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Innovations In Science: Pursuing Another Giant Leap For Mankind
According to the American Cancer Society, in 2016 there will be an estimated 1.6 million new cancer cases diagnosed and over half a million cancer deaths in the US. While much has been achieved in the detection and treatment of cancer, it's clear that this disease in all its various forms, will be with us for a long time.

Regardless of who you are, where you live, or your personal circumstances, chances are you've been touched by cancer in some form. And you don't have to have cancer to be affected by it. All illness is the story of one. Speak to anyone who has had to care for a loved one with cancer and you'll quickly know the emotional, physical and financial toll it takes on everyone involved.

Last year, Vice President Joe Biden lost his son Beau Biden, to brain cancer. This bright, enigmatic young man who was the Attorney General for Delaware was only 46. His death was tragic, but if there is a silver lining in all of this, it's the announcement by President Obama during the State of the Union address on January 12, 2016, establishing the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative to accelerate cancer research, led by Vice President Biden. Its goal is to make more therapies available to more patients, improve early detection methods and, ultimately, prevent this insidious disease.

Make no mistake, finding a cure for all the types of cancer we currently know about will be hard, but sending someone to the moon was a pretty ambitious goal as well. When John F. Kennedy announced on May 25, 1961 America's goal to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, there was no reason to think it couldn't be done. Billions of dollars were invested, and there were plenty of failures along the way, but for anyone who remembers when Neil Armstrong stepped out onto the dusty surface of the moon and said his immortal words "that's one small step..." it was a seminal moment.

Cancer is a global health issue and, as people live longer, one that will continue to grow. From a research standpoint it's also exceptionally cross-discipline covering a broad scope of medical specialties such as neurology, gynecology, pulmonology, gastroenterology and hematology, as well as related factors such as the environment, pharmacology, public health awareness and nutrition. Curing cancer will therefore require intensive collaboration from the scientific community at large.

Economics is another major factor in treating cancer. Most patients will need long-term, on-going care which has enormous implications for family finances as well as the social and psychological impact for the care-givers. Developing treatments, finding cures and, ultimately, preventing cancer, will require the commitment of tremendous resources from government as well as the private and academic sectors. America's moonshot was largely financed by the U.S. government. But in today's economic climate and greater scrutiny of public spending, economic support from the private and philanthropic sectors will be a factor in supporting more cancer research.

Technology, especially the internet, social scientific networks such as Social Science Research Network, an online open-access repository, as well as collaboration platforms such as Mendeley, will allow research teams worldwide easier ways to share knowledge and leverage expertise regardless of location and affiliation.

There's certainly no shortage of work already accomplished. According to ScienceDirect more than 1.5 million research papers about cancer have been published in the past five years; a huge amount of data. Scopus data reveals Europe leads in overall cancer research output, but there have been significant increases from institutions in North America and Asia Pacific during the same period, most notably by China and the United States.

Thanks to the dedication of millions of anonymous researchers tirelessly engaged in cancer research, there have been tremendous strides made in the past decade. The dreaded "c-word" is no longer an automatic death sentence. People are now better educated about high risk behaviors that should be avoided such as smoking and exposure to certain chemicals, as well as the importance of annual physical tests. Sophisticated diagnostic imaging such as ultrasound, MRI and CT scans as well as blood tests can help with early detection of small growths and masses which means early intervention and better chances for a complete cure.

Cancer is a tremendously complex disease and new strains are discovered every day. We may never eradicate it completely, but if it is possible to send a man to the moon and bring him safely home in less than a decade, we stand a pretty good chance of securing a "giant leap for mankind" in reducing cancer's impact on our society.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Top 5 Reasons To Ban Oil Trains Immediately
On Friday, June 3rd, a crude oil train traveled through the scenic Columbia River Gorge, a national treasure and one of the most beautiful spots in a country blessed with some of the most stunning places on Earth. It went slowly through the small town of Mosier, Ore. Children sat in class, no doubt looking forward to the weekend, people stopped by the post office, enjoying the rituals of small town life. Then the ground shook. Explosions rocked the area and a plume of thick black smoke snaked its way into the sky. The oil train had derailed a few hundred yards from that school, a few hundred yards from the city center. Four railcars spilled and caught fire -- and tens of thousands of gallons of burning North Dakota Bakken crude created an inferno.

This disaster occurred as Stand and our many allies in the Crude Awakening Network were preparing for the third annual Stop Oil Trains Week of Action, planning dozens of events across the US and Canada between July 6-12 to mark the solemn anniversary of the tragic Lac Megantic oil train disaster on July 6, 2013. The Mosier derailment drove home, once again, why oil trains are too dangerous for the rails. And why Stand is asking President Obama for an immediate ban on oil trains.

Here are the top five reasons Stand, joined by hundreds of groups, community leaders, and elected officials, are calling for a ban on deadly oil trains.

1. 25 million Americans live in the oil train "blast zone".
The US rail system was built to connect population centers, not move millions of gallons of toxic, flammable crude oil. But the oil industry is doing exactly that, sending explosive crude down the tracks right through our cities and by the homes of 25 million Americans. At Stand, we have mapped oil train routes with our Blast Zone map. You can use the map to see if your home, school, or office is inside the dangerous one-mile evacuation area. One clear finding from analyzing America's blast zone: vulnerable populations like environmental justice communities and school children are clearly in harm's way.

2. Oil trains can't be operated safely.
Federal safety standards won't improve oil train safety. Federal legislation, promises by the railroads, and federal regulations- weakened by years of interagency battles between the Federal Railroad Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board -- have all come to very little. Former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board Jim Hall, in a June 2016 op-ed advocating a ban on crude oil trains, put it simply: "Carrying crude oil by rail is just not a good idea." That's because it cannot be done safely. Period.

Thorough reporting by DeSmog Blog on the weak existing federal regulatory standards and the oil and rail industry's failure to meet them demonstrates there have been no improvements on the safety of the 100,000 unsafe tank cars in the US fleet. Only a few hundred of these 100,000 dangerous tank cars have been retrofitted, and cars updated to the newest tank car standard will still puncture at just a few miles an hour faster than the current tank cars.

After 2025, there may be marginal improvements in the tank cars and procedures associated with oil trains. But trains will still derail, and crude will still leak and ignite.

3. Oil train fires can't be controlled.
When an oil train derails at any speed over the puncture velocity of roughly 10 miles an hour a dozen or so cars typically come off the tracks, decouple and are thrown from their wheels. Tank cars are easily punctured, and the crude (either Bakken or diluted tar sands, both highly volatile) can either self-ignite or be sparked by a nearby ignition source.

Once the spilled oil from an oil train disaster ignites, the primary task of emergency responders is to evacuate the area due to toxic plumes, fire, and potential explosions. We write more about the difficulties here, but Bruce Goetsch, a county emergency manager in Iowa, had this advice: "Make sure your tennis shoes are on and start running." Or listen to the Washington State Council of Fire Fighters, which delivered a letter to Washington Governor Inslee on June 8 demanding an immediate halt to crude rail movement and stating that, "these fires are exceedingly difficult to extinguish, even under unusually ideal circumstances."

4. We don't need the oil these dangerous trains carry.
Oil trains in North America carry extreme fracked crude oil from the Bakken formation in North Dakota and Saskatchewan, or diluted bitumen from tar sands deposits in Alberta. We don't need any of this crude oil. According to the most recent information from the US Energy Information Administration, shipments of crude by rail represent only 2.5 percent of the 19 million barrel daily US oil demand. At the same time, the US exports more than five million barrels of oil per day. So the US is exporting ten times more than the 513,000 barrels of crude that is moving by rail each day. The crude moving by train contributes nothing to our energy supply. If we stopped all oil trains tomorrow Americans would never notice the difference at the gas pumps - but we would all be safer, especially the 25 million Americans living in the blast-zone.

5. Oil trains are taking us in the wrong direction.
The dangerous, unnecessary, carbon-intensive crude oil moving by train through North American cities and towns is a new phenomenon. Before 2008, crude oil rarely, if ever, moved by train. Oil companies see this oil as the future. We see a future where we leave extreme crude oil in the ground and use decreasing amounts of conventional oil as we transition to 100 percent clean energy.

The climate accords in Paris followed by the April 2016 United Nations resolution put the United States and the rest of the world on a clear, inevitable path toward reducing fossil fuels from our energy supply. These dangerous oil trains carrying extreme oil are, quite simply, not part of that future: they fail the public safety test, the energy security test, and the climate test.

Forty-seven people died in the Lac Megantic oil train disaster three years ago. Only incredible luck prevented Mosier, OR from being another Lac Megantic. It was a dead-calm day in one of the windiest part of the US, otherwise the fire could have spread quickly to more derailed cars, to surrounding forests, homes, and even to the nearby school. This was another close call, one of more than a dozen major oil train disasters over the last three years that could have been much worse. We need to end this unnecessary and unacceptable threat before our luck runs out.

This is not a radical request. In fact, the Governors of Oregon and Washington have asked for a moratorium on oil trains. Join them -- and Stand: Please join us in asking President Obama for an immediate ban on oil trains.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Building Your Own Home From Open Source Blocks
What if your next house were to cost 1/10th of the average home while sporting a long list of high-tech hyper-ecological features? With the help of the Open Building Institute (OBI), which is designing affordable, ecological housing accessible to everyone - you may be able to do just that.

In the good old days people built their own homes. My grandfather built his and lived in it with his family for decades. However, as homes and their sub-systems have become more complex along with ever more stringent building codes, few can claim to be able to replicate such a feat. OBI hopes to change that.

OBI is a new initiative that is creating a library of engineered modules and a series of rapid-build procedures to quite literally help anyone build an affordable home. The basic idea is if you can follow an instructable you should be able to follow a few of them - and if the modules are well organized and complete you could finish off a whole house with a few friends.

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OBI is following the same open source methodology that has made the Internet so successful --- sharing the source code with a free license. Google and Facebook and many other Internet companies use open source software on the backend because large scale collaboration generally leads to superior technology. Open source hardware follows the same approach from electronics to 3-D printers.

There is a rapidly growing list of open source hardware projects, which are bringing millions of dollars of value to the world. Now OBI is adding 'house' to the list.

In this case, rather than sharing computer code, OBI is sharing a toolkit that is open source and available free of charge--forever. The toolkit includes a library of modular designs (think of them like building blocks), detailed instructions, software, and even the open source machines (for construction and production of building materials following the Open Source Ecology model). Users can design their own house using open source software, and can also contribute designs to the project.

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Rapid Builds, Affordable Housing
The preliminary designs are stacked with high-tech ecological features including a building integrated solar photovoltaic roof, in floor hydronic heating, and a biodigester. They aim to achieve Living Building Challenge certification in 2017, which is the highest standard for eco-construction. The standard OBI house model is off-grid (a recent study indicates this may be economic for many people in the U.S.) and will have an Aquaponic Greenhouse option, which produces all the fish and vegetables that a family can eat.

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OBI follows a rapid build approach where they can train non-specialists to put up the house in 5 days. If you have ever heard about an Amish barn raising you have the idea.

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They have already built a demonstration home - the plans of which anyone is free to copy.

However, not everyone literally wants to build their own house. So the initiative plans to offer a turnkey build service to prospective homeowners in 2017 using an immersion training program for builders--to expand OBI build services to other locations (they are located in Missouri). They are using the now somewhat standardized Open Source Ecology Extreme Manufacturing workflow, which the organization developed over 12 previous builds at its Missouri headquarters.

Are you interested in building your own green home?

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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The New Landscape Declaration: Visions For The Next 50 Years

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India's water crisis / National Geographic

Over the next 50 years, landscape architects must coordinate their actions globally to fight climate change, help communities adapt to a changing world, bring artful and sustainable parks and open spaces to every community rich or poor, preserve cultural landscape heritage, and sustain all forms of life on Earth. These were the central messages that came out the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF)'s New Landscape Declaration: Summit on Landscape Architecture and the Future in Philadelphia, which was attended by over 700 landscape architects.

The speakers used declarations and short idea-packed talks, and attendees used cards, polls, and an interactive question and commenting app to provide input into a new declaration -- a vision to guide the efforts of landscape architects to 2066.

As the 50th anniversary of the original declaration in 1966, many landscape architects looked back to see what has been achieved over the past 50 years. At the same time, through a series of bold statements, they created an ambitious global vision moving forward. As Barbara Deutsch, FASLA, president of LAF, believes: "We are now entering the age of landscape architecture."

While not a comprehensive review of all the declarations, here are some highlights of the visions of what landscape architects must work to achieve over the next 50 years:

Landscape architects must address the "serious issues of air, water, food, and waste" in developing countries

Alpa Nawre, ASLA, assistant professor of landscape architecture, Kansas State University, called for landscape architects to focus their efforts on the developing world, where the bulk of the current population and most of the future population growth will occur. Today, of the 7.2 billion people on Earth, some 6 billion live in developing countries. There, some 100 million lack access to clean water. The global population is expected to reach 9.6 billion in coming decades, with 400 million added mostly to the cities of the global south. "To accommodate these billions, we must design better landscape systems for resource management."

Gerdo Aquino, FASLA, CEO of the SWA Group, echoed that sentiment, arguing that "in the future, there will be much more stringent regulations on natural resources" as they become rarer and more valuable. Landscape architects will play a larger role in valuing and managing those resources.

Christophe Girot, chair of landscape architecture, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, similarly saw the need for "new topical landscapes" for the 9.6 billion who will inhabit the Earth. We must "react, think creatively, and find solutions."

Landscape architects must improve upon urbanization-as-usual

Instead of pursuing idealized visions of parks that may result in "tidy little ornaments of green that make liberals feel good," Chris Marcinkowski, associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania and partner at PORT Urbanism, said landscape architects must "work with the underlying systems of urbanization and adapt them," softening them in an era when 1 billion people live in cities.

James Corner, ASLA, founder of James Corner Field Operations, pushed for accelerating urbanization in order to protect surrounding nature. "If you love nature, live in the city." He called for landscape architects to "embed beauty and pleasure in cities" in the forms of parks and gardens, because we need to make it "so that people should want to live in cities." Landscape architects must envision a denser urban world as well, and "shape the form of the future city." His vision of the future city is a "garden city" that takes advantage of the "landscape imagination." And Charles Waldheim, Hon. ASLA, chair of landscape architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and Henri Bava, founding partner, Agence TER, similarly made the case for a new "landscape-led urbanism" rooted in ecological processes.

David Gouverneur, associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania, called for applying novel approaches to the informal communities in which he works in Venezuela, where the conventional planning and design process fails. He proposed retrofitting these places through his "informal armature approach," which can create both pathways and communal nodes but also areas of flexible growth that allows "locals to invade and occupy." He argued that new forms of planning and design can better meet the needs of the hundreds of millions living in informal communities in the world.

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Informal armature / David Gouverneur

And Kate Orff, ASLA, founder of SCAPE, explained how her community-centric approach "creates a scaffolding for meaningful participation that is an active generator of social life." For her, it's all about "linking the social to the ecological and scaling that up for communities."

Carl Steinitz, Hon. ASLA, professor emeritus of landscape architecture and planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, also called for all landscape architects to get more active at the urban and regional scales. "That's where society needs us the most."

Landscape architects must create a future for wild nature

"The landscape has been broken into fragments. We need a more inclusive approach, a new philosophical relationship between humanity and nature," said Feng Han, director, department of landscape studies, Tongji University in Shanghai. That new approach must be rooted in "just landscape planning and design."

Randolph Hester Jr., FASLA, director, Center for Ecological Democracy, and professor emeritus, University of California, Berkeley, made a similar and compelling argument, saying that "justice and beauty must be found together in the landscape." The landscape itself is a "community, with the ecological and cultural being indivisible."

A central part of achieving that just landscape planning and design approach is to better respect the other 2.5 million known species on the planet, argued Nina-Marie Lister, Hon. ASLA, professor at Ryerson University. "We must think of the quality of being for them, too." To protect their homes, landscape architects must lead the charge in "re-establishing the role of the wild." E.O. Wilson, in his most recent book, Half Earth, calls for preserving half of the planet for the other species. "That kind of goal is a blunt instrument. Now we need to design what that looks like. We need a planetary strategy that connects remnant fragments. We can create a global mosaic that will be the foundation of a next wave of conservation."

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Projective Ecologies / ACTAR, Harvard University Graduate School of Design

A key part of those mosaics will be designed sustainable landscapes, said Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, FASLA, who argued that "sustainability needs to be addressed in every landscape" moving forward. "We must keep every scrap of nature" by certifying projects with systems like SITES.

And in case anyone forgot the essential message: Laurie Olin, FASLA, founder of OLIN, argued that "everything comes from nature and is inspired by nature."

Landscape architects must dramatically increase in number

Given landscape architects relatively small numbers -- there are estimated to be less than 75,000 worldwide -- Martha Fajardo, International ASLA, CEO, Grupo Verde, said each must "become ambassadors for the landscape," speaking loudly wherever they go.

But Mario Schjetnan, FASLA, Mexico's leading landscape architect, said that may not be enough and more numbers are needed. For example, while there are more than 150,000 architects in Mexico, there are only 1,000 landscape architects.

He said: "There are not enough landscape architects in the developing world. And we need a global perspective. The U.S. and Euro-centric perspective must change. More landscape architects from the developing world studying in the U.S. and Europe need to return to their countries and help."

Landscape architects must diversify themselves fast

"Minorities are woefully underrepresented" in the field of landscape architecture, argued Gina Ford, ASLA, a partner at Sasaki. "The black and Hispanic populations in the U.S. are growing." How can we address this? Ford called for the highest levels of academic and firm leadership to bring in and hire minorities. "It's not about getting warm, fuzzy feelings; it's about innovation. Diversity begets innovation. Diverse staff resonate with diverse clients. We must diversify to create a shared vision for the future."

Landscape architects must get even more political

Patricia O'Donnell, FASLA, founder of Heritage Landscapes, who is active in UNESCO, ICOMOS, and other international organizations, said the first step is for landscape architects to "show up" and engage in political debates. Then, they must "collaborate to be relevant." Working within these complex international fora, O'Donnell herself pushes for "connecting biological diversity with cultural diversity" and encouraging these organizations to value cultural landscapes. To be more relevant, she said, landscape architects should further align their efforts with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Kongjian Yu, FASLA, founder of Turenscape, may be the epitome of the political landscape architect. His work spans planning and design across mainland China, but he spends a good amount of his time and energy on persuading thousands of local mayors and senior governmental leaders alike on the value of "planning for ecological security." He called for landscape architects to "think big -- at the local, regional, and national scales" -- and to influence decision-makers.

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China ecological security plan / Turenscape

Martha Schwartz, FASLA, founder of Martha Schwartz Partners, who is an active advocate and commentator in the UK, where she now lives, threw down the gauntlet, calling for landscape architects to form a political wing that will urge policymakers to fund bold research into geo-engineering techniques that can stave off the planetary emergency caused by climate change. At the same time, "we need to start a political agenda for a Manhattan project to reduce carbon emissions." Schwartz sees ASLA pushing for climate rescue over the next 50 years, helping us to "buy the time for a second chance to live in balance with the Earth." For her and others, climate action is the platform for landscape architecture for the next five decades.

And Kelly Shannon, chair of landscape architecture at the University of Southern California, International ASLA, made the case for "changing the unsustainable status quo and inspiring new social movements." Landscape architects must become "essential game changers."

Landscape architects must better leverage green infrastructure to achieve broader goals

Using their knowledge of systems, nature, and people, landscape architects must find new opportunities to regenerate poor communities that have been left out. Tim Duggan, ASLA, Phronesis, called for using green infrastructure as a wedge for creating opportunities. "In consent decree communities, green infrastructure can be leveraged to create wider urban regenerative processes." Green infrastructure, as Duggan has shown, can become the catalyst for community development.

But to make this happen in New Orleans and Kansas City, he had to "lobby change at the decision-maker level and string together innovative financing mechanisms." In other words, he had to wade into the broader economic and governmental systems to make change happen.

Landscape architects must keep design central to the human experience

Charles Birnbaum, FASLA, founder of The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF), said a "holistic view" was needed, and that landscape architects can't foresake the important role of art and design in the experience of landscape architecture by focusing exclusively on ecological values. "We need to put the value of landscape architect on the level of the artist." Harriet Pattison, FASLA, helped him make the point in this segment of her TCLF oral history project:

https://youtu.be/iGdpe2tPukA

Blaine Merker, ASLA, Gehl Studio, argued for "making humanism physical and celebrating the human condition" through well-designed space for people. "Plazas and parks increase social connection. This leads to deep sustainability and happiness that reinforce each other."

Landscape architects must generate new fields of research and design to stay relevant

A fascinating idea: what is on the margins today may be at the center tomorrow. Dirk Sijmons, co-founder, H+N+S Landscape Architects, argued for landscape architects to get more deeply involved in what may be a marginal area for them now: the transition to clean energy. He showed his work animating the energy flows of off-shore wind farms in the North Sea. "We must develop new centers for the discipline."

Landscape architects educators must "revolutionize the landscape architecture education system" and become more pragmatic

Kongjian Yu also called for the educational system to teach the aesthetic value of ecology and sustainability. "We need deep forms rooted in ecology, not shallow forms. Nature is the bedrock." Yu calls landscape architecture an "art of survival" that will become increasingly relevant as the world's problems only multiply. "We need to teach how landscapes can fight flooding, fire, drought, and produce food. We need to generate pragmatic knowledge and basic survival skills to open up new horizons."

Marc Treib, professor of architecture emeritus, University of California, Berkeley, added that "the sustainable is not antithetical to the beautiful. We can elevate the pragmatic to the level of poetry."

While these bold ideas do push the landscape architecture agenda forward, what was missing from the LAF event was some critical discussions on how to better collaborate with scientists, ecologists, developers, architects, urban planners, and engineers on forging a common vision that can increase their collective impact in the halls of power; the coming explosion of aging populations; the health benefits of nature -- and how the desire for better health could become a central driver of demand for landscape architecture; and sustainable transportation and the future of mobility. Hopefully, we'll see more on these as LAF continues to hone its vision.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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The Emotional Challenge of Advocating for Eco-Eating

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Image Credit: Huffington Post Images

I struggle. I struggle to inform my friends, my colleagues, students, and the "masses" about human interference with wildlife, climate change, and how our diet contributes to both these problems.

I have been a practicing dietitian for over 12 years now. I already understand how difficult it is for individuals to make relatively-simple changes in their diet. For example, to switch from white bread to whole-wheat.

So, asking people to make bigger changes such as reducing their consumption of animal products seems to be a truly daunting task, one that is overwhelming, and one that so far, seems to mostly evoke blank stares and inaction.

I know there are myriad of reasons why people don't change; and, I know, it's an even bigger challenge to change eating habits.

After all, "If it were easy, everyone would do it" - Tom Hanks in "A League of Their Own"

For starters, people are creatures of habit.
We like to eat what we like to eat. Diet is ingrained in us from childhood, it's culture, it's personal. So, change can feel like we are giving up a part of our self.

Another challenge may be pure ignorance.
Since there are always fish at the supermarket or the fish market, it seems impossible to believe or understand that certain fish stocks are severely in decline, or have even been decimated.

Moreover, the oceans are so far removed from our daily existence, and we don't see all the hundreds of thousands of animals that are killed as by-catch from fish nets or from fish-farms; for example, it takes 2-4 pounds of wild-fish to grow one pound of certain farmed fish!

In some parts of the world, hundreds of thousands of dolphins, sea birds, and other sea mammals drown every day from fish nets, fishing practices - including finning, or are brutally murdered by being viewed as competition for fish.

On land, if 100 animals were "accidentally" killed by accident for every five that come to market, this would likely be viewed as unethical, and completely unacceptable.

But in the ocean This. Is. Exactly. What. Happens. ALL. THE. TIME.

To make matters worse, nets and fishing gear are often left - illegally - in the ocean killing a wide-array of marine wildlife; and, plastic, is being consumed en-mass by animals, crowing out room for food, and normal behaviors.

But I just truly don't know how to make people understand or aware that these oceanic/sea-life problems exist, in a way that is meaningful to THEM.

A third possible challenge can be apathy.
Why should I change what I eat when no one else in changes what they eat?
I don't make any difference I'm just one small person.

What I've told myself is, instead of feeling that way, perhaps it would be more useful to lead by example and educate others.

However, as I have discovered, this comes with a lot of downfalls, mostly emotional; where truly you want to scream at the top of your lungs, "stop eating that fish, stop eating that beef, it damages the planet!"

A fourth challenge I sometimes come across is "pride."
Patients sometimes tell me "I've heard it all, I don't need more information."

Which brings me back to my earlier points, then why aren't you doing it? What are you waiting for?

So, what does this mean for me?

On the one hand, I look around me at the beauty of our Earth and how it is disappearing bit by bit by bit, and that we humans have a hand in this; and it makes me want to work that much harder to educate, to speak, to write, to help, to fight for the animals of our planet.

On the other hand, I am frustrated, angry, sad, and sometimes hopeless; because, I can speak until I am blue in the face, but I cannot make people change their behaviors. Only THEY CAN DO THAT.

Therein lies the rub.

I see that we need to change our ways. But we need the will to do it. We need to have the desire.
We need to have the knowledge.

And, I can do THAT. I can impart knowledge. That is my role.

To educate.
To advocate.
To support Earth.

Unfortunately however I cannot give desire, I cannot give motivation, it has to come from within.

If anyone has the recipe to make all these necessary attributes come together, please, let me know your secret.

In the mean time, I will continue to educate, advocate, and provide a "recipe" for taking that first step, that first eco-friendly bite.

See, I'm not asking you to become vegan overnight, but I am asking that you show concern, acknowledge that there is a problem, and be willing to be a part of the solution. Not just live in apathy.

For more specific meal suggestions and recipes, please refer to my previous post: "Why Plants are This Summer's "Coolest" Diet."

Contact Dana at: recipe.for.survival@gmail.com
Twitter: recipe4survival
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RecipeForSurvival/
blog: recipeforsurvival.wordpress.com

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Becoming Naturalists at the E.O. Wilson Biophilia Center

"biophilia,

At the E.O. Wilson Biophilia Center in East Freeport, Florida, children are learning about nature by experiencing it firsthand.

Developed by Walton County conservationist M.C. Davis in 2009, the Center sits on the 50,000-acre Nokuse Plantation. Paul Arthur, president of Nokuse Education Inc. and director of E.O. Wilson Biophilia Center for the past five years, describes it as an environmental education center.

“Our ultimate goal is to teach future generations about the importance of conservation, preservation, and restoration of the ecosystem,” Arthur says. “We want every student to leave a little bit of a naturalist.”

Through two- or four-day programs, the Center provides children with a “complete learning experience” that aims to give them an in-depth understanding of the Florida Panhandle's longleaf pine ecosystem, while also exposing them to the idea of conservation more broadly.

The Center's lesson plan aligns with Florida state standards and is adjusted yearly. With over 700 pages of curriculum written by its staff, the Biophilia Center targets 4^th and 7^th grade students, as standardized testing occurs in 5^th and 8^th grade. The students come to the Center from schools in its five surrounding counties—Okaloosa, Walton, Bay, Holmes, and Washington.

Each year the Center educates 5,200 students and averages more than 100 students every school day. It places a lot of emphasis on experiential learning; over 20 hands-on activities comprise 75 percent of the overall curriculum. These activities—led by team members with nicknames like Bluegill Jill, Tree Frog Tess, and Pine Tree Paul (Arthur)—include surveying with lasers to analyze topography and slope, water quality testing, and a gopher tortoise simulation class.

"biophilia,

“My number one goal is to get students outside,” Arthur says. “We want to immerse them into the environment out here so they get excited about it.”

Their methods are working. In 2014, Columbus State University doctorate candidate Michael Dentzau conducted a two-year study on the effectiveness of the Biophilia Center. Dentzau had 4^th grade students draw pictures of Florida's environment before and after they went. According to Arthur, before visiting the Center, students had a warped view of the outdoors, drawing “snow-peaked mountains with giraffes, elephants, and gorillas.” Following their visits to the Center, the students' drawings changed drastically.

“Not only did they draw it [accurately], they started labeling it: loblolly pine, gopher tortoise, eastern indigo, wire grass, turkey oak,” Arthur explains. “That's what really blew us away.”

Dentzau also interviewed students five months after the visit. Much to the Center's delight, they still remembered what they had learned.

“These kids were rattling off information to him that was amazing,” Arthur said. “It was amazing to hear that what we do is effective.”

The Center continues to serve students in northwestern Florida and promote the values of conservationism to the local community as a whole. Arthur notes that the Center hopes to provide a “complete learning experience” so students learn more than just facts.

“People don't understand that when you mess with the food web it affects everything,” he says. “We want the students to understand how important it is that we maintain that balance for the biodiversity of the planet.”

"jaime

Jaime Gordon is a sophomore at Duke University. She plans to declare a major in Cultural Anthropology and a minor in Political Science, while also working on a minor in Japanese and a certificate in Policy Journalism. Born in Jamaica, but raised in the United States, Jaime has always had an interest in how the human experience differs across cultural lines. She wants to travel as much as possible in between her semesters as a full-time student. Though her particular interests are in East Asia and Francophone Europe, Jaime hopes to visit all seven continents in pursuit of novel experiences, artsy photos, and the world's best ice cream.

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