April 30, 2011

I am so proud of all of you who wrote to me in response to Earth Day! Today, the last day of April, we posted almost 300 promises that you have made to Earth Day’s BILLION ACTS OF GREEN website. Seymour Science readers have really stepped up to make a difference! I feel sure that you will all work hard to continue caring for our planet Earth every day.

As promised, we are publishing everyone’s writing about why they care about Earth Day. This list is alphabetical, so find your name and show your writing to your families, your teachers, your librarians and your friends. You are part of an important cause, and each of you deserves to be very proud of what you’ve done. 

Alana:   

Dear Mr. Simon, My carbon footprint was very surprising to me. To know how large of a footprint I am leaving is mind blowing. My carbon foot is 19.9. I have a fairly large family. I have 5 people in my family. To reduce my carbon footprint I could turn off the T.V. when I am not watching it. Also, I could reduce the amount of time I use the T.V. Another thing I could do is buy a reusable water bottle. I could also eat less fast food.  Sincerely, Alana

Alana B.:           

Alex:           

Alyssa:                       

Amanda:

Amber:                       

Amelia P.:           

Andrew H.:           

Andy:

and not use too much electricity. 

Andy:

April 22, 2011

Last year was the 40th anniversary of the founding of Earth Day. Many special events happened on the National Mall in Washington, DC, and Seymour Simon was invited to speak to the crowd about what was then his new book, GLOBAL WARMING. The speech is a classic statement of his beliefs about teaching, and our roles, both collectively and individually, as shipmates on planet Earth. We are reprinting it here today as part of our Earth Day commemoration. If it moves you, please click the yellow "Share/Send page" button at the top of this page.

There is a Native American proverb that powers and informs the reasons and ideals of our approach to the problems of climate change and global warming. The proverb is one you may have seen before:

Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents;

it was loaned to you by your children.

We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors;

we borrow it from our Children.

I was a teacher in the New York City School System for nearly 25 years. I’ve written over 250 books for children about animals and the wonders of Earth and Space. Each year, I speak to thousands and thousands of children in schools in all parts of the country, in the South to the North, from East to West. I tell them about butterflies and polar bears, I talk to them about lightning and tornadoes; I take them on a journey from Earth to the ends of the universe using the words and images in my books. I’ve written books about nearly every science and nature subject you can imagine.

The Earth is so big and the subject is so vast, that you might think that kids get overwhelmed. "What does all this mean to me?" you might think that they respond. Well, you might be surprised at what they really do say. Here’s what many of them ask me: "Where do I fit in? What’s my place in the universe? What is it all about? And what about me?"

That’s what inspired me to write my book GLOBAL WARMING. This is a book for kids and their families. It tells what’s happening in the world of climate change and it tells how those changes affect all of us. Then the book tells what kids and their families might do to make changes in their own and their family’s lives that affect everybody on Earth.

Knowledge empowers people with our most powerful tool: The ability to think and decide. There is no power for change greater than a child discovering what he or she cares about.

Seymour Simon

April 22, 2010 / Washington, DC 

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What are you doing this Earth Month to contribute to the global effort to pledge a Billion Acts of Green? Click on "Comments," at the bottom of this story, and tell me what you are doing. We will continue to accept your ideas through Thursday, April 28. Then, on Friday 4/29, we will publish all your comments in one big article, to honor each writer’s promise to protect our planet, and inspire other readers to do the same.

April 20, 2011

1. WATER: USE IT, DON’T ABUSE IT.

a)   I don’t buy water in plastic bottles. Water from the tap is just fine, and I don’t want to put more non-biodegradable plastic into landfills.

b)   I turn off the water until after I’ve finished brushing my teeth, and wash all the dishes in one sinkful of soapy water, rather than running water the whole time I’m washing the dishes.

c)   I have cut my soda consumption down by more than half. I like water better, anyway.

2. ELECTRICITY: BEING SMART ABOUT THE POWER THAT I USE.

a) I have replaced all the incandescent bulbs in my house with compact fluorescent bulbs.

b) We are using less energy by keeping our house two degrees warmer in the summer and two degrees cooler in the winter.

c) I unplug appliances when they are not in use for long periods of time. If they’re plugged and even when they are not turned on, they still consume electricity.

3. TRANSPORTATION: CONSERVING ON THE ROAD.

a) I walk or bike rather than be driven whenever I can, and try to combine errands into one trip.

b) I am writing to my local government to ask them to design car-free zones and parks that would let people get places by walking, cycling, or driving those cute, tiny electric vehicles.

c) Next time my family buys a car, we want to pick a model that gets good gas mileage, and therefore uses less fuel.

4. FOOD: THINKING ABOUT THE COST OF WHAT I EAT

a) I don’t like vegetables, so I just don’t eat any. You’re not responsible for greenhouse gases generated by growing food that you don’t eat!

b) I only buy fruits and vegetables when they are in season so they are not flown in from tropical climates. And I try to buy produce that is grown locally, which further reduces the carbon footprint.

c) Our family has "meatless Monday" every week.

ANSWERS

1.   While all these things help, "c" is the best answer. The main ingredient of soft drinks is water - so the big soda companies use massive amounts of water on a global basis. And, cutting down on soda consumption is good for your body, too!

2.   "b" is the best answer. Electric power generation is a big source of greenhouse gases - the average home contributes more to global warming than the average car. The worst appliances are air conditioners, which use up to 1/6th of the electricity in the U.S.

3.   All good answers, but "c" is the most important thing all Americans can do. By using existing technology to produce vehicles that go farther on a gallon of gas and emit less carbon dioxide pollution, Americans can save billions of dollars, reduce global warming pollution, and slash our dependence on oil.

4.   You may be surprised to learn that the most effective choice is "c". Raising animals for food generates more emissions than all of the world’s transportation combined. And for all of you who answered "a"....eat your vegetables, they’re good for you!

April 16, 2011

Today’s story is part of our ongoing EARTH WEEK coverage.

 That’s because there is a difference between the daily weather vs. the climate where you live. You get your daily weather forecast on TV or on the Internet. It tells you the expected high and low temperatures of the day and whether it’s going to rain or snow. Weather is a combination of all these things and more.

So how is weather different from climate? Climate is what the weather is most often like over long periods of times. The Northeastern United States and the upper Midwest will be cold and probably snowy in the winter because that’s been the climate pattern for many years. Weather can tell you if you need to wear boots that day because of the snow prediction. Climate tells you when and where it’s best to take a swimming vacation on a beach. Climate tells you what clothes to keep in your closet because you might need them during the year, but weather tells you what clothes to wear that day.

Most scientists are convinced that there is global warming and that they have the facts to back that up. The year 2010 ranked as the warmest year on record, together with 2005 and 1998, according to the World Meteorological Organization. The WMO started keeping instrumental climate records in 1850, and eight of the hottest 10 years since then occurred in the year 2000 and beyond. Scientists expect a 3.5° F increase in average global temperatures by the year 2100, resulting in the warmest temperatures in the past million years. 

The last two decades of the twentieth century were the hottest decades in more than 400 years and may have been the hottest decades for several thousand years.

Records show that over the last century, Earth’s average climate had warmed in all seasons and in most regions. A single season or even a year in one region of the world is not a trend in global climate. Global warming refers to a long-term average over our entire planet.

The fact is that after 1961, many glaciers over the world have lost hundreds of cubic miles of ice. Most scientists believe that rising temperatures are the most important factor behind the retreat of glaciers. In Greenland, a NASA satellite shows that the ice sheet is shrinking and disappearing. Glaciers are moving into the ocean faster each year and more and more glaciers are being affected. In 1910, Glacier National Park in Montana was covered by 150 glaciers-today there are fewer than 30.

There’s no doubt about it, the earth is warming up.

Winter Wetlands Photo: Seymour Simon

Map Image courtesy geni.org

Upsala glacier photo: Gary Braasch

January 11, 2011

Is there a glass of milk sitting on the table as you read this over breakfast? Bet you didn’t know that the production of milk is one of the big offenders in the creation of damaging greenhouse gases.  How are dairy farmers are working to improve this situation? By reducing cow burps!

That’s right. Half of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with each gallon of milk take the form of methane gas, which is released both when cows burp and when they produce manure (that is, when they poop). And it’s not just a problem here. A British study found that methane emissions from gassy cows are responsible for 4% of the U.K.‘s total greenhouse gas emissions. A 2006 United Nations study found that cows produce a staggering 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse-gas emissions — more than planes, trains and automobiles combined.

Can burping cows really be responsible for all this? When cows digest their food, stomach bacteria produce methane, an ozone-forming gas considered 23 times worse than carbon dioxide when it comes to trapping heat in the atmosphere. "A lot of people think this gas is coming from the rear end," explains Nancy Hirshberg of Stoneyfield Farms in Highgate, Vt. "Ninety-five percent is actually from the front end, from the burps." Stoneyfield Farms is one of the many dairy producers who are working to develop new kinds of feeds that will help cows digest their food better, as well as constructing machines called methane digesters, which convert the bad methane gas to usable biogas.

Some families have one meat-free and dairy-free meal every week to help this problem of burping cows!

October 14, 2010

I am wearing my favorite shirt today - a drawing of planet Earth with a "Saving" status bar below, registering about 30%. Saving Earth is something I find myself thinking about nearly every day…..especially when I read the news and see how many of the predictions of the consequences of global warming are coming to pass.

2010 has been a year of weather extremes - huge snowfalls in places that normally don’t get much snow at all, a deadly heat wave this summer in Russia leading to fires that killed 700 people per day, and unprecedented flooding in Pakistan that has affected 21 million people (1-out-of-8 Pakistanis), leaving at least 6 million people homeless and an area the size of Italy underwater.

Scientists say that the devastating floods in Pakistan and Russia’s heatwave were both the kind of extremes caused by global warming. We don’t know enough to blame manmade pollution and the greenhouse effect for directly causing any single, specific weather disaster, but we are certainly seeing an escalating pattern of climate extremes that are most likely part of a change in Earth’s climate, caused by global warming.

How is it that we get both extreme drought and extreme precipitation, even huge amounts of snow, when temperatures are increasing? The reasons that droughts are getting worse is pretty obvious for areas that generally have little rainfall - when the temperature gets hotter, drought conditions get even worse. But extreme rain and snow? Well, there is a physical law (it’s called the Clausius-Clapeyron relation, for those of you who want to look it up!) which established that the water-holding capacity of the atmosphere increases by about 7% for every 1°C rise in temperature. Because precipitation comes mainly from weather systems that feed on the water vapor stored in the atmosphere, this has generally increased precipitation intensity and the risk of heavy rain and snow events. 

2010 has also been a very bad year for our planet’s coral reefs. Mark Eakin, coordinator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch, said high ocean temperatures in 2010 are causing corals to whiten, or bleach. "Major bleaching started in the Central Pacific in the early part of this year, then there was bleaching in the Indian Ocean and especially Southeast Asia throughout May and June. And now the big concern is that we may be seeing the worst bleaching ever in the Caribbean, later this year." According to NOAA, this thermal stress to corals is the highest it has been since 1998, when 15% of the world’s coral reefs died.

I am about to begin work on a book about coral reefs, which are some of the most biologically diverse and economically valuable ecosystems on earth. Coral reefs are a source of food for millions of people, protect coastlines from storms and erosion; provide habitat for thousands of fish species, and provide many human jobs in both the fishing and tourism industries. In a nutshell, no reefs, no fish. Not...

August 12, 2010

Last week Greenland’s Petermann Glacier shed a 100-square-mile chunk of ice, releasing a huge iceberg. Although the glacier has been regularly shedding smaller chunks, this was nearly one-quarter of the entire ice shelf of the glacier. It is the largest piece of ice to detach from an Arctic glacier since 1962 and follows the six warmest months on record. The chunk of ice is four times the size of Manhattan island, and is a possible danger to ships as it drifts into North Atlantic shipping lanes.

Unfortunately, this is yet another sign of the rapid advancement of Global Warming, as our formerly solid ice masses continue to shrink either via melting or "calving" big icebergs like this one. You can see an excellent slide show, courtesy of Britain’s Guardian newspaper, of satellite photos documenting this disturbing recent event by clicking on this link.

The above photograph of the Petermann Glacier was taken by Dave Walsh, a natural history photographer who won an Environmental Photographer of the Year Commendation in 2009 for his photograph entitled "Solar Energy vs Fossil Fuel."

August 5, 2010

Alana G. is ten years old, a great friend of Earth, and is working with us this summer to report on her activities as an environmentalist in her own community. Here is her most recent report.

- Seymour

Hello fellow Shipmates,

            I can’t believe how fast this summer is flying by. I wish I could stop the clock or at least add more hours to my day because I have so much more crusading that I would like to do before the summer ends. But that’s okay, I will just continue to parade up and down the streets of Southern California, spreading our message, fighting pollution and battling Planet Poachers with our friends from "KIDS TODAY FOR A BETTER TOMORROW" for as long as I can. As a matter of fact, a friend of mine asked me last week "With Summer coming to an end do you feel sad that your KTFBT group will be over?" Hmm… I paused for a moment to think about it and then I said "No! Who ever said that my crusade would have to be over?" I sure didn’t. The way I see it is, my journey has just begun. This world is humungous. Bigger then we can ever imagine and with change happening everyday there will always be a poor little animal to defend, an ocean to protect and eco systems all over the world that will need our help to save them and it all starts at home with each and every one of us.

            There are little changes that we can make in our daily lives that can have a huge impact on the world around us. And just like you, I want to learn as much as I can to make sure that I am living a sustainable life or in other words, a planet friendly life. Like Seymour has mentioned to us all before, if we all do our best at lowering our carbon footprints we can help slow down the greenhouse effect that is causing the Earth’s climate change. Not sure what that means? Don’t worry; I’m sure Seymour will come to our rescue. (Seymour…can you help a kiddo out please?)* I learned all about climate change (well, not all but a lot) because I’ve always wondered about it and what all fuss was about when I heard my parents or the news talking about "Global Warming." My mom tried to explain it to me and I also did some research on the Internet and then I kind of understood what is going on but not enough to feel confident enough to explain it to someone else which really bugged me. I always try to learn things well enough where I feel comfortable telling someone else…like you…what it is I am trying to explain.

Well, then I met Seymour Simon and now I know to never fear…Seymour’s here. Seymour was kind enough to send me a copy of his book called "Global Warming." It is a great book because it is easy for us kids to understand but still tells us everything we need to know. Like, did you know that Polar bears live in the Artic and depend of the sea ice to live? Well, because of climate change the sea ice is disappearing right before our very eyes. They ice and glaciers are melting. :-( It is sooo sad. And if the ice melts it adds water to the oceans which...

July 28, 2010

It’s late July and gardens are bursting with tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and chard. Tall sunflowers lean against garden fences, berries are plentiful and pots of thyme have a profusion of tiny blossoms. It is a gardener’s happiest season, the bountiful payoff for weeks of hard work in the garden earlier in the spring.

Gardening with your children is a wonderful way to teach them about food sources and the global benefits of “eating locally”…..very locally, if you are growing your own produce!

Kids enjoy the process of planting, they rejoice as everything grows, and they will love the “treats” that they pick themselves. Even a child who thinks she doesn’t like vegetables will love eating a sweet cherry tomato picked right off the vine, still warm from the sun. And kids feel like proud helpers when you send them out to get handfuls of aromatic herbs to chop for a dressing or marinade.

Even if you didn’t plant a full garden this year, it’s not too late to have some of these kinds of experiences with your family. If you have a sunny windowsill or deck close to the kitchen, plant some herbs for cooking. You can still get basil, oregano, parsley, and mint starter plants at your local gardening store.

Of course, very few of us are in a place where we can realistically grow all our own food. But, we can choose to buy our vegetables and fruits from a local organic farmer, rather than from the supermarket. A recent study from the University of Texas/Austin’s Biochemical Institute reported that the average vegetable found in today’s supermarket is lower in healthy minerals (the range was from 5% to 40% lower) than those harvested just 50 years ago.

As an added benefit, when you buy produce that has been grown locally you reduce your carbon footprint. Think about all the greenhouse gases generated in producing food that has been chemically fertilized, stored in refrigerated compartments, flown to your area and then delivered by truck to your local supermarket. Contributing to the creation of those CO2 emissions can be avoided simply by eating sparklingly fresh, locally grown produce. And, they taste better simply by virtue of having just been picked!

May 28, 2010

While working on the Teacher Guide for Seymour’s upcoming book, TROPICAL RAINFORESTS, we came across this US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data on the effects of deforestation on average surface temperatures. Two 100-year simulations were carried out with CFS (Climate Forecasting System): 1) a current climate control simulation {CONTROL} and 2) a deforestation simulation {DEFOREST} in which tropical rainforest in the Amazon region was replaced with perennial ground cover.

The results suggest that the impact of Amazon deforestation would be a warmer and drier Amazon, as well as a warmer tropical Pacific and tropical North Atlantic, with the caveat that CFS is not specifically designed for long climate change simulations.

If you are interested in more detail about this study and others like it, you can find it here: Climate Test Bed Joint Seminar Series.

Deforestation and other words related to life in the Tropical Rainforest, such as Canopy, Emergent Layer, Epiphyte and Understory, are all defined for children in Seymour’s online Science Dictionary. As each new book comes out, we will be adding all relevant terms, with images, to this digital information source for kids. This is all free content, so please introduce it to any children you know who are interested in learning more about the amazing world around them.

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