Blog Moving

Well, we got a letter from the US Olympics Committee saying we couldn't use the name Ecolympics anymore so our new event is going to be called Eco-Fest and our blog will be Eco-Now

(http://econowblog.blogspot.com/). New posts will be appearing at Eco-Now soon. Please join us over there!

A Marine Life Encyclopedia

We're tallying our points and hope to announce our prizes in the next few days, so make sure to make sure to make to get your Ecolympics points in fast. In the mean time, its posts like this Marine Life Encyclopedia from the New York Times that tells me we're on the right track: we live in an amazingly diverse world and we need to tune into it and our effect on it before it all slips right through our fingers.

Scan through the 16 photos in the above slideshow -- how many times did you say "Wow"?

Ecolympics, Week 1

Check out this graph from the first week of Ecolympics challenge events.
As of Friday afternoon, we were at about 163 participants (with some Friday afternoon registrants still to be entered). According to the numbers, our three most popular events are Recycle! (128 participants), Stair Climb (101 participants) and, unlabeled on the far, far right, beyond Veggie-Mania, Water Break (107 participants) -- let's keep those water bottles out of landfills by not buying them in the first place.

If you have batteries, printer cartridges or old cell phones, you can bring them to our office in CAS 119 to help you Recycle!

At the other end, I want to shout out to those who agreed to defrost their freezer in De-freeze (15 people Ecolympians) -- as we say in our event page, doing this with a friend makes it much easier!

And we've got a more than a dozen dedicated people who are trying to keep an eye out for endangered species via Endangered Species Watch, or who are getting to know their environment via Species ID. We're looking forward to seeing your news on our Facebook page. In fact, we'd love to get more action on our Facebook page so if you have any event news, please share!

Good luck with your events in week 2 -- you can sign up for more if you're up for the challenge -- and thanks for Competing for Team Earth!

The Solutions are Interconnected

I got this from the Somerville Climate Action website.

Really, this makes it look quite easy!

Ecolympics, Day 5

Here we are at Ecolympics Day 5 already! I'm still thinking about what we should do for the opening ceremonies! How are your events going?

I don't know about you, but I'm having an easy time with Power Shower -- the one event that makes people around the office groan when I mention it. I lost a few points when I had to have an extra shower last night to relieve a migraine, but I've been at the two minute mark for the past three mornings.

My office is on the ground floor, so I don't usually need to worry about taking the stairs, but I did have to go to the 4th floor of the biology building on Monday and yes, I bypassed the elevator
for the stairs. I would like to know how much a single elevator ride costs in terms of power and carbon dioxide emission -- it should be easy to calculate.

I've got to step up my game and start identifying more species though. Thanks to my Arboretum tour on the weekend, I'm keeping an eye out for the soon to be blooming magnolias on Comm. Ave.

We have our recycle bins ready to go in the Core office, CAS 119, so if you have old cell phones, ear buds, or printer cartridges please bring them by.

I unplugged my home printer on the weekend and I've been good about turning the lights out since last year's Ecolympics. For TV-Free, I don't have a TV, but I resolved to turn off my laptop more often in the evenings... there are books to read after all.

Tonight I was treated by my sweetie to a local meal at The Hungry Mother in Cambridge. They specialize in seasonal and local ingredients and they definitely know what they are doing. Friendly service and great food from start to finish. I suppose I have to admit that I had the steak, but only because all of the other mains had gluten or something else I couldn't eat on account of migraine triggers. The beef was from Pineland Farms, and though it was high on the food chain, the waiter told us it was grass fed and from a quality, small sustainable operation.

(Nevertheless, if I'm going to claim points for Meat Less, I'm going to have to have a bunch of vegetarian or vegan meals to make up for this steak, delicious as it was.)

We started with the up-the-coast PEI mussels, and finished with a terrific Taza chocolate and hazelnut tart. Taza is one of our sponsors and it was great to have their rich chocolate showcased so well in the hazelnut crust. The taste and consistency of the chocolate was truly memorable.

We'd love to hear how you're doing with your challenges. Drop a comment below.

How to Take a Three Minute Shower, Part 2

Yesterday I claimed victory for my three minute and twenty second shower because even though I was 20 seconds beyond my goal, I was still about two minutes shorter than my five minute average. However, today I was determined to get under three minutes, or a count of 180.

I did a little pre-shower exercise -- some situps and pushups -- to get my blood going so that i didn't have to worry about trying to wake up in the shower. Then I turned the water on and got in while I had barely counted to 30. My bathroom was a little chilly and the water hadn't fully warmed yet, so I was jumping around a bit to get wet. I was also in fast motion to get my body wet as quickly as possible and by 54, 55, 56 I had finished soaking my hair and realized that by 59, 60 I was completely wet.

I turned the water off.

Yes, the so-called boat or navy shower. I was still in counting mode so it took me a few seconds to realize that I had actually turned the water off and could stop counting. Reset to 60. Take my time soaping up. Leisurely soap one arm then the other. Think about the world's problems. Leisurely soap my chest, my legs. Solve one or two of the world's problems. Soap the bottom of my feet, behind my ears. Shampoo. Leisurely scrub. Think of new problems to solve.

Okay, all soaped up -- water back on! 61, 62, 63. Back into fast shower mode. Rinse hair (75, 76...), rinse feet (87, 88...). This is easy -- I should be able to finish by 100 and cut yesterday's time in half. Rinse all places in between (101, 102...). Where did those last ten seconds go? 112, 112... Move, move. Rinse behind my ears. Is that it? 118, 119... Yes! Water off!

120. Not bad!

I notice that I count quicker when I start and slower as I'm finishing but I don't think it's so bad that I need to go out and buy a timer. The point is that if you put your mind to it, a short shower is possible. And you get on with your day quicker. If you need some extra inspiration, there's always Doing the Green Thing.

However, when I came out of the bathroom I noticed that I'd left my radio on. D'oh! Lose points for that!

The Ecolympics are starting today. I will blog about my other events once I decide which challenges I'm ready to accept. What about you? Are you ready? Sign up and let's do it!

How to Take a Three Minute Shower

Thanks to last year's Ecolympics, I cut my shower time down by about half, from somewhere in the ten-minute region to somewhere around the five minute region. According to our event page for Power Shower, every minute we cut in our shower time, saves about five gallons of water. So, given those numbers, over a year I saved about 1800 gallons of water.

However, recently my shower time has been floating upwards again.

So, today, on the eve of our 2nd annual Ecolympics (yes, you can still sign up), I'm here to tell you how to have a three minute shower.

Really, all you have to do is turn on the water, start counting to 180, jump in and do your stuff, and turn off the water while you're counting is just ticking from 179 to 180. It can be done!

This morning, it took my shower 40 seconds to warm up (d'oh, waste of 3.33 gallons!) but by the 120 count I was done soaping and washing. That left an ample count of 60 to wash my hair. The shampoo came out quickly (5 seconds), I got a good lather going (10 seconds), good scrubbing action (15 seconds), behind my ears (5 seconds), ouch, stay clear of the eyes (5 seconds)... hey, look at that, 20 seconds left over for rinsing... this is easy... At 160 the suds are dropping all around my feet. At 170, I'm massaging my scalp to get all the shampoo out. I'm going to easily have five seconds left over for that lovely zen shower feeling... 177, 178, 179...

Darn, there's a soap film on my legs that I didn't rinse properly. I'm overtime! 185, 186... And did I do the bottom of my feet? I'm sure I did but... 191, 192... That's gotta be it. Okay, all done.
Three seconds of standing there doing nothing... 198, 199, 200.

Water off!

Twenty seconds over! Hardly an Ecolympics record, but better than my shower times all week.
I'm claiming victory.

You can too. Be a part of our efforts to get individual actions to change the world. Sign up for the Ecolympics today. Challenge yourself to take a shorter shower. You know you want to.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Ecolympics

Q. What are the Ecolympics?
A. The Ecolympics are a fun, participatory series of events geared towards the themes of sustainability, reduction of the human footprint on the environment and education about biodiversity and the current crisis in biodiversity loss.

Q. What is biodiversity?
A. The term “biodiversity” refers to the diversity of plant and animal life in an ecosystem or in the world as a whole. At present, Earth’s biodiversity is a suffering losses at accelerating and historic rates due primarily to human activities.

Q. Who can participate in the Ecolympics?
A. Everyone! Students, staff, and faculty at Boston University, friends from near and far, long-lost relatives and anyone in between.

Q. When are the Ecolympics?
A. The main events run from April 1 - 15, 2011. Check our website calendar and Facebook page for activities before and after those dates.

Q. What are the motivations behind the Ecolympics?
A. The United Nations declared 2010 The International Year of Biodiversity. The Olympic Games celebrate a spirit of sportsmanship and at the Ecolympics we want to celebrate a spirit of ecological sustainability and awareness. We are an integral part of nature and our fate is tightly linked with the entire diversity of life. We need to work together now to safeguard this irreplaceable natural wealth and reduce biodiversity loss. This year, 2011, is the International Year of Forests and our work continues...

Q. Is the loss of a few species really such a big deal?
A. Yes! Unfortunately we don’t even know how big of a deal it is. For example, most of our prescription drugs come from animals and plants, many of which are now endangered. The present loss of species is like losing an entire library before we’ve even catalogued or read the books. Further, it’s not just “a few species”; estimates of the present extinction rate are one hundred or more times greater than the normal extinction rate seen in the fossil record but on a time scale that is much shorter. So the present extinction event is beginning to compare to the mass extinction 65 million years ago, which wiped out 75% of species, including the dinosaurs. We need to take action now.

Q. How are the Ecolympics events connected to the biodiversity crisis?
A. It is human consumption of energy and natural resources that is polluting the environment and causing habitat loss, two factors that are driving the biodiversity crisis. By bringing our own cup around for coffee and water, we reduce the consumption of paper/Styrofoam cups and plastic water bottles, and start replacing our throw-away mentality with the idea of sustainability. By eating local we reduce the greenhouse gas emissions required to ship food from across the country or from around the world. By eating organic we reduce the need for herbicides and pesticides, which pollute ecosystems and watersheds.

Q. Why are there so many events?
A. In part to show that there are many ways an individual can make a difference and in part to show that we must change many of our habits and behaviors. Small incremental changes can add up to a big difference. The US has 4% of the world’s population but 22% of the world’s energy consumption – we just can’t go on like this.

Q. Can all these small “events” or actions really make a difference?
A. We think so. If these actions are done on their own, the difference will be small. But if they are done over and over, and if friends, colleagues and family are encouraged to do them together with us, then the difference can be significant. Plus, thinking about small changes on a daily basis will hopefully create a mindset that large-scale change is possible. It’s our Earth and we need to start practicing good stewardship that will protect our environment for generations to come.

Q. I’m a busy student with three papers due this week and two exams, you don’t expect me to participate do you?
A. We’re busy students (and faculty) too! The Ecolympics are about tuning into our behavior and our daily choices. Some of our events are so easy you can do them in the bathroom (take a shorter shower, turn off the water when you brush your teeth, cut your paper towel use in half), others you can do while you’re studying (turn off all the lights you’re not using, unplug unused power grabbers, put your computer into sleep mode when you’re taking a break) and still others you can do between classes or on your way home (take the stairs, bring a re-usable bag to the grocery store). Changing our consumptive behavior is easier than you think. Some of our events take a little planning and research (eating local, tell a friend about an endangered species), which is why we're allowing sign-ups beginning on March 22 so that you can plan ahead.

Q. I do many of these activities anyway, why should I join the Ecolympics?
A. By participating with us, you’ll help bring awareness to the need for us all to work together to reduce our impact on the environment. We need you to stand up and be counted! By talking about your actions with others, you could inspire them to get involved and we can build some much-needed momentum to make large, positive changes. Plus, you’ll have a chance to win some cool prizes!

Q. Prizes? What prizes?
A. Our emphasis is on participation, but we do have cool prizes like passes to the Museum of Science, eco-friendly yoga mats from Kulae.com, gift certificates from Greenward (an eco-friendly boutique in Cambridge), Taza Chocolate (an organic chocolate shop in Somerville) and Peace o' Pie (a cool vegan pizza joint in Allston), gift certificates to restaurants that serve local food and DVDs of the awesome Planet Earth series. (For our beyond-BU participants, unfortunately, prizes are limited to Boston University students, faculty and staff. But don't let that stop you for participating and even challenging your friends to participate.)

Q. How does the point system work?
A. Our Ecolympics are based on the honor system. When you register, you’ll be allotted a certain number of possible points according to the number of events you register for. Registering for more events will put you in the running for better prizes. At the end of the two weeks, you can log back in and claim your points according to what you accomplished. Prizes will be awarded via a lottery system. We value your participation and wish you good luck -- we hope you win!

(You can also gain points by attending our special events like our film on March 31, our Nature Work on April 3, our Fair Trade seminar on April 13 and/or our cooking class on April 15 -- see our Calendar for details.)

Q. What is Carbonrally?
A. Thanks to the efforts of the good people at Sustainability@BU, Boston University has joined Carbonrally, an organization that incorporates a social bent to reducing carbon emissions. Here’s what Sustainability@BU has to say about Carbonrally: “The folks at Carbonrally took their knowledge of consumers, software, and environmental studies and created new approaches to the global crisis by building a portal where people can discover, commit, and track small actions over time.” It’s free and fun!

Q. Why should I sign up for Carbonrally too? Isn’t joining the Ecolympics enough?
A. We recommend that when you sign up for the Ecolympics you also sign up for Carbonrally. Carbonrally has many of the same events as the Ecolympics and through them and their challenges you’ll be able to find out much more information about your actions than we at the Ecolympics could provide. By being part of Carbonrally you can accrue points for your school and try to win the monthly prize. Go for it!

Q. I’ve got an idea for an event. Want to hear it?
A. Yes! Post it on our Facebook page wall, or email us directly and we’ll keep it in mind when we plan next year's events.

Q. I want to do more. What can I do?
A. Keep going with Carbonrally. Talk to your friends and family about your concerns. Rent a documentary that focuses on biodiversity or the human impact on the environment. Join one of the green groups on campus. Start reading a green blog. Create your own green blog. Post news about biodiversity on your Facebook or social networking page. Watch where every dollar you spend goes. Find out how your bank is investing your money and if you’re not satisfied, find a greener bank. Reduce, re-use, re-cycle. Think before print. Eat in rather than forcing the restaurant to generate waste via take-out. Trade and re- use clothes with friends. Request that your office use less air- conditioning. Take the train or bus instead of the plane for short trips. Find out what is going on at the civic, state and national level to safeguard biodiversity and fight for it. Lobby for green energy. Boycott corporations that pollute the environment. Start an Ecolympics at your neighborhood K-12 school. Stay positive. Support green companies...

Five Reasons to Join the Ecolympics

The title says it all. We've got a challenge for you -- join us! Let's all become more aware of our consumptive habits and reduce our footprint on the environment. Check it out below and then go to our webpage and sign-up. You'll be competing for Team Earth -- and maybe you'll win a prize!

The Ecolympics Challenge for World Environment Day, June 5, 2010

If it takes a village to raise a child, then it takes a civilization to look

after its species. Of course, the species, all thirty to one hundred

million of them, are no more ours than the wind is. But we humans

control the destiny of life on Earth and if we hold to our present course

of action, which includes high consumption of natural resources

leading to habitat destruction and pollution, not to mention climate

change, then by mid-century we’re going to have a much poorer planet: historic numbers of species will become extinct and we humans will have lost a significant part of our heritage and

quality of life.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that we can each do something about it.

But I’m not an activist, you say. Fine, neither am I. At least so

far.

However, you and I both lead active lives and each day we have

opportunities to reduce our footprint on the environment. That’s

why last month my colleague, Alex, and I, together with a

dedicated team of students, organized the Boston University’s

first-ever Ecolympics. We were hoping to get at least one

hundred people to participate in our twenty-three events like

recycling, powering down computers, turning off lights,

taking shorter showers, using re-usable cups, eating less meat,

avoiding plastic, driving less and taking the stairs more.

Our motto was “Competing for Team Earth.”

We finally signed up more than two hundred people. Most of

the participants were from Boston University, but we also had

several people compete from other universities and from

Canada and Germany. The most common comment I got

from the participants was, “I enjoyed the challenge.” I’d

love to say that each of our actions saved a species, but it

doesn’t work that way. We have, however, engaged in the

struggle – against our own habits and attitudes and against

our ignorance.

We are ignorant about the long term consequences of our

present consumption of natural resources though our situation

seems like if in the story about the flood, Noah began

burning the floorboards of the ark to keep warm at night.

There has to be an alternative.

Check out the UNEP’s site for World Environment

Day on June 5, and see that people around the world have made

hundreds of suggestions for things to do to reduce our impact

on the environment and to protect species. The motto for World

Environment Day is “Many species. One Planet. One Future.”

You can also review our Ecolympics events and partake

in one of the events that you missed on your own. Or, if

you’re looking for a real green-medal challenge, here is

something you can do on World Environment Day:

organize your own Ecolympics for your work place or

school. Use our events as a guide. All you need

are a few green prizes as incentives, or a friendly bet

always makes a good challenge.

We need more Ecolympics and more Ecolympians. Next

year, we’re going to run the Ecolympics again, probably

for two weeks instead of one. We’re hoping for at least

double the number of participants: four hundred. But if

we really want to make a difference and get serious about

saving species, then we need four hundred million participants.

We need an Ecolympics that runs year round with everybody

participating every day.

Think about what it will mean for us all to be

Ecolympics champions! Clean air, clean waterways

healthy wetlands, thriving forests and diverse ecosystems.

This is why we need to Compete for Team Earth. This is

our future. The challenge is ours to accept.

Daniel

Who Are the Ecolympians?

If you were following our Facebook group, you know that we
had more than 200 participants for the Ecolympics!
(210 to be exact!)

We relied on classroom announcements and emailings to
student groups and in under a month we were able to
attract 210 people to modify their behavior and reduce
their impact on the environment for a week. Pretty good!
Thanks for being part of it.

Most of those 210 participants -- most of you -- are
undergraduates here at Boston University but we also
signed up at least two grad students and thirteen faculty!

In addition, we had a strong "Beyond BU" contingent,
represented by participants from Brown University, MIT,
the University of Florida, Centennial High School as
well as five people in Canada and one person in Germany!
Thanks for your support!

We're pleased with our kick-off and we're now waiting
for everyone to submit their points so that we can award
the prizes. (The photo contest judging is occurring as
we speak.)

Alex and I, as co-chairs of the organizing committee
are also wondering how to make the Ecolympics bigger
and better for next year. We'd love to get your feedback.
Tell us about your Ecolympics experience. Tell us
also if you're continuing the Ecolympics spirit.
You can always email us at ecolympics "at" gmail.com

To be honest, next year we're hoping for ten times
more participants! All it would take would be for
each of us to challenge ten of our friends.
As Michael Pollan writes in the New York Times this
week, it would be like a chain reaction: the more
awareness that is raised, the more people will want
to do it and become involved. Well, that's the hope.

The slogan for the International Year of Biodiversity
is: Biodiversity is life. Biodiversity is our life.




Here at the Ecolympics we've been saying It's
our environment, it's our planet and we're all
competing for Team Earth.

Stay tuned for further posts about the prizes and
additional information about the International
Year of Biodiversity and more!

Daniel

Welcome to the Ecolympics Blog!

Greetings fellow Ecolympians! If you've seen our FAQ you know what we're about. Here's a brief summary: this is the UN's International Year of Biodiversity, which, as they say here, "is a celebration of life on earth and of the value of biodiversity for our lives. The world is invited to take action in 2010 to safeguard the variety of life on earth: biodiversity".

“Biodiversity” refers to the diversity of plant and animal life in an ecosystem or in the world as a whole. Unfortunately, Earth’s biodiversity is now suffering losses at accelerating and historic rates due primarily to human activities. These activities include pollution, habitat loss and introduction of invasive species and the loss will be exacerbated by climate change.

So, the Ecolympics are designed as a series of fun, self-run events to help us all become aware of the human impact on our environment. They are sponsored by the College of Arts and Science's Core Curriculum here at Boston University. But anyone can participate. Our prizes are limited to present Boston University people, but we hope that wherever you are in the world, you'll sign-up and participate. In fact, we hope any participant anywhere will take our oath (at the bottom of the sign-up page) to heart and challenge friends to participate, creating their own prizes in the process.

Biodiversity loss is a global problem that, simply put, can only be bad news for humans. Scientists have catalogued some 1.5 million species and don't know how many more there are. So we are losing species before we can count them, let alone study them. By each of us exploring the repercussions of how we live our lives, how we use energy and water, how we eat and how we spend our dollars we can hopefully start reducing biodiversity loss.

Check out our resources. Send us links. Write on our Facebook wall with your thoughts, links and photos. Advertise us. It's our planet, our environment and these are our species. (Recently I saw a video that mentioned if aliens invaded and started taking or killing our species, we'd definitely fight back. Now is our chance.)

Here's a quote from E.O. Wilson's Pulitzer prizewinning book, The Diversity of Life: "[A] panda or a sequoia represents a magnitude of evolution that comes along only rarely. It takes a stroke of luck and a long period of probing, experimentation and failure. Such a creation is part of deep history and the planet does not have the means nor we the time to see it repeated."

In just under two weeks, we're going to announce, "Let the Games begin!" If you're at BU, sign-up by April 9 to qualify to win a copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma. If you're beyond-BU, sign-up anyway to help us generate some buzz.

We value your participation and are excited you want to be a part of these Ecolympics.