Recently in Environment Category

These days, even sharks have online social networks.

The nonprofit Iemanya Oceanica announced last week that a team including several South Bay residents had successfully tagged three whale sharks, bringing the group's family of trackable sharks to 10.

The new additions -- a type of shark with mouths so big "you could drive a Volkswagen into" them, Iemanya board member Patty Civalleri has said, and that is particularly vulnerable to boat collisions and overfishing -- were found during Iemanya's inaugural tagging expedition, in Bahia de Los Angeles, Mexico.

"We opened up 20 seats on this expedition to the public," said Civalleri, a Manhattan Beach resident, "and because of the assistance from the media, we were able to fill those seats quickly with volunteers who came to us with various levels of water skills and a general knowledge of nature and the ocean. We couldn't have asked for a better group."

That group worked with researchers to attach tags to the sharks' dorsal fins. Through those tags -- and satellite transmission -- Iemanya will learn air and water temperatures, diving patterns, daily and seasonal movement and calving and feeding habits.

And it's sharing it all with you.

"People can now go online and adopt a shark as an educational gift," said Laleh Mohajerani, Iemanya's executive director. "Then every day they can track the movement of their shark," she added.

Get yours. And read Staff Writer Andrea Woodhouse's original Daily Breeze story about the Iemanya tagging expedition.

The National Park Service is looking to stimulate summer vacations at national parks.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Tuesday that entrance fees at 147 national parks and monuments -- including the Grand Canyon and Yosemite -- will be waived on three weekends this summer. The weekends are June 20-21, July 18-19 and August 15-16.
"During these tough economic times, our national parks provide opportunities for affordable vacations for families," Salazar said at a news conference at Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio. "I encourage everyone to visit one of our nation's crown jewels this summer and especially to take advantage of the three free-admission weekends."
Most Americans live less than a day's drive from a national park, Salazar said. Last year, national parks attracted more than 275 million visits, generating an estimated $10.6 billion for local economies and supporting more than 213,000 jobs, he said.
For the Park Service, the free weekends will mean a loss of an estimated half-million dollars a day from entrance fees that range from $3 to $25. A total of 147 parks and monuments charge entrance fees; the nation's other 244 parks are already free.
Kendra Barkoff, a spokeswoman for Salazar, said the lost revenue should be more than offset by an increase in park tourism. Many tour operators, hotels, restaurants, gift shops and other vendors near national parks will offer other discounts and special promotions on the free weekend dates, she said.
The waiver applies only to entrance fees and does not affect charges for camping, reservations, tours or concessions, Barkoff said.

Hoping to save homeowners and businesses substantial sums of money, Los Angeles County officials on Monday unveiled a mapping program and Web site designed to help people determine if their properties are suitable for solar power.

The Web site calculates the suitability of solar panels for a given property by computing factors including the roof size, pitch and shade from nearby trees. All the user has to input is an address.

"Solar makes sense in Los Angeles and in Southern California," Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said. "This is one of the capitals of sunshine on the globe. We have more sunshine days in this city and county than probably most metropolitan areas in the United States."

Yaroslavsky typed in his address and discovered he had 125 square feet of space on his rooftop for solar panels, which would save him $400 annually in utility costs.

The Web site includes the largest solar map in the world, covering 3,000 square miles.

The Web site, created by the county's Chief Information Office and the Internal Services Department, was developed for $93,500 and was generated from high-resolution pictures acquired in 2006. It calculates and ranks incoming solar radiation every 25 square feet, using roof pitch, orientation and shading from surrounding structures and trees to provide the best estimate possible.

-- Troy Anderson, Staff Writer

Want to put a little spring color in your yard, help the environment and save money at the same time? Get some free flower seeds that will help fight the disappearance of honey bees.

Sign up for The Great Sunflower Project and researchers will send you some sunflower seeds you can grow at home. Once they've bloomed, they'll ask you to collect some basic information to help them monitor bee patterns. Go to www.greatsunflower.org to find out more.

Haagen-Dazs is also giving away two million bee-friendly flower seeds. To request bee-friendly seeds from the Haagen-Dazs brand, consumers can send their request to hdloveshb@gmail.com. Supplies are limited, so if they run out before you get yours, here are some other tips from the Haagen-Dazs Web site:

• Create a bee friendly garden with plants that attract honey bees. Select a plant with a long growing season or a group of plants that together will offer flowers from spring through fall. A great resource for information can be found at www.helpthehoneybees.com, or from the horticulturalist at your local plant nursery.


• Avoid insecticides in your garden. Instead, promote good bugs (called 'beneficial insects') in your garden -- bugs that will happily eat the bad bugs chomping on your plants. A comprehensive resource for information is www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/ and http://horticulture.psu.edu/extension/mg.


• Tell a friend. The honey bee disappearance is already having an effect on the world's most beloved foods. However, many people have yet to learn about this issue and how they can help. Visit www.helpthehoneybees.com to send a Bee-Mail or to create your own animated honey bee to help spread the word.

RELATED POSTS:
Props to the pollinators
Haagen-dazs' campaign to help the honey bees
L.A. Farm Girl on the South Bay's best produce
Sustainable Seafood Suggestions
Find a farmers' market any day in the South Bay
Help scientists look for signs of global warming in the South Bay

It's estimated that there are up to 100 million available spaces for trees in the nation's urban areas.
So it perhaps makes sense that Arbor Day has been expanded to become Arbor Week. The tree-planting celebration begins Saturday and runs through March 14.
Or at least it does in California. National Arbor Day is held in April.
California's event comes early because now is the time best suited for tree planting.
So gather up those hoes and trowels and plant something green. Locally, the Tree Musketeers will hold a planting event in El Segundo. Go to www.treemusketeers.org for more information. To learn more about Arbor Day, visit www.arborday.org.

The Grand Canyon, Mount Everest and Loch Ness will vie with more than 200 other spectacular places in the next phase of the global competition for the New 7 Wonders of Nature, organizers said.

The 261 nominees from 222 countries include some of the most famous mountain peaks, lakes, and other attractions, such as the Great Barrier Reef and Niagara Falls.

More than a billion voters are expected to join in Internet voting that will nominate 77
semifinalists for the top natural wonders, which will share in the glory already enjoyed by the seven man-made wonders chosen 18 months ago.

Votes can be cast through July 7. Registration on the Web site aims to prevent people from voting twice.

"We are calling on people all over the world to actively show their appreciation for our ... natural world by joining together to celebrate the most extraordinary sites on our planet," said Tia Viering, spokeswoman of the New 7 Wonders campaign.

The Swiss-based nonprofit foundation collected 441 nominations over the Internet since it opened the selection process in 2007.

The foundation then chose the top vote-getter from each country, making a list of 222 sites. The overall list rose to 261 with the inclusion of sites shared by two or more countries -- such as Niagara Falls and Lake Superior between Canada and the United States and the Matterhorn, between Switzerland and Italy.

A panel of experts, chaired by Federico Mayor, former chief of UNESCO, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, will reduce the list to 21 finalists in July.

The seven winners will then be chosen in another round of public voting lasting until 2011, this time by Internet, telephone and text messages.

Choosing world wonders has been a continuing fascination over the centuries. UNESCO keeps updating its list of World Heritage Sites, which now totals 878 places.

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It's Christmas Day, and you've probably scored some cool spoils ... as well as a messy pile of wrapping paper, ribbons and boxes.

Every holiday season, dedicated holiday recyclers find ways to reclaim wrapping paper, containers and bows. Here are some tips to reusing wrapping paper:

+ Gift wrap with few tears, folds or dangling tape can be ironed, tissue paper with no tears can be smoothed and flattened for storage, bows can be steamed and fluffed, fabric bags gently cleaned, and ribbons pressed and rewound for use good as new.

+ If you have no intention of chasing down gift boxes or bags after turning them over to friends, family or colleagues, you can cover store logos with inexpensive decals or seasonal fabric as a way to encourage receivers to pass them on rather than throw them out.

+ Check out http://craftstew.com/recycled-crafts/10-crafty-ways-to-recycle-wrapping-paper and http://tinyurl.com/a2jq52 for more ideas.

... The Associated Press

• The San Francisco Chronicle reported on this paper alternative:

The eco-friendly company Fwrap, maker of fabric book covers and gift wrap, has a new line of packaging for the holidays, the Petals collection.

Fwrap uses remnants and scraps of fabric in ways that will make the giver want an equally well-wrapped gift in return. In fact, true friends will use their newly acquired Fwraps on gifts for the person who gave them.

The Petals collection contains irises and tulips.

The Fwraps range from $8 to $13.

• If you're looking to save some green while being green, consider recycling old calendars as wrapping paper or plucking decorations for your packages from your yard. Get six more eco-friendly wrapping options at the Office Supplies blog.

• If you choose to stick with more traditional gift wrap, here's one more tip, from the Eco Chick blog: "Avoid wrapping paper with foil accents. Metallic and foil papers usually can't be recycled, and in some recycling facilities, if they end up in the mix with other paper, they can ruin a whole batch, making it totally unusable."

If you haven't already banished those plastic and paper grocery bags, you're going to want to do it Thursday, which will be Los Angeles County's second annual "Day Without a Bag."
With the goal of encouraging area shoppers to use reusable totes, an assortment of businesses will offer special incentives -- promotions and giveaways -- that day.
These promotions are good at all Los Angeles County locations:

99¢ Only Stores: Free bag with $29.99 purchase

Ralphs: Double "Reuse-a-bag" rebate when shoppers use Ralphs membership card

Whole Foods Market: Free bag with $50 purchase

These promotions are good at select stores in the area:

Albertsons Sav-On: Giveaways at Marina Del Rey, Santa Monica and Burbank stores while supplies last (1,000 bags)

Bed Bath & Beyond: Free bag with a $50 purchase at Hollywood, Beverly Center and West Los Angeles locations

Fred Segal Santa Monica: Free bag with a $10 purchase while supplies last

You can also get free bags at more than 50 other sites. Go to www.healthebay.org/nobagday to find out where and when.
And if freebies aren't enough to persuade you, consider this: California municipalities spend nearly $50 million each year just to collect and dispose of plastic bag waste. Fewer than 5 percent of plastic grocery bags are recycled each year in Los Angeles, so the remaining bags clog precious landfills, litter public spaces and harm animal life when the bags infiltrate waterways.

In the great credit crunch that is now our reality, many are finding ways to save money just about any way they can. Love food hate waste is great resource to find ways to get the most from your refridgerator or pantry. They explain expiration dates, give food storage tips and even have "rescue recipes" searchable by what food needs to get used up quick. The Website states that each year 7 million slices of bread are thrown away. Garlic and bread soup anyone? For more stats on food waste, visit WRAP, a British organization working to reduce food waste, encourage recycling and tackle climate change.