Today is the summer solstice, the day that the sun reaches it’s highest point in the sky over the Northern Hemisphere. It’s the longest (sunlit) day of the year. So it’s official, summer is really here! And we should celebrate and spend time outdoors and visit national parks and natural areas and have bbq’s and pool parties… but we should do this with sustainability in mind.

Remember that our individual actions add up; there are a lot of individuals trying to make a difference. They make small changes, that might be the same you’re making…so if you recycle and your neighbor recycles, and the rest of the neighborhood recycles…well that certainly adds up! So as individuals we really can make a difference.  This summer, keep in mind how you travel, what you’re eating, how you’re cooking it, is it really hot enough to run the AC or does the fan suffice?…make individual decisions and changes and be confident others are too (I know I will be!).

What sparked this need to share and encourage you to have a fun, green summer? This article:

Summer Solstice Meets Record Low Arctic Ice http://www.huffingtonpost.com/benjamin-strauss/summer-solstice-meets-les_b_619416.html

In summary, this article helps us understand how over thousands of years we, people, have been following the sun and seasons and how we’ve recorded changes over those years. And what that information is telling us today.

“The solstice always keeps a steady beat; but lately, the rhythm of summer has been increasingly out of sync. As the climate has warmed over recent decades, high temperatures have arrived earlier on average, and a symphony of seasonal events along with them, from plant blooming dates to animal migrations to peak flow levels in snow-fed streams. Nowhere is this quickening more evident than in the Arctic — the fastest-warming region on the planet.”

Interesting about this article is that it examines the impact of the arctic melt vs. that of Greenland and how that might affect the United States. In my opinion, too often we’re told, think of polar bears!! Well, honestly that’s hard to do when we don’t have any here in the US or the Midwest for that matter…So, it’s good to get a perspective of things relative to the way we live.

“But why concern ourselves with the frozen crust of a distant ocean? The big question for Americans, as we move toward a national debate on energy and climate policy, is what comes next.”

I’ll let you read the article to find the thoughts about that question… and for now, I’ll bid you a  safe and fun Summer!!  But remember to keep in mind how you can make your summer activities green, be the 1 individual of the thousands of other individuals trying to make a difference! Of course if you have questions about how to green your summer, you have a resource in Moraine Valley- sustainability@morainevalley.edu - email anytime with thoughts, questions, ideas for you or our community.

Happy Solstice!

In a front-page story today, the New York Times (New York Times) reviews how climate scientists have started working to regain public trust, beginning with efforts to change the perception that they withhold or manipulate information. Along with official reviews at Penn State, East Anglia and the U.N., the National Academy of Sciences is developing a paper outlining what’s known and what isn’t known about climate change, and scientists around the world are now under more pressure than ever to be more transparent. They have their work cut out for them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/science/earth/03climate.html?ref=earth

(reposted from MNN Daily Brief, e-Newsletter, September 24, 2009) POLAR MELTDOWN: Ice sheets in Greenland and western Antarctica are melting faster than scientists previously thought, and some places are experiencing “a runaway effect,” according to a team of British scientists who analyzed laser readings taken by NASA satellites. Some Antarctic ice sheets have been losing 30 feet of thickness annually since 2003, and while many areas are up to a mile thick to begin with, the melting is speeding up - the rate of Antarctic thinning was 50 percent higher between 2003 and 2007 than it was from 1995 to 2003. The problem isn’t warmer air, but warmer water, which wears down the ice from the outside in. “To some extent it’s a runaway effect,” says the lead author of the study, which was published online today in the journal Nature. “The question is how far will it run?” (Sources: Associated Press, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle)

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