the event of a catastrophic earthquake.

*I*, on the other hand, am preparing a bag that would in theory allow me to survive for a day or so trapped underground OR allow me to get out, get on my bike, and go find other people.  It will include important stuff like a super-cool solar-powered/hand-crank radio and LED flashlight, as well as a first aid kit, rain gear, a warm jacket, matches and extra food.  I have, however, taken some liberties from the SFGate site – for instance, they say to include bleach, which I get, but I’m trying to come up with something portable, thus the little bleach pen (good in a pinch, literally).  Also note the copious amounts of coffee; hey, I have a portable French Press, might as well put it to good use!

All in all, my earthquake kit is stocked with things I have but don’t use on a regular basis, but still don’t want to get rid of.  I’m finding that this is not only a great way to get prepared for an earthquake but also an in-house recycling exercise.  Being aware of how you use and perhaps waste products in your home is as integral to living more lightly on the earth as realizing that you live on a giant rock that is subjected to forces of geophysics beyond our control.

Do you have any suggestions for putting together an earthquake preparedness kit?  Post them here!

What do you see?  Do you see a happy polar bear, playing with a butterfly?

Perhaps he’s taking a nap next to his “friends”, the baby seal and the baby polar bear…

Or, maybe you see a polar bear that’s running… you see, the sun came out and it started to melt the ice underneath the polar bear’s feet.  He needs to get somewhere, and fast!

What these animations are depicting, if you were perceptive enough to figure out from the dashboard on the left-hand side of the page, is real-time energy usage on the campus of Dartmouth University.  Unlike many other institutions, which have mandated efficiency programs and/or building goals that were set by the university or the government, Dartmouth sought to reduce energy consumption in their dorms – solely through behavioral changes – by 15%.  From their Web site:

Launched on April 24, 2008, the goal of the program is to change behavior by providing energy information in meaningful and compelling ways. … We encourage students to change the way they use energy in their daily lives by monitoring and displaying information about the resources students have control over, such as plug loads for electricity, heat and water use. We hope to help students understand the larger impacts of their actions and develop tools and approaches to energy conservation that can carry over into their everyday lives.

This program at Dartmouth is innovative, educational, interactive, and fun.  It’s also an example of a hybrid energy efficiency system that exists in very few places in the United States – it’s a behavior modification program that relies on a building monitoring system for real-time data.  The polar bear reacts to the energy load on the building at any given time, and the students can therefore react to the amount of energy they are using immediately.  And it’s not presented in a boring way, either … it’s an animation of a polar bear that lives a happy life or dies based on the energy consumption by the students at Dartmouth.

And by all accounts, it’s been a great success.

This is a good example of an innovative system that buildings might want to employ in the future to encourage occupants to save energy.  The polar bear may not work in all circles, but I, for one, do not want to see any majestic animals suffer because of climate change, so this would have worked on me like a charm.

Kudos to the students at Dartmouth for thinking outside the box to achieve massive energy savings on their campus!

Meanwhile, between Yachats and Florence, Oregon, sea lions started showing up in groups so large that no one remembers a population that size.

"Sea lions, identify yourself!" (Image courtesy of OregonLive.com)

So what’s the deal, seal?  Are these the Pier 39 sea lions or is this just a remarkable coincidence?  According to Bruce Mate, director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport,

California sea lions always cruise through Oregon waters in search of food … Typically they start to arrive in late summer, peak in October, then move on to waters off Washington and British Columbia.  But with small, schooling bait fish such as anchovies and sardines abundant off Oregon at the moment, Mate says, the ravenous Californians may simply have selected to stay.

Or, maybe, like a lot of people, they saw the budget problems that California’s been having and they decided to bail before they got furloughed.  I can identify with this reasoning 

1. Treehugger. If you only want to follow one blog that dishes all the news you could ever hope for that deals with green design, energy, business or living, it should be Treehugger.  Then, 3 days later when you realize that you can’t keep up with their RSS feed because they publish something like 100 posts a day, feel free to come back to my blog and I’ll give you the highlights once a week or so 
2. WhiteHouse.gov/Blog.   Could anyone have imagined when the Internet first showed up in the 1990’s that we would have a direct line of access to our President, and to the initiatives of Executive Branch of our government, straight from the horse’s mouth?  This blog is a revelation in transparency and information dissemination, and has filters for every imaginable subject, including one for Energy & Environment.  BUT, it may not be for everyone; for instance, if you can’t think for yourself and you require a 24-hour news network to tell you what to believe, then by all means, don’t bother reading the WhiteHouse.gov blog.  Or mine, for that matter.
3. Inhabitat.com.  I regard Inhabitat as an old friend, an endeavor that I, myself, might have come up with if I had logged a few more years of experience in the green design industry a bit sooner.  Instead it was founded by my internet friend and green-living-wunderkind Jill Fehrenbacher, and it persists in being awesome due to a small army of like-minded wunderkinds that have since joined the effort.   Wundervoll!
4. GreenInc. For anyone who might be surprised that the green design and energy industries rely as much on business decisions as any other industry.
5. Wired Science. I think Wired has a blog updating schedule similar to that of Treehugger, but I manage to resist all of their feeds in favor of this one, really really great one.  Science nerds unite!
6. DotEarth/NYTimes. One of the first blogs that I ever bookmarked… and one of the closest things to a traditional newspaper column that I read.
7. Al Gore’s blog. Whether you love him, or, ahem, don’t love him, you do have to admit that Al Gore has the access to and the attention of every major world leader who has the opportunity to do something about climate change.  So, I pay attention.  And besides, his blog posts are sometimes adorable.
8. Planet Green. It’s primarily a TV channel, but it also happens to publish stuff that even its Discovery sister media outlet, Treehugger, doesn’t.  Coincidence?  Probably not, but it’s still worth a look.
9. Huffington Post Green. The Huffington Post is a new media standout, that ever-evolving fusion of social-media-network + aggregator + opinion + comedy = something fun to read.  Their Green section, although perhaps not as strong in content as some of the above outlets, nevertheless covers the goods as well as giving us fun polls and the ever-present adorable animal videos.  Worth it just for that last bit, if nothing else.

So there you have it… my Top 9 Inspiration Blogs of 2009. Check them out, and have a Happy New Year, because things are bound to get better in 2010!

If you ever need some motivation for trying to reduce your energy consumption or otherwise lead a more sustainable life, might I suggest you use your Netflix to rent Planet Earth, the remarkable 11-part series produced in part by the Discovery Channel.  I have recently been watching a lot of the Discovery Channel and was lucky enough to catch a few replaying episodes of Planet Earth, and what strikes me the most every time is the plight of the polar bears.  These magnificent creatures live in the Arctic and have long relied on sea ice to help them hunt for food.  Well, with global warming occuring, the sea ice is melting at a rapid rate, which means that the polar bears have a harder time hunting for their prey and have to resort to hunting land-bound creatures, or not having enough energy to hunt at all.  It may seem like a stretch for some people – why can’t they just eat other types of animals?  Well, when you’re a polar bear who’s used to eating seals and suddenly your only option is a giant walrus with 2″ thick hide and a bunch of friends with sharp tusks that can hurt you, you run out of options quickly.

I’m not going to tell you how Planet Earth’s polar bear story ends, but I will encourage you to think about the polar bears as you try to green your life.  I will also now prey on your vulnerability to cute baby animals by posting a picture of Knut the German polar bear when he was a baby.  Seriously, how can you hurt THIS?!?

image courtesy of news.bbc.co.uk

~~~~~

Anyway, a while ago I promised a post on Al Gore as part of my obligation as a “green blogger.”  Well I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to talk about CFLs and polar bears at the same time, so Section 2c of my Green Blogger Top Ten will have to suffice for now.

Al Gore, for those of you who may have been living under a rock for the past 20 years, is our former Vice President, the Academy Award-winning producer of “An Inconvenient Truth”, and a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for teaching people around the world about global warming.  Al Gore is also a blogger! Just like me!  His posts are usually to the point and talk about something awesome that he’s done or sponsored lately.   His most recent post was about getting the two young journalists out of North Korea with his fellow superheroes President Clinton and President Obama; a few weeks ago he blogged about another blog that he likes called RealClimate.org, and I thought I would pass on the recommendation.  Its tagline is “climate science by climate scientists” which means I immediately nerded out on all the science-y stuff as soon as I visited.  Also, this blog provides proof that scientists can be nerdy and cute at the same time.  For evidence, note the title of their July 12 post:  Warming, interrupted: much ado about natural variability.  I love a scientist that can blog AND work two movies into their post title!

OK, so I think I can cross Al Gore off my list, now onto CFLs and polar bears…