Reconnecting Children to the Outdoors
A strange thing began happening about 20 years ago. Kids stopped going outside. With competition from electronic media and parents’ schedules growing increasingly busy with longer work hours, the volume of kids making time to go outside and play is now far smaller than it used to be. Over time, a misplaced culture of fear about the outdoors also began to take hold, the result of irresponsible media and, in some cases, hyperactive parenting. The outdoors began to be seen not as a place of wonder and experience and fun, but as a place of danger and threat.
I Love A Clean San Diego and the Creek to Bay Clean-Up
With a myriad of seasonal creeks and year-round rivers draining from the mountainous inland, San Diego County is in many ways a microcosm of the U.S. in the route litter and water pollution can take from rocky foothills and inland areas to mesas and canyons to coastal plains, wetlands, and the beach. It’s amazing how far a piece of litter can travel in Southern California watersheds, even in dry months, on it’s way to the beach. From there, the next stop is the North Pacific Gyre, also known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Pro Peninsula Wild and Scenic Film Festival and International Sea Turtle Symposium
Treehuggers International extends our thanks to Pro Peninsula for again naming us the official media sponsor of the Wild and Scenic Film Festival, presented this year in conjunction with the International Sea Turtle Symposium. We welcome Pro Peninsula Executive Director Kama Dean and Communications and Marketing Manager Giuliana Schroeder back to the show, along with Dr. Jeffrey Seminoff from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and leader of the Marine Turtle Ecology and Assessment Program.
Earth Day Restoration at California State Parks and the Crystal Cove Alliance
With the failure of Proposition 21, California’s remarkable state park system remains faced with similar threats of closure faced in previous years, but with $22 million in proposed cuts to state parks in Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed budget, park closures have gone from a worst case scenario to a certainty. The only question, at this point, is which parks will be closed and which organizations, conservancies, and local governments may be able step up and help. The Crystal Cove Alliance establishes a template for how it can be done.
Saving the Kauai Puaiohi and California Condor with the San Diego Zoo
Through partnerships, collaborations, and community cooperation, the San Diego Zoo is making strides in helping protect some of the most threatened plants and animals from extinction. Alan Lieberman works with the Hawaiian Endangered Bird Conservation Program, and the Keauhou Conservation Center on the Big Island of Hawaii. Mike Wallace is a Program Director scientist with the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, with significant leadership experience on the zoo’s California Condor program.
Trail Philosophy With Guidebook Author Craig Romano
An avid hiker, runner, kayaker and bicyclist who has written articles and features for dozens of magazines and publications, guidebook author Craig Romano talks about allowing yourself the opportunity to connect with the wild, wilderness values and ethics, multiple use, growing up in New England, and writing about the outdoors. The author of nearly a dozen books, Craig has written a series of day hiking guides for the Mountaineers Books, including titles on the Olympic Peninsula and North Cascades, and a just-released volume on the Columbia River Gorge.
George Wuerthner and the Humility of Wilderness
With hopes for an omnibus public lands bill during the lame-duck session of the 111th Congress, Treehuggers International presents an encore presentation of our conversation with ecologist George Wuerthner. The author of a two-volume guide to California’s Wilderness areas, George has spent an extraordinary amount of time on the trail in our nation’s National Parks, National Forests, BLM lands and Wilderness areas, and is a prolific writer with 34 books and hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles to his credit.
Big Money and Big Oil Behind Prop. 23
Bankrolled by a pair of Texas oil companies and oil industrialists David and Charles Koch, Prop. 23 was intended to delay implementation of California’s innovative Global Warming Solutions Act, also known as AB 32. Passed with bipartisan support and signed into law by California Gov. Schwarzenegger in 2006, AB 32 is set to take effect in 2012 and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in California to 1990 levels by 2020 using a cap-and-trade system, and establish a timetable to bring California into near compliance with the provisions of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
