Archive for the ‘Nature’ Category

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Climate Change and the Plot to Rid the World of Females!

Wednesday, May 16th, 2012


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Sexism at it’s finest? Is Climate Change actually a diabolic plot to rid the world of females? This could definitely be a great dinner conversation starter with the kids in your life. Let them know that for a tuatara (sometimes called a living fossil by scientists because their closest relatives roamed the planet with the dinosaurs) climate change and the future survival of the female tuatara and therefore the entire species, is actually a very REAL concern!

Photo Credit: Carolyn Monastra

According to the San Diego Zoo, “In the wild, tuataras breed in March, and females lay soft-shelled eggs in nesting burrows eight months later. The eggs incubate for 13 to 16 months before hatching. Like some other reptiles, such as alligators the temperature of the nest where it incubated as an egg determines a tuatara’s gender. It has been found that a difference of just one degree centigrade (or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) can change the young in a clutch of eggs from all females to all males!”

Scientists are studying the turtara and other reptiles whose sex can be predetermined by temperature. According to Raymond Huey, a

Credit: Shutterstock

biologist at the University of Washington in Seattle: “Relative to the past, tuatara now have few places to hide, if anything their genetic inertia is now elevated. Moreover, they face a rate of temperature change that is unprecedented over the last 50 million years.”

The world’s population of “wild” tuatara is effectively trapped on about 30 small islands in New Zealand’s north, having been wiped out elsewhere by predators. As climate change causes temperatures on these islands to rise, the tuatara has no chance of adapting by fleeing to cooler climes, as it did in the past, researchers tell us. “Since the mid 1990s, people have been talking about the vulnerability of reptiles to climate change because they have temperature-dependent sex determination. But no one has been able to model it in this type of complexity before,” says research leader Nicola Mitchell of the University of Western Australia in Perth who is one of the scientists that has been studying the plight of the tuatara.

Special thanks to our friend Carolyn Monastra for bringing the tuatara to our attention. Many of you may know Carolyn Monastra and her Witness Tree Project. Climate Mama has been following Carolyn’s adventures around the world as she documents and photographs climate change. Check out Carolyn’s latest blog post where she shares more about her recent visit to New Zealand, and in particular concern for some of New Zealand’s mightiest glaciers, which are now retreating at an accelerated pace.

Do let us know what the kids in your life have to say about the climate change and the plot to rid the world of turtaras; grand plan or just another possible sad consequence of unchecked climate change?

Yours,

Climate Mama

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Posted in Animals & Insects, Lifestyle & Fun, Nature | 2 Comments »

5 Family Friendly Earth Day Activities

Wednesday, April 18th, 2012


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Earth Day “trending”….! Earth Day inspires and brings out different feelings, emotions and actions in each of us. We wanted to share with you some of our favorite Climate Mamas and Papas suggestions for Earth Day “to dos.” You may want to adopt some of these ideas and put them on your list of favorite family activities – for Earth Day or any day. All us Climate Mamas and Papas know that every day is and should be Earth Day!

1. Get your “glee on” out in Nature – Get outside, sing a song, do a dance, have a picnic, BBQ, go camping, walk on the beach or take a hike. Whatever gets you there, gather your family and spend some time outdoors. Talk to you kids, introduce them to nature better yet, let them introduce nature to you! Remind yourself and the kids in your life of the treasures nature has given us, and why we need to fight so very hard to protect them.

2. Memory Lane Walk Down the Red Carpet “Favorite Earth Day Movies”– Watch, enjoy, lose yourself in the moment and learn something too. Movies for everyone: The Lorax, Chimpanzee, Avatar, Planet Earth, Wall-E and March of the Penguins. Documentary movies for older kids and adults: Queen of the Sun-What are the Bees Telling Us? Tapped, Gasland, Bag It, An Inconvenient Truth, Revenge of the Electric Car, Moby Duck – Learn something important., and have fun at the same time!

3. Spring Cleaning and Letting the Sun Shine In – Open the windows wide and get the kids to help you clean them. You’d be surprised to see what a difference a little water and vinegar, or even just a crumbled piece of newspaper can do to “shine up” and “clean up” your windows! Pack up winter clothes, in particular those that don’t fit anymore and give them to a local charity. Got other items you don’t need but someone else might use, consider selling them on Green eBay or giving them away at Craig’s list, or Free Cycle! Get your kids to help you change the air filters in your air conditioner (maximum energy efficiency). Also, make sure there are no leaky faucets in or outside your house. Change your light bulbs to energy efficient CFLs or LEDs, and consider putting your outside lights on timers. Saving energy not only reduces power plant pollution but it can also save you money too.

4. Get “Down and Dirty” – plant a tree, or better yet plan a garden with the kids in your life. Vegetable, herb, or flower – the garden can be as big or small as you have room for…Herbs grow great on window sills, and corn, pumpkins and beans are fun and easy to cultivate and very cool to watch grow! Plant some milkweed and help the Monarchs find their way to Mexico. Have you heard of a rain garden? This is a “trending topic” all on it’s own and a great way to plan for and mitigate storm water run off that some of us are having to get used to as heavy rain events are becoming a more frequent occurrence of our changing climate. Consider getting a rain barrel too!

5. Stand up to Climate Change – Show your kids you care about their future. Climate Impact Day is May 5, 2012. Protest, educate, document and volunteer along with thousands of people around the world to support the communities on the front lines of the climate crisis. Grab the kids in you life, right now and sign up and commit to a family “Act of Green,” show your kids that they are one of a billion people ready, willing and able to make the commitment to a “greener” world! Find out what and who are caring for the Earth in your own community. Check out your town’s website, and attend an Earth Day Fair or event near you, get involved! If you live in the NYC metro area, check out our Featured Partner, Earth Day New York.

And finally, encourage others to make every day earth day….

Got any other great tips? Let us know!

P.S. We recently featured Chuck McCutcheon, author of “What Are Global Warming and Climate Change? Answers for Young Readers,” on ClimateMama. Chuck is giving away one copy of his book in honor of Earth Day!

To enter for a chance to win, all you have to do is visit and “like” his Facebook Page. Then email Chuck at cmacdc1@gmail.com with your address!

TIP UPDATES:
1. 5 Ways to GET OUT of Your Comfort Zone for Earth Day via Green Momster
2. Earth Day Science via Kitchen Pantry Scientist

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Posted in Earth Day is Every Day, Holidays, Lifestyle & Fun, Nature, Take a Stand: Action & Advocacy | 7 Comments »

Dr. Suess Birthday: The Lorax, Climate Change and Speaking For the Trees

Friday, March 2nd, 2012


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March 2nd, HAPPY BIRTHDAY Dr. Suess! March 2nd is also the launch of the new Universal Pictures film The Lorax (Great timing – curious though, as it does seem that the creators of this movie, “care a whole lot” but that according to some reviewers, the marketing team either didn’t watch the movie, or didn’t get the message!”)

This special day and “anniversary” is a great opportunity to remind all the kids in your life that they, like the Lorax, need to continue to stand up to all the Onc-lers amongst us; as the Lorax tells us: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

The story of the Lorax revolves around humankind’s thoughtless destruction of our trees and is particularly poignant, as human caused climate change is ravaging our forests and causing the destruction of hundreds of millions of acres of our trees across the western US and Canada.

To our Climate Mamas and Papas, thank you for “taking a stand” and for caring “a whole lot!”

Photo Credit: Universal Pictures

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Posted in Disasters, In The News, Lifestyle & Fun, Nature | No Comments »

The Witness Tree: Impacts of Climate Change Through the Photographer’s Lens

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012


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The Witness Tree: “A tree that has witnessed historic events. A tree used to

Photo Credit: Carolyn Monastra - Lake Erie # 5, 2010

mark a property corner that cannot be reached because it lies off a cliff or in a body of water.”

Any “witness trees” in your life? Artist Carolyn Monastra’s current body of work is called the Witness Tree….

“my eyes and my camera will also act as witnesses and the resulting pictures will serve as permanent documents of these precious and precarious environments that are being affected by climate change.”

Carolyn Monastra, 2011

Carolyn photographed the tree you see here in 2010. It “lives” on the edge of Lake Erie. She took this picture to: “draw attention to the fact that the levels of the Great Lakes have been dropping due to decreases in winter ice and also warming due to higher temperatures.”

I first met Carolyn Monastra on a beautiful fall day at a coffee shop on Lexington Avenue in New York City. My first impression: passionate, articulate, committed, cautionary – yet also surprisingly hopeful. I think that Carolyn and I were meant to meet! Me – trying to reach people on climate change through my blog, activism and presentations; Carolyn – trying to reach people on climate change through her lens, her vision, her eyes and her art: A perfect match!

So, grab the kids in your life, meet my new friend Carolyn, and invite them along on Carolyn’s journey of discovery, wonder and witness. Most recently Carolyn is in Brazil, planning a trip up the Amazon. She traveled to Brazil from a visit to the Antarctica Peninsula where she learned about some of the impacts of climate change on Antarctica including: receding glaciers, rocky peaks appearing earlier in the season due to warmer temperatures, penguin populations shifting and declining. Check out some of Carolyn’s amazing photos of this “other world!”

Through the Witness Tree project Carolyn has plans to visit or has already visited: Costa Rica, Africa, Bangladesh, China, Russia, the Netherlands, Germany the Arctic and several places in the USA – just to name a few! We will be bring you periodic updates on Carolyn’s world travels here at ClimateMama and you can go directly to Carolyn’s blog to follow her journey more closely.

Thanks Carolyn, for all you are doing as a “witness’ for all of us on humankind’s impact on our natural world. Not only is this an important body of work for future generations, but it is equally and perhaps more important for those of us around today who are looking for that “proof” of the changes that we know are taking place around us, but are sometimes too hard to grasp. Let’s hope through committed people like you that we will begin to not only recognize these changes you are showing us, but work to lessening the causes of these impacts as well.

Yours,

ClimateMama

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Posted in Art, Fashion, Entertainment, Climate Mama News, In The News, Nature, Oceans & Water | No Comments »

A Christmas Story: Parents, Kids, Friends and ‘Green’ Wise Men

Monday, December 26th, 2011


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In keeping with the holiday spirit, we at ClimateMama are thankful and humbled by the many wonderful, caring people we have had the good fortune to meet who are working on climate change from so many different angles and directions. Our good friend Tom at Climate Bites, recently introduced us to one of these people, Brian Ettling. Brian was kind enough to share one of his hopeful true life Christmas stories with us and we are thrilled to “pass it forward” and share his story with you.

Wishing all our Climate Mamas and Papas a happy, hopeful and joy filled holiday and new year. Please share Brian’s story with the kids in your life…and remind them how POWERFUL they are….Enjoy!

The Two Green Wise Men: Tugging at My Best Friend, by Brian Ettling

In the original Christmas story, a bright star appears over Bethlehem attracting three wise men from the East. They traveled from far away to see what they believed was the Messiah who was just born. The arrival of the wise men was considered to be a very strong signal.

Over 2,000 years later, the signal of climate change is becoming evident from many different sources of scientific evidence, such as changes in the atmosphere, oceans, polar ice shelves, sea level rise, weather patterns, etc. Just like the prominent news in Bethlehem of wise men arriving from the East, it is getting harder to ignore the vast amount of news about climate change these days.

For me, it has been fascinating to watch as my best friend Scott has changed his views on climate change, in large part as “the wise men” in his life have become harder to ignore or dismiss… I have known Scott for nearly 30 years. I met him back in 7th grade when we would eat lunch together at school and talk baseball. Since high school, our lives have gone in totally different directions. But we have kept our friendship strong over the years with the unspoken rule that many good friends have, “don’t talk about politics.”

Over the years, Scott has had a lot of fun when we are together, poking fun of global warming, an issue we have had very different views on. Scott would love to tell me as often as he could, how palm trees in Seattle and in his home state of Wisconsin would be a wonderful thing; and how he would welcome sea level rise so he could launch his boat from his home, which would be so much closer to the Puget Sound then it is now! We have so much fun talking about other stuff like baseball, the outdoors, music etc; but I would have to bite my tongue so hard that it would almost bleed at times when he would make his global warming jokes.

I wasn’t the only one who Scott enjoyed sharing his global warming jokes with..Scott’s son Ricky heard many of these jokes over the years, just like me. However, when Ricky came home from school a few years ago, he chose not to bit his tongue any longer, he put his foot down and would not give his Dad an inch. He kept saying, “No, Dad, we are learning about this in school and this is why global warming is a huge concern… “

As with many parents, Scott recognized that he could not easily dismiss his own son. Scott told me that while he might choose to ignore his best friend, “a tree hugger park ranger,” it was much harder to ignore his son who was coming home from school with articulate facts and strong beliefs on climate change. Just like the town of Bethlehem noticing the original Wise Men, it was hard for Scott to ignore the now “Two Green Wise Men” who were both important and influential voices in his life.

Scott is still Scott, my best friend of 30 years who continues to joke with me on global warming, telling me that sea level rise wouldn’t be such a bad thing as he then could go fishing right from home. But recently Scott has gone out of his way to wish me well as I follow my passion as a climate change communicator. His tone has been both supportive and encouraging. In the end, that is all you can ask for in a best friend.

Scott’s new found understanding makes me want to double my efforts even more to inspire people to understand and resolve climate change. I am going to do all I can to prevent dangerous climate change. In the end, I know that all the negative consequences are going to far outweigh any positives of Scott being able to fish from his house – and I believe that Scott knows this too…thanks in part to the two “Green Wise Men” in his life..!

Thanks Brian, for giving us hope that people can change, that truth and reality can prevail…and for reminding us of the powers that good friends and children possess…

Yours,

Climate Mama

Brian Ettling loves planet earth and is following his passion as a climate change communicator. For the past 13 years, he has worked as a naturalist ranger at Everglades National Park in Florida and at Crater Lake National Park in Oregon, where he has created an evening campfire program on the impact of climate change on Crater Lake. The National Park Service invited Brian to attend the 2011 NASA ‘Earth to Sky’ conference in Washington D.C. on successfully communicating climate change with park visitors. Brian is living in St. Louis, Missouri for the winter where he co-founded Climate Reality St. Louis, a group of locals discussing the impact and solutions to climate change

For more stories by Brian, check out his personal Blog: Be Green Now

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Posted in Art, Fashion, Entertainment, Climate Mamas & Papas, Lifestyle & Fun, Nature | 2 Comments »

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Welcome to Climate Mama

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You are a mother, a father, a grandparent, an uncle, an aunt, a teacher or a child at heart. When you hear the Native American saying, “We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children”, it makes you stop for a moment and think. You love nature, travel, adventure and believing in a world that is special and unique. Climate change and global warming are words that alarm you, that often seem too big to get your arms around. You care about what’s happening to the world and notice small changes in your own life that seem to point in the direction of a threatened environment. But you wonder if these changes are real, and if they are you can’t imagine what you can do to help change what is happening.

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Climate Mamas and Papas

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Climate Change so often seems too big to get our hands around. We wonder where we can start and how we can actually make a difference. Each one of us has a different path that we will follow. Some of us cut a wider swath than others, but each of us has a role to play. We would like to introduce you to some amazing individuals, Climate Mamas and Papas who are making a difference, who are, through their daily lives, affecting the lives of all of us. They inspire us, empower us, and challenge us to reach for the stars, to strive to do the best we can to help change the crash course we are currently on with our environment. Lets meet some of these amazing people and find out what inspires them. Meet our featured Climate Mama, Janae Shields, today!

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Featured Partner & Campaigns

Earth Day New York promotes environmental awareness and solutions, all year long, through partnerships with schools, community organizations, businesses, and government entities; educating public and private policymakers through conferences and publications; and involving the general public in annual Earth Day events.

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