Maria Fernanda Castro :: Blog

http://sustainablesavannah.com/food/sustainable-seafood/

Some friends of mine went fishing this past weekend near Darrien. Over two solid days on the water they caught nothing but sharks. Having recently heard similar stories from other recreational fisher-folk I know, seemed to be a good time for a post on sustainable seafood.

The worldwide depletion of ocean fisheries is not new news. But it is a fact that doesn’t get much attention in the whole enviro-food discussion. Overfishing, overconsumption, polllution>habitat destruction and fisheries mismanagement are the main culprits. According to the Environmental Defense Fund,

Worldwide, it is estimated that some 90 percent of species of large predatory fish are gone. Domestically, of 230 assessed U.S. fisheries, 54 stocks are classified as overfished, 45 are experiencing overfishing, and the status of just over half of the nation’s stocks are unknown. America’s fishing communities are also suffering. The collapse of New England’s cod fishery in the early 1990s cost an estimated 20,000 jobs. About 72,000 jobs have been lost because of dwindling salmon stocks in the Pacific Northwest alone.

To be sure, fisheries management is an extremely complex issue (only further complicated by global climate change) that involves common pool resources, multiple stakeholders, intra-state and international agreements. You can find a wealth of related information from these websites . . .

South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council



Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary

Marine Stewardship Council

but in the meantime, what can we do to address this issue in our everyday lives?

Well, this is just one less thing for vegetarians to worry about I guess. But for the rest of us, I highly reccomend checking out the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s guide to sustainable seafood buying in the southeast region. Note that delicious and iconic local fish Grouper, Flounder and Red (& Vermillion) Snapper are all on the list of fish to avoid. However, we are lucky in that there is plenty of yummy local seafood that makes the best choices and good alternatives lists, including: Blue Crab, Wild Shrimp, Mahi-Mahi (troll/pole caught), King Mackeral, Croaker, Mullet, Striped Bass, Lane & Yellowtail Snapper, Yellowfin Tuna (troll/pole caught) and one of my alltime faves, Wahoo.



Savannah area resources that get the green light . . .

Russo’s Seafood 201 E. 40th Street (@ Abercorn)

Mathew’s Seafood 121 Kicklighter Way (just off Louisville Rd in Garden City)

Bowie Seafood 801 1st Street, Tybee Island (especially for live blue crab)

Dubberly Seafood, Savannah, 912-925-6433 (best Wild GA Shrimp around)

Asking questions (at restaurants, fish markets and grocery stores) is another way to make sure you are getting the goods. Asking questions also lets retailers know that you are interested in sustainable seafood options. My favorite French blogger, Clotilde Dusoulier (check out her excellent post on sustainable seafood here) has some good advice about how to ask questions . . . The trick is to adopt just the right tone so as not to sound high-and-mighty, yet make it clear how important it is to you.

Comments, tips and resources from readers would be greatly appreciated!

http://sustainablesavannah.com/transportation/war-of-the-wheels/

Both the Sunday NY Times and the SMN had articles about cycling on the front pages of their lifesytle sections (Sunday Styles and Accent respectively). The premise: there are more bikes on the road these days, many bikes on the road belong to bike commuting novices, people who drive cars are annoyed.

Before I get into the rest of this post I just gotta say, ugh. This is not an issue for the fashion and style pages.

The SMN article offered new cyclists tips on “how to share the road and enjoy a safe ride,” complete with color photo illustrations of hand signals. The NYT article (titled “Moving Targets”) focused on nationwide incidents of auto-agression directed at cyclists as well as the bad driving habits of some cyclists.

While the SMN article didn’t seem to acknowledge that auto drivers also need to beef up on their road sharing and safety skills, I was happy to see our local paper putting it out there (even in the style section!). Ongoing education that reaches all segments of the two and four wheel driving population is so important. There is a lot of bad behavior on both sides . . .

Top 5 Bad 4-Wheel Driving Behavior

1. Hit and Run

2. Running a cyclist off the road

3. Yelling obsenities out the window or honking when passing a cyclist

4. Making a right turn in front of a cyclist & generally not looking out

5. Acting all annoyed and making a big show of speeding up when passing a cyclist

Top 5 Bad 2-Wheel Riding Behavior

1. Driving as if autos are actually looking out for you

2. Not following the rules of the road: running stop signs & traffic lights, not signaling

3. Riding on the wrong side of the street or on the sidewalk

4. Not yielding to pedestrians (same goes for 4 wheelers)

5. Not wearing a helmet (because brain damage just isn’t sexy people)

http://sustainablesavannah.com/business/savannah-morning-news-launches

The Savannah Morning News Web site now has a green corner. Called, “Green Living,” the new area of the newspaper’s site corrals stories with environmental angles, provides links to local Web sites (Sustainable Savannah is oddly absent from these) and features a blog by Mary Landers, the paper’s environment reporter. As far as I can tell, Green Living went live within the last 24 hours.

http://sustainablesavannah.com/food/recycling-remains-the-headlines-th

In the wake the Savannah city council’s approval of a contract with Pratt Recycling, local media have been devoting attention to the issue. The round up includes:

“No sorting required: Council approves ’single-stream’ recycling,” by Linda Sickler in Connect Savannah.

And

“Savannah’s recycling initiative sets example,” by Eric Curl in the Savannah Morning News.

Also of note in the Savannah Morning News is Bill Dawers’ story, “Cha Bella trends toward local agriculture.”

And that’s a good segue to an event happening today, right down the street from Cha Bella. Today from 4-7 p.m. Trustees Market will host a “celebration of a growing community of producers and consumers of local, sustainable products.” The event will be held at 688 Randolph St. For more information, visit the Trustees Garden Web site.

http://sustainablesavannah.com/recycling/city-council-votes-for-10-yea

In yesterday’s Savannah City Council Meeting, a 10 year contract with Pratt Recycling was approved. SCAD’s student newspaper offered the first comprehensive report on the council vote. The Savannah Morning News followed this morning.

http://sustainablesavannah.com/transportation/we-get-what-we-pay-for/

I admit I was happy to see the dreadful City Market Parking garage demolished. It sat like a giant concrete machine gun battery right in the middle of one of Savannah’s busiest commercial and entertainment areas. And I’m excited about the plans for Ellis Square.

Still, I can’t help but note the figures reported by local media about the cost of the project. The price of the underground garage? $30 million. The price of the square that sits atop it? $1 million. From these figures, I think we can infer something about our priorities as a community. Namely, storage of private automobiles is somewhere around 30 times more important to us than public space that could serve as a place for social gatherings, a venue for recreational activities, a stage for cultural events, or simply a shady refuge on a hot day.

Yes, I know the project has generated around $100 million in nearby investments. Yes, I know parking spaces were lost when the old garage was leveled. Yes, I know downtown merchants demand more parking.

Still, 30X. I’m just saying.

This local project to stimulate car trips in and out of the Historic District is in keeping with national trends, as noted yesterday on Slate in an article by Daniel Gross called “Highways Paved with Gold” (Subtitle: “You think the government is wasting a few billion a year on mass transit subsidies. But what about those huge subsidies for cars and trucks?”):

What hasn’t been acknowledged is that the automobile is supported by a government subsidy that dwarfs anything provided to mass transit. How big is the subsidy? By my (admittedly extremely crude) calculations, it could total nearly $100 billion per year. Americans can drive so much because there is an extremely extensive system of (largely free) roads for us to use.

I wonder how Gross’ figures would change if he added public parking garages into his admittedly extremely crude calculations.

http://sustainablesavannah.com/transportation/high-gas-prices-wtoc-off

Whether contained in a motion graphic or uttered by an anchor, the appearance of the phrase “pain at the pump” on television offers an unmistakable clue to what’s coming next. The networks and local affiliates use those four words to introduce stories featuring at least one (and probably all three) of the following components:

1. A profile of a motorist shocked by the current cost of using a large, truck-based vehicle as a passenger car in an environment designed and built on the mistaken assumption that cheap gasoline would be eternally available.

2. Advancement of the notion that we are entitled to an exemption from the law of supply and demand, that it’s reasonable to expect price relief even as our demand for a finite resource increases infinitely.

3. A subtle suggestion that practical steps taken to reduce personal fuel consumption must always be sacrifices or worse, are somehow unpatriotic.

I was mildly surprised, then, to see a package called, “Five reasons why the price of gas isn’t that bad” on the Big Red Eleven.

Of the reasons, my favorites were five, three and one. Speaking to No. 5, Savannah resident Lisa Reinhardt claimed limiting her car trips gave her more time to work in her garden. Al Stillings of Tybee Island took care of the third reason. He bought a bicycle and is now making trips to the post office under his own power. WTOC reporter Christy Hutchings set up the No. 1 reason, claiming many tourists, “come to town with family and friends,” yet travel in separate vehicles. “But not anymore,” Hutchings said. As proof, she produced a tourist from Arkansas, who testified that her party arrived “all in the same car together.” She also claimed they, “had a great trip,” despite having to share a conveyance.

The common thread between all three interviewees is their descriptions, not of unreasonable sacrifices or deviant behavior, but practices common to daily life in America — before we became completely addicted to automobiles.

I’m almost certain gardening has been around for awhile now. Some folks apparently enjoy it. I’m told you can even grow food items, previously thought to be available only in supermarkets. Riding bicycles to take care of errands? That’s been with us for a couple years, too.

Cars filled with passengers? I’ve heard family stories about this kind of thing. There’s my mother’s tale of the missing mittens on a trip from South Georgia to Knoxville and the infamous “Incident at Pecan Creek” (don’t ask) from my father’s side. The cars were cramped, but the journeys were memorable.

Instead of producing a boilerplate story reinforcing the idea that we are victims of oil companies or speculators or anti-drilling environags or recalcitrant nations that refuse to respect our right to their oil, WTOC offered a different viewpoint, reminding us we can adapt to the situation and, what’s more, enjoy doing it. After all, we’ve done it before.

http://sustainablesavannah.com/government/tony-thomas-talks-trash/

I was recently watching a long-running reality television series on Comcast cable channel 8. TV Guide described the most recent episode of “Savannah City Council Meeting” as a “regular meeting of Savannah’s mayor and aldermen.” The episode I watched was taped before a live studio audience on July 17.

Near the end, Tony Thomas—who joined the cast of “Savannah City Council Meeting” during the 2000 season—described a recent visit to an illegal trash dump. Thomas was clearly angered by the pile of trash which contained, among other items, a “Christmas statue” and a “fish aquarium.” Also present was paint, which Thomas feared had leaked into a nearby watershed. Thomas went the extra mile, digging through the refuse to find discarded mail that could point back to the origin of the garbage.

On July 23, the Savannah Morning News reporter Eric Curl followed up with “Alderman: Illegal dumpers should be trashed.” Thomas is suggesting a new way to discourage the practice: humiliation. Here’s a snip from Curl’s story:

Aside from issuing fines, Thomas is also advocating the installation of cameras in problem areas and “public shaming.” He said the city should adopt a program where the illegal dumpers are filmed cleaning up trash sites and then broadcast the video on the government channel. “That would make you think twice if you got caught doing something like that,” Thomas said.

Is public shaming the answer? If so, what other public nuisances could be curbed with this tactic? Personally I’m wondering about an appropriate sanction for the legions of lawn care professionals who use leaf blowers to move trash and yard waste from private properties onto public streets and sidewalks.

Summer Teal Simpson wrote a great article on my project, Green Bridge Farm,  for this issue of Connect.  Check it out and let me know what you think.  Thanks.  Michael

http://sustainablesavannah.com/transportation/the-myth-of-the-environa

Some of my fellow citizens have written letters to the editor of the Savannah Morning News complaining about high gasoline prices. The vast majority of these advocate offshore drilling and/or cracking down on shadowy speculators, who are allegedly driving up the price of oil. The beauty of both these suggestions that they conveniently allow us to blame others for the fix we’re in. Even folks who are big on bootstraps and personal responsibility are happy to shift into helpless victim mode when it comes to our dependence on oil.

From one of the recent letters to the editor, I learned a new term: environag.

Then I wondered if I am one.

Is it nagging to push for policies that reward responsible behavior? Is it nagging to oppose policies that subsidize or encourage wasteful or destructive practices? Is it nagging to point out that our quest for cheaper oil will ultimately put us in a much more dangerous place than our current predicament? Here’s a snip from Tom Freidman’s recent column, published in a newspaper popular with environags:

“When a person is addicted to crack cocaine, his problem is not that the price of crack is going up. His problem is what that crack addiction is doing to his whole body. The cure is not cheaper crack, which would only perpetuate the addiction and all the problems it is creating. The cure is to break the addiction.

Ditto for us. Our cure is not cheaper gasoline, but a clean energy system. And the key to building that is to keep the price of gasoline and coal — our crack — higher, not lower, so consumers are moved to break their addiction to these dirty fuels and inventors are moved to create clean alternatives.

We shouldn’t waste our time complaining about being nagged, when the real problem is our untreated addiction. Unless the true goal is to distract ourselves from the reality of our situation.

Tip of the hat to The Wash Cycle for “The Myth of the Scofflaw Cyclist.“