Sea Notes

Seawater Synergy

Now here's a brilliant idea:

Pipe seawater into the Sahara Desert, use solar energy to create freshwater via evaporation, then use the water to grow greenhouse crops that will feed a hungry world. And, as a bonus, build enough solar capacity to ship surplus energy from the Sahara to Europe.

It's still a dream, but there are demonstration projects in Tenerife, Oman and the United Arab Emirates -- and a lot of buzz today about the Sahara Forest Project, Check it out.....

As if that weren't enough, the Japanese are dreaming big, too. The Times of London reports on a vision for offshore "eco-rigs" that would generate energy from the sun and waves, and use some of the energy for aquaculture farms to raise seaweed, fish and plankton.

Refill not landfill

I recently took a tour of one of Monterey's other prize winning destinations - the landfill! The Monterey Regional Waste Management District is one of the country's leaders in its field -- finding ways to limit the amount of waste we "dump". Anyone using the D-word on the tour was gently reminded that the correct term is landfill. It's more than semantics. Dumping and throwing things "away" allows us to disconnect from our responsibility. Excavating land to fill with our trash (an average of 3 pounds per day, per person), is another matter altogether.

I learnt many new things, but the one thing that struck me most was the statement, "You are not truly recycling if all you are doing is sending your recyclables to a recycling facility." Hmm. "True recycling", we were told, is "buying recycled products and creating a market."

With this in mind, I was excited to find a new product this weekend. A non-toxic, biodegradable, eco-friendly bathroom cleaner. But the neatest thing about it, was that it was contained in a recycled soda bottle! Terracycle has a range of products using containers reclaimed from the waste stream, including worm poop fertilizer!

I haven't tried the product yet, but I'm sold on the concept! And of course, when I'm done, I can recycle it!

Paper or plastic? No thanks!

Every year, thousands of seabirds, marine mammals and turtles are injured or killed because they encounter our litter in the ocean. Plastic bags are a big part of this problem and they are prolific! Over 19 billion one-time use plastic bags are handed out each year in California.

A new bill (AB 2058) seeks to address the growing problem of this major source of pollution by targetting retailers to cut down their usage and to get more of the bags back into the recycling stream. If this fails, then a 25-cent fee will be introduced (on both paper and plastic), which is hoped will encourage more people to bring their own canvas bag.

The bill will be heard by the Senate Environmental Quality Committee on Monday June 23rd. Please voice your support for this bill today by using our online letter tool today!

Let us know if you are finding ways to cut down on your use of disposables.

Friday's Featured Film: Wingless Flight

When your goal is a future with healthy oceans, you have to keep a sharp eye on the land. That's because the impact we humans are having on planetary ecosystems don't stop at the shoreline.

With that in mind, and with gasoline prices in my neighborhood soaring toward $4.75 a gallon for regular, I was delighted to discover this small car company that plans to bring a sleek all-electric car with a 120 mile cruising range and a top speed of 85 miles per hour to market before the end of the year.

Called the Aptera and built in Carlsbad, California, it will retail for less than $30,000; carry two passengers, an infant/toddler car seat, and quite a bit of cargo ("15 bags of groceries, two full-size golf club bags or even a couple of seven-foot surfboards"); and is flat-out gorgeous, in a futuristic way.

By 2010 they intend to produce and sell a gas-electric hybrid that gets 120 miles PER GALLON of gas. The only bad news: Initially, it will only be be available here in California.

Check it out in this Popular Mechanics test drive:

Cooking Up a Storm

The connection between what we eat and the health of the oceans is becoming clearer every day. Scientific journal reports on the disappearance of 90 percent of the ocean's major predators, or the prospects for all commercial fisheries worldwide to collapse by 2048 if we don't change our ways give a sense of urgency to the issue.

That's why Monterey Bay Aquarium created the Seafood Watch program. And its why our Cooking for Solutions events include a day-long Sustainable Foods Institute for members of the media. We want to get the issue onto the radar of food editors as well as environment writers.

This year, we had an unprecedented turnout of top writers, from established publications like the Washington Post and Bon Appétit Magazine to writers and bloggers for newer online outlets like Sustainable Food News and Grist.org.

And they've already had a lot to say about what they learned.

- Gourmet Magazine's Barry Estabrook has posted three times, looking at the impact of climate change on agriculture, and twice about how to make good seafood choices. (And thanks to Gourmet for the photo.)

- Roz Cummins, who blogs for the environmental news site Grist.org, found a renewed sense of hope as a result of her participation, and offers up one of Rick Moonen's recipes (for Chicken-Fried Trout).

- Bonnie Powell of The Ethicurean explores in depth the issue of sustainability and what it REALLY means, tapping into the wisdom of Fred Kirschenmann, senior fellow at Iowa State's Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. She also dives into the topic of sustainable seafood, with the help of Edible San Francisco Magazine.

- Sam Fromartz, author of Organic, Inc. and writer of the Chews Wise blog, was astonished (as we were) to learn from Chef Rick Moonen that Las Vegas serves up 60,000 pounds of shrimp every day -- and probably not much sustainable shrimp in the lot. Rick was an Institute panelist, and the author of Fish Without a Doubt.

- Radha Marcum of Delicious Living offers some bullet points for individual action (learn to love sardines is No. 1 on her list).

These are just the early web posts. Many more articles are likely to follow in print media, and beyond.

Last note: You know the message is getting through when bloggers like The Slow Cook's Ed Bruske take culinary leaders to task for serving up a cornucopia of Red List seafood at a showcase event in Washington, D.C.

Community Supported Fisheries

Community supported agriculture (CSAs) is a growing tool to save the family farm. Sign up and you get a box of fresh produce each week, straight from your local -- usually organic -- farmer. Everybody wins.

Depending on where you live, you can do the same (or similar) thing now in support of family fishing boats. Add the term community supported fishing to your lexicon.

From Maine to California, it's possible to connect directly with the folks going out each day to catch fresh, seasonal seafood. You get a fresher product from someone you know. The folks on the boat get a better price for their catch. Fishing communities stay alive and healthy, rather than withering away into "colorful" remnants on a once-thriving waterfront.

I spoke with Zeke Grader, at the Institute for Fisheries Resources in San Francisco who says you can't yet buy an actual share of the catch in California, though their website will hook you up with places to buy fresh seafood everywhere along the coast.

But as bloggers like Carolina Bolado on Menu Pages, and publications from Gourmet Magazine to the Christian Science Monitor are reporting, community supported fisheries are a growing trend nationwide.

You can, for example, buy a year's catch from a Maine lobster trap for $2,995 -- with the average catch around 150 lobsters a year. Or you can buy a share of the catch for just $249, with the guarantee of "a gourmet lobster feast for 4" from the lobstermen with the Catch a Piece of Maine partnership.

Closer to home, there's a Fishfone at Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay, between Monterey and San Francisco, where you can call about buying fish straight from the boat, seven days a week.

Check out a few other options with the Menu Pages links, or visit the harbors and farmers markets near your home that offer fresh-from-the-boat seafood.

Let us know what you find in your neighborhood. We'll help spread the word!

And if all this sounds like too much trouble, you can't go wrong by using the Seafood Watch pocket guide for your region to select sustainable seafood at the market, or your favorite restaurant.

Saving the Oceans One Meal at a Time

You've heard it before: You are what you eat. Turns out that Planet Earth will become what we eat, too.

The environmental impacts -- on the oceans, marine life and the rest of the biosphere that supports us -- can be measured by the food choices we make. So it's heartening to share two stories this Earth Day about better food choices being promoted by two Monterey Bay Aquarium partners.

First, there's a fabulous article in the Los Angeles Times (by Pulitzer Prize-winning oceans writer Ken Weiss) about the Low Carbon Diet advanced by Bon Appétit Management Co., the food service company here at the aquarium and at 400 other cafes at corporate headquarters, universities and cultural institutions nationwide. Its immediate goal is to reduce the carbon footprint of its foodservice operations by 25 percent.

This includes eliminating air-freighted seafood, buying all meats and vegetables in North America, cutting back on tropical fruits, completing energy audits of their facilities, and putting less meat and cheese on the menu.

And that's just the beginning.

Bon Appétit has long been a partner of our Seafood Watch program, and it's convinced its parent company, Compass Group North America, to follow a similar sustainable seafood path.

Applause to Bon Appétit and to ARAMARK, a world leader in professional facilities management and food services, which has just entered into a partnership with the aquarium under which ARAMARK commits to new practices that will guide its purchases of sustainable seafood for all ARAMARK operations across the United States. As part of the partnership, ARAMARK is beginning immediately to shift its seafood purchases toward sustainable sources. The company will complete the transition by 2018.

This is big news, too, because ARAMARK's operations in the United States alone employ about 180,000 people and serve tens of millions of people at businesses, universities, schools, sports and entertainment facilities, parks and other locations. This includes scores of major league sports facilities, convention centers, leading zoos and aquariums, and national parks and attractions.

We've been able to reach landmark agreements like this because of the changes individual Seafood Watch supporters have made. By asking for sustainable seafood at the grocery store and at restaurants, they've brought this issue to the attention of big companies like ARAMARK. By creating consumer demand, and inspiring big buyers to follow their lead, they're helping to change fisheries and fish-farming practices around the world.

It's truly making a difference, on Earth Day and every day.

Spirit of the Salmon

"Each spring, the tribal communities in the Columbia River basin in the Pacific Northwest host a salmon feast honoring the sacrifices the fish make for the welfare of the Yakama, Nez Perce, Umatilla, and Warm Springs tribes. The fishing communities rely on the once-bountiful salmon to support their livelihood. But several years, ago salmon runs were so low that they had to buy the fish in order to have enough for the feast." This is the story of the decline of salmon in the Columbia River and the efforts by local tribes, conservation groups and businesses to restore the rivers and bring back the salmon.

Their plan is called Wy-Kan-Ush-Mi Wa-Kish-Wit, “Spirit of the Salmon” and it's an ambitious one -- to halt the decline within seven years, and to bring back the runs to host 4 million salmon each year within 25 years. This is likely to require the removal of several dams on the river, which are currently an impediment to these populations (as if swimming up stream weren't difficult enough!) The next steps in this process appear to lie in the hands of NOAA fisheries (the body directed to protect these endangered species). The agency will consider it's next move on May 5th. Support for dam removal to restore this critical habitat is overwhelming. Let's hope NOAA agrees.

Roses are red, oceans are blue....

...we have the Valentines, just for you!

Share your love of the oceans this Valentine's Day with these new e-cards from the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Ocean Action Team.

Not only will you be helping to spread the word about our online community of ocean advocates, you'll be lessening your environmental impact with this electronic love message!

According to this article in the Daily Green, the average spend for Valentine's Day is $100! Check out their suggestions for organic chocolates, wines and flowers. Useful tips for every day of the year!

And, finally, there's this wonderful flamingo photo taken for Reuters by Ali Jarekji, and brought to our attention courtesy of Day in Pictures from the San Francisco Chronicle website.

Greening Lent

It seems like everywhere you look, there's talk of greening. But here's a whole new take on it. Two Bishops in England are advocating a low-carb Lent. How is that different, you say? But this plea is to use the 40-day period to try to reduce your carbon footprint. They even have a cheat sheet with a task to try each day for the duration of Lent. The clergymen hope to raise awareness of global climate change and the impact it is having in the world's poorest communities.

The UK is considering a new government position of Climate Change Minister, "someone who can become an effective Champion of Climate Change across government." This is a direct, if belated, response to the Stern Review of 2006, the report from the former chief economist of the World Bank, which highlighted the potential economic impacts of not addressing climate change now. Despite the Stern warning, most environmentalists are concerned that words are still louder than actions.

Changed all your light bulbs to CFL and given up plastic bags already? Check out Treehugger's "How to Go Green Guides" and find out how to green your wardrobe/pet/wedding and most other things you can think of!