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Ahead: Planet Dispatches Bowermaster’s Antarctica The Blue Times will feature a series of dispatches from contributors around the planet. Adventurer and environmentalist Jon Bowermaster will kick it off with his latest Antarctic journey: “We woke tied-off to the rusting hulk of a half-sunken Norwegian whaling ship…” Stay tuned for our launch. |
The Blue Times Almost Ready for Prime Time Reply
You have stumbled upon the preview edition of The Blue Times. When formally launched, it will join the global conversation about restoration and protection of water resources for the sustenance of humans and nature, the most important conversation on the planet. Innovation and policy reform will be its emphasis, along with small excursions to interesting places.
Did you know: Two of every ten people do not have safe water; four children die each minute from water related diseases in the developing world; and 19.5 million Americans are made ill each year from drinking water?
But water is more than a resource in trouble, it is a source of inspiration and joy, a means for work and play, a supply of food and drink. It is required and sought by our and every species.
Some of the most interesting places on Earth are our rivers, estuaries, seas, lakes, inlets, sounds, bays, marshes, ponds, streams and bogs, Water defines our planet, and others; the NASA Kepler mission is searching for habitable worlds beyond our solar system — those special planets that can sustain liquid water.
There is much to explore and much to talk about. So, stay tuned. And while we may not be in a fully functional mode, there are already some interesting posts to read and links to follow — though we apologize about the Latin you will encounter down the page. That’s Lorem Ipsum filler text, which you can learn about HERE.
The Blue Times will soon be on the air for good. Watch for new posts, even while we are finishing this site. And if you would like to be notified of our official launch (and our full transition to English) sign-up HERE.
See you soon.
Deep Sea Mining: The Rush Is On Reply
By John Cronin
The rush to mine the deep sea floor is on. Buried in the ocean bottom are rich deposits of precious metals such as silver, gold and zinc. Their extraction will cause environmental impacts that could be devastating to some of the planet’s rarest marine communities. A growing opposition movement is afoot.
In a recent post we highlighted Secretary of State Clinton’s plea to the United States Senate to facilitate U.S. claims in the Arctic. Her recent trip above the Circle promoting harmony amongst nations belies the international battle over mining rights ahead. Environment 360 conducted an excellent interview with Duke University marine biologist Cindy Lee Van Dover in March 2011. The controversy is building in Papua New Guinea. And, of course, China is on the move with new technology. Marcia Fargnoli, our correspondent in Namibia, keeps up with the growing opposition in New Zealand where this excellent video was produced.
How to Frack Reply
The Pittsburgh Post Gazette‘s in-depth view of the fracking process. From its online site:
“If you’ve driven into the countryside surrounding Pittsburgh recently, you may have seen few skyscraping rigs like this one. They’re popping up across Pennsylvania as drillers tap the Marcellus Shale rock formation to access lucrative natural gas. These panoramics are the most comprehensive tour of a rig site yet recorded. Stage one is the drilling process, in which companies puncture the earth and reach depths of around 6,000 feet — the length of 20 football fields. Once drilling starts, the rig operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week for three to four weeks.”
Click the image to learn more.
Thomas Berry Reply
By John Cronin
Three years ago today, my friend Thomas Berry died. It is a measure of the profound way in which he touched us that his death came as a shock, despite his 94 years and a prolonged infirmity. Thomas was one of our greatest environmental thinkers. I still feel that absent his guidance we are a little more lost than we would otherwise be. Reprinted below is a remembrance I wrote the on June 1, 2009, the day Thomas died:
On Sunday, May 31, Thomas Berry’s sister Margaret wrote his friends that Tom was “sinking rapidly.” On Monday, June 1, Margaret wrote again, this time to tell us that Tom had “died quietly at 6:25 AM.” To those who knew him, Tom was a towering figure, for more reasons than this space can accomodate. Here are a few thoughts on the passing of a great and dear man.
Twenty-five years ago, two friends and I sat with Tom Berry beneath a tree outside the farmhouse at Castle Rock in Garrison NY . . . sat and listened. It was a beautiful, late spring day of azure sky over the Hudson River Highlands.
For two hours, he removed us from the daily environmental politics with which we were preoccupied and spoke of the whole of life, particle to primate, each creature an elemental force without which Creation is incomplete. Absent was the rhetoric of strategy and tactics, of winners and losers, of who is good and who is bad. Instead, Tom talked of the human place, and of the transcendence of nature, of which we humans are an integral part, and to which we are meant to give voice.
He spoke of the human role in the universe story. “A story told by humans to one another that will also be the story that the wood thrush sings in the thicket, the story that the river recites in its downward journey,” he later wrote in The Dream of the Earth. => More…
Why Fresh Water is Precious Reply
The sphere on the left represents Earth with all of the water removed. The blue sphere to the right shows the approximate volume of all of Earth’s water. The tiny blue dot on the far right represents the available fresh water.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Illustration by Jack Cook.
Law of the Sea, the Melting Arctic & Economic Opportunity Reply
By John Cronin
Melting Arctic sea ice presents economic opportunities for which the United States must compete, according to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in testimony supporting ratification of the Law of the Seas Treaty before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday:
As the Arctic warms and frees up shipping routes it is more important that we put our navigational rights on a treaty footing and have a larger voice in the interpretation and development of the rules because it won’t just be the five Arctic nations, you will see China, India, Brazil, you name it, all vying for navigational rights and routes through the Arctic. The framework we should establish is the one in the Convention that will help us deal with expanded human activity in the Arctic.
This little noted piece of testimony by Secretary Clinton, given in response to questioning by committee member Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH, is a spin on the economic opportunities of climate change that departs from the clean technologies, green branding, and carbon trading that are the usual fare of climate discussions. Andrew Revkin, my colleague at Pace University, covered the Navy’s take on this in a March 10, 2011 post on his NY Times Dot Earth blog.
Appearing with Clinton were Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — an unusual trio, even for Capitol Hill. They testified that by laying claim to America’s continental shelf and navigational rights through the treaty new opportunities for American business and military interests will open. They also assured committee members the treaty will make no new requirements of the United States with regard to carbon emissions or other types of climate mitigation.
Buried in arcane detail, during almost three hours of testimony, the discussion of the opening of the Arctic to regular navigation passed quickly. But it underlies the emerging economic opportunities promoted by treaty supporters, such as the US Chamber of Commerce:
The treaty provides certainty in accessing resources in the Arctic and Antarctic and could ultimately enable American businesses to explore the vast natural resources contained in the seabeds in those areas. => More…
A National Disgrace Reply
Potomac Leads Most Endangered Rivers List
By John Cronin
The Potomac River topped the list of most endangered rivers in the nation, published by American Rivers on April 15. The Potomac’s condition epitomizes the struggle for success in which the 1972 Clean Water Act is still engaged on its 40th anniversary. Flowing through the heart of Washington DC 
just two miles from Capitol Hill, a source of drinking water for Congress, the Potomac has been the shame of the nation since at least 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson declared it “a national disgrace.”
A 2010 evaluation of the Potomac River by the University of Maryland gave the river a “D” as part of its overall evaluation of the Chesapeake Bay system, which earned a “C-”. There is no indication that the river’s quality has improved since. The Potomac’s headwaters are in Fairfax Stone, West Virginia. From there it runs 383 miles to Point Lookout, Maryland. Its watershed encompasses 14,670 square miles, and also includes Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
American Rivers describes the Potomac’s condition:
The Potomac is the ‘nation’s river,’ rich in culture and history and the lifeblood of our nation’s capital. The river provides drinking water to more than five million people and offers abundant opportunities for recreation. However, the Potomac is threatened by agricultural and urban pollution . . .Pollution in the Potomac threatens drinking water supplies, kills fish, and poses a health risk to people who swim, fish, and boat on the river.
American Rivers gets it right when it says that rollbacks to the Clean Water Act will make matters worse on the Potomac and other waters. But does that mean the law as currently written has the right stuff to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the nation’s waters,” as Section 101 of the Act aspires to do? => More…
