Think Green Live Clean

Photo credit: Jeff Schmaltz, NASA

When we consider the ocean, most of us imagine it’s life-giving properties- like supplying oxygen to Earth’s creatures.  What most of us don’t realize is that the ocean itself can be suffocated.  This is exactly what has begun to occur in the planet’s youngest sea, resulting in a damaged Baltic ecosystem and the creation of one of the largest “dead zones” in the world. Read more…

Photo Credit: Devon Fisher

The holy Ganges River has a long history of reverence in India, as it is the most sacred river in the country. The river signifies divine consciousness for Hindus who come from all over the country to bathe, worship and honor dead relatives in the divine waters. Thousands of Hindu followers have their bodies committed to the Ganges each year in belief that the river’s waters will carry their souls to eternal salvation. With an estimated 2 million people visiting the river each day, the high level of pollution in it is not so surprising. However, the waste from the ritual bathing, the laundry sites, corpse disposals and cremation rituals along the river are not the main concern, rather, the river is also a sewage dump and today, one of the most polluted rivers in the world. Read more…

Wolfgang Staudt

Inhabitants of paradise are the first to feel the real impact of global warming. Villagers that live on the Atoll islands are forced to pack up and leave their homes for good due to rising sea levels. Islands are likely to be the areas that are hit hardest by global warming and entire island chains may disappear within the next century. Read more…

Have you ever dreamed of getting in a van and driving south until who knows when? I know I have, and in 1968 Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins lived this dream.  This 10,000 mile trip started in Southern California and “ended” in Patagonia, South America.  This trip changed the lives of the explorers and now, because of these two men and their work, over two million acres are under permanent protection.   Their epic adventure was recently recreated and made into a documentary/ travel/ surf film called 180 Degrees South. Produced by Woodshed Films, the film depicts a group of surfers/ explorers making their way from Southern California in a sailboat. The destination was Patagonia but where they ended up along the way could never have been predicted. The film is set to release this spring and from watching this trailer one word comes to mind: Epic.   Enjoy…

Photo Credit: Didier Bier

You think you know what mushrooms are? Sure, they peek through the grass in moist areas, are neatly packaged in plastic crates in grocery stores, and sometimes overcooked on pizza. Not exactly the life-changing ingredient imagined when you think of our current global situation. Nevertheless, if we take the time to look just a little closer, we learn that these tasty mushrooms are simply the fruiting body of mycelium, our true hero in this story, that make up an underground network of fibers with enormous planet-saving potential. Read more…

Photo Credit: Austin Parker

The non-profit group Conservacion Patagonica has been dedicated to conservation in Patagonia since 2000. They have protected over 450,000 acres of land through the implementation of national parks in Argentine Patagonia and have started the process of implementing another national park in Chilean Patagonia. The future Patagonia National Park will be in a place called Valle Chacabuco in southern Chile and will be about 500,000 acres in size when completed. Read more…

Photo Credit: Mike Baird

The Arctic Tern, a petit seabird weighing no more than 3.5 oz (.22 lbs), spends the summer months in the Arctic enjoying what little sun it can get  before embarking on its incredible 43,000 mile journey across the world and back. A team of scientists from Greenland, Denmark, the US, the UK and Iceland outfitted the birds with “geolocaters” or tracking devices no bigger than the tip of a matchstick and followed the birds on their epic migratory voyage from  the Arctic to Antarctica and back again. These minute tracking devices allowed scientists to clearly plot the Arctic Tern’s yearly flight route on a global map, which gave incredible insight into the birds understanding of global wind patterns. Read more…

photo credit: Christopher Isherwood

A remote part of the Mariana Islands called Maug, is the top of an underwater volcano. This uninhabited island is at peace from human disturbances, but then why are the coral reefs dying?

As you descend underwater about 100 feet you no longer see an abundance of colorful tropical fish. Instead you see the rocky ground covered in a brown slime, which is a collection of cyanobacteria, and coming from these rocks are bubbles that produce acidic emissions. These acidic emissions are the result of carbon dioxide that was absorbed by the ocean from the atmosphere. Since humans have emitted so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the ocean keeps absorbing more and more, which in turn creates an increase in oceanic acidity. These acidic conditions make it difficult for coral reefs and shellfish to survive, since acid breaks down their calcium carbonate shells. Read more…

Photo Credit: Michael Hodge

With so much media coverage and concern over global warming it’s easy to forget about other pressing environmental issues that are of equal severity such as deforestation, water quality, and biodiversity loss. These issues, which usually go hand in hand, are occurring at such accelerated rates all over the world that the UN says they are heavily impacting human well-being (not to mention the well being of the forests, waters, and all the biodiversity that exists within them). Read more…

Photo Credit: Dietmar Temps

Patagonia is one of the last wild places on earth. Thanks to some courageous and motivated people its probably going to stay that way for a while.

A group called “Conservacion Patagonica” is dedicated to creating the Patagonia National Park and has already placed 460,000 acres of Patagonian habitat into permanent protection. This group is a motivated NGO that has already created an Argentinean park and has been working on its Chilean sister for years now. Read more…