Drawdown – R&R – Reachout and Rebuild

Legalize Kelp Farming in our Bays – Let’s Blue-Green Our Economy

David Posnett — Thu, 04 Mar 2021 20:19:07 +0000

Join us in signing onto this petition to Legalize Kelp Farming in our Bays .

Dear Senators Kaminsky and Stec, Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee, and Assemblymen Englebright and Smullen, Chair and Ranking Member of the Assembly Committee on Environmental Conservation,

We write to ask that you support the advancement from Committee of Senate Bill S4028 (A4213 in the Assembly), also known as “The Kelp Bill,” sponsored by Senator Anthony H. Palumbo and Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr.

The bill adds “and seaweed” to an existing statute that allows shellfish farming in the Peconic and Gardiners’ Bays. This would open a valuable economic opportunity for further developing the ‘blue economy’ in this time of recession. Passage of this bill will have immediate benefits for local kelp farmers, who planted a crop for a three-year Stony Brook University feasibility study but are presently unable to harvest and sell their kelp without a legal framework applicable to their industry.

Exploratory kelp farming projects in the area have already made steady and promising advances. The Stony Brook University study mentioned above was conducted with input from GreenWave, a Connecticut-based organization and international leader in the regenerative ocean farming industry. This study established the potential for seaweed farming to bring a broad spectrum of benefits to the people, the economy and the coastal ecosystems of the East End, while also contributing to climate change mitigation through the absorption of excess carbon. This work lays the foundation for a regenerative industry to emerge around kelp as a new crop in eastern Suffolk County.

Notably, this is a non-partisan issue: the bill received unanimous support from the Department of Environment’s Marine Resources Advisory Council in 2018 – an unusual rallying point for a group that rarely votes 10-0.

In light of the wide range of benefits that kelp farming will provide, and the bi-partisan support, we urge you to advance The Kelp Bill and to support its passage in the Senate and Assembly.

Thank you for your leadership and consideration.

Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
Founder and CEO, Ocean Collective

Scott Bluedorn
East Hampton Energy Sustainability Committee

Kate Rossi-Snook
Environmental Advocate, Concerned Citizens of Montauk

Mary Morgan
Cofounder, Drawdown East End

Diane Shapiro
Ambassador, Drawdown East End

Sean Barrett
Cofounder, Dock to Dish Montauk

Jenny Willis
Climate Activist, Eat More Kelp

Chef Trevor Swope
Climate Activist

Kim Knoll
Concerned Citizen

Cassia Patel
Cofounder, Oceanic Global

Lea d’Auriol
Cofounder, Oceanic Global

Peter Strugatz
Concerned Citizen

Chef Kerry Heffernan
Grand Banks, Pilot Brooklyn, Island Oyster, Drift In Restaurants, NYC

Postscript

This Photo licensed under CC BY-SA-NC

If we want to save what’s left, from our pristine waters to our local economy, we have to accelerate our regenerative engagement with Nature.

We need a new paradigm

We need a new paradigm for doing business while ensuring the maintenance of biodiversity and its values, says the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

What is the blue-green economy?

A combination of the green economy, with strategies that focus on energy, transport, agriculture and forestry, and the blue economy, which focuses on fisheries and marine and coastal resources, says the UK Commonwealth Foundation .

Kelp is a Drawdown Solution

Kelp forests are the basis and habitat for vibrant ocean ecosystems. With the potential to grow up to half a meter a day, kelp is also an excellent means of sequestering carbon as it grows, with enormous carbon sequestration potential.

Seaweed, like land plants, use photosynthesis to turn carbon dioxide (CO2) into seaweed biomass (carbon sequestration) and release oxygen. Seaweed grows very fast so it can intake CO2 at a phenomenal rate. The CO2 is locked up in seaweed biomass and the seaweed can be harvested for use, or, it can sink to the seafloor or become stored under the sea floor (similar to soil sequestration). For more, check out this article by a marine ecologist Seaweed is About to Blow Your Climate Mind and her highlight of the Port of San Diego’s Blue Economy Incubator to support emerging aquaculture and blue technology businesses.

Project Drawdown has assessed a very limited selection of coastal and ocean solutions to date. This solution set will expand in the future (e.g., solutions for regenerative ocean farming and marine ecosystem restoration).

Sugar Kelp is Local

Local sugar kelp (latissima saccharina) is native to our waters, is an extremely beneficial habitat for marine and mitigates against harmful algal blooms. As a commercial product, Sugar kelp is a superfood, a thickening agent, a soil fertilizer, and has biofuel and bioplastic applications. Growing kelp, i.e. marine permaculture, can help regenerate our waters and provide sustainable local financial and health returns. Let’s grow, use and eat more kelp!

Panic or Empowerment? Brought to You by Greta, Alexandria, 1.6M+

David Posnett — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 15:07:01 +0000

photos from their instagram

Feeling inspired? I am.

Thrilled, actually, to witness the clear clarion call to climate action….. by young people who have their whole lives to live, and so much to loose.

UNITE BEHIND THE SCIENCE, THAT IS OUR DEMAND

As stated by Greta Thunberg, who, at 15, started striking from school on Fridays for climate action, in front of the Swedish parliament, September 2018.

COP24 FAILED US

SCHOOL STRIKE 4 CLIMATE

Signs by Alexandria Villaseñor, 13, who began her own one-student protest in front of the United Nations, December 2018.

Horrified by the smothering smoke and raging California fires last summer, Alexandria was channeled into action by Greta’s December You are Stealing our Future speech at the UN Climate Conference in Poland (COP24), and her subsequent interview: I am too young to vote.…But I can sit down with a sign and make my voice heard. Greta, deeply depressed after learning of the looming 6th great extinction and climate change was, herself, motivated by students from Parkland, Florida, striking from school to call attention to common-sense gun-control legislation.

Now 16, Greta has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, and is featured in TIME (by Parkland’s Emma Gonzalez, no less) as one of the 100 most influential people of 2019.

Alexandria, noticed by the media this past February, was asked to speak at the UN. You can see the focus in this young lady through profiles in Teen Vogue, The Washington Post, CBS News.

She has joined forces with three other young women co-founding US Youth Climate Strike, penning an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists entitled Adults won’t take climate change seriously. So we, the youth, are forced to strike by Maddy Fernands, Isra Hirsi, Haven Coleman, Alexandria Villaseñor,

Sweden’s Greta, 16, New York’s Alexandria, 13, Minnesota’s Maddy, 16, and Isra, 16, Colorado’s Haven, 13, all found each other through social media.

On a recent Friday I met Alexandria, camped out on “her bench” at the UN. My friend Dorothy Reilly, founder of Southampton-based Drawdown East End, encouraged me to join her in a show of support. So I trekked from Orient with my message-sign and chatted with Alexandria’s mother, Kristin Hogue, a graduate student in the Climate and Society program at Columbia University, and two visiting teachers from England and Germany, while Rolling Stone interviewed the lone school-striker. Late in the afternoon we were joined by 6 teens from the Institute for Collaborative Education, each with a message on a hand-painted sign.

I found their passion and positivity heartening.

In the focus, bravery and determination of these young women I see leadership. By taking a stand, by putting something they value on the line —their education— by using their voice, connecting though social media, they have helped push climate change into the forefront of the national conversation.

TRUTH MATTERS

Don’t you think it is inspiring to see these young women, teens, girls, acting so empowered? Not victims. They just cut through all the gas-lighting by the self-dealing troika: big oil, big money, big power.

They see through the lies, excuses and information-withholding and, instead, substantiate reality with facts. Alexandria is taking personal action, like recycling and eating less red meat. She also says there needs to be a systemic change, as she told a reporter: It does come to the point where I do realize that 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from 100 companies all around the world, and so that’s why you need more governmental action to combat climate change.

They call attention to the silence, the delay, the pretend ignorance. Greta’s now famous:

GROWNUPS HAVE FAILED US

YOU ARE STEALING OUR FUTURE

OUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE

They bring up the on-going denial of the consequences of global warming, meant to keep us confused, off focus. Greta talks about the 6th great extinction. She reminds us:

11 YEARS

11 YEARS = 132 MONTHS = 4,015 DAYS

They speak up about the obvious. Greta: Treat climate change as a crisis. Do something about it. Change your own habits and put pressure on people in power. Start living within planetary boundaries.

They point out the failure of leaders entrusted to meet agreed upon targets and the inadequacy of the agreements themselves. Alexandria’s poster:

COP24 FAILED US

They call out the guilt trip of you should .…be in school .…let adults handle this .…etc., etc. Greta: Some people say I should be in school instead; some people say that I should study to become a climate scientist so that I can ‘solve’ the climate crisis, but the climate crisis has already been solved. We already have all the facts and solutions. And why should I be studying for a future that soon may be no more, when no one is doing anything to save that future?

Millions of students around the world are joining Fridays For Future. They are showing us they have healthy boundaries. They can say NO. No, I will no longer pretend. No — I will sacrifice my education to sit at a government building to pressure officials to act and meet the Paris Climate agreement goals.

And, what stabbed at my heart: No, you will not put this on my generation to solve.

They empower themselves and students world-wide by stating their feelings, I want you to feel my panic, by facing the problem, face facts, by focusing on mutual interests, I’m fighting for OUR future, by insisting on objective criteria, listen to the scientists.

They are positioning their generation as problems solvers, offering options for mutual gain, joining forces with other notable voices like author Margaret Atwood, sustainable ocean advocate David Suzuki, PhD, forest restoration scientist Charlotte Wheeler, PhD, urging governments around the world to prioritize existing natural solutions to the climate crisis.

I’m inspired. This is what empowerment looks like. Empowered young women. Wow.

How to support them?

VOTE. We voters can vote. We can encourage those who are 16 (who turned 16 by November 3, 2018 and will be 18 by November 3, 2020) to register to vote. PLEDGE TO VOTE encourages high school peer-to-peer voter registration.

VOICE. We can voice our support of #FridaysForFuture, #ClimateStrike, #ClimateCrisis with friends, letters to the editor, joining in. We can follow #GretaThunberg, #AlexandriaVillaseñor and others, and get involved in the social discussion. We can talk about climate change, the climate crisis, and solutions.

VISION. We can empower ourselves with a positive vision for the future, and enact solutions. We have just eleven years to reduce GHGs — greenhouse gas emissions — by 40%. There are solutions that involve personal choice, community action, and local/state/national policy that avoid carbon emissions and multiply carbon sequestration. There are solutions. That is why I’m excited about helping start Drawdown East End at the Southampton Library. Our mission statement, still in formation, is something like this: Inspiring, initiating and advancing local solutions from Drawdown: 100 solutions to reverse global warming, that bring about cascading economic, health and security benefits.

Our steering committee is meeting every Monday morning at the Rogers Memorial Library. Soon we will have a program in place for the public to drop in, learn and take action. Meanwhile, you can check out Paul Hawken’s inspiring, meticulously researched compendium Drawdown mapping the best practices and technologies already working to roll back global greenhouse gas emissions within 30 years.

MAY 24

1.6 MILLION

125 COUNTRIES

On Friday May 24 you can join us as we stand in front of Southampton Town Hall in solidarity with #FridaysForFuture and the millions of young people world-wide who are sacrificing their education to pressure town, state, national and international elected-officials to change our policies to meet the Paris Climate agreement goals ie. no more than 1.5*C (2.7*F) increase in global temperature, which would start to bring our polluted atmosphere back to healthy, balanced below 300ppm levels, as it was in the 1960s.

We support students striking privately at home, in front of government buildings, joining a #FridaysForFuture rally and, as the student-leaders themselves advocate: Strike at school on a Friday. Don’t skip class. Ask teachers and principals to dedicate part of the day to the strike on a Friday to learn or do something about climate change.

I think it’s only fair that we pass along to the 15 year olds of today a world with the carbon content we breathed at their age. Don’t you? For me that was about 315ppm.

Mary Morgan

drawdowneastend@gmail.com

Spring is Looking Up. March 15 #FridaysForFuture, April 4-23 #DrawdownEcoChallenge

David Posnett — Fri, 01 Mar 2019 22:46:40 +0000

Climate March, Washington DC, April 2017

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Students at the Climate March in Washington, DC, April 2017

March 15th. The Ides of March, notable to the ancient Romans for settling debts, as a holy day when sheep were sacrificed, and of course, a day to beware, as a seer warned Julius Cesar.

What is this year’s prophecy?

Does it appear in hastags? #FridaysForFuture, #ClimateStrike, #SchoolStrike4Climate, #WhateverItTakes.

Or on twitter? “The youth are rising and they want their future back” wrote a GreenPeace campaigner. Or in the forecasting of 16 year old Greta Thunberg, “I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.”

Read all about it, and listen to some very articulate kids, all ages, talk about why they are protesting by skipping school in Playing hooky to save the climate: why students are going on strike, Greta Thunberg’s #FridaysforFuture movement has inspired kids in dozens of countries to demand action on climate change by Umair Irfan of VOX. https://www.vox.com/2019/2/21/18233206/greta-thunberg-student-school-strike-climate-change

I am pleased, thrilled really, that students are transforming into climate activists, organizing with social media, putting skin in the game, so to speak, demonstrating their commitment and facing possible school (and parental?) punishment — spotlighting the urgent need for us to all act now.

I hope to encourage parents of school children to say what Greta’s mom and dad said to her a year ago when she started waving her protest sign in front of the Swedish parliament on Fridays: as your parents we don’t approve of your skipping school to protest, it is illegal, and against school rules, but we won’t stop you. (They, in fact, as a family, have made healthy carbon-free changes in their food, land-use, energy and transportation choices.)

The school strike has been debated in our Drawdown East End meetings, causing near arguments. As of now our Friday workshops at the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton have ended. But we continue to organize around ways we can use Paul Hawken’s Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming as a framework to promote the most effective, suitable, and economically beneficial opportunities for our communities and our families.

I admit, I’m a bit nervous thinking that the first public thing we do, what we might become known for, is advocating school strikes, rather than our in-the-works mission statement: igniting, inspiring and assisting our communities in taking action on climate change, with its cascading economic, health, and security benefits.

So I asked “shouldn’t we get some parents on board if we’re going to go public and advocate this?” “We can’t wait! The whole point is no one is listening, but they will listen to the kids” came the cry back at me.

I’m thinking of Greta who gave a TED-talk last year recounting when she was 11: she stopped eating, lost weight, sunk into depression, was unable to attend school, after she learned about irreversible global warming and saw nothing being done, only denial. Diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, she now only speaks about critical issues, climate is #1, and in black-and-white terms. Thus “we can’t change the world by playing by the rules, the rules have to be changed.” Could this be a foretelling?

What I love about the discussions we’ve been having at Drawdown East End is they are so positive, impact-driven and can-do. We are learning through Drawdown about the best practices and technologies that are already working to substitute, conserve and even sequester CO2 emissions. The 100 top solutions are offered as an invitation to build, innovate and effect our change to a renewable energy future with cleaner air, better health, more involved communities, and a humming economy.

For Greta and her #SchoolStrike4Climate I’ll be positive and impact-driven, too. I will enthusiastically support #FridaysForFuture. And I will also ask:

Why not march to change your school into a climate-ready school through culture and curriculum?

Why not pledge to do something every day, personally, with your family, friends, school, community to reverse global warming?

Why not petition your school to implement a Drawdown curriculum? drawdown.org

Here are some great resources:

1) Climate Change Connection What Your School Can Do https://climatechangeconnection.org/resources/climate-friendly-schools/what-to-do/

2) The EPA’s What You Can Do at School https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/climatechange/what-you-can-do-school_.html

3) UNESCO’s Getting climate-ready: a guide for schools on climate action https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000246740

Maybe you have a resource or best practice you’d like to share?

And, finally, April 4th-23rd. A free, fun, friendly challenge to join — individually, with friends, as a family, as a class, as a school.

The 21-day international Drawdown EcoChallenge is a free competition and educational program focusing on carbon reduction actions we can all take. It starts April 4 and already over 2,000 people on 400+ teams have signed up.

We invite you to join our local team, Drawdown East End.

To register: https://drawdown.ecochallenge.org/teams/drawdown-east-end

For more information on Drawdown East End contact: DrawdownEastEnd@gmail.com