Echo

Enjoy a Great Lakes horror movie marathon

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It’s enough Asian carp footage to host a movie marathon. Recently released high-definition and streaming videos of the invasive species are available for download at the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. Watch massive schools of silver carp flying toward video cameras or a barge moving past the electric invasive species barrier in Romeoville, Ill. They are just two of the multiple choices interested viewers can choose. With a run time of about 30 seconds, the Asian carp videos are sorted into four sections:

The fish in captivity
Barriers preventing the fish from entry into the Great Lakes
 Chicago waterways the fish could sneak through
Asian carp in the wild

It’s the first time such extensive filming of Asian carp has been made available, says the Ohio Outdoor News in a recent story about the footage.

Echo

Environment reporter receives honor

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Here at Echo we admire quality reporting on the environment, especially in the Great Lakes region. It looks like the Sierra Club does too. Journalist Jeff Alexander was recently honored for his in-depth environmental reporting by the Michigan Chapter of the Sierra Club. The group cited his investigation into changes in Michigan’s forestry management as an exemplar of the quality journalism he’s doing.  He’s also covered such issues as beach pollution and mining in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for Bridge Magazine. We’re a little partial to Alexander’s  Asian Carp Doomsday Clock, a feature he created on his blog, All Things Great Lakes, to track how close carp are to entering the Great Lakes.

Echo

Farmers have tough time adjusting to unpredictable extreme weather

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The increasing unpredictability of extreme weather makes it hard to adapt U.S. crops to climate change. So says, Phil Robertson, a crop and soil scientist from Michigan State University, in a recent video released by the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media. Adjusting planting strategies and adapting new crop genetics are straightforward approaches farmers and crop scientists can take to respond to new climate conditions, he said. The variability of extreme weather complicates these tactics, though. “Extreme events, with the longer heat waves, with seasonal droughts, which are much more difficult to predict, and much more important in their effects on crops will be, I think, probably the hardest aspect of climate change to anticipate and adapt to,” Robertson said in the video.