Bill Nye made me an Environmentalist -- well, sort of

Today is Blog Action Day, a day where bloggers around the world are uniting to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment. Being that I claim to be an environmentalist and a blogger, I thought I should post something. Be forewarned that this is my soapbox for today, so it is long.

Over the past five years I began to realize how much I love working with environmental and land-use issues. For 3 1/2 years, I was a spokesman for environmental agencies in the State of Maryland. I loved learning about and advocating on behalf of protecting our influence on God's creation - the Earth. In the 1 1/2 year, my most interesting law courses have dealt with property concerns, land-use and the environment.

Because in Maryland everything revolves around the Chesapeake Bay I was able to realize, that I really love water issues. I was especially enthralled with impacts of impervious surfaces, stormwater runoff, and wetland degradation. Then last summer, I had a blast working for San Diego Coastkeeper, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting San Diego's water resources.

While my green side has really come out in the past 5 years, I have been amazed at how many memories of growing up that I look back to and say, "I was always an environmentalist." I was great in science classes, especially biology, so I assumed I wanted to be a doctor; but even in high school I really didn't like studying anatomy and physiology, so I should have known medicine was not the place for me. What I really enjoyed was basic biology as well as issue-related social science courses.

For the past few years I kept recalling an episode of Bill Nye the Science Guy I had seen years ago that stuck with me. If you never saw the show, you missed out on one of the greatest tools for teaching children science. In this particular episode (#57 - Wetlands), Nye outlined the importance of wetlands through fun and informative clips. Check out the goofy opening to the episode.

Introduction Clip

At times, I would be in a meeting where scientists where outlining why protecting wetlands was so critical and I would recall how Bill Nye had already taught me the exact point they were saying. I kept wishing I could see the show again and even got online to look into buying that episode on DVD - but it was $50 through Disney Educational Programs. Well during my Fall Break last Thursday, I took Leland to the library for reading time and was perusing the children's DVDs for her to check out something and I struck GOLD. Bill Nye the Science Guy was in my local library - the DVD, not the actual Bill Nye!

I checked it out and had to copy some clips to my computer to teach my family some of these important things (I am not distributing or making any money off of them so I hope I didn't break copyright laws). Anyway, I now present a few clips where Bill Nye effectively teaches in a few minutes what so many environmental advocates have difficulty doing in hours of presentations, public service messages, brochures, or websites.

Clip #1 - The Importance of Wetlands
First, why are wetlands so important? Bill...

I love this miniaturized wetland demonstration. Let's look at some other clips that demonstrate more about what wetlands are good for.

Clip #2 - Overdeveloping Wetlands Causes Flooding and Wastes Money
Bill... for those Republicans who may think environmental protection is only for pansy tree-huggers, can you explain why is it actually a bad financial investment to develop wetlands? In other words, use a business/financial argument for protecting wetlands...

Bill makes a good point here. If we fill in the wetlands, where does the water that would have been there go to? Unfortunately, the answer to this question was demonstrated in late-August 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. Hurricane Katrina was actually not too strong of a Hurricane and it didn't even hit New Orleans directly. Nevertheless, years of draining the marshes and bogs for development and channeling the natural flow of the Mississippi River had stripped the delta of its natural flood protections.

I recently saw an absolutely terrific IMAX movie about this issue - Hurricane on the Bayou. Check out the website, but I highly recommend the movie. Before the storm hit, the filmmaker went to Louisiana to make a film about what might happen if a Category 5 Hurricane approached the ravaged coastal areas surrounding New Orleans. By coincidence he ended up being there to see just how well-founded that concern was.

Just imagine a chunk of land the size of a tennis court being submerged into the open water every 13 seconds and you get a picture of how quickly the coast of Louisiana is disappearing. It is this same marshy land – land that teems with widely varied wildlife, fertile agriculture, major industry and one-of-a-kind culture – that in the past served as a vital “speed bump” that helped to slow hurricane damage and protect Louisiana from the tragic flooding of storm surges. Scientific studies by the Army Corps of Engineers suggest that every 2.7 feet of wetlands can reduce deadly storm surges by a foot. Without wetlands restoration, recovery efforts in New Orleans may all be for naught because it is only a matter of time before another monster storm comes the city’s way.

Unfortunately, this is one of the very few voices calling for changes in New Orleans instead of rebuilding the city. The current efforts to rebuild are only setting the city up for the next hurricane. Billions of taxpayer dollars are being wasted instead of curing the problem and preventing people from entering another dangerous situation.

The local politicians are too afraid of losing their next election to tell people that parts of the city (including many people's land) should just be abandoned. The federal politicians feel so guilty about screwing up the situation in the first place, that now they just want to throw money at the locals so that they stop complaining to the media. In the end, they are all guaranteeing that in the coming years, we will see a Katrina Part II.

[By the way, if an IMAX crew ever comes to film you, RUN. A similar coincidence occurred when the Everest IMAX crew went to film an ascent up Mt. Everest only to witness the most tragic events ever seen on Everest.]

Clip #3 - Using Man-Made Wetlands in Development

In another section of the show Bill admits that cities and development have to occur somewhere. He goes on to explain how we can use artificial wetlands to minimize the impact of development upon the land and water.

This type of artificial wetland mitigates the impact of development and impervious surfaces (i.e., parking lots) by filtering the water and providing a place for the water to seep into the ground naturally. Just imagine the reduction in water pollution if every parking lot of a certain size was required to put in one of these.

Well, I need to wrap this up. Ashley says that our blog readers don't want to read this kind of stuff, but I hope it gives somebody some insight or entertainment. Perhaps most of you are stay-at-home moms just keeping up with our lives, but I believe some of our best future politicians fit that description. My first major political campaign was a mom and school teacher who later went into politics and did lots of great things for her community, her county, and the State of Maryland.