Environment

Helping Fish Live can Generate Billions in Economic Activity

- Adam Clare

People who live on coasts tend to live off of the sea, which is a fantastic way to at local. However, due to modern commercial fishing fish populations and local ecosystems are being destroyed -so much so you can see damage done by commercial fishing from space. For years fisheries have argued that they have a right to continue their fishing practices because it’s how they earn a living. Well, here’s a better way to ensure they can earn a living: help those fish before you eat them (or don’t eat them 😉 ).

Pew has released a study that argues that rebuilding fish populations can generate billions of dollars for costal communities.

“Results from this study provide strong analytical evidence that there is significant value in rebuilding fish populations and lost financial benefits from delayed action,” said Dr. John M. Gates, report author and professor emeritus, Departments of Economics, Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, University of Rhode Island. “It’s important to note that the primary, direct benefits represent a conservative estimate and, if related economic benefits had been included, the result would likely expand well beyond the figures estimated in this study.”

Delays in rebuilding translate to lost opportunities for commercial and recreational fishermen to catch the maximum amount of fish that can sustainably be taken from a population. Failing to quickly address overfishing and allow populations to rebuild as quickly as possible forgoes current financial benefits and may result in more costly regulations in the long–term.

Key findings from the report show that:

Commercial landings would have increased by 48%, if the four populations had been rebuilt by 2007. The financial value would be approximately $33.6 million per year in perpetuity.
Rebuilding would bring an increase in recreational landings of 24% more per year than the status quo management. The economic value would be approximately $536 million per year in perpetuity.
These direct economic benefits would also likely generate secondary financial benefits in the Mid-Atlantic region through increased income, sales and jobs from businesses associated with commercial and recreational fishing, including bait and tackle shops.

Eight Groovy Green Roofs

- Adam Clare

Green roofs are a great thing to have on nearly any building. Environmental Graffiti has compiled a list of eight incredible green roofs.

Green roofs have been around for centuries in Northern Scandanavia, but they’ve really only become a popular trend in the last few decades. Recognized now for their ability to reduce the urban heat island effect while also reducing heat loss and energy consumption in winter months – among many other benefits – green roofs are really taking off, all around the world. And these aren’t just your average pieces of sod plopped on top of a building, either. These roofs are meant to be seen, designed by the artistically inclined in newfound attempts to express and flex their creativity.

Love Trees

- Adam Clare

Mike sent in a note letting us know that the campers at Camp Wenonah are planting trees to make the world a little better. The trees were donated from the business Love Trees which aims to, obviously, plant more trees.

From Mike:

Each camper, POLARIS, and WCIT is planting a tree at Camp this Period thanks to donations from LoveTrees. Neat little idea – they donated 2000 trees to the Canadian Camping Association

More on Love Trees:

Love Trees is a business built on giving.

  • giving kids a Wish Tree as an educational tool to as many children as we can;
  • giving businesses and individuals a chance to help kids and the planet by purchasing tree planting certificates;
  • giving the planet more trees;
  • giving environmental charities a portion of every sale

    • .

Love Trees manages a powerful and unique educational tree planting program. We sell Wish Tree Certificates to clients worldwide. Love Trees then donates and distributes tree seedlings to schools and kid’s organizations in North America and Africa so kids can have a Wish Tree to plant and make a wish for the planet. It’s a great way to learn about the environment – and help make the world a better place!

1,000 Chinese Youth Educating People About the Environment

- Adam Clare

The United Nations and China have started a program this summer that will employ 1,000 youth to talk about the environment. The youth will teach people how to be more conscious about the environment and what individuals can do to protect it.

Through a new training program called “One Thousand Environment-Friendly Youth Ambassadors Action,” eight Chinese ministries, along with the UNDP, hope to educate 1 million people about the actions they can take to preserve the environment and limit climate change.
The program started last month with training for 1,000 high school and college students in Beijing (north China), Shanghai (east), Xi’an (northwest), Chengdu (southwest) and Guangzhou (south).
Each young ambassador is expected to train another 1,000 people, hence one million people around the nation will be informed of professional environmental knowledge. The program is sponsored by the national Center for Environmental Education and Communication, China Environmental Awareness Program, Ministry of Environmental Protection, UNDP and Johnson Controls.

Green Jobs Grow fast

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Wired is running an article that points out the outstanding growth of green jobs in the USA and how they already employ 770,000 Americans. Green jobs have grown 250% since 1998.

The report differs from government projections or most industry association estimates in that it counts individual jobs, not entire industries. In other words, only the electricians who actually install solar panels were counted as green electricians.

“Although our numbers are conservative, our report provides the most precise depiction to date of the clean energy economy in the United States,” the Pew researchers wrote.

Green jobs are a major part President Obama’s plan for economic recovery and energy transformation. Manufacturing jobs have declined a few percent a year over the last decade, and in the bullet-point language of Whitehouse.gov, his administration wants to “Drive the development of new, green jobs that pay well and cannot be outsourced.” The report shows that environmentally friendly jobs already exist, but most of the “green” jobs aren’t in clean energy at all. A full 65 percent of the jobs fell into the “conservation and pollution mitigation” category, which includes recycling.

That leaves a lot of room for growth in clean energy, even if some jobs are lost in traditional energy companies. Right now, there’s a small base. There were only 89,000 “clean energy” jobs in 2007. Current research indicates that for renewable energy sources to really make an impact on greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel dependence, we’re going to need a lot of manpower.

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