August 29, 2007

Disaster preparedness

Two years ago today I watched, along with the rest of the world, as New Orleans drowned. I “took it personally,” having grown up and spent much of my life just outside the city limits. My father was the chief engineer for those ill-fated levees in his last professional position. I knew we were seeing “the big one,” the hurricane he and others had predicted as inevitable. I watched the horror unfold and my concerns were for all of the friends I hadn’t seen in so many years, and for the city that I loved. I was not worried about my brother, the last of my family to call New Orleans home. A family friend had planned to pick him up on her way out of the city as she evacuated her own family on Sunday. It was Tuesday before she was able to contact my sister and let her know that she had been unable to find our brother. The levees had broken on Monday. Thus began one of the longest weeks in my life. If you want the details, you’ll find them in my post dated September 7, 2006.

It was Friday before the phone call finally came. My brother had been rescued by boat from a second-floor apartment. His upstairs neighbor had taken him in after the waters began rising in his own first-floor unit. He had had four days of deprivation and discomfort, but had never been in great danger. He was evacuated to a launching point and was taken by bus from there to Houston, where he was finally able to find a working phone and call my sister. He had lost everything he owned, but he was alive and well. It was enough.

Two years later my brother and others are still trying to rebuild their lives. Lessons have been learned, many of them at much too high a price. I am certain that he and every other survivor of Hurricane Katrina has an “if only” list. If only we had evacuated. If only we had made better plans. If only we had been better prepared. When my brother eventually arrived at my sister’s home near Dallas, he had nothing left from his life in New Orleans. He made it out with the clothes he was wearing and nothing else.

Two weeks ago Hawaii had an earthquake as we were all watching Hurricane Flossie to see what she would do. A tsunami alert was triggered by the earthquake in Peru and a wild fire was consuming brushland just a few miles from my home. I used those events as a springboard to write about emergency preparedness. It’s a subject I take seriously. I shared with you some of my own post-disaster history and told you about my current emergency preparations. There’s one area of emergency preparedness we didn’t talk about, though, and it’s an important one. Quick and easy access to personal, medical, financial and insurance data is never more important than immediately after a disaster. Many survivors of Hurricane Katrina were left without a single shred of paper to help them access their bank accounts or find their insurance carriers. Most of us have memorized our own Social Security numbers, but what about our children’s medical records numbers? Can you rattle off your savings account numbers, or just the ones for your checking? If you had to start over tomorrow, without even the cards you keep in your wallet, would you be helpless?

Storing personal and family data in a secure online account is an answer that makes sense. AxcessPoints provides a personal data storage system that was designed with emergency preparedness in mind. Their entire program is geared towards storing and protecting your private information securely. Your information is encrypted prior to transmission so that it’s not even available to their own personnel. Plans are available for businesses as well as for induividuals and families. AxcessPoints.com has also dedicated large portions of their webspace to disaster planning links and to the contact information that can help you find assistance and services following a disaster. Katrina taught us all a lot of lessons. Those lessons are wasted if we don’t incorporate the new knowledge into how we prepare for disaster. Check out AxcessPoints and see where they fit into your disaster planning.

Technorati Tags: data storage, disaster plannning, emergency preparedness, personal data storage

August 22, 2007

The Giving Hands

For all of the diversity in the blogosphere, one thing that bloggers do really well is to come together for a common cause. Bloggers from around the world united last month to raise money for various charities. They all solicited sponsors and agreed to post at least once every half-hour for twenty-four hours. My friend Pelf kept her committment to Blogathon ‘07 and raised $778 $810 USD in pledges for Eden Handicap Service Centre. This was no surprise to me as I know Pelf to have a tender heart and a giving spirit. She has raised awareness and encouraged her readers to donate to several worhty causes in the few months that I’ve known her. This recently led her to establish The Giving Hands, a new blog dedicated to charitable causes.

Not one to rest on her laurels, Pelf is already moving forward with her next big project. Did I say big? Make that huge! On September 15th she’s kicking off a month-long campaign on issues relating to the environment. It will all culminate on October 15th, Blog Action Day, when, once again, bloggers will unite with a single focus, the environment. Pelf is looking for guest bloggers to help out. If you have a favorite environmental cause or a special area of knowledge, check out The Giving Hands, then contact Pelf and let her know you’d like to contribute. She’s already written a number of posts supporting environmental awareness. With your help she can fill her blog with the stuff we all need to know to make this world a better place.

Technorati Tags: Blog Action Day, Blogathon ‘07, charity, environment, environmental awareness

August 18, 2007

Recycle your old cell phone

I’m still laboring away at my clutter problem. Obviously, I’m not working at it hard enough or it would all be gone, but still, I’m working on it. I’ve been going through my office files this weekend. I keep two years of paper files in my office file cabinets, three years archived in file boxes, and I shred and dispose of anything older. Today I’ve been culling the file cabinet for files to move to archives. Every time I take a break I scan around the office for other things I can get rid of. Do you remember that I recently boxed up eight or ten office phones and set them out for the charity truck? Today I came across the two old cell phones that I had intended to give to the women’s shelter out here on the coast, but it had turned out that they can’t use them. I know you shouldn’t just dispose of electronics in rubbish that will go to the landfill. My service provider isn’t interested in a trade-in when you upgrade and doesn’t offer to recycle your cell phone, so it’s left up to the consumer to decide what to do with their old cell phones. I think most people toss them in a dusty corner and forget about them (I’m not the only one, right?)

So what are you supposed to do with old cell phones if you can’t throw them out and the provider won’t take them back? CellForCash.com has a practical answer. They pay cash rebates on over 600 models of cell phones. Just look for your manufacture and model number in drop down boxes and you’ll be told instantly what your cell phone is worth. Ask them for a postage-paid box, mail you phone back to them and they’ll send you cash. Less clutter plus a cash payment - that sounds good to me! If your phones are very old like mine and have no cash value, that’s okay, too. CellForCash has information on local recycling options and charity sites that accept cell phones. I just discovered that several local charities here need cell phones and - would you believe it? - my bank will recycle it for me.

If you’re asking yourself “Why should I recycle my cell phone?,” there are some things you should know. It’s a fact that cell phones leach hazardous levels of lead when disposed in landfills, but that’s just part of the problem. Cell phone circuit boards can contain arsenic, beryllium, copper, mercury and other toxic chemicals. The flame retardents in the plastic housing, wiring boards and cables contain toxins, too, and cell phone batteries - yep! - more toxins. These toxins can contaminate groundwater when they get into landfills, and cause air pollution when burned. Improper disposal is even against the law in some areas of the US. The State of California and some areas in Washington and New York have made it illegal to dispose of cell phones in landfills. California, New York and Maine have laws requiring retailers to provide recycling services for cell phones. Whether mandated by law or not, we need to do the responsible thing. CellForCash makes it easy.

Technorati Tags: cell phones, environment, recycle cell phones, recycling

July 12, 2007

Martin - plasticless perfection

Today I was overcome by an uncontrolable urge and bared my soul in front of a whole message board full of friends and strangers. What was the deep, dark secret that I could no longer contain? I’m falling in love with Martin! I’ve known it for a while, but today I just had to tell him. See, he made me laugh, and isn’t that just the sexiest, most attractive quality a man can have? In case you aren’t making the connection here, Martin is the guy who uses all of those fascinating scenic backgrounds for his Self Portrait Sunday photos. He’s won my Tuesday Teaser contest twice, so I guess that means he’s smart as well as sexy. And he does something else that I find incredibly smart and sexy - he writes an eco-friendly blog about reducing our reliance on plastic. I can’t think of many things more attractive than doing your bit to save the world for our kids and succeeding generations, can you?

Martin’s new blog, Plasticless, is filled with common sense solutions and great shopping tips that can help us all live with a little less plastic in our lives. I opened up my last cartridge for my Schick Quatro this morning without even thinking about the implications to our planet. Martin’s blog points out that there’s good reason to go back to using my old double-edge razor and purchasing just blades instead of those fancy plastic cartridges, each of which is separately packaged in it’s own little plastic container inside the plastic-wrapped multi-packs I’ve been buying. If enough of us did that we’d be sending a message that the razor blade market would have to hear.

Plastic grocery bags area huge problem in our landfills, and an even bigger problem when they end up littering our environment. Back when I used to snorkel almost every day, I made it my habit to carry debris out of the ocean each time. The items I found most often were soft drink cans and plastic grocery bags. The bags don’t degrade into something harmless - they end up getting tangled on the reef or drifting across the seabed, where they ensnare marine life and even get eaten by curious fish. Using paper bags isn’t a perfect solution, either. Most of my local stores don’t even carry them anymore, and while some are made of recycled paper, many aren’t. A better solution is to carry your own canvas or string bags. I carry a canvas bag in my car, but I admit I sometimes forget to carry it into the store. I’ll have to work on that. And here’s another tip along those lines. Hobby stores carry sturdy canvas bags that you can buy for five or six dollars. Why pay big bucks for a designer grocery bag when you can buy a plain ones and let the kids help you decorate them - or leave them plain if you prefer.

Here’s a challenge for my readers: Go visit Martin at Plasticless.com. Find ten things you can do in your everyday life that will help reduce your use of plastic. If we all do our bit, we’ll have an impact. Mahalo to Martin for reminding us to take a critical look at the choices we make!

About the whole love thing? That’s not exactly going to go anywhere, since there’s a Mrs. Martin already on the scene and I live too far away to be a stalker. My love will remain pure and chaste, with nary an impure thought to sully it (or at least not any that I’ll be blogging about. )

Technorati Tags: blogs, ecology, environment, plastic, plasticless.com

June 28, 2007

Honu or honu’ea?

My friend Pelf is a grad student. She works with turtles every day, and is involved in a project to help save and protect critically endangered river terrapin. She thinks the photo I published yesterday of a turtle in Waianae Boat Harbor might be a Hawksbill instead of a Green Sea Turtle. She knows a lot more about turtles than I do, so I’m publishing another photo taken the same day that may help her clarify the issue. I assumed it was a Green Sea Turtle because they are very common in the shallow waters of my coast. I’ve gotten in trouble in the past for assuming, so it’s very possible I was wrong this time, too.

Green Sea Turtles - honu - are quite abundant on the Waianae Coast. It’s hard to go to the beach, and even harder to spend time in the water, without seeing them. Their numbers have increased greatly since they came under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, and they are currently listed as “threatened.” The honu themselves make it hard to follow the rules and not get within ten feet of them. They’re curious and playful and have become acclimated to humans in their environment, especially in popular diving and snorkeling sites. There’s an old, friendly guy at my favorite dive site who is affectionately known as “Old Tripod” (missing one flipper.) He likes to hover just above divers’ heads and “eat” the bubbles that ascend from their regulators. FYI, for anyone who swims or dives here, or for anyone planning a trip, let the turtles control the situation. Never place yourself over them. They need to surface regularly to breath. Do not approach, feed, harrass, chase or attempt to touch them. If you see fising line or nets in the water and can remove them, do so. If you see abandoned nets and can’t remove them yourself, report them so that someone else can. Turtles and other sea creatures drown or become maimed from entanglement in nets. It appears that the fellow pictured above is missing a flipper, though it could be tucked out of the way and hidden from the angle I was able to photograph. Fishing debris is one cause of missing flippers (sharks are another.) EDIT: I just looked at the picture of this same turtle from my previous post, in original size. His other flipper is visible. Did you notice the white line near the front of his carapace? Damage? You can see it in both pictures. In the picture I’ve just added below it looks like it’s just a clearer margin between scutes. No so much algae obscuring it.

Hawksbill turtles - honu’ea - also occur in the waters around Oahu, but in much lower numbers. They are listed as endangered. Nesting occurs on the Big Island of Hawaii, with less than thirty nesting turtles identified. It is possible that a Hawksbill lives in the waters of Waianae Harbor, especially if it’s missing a flipper and is protecting itself from larger sea creatures by staying out of the open ocean. The bottom of the harbor is quite mucky, and I can’t imagine sponges living there for a Hawksbill to feed on, but I’m not an expert in turtles or sponges, so I’m merely speculating. I watched the fellow above nibbling on the bottom, but could not see through the murk to tell what he was eating. I do know that there is seaweed in the harbor that honu could eat. Hawsbill’s have a serrated edge along the rear curve of their carapace, while with Green Sea Turtles you can see a bit of a scalloped edge sometimes. The photo above clearly shows serrations near the tail, but they are not as numerous or clearly defined as I’ve seen in photos on other sites. There are also scallops along the rear edges in my photo.

So there you have it. Is my guy a honu or honu’ea? Either way, it’s a joy and privilege to have such magnificent creatures as neighbors. You can help support their protection and recovery by educating yourself before you enter their environment. More tangible support can be provided through donations to any of the numerous conservation efforts listed at turtles.org. WE are the turtles’ greatest enemy. Our past hunting habits and our carelessness with their environment are the primary causes of turtle population declines around the world. The least we can do is to help bring them back, now that we know better.

Edit: I found this identification key, which, coupled with the larger view of the turtle’s head in the photo below, seems to solve our mystery! On the keys, look at the picture on the right, then click on the link below to go to the next page.

Technorati Tags: Green Sea Turtle, Hawaii, Hawksbill Turtle, honu, honu’ea, photo, turtles, turtles.org

May 4, 2007

How’s your carbon footprint?

I saw a news feature yesterday that illustrated how living an average lifestyle generates excessive carbon dioxide and contributes to global warming. It made me begin looking into my own habits and I was gratified to discover that I’m already doing some things right, though my carbon footprint was not a driving factor in making some of those choices.

I try to buy my fruit and vegetables from the local market that carries produce grown on small local farms that doesn’t have to be shipped into Hawaii. I take short, tepid showers almost year round, no longer use a lawn mower since I xeriscaped my yard, and I installed attic insulation and double-glazed, UV coated windows during my home remodel. Recycling grocery bags, doing laundry in cold water and using compact fluorescent light bulb are long-stnding habits of mine, and I’ve been eating less meat in recent years. According to 20 Simple Tips For Lowering Your Home’s Carbon Footprint,” these and other habits have reduced my carbon footprint by about 11,064kg per year. The question now is what more can I do.

My clothes line was in the way when I landscaped. By putting in a new one and relying less on a clothes dryer I can further reduce my CO2 impact by an additonal 635 kg. Who doesn’t love sheets dried out in the sun?

Removing myself from junk mail lists would lower my stress level and further reduce CO2 generation by about 104 kg. Saving trees while reducing my clutter problem has a lot of appeal.

Read the article for details on these and other simple and pain-free ways you can reduce your own carbon footprint. Don’t we owe it to each other?

Technorati Tags: carbon footprint, environmental responsibility

January 1, 2007

Holy Smoke!

So I was sitting in my office at the back of the house, enjoying the relatively quiet afternoon (compared to last night.) I’d heard a few stray leftover fireworks being shot off in the distance throughout the day, but none of them seemed to be nearby and they weren’t bringing back last night’s headache, so all was well. That was before a helicopter I had heard in the distance suddenly seemed like it was hovering right overhead. I tried to open the louvers in my office windows. I managed to pry them apart about an inch, but that wasn’t enough for me to see through because the separate louvers were still overlapping too much. The office is the only air conditioned room in the house and the windows hadn’t been opened in a while. The ocean air builds up salty, corrosive crustiness on aluminum, so the windows weren’t being cooperative.

I still had my ladder set up for the ongoing carport roof coating, so I grabbed my camera and climbed up. The helicopter had left, but returned just as I stepped outside. I barely had time to turn the camera on before I saw this.

Yes, that’s the roof of my house in the foreground. It blocks the view of the stream that runs out back. The fire department helicopter was using the stream to refill the suspended water bucket. I turned around to face the neighbors across the street from me. Their homes back up to the vacant government lot that I’ve mentioned as the frequent site of brushfires. From my carport roof I watched the copter make a wide circle and drop a load of water.

Circle again to to stream, fill the bucket, dump, circle back.

This went on for over an hour as the sky blackened with smoke.

You can’t see the ash that flitted through the air or hear the smoke alarms going off all over the neighborhood, but they were there. Neighbors gathered in the street …

Or climbed on top of their homes for a better view.

Keep in mind that this is not a new experience for us. Two homes were destroyed a few years back, and a dozen or so have had roof damage in recent years. Our homes were built in the early seventies and all originally had cedar shake roof coverings. Thirty years down the road many of them were extremely dry and would catch fire quite easily when burning cinders landed on them. Most of us have intalled fire-resistant asphalt shingles now, but there are still a few holdouts. Tell me again why we don’t want the government to clear out the brush and keawe trees.

The logic escapes me. Oh, right, I remember. It’s because we don’t want those people living too close. If they build transitional apartments or affordable housing back there it might devalue our homes. Dozens of brush fires a year don’t do that, of course.

The excitement finally ended and I got back to coating the roof.

I worked for about an hour and noticed storm clouds moving down from the mountains. The coating needs to dry for a day & will probably be ruined if it gets wet before tommorrow afternoon. Those storm clouds sure did look good, though. I can sacrifice an hour of work if it will saturate the keawe and brush. That would eliminate the possibility of flare-ups overnight. Not a bad trade-off.

Unfortunately, the rain hasn’t fallen yet. I hear fireworks going off again up the street.

A note to parents: if you haven’t policed the neighborhood yet for fireworks that didn’t go off last night, maybe you should think about it. Unsupervised kids with fireworks can get into a lot of trouble, even if you don’t have brushfires in your area. Just a thought.

**I took a lot of other pictures. Unfortunately, my camera got brain-scrambled on Christmas Day. Today was the first time I’ve used it since then. Most of the pictures I took are pixilated or have big blocks of color on them. You’ll see some of that if you click to enlarge the picture of the roof coating. Fifteen were still in my camera when it decided to quit downloading. If I ever find a way to get them out, I may substitute some better pictures for the ones I have available to me now.

Technorati Tags: brush fires, fire, Hawaii, wild fires