50 Ways to Help the Planet

Chris Glass and the folks from Wire and Twine put together this impressive list of things you can do to help the planet. I would change 39 to “Bike Don’t Drive” since I bike to work everyday (although it’s only about 2 miles each way). The City has done an amazing job with adding tons of bike lines to make commuting safer. Plus it saves you $81 a month!

If you want to celebrate tonight, Earth Day New York and Green Drinks are sponsoring an event at The Park with music, art, and even an eco-fashion show.

It seems like everybody is trying to be green these days, and although those “green” Wal Mart ads can be annoying, I think it’s a good sign. I know Justin, Pat, and I can appreciate it, being environmental engineers and all. This is what I call job security!

A Placeholding Post and CMJAWN

In Rainbows (click that link to see some D.I.Y. cover art) has pretty much been on repeat for the entire week. I haven’t listened to anything else since downloading it on Wednesday morning, so sorry for the lack of new music on here. It’s been perfect listening for the recent shift in weather, my autumn album of 2007? Very likely. Loving it.

Other things I’m pretty stoked about: Al Gore and the IPCC win the Nobel Peace Prize (now if he would just fucking run for President!), Digitalism is at Making Time tonight, and my dear crackers are en route to Philadelphia as I type this (well, at least a couple of them).

[MP3]: Digitalism  ”Idealistic (Dirty Disco Youth’s Hapiness Is A Drug)”

One last thing, since moving down here, I’ve been helping with the POPPED! Music Festival. It’s next summer at Drexel University from June 20-22. It’s going to be massive! Anyway, we’re doing events throughout the year to help promote the sustainably run festival and the very first is our CMJ Showcase, appropriately titled CMJAWN. Check it out!

CLICK THROUGH TO PHILEBRITY.COM/CMJAWN FOR MUSIC, INFO AND MORE…

pic of the week — look inside america

Within the last month, climate scientists estimated that an area of the Northern Hemisphere polar ice cap almost twice the size of Britain disappeared as a result of the unprecedented heat, allowing for the Northwest Passage has become fully navigable for the first time in history. “If present trends continue, scientists predict that the Arctic could become ice-free during the summer months within 23 years. To put that into context, it took the last 30 years for it to lose almost a third of its ice (Treehugger).”

The Northern Hemisphere sea ice area reached a historic minimum in September (4.28 million sq. km), representing a 23% drop in sea ice coverage from the previous record ice minimum (September 2005) and a 39% drop from the long-term average.

Find out more at NSIDC.

[MP3]: Blur  ”Look Inside America”
Blur; Virgin, 2007

Above pic via onlystardust

pic of the week — manhattanhenge

[MP3]: Brian Eno  ”Golden Hours”

Actually, not quite, but close. Manhattanhenge is a biannual phenomenon when the sun sets with the centerline of every Manhattan cross street creating a dramatic backdrop against the iron, glass, steel, and stone faced buildings that line the city streets. Since the entire island (and grid) is rotated 30-degrees from geographic north, the sun aligns with the grid on May 28th and July 12th (mark your calendars).

Last week as I crawled out from the dark underground and made my way up to the surface streets there were about 20 minutes of golden light left in the New York City sky. I quickly hailed a cab and started to make my way down 7th Avenue. I was digging around my bag and then a glimmer of light caught my eye so I popped my head up to see the sun slipping into the Hudson River. I was awestruck as block by block went by filled with the melting sun’s orange rays. It was one of the most surreal and tranquil feelings I’ve had in quite a while, in one of the busiest places on the planet.

Just before getting in the cab, I was listening to Brian Eno’s Another Green World and coincidentally, Eno’s “Golden Hours” would have been perfect listening for the landscape that was set before me. Like the scenery, the song is saturated with ambience from John Cale’s viola work. It also gives the same sort of tranquility and calming feeling – almost suspending you in time and place as the world whirls by at an ever increasing pace. Beautiful.

Above pic via michaeldillingham

We Live in a Beautiful World

For the last two Sundays I’ve been fascinated with The Discovery Channel’s Planet Earth. Last night’s episodes of the 11-part mini-series featured Ice Worlds and Deserts. The cinematography throughout the first 5 episodes has been absolutely awe-inspiring and breathtaking. Using innovative camera technology, the filmmakers have been able to capture never seen before animal behaviors and have captured animals for the first time on film including; snow leopards pursuing markhor in the Himalayas and the Gobi desert’s Bactrian camel. Infrared technology is also utilized to show how red kangaroos lick their arms to keep themselves cool in the scorching 125-degree weather in Australia. And, the penguins, unbelievable.

On the very first episode (From Pole to Pole, aired last Sunday) the film team captured wolves chasing a herd of caribou tens of thousands strong across the frozen tundra of Canada. The entire pursuit was captured from an aerial vantage point via a new type of camera mounted on the bottom of a helicopter. The wolves were successful in scaring away one of the calves from its mother and the chase was on. Narrator Sigourney Weaver informed the viewers that the caribou calf is capable of outrunning the wolves as long as it doesn’t trip up and fall. I found myself on the edge of the couch, fists clenched, cheering for the gangly-legged calf to outrun the predator. A couple of trip up’s and the wolf finally caught up to the calf after what seemed like a chase that went on for miles. It was upsetting and disturbing to see that calf lose it’s life, but not nearly as disturbing as what I witnessed in last night’s episode.

During last night’s Ice Worlds episode, I found myself rooting for the predator instead of the prey. The film crew captured a male polar bear, the largest living land carnivore, swimming out to sea in search its favorite food, ringed seals. It’s becoming more and more common to see polar bears swimming up to 60 miles from land to find prey. Since the world’s climate has been getting increasingly warmer, the arctic ice packs (the polar bears’ primary hunting grounds) have been melting leading the bears to take on longer than usual swims to find food and in some cases result in the bears drowning.

The polar bear filmed by the crew was returning from one of these swims out to sea. As he exited the ocean and walked up onto land, it was noted that he had lost half of his body weight. A pack of walrus’ had made their way onto the rocky outcrops of the shoreline, which the bear would attack once he got some much needed rest. In the following days, a dense fog settled across the pack and the polar bear attacked the walrus’, which formed a protective barrier to their young by shielding them with their backs. The bear attempted to kill three or four separate beasts, unable to penetrate their 2-inch thick outer skin with his long claws and teeth. Finally, the bear got one of the enourmous animals away from herd and a battle ensued in the freezing waters, again I found myself on the edge of my seat hoping the bear would finally score a meal.

Despite his efforts, the bear lost as the walrus squiggled away nearly unscathed. I thought, “ok, so the bear will live to fight another day,” until I saw him take his first few steps out of the ocean, barely able to drag his back half with him. The walrus had pretty much destroyed the bear’s hind legs with its giant tusks, leaving him incapacitated. The bear limped back onto land and carved a shallow crater in the ground, left out a bellow, and laid down taking his last few breaths of precious arctic air.

GUILT and frustration is what I felt following the heartbreaking scene, the bear’s attack on the walrus was a last ditch effort to save itself. But that’s what this show is aiming at, trying to create some awareness of how precious and beautiful the world we live in truly is, and to make the American public conscious on how much we’re fucking the place up. I felt frustrated because I work in a field that aims to improve the environment and in my professional experience, I feel like I’ve done little to help the cause. Sometimes it takes a show like this to make people realize what a beautiful world we live in and how much we neglect it and take for granted every day. If everyone lived like us [Americans], we’d need three Earths to support the world’s current population.

Planet Earth continues next Sunday on The Discovery Channel. You can catch last night’s episodes tonight on The Science Channel.