Asian carp, a species worth admiring?

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Yesterday, wired.com dubbed the Asian carp as an invasive species worth admiring. In total, nine species received the title including others in the Great Lakes region like, the wild boar, the European starling and the dandelion. Reporter Brandon Keim thinks that admirable carp qualities include the fact that it grows to more than 100 pounds, eats several times its body weight daily and has an uncanny knack of slowing boaters down. But Keim makes it clear that “worth admiring” does not equate “good for the environment.” He says that invasive species are living beings too and have some talents worth talking about. “So for a few minutes, let’s put aside our usual feelings about invasive species, and just talk about some really cool animals,” he wrote.

Glorified paperweights: Will Great Lakes cities follow Seattle’s lead and opt-out of phone books?

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Last April, Echo investigated the amount of waste created by phone books — paper directories that are often used as bookends rather than their intended use. The city of Seattle, Wash. became the first U.S. city earlier this month to implement an opt-out program for these hefty paper weights. Publishers will also be required to pay the recycling bill. The Yellow Pages Association also created a website for people to search for opt-out options.

Greening of Flint update

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Since July Echo has been following “The Greening of Flint” a project by Michigan State University faculty and students. The project follows Flint, Mich. — a city abandoned by an automobile industry – as it attempts to revitalize itself through sustainable and green programs.

A screening of the project’s 8-minute film, “The Kings of Flint” will be shown at the Flint Film Festival this Saturday, Oct. 16th from 1 to 3 pm. This film will also be shown at the MSU Journalism School Centennial Saturday, Oct.

Recycling booty reported in pounds and Asian carp equivalents

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Last week Echo reported that a new event, “Recycle Rama,” recycled thousands of pounds of material in Michigan’s Ingham County. David Smith, an environmental specialist with the city of East Lansing, let us know the event’s finals counts excluding things like mercury thermostats, CFL light bulbs and fluorescent tubes that haven’t yet been weighed. Items recycled (in pounds):

Electronic waste: 78,000

Scrap metal: 5,000

Appliances: 16,700

Bikes: 1,400

Books: 9,400

Miscellaneous re-sale items: 4,200

Clothing: 2,500

Shoes: 1,000

Air conditioners: 2,280

Dehumidifiers: 3,780

Unwanted medications: 548

Cooking oil: 414

Miscellaneous recyclables (mainly cardboard): 440

Holiday lights: 550

That’s 126,212 pounds (about 63 tons) of materials total. That’s about 1,262 Asian carp, assuming they are on the heftier end. If only those could be recycled in mass too.

Echo

MONDAY MASHUP: Monarch Migration

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Each fall hundreds of thousands of monarch butterflies migrate south for the winter. They’re found all over the country but are often spotted in Great Lakes states.

And you can help record their progress.

You’re getting credit for that?: Cool classes for outdoor education

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As a master’s student in environmental journalism my time is spent in the office, in the classroom, or studying in a dark place and always, on a computer. My point is: flickering, fluorescent bulbs can’t replace sunlight, and surfing to a place on the internet can’t replace a first-hand experience. So when I took a wilderness writing course last year at Michigan State University I felt that I could reconnect with the subject of my writing: the environment. We camped on the shores of Lake Michigan, listened to a pack of coyotes hustle past our tent during the night and relieved our eyes from the daily fluorescent assault.

It was my first time seeing a Great Lake and I came back a more prepared journalist because of it. Afterward, I wanted to know what other Great Lakes universities had to offer, classes that if I had the time, funds or enrollment status, I would take in a heartbeat.