A Sustainable World

Oct 01 2009

Written by Ava

Sustainability: the capability to endure. In biological terms, it can be applied to every facet on Earth, but especially the ability for an ecosystem to maintain ecological process, functions, biodiversity, and productivity over time and into the future.

It seems Jeff McIntire-Strasburg knew he had a good thing going when he came up for the idea for a blog on environmental issues and all things green with Sustainablog in 2003. This nature lover wanted (and still wants) the world to learn how to help protect and sustain our natural environmental.

This includes marine ecosystems, life, and landscapes of course.

We know Jeff will be blogging to a greener world--whether it means nature, marine energy, conservation, or climate change. We'd like to think his blog, tips, news, and information are some of the ways that will help sustain our marine world--and the entire globe.

Tell me about your background in all things green and much of an interest in marine environments and marine topics comes into play there.

I’ve always been a nature lover… spent lots of time outdoors as a kid (much of it on the beach in Florida where I spent the first part of my childhood). The real interest in environmentalism came up after finishing graduate school – I was always concerned about environmental issues, but finally felt like I could devote some time to digging into information about the challenges we face, as well as some of the more innovative solutions out there. It was really the latter that pulled me in: reading works ranging from Paul Hawkens’ The Ecology of Commerce to Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael convinced me that environmental problems weren’t insurmountable; they did require a lot of creativity and collective self-reflection, however. I’ve tended to look at marine environments as a sort of “canary in the coal mine”: we tend to get a much more vivid picture of the general challenges we face by seeing the collapse of fisheries, death of coral reefs, and massive amounts of ocean pollution (the “plastic island” the size of Texas floating around out there).

Tell me about the start of Sustainablog in 2003, what your goals were for this blog and why you were using it as an experiment in “writing to learn”?

My main goal when starting Sustainablog was to engage with the ideas I’d been exploring. The notion of “writing to learn” is pretty familiar to those of us who teach writing: the act of writing itself, especially in a public venue, requires you to analyze a topic closely, understand its elements and the relationships among those elements, and even ask questions (which is great for the blogging medium). I entered the space without a lot of “knowledge” – just interest, and a little exploration…

How did you come up with the name?

You know, I really don’t remember exactly… I’m sure I was just playing around with the notion of a sustainability blog, and it just came to me.

How does a “green blog” relate to marine environments?

It should make our relationship to these environments more transparent. If you live in a coastal area, you might have a better sense of your actions affecting these environments. But, of course, our environmental impact, regardless of where we live, affects our watersheds, and, almost inevitably, freshwater and saltwater ecosystems. The lives of the products we buy also have direct impacts on these environments, from the wastes created in their production, to the pollution produced by transporting them, to their disposal at the end of their useful life (see above about that giant island of plastic).

What kind of marine topics do you feature (climate change, marine conservation?)

It really runs the gamut: efforts to conserve and protect these areas, seafood issues, harvesting renewable energy from tides and offshore winds, the evidence of global climate change within marine environments… I could go on and on…

What happened to the nature of the blog when you joined Green Options Media network and how has the marine content expanded and improved, if it has?

The biggest shift involved authorship: I was no longer the only writer on the blog. As such, the marine content did expand – it’s almost impossible to engage with environmental issues without dealing with marine ecosystems, so we had more writers making that discovery, and pulling these topics into their contributions to the blog.

When you blog about renewable energy, do you ever feature marine energy as a reliable alternative energy resource?

Yes, definitely. It’s one that tends to get overlooked. I was particularly excited to see the Portuguese and Scots experimenting with tidal power systems.

How does sustainability relate to the marine world?

As with any source of natural resources, we have to keep marine environments healthy in order to rely on them. If we extract from them at a rate beyond their ability to renew, or treat them like dumps or toilets in the near term, we’re denying future generations the ability to draw on these resources.

What can the average person do to promote the idea of sustainability to preserve the marine world?

Recognize that no matter where they live, they’re connected to it. All waterways lead to the oceans, so if we’re polluting groundwater, rivers, lakes, etc., that ultimately ends up polluting the ocean. Keep in mind that choices we make about food from marine sources have an impact. Realize that much of the crap we throw away ends up on ships and barges, and may ultimately end up in the ocean. Keep in mind that the natural environment is interconnected, so irresponsible acts by individuals or large institutions will have an effect on the marine world.

What are your feature goals for the blog?

There are actually some big changes coming up, but I can’t get into details at this point… but look for them around the end of November/beginning of December. Sorry for the secrecy… ;-)