'Secrets of the Penguins' leads Outstanding Nature Documentaries at the News & Doc Emmy Awards for Earth Day

Happy Earth Day! As I promised thrice, I'm celebrating today by examining the nominees for Outstanding Nature Documentary at the News & Doc Emmy Awards.

Outstanding Nature Documentary
Katavi: Africa's Fallen Paradise
Nature
PBS [THE WNET GROUP | TERRA MATER STUDIOS | SHIBUMI FILMS | ARTE | WDR]
The Last Rhinos: A New Hope
Sixty-Six Media Inc. [ABC News Studios | Lincoln Square Productions | National Geographic]
Secrets of the Penguins
Talesmith [National Geographic]
Shark Whisperer
Netflix [Netflix | Boardwalk Pictures | Underdog Films]
Willow: Diary of a Mountain Lion
Nature
PBS [RHYTHM PRODUCTIONS, LLC | THE WNET GROUP

Secrets of the Penguins leads with three nominations for Outstanding Sound: Documentary and Outstanding Cinematography: Documentary in addition to Best Nature Documentary, followed by The Last Rhinos: A New Hope with two nominations, the other for Outstanding Music Composition: Documentary, then the Nature episodes "Katavi: Africa's Fallen Paradise" and "Willow: Diary of a Mountain Lion," and Shark Whisperer with just this one.  I'm sharing the trailers in this order, beginning with Secrets of the Penguins | Official Trailer | National Geographic.

On the twentieth anniversary of National Geographic’s Academy-Award Winning “March of The Penguins”, SECRETS OF THE PENGUINS changes everything we ever believed to be true. From the Emperor Penguins’ revelatory bonds of friendship to the gritty resolve of Gentoos and Rockhoppers, and the astonishing ingenuity of the migrant penguins that reached deserts and far beyond, their incredible traditions and societies echo ours in ways we never dreamt possible – until now. For over two years, BAFTA and Emmy Award-winning wildlife cinematographer Bertie Gregory collaborates with world leading scientists, using cutting-edge camera technology and unique access to capture three world-first episodes that resonate with our lives like never before. The three-part series is executive produced by National Geographic Explorer-at-Large and Academy Award®-winning filmmaker James Cameron.

This is in the same overall series as Secrets of the Whales, Secrets of the Elephants, and Secrets of the Octopus, all of which earned nominations at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards. That, and its award-winning producer and director, bode well for its award chances at these Emmy Awards.

I'm recycling from Spectacular nature films nominated at the 2025 Critics Choice Documentary Awards for the next nominee.

I couldn't find a trailer for The Last Rhinos: A New Hope, but I did find 66-Day Fetus Of Northern White Rhino Marks A Moment Of Hope For A Species On The Brink from IFLScience, the next best thing.

There are just two northern white rhinos left in the world: Najin and Fatu, a mother and daughter pair. They can’t continue the species alone, but a world-first attempt was made to bring a new northern white rhino calf into the world using frozen samples, in vitro fertilization (IVF), and a surrogate southern white rhino.

That surrogate was called Curra, and the successful world-first attempt at this kind of cross-species IVF was achieved by BioRescue, an initiative developing advanced reproduction technologies for saving critically endangered mammals. Jan Stejskal was one of the people who had just landed in Kenya to check on the status of her pregnancy when they received a worrying call: Curra was sick, and it was happening fast.

They’d never get to check if she was pregnant, as she died within an hour of falling ill. The team would later learn that this was the devastating outcome of a chain of unfortunate events. First, there was the shift in El Niño, which caused very heavy rains. Then, those rains washed away the top layer of soil in Kenya, resurrecting mummies that had been stored in the ground for centuries. Inside those carcasses was Clostridia bacteria that can live for 500 years, and that bacteria releases an extremely powerful toxin that can kill a rhino in just 60 minutes.

It was a devastating loss for the BioRescue team and even more so for the guardians who had cared for Curra and the other rhinos on the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. There came, however, just one small glimmer of hope.
During an autopsy, the team found a 66-day fetus. It was a male northern white rhino, the last seen since the death of Sudan in 2018. There was nothing that could be done to save Curra or the developing fetus inside her, but it was proof that this kind of IVF was possible – something that had never been proven before.

This story of loss and hope is explored in the new National Geographic film, The Last Rhinos: A New Hope, which premieres Aug. 24 at 8/7c and streams next day on Disney+ and Hulu.

No wonder this earned an EMA Award nomination. I hope it gets nominated at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards next year.

I got my wish!

Now for the Nature episodes, beginning with Katavi – Africa’s fallen Paradise | Terra Mater Studios (Official Trailer) by Terra Mater Studios.

Southern Tanzania. The powerful local tribes of hippo, lion and crocodile struggle for survival while defending their turf from intruders. Only the oldest crocodile matriarch remembers 90 years ago when a similar event occurred…

This allegorical tale offers a fascinating insight into how an animal society can be affected by a changing climate, and how this situation requires new strategies and changed behaviors from everyone to battle despair and to create hope for the future of their lineage…

Yes, this is a Nature episode, but PBS didn't make this trailer, so it looks and sounds distinct. On the other hand, PBS did make the next one, so it's definitely my idea of a Nature promo, Nature | Willow: Diary of a Mountain Lion - Preview from New Mexico PBS.

A unique, non-invasive, mountain lion study uses a giant network of trail cameras scattered throughout Montana's Sapphire Mountains over a decade to piece together the life story of a female mountain lion. This film weaves clips of mountain lions and their complex interactions with each other and the rest of the forest world into a story about life and death that contains never-before-captured events and behaviors at every turn.

National Geographic and Nature on PBS — all this category needs is a Netflix nominee, and it has one in Shark Whisperer | Official Trailer | Netflix.

From the Academy Award®-winning director of My Octopus Teacher comes Shark Whisperer, a provocative and visually arresting documentary that dives into the murky waters of modern conservation, where science, activism, and spectacle collide.

At its center is marine conservationist and social media lightning rod Ocean Ramsey, whose viral videos of swimming freely with sharks have sparked global fascination—and fierce debate. Driven by a desire to leave the cage and decode shark language up close, Ocean strives to connect with these predators on an unprecedented level— hoping to challenge the negative perception of sharks. To her supporters, she’s a fearless advocate giving a voice to misunderstood predators. To her critics, her mission blurs the line between saving the planet and seeking the spotlight.

Through intimate character study and breathtaking underwater cinematography, the film explores the tensions between advocacy and ethics, media influence and ecological integrity. With insight from marine biologists, indigenous knowledge holders, and fellow conservationists—both supportive and dissenting—it paints a nuanced portrait of a polarizing figure and the broader questions she provokes.

This is not just a story about sharks. It’s a story about how we choose to tell stories—about nature, ourselves, and what we’re willing to risk to be heard.

I think the video description is a fair depiction of the subject matter, so I'm not as conflicted about its nomination as I was about Encounters. I was pleased and relieved Science Fair won instead. While I'm rooting for Secrets of the Penguins and The Last Rhinos: A New Hope, in that order, I wouldn't be nearly as perturbed as I would have been if Encounters had won Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary two years ago if Shark Whisperers wins Outstanding Nature Documentary. Fortunately, the metric I use, views of the trailer, favors Secrets of the Penguins over Shark Whisperer; the latter has 454,462 views, while the former has 5,449,091 views. The penguins have the people!

Follow over the jump for the rest of the nominations for Secrets of the Penguins and The Last Rhinos: A New Hope plus more of the most read entries about the Emmy Awards from the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

'The Daily Show' Celebrates Earth Day by Tackling Climate Change

Happy Earth Day! I know I told my readers that I already have more conventional videos for today's celebration, but I decided to go with TDS Celebrates Earth Day by Tackling Climate Change. I needed a good laugh.

Unlike the Trump administration, The Daily Show acknowledges the existence of climate change. In this collection of segments honoring Earth Day, Ronny Chieng breaks down rising global temperatures, Michael Kosta discovers an environmental safe haven in Duluth, Minnesota, and Troy Iwata investigates solutions to the climate crisis, including a trip to Mars and a woolly mammoth resurrection.

Michael Kosta is complaining about snow? He was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, just like my younger daughter! We know snow! On the other hand, he spent long enough to Los Angeles to know about the people there. He may be telling a joke, but he's not kidding! On a more serious note, Duluth is on CNBC's list of safest places in the U.S. from climate change, but so is Detroit, and we already have better weather than Duluth!

Troy Iwata managed an interesting transition from 2024 being the world's hottest year on record to a space ark to mammoth de-extinction. Re-establishing the mammoth steppe would help keep methane from permafrost in the ground, but that's an entire biome; bringing back one species would not be enough, which is part of why Colossal Biosciences also revived dire wolves, although those are Game of Thrones dire wolves, not the real ones. George R.R. Martin is even listed as a co-author on the paper!

That's a wrap for Earth Day. Stay tuned for Wayback Wednesday.

Storied asks 'Why Does A Ghost Whale Terrorize The Japanese Coast?' An Earth Month ghost story

Happy Earth Week! I'm kicking off my observance with an unconventional choice, Monstrum on PBS Digital's Storied asking Why Does A Ghost Whale Terrorize The Japanese Coast?

Lore of the ghostly whale skeleton, Bake-kujira, brings an ominous twist to stories of the revered marine giants in Japan. The entity is an omen of misfortune that emerged during the rise of industrial whaling in the 20th century. Is it a simple ghost story, or a warning of ecological collapse? And is Bake-kujira’s legend as relevant now as ever?

Watching this video reminded me of the retirement plans I shared in Marche du Nain Rouge, history and revelry.

One of the projects I'm considering pursuing in my retirement is a horror mystery series set in Oakland County. I thought I would ignore the Nain Rouge because it was concerned with Detroit proper, not the suburbs. Hearing that the Nain Rouge protects the suburbs as well as the city means that I might have to incorporate the imp in my stories. Hmm. Maybe in the sequel. I have another supernatural entity planned to bedevil my protagonists in the first collection of tales.

A vengeful whale spirit is exactly the kind of antagonist I'm looking for, except that my readers would think it's out of place in Michigan. Not completely, as three Quaternary, likely Pleistocene, whale fossils have been found in the Great Lakes State.

In 1927 excavations for a new schoolhouse in Oscoda turned up a Late Pleistocene fossil rib that may have belonged to a bowhead whale of the genus Balaena. The specimen is now catalogued as UMMP 11008.[15] 1930 saw Hussey publish the first scientific paper on the Michiganian whale fossils curated by the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology.
...
The 1950s saw paleontological attention return to Michigan's whale fossils. In 1953, Handley tentatively referred the rib discovered in Oscoda during the 1927 schoolhouse excavation to the genus Balaena.[15] He also reported the discovery of an Arkonan-aged[clarification needed (possibly referring to Thedford-Arkona region)] rorqual rib of the genus Balaenoptera. The fossil had been discovered upright in the sand during the excavation of a cellar in Genesee County.[18] Handley also reported the discovery of another walrus fossil, a skull catalogued as UMMP 32453 found in a Mackinac Island gravel deposit.[13] Handley also reported the discovery of sperm whale ribs and a vertebra from Lenawee County.

While I've read at least one author explain these findings as the result of early Native Americans transporting them from the coast, I think it's just as likely, if not more so, that the whales swam up the early Mississippi or St. Laurence into the forerunners of the Great Lakes. Whales swim into rivers from time to time, and it usually ends poorly for them.

ETA: It turns out that these whale specimens are too recent to for that to have happened.

Last week the results of study found the township bones were baleen whale vertebrae and radiocarbon dated the age at 220 +/- 30 BP (Before Present), as such, it is similar to a previous date of 190 years old for a sperm whale bone found in Michigan. The baleen whales have baleen instead of teeth which they use to collect shrimp-like krill, plankton and small fish from the sea. The report also included that all the dated whale bones found to date from Michigan are far too young for whales to have entered the Great Lakes. Bones of a sperm whale, finback whale, and a right whale where reported found in Michigan were dated between 190 and 810 years old, John Zawiskie, the Curator of Earth and Life Sciences at Cranbrook Institute of Science commented on the results of the whale bone discovery.
“Whales could only have entered the Great Lakes when the sea level was higher during glacial and post-glacial times more than 10,000 years ago,” said Zawiskie. “The whales are all too young – the oldest are only 800 years old.”
Why the bones were found in the township is uncertain, however one suggestion is that the bones may have been brought to Michigan by Hopewell culture people from the Atlantic coast, or maybe even a long running elaborate hoax, where someone else placed the whale bones on the landscape.
“The Hopewell people lived on the Atlantic Coast and they may have brought the whale bones to Michigan as they brought many shells and other marine items with them,” added Zawiskie. “It is unlikely that the Hopewell people scattered whale bones across Michigan and of course the recent find is only 220 years old – the other whale ages range from 190 to 800 years old.”

Darn. On the other hand, these findings make it more likely for whale spirits to haunt Michigan, not less, as they've been moved relatively recently. Just the same, I think I might refer to the legend of Bake-kujira, but choose another angry animal apparition for my antagonist, like a mammoth or mastodon. Time to look for African and south Asian stories of ghost elephants as inspiration.

Enough weirdness. I already have more conventional videos for tomorrow's celebration of Earth Day. Stay tuned.

For Earth Day, PBS Terra asks 'Stop Saving the Planet?' Change the world instead

Happy Earth Day! Like last year, I'm observing today with a series of videos about fighting climate change, this time from PBS Terra. These take a more heterodox approach, as exemplified by the title of the series, Why It's Time to Stop Saving the Planet*.

We care about the planet. But what if it's time to stop "saving it"?

Western cultures — and even some climate scientists and sustainability advocates — often share the idea that there is the “natural world” and the “human world.” The natural world is seen as pristine and untouched, while the human world is chaotic and ever changing. But all living things change the world around them in order to build homes, eat, drink and move around. In this first episode, join host Rae Wynn-Grant, Ph.D., as she explores how humans can think differently about the way we change the environments around us, how we can do it better, and why doing so could be a key foundation for addressing climate change.

Based on the Jenny Price book "Stop Saving the Planet!"

This video reinforces a point I've been making since the first year of the blog and even before that in my environmental science classes: "economy is dependent on society, which is in turn dependent on the environment. Without an environment, there is no society. Without a society, there is no economy." I asked my students to identify a similar statement in my worksheet for Chasing Ice, which they watched two weeks ago: "What does Balog say about the relationship between nature and civilization?" The answer is that the two are interconnected and civilization depends on nature. I hope my students retain that.

Follow over the jump for the other three videos in the series so far.

Three videos from Vox for Earth Day

Happy Earth Day! I'm celebrating today with three videos from Vox about fighting climate change, both by reducing emissions and actually removing greenhouse gases.* I begin with the video I plan on showing my geology students next week and my environmental science students this summer, How solar energy got so cheap.

Cheap solar is a policy success story.
...
Since 2009, the price of solar energy has come down by 90 percent. That’s no accident. It’s the result of policy interventions from the US to Germany to China.

As policy analyst Gregory Nemet puts it, “No one country is responsible. It was a relay race rather than a competition.” The global flow of knowledge, people, technology, and policy helped bring down the price per watt from more than $100 in 1976 to less than $0.50 today, according to this analysis from the folks at Our World in Data...

If we can learn the right lessons from solar’s success, it could help us develop and deploy the technology we need to keep our planet habitable and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

That's good news, almost enough to make me post Professor Farnsworth — almost.

I'm also tempted to show The big problem with cement, and how to fix it to my students.

Concrete emits a ton of carbon. Here's how we get it to net-zero.
...
Cement accounts for 8 percent of our global carbon emissions. It’s also an incredibly difficult material to do without: It’s the glue that holds together the rock, sand, and water in concrete. And concrete is the building block of the world: It’s in our buildings, our streets, our sidewalks, and our infrastructure. Aside from water, there’s no material on earth we use more of.

In order to get to net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050, we’ll have to address how we build and how we make cement. Because cement production is so closely linked to urbanization and development, China accounts for a vast majority of today’s cement-related emissions. Other countries with more development in their future will need to emit more emissions to produce cement, too. All that means the whole world needs to figure out how to create cement without the emissions. This video goes into the steps developed by researchers for how to get there.

I lecture about cement and concrete in my classes, both as the most extracted earth materials and how concrete makes nuclear power requires a lot of both, making it less of a solution for climate change than it otherwise would be. Both of these make this video another candidate to show my students.

The second video lists carbon capture and sequestration as part of the solution to the problem of making cement and concrete production and use carbon neutral. The third Vox video I'm sharing today explores that, The tricky plan to pull CO2 out of the air.

Will carbon dioxide removal work? It has to.
...
In recent years, over 70 countries have committed to net-zero carbon emissions, aiming to become carbon neutral by mid-century. The 2015 Paris Agreement aimed to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius and ideally limit it to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Despite global efforts, emissions are still rising, and achieving the 1.5-degree goal has become increasingly difficult.

Most pathways to keep warming below 2 degrees, and eventually return back to 1.5 rely on negative emissions, which involve pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using carbon dioxide removal (CDR) methods like enhanced weathering and direct air capture.

However, these techniques are still in early development stages, and require land, energy, and money. Critics argue that relying on CDR implicitly encourages governments and companies to postpone necessary emissions reductions because counting on CDR now means relying on future generations of leaders to deliver on those promises. Preventing emissions is broadly less costly than cleaning them up after the fact. But even with dramatic cuts to emissions, experts say some amount of CDR will still be necessary.

I'm not sold on whether highly technological methods of doing this will work. They're certainly not ready for prime time, which is why I'm not planning on showing this video to my students. I'm more confident about planting trees and turning carbon dioxide into stone, two "Nature knows best" solutions. Just the same, we need to try all of them.

*Vox is also uploading videos about A.I. That's even more of a science fiction is now idea, so I might return to it. Stay tuned.

How to recycle smarter for America Recycles Day 2022

Happy America Recycles Day! My catchphrase for today is "America doesn't just need to recycle more, it needs to recycle better." I'm sharing three videos to help myself and my readers achieve that goal, beginning with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wishing its YouTube viewers Happy America Recycles Day!

Recycling is a simple action that can have dramatic benefits for the environment – from saving energy and water and reducing pollution to fighting climate change and improving our air and water quality.

In honor of America Recycles Day, Administrator Regan is starting a recycle relay to challenge YOU to recycle more and recycle right.

That's a good start to getting Americans (and others, like my French readers) to recycle more effectively.

On the same theme, WUSA9 asked its viewers Verify: Do you know what goes in your recycling bin?

Recycling can be one of the easiest ways to make an impact on the planet, if you do it right. So what goes into the trash and what goes into the bin?

That was a good exercise for Earth Day, but it works just as well for America Recycles Day. I learned something from it and I hope my readers did, too.

I conclude today's post with Expert Shares 5 Ways To Fix Recycling from KOIN 6 from Portland, Oregon.

For "America Recycles Week" an expert walks us through further efforts that we should be taking to recycle materials and caring for the environment towards bettering future generations.

The first two videos concentrated on what individuals can do. This one focused on what businesses and individuals can do. That's important, too. Also, it helped make me aware of The Recycling Partnership, an organization I'd never heard of before I started researching this entry. I've now subscribed to their YouTube channel. I hope to share more of their videos in the future.

That's it for holidays, for now. Stay tuned as I return to this blog's regular programming, whatever that is.

WDIV examines climate change in Michigan for Earth Week

For the end of Earth Week, I'm sharing a series of clips from Click On Detroit/WDIV about climate change in Michigan. The local NBC affiliate and I begin with a general overview, Climate Challenge -- Science: Reconstructing the past.


This segment reinforces a point I've been making for years, most recently in Carbon dioxide at levels not seen for 3.6 million years despite economic slowdown from pandemic — greenhouse gases are rising dramatically because of human activity and climate consequences are not only coming, they're here. Follow over the jump to see the clips about those.

Neil deGrasse Tyson explains Earth Day

Happy Earth Day! To celebrate, I'm sharing Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains the History of Earth Day from StarTalk.

Where did Earth Day come from? On this explainer, Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic climate activist co-host Chuck Nice discuss the origins of Earth Day and when we started paying attention to environmental issues on our own planet.

When was the first Earth Day? We talk about Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring and the origins of climate activism in the United States. How did people's mentalities towards pollution change? We break down the concept of a global environment, the turbulence of the sixties, and Apollo 8. What does the 1968 trip to the moon have to do with Earth Day? Discover how leaving the earth helped us think about our own planet. We explore the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency and other government agencies and policies in the 70’s. What changed in our mindset towards Earth when we travelled to space? Happy Earth Day from your friends at StarTalk, keep looking up and keep looking home!

I'm sure his viewers and listeners expected to hear about the role of Rachel Carson, but leave it to Dr. Tyson to connect the space program, particularly Apollo 8, to the environmental movement and leave it to Chuck Nice to tell the viewers to spread the word. I listened, Chuck, which is why I embedded the video and am sharing the link.

I'm also sharing GretaThunberg: A Year to Change the World PREVIEW from Arizona Public Media.

Travel with the world’s best-known climate activist as she takes her fight to a global stage. With unique access, the series follows Greta over an extraordinary year as she embarks on a mission to ensure world leaders work to limit global warming.

Check your TV listings for when this three-part series airs on your local PBS station. Many of them will show it tonight, Earth Day, beginning at 8 P.M. local time. They will also repeat it next week.

I'm not done with the intersection of the environment and entertainment. Stay tuned for a retrospective featuring a popular post about animals that is an Oscar nominee on the Flashback Friday before the Oscars.

My students are watching 'Chasing Ice' during Earth Week

Happy Earth Day!  For today's celebration, I'm sharing the worksheet I made yesterday for 'Chasing Ice.'  It only took me six years to follow through with the intention I expressed in 'Years of Living Dangerously', when I wrote "I've been thinking about replacing 'An Inconvenient Truth' with another film.  My first choice is 'Chasing Ice.'"  I repeated this thought two years later in 'Inconvenient Truth 2' being released next year.

I just finished showing my students "An Inconvenient Truth" last week.  It's a very good movie, and it's holding up better than "The End of Suburbia," which I've really had enough of for reasons beyond the age of the film.*  Just the same, it's also getting out of date so I've been looking for a replacement such as "Chasing Ice."  Maybe I can just wait until the sequel comes out on DVD and show that instead.  I know, I'm lazy, but it might just work.

I reported that I made some progress on this effort in June 2018's Sea level rise is already causing coastal flooding in New Jersey and Vox thinks it will get worse.

"An Inconvenient Sequel" portrayed the situations at both locations, although mostly in the context of Hurricane Sandy for New York, while showing the chronic flooding in Florida...I also watched "Chasing Ice."  Right now, I'm favoring the latter to show to my students.

What took me so long?  A combination of laziness, necessity, and available resources, that's what.  First, "An Inconvenient Truth" was still working, even as it was getting dated.  It helped that Al Gore hasn't pissed me off the way James Howard Kunstler did, which played a big part in why 'Treasures of the Earth: Power' replaced 'End of Suburbia.'  Second, Michigan's colleges and universities suspended in-person classes, which prevented me from using the college's DVD to show "An Inconvenient Truth" in front of a classroom of live students.  Third, there are two uploads of "Chasing Ice" on YouTube, while there are none of "An Inconvenient Truth."  Here is one of those uploads.

Chasing Ice is a 2012 documentary film about the efforts of nature photographer James Balog and his Extreme Ice Survey (EIS) to publicize the effects of climate change, directed by Jeff Orlowski.[1] It was released in the United States on November 16, 2012.

The documentary includes scenes from a glacier calving event that took place at Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland, lasting 75 minutes, the longest such event ever captured on film.[2][3] Two EIS videographers waited several weeks in a small tent overlooking the glacier, and were finally able to witness 7.4 cubic kilometres (1.8 cu mi) of ice crashing off[4] the glacier. "The calving of a massive glacier believed to have produced the ice that sank the Titanic is like watching a city break apart."

Looks like someone copied the movie's description from its Wikipedia entry.

Follow over the jump for the worksheet, which is written in the same style as "Treasures of the Earth: Power" and "Food, Inc."

The Verge explains why most Americans support the EPA for Earth Day plus environmental policy for the eighth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News

Happy Earth Day!  Today, I am pointing out that climate isn't the only environmental issue the U.S. and the planet is confronting.  Pollution of all kinds is another one, which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created to combat.  The results have been generally successful, as The Verge describes in Why most Americans support the EPA.

The future of the EPA is uncertain. We look back at why the agency was created in the first place, and why we still need it today.

The video is two years old, but its points are still valid, even after Scott Pruitt has left as EPA Administrator.

Two of the most read entries of the eighth year of this blog were about the EPA, so follow over the jump for how they and another about the Trump Administration's environmental policies earned their page views.

A recycled song and drink for a late Earth Day

Last year, I posted Drink to a late drum corps Earth Day.  Today, I'm sharing a modified entry I originally posted at Booman Tribune, A song and drink for Earth Day.  I decided to do something lighter over there, than Vox on going green by reducing waste for Earth Day 2018.  The readers over there and I enjoyed it so much I decided to recycle here now instead of saving it for next year.  I'm sure I can figure out something different next Earth Day.

For the song, watch Florence and the Machine turn "So Big, So Blue, So Beautiful" into an environmental anthem.

Live version of their song for a climate change event

For the drink, I'm sharing Nuptini Earth Day Cocktail.

For Earth Day, Nuptini teams up with Glass Dharma to bring you a cocktail that's as eco-friendly as it is delicious!

Here's to a sustainable celebration!

Vox on going green by reducing waste for Earth Day 2018

Happy Earth Day!  To celebrate, I'm sharing two videos Vox created last year about the impact of trash on the environment, how people can reduce it, and how people can be persuaded to do so.  The first is Going green shouldn't be this hard.

Going green does not need to be a sacrifice, either for us as individuals or for businesses, governments and the economy.

The second video is from the same series and calls back to the previous one at the end, Takeout creates a lot of trash. It doesn't have to.*

Our single-use items aren't helping the fight against climate change but there are easy hacks to reduce and reuse. Climate Lab is produced by the University of California in partnership with Vox.

Hosted by conservation scientist Dr. M. Sanjayan, the videos explore the surprising elements of our lives that contribute to climate change and the groundbreaking work being done to fight back. Featuring conversations with experts, scientists, thought leaders and activists, the series demystifies topics like nuclear power, food waste and online shopping to make them more approachable and actionable for those who want to do their part. Sanjayan is an alum of UC Santa Cruz, a Visiting Researcher at UCLA and the CEO of Conservation International.

Both videos show ways to reduce our impact through changes in personal behavior, business practices, and government policy.**  All of them are worth doing, not just today, but throughout the year.  Remember, every day is Earth Day.

*The entire series of nine episodes is available at the link: Climate Lab with the description "Conservation scientist and UCLA visiting researcher Dr. M. Sanjayan explores the surprising ways we can change how we think and act about climate change."

**Think of these actions as a kind of technology.  That way they fit in the equation I=P*A*T, where I is impact, P is population, A is affluence, and T is technology.  Only technology can reduce the effects of increasing population and affluence and these behaviors counteract affluence.

Drink to a late drum corps Earth Day

When I wrote "I doubt I'll have much time for DOOM this week," I didn't realize how little there would be.  I was planning on posting something about the People's Climate March today, but I'm on break this week, so I'm just not feeling it.  Instead, I'm going to give Earth Day the same treatment I've given other holidays, celebrate it with a drink from Tipsy Bartender and music from drum corps.  It's past time I did, especially since Earth Day itself was more than a week ago.  Sometimes inspiration strikes late.

I'll start with the drink, Earth Day Ocean Water.

1 ½ oz. (45ml) Coconut Vodka
¾ oz. (22ml) Blue Curacao
½ oz. (15ml) Lemon Juice
2 oz. (60ml) Lemon Lime Soda
Lime Peel

PREPARATION
1. To an ice filled glass add coconut vodka, blue curacao, lemon juice and lemon lime soda. Stir well to mix. Set aside.
2. Using scissors or a small knife roughly cut the shapes of the continents out of lime peel. Place shapes inside a round glass and pack with crushed ice.
3. Pour mix into glass and serve. Enjoy responsibly!

Now that my readers have a drink, they can sip it while watching two clips of Crossmen's 1992 show, "Songs for the Planet Earth."  First, the official video from Drum Corps International: DVD Spotlight: 1992 Crossmen.

Crossmen's 6th place presentation of "Songs for the Planet Earth" visited our home planet as part one of a three-year song cycle; followed the next two years with "A Celebration of Humanity" and "Suite Children." The show was created with a sense of concern for environmental preservation.

I conclude with the final minute of the show.


I hope my readers found that as inspiring as I did.

I might have something serious tomorrow.  After that, Thursday is Star Wars Day, Friday is Cinco De Mayo, Saturday is Revenge of the Sixth, and Sunday will be an entertainment feature.   As I wrote, there will be very little time for DOOM this week and I'm O.K. with that.

Marching for science in Ann Arbor

I promised four times that "'I'm planning on posting a first-hand account of tomorrow's March for Science in Ann Arbor sometime next week,' just like I did for the Women's March."  It's time to follow through.

I learned my lesson from the Women's March to arrive early so that I could get parking.  Then, I managed to get inside a structure that had one space available after dealing with traffic backups and no parking all the way from the freeway to downtown.  This time, I parked in the nearest structure to the start of the march nearly an hour early when it had 300+ spaces open and had no congestion to speak of.  I was able to get a coffee, stroll to the Diag, find a restroom, and sit on the benches around the edge of the paved area in front of the library, where about 1,000 people had already congregated.  There I sat for about fifteen minutes as more people assembled.

Unlike both the Women's March and Tax March, which began at the Federal Building and ended at the Diag for speeches, the Science March started with an hour of speeches at the Diag and then proceeded to the Federal Building.  One of those speeches was by State Representative Yousef Rabhi, who also addressed the crowd at the Tax March.  Like the Tax March, MLive recorded him speak.


MLive quoted Rabhi in Thousands flood streets of Ann Arbor during March for Science.

State Rep. Yousef Rabhi, D-Ann Arbor, who spoke during the rally, estimated there were easily more than 10,000 people there, possibly as many as 15,000.

"I think this is about as many people as came out to the Women's March in Ann Arbor," Rabhi said, referring to the Jan. 21 march that drew more than 11,000. "This is amazing, and a beautiful day. The earth is smiling upon us."

At the time, I didn't believe him, as it didn't feel as crowded as it did during the Women's March speeches.  After looking at the video, now I do.  That was a much larger group than I thought at the time, which was halfway through the hour of people talking to the protesters.  While I don't think more people attended than the Women's March, I now think it was close.  If the Women's March had 11,000, then the March for Science in Ann Arbor had 10,000.  I guess the decision to start with the speeches first and march later paid off in terms of attendance.

Rabhi also called out all of the people protesting Line 5 under Mackinac and told them (us, as I was one of them) to hold our signs up high.  We did.  I felt both proud and useful, more so than at the Women's March.

Follow over the jump for more that happened at the Ann Arbor March for Science.

CBC and Futurism report on the March for Science

I twice promised that "I'm planning on posting a first-hand account of tomorrow's March for Science in Ann Arbor sometime next week,", just like I did for the Women's March.  That will happen later this week.  Today, I bring reports on the big picture of the march from two of the sources I used last Saturday, CBC's The National and Futurism.  First, Futurism's The March for Science Spread A Clear Message: Science Is For All.

The March for Science was a huge success. Hundreds of thousands marched in 600+ cities. Here are the highlights!

That was very optimistic.  CBC's The National took a slightly darker view in Global March for Science raises concern over Trump policies.

Scientists and their supporters marched in hundreds of cities around the world Saturday, protesting against proposed U.S. government funding cuts to scientific research.

I'm pleasantly surprised to find that the role of science in uncovering the Flint Water Crisis was featured in the main march.  I barely recall that being mentioned in Ann Arbor.  On the other hand, both videos show all the creative and correctly spelled signs, which Ann Arbor's march had in abundance.  I'll be sure to mention those when I write about my experience last Saturday.  Stay tuned.

March for Science today for Earth Day

Happy Earth Day!  In yesterday's The resistance for the sixth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News, I mentioned that "I'm planning on posting a first-hand account of tomorrow's March for Science in Ann Arbor sometime next week."  So, just like I did for the Women's March, I'm posting a preview of the event.

I begin with Science Magazine's Behind the scenes at the March for Science.*



How a simple text message launched a global movement.
Next, Scientists: Why We March.

#MarchforScience coming in April 2017. Scientists will not step back while war has been declared on the Planet's Life Support System.

That's why the scientists are marching.  Futurism's March for Science on Earth Day in a City Near You explains why the rest of us should be, too.



Science is under attack. But we can stand up for it.
I've already posted about when and why environmentalism became a partisan issue.  I hope I don't have to blog about how science became one, too.  Just the same, if it does, I will.

*I'm Director of Partnerships for the Coffee Party.  After the march is over, I'm going to contact Ayana Johnson to see if the March for Science is still looking for partners for future events.

Seeker/DNews on when and why environmentalism became a partisan issue

This is Earth Week and Saturday is Earth Day, which is also when the March for Science will be held.  To observe the first and build up to the second, I'm sharing When Did Environmentalism Become So Political?  In it, Seeker/DNews makes a point that I make about the environmental record of Richard Nixon; Tricky Dick signed into law much of the federal legislation of the modern environmental era, making him a very different Republican from the ones who induced me to leave the party in 2000.



When you think of environmentalism, does Richard Nixon come to mind?
Yes, but Nixon as the second greenest U.S. President?  That's something that surprises even me!

Climate change for the sixth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News

As I wrote twice in Gerrymandering and other general politics for the sixth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News, the subject of today's retrospective is climate change.  Like holidays, climate change is a recurring subject of retrospectives on this blog going back to its very first year.  It's good to know some things don't change.

The twelfth most read entry of the previous blogging year was Seth Meyers takes a closer look at Trump and climate change from December 22, 2016 with 2964 page views according to the raw counter as of March 20, 2017.  While it was posted in December, it was the most read entry of January 2017 after being shared at the Coffee Party USA Facebook page, ending the month with 2631 page views, 2925 according to the raw counter.  While it rose quickly, it showed no signs of making the all-time top ten, so I didn't put in a lot of effort tracking its progress.  Besides, I think I was on vacation at the time I shared the post, so I had better things to do.

Follow over the jump for more of last year's top posts on climate.

Solar Impulse 2 lands in California

The last I wrote about Solar Impulse 2, the plane had landed in Hawaii.  That was in July.  It took until yesterday for it to complete the next leg of its around-the-world flight.  CNN has the story in Solar-powered plane lands in California.

An experimental plane flying around the world without a single drop of fuel landed in California after a two-and-a-half day flight across the Pacific. Video footage from KGO.

CNN has more in Solar Impulse 2 lands in California after Pacific flight.

An experimental plane flying around the world without a single drop of fuel landed in California after a two-and-a-half day flight across the Pacific.

Piloted by Swiss explorer and psychiatrist Bertrand Piccard, Solar Impulse 2 touched down in Mountain View just before midnight (3 a.m. ET).
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The plane took off from Hawaii on Thursday, resuming a journey that had stalled on the island of Oahu for almost 10 months.

Tomonews had more about that 10 month day last week in Solar Impulse to set to resume round-the-world journey in late April.

HONOLULU — Solar Impulse 2, an aircraft that is attempting to make the first round-the-world solar-powered flight, is set to resume its journey in late April.

Solar Impulse 2 left Abu Dhabi on March 9, 2015 and had flown to Muscat, Ahmedabad, Varanasi, Mandalay, Chongqing, Nanjing, Nagoya and Hawaii, where it has been grounded since July after its batteries were damaged on the trip from Japan.

The plane's batteries became overheated after a quick ascent on the first day during the flight from Nagoya to Hawaii. The batteries had to be replaced before the plane could resume flying.

"The first half of the adventure was already a success, because we showed that solar energy made it possible to fly five days and five nights, and remaining airborne longer than any plane in history," Bertrand Piccard, one of the two pilots of the plane told The Billionaire.

The plane is ready to depart in late April, depending on the weather. It will continue the remaining half of its journey from Hawaii to North America, southern Europe before returning to Abu Dhabi this summer.

As soon as I watched the video last week, I had a feeling the plane would be flying on Earth Day.  I was right.

Stay tuned for more updates on the plane's circumnavigation of the planet, including its stops in the U.S. and eventual return to Abu Dhabi.

Examiner.com article on MSU sustainability for Earth Week

MSU served tea, algae, and lemurs for Earth Week

On Friday, Michigan State University served sustainable tea for Earth Day, capping off an Earth Week full of environmental news from Michigan's Land Grant University.  On Wednesday, MSU reported on two other environmental stories, growing algae for fuel and using grassroots tactics to reduce poaching of endangered lemurs in Madagascar.  All three stories show that MSU is green for reasons other than its school colors.

MSU students grew the herbs for the "green" tea in the greenhouse outside of Bailey Hall, then dried, processed, blended, and packaged the tea before selling it to the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center and other students around campus.  The student enterprise, known as the Bailey Tea Project, is part of the Residential Initiative on the Study of the Environment (RISE) program, a living-learning program focused on sustainability and environmental stewardship.  The Bailey Tea Project, run by what the students call the "Tea Team," demonstrates student commitment to sustainability and serves as a constant reminder of MSU’s agricultural history.
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Earlier in the week, MSU reported that an algae photo bioreactor could capture carbon dioxide(CO₂) emissions from MSU’s T.B. Simon Power Plant and turn those greenhouse gas emissions into algae.  This was the first time that such technology was able to capture CO₂ and promote the growth of algae in an environment without sunlight, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  This finding is important because many believe that algae is the renewable, alternative energy source of the future and the technology could also help keep CO₂ from escaping into the atmosphere.
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The same day, MSU publicized the results of a study documenting the attitudes of people in Madagascar toward the risks of breaking laws and the value of preserving their environment.  The study found that if local residents don’t perceive actions such as hunting lemurs or burning forests for charcoal as crimes or they believe there’s a low risk of getting caught, then poaching and deforestation will continue.

Details and quotes for all three topics at the link, as well as a video that summarizes Paris Agreement on Climate being signed on Earth Day.

I posted the above because I needed to maintain my ability to publish at Examiner.com as much as to publicize local environmental education, research, and outreach.  Stay tuned for Entertainment Sunday, which should be last installment about this year's Saturn Awards nominees.