What. On. Earth

Our Pale Blue Dot

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives … on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. –Carl Sagan, 1994

Distance of Voyager 1 from Earth when it captured the iconic “pale blue dot” photo on Feb. 14, 1990 .................. 3.7 billion miles Size of Earth in the photo ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 0.12 pixel Views on YouTube of Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” video since being uploaded in September 2015 ...................... 1,108,412 Estimated number of planets supporting intelligent life in the galaxy .......................................................................................... 36 Surface temperature of Mars ..................................................................................................................................................................................... -81°F Amount of breathable air on Mars ........................................................................................................................................................................ none Amount of the world’s oceans that are in fully/highly protected zones ...................................................................................... 2.7 percent Number of countries/territories that have protected at least 10 percent of their marine areas .................................. 52 Percentage of protected U.S. marine area ....................................................................................................................................................... 26 Number of marine mammals estimated to die each year from ingesting microplastics .................................................. 100,000 Percentage of microplastics in the ocean estimated to originate from our clothes ............................................................ 35 Year in which the E.U. plans to require microplastic filters on all new washing machines ............................................... 2025 Number of passengers served by Martha’s Vineyard Airport in 2019 ........................................................................................... 50,351 Number of passengers served by Martha’s Vineyard Airport in 2020 .......................................................................................... 15,657 Percentage of world’s sandplains grasslands that are on the Vineyard and Nantucket .................................................... 90 Number of bird species of conservation interest in Massachusetts that are highly dependent on sandplain grasslands ecosystem ..................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Percentage of Martha’s Vineyard’s transportation energy use made up of diesel ferry fuel ........................................... 11 Anticipated percentage of Washington State ferries, the largest ferry system in U.S., that will be plug-in hybrid by 2040 ....................................................................................................................................................................... 90 Percentage of global greenhouse gas emissions from shipping ...................................................................................................... 3 Percent reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions if sails were used .................................................................................. 30 Percentage of MV Times “Minute” readers polled who own or are planning to purchase an electric or hybrid vehicle ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 38.8 Percentage of “Minute” readers who have or are considering solar power for their homes .......................................... 63.3 Percentage of “Minute” readers who have adopted sustainable practices (cutting down on plastic) in the past two years .......................................................................................................................................... 77.1

Sources: 1 the Atlantic; 2 Planetary Society; 3 YouTube; 4 CBC; 5-6 The Atlantic; 7 BBC; 8 Seastreak; 9 New Yorker; 10 National Observer; 11-13 Nature; 14-16 Marine Protected Atlas; 17 UNESCO; 18 Nature; 19 European Parliament; 20 International Council on Clean Transportation; 21-22 MV Times; 23-24 Massachusetts Division of Fisheries & Wildlife; 25-26 MV Times; 27-28 Engineering and Technology; 29 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; 30-31 Washington Post; 32-34 MV Times daily “Minute” newsletter

Local

OLLIE BECKER’S GREAT POND FILM SERIES

Growing up on Tisbury Great Pond in the early ’90s, Ollie Becker spent his summer days on the water. He would sail and row around the pond, sticking his head over the edge of the boat to watch the bottom pass by. Stones, mud, sand, grasses, crabs, and shellfish — all gliding by beneath him.

In 2018, Ollie returned to the Island from Los Angeles to help launch a production company with the Martha’s

Vineyard Film Festival (MVFF). He’d go for walks along the shores of ponds with

Thomas Bena, the founder of MVFF, and noticed that the bottom of the pond he had spent years curiously observing had changed. A thick blanket of brown algae clouded the ever-changing texture of sand, mud, and stone he had grown up with, and aquatic life was suffering.

Becker and Bena pondered these changes, and decided it was time to take action.

“If the pond could change this much in my lifetime, what would it look like for my daughter and the next generation if we don’t act now?” Becker said to us.

Last summer’s cyanobacteria counts only underscored Becker’s concern that the health of the ponds were in jeopardy, and that he should make a film to describe the issues to Islanders. However, he soon realized the issues facing the ponds were too multifaceted and dynamic for a single film.

After speaking with more Islanders, Becker shifted to working on a series that could explore the various factors for degradation and track preservation efforts.

In September 2020, Becker launched his documentary series on the Island’s great ponds. The ongoing project seeks to celebrate the rare ecology of the Vineyard’s ponds while examining their recent decline and documenting various restoration efforts. The first film of the series is currently in production, and has contributions from concerned citizens, riparian owners, the Martha’s Vineyard Community Foundation, and the Mass Cultural Council.

The Vineyard Conservation Society (VCS) partnered with Becker to co-produce the film in October. Acting as scientific advisors, the VCS helped Becker network with the larger Island conservation community to understand the underlying issues of the ponds. The VCS’s role was a combination of strategy and storytelling, said Jeremy Houser, an ecologist with the VCS. Organization staff worked as interview subjects in the film, helped narrow the project’s themes and central message, and aided with advocacy strategy. The Great Pond Foundation has also supported the project as subject-matter experts.

In April of this year, the Martha’s Vineyard Vision Fellowship awarded Becker a two-year grant to continue his work on the documentary series. The Martha’s Vineyard Vision Fellowship is a nonprofit organization that awards financial support for emerging Island leaders and changemakers. Becker was one of 16 recipients this year for his project, a call-to-action series he hopes will inspire tangible changes on the Island.

“The fellowship means everything to the project,” said Becker. “We now have the ability to just really hit the gas on this project, and move forward without any hesitation.”

With the help of the Martha’s Vineyard Vision Fellowship award, Becker aims to give Vineyarders an appreciation for the rich human history of the ponds, as well as actionable steps to reduce nitrogen in the Island’s pond ecosystems, such as reducing their fertilizer use or updating their septic systems. His greatest hope, however, is to bring attention, money, and resources to organizations such as VCS, the Great Pond Foundation, and the M.V. Shellfish Group, which are dedicated to restoring the health of our ponds.

“What Ollie is doing is really special, because anybody who has spent time on a great pond really understands it’s magic,” Emily Reddington, the executive director of the Great Pond Foundation, told Bluedot Living. “It’s a unique ecosystem. It’s rare, it’s precious, and through visual storytelling, Ollie is capturing that magic and sharing it with a broader audience.”

Ollie Becker will use his fellowship to continue making a documentary series about Island ponds. — Kyra Steck

good news FROM ALL OVER

Writing the Story of Our Climate Future

For wayyyy too many years, journalism focused on debating climate change, despite widespread scientific consensus on its impact. More recently, many mainstream journalists shifted to the reality of climate change, but delivered as doomsday scenarios. It seems, however, that a new journalistic dawn has arrived. Climate reporting is, at long last, focused on solutions. According to Columbia Journalism Review, “The new climate solutions journalism takes climate change’s reality and importance as given, and goes forward from there, in what feels like a healthy human decision to endure, even on a grievously injured planet. ‘There was a lot of reporting about how bad it was,’ says Gimlet co-founder Alex Blumberg, who cohosts How to Save a Planet (available on Spotify) with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. Such reporting, he adds, was necessary. ‘But my question was, What should we do about it? Should we just throw up our hands and die?’

“But focusing on climate solutions is not just an editorial decision or psychological best practice. It’s a response to real political, technical, and business solutions, which quixotically ripened during the Trump administration and gave climate journalists fresh stories to tell.”

Our Answer Is Blowing in the Wind The news is coming fast and furious. Oil and gas stocks in free fall (bit.ly/fossil-stocks). Entire countries divesting from fossil fuels (bit.ly/fossilfree). And this, from the New Yorker: “If you want real hope, the best place to look may be a little-noted report from the London-based think tank Carbon Tracker Initiative. Titled The Sky’s the Limit, it begins by declaring that ‘solar and wind potential is far higher than that of fossil fuels, and can meet global energy demand many times over.’”

But while that’s not news to those who’ve been paying attention, it’s accompanied by the rapidly growing affordability of solar and wind. What used to be prohibitively expensive is now, often, cheaper than fossil fuels. The New Yorker puts it this way: “That’s what has shifted — and so quickly and so dramatically that most of the world’s politicians are now living on a different planet than the one we actually inhabit” (bit.ly/ solarYay).

Where’s the Beef? When Epicurious recently announced that it would no longer be producing recipes that included beef, they reasoned that “almost 15 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally come from livestock (and everything involved in raising it); 61 percent of those emissions can be traced back to beef. Cows are 20 times less efficient to raise than beans, and roughly three times less efficient than poultry and pork. It might not feel like much, but cutting out just a single ingredient — beef — can have an outsize impact on making a person’s cooking more environmentally friendly” (bit. ly/Epicurious-beef-free).

This was not, Epicurious insisted, a vendetta against cattle ranchers or even those who eat cows, but a pragmatic response to a global crisis. Not long after, one of the world’s most famous restaurants, Eleven Madison Park in New York City, announced that it, too, was taking meat off its customers’ plates (bit.ly/meatless-plates).

There has been, of course, the usual Sturm und Drang that emerge each time some folks feel that their hamburgers are threatened. But the increased momentum and normalization of meat-free eating is good for our planet, no matter how you slice it.

The GristReport TM

Lucky for Bluedot Living, Grist is generously sharing some of its content with us. Grist.org is a digital newsroom reporting on climate change and mitigation efforts. They’ve been informing us with great reporting and beautiful graphics for going on 20 years now, and we’re happy to partner up with them.

We love their newsletters; Bluedot climate intern Kyra Steck especially liked these recent stories.

Cozy with Cannabis The secret ingredient in Paris’ green public housing: How cannabis can be part of an affordable housing future — not just one for ecoconscious elites.

Winter in Paris is notoriously clammy, and this winter was no exception. But Gregory Ferembach didn’t need to turn on his heat much. One reason? The walls in his public housing building are lined with one of nature’s best insulation materials: hemp.

“We’re never cold in winter,” Ferembach said in French. “The kids walk around barefoot all the time, or even in their underwear.”

Ferembach says it helps that their apartment is on a middle floor, and their building is sandwiched between two others. But the coziness also owes to the unique material in their walls: “hempcrete,” a concrete-like blend made by mixing hemp hurd — the woody core of the cannabis plant — with water and lime. Despite the name, the material isn’t a direct substitute for concrete. But as an insulating material within walls, it holds the potential to transform the homes where we reside in ways that are healthier for people and the planet alike.

COURTESY GRIST.ORG

Read more here: bit.ly/grist-hemp. Catch a Wave? The U.S. is finally looking to unlock the potential of wave energy: After decades of false starts, the federal approval of a new testing site off the coast of Oregon could give wave energy a much-needed jolt.

At first glance, waves have the makings of an ideal renewable energy source. They’re predictable, constant, and tremendously powerful. Their energy potential is astonishing — researchers estimate that waves off the coasts of the U.S. could generate as much as 2.64 trillion kilowatthours annually, or the equivalent of 64 percent of the country’s total electricity generation in 2019.

But capturing the immense power radiating across our oceans’ surfaces is no easy feat — wave energy technology is challenging to engineer, startup costs are high, and testing in open ocean waters is a regulatory nightmare. That’s why wave energy’s trajectory has been a stop-and-go affair plagued by false starts for decades. But things may finally be starting to shift for the industry: The federal government recently approved the first full-scale, utility-grid-connected wave energy test site in the U.S.

Read the rest here: bit.ly/Grist-waves.

FIELDNotes

To: Bluedot Living From: Liz Durkee, climate planner at the Martha’s Vineyard Commission Subject: How to decrease your greenhouse gas emissions (in no particular order).

Make informed decisions and act on them

PWhen you need a new car, buy an electric vehicle P When your heating system needs replacement, install solar or air-source heat pumps P Call Cape Light Compact and schedule an energy audit; follow up on the recommendations (800-797-6699) P Plant trees (unless you live near a forest where wildfire is a hazard); trees absorb carbon, provide shade, help control soil erosion, act as windscreens, lower your heating and cooling costs, add value to your home, and some even produce food P P Divest from fossil fuels Visit the Island Climate Action

Network website to learn more about reducing your carbon footprint and helping the

Island adapt to climate impacts (islandclimateaction.org) P Buy less plastic; plastic is made from fossil fuels P Buy local products; they don’t require fossil fuel for transport P Cut down on eating meat; processing and transport use fossil fuel P Vote for candidates committed to renewable energy P Use your car less — walk, bike, use public transportation P Take fewer baths and shorter showers — it takes energy to heat water P P Buy energy-efficient appliances Reduce your amount of air travel; planes use incredible amounts of fossil fuel P P P Buy products with little packaging Maintain your car Compost your leaves and food waste P P Divest from fossil fuels Replace regular light bulbs with

LED bulbs P P Recycle Purchase fewer disposable products P Don’t buy fast fashion — buy quality clothing that will last, and secondhand clothing (recycle) P P Join Vineyard Power Buy less stuff!

in a word

Anthropause: [ an-thruh-pawz ]

On the heels of Oxford Languages “Word of the Year” for 2019 — “climate emergency” — comes a COVID-inspired collection of words for 2020, including

“anthropause.” Anthro = human. Pause = interrupt action.

Anthropause was coined by researchers seeking to describe the lull in global human activity, which, in some cases, allowed wildlife to move into spaces typically dominated by people or move about unimpeded or unaffected by us.

For the briefest of moments, a hush fell over Earth. Scientists called it “a once-in-a-lifetime experience.” One put it this way: “All of a sudden … silence.”

Reports emerged from around the world: Sightings of rare, wild, big cats in Chile, deer on urban streets in Italy, loggerhead turtles on Florida beaches laying more eggs.

We noticed it too, didn’t we? The anthropause. When the human world went still and the nonhuman sector of the natural world could, for a moment, right itself. Here on the Island, didn’t we see more birds in the trees? More deer in the streets? More Vineyard Haven turkeys in Oak Bluffs?

This rarest of periods is already being studied by scientists, keen to understand the impact. What will this anthropause teach us not only about wildlife but about ourselves, about our place in the world, about our ability to pause our activity in deference to the rest of the earth’s creatures? And what will we do with the answers>?

–Leslie Garrett Source: sciencemag.org

FAVORITE THINGS: SURFING TO SUSTAINABILITY

Digital tools can help us navigate our way to more sustainable habits. Find your way on an ecoconscious route with Google Maps, or download green apps: Small changes in our day-to-day life can have a collective impact on climate mitigation. Here are a few of Bluedot’s favorite tech tips, tricks, and opportunities.

Green apps TrailsMV Created by the Sheriff’s Meadow Organization, TrailsMV includes updated maps of trails, maps of conservation properties, descriptions of the areas, and GPS to show you where you are on your hike (sheriffsmeadow.org/trailsmvapp). Create an account, and you can also post photos of your M.V. adventure to the app, as well as like and comment on others’ posts. The All-Island Trails Committee has a dedicated page on The MV Times site (mvtimes.com/island-trails), so you can see all Island trails in one place.

Ecosia

Ecosia is a free search engine, similar to Google, Bing, or Yahoo, that uses your searches to plant trees across the globe. Here’s how it works: Ecosia takes the profit generated from the ad revenue of each search to plant trees in biodiversity hotspots at risk from deforestation. Since its launch in 2009, Ecosia has helped plant over 123 million trees at more than 9,000 planting sites around the world.

With over 15 million current users, Ecosia helps plant one tree every 1.3 seconds. Ecosia also keeps track of each user’s searches to show how many trees you’ve planted.

Go to ecosia.org and click “Search with Ecosia.” You’ll find instructions for downloading Ecosia depending on your current web browser. A mobile app for your smartphone means you can search on the go. –Kyra Steck

Google Maps go green (thanks, Grist, for clueing us into this)

“One of the world’s biggest tech companies is taking on transportation emissions, one Google Maps user at a time. The navigation program, which has more

FAVORITE THINGS: CLIMATE PODCASTS

Climate change podcasts went mainstream in 2020. Here are two favorites from Grist.

–Brianna Baker, grist.org

If you’re into stories “How to Save a Planet”:

Each episode of “How to Save a Planet” guides listeners through a complex problem, from wildfires to environmental racism, and highlights the experts, activists, and even YouTubers spearheading the solutions. Hosts Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Alex Blumberg sprinkle witty banter throughout each show as they share guests’ stories instead of simply throwing questions at them. The resulting narratives are as compelling as they are informative. Johnson, a marine biologist and selfdescribed policy nerd, offers her climate expertise, while veteran producer-reporter Blumberg brings his storytelling know-how. The cherry on top: Johnson and Blumberg provide calls to action at the end of each episode, and resources that’ll help you do your part.

If you’re a climate philosopher “A Matter of Degrees”:

With hosts as fabulous as policy expert Leah Stokes and writer Katharine Wilkinson, how could we not shout out “A Matter of Degrees”? This show tackles the big questions around climate change, with an emphasis on identifying solutions. Are you pondering whether individual action really matters in comparison with structural change? Or wondering if the climate movement is at a breakthrough moment — or a breaking point? This show offers plenty of interviews, and prioritizes the voices of women and BIPOC figures. But it’s at its best when the hosts (who are friends IRL) shoot the breeze about wrestling with eco-guilt or the experiences that inspired their own climate awakenings.

than 150 million users, will soon recommend the route with the lowest carbon footprint as the default option in situations where that route has roughly the same estimated arrival time as the fastest route, according to Dane Glasgow, vice president of product at Google Maps. And when the most eco-friendly route is a bit longer than other options, the program will still list it alongside the fastest route, along with the emissions associated with both, so that users can make informed decisions.

“Transportation is the single biggest source of carbon emissions in the U.S., so even marginal changes in driver behavior could mean large emissions reductions at scale. Google’s revamp of its maps comes on the heels of the company’s 2020 announcement that it had eliminated its ‘entire carbon legacy’ — and its pledge to power its operations with carbon-free electricity by 2030.” –Adam Mahoney, grist.org

Local

LAUREN MORGAN, VINEYARD HAVEN

On the door of Lauren Morgan’s new shop on Main Street in Vineyard Haven, a sign reads, “Americanmade, nontoxic and organic goods for your safe haven.” Inside you will find yourself in a warm, lightfilled space filled with homewares, jewelry, and clothes made by local artists and artisans who have their eye on making beautiful and sustainable creations. The edit includes local artisans, including

Hawkhouse Jewelry, Lindsay Medeiros hats, Marshall Farm woodworks, Merry

Farm Pottery, Flat Point Farm soap, and Walker Roman art, along with washable wool rugs and pieces from

Younger Furniture that will make you want to embrace wabi-sabi. And buying local means less carbon emissions from transport! But the most exciting find is

Lauren’s amazing wax jacket — a more eco-conscious sister of the Barbour.

Designed and sourced by Lauren (you can track the jacket’s journey from farm to closet on her site, laurenmorgan.com), and American-made, this single piece took nearly a year to come to fruition. “It was initially an experiment,” she says. “I had been making these rain jackets and selling them at the flea market when I found out about all the toxic DWR PFCs [durable water-resistant perfluorochemicals] that they were putting on the materials to make them waterproof. I’ll just say this: It’s really quite a rabbit hole when you start reading up on perfluorochemicals. But the articles and facts I found about what these chemicals do, and the fact that we are putting chemically coated fabrics on our skin, really bothered me. So I wanted to see if I could find a way to make a jacket that was nontoxic, American-grown and -made, flattering, and effectively waterproof. Once I got into trying to source organic cotton and American materials, I began to see how challenging it was. So many phone calls. So many emails. Weeks of tugging on one thread only to find that it was not a good fit, or I wasn’t big enough to be able to buy from them” (many organic fabric companies have minimum buys in the tons). But this only inspired her to prove that this — making a thoughtfully sourced, toxic-free rain jacket — could be done. Lauren, who attended the University of Cincinnati for fashion design, found her way to the Island in 2009 when her husband Nate landed a job with architect Mark Hutker. He now works for builder Tom Tate. Given that the Vineyard is not a total hotbed for fashion houses, Lauren used her design background to work as an interior designer, and continues to design interiors with her fellow University of Cincinnati graduate Madaline Ganton, using the Lauren Morgan store as a base and source of inspiration. The two share an excitement about everything from Danish modern furniture to educating customers about the value of products that consider aesthetics and the planet. Even though their doors only recently opened, they have projects lined up, and more store inventory arriving. And then there is Lauren’s second baby, which, at presstime, was due any day. We at Bluedot say, “Yay” to all of this. And, “Welcome!”

Lauren Morgan's Vineyard Haven store (below), created a nontoxic American-grown and -made rain jacket.

— Mollie Doyle