A few weeks back, I wrote about some Marylanders plowing through the icy Bering Sea off Alaska to study how it's changing.  Now there's another local who's exploring faraway waters, though he's picked a warmer spot - the Red Sea.

Glenn Page, former conservation director for the National Aquarium here in Baltimore, is part of an international crew on a research cruise investigating coral reefs off the coast of Saudi Arabia.  Since leaving the aquarium, he's founded his own environmental consulting firm.

For the past couple weeks, Glenn has been shooting underwater photos and videos of the Farasan Banks to take stock of the health of the reefs there.  You can read more about the expedition and see photos and video of the work here.  The bright blue coral at right is stylophora.

In addition, Glenn's been keeping a blog about the expedition.  His most recent post, which he sent me today, serves as an Earth Day greeting from the other side of the planet:

Imagine giving up 1/2 of your income, in addition to taxes and payments for house, college etc., just so you can ensure your children have a chance for a future.   That's exactly what the desperately poor Vezo, an indigenous group of nomadic fishing communities of southwest Madagascar, did when they established the first real marine protected area in the Indian Ocean.   They risked everything just for the slim chance to save their ecosystem and indeed, themselves.  Every day is earth day for the Vezo.  As a local leader noted recently, "In order to be Vezo, a person must act in the present, for it is only in the present that one performs one's identity.

Read the rest here. 

Continue reading "Earth Day from afar" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 4:56 PM in Sustainability, fisheries, water quality | Permalink
                       

Happy Earth Day!  On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans thronged the streets and public places across the country to demonstrate their concern about the degradation of the environment around them.  Their protest was fueled by widespread publicity about the Cuyahoga River in Ohio catching fire and by a massive oil spill off the California coast.  In Baltimore, as pictured above, Patterson High School students picketed garbage dumps on Kane Street and North Point Boulevard.

The state of the environment has changed since then - much of the more visible pollution has been cleaned up.  Concerns have shifted now to less obvious and more difficult issues like climate change, declining diversity of plants and animals and our exposure to the residues of thousands of chemicals used in making our food and consumer products.

Earth Day has shifted, too.  For many marketing folks, this is a perfect opportunity to try to sell green, greenish or green-looking products.  My inbox has been peppered in the past few weeks with pitches for various types of water bottles, clothing, motor vehicles and green travel, if there is such a thing.

But others are marking the day in a spirit more akin to the original Earth Day.  The city is putting recycling bins in the Inner Harbor for tourists to use, and kicking off the production of energy from methane generated by all the refuse disposed of in the city's landfill.   In schools, students are studying environmental issues or planting trees. 

And some activists are demonstrating their concern in an old-fashioned way, vowing to eat no solid food until Congress acts on legislation to reduce the nation's output of climate-warming greenhouse gases.  Hearings started on the topic this week, and House leaders have pledged to send a bill to the floor by Memorial Day.  That could be a long fast.

How are you marking Earth Day?  I'm speaking at an environmental symposium shortly at St. Paul's School for Girls in Brooklandville.  Then it's back to the business of covering the bay and environment.

(Photo by William H. Mortimer of The Baltimore Sun).

UPDATE:  I spoke to group of students at St. Paul's School for Girls as part of the school's inaugural Earth Day symposium - quite an undertaking.  Besides the 462 students in grades 5 through 12 at the school, there were about 181 students and faculty from about 10 other private schools in the area.  They heard from 40 speakers and had more than 70 hands-on presentations, including recyclable art and "mad science."

"Our goal is to get students excited about the environment and conserving resources," said Janet Wolfe, academic dean for the school.  Students were asked to sign Earth Day pledges listing three things they personally would work on in the coming year.  The school hopes to produce a YouTube video of the symposium highlights, but until then you can see the program here.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                       

So Baltimore came in a solid 8th on Forbes.com's annual list of the 15th most livable cities.  Whaddyaknow?

My colleague Jamie Smith Hopkins has already taken note of this over on her blog, The Real Estate Wonk. 

But I couldn't help noticing how the biz mag's Web site credited Charm City with high income growth, low cost-of-living and unemployment, a stellar culture index and (gasp!) a modest crime rate. 

How's that, you say? Actually, the ranking is of metro areas, so Towson's lumped in with the city. 

But hey, Forbes didn't get into quality of life or environmental factors.  Of course, Baltimore only came in 42nd out of 100 on Men's Health's ranking last year of greenest cities.

You be the judge, though, of Forbes' judgment.  Portland, Maine topped it as most livable city in the US, with Bethesda MD coming in second.  Two cities in Oklahoma also ranked higher than Baltimore. 

At least we wound up ahead of Pittsburgh - take that, Steelers fans!  And Chicago came in at #3 - but on Forbes.com's "most miserable cities" list, published earlier this year.  Check that one out here.

(Photo of Baltimore's 4th of July fireworks last year by Doug Kapustin of The Baltimore Sun.)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:10 PM in Sustainability | Permalink | Comments (5)
                       

Incentives to live greener and more sustainably seem to be popping up like spring flowers all around.  In his column today in The Baltimore Sun, my colleague Jay Hancock, runs through an impressive list of grants, tax credits and other ways to shrink your carbon footprint by acquiring energy efficient appliances or installing solar, wind or geothermal facilities at your house.

And if you don't have the upfront cash right now for those options, you can save some dough and still do your part by purchasing wind-generated power from outfits like Clean Currents or Washington Gas Energy Services.  As Jay points out, both are cheaper than BGE right now --  enough to save $10 or more on your monthly power bill through the summer.

Finally, here's one Jay didn't mention: "green" homeowners' insurance.  Firemen's Fund insurance is offering coverage that will pay to rebuild or repair a home using more energy-efficient, environmentally friendly materials and designs if it is damaged or destroyed.  And for homeowners whose abodes are already green, the company's offering a five percent discount on premiums.

Keep 'em coming!  It's "Earth month," after all.  Anyone know of other green deals out there?

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:54 AM | Permalink
                       

Mayor Sheila Dixon has announced that Baltimore will join "Earth Hour," a nationwide event meant to highlight concerns about climate change.  

The event, sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund, asks individuals, businesses and governments to turn off their lights for one hour to make a statement about the issue and the need to find solutions. More than 950 cities worldwide already have joined the campaign, according to the fund.

Per Mayor Dixon's commitment, City Hall and other municipal buildings will go dark for an hour at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday night March 28, according to the city's Office of Sustainability.  Hannah Freedman, one of the members of the office's youth advisory group, is quoted in the release saying she hopes that in addition to making a tiny reduction in energy consumption the event will raise public environmental awareness.

Climate change is a serious issue, according to President Obama and every major scientific organization that's looked at it - but it's one that the public doesn't seem to think is a priority, according to recent public opinion surveys.  Perhaps this event will raise its profile. 

But there's an opportunity to do more, closer to home. Earlier this month, City Council adopted a sustainability plan  for Baltimore. Will it be more than lofty language?  Will it prompt any real changes in how the city grows or does business - shrink Baltimore's carbon footprint and make it a more livable community? 

One of the plan's goals is to eliminate litter throughout the city.  How about phasing out plastic grocery bags as a start?  That's not mentioned, but some other communities are doing that.  Reducing water use is another goal - a good one for a city occasionally gripped by drought.  How about pricing water to encourage conservation and recycling?  Improving transit is an aim, too.  One suggestion I've heard many times before - how about giving light rail trains priority at traffic lights?  That would make transit faster than driving and probably boost ridership.  Elected officials routinely reject that, saying it would worsen vehicular congestion.  But wouldn't that make transit even more appealing? 

Just asking, mind you.  They don't pay me to have opinions.  But after the lights come back on at City  Hall, I'd like to hear more about how the sustainability plan will make a difference, and how quickly.  Now there's a chance to make a statement. 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:06 AM in Sustainability | Permalink | Comments (5)
                       

Environmental awareness has spread to all sectors of society - why should retirees and retirement communities be any different?

Erickson, the Catonsville-based national network of retirement communities, recently announced a "green campaign" to improve the environmental sustainability of its places.  It's expanding recycling, enhancing energy conservation and using less toxic cleaning agents, among other things. It has two Baltimore area communities - Charlestown in Catonsville, and Oak Crest in Parkville.

Continue reading "Never too old to go green - but keep it real" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:36 AM in Sustainability | Permalink | Comments (2)
                       

Baltimore's sustainability plan takes its first step toward approval this week.  It's to be presented to the city's planning commission tomorrow (Feb. 5).

The plan was drafted with the lofty goal of "meeting the environmental, social, and economic needs of Baltimore without compromising the ability of future generations to meet those needs."  Among other things, it calls for a citywide litter cleanup, reducing urban greenhouse gas emissions 15 percent by 2015 and making the city a center for green-tech businesses and jobs.

Since its unveiling late last year, the plan has been getting mostly positive but mixed reviews, according to a piece by Greg Hanscom in the February issue of Urbanite magazine.   He reports that the plan is "long on ambition, but, at times, short on specifics how the city can make the leap into the wild green yonder."

Drafters acknowledge that they left out some of the bolder proposals to keep the plan from bogging down in controversy.   Others, Hanscom reports, worry that the plan is too high-fallutin' in its rhetoric for most city dwellers to really connect with it.  You can read the draft plan for yourself here.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:59 AM in Sustainability | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

I'm old enough to have grown up reading Pogo, a wry comic strip about a possum of that name and a menagerie of other critters populating Georgia's Okeefenokee Swamp.  One of Pogo's famous utterances, carried in a 1971 Earth Day poster, was: "Yep, son, we have met the enemy and he is us!"

Another person who's evidently taken Pogo to heart is Tom Horton, noted environmental author and writer and former longtime reporter and columnist for The Baltimore Sun (AND, full disclosure, a friend).

Tom wrote a report for the Abell Foundation last summer on how population growth is dooming the bay cleanup, entitled: "Growing! Growing! Gone!"  In it, he argues that all efforts to clean up the bay's fouled water, restore its beleagured fisheries and preserve its natural bounty will come to naught unless policy makers and the public break their addiction to the belief that a constantly growing population is inevitable, and good.  

Now he's organized a public symposium Wednesday in Salisbury to confront the touchy subject he's raised.

The session is entitled: “Growth is Killing Chesapeake Bay: A Challenge to Maryland’s Government and Environmentalists.”    Will Baker, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and Richard Hall, state secretary of planning, are scheduled to join Tom.  Neither one quite agrees with Tom about his thesis, so look for a lively discussion if you go.

Moderated by Salisbury University Provost Tom Jones, the event begins at 7 p.m in the Wicomico Room of the Guerrieri University Center at the university.   For more info, go here.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 4:55 PM in Sustainability | Permalink | Comments (1)