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Hi folks!

You might as well know right off the bat: I love personal finance guru, Suze Orman.  She’s straightforward, helps empower people, and she’s got a TON of universal wisdom–it just happens to come out in the form of financial advice, which I think is cool.  Last week Suze said, you’ve got to face it to erase it.  Okay, she was talking about helping people get out of deep debt but it relates to environmental degradation, too.  In fact, the way we’ve treated the environment for the past two hundred years is, in my mind, akin to getting into debt and spending WAY beyond our means.

And quite frankly, I’m worried about the oceans.  I know coral reefs have been bleaching and dying since the ’80’s (at the current rate of destruction 70% of coral reefs will be lost within the next 40 years), and believe me back when everyone was shouting about the rainforest (remember the rainforest?) my eco-empassioned college girlfriend made me aware of coral stress on a regular basis.  And now twenty years later things are really heating up.  The first step to erasing it is facing it, so let’s face it…

According to this Huffington Post blog post I just read, there are 9 Ocean Problems.  Turns out there’s more like 11 really big ones if you include shrimping and rising sea levels, which you should.

Problems and solutions in a nutshell:

1. Let’s face it: Overfishing.  Over 70% of fish species are estimated to be depleted.

Let’s erase it:  Overhaul fishing policies.

2. Let’s face it: Irresponsible fish farming.  Poorly managed and unregulated, these operations lead to nutrient and chemical pollution and harmful fish release.

Let’s erase it:  Regulate this practice.

3. Let’s face it:  Ghost farming.  Lost or discarded gear continues to catch fish and marine animals (see the picture above).

Let’s erase it:  Support fishing gear buy-back programs and/or make biodegradable gear.

4. Let’s face it:  Garbage.  Trash in the water chokes, traps, and destroys all manner of marine life from whales to corals.   There’s a bigger-than-Texas trash vortex out there between California and Hawaii and an Atlantic Ocean garbage vortex, too.

Let’s erase it:  Make non-biodegradable packaging illegal.  Collect and recycle the water trash??  Eliminate the concept of waste!

5. Let’s face it:  Acidification.  An increase in atmospheric CO2 has caused the acidity of ocean water to increase by 25% since the beginning of the industrial revolution.  Acidity inhibits the uptake of calcium.  That’s a BIG problem for sea animals that need to build their exoskeletons out of calcium carbonate.

Let’s erase it:  Support climate change legislation.  Drive less.  Compost locally.

6. Let’s face it:  Dead zones.  This is where the ocean floor is devoid of life because the water is devoid of oxygen.  Found primarily at the mouths of large rivers polluted with agriculture-derived nutrients, these excess nutrients in turn cause algal blooms which use up all the oxygen.

Let’s erase it:  Manage and regulate large farm operations for their handling of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus.

7. Let’s face it:  Mercury pollution.  Mercury is a neurotoxin derived primarily from coal power plants.  It makes its way up the food chain and is expected to increase by 50% in the next 20 years.

Let’s erase it:  I know some of these solutions sound extreme, but seriously: shut down coal power plants.

8. Let’s face it:  Offshore drilling.  I find this so disturbing: seismic waves used to find oil harms sea mammals and disorients whales.  It also pollutes the sea environment with mercury, arsenic, and lead.  Plus it perpetuates all the problems such as ocean warming and acidification associated with fossil fuel combustion.

Let’s erase it:  Support the ending of this practice and support the development of renewable energy sources.

9. Let’s face it:  Shark finning/whaling.  50 to 100 million sharks are killed each year.  It’s a problem all the way down the food chain when top predators, which reproduce more slowly than they’re being killed, are overfished.

Let’s erase it:  Support better and enforced fishing and whaling policies, and protest the sale of shark fin or whale meat.

10. Let’s face it:  Shrimping.  According to ShrimpSuck.org, the #1 selling seafood in the US, isn’t typically overfished but it is associated with insane percentages of bycatches–the unintended catching of other species while fishing for shrimp.

Let’s erase it:  Support changing fishing policies for the shrimping industry.

11. Let’s face it:  Rising sea levels.  Not much to say about this inevitability so just take a look one sinking island.

Let’s erase it:  Do whatever you can to make a difference!  If we act now we can still slow down the effects of global warming.

See ya next time!

Holly Rae Taylor, the Compost Maven.

We have  a new, low-energy kitchen composter we love:

http://dev.myhomeecology.com/Nature-Mill-Composter.html

Here Holly shows us how to compost Birkenstocks:
http://www.youtube.com/user/MyHomeEcology#p/a/u/0/0XnzSv5QO3Q

Our new Home Ecology store in Shelburne, Vermont is now open. 

Come check us out!

http://maps.google.com/places/us/shelburne/vt/shelburne-rd/5247/-home-ecology?gl=us

Hi folks!

My name is Holly Rae Taylor, the Compost Maven.  I’m the founder and one of the owners of Home Ecology and I’ll be writing this blog.  In my usual unorthodox style this blog will be an exercise in creative writing, connecting unusual dots, and hopefully it will be a fun and informative eco-adventure!  You’ll find posts about every ecological topic under the sun including composting, backyard homesteading, global warming, and green trends.

Please be sure to check back often and be sure to sign up for the RSS feed and our e-newsletter so you can keep tabs on all of our antics and musings!

See you soon!

Holly, the Compost Maven