Visions of Green and Blue

Edible and not-so-edible fish

There is an incredible amount of information available on the subject of the declining fish populations of our planet; yet many people continue to consume vast amounts of seafood, ignoring the inherent danger of destroying our oceans as we know them.
Below are two quick lists of the seafood we should and should not consume.

Fish we should not consume:
Atlantic cod
Atlantic halibut
Atlantic haddock
Atlantic salmon (farmed)
Bluefin tuna
Caviar
Chilean sea bass (Patagonian toothfish)
Grouper
Orange roughy
Sharks, skates, and rays
Snapper
Swordfish

Fish that is okay to consume (occasionally):
Blue whiting
Herring
Hoki
Horse mackerel
Lobster
Mussles and Oysters
Pacific halibut
Pacific salmon
Pollock
San eel/sand lance
Sardine
Striped bass
Tilapia

There are also many sites that offer endless amounts of information on the ethical consumption of seafood as well as printable seafood and sushi guides.
http://www.blueocean.org/sushi
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/sfw_whatsnew.aspx

Earth Alert, A Photographic Response to Climate Change- Seoul, S. Korea

India Ghoramara Island, Sunderbans 2007. Image by: Robin Hammond/Panos

The British Embassy Seoul and the Embassy of the Republic of Korea UK have come together to put on a fantastic exhibition of 90 photographs commenting on the effects of global warming around the world. The images of destruction and devastation which were taken by 13 British and Korean artists, are beautiful and depressing. Images likes these make it impossible for us to ignore the ruin that we have and continue to bring to our planet and makes it clear that we can no longer continue to live the way that we do today.

Curated by Colins Jacobson, Stephanie SeungMin Kim:

Many people are confused by the concepts of climate change and global warming. They understand there is a problem but cannot quite get to grips with the implications. Millions of words have been written on the subject but photographers have found it challenging to find an effective way to tell human stories that involve the audience. In this exhibition, we offer different photographic perspectives from Korean and international practitioners who have tried in their own ways to relate to the magnitude of the problem. In some cases, this involves the perceived causes of climate change such as industrial pollution and deforestation but in others, photographers have tried to engage with those directly affected by climate change in their everyday lives. By incorporating both the physical evidence of climate change and the human cost, this exhibition seeks to encourage a broader audience to participate in the debate about global warming; to gain a wider understanding of the issues at stake; to take personal responsibility for their contribution to the problem and to demand concerted action from their leaders. Moreover, by providing this platform for those photographers who have already sought to confront environmental issues head on, we hope to encourage other photographers to seek new and thought provoking ways of influencing public opinion.

The exhibit is showing at the Daelim Contemporary Art Gallery in Seoul. It will run until August 23 and will then move to the Korean Cultural Center in London, England from October 13 - November 28.

To get to Daelim Gallery take line Number 3 to Kyongbokgung station and take exit number 4. Walk towards the Palace and turn left at the intersection. Walk approximately 10 minutes and the gallery is on the left.
It is open 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m (Closed on Mondays) and admission is W4,000.00.
Daelim Contemporary Art Gallery website: http://www.daelimmuseum.org/e_index.jsp

The unnecessary paper trail.

Labels: paper

My generation seems to be transfixed by the internet. Truthfully I cannot imagine living without it. I do everything from check the weather to watch my favorite tv shows online. One of the most important uses of the internet for me is checking my financial balances. For each bank account, credit card, or loan I have an online account so that I am able to check my status from anywhere in the world. As I moved away from home after high school this became a necessity, as I was no longer living at the address where my statements were going, and I did not always want my parents to witness the balance in my accounts.
When I went home to visit I would always find that my mother had stacked my mail in a pile on my desk. The majority of the envelopes always came from banks or my credit card company. Most of the envelopes contained statements but others were cheques that my credit card company was trying to get me to sign up for and other various 'junk mail'. I always followed the same routine of disposing of the paper with personal information by shredding each piece. And then I began to wonder; "Why is it that I receive 2-3 pieces of mail per month from the credit card companies when I already get all the information that I need online?". The answer was staring me in the face the entire time - all I had to do was click one button while I was on the companies website to stop the endless flow of unwanted paper: "Stop receiving paper statements".
If you have not yet created an online account for your banking, I suggest trying it out. It makes it much easier to keep up with your finances, as you can check it anywhere, and anytime. Once you have gotten online find the 'Stop receiving paper statements' button and help minimize your contribution to the destruction of our worlds forests. And if at anytime you require a paper statement it is just as easy to find the 'Start receiving paper statements' button.

Contact

Just incase you haven't heard about Garbage Island

Labels: garbage island, ocean, plastic

1 mile trawl sample of plastic debris of the North Pacific Gyre in 2005.
Image from: www.algalita.org

Garbage Island - these words conjure up an instant mental image of a vast area of ocean covered in a mass of floating trash- plastic bags, beer cans, water bottles, bike parts, toys, shoes... The truth is, garbage island is a much more terrifying issue. It is not composed of solid waste floating in the water but the tiny fragments of plastic that will never biodegrade, which are ingested by marine animals and travels through the food-chain. Each year more than one million birds and marine animals die from consuming or becoming caught in plastic and debris.

Albatros carcass with ingested plastics.
Image from: www.algalita.org

Lying in the central North Pacific ocean, garbage island is estimated to be twice the size of Texas and may contain over 100 million tons of debris. The floating debris is accumulated in the slow moving clockwise currents of the North Pacific Gyre. It is believed that 80% of the garbage is land-based and the remaining 20% come from ships at sea. The land-based trash traveling from the west coast of North America arrives at the center of garbage island in about 5 years and trash from the East coast of Asia arrives in a year or less.

One of the first people to discover and take action in regards to garbage island was Charles Moore, a California based sea-captain and ocean researcher. On his return from a yachting competition he traveled through the North Pacific Gyre where he stumbled upon the worlds largest landfill. Since his discovery he has developed the Algalita Marine Research Foundation and has researched and studied the development of the trash and its effects on marine life.

Most scientist have deemed it impossible to thoroughly clean up the floating waste, as it spans such a great distance and extends 100 feet below the oceans surface. What we can do is make the effort to use alternative materials to plastic. Purchase an aluminum reusable water bottle in place of plastic bottles, bring cloth bags to the grocery store, if you see a plastic bag or bottle pick it up instead of letting it get carried to the closest body of water. It is up to us to make a difference; Garbage Island will not go away, but we can change the amount of trash that we produce and improve our methods of recycling so that we can eliminate its growth.

Captain Charles Moore at TED:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/capt_charles_moore_on_the_seas_of_plastic.html

VBS Toxic Garbage Island: an excellent 12 part documentary that everyone should watch.
http://www.vbs.tv/shows/toxic/garbage-island/index.php

The UN Environment Program: Plastic Ocean Report
www.unep.org/regionalseas/marinelitter/publications/docs/plastic_ocean_report.pdf

Sources:
www.algalita.org
www.science.howstuffworks.com/great-pacific-garbage-patch
www.unep.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch

Shark!

Labels: finning, longlines, ocean, shark

Photo by: Rob Stewart (sharkwater.com)

Sharks have been around for 400 million years and in the past few decades humans have managed to decimate shark populations by 90%. The fishing practices that are used to catch these beautiful animals is horrifying. They are caught on longlines then hauled onto the fishing vessel, (many still living and breathing) where their fins are hacked off. The helpless shark is then tossed back into the sea and sinks where it either suffocates or gets eaten alive. It is estimated that 100 million sharks are killed this way each year. There is little monitoring of shark fishing and too few regulations are in place.
We know so little about the 375 types of sharks, yet their population numbers continue to fall as wealth and greed drive the hunt for fins which are used for sharkfin soup and traditional cures.

Image from: Bimini Biological Field Station

Please visit the following sites to find more information on finning and to sign some petitions to stop it:

http://www.sharkwater.com/
http://www.savingsharks.com/
http://www.sharks.org/
http://www.sharktrust.org/content.asp?did=32610
http://www.theunderwaterchannel.tv/editorial/not-on-our-menu

Reduce, reuse, recycle - new terms for Calgary, Alberta.

Labels: recycling

In April 2009 Calgary, Alberta residents received their first blue-bins as part of the city wide curbside recycling program, "Too Good To Waste". As one Canada's richest and biggest cities, why has it taken so long for Calgary to join the world of recycling?

Growing up in Ontario it was ingrained into our minds that throwing recyclable materials in the trash was wrong. We were taught 'reduce, reuse, recycle' songs at school and watched "Captain Planet" cartoons at home. For Calgarians things were (are) different. With no Blue-box recycling program, residents who wanted to recycle were forced to either drive to a depot or pay for private home pickup. The most common method of dealing with recycling was to not recycle at all, everything went in the garbage with the rest of the waste. On average Calgary recycles only 20%(residential) of their waste, while Toronto recycles 42%(2006, residential), and Vancouver 55% (latest released numbers for all sectors).

There has been a lot of grumbling in Calgary regarding the new program. Some complaints are understandable - not being able to recycle plastic milk jugs, when the previous private companies picked them up, however; some are not so understandable, such as complaints about monthly fees. Every city that has a recycling program has a fee, whether it be included in your taxes or added onto your monthly utility bill (Calgary). It is time that people realize that you are not simply paying for your recycling to be taken away, you are paying for cleaner spaces for Canada's future generations.

Calgary, welcome to blue-bin recycling. You are only about 20 years behind schedule, but I guess you could say 'Better late than never' (?).