When I Grow Up, I Want to Be A Sea Turtle Researcher...

Today as I was finishing that last blog post and flipping through images on Marine Photobank, a family of three stopped by the office asking about our work with sea turtles. My supervisor was in the other room, so I jumped up to greet them and give them free stickers and postcards and tell them about the leatherback sea turtles off the California coast.

They were visiting from Martha's Vineyard and had found a stranded, cold-stunned Kemp's ridley sea turtle last year on the island. After recovering at facilities at the New England Aquarium and University of New England, the family had the pleasure of releasing it back into the wild from Cape Cod. How awesome! The little girl was adorable—very hyperactive, and loved talking about "her turtle." I wanted to pick her up and squeeze her she was so adorable. As they were preparing to leave I thanked the little girl for helping us save the sea turtles. "Someday, I want to be a sea turtle researcher," she told me.

Me too.

How Most People View the Ocean

There's really so much out there that we don't know and understand. So let's not just ignore it.

Photo from xkcd.

Bill Nye's Climate Lab!

Find the website here.

Bill Nye the Science Guy has been a hero of mine for as long as I can remember seeing his shows on TV and in grade school classrooms. He's now got this cool new website "Bill's Climate Lab" to show how everyone can make a difference in the fight against global climate change. It's really neat!

At first I thought it would be lots of "kids stuff" I already knew, but it actually has some pretty solid science and I realized it is actually more focused for adults more than kids.
Bill Nye is the coolest, ever!

Daily Inspiration

'Today, in the cutest voice, my 8-year-old daughter asked me to start recycling.  I chuckled and asked, “Why?” She replied, “So you can help me save the planet.”  I chuckled again and asked, “And why do you want to save the planet?”  “Because that’s where I keep all my stuff,” she said.  Makes Me Think'

"The ocean has always been a salve to my soul...the best thing for a cut or abrasion was to go swimming in salt water. Later down the road of life, I made the discovery that salt water was also good for the mental abrasions one inevitably acquires on land."  - Jimmy Buffett

Earth Overshoot Day

I found this article on Wikipedia about Earth Overshoot Day or Ecological Debt Day. Basically it is the day each year where the people of Earth enter a period of "deficit spending" of natural resources. Each year the date falls earlier and earlier, signifying humanity's overconsumption of Earth's available natural resources. What happens when we get to Jan 01? How long does humanity have left, really?

Not to scare you or anything.

The Ecological Debt Day for 2010 was August 21; 2009 was September 25.

Time to start practicing sustainability!

"Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn't happen."
- Stephen Wright

Friday Inspiration

This girl confronted the UN with concern for the environment. She was only 12 or 13 years old.

I know that people understand what she says, but everyone is too afraid to change their ways to do what's necessary.

My favorite thing that she said was: “Parents should be able to comfort their children by saying, ‘Everything is going to be alright, it’s not the end of the world. We’re doing the best we can.’ But I don’t think you can say that to us anymore.”

I hope you will find some inspiration in this too.

Fish Are Friends, Not Food

"I am a nice shark, not a mindless eating machine. If I am to change this image, I must first change myself.

Fish are friends, not food."

www.gotmercury.org

"You're not a wave, you're a part of the ocean."
-Mitch Albom

"We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch, we are going back from whence we came."

- John F. Kennedy

"If the oceans die, we die."
-Captain Paul Watson