Barnacles attached to the bottom of a ship can cause a fair amount of turbulence throughout the ship’s journey, in turn causing the vessel to use as much as 50 percent more fuel. I-tech has been utilizing post-patent chemical Selektrope to sedate and remove the larvae. Korea, which is the world’s largest shipbuilder has been the first to approve the sale of the product.
Up until now, copper has been the go-to ingredient in painting a ship’s hull to prevent the larvae from attaching itself. Copper, however, can be extremely toxic to our waters when dissolved and disseminated. One ounce of Selektrope can be substituted for 500 ounces of copper although the longevity of Selektrope is still being researched heavily.
I-tech is innovating in an amazing way and has the potential to greatly improve the marine industry. Shipping accounts for 90 percent of world trade, so it’s vital we take every necessary step towards greening any and all marine transportation. Maybe we’ll see hybrid commercial ships in the near future, similar to what the Navy did in 2009. For now, kudos to the I-tech team for helping keep our waters and thus our global environment cleaner and safer.
-See It, Save It
Eli
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The international response was strong with news stations picking up the story and willing donor individuals and countries intensifying conversations around protections for these people. That is until a few days ago, when, according to The Daily Maverick, fears have increased that local drug smugglers have killed or scared the tribe away. A Peruvian government guard station was attacked by the smugglers and in the backpack of one individual, an indian arrowhead was found. Since the attack, there has been no sight of the Javari Valley tribe.
If its true that a senseless attack has destroyed one of the last remaining bastions of pure humanity on our planet than we’re all culpable. Unlike the Javari Valley tribe, we live in a world that’s impossible interconnected – within 24 hours millions had seen the footage of this tribe, been moved by its existence, and perhaps ruminated on an existential thought or two but any action didn’t follow. Our global interconnection extends well beyond Wifi; emotions, beliefs, and stances spill across borders and between continents with a rapidity and continuity which slices through insular tendencies and allows us to realize the power of many. However, that power falls short when the final steps towards galvanizing and organizing are not taken. We cannot prove the sophistication of our interconnected world if we do not chose to display it through action.
From the standpoint of championing environmental protection – a standpoint that should reflect the deepest commonality amongst human beings – we’re failing to live up to our stated goals and failing to act with the speed with which our planet should be capable of acting. In the case of the Javari Valle tribe we may have Failed, past tense. The point to remember is that these natural wonders do exist in our world today and its up to us to become their stewards.
See It, Save It
- Tim
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I’ve never blogged before in any way in my life. I’ve also never sat in a five meter aluminum boat with a small Brazilian man named Manuel and stared down a 140 kilogram cat lying on a river bank less than ten meters away. Before now.
My routine has been this: in the morning, at around six o’clock, I get up, brush my teeth, and eat a breakfast of milk, chocolate cake, a brazilian breakfast specialty, and an inordinate amount of bananas. Bananas are better in brazil –surprisingly, apples are terrible. Then I grab my binoculars, a camera, a notebook, gloves, hat, and a winter coat, and hop on a boat — it can get viciously cold in the Pantanal when speeding along a river at 30 km/h. As the driver navigates through the Paraguay River’s many labyrinthine tributaries, he and I scan the river banks with sometimes eyes and sometimes binoculars for even a glimpse of golden fur. Thus begins one of many days spent searching for Jaguars. But we don’t just search — we find them, too. The fact that we can find Jaguars, some of the most elusive cats on earth, almost everyday is amazing. The fact that we can sit in a boat and observe these Jaguars for sometimes hours on end is beyond mind blowing.
Living in a place like the Jaguar Research Center is amazing in that you also don’t really have to get in a boat or go out of your way at all for ‘nature’. It’s just there. Eating breakfast? Look out to your left and say hello to the troupe of twelve or thirteen Brown Capuchin Monkeys high above your head. Looking through your bag for a clean shirt? Watch out for that hand-sized tarantula by your foot. Taking a swim? Don’t mess with the caiman — and stay away from the high banks. A Jaguar could leap down on you.
In the Pantanal, things that ‘go on late into the night’ end at about 9 o’clock. The sun sets at 6 or so, and after you’ve eaten, there’s not much to do other than sit around, talk, and get mosquito bites. Two hours of this and an early bedtime is no longer a nuisance. I can’t say my accommodations have been particularly extravagant, although they are certainly comfortable. When I go to bed, I hop down onto a barely twin-sized mattress -which is surprisingly great – with a pillow and a few blankets strewn across it. My tent-mates, four brazilian guys, have advanced degrees in cracking lewd jokes in portuguese, relentlessly. These men are in the process of building several luxuriously large canvas and wood tents in the camp.
The mosquitos here are, to their credit, disease free. However, they are numerous and the disease free bumps they leave on my arms, legs, feet, fingers, and face still suck. Fortunately, I have noticed that these bumps and new ones are becoming less and less itchy. Maybe my body is getting used to the Pantanal.
- RJ
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There’s no doubt that “green” is trending right now, on Twitter, on Facebook, on Google real-time search; its been bagged and tagged as cool, which on a certain level is fantastic. Such momentum doesn’t come along very often. Banksy pieces scream environmental concern, car engines run on energy efficiency, and the current green movement has ignited its own pop culture firebrand, as evidenced by newly prominent green and environmental sections in major publications around the world. Continue Reading
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Birthright Earth is proud to announce it’s new partnership with BluesandHaikus.org! Together we have been working on an new website.
Sura Hart, the Website and Digital Director, has created our new site with much more dynamic content on a platform that will allow us to grow the website as we grow as an organization. We are excited to have this new online presence so that we can communicate our mission and updates quickly and effectively.
Check out some of the new features, like the Flash Slideshow on the home page which tells the story of Birthright Earth. Also, stay tuned for an interactive map with all of the destinations on each trip!
In collaboration with Blues & Haikus, we can better see it, understand it, love it, and save it.
Contact: surahart@gmail.com
]]>The e-book is broken down into 10 chapters (or lists), each providing you with ways to be green in different
aspects of life. The list categories range from ways to be green with your garbage or in your garden, to ways to be
green with your pets and in your home. Birthright Earth can be found in list 1, which highlights ways that children,
teens, and young adults can green their lives.
About 10 Top 10 Lists for Going Green
All of the projects in the 10 Top 10 Lists series, including 10 Top 10 Lists For Going Green, are divisions of BellaLife Studios, a Canadian company. There are 11 lists in total dealing with a variety of topics and causes. With the purchase of each list, BellaLife Studios donates 50% of sales (not profits) to selected and related projects.
Launched in 2009, 10 Top 10 Lists For Cat Lovers was the first of the 11 lists and it has since been able to donate to 59 different cat rescues and shelters with more joining and benefitting each month. For more information, please visit http://www.earth.10top10lists.com/About_Us.php.
About Birthright Earth
Birthright Earth is a New York based environmental non-profit that sends 18-26 year olds to the Amazon rainforest
for free. Birthright Earth believes it the birthright of every individual or generation to be able to enjoy, experience,
and care for the beauties of nature in their time. The organization has grown around the conviction that a
generation that destroys such beauties erodes the birthright not only of itself, but also of future generations.
The organization believes that direct exposure to the rare and fragile eco-systems of the South American rain
forest will provide the impetus for younger generations to become more environmentally conscious. Our aim is to
lead in the development of an active movement of young adults, passionate and dedicated to the conservation of
crucial ecosystems, and actively working in support of steps to mitigate global warming and other man-induced
environmental hazards.
In collaboration with 10 Top 10 Lists for Going Green, we can better see it, understand it, experience it, and save it.
]]>Eli Bronner and Ram Sivalingam both donned the Cardinal red cap and gown in Middletown, CT last weekend as graduates of Wesleyan University. Our esteemed vice president and co-founder, Eli graduates with a degree in East Asian Studies and is heading to Manhattan where he’ll work with a tech start-up as well as continue a significant role with BE. Our newest Board Member, Ram graduates with a major in Economics and East Asian Studies and will also be in New York, spending his days on the trading desk at Deutsche Bank and his evenings repping BE to the Titans of Industry.
In Washington D.C. earlier this month, Louis Aronne – one half of our two-man campus rep coordination team – graduated from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. Louis’ double major in Finance and International Business will allow him to keep saving the world in a variety of ways! Louis will pursue a career in finance and contribute some of that knowledge to BE, where he’ll take on a further role in the financing and development of the organization.
This weekend Daphne Earp will march in her first P-rade as a 2010 graudate from Princeton University. Daphne is currently weighing post-grad options and her double major in Operations Research and Financial Engineering will certainly serve her well. We hope to have Daphne more involved on the BE side of things as our trips get under way and the Operations aspect of BE becomes a focus for the team.
Even though he’s moved on from BE, we also want to shout out Ed Giese who graduated with a major in Political Science from the University of Delaware.
Congratulations Graduates! We’ll spare you the corniness of the many speeches you’ve undoubtedly heard these past few weeks. So here is it straight – welcome to a real world that sometimes sucks. You all have already proven yourselves capable of helping save it so remember Birthright Earth always has your back.
See It, Save It
- tim
May 17, 2010 – The World Technology Network (WTN), a global business and science think tank that honors and supports outstanding innovation, has nominated Birthright Earth for its 2010 World Technology Award for Environment -‐ part of the World Technology Awards initiative held in association with TIME magazine, Science magazine/AAAS, among others.
Birthright Earth is nominated as it is recognized as doing “innovative work of great likely long-‐term significance.” The awards will be judged by elected WTN Fellows (winners and finalists in previous Awards cycles, such as Youtube, the Office of the Mayor of Seoul, Korea, the Mayo Clinic, and Rocky Mountain Institute). Winners will be announced from the stage at the Time & Life Building on the second night of the World Technology Summit & Awards being held June 24th and 25th 2010.
About The World Technology Network Awards
The World Technology Awards have been presented annually since 2000 to outstanding individuals and
organizations recognized as doing innovative work of the greatest likely long-‐term significance. The awards reward innovation in 20 sectors, including education, energy, and the environment. Awards are announced each year in a gala ceremony at the close of the annual World Technology Summit. The World Technology Summit is a global gathering of the WTN membership as well as other delegates.
About The World Technology Network
The WTN brings key players together -‐ from the world’s leading corporations to the world’s newest start-‐ups – helping to make things happen sooner and better than they otherwise might have. Drawing membership from over 60 countries, the WTN is a global virtual think-‐tank, comprised of approximately 1000 members in a variety of fields including journalism, academia, and finance. Members are mostly short-‐listed Nominees and/or Winners from previous years.
About Birthright Earth
Birthright Earth, the New York based, youth run non-‐profit, believes it the birthright of every individual or generation to be able to enjoy, experience, and take care of the beauties of nature in their time. The organization has grown around the conviction that a generation that destroys such beauties erodes the birthright not only of itself, but also of future generations.
Birthright Earth’s innovative response is to teach youth about the environment through firsthand experience. Birthright Earth selects applicants for 10-‐day, fully funded trips through the Amazon Rainforest that include hiking, canoeing, field research and lectures by resident biologists. Our aim is to lead in the development of an active movement of young adults, passionate and dedicated to the conservation of crucial ecosystems, and actively working in support of steps to mitigate global warming and other man-‐induced environmental hazards. In collaboration with WTN, we can better see it, understand it, love it, and save it.
Editor’s note:
Birthright Earth invites all interested parties to visit our website www.birthrightearth.com, or
email Kenton Atta-‐Krah, Director of Marketing and Communications at kenton@birthrightearth.com for more information. For more on WTN, visit http://www.wtn.net/summit2010/index.html
Since Eli and I founded BE almost two years ago, we’ve often been asked ‘why send people to the Amazon’? At first, it was pretty tempting to shoot back why not? I mean, it is the Amazon rainforest, one of the most beautiful ecosystems in the entire world. However, there is a lot more to it than the beauty and why not is not a sufficient answer.
Most often, these questions were accompanied by one of two reasons for asking.
1). Isn’t there enough environmental need in the United States? Why should our young generations go to the Amazon when coal mining is destroying Appalachian mountain tops and damming in the Tennessee River Basin is changing the south eastern U.S. ecosystems to the detriment of the area’s flora and fauna?
It is certainly true that there are jarring environmental concerns in the domestic United States — our cities spew pollutants into the atmosphere and derelict urban areas become cesspools for environmental degradation; our own beautiful ecosystems are under constant threat of overcrowding and over-development. What’s important to remember from BE is that we don’t try to downplay the need for environmental concern at home. On the contrary, we stress it in collaboration with our partner organizations such as 1Sky, which lobbies for the creation of green jobs in the U.S. among other domestic green initiatives. Further, BE mounted its own push for grassroots support for the climate bill to pass in congress and set cap and trade limits on U.S. carbon emissions.
We go to the Amazon because its not Appalachia or the Rockies. Many of these areas are places that our participants are from or could visit. Areas they are aware of and less motivated by. The amazon projects a sense of awe even when simply mentioned in passing. A visit there? It floors you and, we believe, will motivate you to take on environmental challenges wherever you choose, domestically or abroad.
2). Doesn’t it run contrary to the battle against climate change to send large numbers of kids on flights to South America, creating significant carbon emission?
Another understandable concern that we’ve often heard from individuals new to Birthright Earth and the general concept of our trips. It is true that, in order to get kids to such an exotic location, we have to employ major airlines for our trips. Fortunately, we’ve had great conversations with the airlines, including American and Delta, that fly to South America. All of our flights are carbon-credited in accordance with airline policy and the number of BE participants on each flight.
In a more thematic, macro-sense, the Power of Place makes flights to the Amazon a necessary step for Birthright Earth. There is no other way for us to get young people to the rainforest. Thus, we are considering the long-term future of our planet by investing in the mindsets and machinations of our nation’s youth as opposed to not sending them in consideration of short-term carbon emissions. At Birthright Earth, we believe that if we don’t send these young people, it won’t matter if we emit carbon over the next few years, because our young generations won’t care enough to save our planet.
So there’s a few reasons why the Amazon and not somewhere else. We believe its the motivational touchstone that will create watershed action against environmental issues for decades to come.
Still not sold? I hope these giant river otters are more convincing than me…
See It, Save It
- tim