Eco-Chick · The modern girl's guide to living green & fabulous.

A Woman of Action

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by Starre Vartan · 06/24/06

There is a great interview of Dr. Deborah Bronson in E Magazine’s newsletter. The marine scientist talks about working with Sri Lankan fishermen to get them to stop dynamiting the reefs (an incredibly destructive, if efficent method of fishing), and the reef devastation wrought by Hurricanes, which are made worse by humanity’s trappings (and already exacerbated by global warming).

A couple excerpts:

E Magazine: Through your work you’ve spent considerable time working in the aftermath of the Asian tsunami disaster, which resulted in catastrophic loss of human life and property. But what Americans rarely hear about is the damage that was also done to marine life. Can you give us a sense of what was lost?

Deborah Brosnan: The underwater devastation was patchy. If you saw the images of the wave coming in, you could see how it destroyed stuff and then pulled it out with it. Well, all that stuff pretty much landed on coral reefs. In one area 92 to 325 million cubic feet of debris ended up on reefs and the sea floor. I saw everything from refrigerators to furniture to an entire house on reefs, and that stuff rolls around and smashes the coral up into bits. Corals grow about a quarter of an inch a year, so reefs are anywhere from 100 to about 1,000 years old, with the really pretty ones being older.

It’s pretty clear now that reefs protect coasts, as do mangroves and sand dunes—just look at what happened on the U.S. Gulf Coast, for example. Do you think people are getting the message about the importance of wise coastal development?

I don’t think everybody is getting the message, I really don’t, and that is distressing to say the least. People especially aren’t getting the message in the developing world, where they are most vulnerable. Many people on the ground are responding in ways that are not sustainable because they’ve got no choice.

I have been to the Gulf Coast since Katrina, where a lot of the issues are the same as I saw in Southeast Asia. The devastation isn’t as huge, but it’s very serious in some areas and people are responding in the same ways. I think it’s clear that some of our activities, such as putting channels through the mangroves, made the disaster worse because we created funnels for the storm surge.

How hopeful are you that we will still have reefs in 200 years?

I am worried about what is happening to reefs because I have seen many of the changes, yet I’ve also seen what a difference people can make when they decide that they are going to take care of their environment. I helped set up a marine reserve 10 years ago in the Caribbean, at St. Bart’s. At first, there were hardly any fish there. Ten years later many fish have come back. People who hated the reserve in the beginning are now proud to have it.

Also, protecting reefs, or any ecosystem, is like saving money for a rainy day. If we have a sufficiently large amount of ecosystems protected in reserves, species will be able to adjust to the inevitable changes that are heading our way. Reefs may be destroyed by a natural disaster or ships running aground, but if there are enough in reserves we’ve got enough to nurture the next generation of coral.

car, fish, fur, Furniture, Global Warming, interview, magazine, News, sustainable, water

Clearwater Great Hudson River Revival

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by Starre Vartan · 06/19/06

I had the best time at the Hudson River Clearwater Revival this weekend! It is one of the oldest environmental summer festivals in the country (over 35 years!) and still going strong! In fact I think there were more people this year than I’ve seen in awhile. I attended this gathering as a kid (when I wasn’t away at camp) and it has always bookended my summers- Clearwater Revival as summer starts, and the Garrison Art Center’s Arts & Crafts Fair towards the end. Clearwater is more that just having fun though. The price of admission goes towards educating people about the importance of the Hudson River from the Clearwater sloop.

All proceeds go directly to support Clearwater’s environmental research, education and advocacy to help preserve and protect the Hudson River and its tributaries, as well as communities in the river valley.

The Clearwater has quite a history, a true story of locally-based action eventually having a national impact.

Back in the mid-sixties, after centuries of accumulated sewage pollution and industrial dumping of toxic chemicals, the Hudson River was deemed “dead”. The river’s fragile ecological system was devastated. Not a single fish was found in many areas; the level of commercial fishery dropped dramatically and the once-thriving oyster harvesting industry became almost nonexistent. Recognizing this incredible social and environmental tragedy, Pete Seeger, a popular musician and respected activist, decided “to build a boat to save the river”. Holding small, fundraising river concerts throughout the Hudson River Valley, he literally passed his banjo among the crowd, collecting contributions to build the elegant tall ship that would become a symbol of environmental advocacy, the flagship of the American Environmental Movement, the Sloop Clearwater.

Later, Pete Seeger and the Clearwater org helped pass the original Clean Water Act and more recently forced GE to clean up the PCB’s they had dumped in the river.

I helped out at the E Magazine table, ate vegan soul food at Nyota’s Ting, listened to more music than I could keep track of (the stage was solar powered), caught some rays on the grass next to my beloved Hudson River, talked to lots of folks about tomorrow night’s POMED event in NYC, went shopping for some great new clothes (I’ll be highlighting some of the great stuff I found in future posts), signed petitions (one was to close Indian Point) and generally chilled out and appreciated the day.

The weather was beautiful, and the company was excellent. If you’d like to see more photos from the day, go to Remy C’s site.

book, clothes, Crafts, fish, Food, Hudson River, India, Lighting, local, magazine, Music, NYC, Pollution, Shopping, soul, style, summer, vegan, water, weather

Vanity Fair's Green Issue Party

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by Starre Vartan · 04/20/06

Vanity Fair’s party for their green issue was so much fun that I was still recovering from it 24 hours later. (It was the green martinis the amazing bartenders whipped up, and the red ones…and the wine….and not enough of the delicious raw and vegan food from Pure Food and Wine).

But now (finally!) I can look back on the night with a clear head and declare that it was a success. A successful party that is. I’m not sure how much world-saving got done, but hell, we all need a good party sometimes!

After an hour of mingle, a few speakers came on, including Gov. Pataki, Graydon Carter, and Paulette Cole, who is the President of ABC’s Home and Planet Foundation. Paulette introduced Robert F. Kennedy, who went hoarse during a rousing speech that touched on the nastiness of the Bush Administration, pathetic press coverage of environmental issues, and the necessity for closing down Indian Point nuclear power plant. Having grown up upriver but still very near Indian Point, I had enough nightmares as a child to get fully behind that last point. My town had giant (like several stories tall) sirens that would go off ‘just in case’ we had to evacuate. Talk about terrifying.

I’d heard RFK was a passionate speaker, and that’s no lie:

[The environmental movement's] biggest problem is an indolent and negative press…which leads to a public that doesn’t understand the connections between things like coal-burning power plants and the fact that fresh-water fish shouldn’t be eaten by children and pregnant women…

This is the worst administration of any in history, with over 400 rollbacks of environmental rules, a deliberate eviceration of thirty plus years of environmental regulations, and who puts known polluters in charge of public offices.

RFK also cited a CDC report that says that 1/6 of American women’s children are at risk because of pollutants in their bodies. He told the crowd that they should all get their blood checked, and admitted that he has twice the recommended limits of certain toxins in his own blood.

Naturally, after that sobering speech, it was necessary to drink more. (And I’m sure I’m not the only organic vegetarian in the room that wondered if our veg-only choices meant our bodies were at least a little less toxified. But then swilled the alcohol, which was NOT (boo!) organic. Where’s Orange V when you need it?)

Talking to fellow bloggers and other green press helped me feel a little better; we’ve certainly not been ignoring the environment, and in 20 years the kids will look up at us as the only ones who were reporting the truth. It’s too bad that we’re consistently relegated to the independent press when everyone needs to hear the Earth’s message loud and clear: “Yes Virginia, there is global warming, and it’s your fault.” Though at least Time Magazine stepped up a few weeks ago with their global warming issue. But when the heck is a major magazine going to tackle the 100,000 chemicals in our lives (less than 10% of which have been tested). Doesn’t that bother anyone in the mainstream?

Though Vanity Fair did not print on recycled paper (double boo!!) props to them for covering the issue; there are some great articles in the magazine, which will reach a lot more people than any party could. You should pick it up just to see the fabulous photos of all your green heros.

Commentary on the party at E Magazine and at Grist, and opinions on the magazine at Treehugger here and here.

Photos, (l. to r.) VF Cover; Remy C. (Greenburbs) and Starre Vartan (Eco Chick); green friendOlga Sasplugas, Brian Howard (E Magazine) and Nick Denton (Gawker); Robert F. Kennedy (Riverkeeper); Graham Hill (Treehugger) and friendRandy Hayes (ED of the Int’l Forum on Globalization); group including Graydon Carter (editor of VF) and Paulette Cole (President of ABC Home and Planet Foundation), our fearless bartenders, Summer Rayne Oakes (Eco Chick) and Adam Black (SustainabiliTV)

Photos by Remy C. and Emily Gertz. See all the party pics by Remy C. here.

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Farmed and Dangerous

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by Starre Vartan · 11/21/05

So we all know that eating fish is a good way to get Omega 3′s, but because we’re all so hungry for the slippery suckers, wild-caught fish is expensive. But hell, we can farm corn and wheat, why not farm fish? Problem solved. Turns out that farming fish causes as many problems, if not more, than catching them from the ocean.

According to luluzine: Vol 2.6:

“The high PCB content these fish contain, not to mention their ubiquitous sea
lice problem, flow over into wild salmon runs and are responsible for 90-97%
of the collapse of these runs, according to marine researcher Alexandra
Morton.  Add to that the fact that these fish find all kinds of escape
routes, (there are over a million reported to have gone missing last year,
and it’s suspected that number is actually much higher), and you’ve got
runaway Atlantic salmon breeding in open water, competing with indigenous
fish and consequentially spreading disease.”

According to a 2004 study called, “A Global Assessment of Organic
Contaminants in Farmed vs. Wild Salmon: Geographical Differences and Health
Risks,” (reported to be the most thorough study on the subject done to
date), consuming farmed salmon more than once a month could increase your
risk of getting cancer by, “an unacceptable amount.”

Cancer, cape, contaminants, corn, eating, farm, farming, fish, health, Organic, water