Pick Up 3, Simple Plan...Simple Solution

Melting Glaciers

Defne — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 06:05:20 +0000

Remember all of the hype following “An Inconvenient Truth” and the conservationist movement about increasing temperatures worldwide? There was quite a deal of controversy about the truth of the matter. The truth: according to the results of a 20-year study backed by the European Union, NASA, and the National Science Foundation released this past Thursday, sea levels between 1992 and 2011 have risen almost half an inch (source, CNN.com).

And what does that mean? Simply, the formerly massive ice sheets in the arctic terrains of Greenland and Antarctica are melting, and fast. These huge pieces of ice are losing billions of tons in mass.

Although the rising sea levels are doing so at a seemingly low level, even these tiny changes can be detrimental to infrastructure worldwide. Trends have signified more melting for the future, causing many coastal city builders and planners to include sea walls in their future plans to protect cities’ contents.

So, you might ask, how does this relate to me? What can I do to help? Technically, these climate changes won’t have a profound impact on the world we live in for another 1000 years, but the prospect is definitely frightening, especially for us at Pick Up 3 and those who are reading this who have our same conservationist ideals in mind. While the first-hand impacts of the rises in sea level won’t be evident to us, they will be present for our future generations and the only thing we can do to help them is to set a good example.

It all boils down (get it, boils, like our planet is now, haha) to the simple idea of conserving energy in the house, by flipping that light switch when you leave the room; on the way to work by carpooling with another company member; or by unplugging appliances (like hairdryers, toasters etc) when you aren’t using them. That’s really the only way we can ensure that we did all that we could; though these little things may not have a huge impact now, when so many people like you, you and you reading this article right now, they will most definitely reflect positively in the future.

You don’t have to be a research scientist to help! Conserving energy is so simple it can easily be an instinct from here forward. Let’s all make a promise to ourselves and the future that we will conserve! Come on, just do it, everyone loves a fluffy polar bear.

Simple Changes (How you can help)

Cobi — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 02:11:34 +0000

Whether you’re a life-long environmentalist or just new to the subject, chances are, at this point, you know that there are an abundance of opportunities that have been made possible over the years to help reduce our carbon footprint. Some are easier than others, and some produce a bigger impact than others, but they all are striving towards the same goal: creating a more sustainable environment.

Sure, it’d be great if, after reading this post, people decided to stop what they were doing and go trade their car in for a bike, stop using electronics, and start growing their own produce. But let’s be realistic. Similar to the concept of “Pick Up 3″, by making a simple change you can make a big impact for the future of our environment. And the more people that make these simple changes, the bigger our impact will be. Makes sense, right?

Here’s a few things that my Pick Up 3 team and I like to do on a day-to-day basis to do our part:

1. Get a Reusable Water Bottle.

- Did you know that it takes more than 17 million gallons of oil each year just to produce bottled water? That’s enough oil to fuel a million cars for an entire year.

2. Eat Local.

- Damage caused by transporting food long distances leaves a large and unnecessary carbon footprint.

3. Get on your bike!

- For every 4-mile trip you avoid taking you in your car, you can prevent approximately 15 pounds of air pollution from entering our atmosphere.

4. Switch to Fluorescent Light Bulbs.

- Did you know that if every family in the United States changed to fluorescent bulbs it would be equivalent to taking a million cars off the streets?

5. Look for the “Energy Star”

- The next time you need to buy a household appliance make sure to purchase one that has the Energy Star label and you can reduce the amount of energy you consume dramatically.

By making these daily changes, you can be doing your part and more. Pass the word on and make an impact! Curious to learn more about what you can do to help? Make sure to check back into Pick Up 3′s blog next week for more!

Blog Updates

Cobi — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 21:04:45 +0000

First of all, I want to thank everyone who has been reading our posts for the past couple of months. All of your feedback is greatly appreciated and we take into account everything that is said. Knowing that our posts are being heard around the world is humbling and motivates us to do everything we can to spread awareness. Our mission is the same as it was in 2004, spread the message to as many people as possible. Your feedback and awareness has turned this idea into a reality.

As our website is still in it’s beginning stages we will be working rigorously this month to make sure everything is fully functioning, so everyone can have access to our posts. Once again, please feel free to leave a comment if you are having any troubles navigating the website and we will look into it as soon as we can. We are learning as you are, so we greatly appreciate all the help!

Moving forward, our blog posts will be updated on a regular basis. Starting next Sunday, November 25th, all posts will be released every 1st and 3rd Sunday of the month. We hope you check in each month to be informed on the latest in the environmental realm and learn how you can do your part.

None of Pick Up 3’s success would be possible without the effort from our ambassadors, and we hope you can help us continue to spread the message. My team and I intend to continually improve and expand the site moving forward. It is not only our duty, but a pleasure to be able to provide guidance towards creating a more sustainable environment. Join the movement!

Cobi Emery

Beach Cleanups

Cobi — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 02:10:41 +0000

The pollution left on beaches, as you may already be aware, poses hazards to the marine ecosystem that teems with life. The plastic suffocates animals like sea turtles and dolphins, toxic chemicals cause lethal mutations in many marine animals, and the paper of cigarette buds chokes many marine birds.

With all of the recent discussion that focuses on environmental degradation, it’s easy to believe the situation is hopeless and your help won’t make a difference. Think again!

Our beaches can be preserved through your efforts. Many coastal communities worldwide have adopted beach cleanups as the remedy for pollution. Picking up trash in these beach cleanups, though a humble act, when completed by millions of people, can have a profound impact.

The members of Pick Up 3 team participate in these beach cleanups, some of which are organized by one of their proud partners, the Surfrider Foundation.

So that just leaves you. How can you help? Visit Surfrider’s website at: www.surfrider.org

Click on “Chapters” and find out if there’s one by you. The chapters often host beach cleanups every month at their local beaches.

It’s so easy to make such a huge difference in keeping our beaches and oceans safe and clean for all life.

Plastic in our Oceans

Cobi — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 22:30:30 +0000

Plastic has become an everyday part of our lives and it is important to note that this is a good thing! Plastic is the material arthritic patients use for their replaced knees and construction workers wear to protect their heads.

However, a problem arises when plastic ends up in the ocean. The seas are an important provider of food and medicine. We now have the technology to visit the unexplored deep ocean floor, and, with this holds a great amount of power to locate marine organisms that can be used to eliminate disease.

More than twenty percent of the global population gets the majority of its protein from seafood. Drugs and other medical treatments that are made from marine plants and animals are being developed at a fast rate. For example, brown seaweed extract is grown in the ocean and harvested by professional diverscontains phytochemicals that have been clinically shown in blocking the growth of cancer tumors and regulating blood sugar.

Ocean pollution threatens to cripple these valuable resources that we rely on for both food and medicine. Ocean-going toxins become concentrated up the food chain through biomagnification. Many species of seafood are now so tainted with pollutants, such as mercury, lead, and dioxin, that they are no longer safe to eat in large amounts.

One of the ways that we can make a difference is through developing solutions. Look out for a future blog post on how your individual actions can make a global impact.

Climate Change

Defne — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 18:30:04 +0000

The media, throughout the history of the modern United States, has had a profound influence on people’s view of the environment, both in local, American ecosystems, and those abroad. Recently, the hype has been about, as the uninformed call it, “global warming,” however better and more accurately known as climate change. There are several distinct causes that are said to have induced this climate change that we experience today as radical weather changes, decreased rainfall, and species loss, including the emission of greenhouse gases that result from the burning of fossil fuels and release of carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. These greenhouse gases are so named because they deplete the natural “greenhouse,” metaphorically speaking, cap, also known as the ozone layer, that separates the earth from the scorching rays of the Sun, absorbing most of the ultraviolet light it emits and diffusing it, producing a substantially less harmful UV shadow on the Earth. Scientists have been working for many years now to find remedies that could save our Mother Earth from being burned to ashes and the media continues to cover these new findings on the basis of their implications of climate change. Where coverage of climate change is flawed, however, is in its outreach; the current coverage of climate change almost completely overlooks its adverse consequences on the latter 66% of planet Earth: our oceans. The carbon released into the atmosphere because of the burning of fossil fuels in “global warming” makes its way into our oceans by way of the water cycle (remember from fifth grade? Evaporation/transpiration, condensation, precipitation, runoff, accumulation) and detrimentally affects our oceans in what is known as ocean acidification.

Based on what you know about the ocean’s pH levels (or if you didn’t, the ocean is mostly basic), you would think that ocean acidification, according to the laws of pH, would make the ocean closer to neutral and further down on the pH scale. This misconception is a driving force behind the exclusion of the ocean in general climate change discussion. The carbon emissions that cycle in the water cycle become carbonic acid in the ocean that is extremely harmful to nearly all of the ocean’s species. Many of the oceans’ plants, animals, and microbes depend on the steady pH of the ocean and these radical changes in pH in recent years have had catastrophic consequences.

Among others, the tropical coral in oceans around the world are most affected by the greenhouse carbon gas emissions. The carbonic acid (CaCO3) that forms when the carbon dioxide (CO2) reaches the oceans, if in large amounts, makes the ocean increasingly acidic and the healthy levels of calcium carbonate ions (basic, used in the formation of shells of corals and other molluscs) decrease, leaving these animals with de-strengthened shells and vulnerable to natural erosion by the acidity of the ocean and eventually, death. This phenomenon in corals specifically is known as coral bleaching and is responsible for the recent development of large areas of, what looks like skeleton, on the ocean floor where there used to be vibrant and thriving coral reefs.

So what can we take from damages like these? It all comes down to greenhouse gases and emissions. Though the effects of these harmful substances are most noticeable in large amounts that are not typically the responsibility of one individual, you can still make a difference by being more conscious of your own carbon footprint. It doesn’t have to be as profound as buying a hybrid car or utilizing solar panels; even remembering to turn the lights off when leaving the house or not leaving the sinks running can, in one year of awareness, make such a large difference. We need not be entirely focused on our immediate surroundings that are subject to damage by climate change, although they are nonetheless important, but on the occurrences on more of our Earth’s surface; we need to be cognizant of how our carelessness in our abuse of our environment affects our wonderful oceans.

Plastic to Oil

Juan — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 10:49:43 +0000

If you’ve lived long enough to remember the 1970s, you may remember then President Nixon touting the United States’ ambitions for “energy independence.” Every president since Nixon has given essentially the same speech at one time or another and president Obama is no exception. Although candidate Obama once spoke about ambitious efforts to make the U.S into a leader in renewable energy technology, politics has given way to programs and proposals not unlike our previous president. With gas prices on the world market inching towards the July 2008 historical high of $147 per barrel, >$5.00 per gallon of gasoline at the consumer level is very likely in the very near future. If you’ve followed the news even more closely, you’d know that the recently discovered U.S. natural gas reserves are being heralded as a ”game changer” for the nation’s energy situation. In fact, natural gas prices have plummeted to a 10-year low. Natural gas is the most common type of precursor for the plastic industry in the United States. Natural gas is preferable to coal, which is the most polluting type of fossil fuel, and many cars can in principle be retrofitted to burn natural gas in place of petroleum. Sounds like a win-win right?

Unfortunately, this turn of events is not as black-and-white as is presented in the popular media. Hydraulic fracturing (AKA “fracking”) is a technique used by the natural gas industry to liberate massive quantities of natural gas locked underground. This process involves using massive quantities of pressurized water mixed with various other chemicals to break and dissolve rock, so as to get to the gas. Because fracking operations are largely self-monitored by the industry, their exact methods and chemicals are not disclosed—trade secrets as they like to call them. However for the last few years, reports of chemicals leeching into water tables for residents around gas wells are resulting in places where the tap water is literally flammable! The industry has not been forthcoming with the types of chemicals used, and by invoking “trade secrets” they have another layer of protection against accusations that their chemicals are sullying our water tables.

So what’s the United States to do? Well instead of developing more oil and gas fields, why not simply use the millions of tons of oil already in our landfills? I’m referring to the hundreds of tons of plastic every person throws away every year. Plastic is a hydrocarbon like petroleum and natural gas. Polyethylene used in everything from plastic bags and milk jugs can be vaporized, condensed, and recaptured as oil to be used to fill your car and heat your home, or even be turned back into new plastic. Burning reclaimed plastic fuel is also carbon-neutral. This means that it doesn’t put any new carbon into the atmosphere because you didn’t have to invest any new energy drilling for it. As an added bonus, you would actually be helping to clean up the amount of garbage in the world. Now that’s win-win!

http://www.viewchange.org/videos/plastic-to-oil-fantastic

A Welcome to the Pick Up 3 Blog

Cobi — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 19:20:12 +0000

Welcome to the Pick Up 3 blog! The Pick Up 3 blog is dedicated to raising awareness for a cleaner ocean and beaches.

The Pick Up 3 message may be simple, but with the power of a united community, a difference will be seen in the environment.

The Pick Up 3 blog will feature:

Current Events
Environmental Issues
Ways to Take Action

Trash is not natural and is under direct human control. You and your friends, neighbors, family, and colleagues, can all make a difference by simply visiting the beach and picking up just three pieces of trash.

We plan to have a new blog post once a week so be sure to check back back in next week and subscribe! Engage yourself and be aware of the environmental issues that face our world.