Other stuff...

What? You are not enamored with the new addition to our family? Not interested in baby stories and pictures? WTF...?

Well, that's OK, you can find interesting and witty stuff from me in other places too.

Since I will have a lot of sit-around time on the weekends for a while, I though it would be fun to be a weekend blogger for Chicagoist. They ran my first piece over the weekend...I guess it is a tryout...hopefully they will run more soon:

• Will Celebrity Apprentice Decide Most Embarrassing Political State? - The title pretty much says it all. Which is worse these days, Springfield or Albany? Sadly, TV will decide...

On NRDC's Switchboard:

• Federal Ocean and Great Lakes Policy - Are My Boogie Boarding Rights at Risk? (no.) - Did ya hear that Obama is going to outlaw fishing? No? Then you clearly don't read right wing blogs or listen to Rush. Good for you... If you did hear that silly rumor, let me set the record straight.
  
  
• The Crude in Syncrude: Ugliness at the tar sands duck trial - This is more for our friends to the north, but if you are interested in just how yucky the Canadian oil industry is...check out this disaster (I am talking about their PR actually, though the environmental mess is startling too).
  
  
• Gefilte Fish: The solution to world peace and Asian carp - Passover is coming and the most polarizing of its traditional foods was in the spotlight recently when Secretary of State Clinton promised to break a trade impasse that would allow containers of Asian carp fished out of the Illinois River to be shipped to Israel for ground fish cakes... Problems solved? No...
  
  
• Of Carp and Kingfishers: Chicago and Guam are not so far apart - What happens when you don't take care of invasive species quickly? Some of the critters at Brookfield Zoo are a lesson on what inaction over Asian carp could eventually lead to...
  
  
• Poisoning Flipper: Chemicals Flushed in Chicago Wreak Havoc on Dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico - Another zoo-related post. It turns out that I know a guy who can explain some of the ugly impacts of the chemicals getting flushed into Chicago's water by the local metal plating industry. He's a marine biologist in Florida...ugh...
  
  
• Asian Carp: "I feel like I was in a [bleeping] prize fight” - You don't even need to read this one---just check out the embedded video. Its worth your time...

Well, you can expect a more steady diet of Isaiah stuff---but I will try to keep things diversified to keep it fun for everyone.

The other blog...

Just cuz I haven't been active here, doesn't mean I have not been writing. Check out what I've posted on Switchboard of late:

Honey Laundering: mystery bee malady may broaden an international crime wave - No. I did not make this up. Yes. It is a real crime. Yes. It involves honey. And yes, sadly, yet another ugly smudge on Chicago...

Running from a Lie: Halt Horse Butte Hazing of Bison - Here in the Midwest we don't really care much about how the animals are treated around Yellowstone National Park. We should. As taxpayers that is our land and those are our critters. And both are being grossly mismanaged right now...

Canadian Author Gets a Look at Expanding Canadian Mess: Tar Sands in Indiana and Illinois - If you did not read this one yet, clock it. I like the entry a lot. It is fun to apply colorful language to the industrial landscape of northwest Indiana...

Switch on Switchboard

OK, some of you probably are not monitoring such hotbeds of environmental thought as NRDC's Switchboard... You are missing out. If nothing else, you are missing out on some fine writing from yours truly... I have not been blogging much here of late (I'll fix that soon, I promise)---and sadly, not as much as I would like there either.

But I have posted a few things of late:

The Money Boat: Coins, Climate Change, and the Caribbean - dispose of your pennies, or the low-lying island paradises get it...

Snotty Tunnels of Love: tidewater gobies deserve protected territory - Not all of our endangered species work revolves around charismatic carnivores. This little fish has little going for it, aside from being fascinating and finding novel uses for mucous.

Wyoming Wolves: frustration on all sides...and one guy with serious guts - OK, I guess lots of the work is around charismatic carnivores... I wrote this before wolves were "de-listed" last month out of frustration with the way the rhetoric on this issue plays out from both sides. This is admittedly "inside baseball..."

Dam Those Mussels: Great Lakes invasive species now threatening Lake Mead - One of the less sexy issues I help with is reform of water ballast laws in the Great Lakes; but the impacts are astounding. Water from freighters have been bringing an average of one new species into the ecosystem every six months. Lake Michigan's ecosystem has been completely changed in the last couple of years by introduced mussels, algae, and fish. And now that stuff is moving west...

Nine Cents photo by Jonathan Pobre via Flickr

Because I know how much y'all love to hear me talk about tar sands...

So, Obama went to Canada today...and guess what was discussed! We did really well in the media today, but of course, I am all about pimpin' my own stuff:

• Beaver Tails and Tar Sands: climate security talks are not going to stay this sweet
  
  
• The Tar Sands Litany: tough times for Calgary oilmen, tougher times for their PR folks...

But just so you don't think I am a one trick pony... I also picked on the State of Indiana (Hoosier Regulator: Feds and local governments wonder just what is going on in Indiana), as well as vegetarians and Mark Bittman (Food Guru and Global Warming: Meat and Mark Bittman on NPR).

Photo courtesy of honus and Flickrr

Busy Blogging...just not here...

Howdy---

Been a while, eh? Well, now that the house is largely done, I need to slightly retool the blog and get back into the habit of writing about other stuff. That is gonna happen, I promise.

But that does not mean I have not been busy online.

I've been posting a lot on NRDC's switchboard, covering a wide array of topics:

• The Chicago Climate Action Plan: Keeping me in the Windy City
  
  
• The interesting electric car company detailed in Wired Magazine, Better Place
  
  
• Scary mutant fish found near Canada's tar sands mining operations in Alberta
  
  
• The total buzz kill that is NRDC's suit over bee documents with the EPA
  
  
• Invasive species in Lake Michigam---this is actually a pretty cool post

And just today, I posted about my trip to Wyoming to investigate global warming impacts on the Wind River Mountain chain near Yellowstone National Park (it has a great title: Zombie Trees and Bear Attacks, Halloween must be coming soon...

Oh, and if you have not seen them yet---I posted some cool shots from my recent Wyoming and Montana trips on my Flickr page---some cool moose photos!

I was pimped by CNN

So cool, CNN linked to my Switchboard blog post on the Iowa floods today. For much of the day it was the top link in the "from the blogs" section of their flood coverage! If you are not checking Switchboard, you really should. Some great stuff there these days (way more intelligent folks then me...I am the token midwesterner...) if you are interested in all things green---but especially a deeper understanding of the battles beginning to rage over our country's energy future.

New Blog...

FYI, if this is not enough Josh for you, I have started another blog...

Actually, I have joined an august team of bloggers. I posted my first entry for NRDC's Switchboard blog this week. Typical enviro rant about crazy oil profits, funky music, and Indiana... Check out BP Could Learn a Lot from James Brown. (You can also laugh at my half-smile tussled hair photo...)

But don't check Switchboard out just for my stuff. Time magazine recently named it one of the best green blogs on the Web. Most of the other folks on there are actual experts... But I think there is a place for my take on the midwest, dirty fuels and wildlife... I will try to post at least once a week there too.

Must be green...must be green...

If you have not heard the big news, I have accepted a new job. I will be leaving CZS/Brookfield Zoo after 12 years to handle communications for the new Midwest office of the NRDC. The timing is good for me not just professionally, but in terms of my feelings on the environment. CZS takes a long-term view of making an impact---we are engaging little kids and grooming them to work on behalf of the natural world down the line. This is absolutely essential and I completely agree with the organization's mission. But, there are immediate needs for change too. I'll be tackling issues threatening the Great Lakes today and helping to fight off coal power plants that will present a real contribution to global warming (not to mention air quality). Now is the time to fight those fights. In my interviews, I talked a lot about the "green wave" of marketing out there at the moment. It is cool to be green---but how do we use this to make fundamental changes, as opposed to seeing it pass like just another fad. How do we get folks to make big changes---as well as small ones, like turning off the light...? That is what I will be focused on.

In the meantime, this whole change has me thinking more about the the house project. How can I get greener? I've been looking a lot online and especially at the NRDC Web site. What could be done differently? I've been largely rebuffed on the roof. You've read my confusion on the wood for flooring. We are using metal studs, so I guess that is something. A lot of our finish choices are likely to be green (counters, the melamine boxes for the cabinets, use of LED lights, integrating rain barrels, etc.). In fact, the project, to some extent does it by making our house much more energy efficient. But in the grand scheme of things, despite the huge outlay of cash, we would be nowhere near LEED standards on the house (not that this is a reasonable outcome for something with this scope). And we simply can't afford to do a lot of the other stuff. I look forward to learning more from my new co-workers---the experts at NRDC. I'll let you know as I learn...

In the meantime, maybe this stuff is timeless---afterall, Lincoln's Tomb is going green...