WiLD Blog

No, it is not oil. Water, our most precious resource, is also our most frequently overlooked resource.  How many times do you go to the drinking fountain a day, go to the restroom to wash your hands, or even over to the pool for a swim?  Why, in a world where half its people don’t have proper drinking water do the other half swim their 500th yard to fitness without a second thought?  It is our culture, but it is also our responsibility to be educated.  1.1 billion people in this world lack access to clean water.  Most of those people live in Africa and Asia, lands that are inundated with floods and torrential downfalls during monsoon season, but lack the infrastructure to harness, conserve, regulate and distribute water to its thirsty citizens the rest of the year. 

During rainy season in these countries, water comes bitter sweetly, as a blessing and a curse.  Many people in San Diego are familiar with the multitude of beach closures that are the result of high levels of disease causing bacteria in the ocean after rain storms.  Imagine a world where that is the condition of your drinking water, daily…and this water, your water, even though it is polluted and infested with parasites, is still a highly coveted commodity.  It is what you drink, what you give you brothers and sisters, mother and father to drink.  It is high time to be aware of clean water’s growing scarcity.  It is time to shut the faucet off when you’re washing your face, brushing your teeth, washing your car.  Remember that you are responsible for a piece of the pie; you can do your share to use less; you have the ability to educate those around you! Start small, with your best friend, then don’t be shy with the rest!

Julia Novak

We have our fair share of clean water issues here in San Diego, but we are not alone. In the Midwest, a large battle is brewing over the area’s largest oil refinery’s plans to discharge more pollutants into Lake Michigan. A permit has been issued that allows the refinery to dump 53% more ammonia and 35% more pounds of suspended solids.

Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America, and the only one in the group located entirely within the United States.

Public outcry has been huge, with more than 45,000 people signing a petition against the permit and politicians are stepping up as well too. The United States House of Representatives approved a resolution urging the state of Indiana to reconsider issuing the permit.

To me this demonstrates the fact that people do care about their environment and our politicians do listen to our voices. Collective action such as public awareness and petitions do make a difference in affecting change. People commonly ask: “What does one person matter?” The thing is every person counts towards a collective whole that can affect great changes when needed, and every person is needed.

Having awareness and appreciation of the natural environment and the ways we affect it is crucial when tackling environmental issues such as this. Rahm Emanuel, the Democratic representative of Illinois said, “Fifteen years ago, they may have been able to pull this off, but there has been a total consciousness change among the people that live here.”

People have learned that they are equally affected by the quality of Lake Michigan as well as the plants and creatures that live there. They’ve come to appreciate its natural beauty. We should all have pride in where we live and work to protect the natural environment that we are a part of. We can’t allow private interests to restrict or pollute our access to something that belongs to all of us.

-Calvin Lee

 In Annapolis, Maryland officials are considering a bill to ban the use of plastic bags in the city, in an effort to protect marine life. Plastic bags are often the cause of death of marine life in Chesapeake Bay and it’s tributaries. Internationally, an estimated 100,000 whales, seals, turtles and other marine mammals are killed each year according to the environmental group, Planet Ark.

A world without plastic bags seems hard to imagine, but it already exists in other countries. For three months, I studied abroad in Australia, one of the few countries that have banned the use of plastic bags.  Instead, grocery stores either use biodegradable plastic bags or they sell cheap reusable cloth bags. For less than a US dollar you could get a reusable, environmentally friendly cloth bag.  They were also more sturdy and useful than a regular plastic bag. I even bought a few back home for my family to carry their groceries in.

Royal tern with plastic bag around its neck. Thousands of wild animals die every year due to plastic bags.

While in Australia, I also saw the consequences of plastic bags. We visited an aquarium as part of one of our field trips were we saw a sea turtle being rehabilitated. It was found washed ashore and sick, because it mistook a plastic bag as a jellyfish. Sea turtles (and other marine life) cannot digest plastic bags, which blocks up their intestines. The campaign to stop the use of plastic bags in Australia was partially due to the large amount of sea turtles and other marine life being killed by plastic bags.

It was interesting to come back to the US and realize how many plastic bags are being used and how they’re actually quite unnecessary. They’re such a large part of our grocery experience. Unfortunately they’re also part of a beach experience. Anyone that’s been to some of the beaches here in San Diego has seen litter and plastic bags. Bags are the 5th most common form of beach debris.

However in the US there is movement towards viable alternatives. Some stores are actually selling reusable cloth bags. Also, if you don’t want to buy cloth bags, opt for paper instead of plastic, since it takes less time for it to biodegrade and is less harmful than using plastic. In addition, remember to pick up your litter at the beach.

Don’t be part of the problem, be part of the solution.

-Calvin Lee

The Tijuana River is one of the biggest sources of ocean plastic for the Pacific Ocean along the West Coast of the United States. Much of the trash sinks to the bottom, strangling sea life or floats around the Pacific.

Plastic trash vortex menaces Pacific sealife-study

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Nov 5 (Reuters) - Old toothbrushes, beach toys and used condoms are part of a vast vortex of plastic trash in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, threatening sea creatures that get tangled in it, eat it or ride on it, a new report says.

Because plastic doesn’t break down the way organic material does, ocean currents and tides have carried it thousands of miles (kms) to an area between Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast, according to the study by the international environmental group Greenpeace.

This swirling vortex, which can grow to be about the size of Texas, is not far from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, designated as a protected U.S. national monument in June by President George W. Bush.

The Greenpeace report, “Plastic Debris in the World’s Oceans” said at least 267 species — including seabirds, turtles, seals, sea lions, whales and fish — are known to have suffered from entanglement or ingestion of marine debris.

Some 80 percent of this debris comes from land and 20 percent from the oceans, the report said, with four main sources: tourism, sewage, fishing and waste from ships and boats.

The new report comes days after the journal Science projected that Earth’s stocks of fish and seafood would collapse by 2048 if trends in overfishing and pollution continue.

Two weeks ago, the U.S. Institute of Medicine said the benefits of eating fish outweigh the risks of toxins detected in the animals.

Discarded or lost fishing nets and traps can continue to catch fish when they are no longer in use, the report said.

The report said an international agreement known as MARPOL is aimed at ending the dumping of plastic debris at sea, but noted that since most debris originates on land, even total enforcement of this agreement would not eliminate the problem.