Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/tag/catch-of-the-day/page/127/)
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.
Detroit native Mark McInnis is giving away seeds to help introduce his new film on the explosion of urban gardening in his home city. In Urban Roots, McInnis connects the decline of the city’s auto industry to the rise of vacant lots that now provide space for gardens. McInnis’s mother worked for Ford Motor Co. in Detroit throughout his childhood. “That job put braces on my bother’s teeth, paid for our skateboards and our weekend trips up north,” he said.
A Milwaukee aquapoinics company was recognized this week in the “Energy and Environment” section of the New York Times. Save Water Organics was featured in a story about raising fish while growing water-based plants at the same time. The plants are grown on top of the fishpond. The fish waste supplies the plants with fertilizer, and the plants filter the water for the fish. While the story came out of London, the writer focused on the techniques used at Sweet Water.
There is a new online campaign dealing with fisheries that people concerned about fishing in the Great Lakes might be interested in. It has a strange but catchy name: Who Fishes Matters. The campaign promotes awareness about who is fishing in the ocean and asks regulators to stop consolidating fishing permits for big businesses. Campaign officials say such consolidation gives control over fishing to those with money and fosters a corporate buyout of the industry. The Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance is behind the campaign and has created a particularly intriguing strategy to influence policymakers.
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.
Today is the first annual National Gleaning Day
To me, it is a celebration of homegrown food, harvest and an action against food waste. But when I looked up what was happening locally, in Michigan and around the country, no celebrations could be found. A quick Google search of the term “National Gleaning Day” gave me practically nothing. In fact, the search engine even tried to change the term by stating, “Did you mean National Cleaning Day?”
No, I didn’t mean National Cleaning Day. Gleaning is collecting unwanted, extra or leftover crops from fields after harvest.
Someone once told me that few things are as powerful as an angry mom. This is true in humans and animals. Most people know not to mess with a mom whose kid gets picked on. They are smart enough not to too close to a nest full of baby birds. It’s only natural for mothers to protect their young.
The League of Conservation Voters is only two thirds of the way through filling out its 2010 “Dirty Dozen,” the group’s list of Congressional candidates with unimpressive voting records on clean energy and the environment. But candidates from Great Lakes states have already nabbed three of the eight spots. The lineup so far:
Tim Walberg (R-MI): Smilin’ Tim Walberg (pictured at right) opposed 32 of 33 pieces of environmental legislation the last time he was in office, including the No Child Left Inside Act, an environmental education program. Michelle Bachman (R-MN): A few gems from Bachman herself: “The big thing we are working on now is the global warming hoax. It’s all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax,” and, “I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back.
Men are from Mars and women are from Venus…
Well, actually, it ends up we’re from the same planet (Earth) but the phrase is still fitting to show how the two genders diverge. Like what each thinks about climate change. Researchers at Michigan State University concluded that women are more inclined to accept global warming than men. To reach this conclusion, Associate Professor of Sociology Aaron M. McCright analyzed eight years of the Gallup environmental poll data. McCright says that women are socialized to be more caring and empathetic which may be why they’re wearier of climate change consequences.
The EPA recently began doling out a few of the $161 million worth of Great Lakes Restoration Initiative grants announced in May. The EPA’s list of grants is right here. Here’s a quick list of those getting news coverage. The Toledo Blade reports the removal of the Ballville Dam on the Sandusky River will get $2 million in support from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act, a program whose funding saw an $8 million boost from the GLRI. The Detroit News reports a $2.8 million GLRI grant through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will help determine whether contaminants from Grassy Island — a big pile of sediment dredged from the Rouge River — are seeping into the Detroit River.