INNSAEI- EARTH DAY SPECIAL

MY KIWI BUDDY JAY GOLDSACK 
ENJOYING A MAGIC MOMENT

 THOMAS MCKELVEY CAME ALONG
WITH HIS DAD JOHN

Earth Day is fast approaching this Saturday, April 22nd, and it is time for all of us to get involved! With the current egocentric administration in Washington, we are on the verge of losing some 50 years of hard fought legislation for protecting the planet's vital ecosystems. So I have decided to make this my FIRST EARTH DAY LETTER (you know instead of a X-MAS letter).  But first a little story..

A LOCAL LOGGER ILLEGALLY 
TAKING LUMBER
FROM THE BUTTERFLY 
RESERVE

MICHOACAN,  MEXICO: Truly one of the most inspirational places on the planet are the mountains outside Mexico City (2 hour drive). Where millions of the Monarch Butterflies rise up through the trees as the sun hits the forest floor, here they congregate after traveling 2,500 miles following the milkweed from the US and Canada. Located at the elevation close to 10,000' in the Reserva Mariposa Monarca, we had to take a 2 hour hike (or horseback ride) through Cerro Pelon, a protected reserve. As we walked passed this logger, (pictured above), I wondered how long this magnificent area would be immune to the pressures of logging, the Cartel, and climate change. THE SCARY STUFF: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that on the return hike back down, the darn horses I was following- carrying the boys, took off and left me in the forest. So I started following path down but it kept branching off, so I chose the one that had freshest horse poop- sometimes back tracking several 100 yards, it was growing dark, and I was starting to plan my sleeping arrangements in a log or something, but luckily I spotted the horse barn through the forest. Only to discover the next day we were on the fringes of the drug Cartel, in Zitacuaro, where in 2008 they came into the town and captured 20 Federal Police, decapitated their bodies and tossed them in the town square... hmm I guess that explains why none of the restaurants were open after dark.  Needless to say I am glad I didn't have to sleep in the forest next to the agriculture area.

INNSAEI: In my current search for the meaning of life..ha ha,  I connected through a documentary called:  "INNSAEI", an ancient Icelandic term for "Intuition". The movie takes you on a fascinating journey of a former United Nations worker who found herself burned out after witnessing the atrocities of war and poverty across the globe. Her path takes us on a voyage around the planet discussing the concepts of intuition with some of the great thinkers of our time. The thinkers explore the results of what happens when we get so disconnected through the noise of our everyday life and the violence we are exposed to on T.V. and social media. They discuss how we can reverse these thought processes through an "Intuitive mindful" approach with Mother Nature. I like the philosophy of Innsaei: To Sea within, To See within, To See from the inside out.
https://zeitgeistfilms.com/film/innsaeithepowerofintuition
ISLAND EARTH: Another great documentary that just previewed at the La Paloma theater in Encinitas is- "Island Earth". Three young men took on this awesome project to explore the effects of several major corporations like Monsanto and Dow, and their spraying of poisons on GMO crops on the Islands in Hawaii. The video gave me hope that our next generation of environmental activist will come up with some simple ideas to live sustainably and incorporate social media to spread the word: https://islandearthfilm.com/
RUSSIA: The A-16 Adventure Store in San Diego (Mission Valley) and Solana Beach has monthly talks on travel and other topics. So I decided on Feb. 28th, 2017, it was time to get involved and share my trek to the summit of Mt. Elbrus at 18,500' (1 of the 7 summits) in Russia and of course squeeze in some facts on glacial recession in the Caucasus mountains (one of our guides was a Russian Geology professor) See my blog on Russia for more details.

GIVING MY FIRST TALK ON TRAVELING
 AND CLIMATE CHANGE

RIFT FORMING IN GREENLAND

NASA'S PHOTOS SHOW THE RIFT IN A GREENLAND GLACIER: This article was in the SD Union--4/16/2017 page A-15: and was written by the Washington Post. Nasa shows yet another splinter of the Petermann Glacier in Greenland.  If the 2 cracks that are now heading toward each other meet on the Northwest coast, an area 50-70 square miles will break off (double the size of Manhattan Island).... not good to say the least.
http://enewspaper.sandiegouniontribune.com/desktop/sdut/default.aspx?pnum=15&edid=ca49e5de-253b-48bd-aa54-d04476fcc740

GREAT BARRIER REEF
IN AUSTRALIA

DEFENDING OUR OCEANS:  The LIFE program at the local San Elijo Mira Costa campus, has Friday lectures and movies, last week they had Dennis Lees as the guest speaker, he gave an insightful lecture on "Defending our Oceans". Dennis is a crusty old soft spoken, marine sediment biologist, the kind of guy who when he talks you listen, his life is filled with adventure stories of diving and is now disgusted that we are overfishing Krill, the basis of the food pyramid, for whales in the Arctic and Antarctica. Soooo we are now competing for their food! WOW! He then pointed out that a large amount of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia is under attack from the rise in the ocean temperature (remember water absorbs heat extremely fast) and one reaction is for the coral polyp to expel the algae and bleaching occurs--turns the reef white and dies. (see graph above)
I am currently trying to get Dennis's powerpoint that included several graphs comparing human intervention and climate change with empirical data.

SEAFOOD App

Eating sustainably from the ocean is important: The Monterey Bay Aquarium has an App called Seafood Watch: that gives you options for the fish you eat and how they are fished. Surfrider foundation is another great local organization to get involved with that helps monitor our oceans: https://sandiego.surfrider.org/

BROKEN HILL BLUFF TOWARDS LA JOLLA

TORREY PINES DOCENT: Besides being an interpretive guide at the San Diego zoo I have taken on the the training of being a docent volunteer at one of the treasures we have in San Diego, Torrey Pines State Reserve. We should give our thanks to the visionaries Ellen Scripps, who donated the land, and the parks first custodian Guy Fleming.  Once coined the "Point of Trees" by the Spanish Explorers, the reserve is home to some of the rarest pine trees in the world.  Guy was also involved in the building the Adobe Lodge in 1922 that was used as a restaurant and Snack shop until 1959.  The windy road up the cliffs was the old Hwy 1, and was used by the LA crowd to visit SD. The cliff road was so steep (and the car carburetor relied on gravity to get gas from the gas tank) that they would have to back up the cliffs to get to the restaurant.

TORREY PINES LODGE
BOOKSTORE NOW

With 236 species of birds sighted in the park plus a plethora of plant species- especially this year, it has been quite the challenge to learn them all, and of course we have the majestic and rare Torrey Pines tree (for whom my daughter Torrey was named) that is found naturally only in the reserve and on Santa Rosa Island in the channel islands.

SEA DAHLIA IN BLOOM AT TPSR

TPSR now has an excellent children's program that brings children from all over San Diego to introduce them to nature--hey I feel like a teacher again :)


CARS IN THE MAKING: The new Chevy Evolt,  an all electric car is taking on the new Tesla Model 3, both with a descent price range starting at $35,000 and 200+ miles per charge.
CITIZEN CLIMATE LOBBY: is another interesting volunteer group working with congress on an interesting strategy called "Carbon Fee and Dividend" to reduce carbon emissions in the U.S., and the oil companies seem to like this,  since it lays out a logical approach over time. The concept is catching on because the strategy is to increase the cost companies pay for CO2 production annually, and this will be passed on in the increase of gas prices and eventually forcing people to entertain the idea of using alternative energy for transportation such as electric vehicles.
http://citizensclimatelobby.org/chapters/CA_San_Diego_North/
SCRIPPS AQUARIUM: Ralph Keeling, a professor at Scripps, (his father Charles, founded the Keeling curve-that explained the empirical data showing the rise in CO2 production in the 1950s) he will be talking about the oceans and climate change at Scripps Aquarium- Monday May 8th 6-8 pm
GETTING INVOLVED, WHAT CAN WE DO: So if you respect nature and find it a source of inspiration and wonder, then this is the time to step up... I am challenging YOU to get involved, APATHY or I won't make a difference is the easy way out. You don't need to worry about acting globally, we have plenty of things we can do LOCALLY.  For instance on SATURDAY, April 29th, the Sierra club will be directing a local climate protest march: http://sandiegosierraclub.org/  there will also be a national protest in Washington DC- on the same day--So it feels like we have to do the whole 1960s all over again! All I know is we add 1 million people to the planet (net) every 5 days,  and I want my kids and my grandkids to be able enjoy nature as I did. Maybe this time around we will be using our "Intuition",  and we won't make the same mistakes over and over.

HAVE A GREAT EARTH DAY!!!- WE All CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.  check out the Innsaei documentary on Netflix- it is a good start.

p.s. keep your eyes open for Al Gore's new documentary movie "An Inconvenient Sequel"