Echo
Help us with some of that wisdom-of-crowds-social-media stuff
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Give us a hand identifying those reporting on environmental issues in the Great Lakes region for a survey leading to ways to improve global climate change understanding.
Echo
Photo Friday: Upbound, Detroit River, December 2010
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This image comes from Mark J. Burrows, a physical scientist at the Great Lakes Regional Office of the International Joint Commission. To submit an image for consideration for Great Lakes Echo’s Photo Friday feature, send the image, a caption and your name to greatlakesecho@gmail.com. Put Photo Friday in the subject line.
Echo
Lighthouse? Ice house!
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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Ohio’s Cuyahoga River once was noted for catching fire. But check out another temperature extreme in this clip from the Today Show featuring a Lake Erie lighthouse at the river’s mouth near Cleveland. The river is a heck of a lot cleaner now – it doesn’t burn. But I’m not sure any amount of flames could melt that ice coat this week.
Echo
A new beat? Working the MichEEN
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By David Poulson
I’ve been involved in launching another social media community that is relevant to the environment. It’s not journalism — at least not in a traditional sense. But it certainly has implications for environmental reporting. That’s one of the advantages of working here at the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University. It offers the freedom to experiment in ways that lead to, integrate with or enhance other information projects.
Land
Looking for Great Lakes region city recylers
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One of the first things Michigan Gov.-elect Rick Snyder noted in his victory speech Tuesday is the need to restore his state’s central cities. That’s hardly news. And it’s hardly the first time a politician highlighted the need. Who could oppose such a thing? But who can make it happen? Better yet, who is making it happen now?
Echo
Canadian policy restricting access to environment scientists harms two nations
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Canadian federal environment officials are explicitly covered by an entry in Echo’s reporters’ guide: “We like Canadians. But good heavens they have an incredible government bureaucracy. You need a Canadian government source? Get hustling early in the reporting.”
That’s why I was unsurprised to read criticism of Environment Canada’s lack of transparency in the Sept. 25 Montreal Gazette.
Echo
Is an oil spill worse than a carp invasion?
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Chicago Mayor Richard Daley prompts an interesting question:
Is chemical or biological pollution the greater threat to Lake Michigan?
The mayor used the Kalamazoo River oil spill to attempt to turn the table on critics urging Chicago to close the route for invasive Asian carp.
Echo
Breaking the seal of the electronic confessional
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Awhile back in this space I groused about Minnesota officials resurrecting the “confessional style” of public hearings. That’s the one where the public shows up and one at a time people privately give comments about controversial issues to representatives of the decision makers. My beef is that such a process robs people of interaction and the synergy that real discussions often produce. It also insulates decision makers from the people affected by their decisions. Now the magic of digital communications has apparently created an electronic version of this wayward attempt to generate input into crtiical public decisions.
Echo
Gulf oil spill could swallow greatest of lakes
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Granted, offhshore oil drilling of the kind that created the Gulf mess is prohibited in the Great Lakes. But if such an accident had occurred on the sweetwater seas, just how large an area would it cover? Check out this site to see the extent of the spill superimposed on your hometown. When you’re through gasping, stick the name of any of the Great Lakes into the slot for location and hit the “Move the Spill” button. If you mentally flip the spill outline and shift it a bit to the west, you can see that even Lake Superior would be pretty well swallowed by the slick. The other Great Lakes would be smothered. The producer of this tool says the image is based on data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and updated at least once a day.
Echo
Where are the Lake secrets in Outside Magazine’s state secrets?
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Outside Magazine this month tells outdoor travelers to ignore the obvious big name national parks and seek out the lesser used state parks, national lakeshores and recreation areas. Only one of the nine public lands the magazine profiles is in the Great Lakes region – Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Here at Echo we find that a particularly unimaginative choice. Not that we don’t like Pictured Rocks – by all means get there if you haven’t been already. But it’s hardly an unknown destination, at least among regional outdoor lovers.