Green Man Blog - General

Rest in Peace, Raymond Mathias, Jr.

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 13:21:50 -0700

Yesterday, Rob and I were hiking up Cowles Mountain. It's not a particularly imposing mountain, only 1,591 ft high.

But it's the highest point in San Diego, and every day hundreds of people hike up the many trails leading to the summit.

It's great exercise and one gets to recognize the regulars on the trail. Everybody shares at least the common bond of enjoying the outdoors and the exercise, and of enjoying a small patch of wilderness set aside from the urban landscape.

So it was sad to hear of the death of a fellow hiker the same day we were there. This hiker, 67 years old and named Raymond Newsom Mathias, Jr., was on his second or third trip up the mountain. He collapsed and died on the trail.

We never met him personally, but it's very likely we passed each other on the trails now and then.

We like to think a little bit of the adventure and spirit of the Green Man legend was in Raymond. Certainly, at age 67, he was still displaying a robust attitude to life.

We send our condolences to his friends and family. Rest in peace, Raymond.

A Million Pounds and Counting...

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:23:00 -0700

The Webster group with other volunteers.

October 24 saw another group of San Diego River Park Foundation volunteers cleaning up trash in the San Diego River.

This time the volunteers were partially made up by a group of Webster University alumni.

Karen Davis, Brad Brown, and Madeleine Gervais.

Led by San Diego Campus Director Madeleine Gervais, along with Campus Representative Susan Leach and Community Relations Coordinator Kristin Monteil, the Webster alumni helped clean the river and celebrated as the San Diego River Park Foundation marked a million pound milestone of trash collected.

The volunteers picked up plastic, old tires, batteries, containers of oil, rusty bicycles, mattresses, glass, - you name it, they found it.

Getting ready in the morning to work.

The three hour event produced several thousand pounds of garbage which otherwise would have ended washed down into the ocean.

Off to the river.

Rob Hutsel, left, founder of the San Diego River Park Foundation. The guy on the right sells t-shirts or something.

If you live in the San Diego area and enjoy the beaches, bay, and river, why not spend a morning sometime helping out?

The San Diego River Park Foundation can always use your help. Contact Field Operations Associate Shannon Quigley through the website at:
www.sandiegoriver.org/

Xavier Turner in front of the dumpster the volunteers filled to overflowing with trash from the river. The dumpster was generously donated by John Smith Earthworks, Inc.

Working it. All the trash had to be dragged up from the river bank to the road by hand.

A Monster of a Bash, We Thought

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 07:27:54 -0700

Everyone knows about Monster.com, especially these days when so many are looking for jobs. As part of the annual Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) convention, held in San Diego this year, Monster hosted a mixer at the downtown, eclectic, underground Vin De Syrah wine bar.

We give Monster high marks for the party and their overall greenness of the event. Vin De Syrah is an unusual bar by itself, with walls covered in ivy, organic foods, and reachable only by a stair-cased descent under the street to a disguised door sheathed entirely in ivy. It takes a minute to find the door, but once inside the place is great.

The Greenman, pictured here on the right, is drinking an italian red and holding one of the "plantable coasters" Monster provided. These special coasters, if planted in a pot of soil, sprout wildflowers. Pretty cool, eh?

At the SHRM Convention itself the noted speaker was Al Gore. The irony of Mr. Gore speaking at a lecture hall filled with Human Resource people as he battles allegations of sexual harassment from a masseuse was not lost on too many. But people who attended his speech said it was interesting.

Monster provided two free drink tickets to each attendee, good for either wine or the vodka Tweetup special, but this wasn't a problem. By bullying the non-drinkers into giving up their tickets and scouring the floor for other tickets carelessly dropped, the Greenman was able to carry on in his usual fashion.

For those here in San Diego, or those thinking of visiting, the Vin De Syrah is an awful lot of fun. We posted their promotional video below if you'd like to see more. If anybody cares what a barful of inebriated HR professionals looks like, here is the link to the Monster pictures of the event

Every Fish Had Mercury?

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:24:54 -0700

If you tested fish from nearly 300 streams across the United States, how many would you think would test positive for mercury?

The answer: every single one.

That’s a bit scary, don’t you think? But that is what a U.S. Geological Survey Study released today stated about our streams, fish, and mercury.

Not only did every fish examined have some amount of mercury contamination, but 25% contained mercury levels exceeding the criterion for the protection of people who consume average amounts of fish.

Personally, I like fish. I’m sure I eat more than the average amount, whatever that is.

According to the report, the fish in streams located in North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana contained the highest levels of mercury.

What’s odd is that those streams are in relatively undeveloped forested watersheds and wetlands. So where would the mercury be coming from?

Well, the biggest source of mercury is mercury that is emitted to the atmosphere and deposited onto watersheds by precipitation (coal-fired power plants are the largest source of mercury emissions in the United States).

However, as the report explained, contamination from atmospheric mercury alone is not the whole answer.

It seems that natural watershed features, like wetlands and forests, can enhance the conversion of mercury to the toxic form, methylmercury, which is easily taken up by aquatic organisms. The fish eat the aquatic organisms and become contaminated. And then we eat the fish.

The good news is that all 50 states have mercury-monitoring programs. The bad news is that, in 2006, 48 states issued fish-consumption advisories for mercury.

A Mysterious Concrete Dome on an Island

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:46:24 -0700

After World War Two, the United States tested dozens of ever-larger nuclear bombs in the South Pacific.

By the late 1970s, something had to be done with the radioactive debris left behind from all the explosions.
In the end, the government scraped up over 100,000 cubic yards of “dirty” soil and put it on Runit Island (part of the Marshal Islands).

Years earlier, a giant crater on that island had been blasted out by an 18-kiloton nuclear test code-named Cactus. The contaminated soil was used to fill that crater, and then the entire thing was concreted over.

The structure today is 18 inches thick and covers 11,000 square yards. Signs worn visitors away, but people visit anyway.

The picture below is from Google Earth, showing the concrete dome on the island.

The Green Man Blog is written to spread environmental awareness and appreciation of the natural world around us. Thank you for visiting! Stay green, support the organic movement, and be sure to visit www.greenmantshirts.com or www.robjuszak.com for the best in organic cotton and bamboo t shirts!

Sea Lion Rescued

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:07:22 -0700

Eric Otjen of Sea World shows the fishing net that was removed from sea lion's neck. Sea World photo -

Good news on the sea lion that had fishing line wrapped around its neck: after 10 days, Sea World rescuers were able to capture it and remove the line.

It turns out the fishing line was actually plastic netting. The sea lion appeared healthy, although it had a cut on its chin. After the removing the plastic netting, the sea lion waddled over to the water and swam away.

The Green Man Blog is written to spread environmental awareness and appreciation of the natural world around us. Thank you for visiting! Stay green, support the organic movement, and be sure to visit www.greenmantshirts.com or www.robjuszak.com for the best in organic cotton and bamboo t shirts!

Jobs or the Environment?

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 04:39:00 -0700

The choice is difficult: plan ahead for sustainable energy policies that benefit all of us in the long run, or provide needed jobs now?

When things are going fine economically, people tend to prioritize environmental initiatives. But once it gets economically tougher, the green initiatives tend to go out the window.

Witness Australia, where a few years back the people voted climate change as a top concern. But now, with Australia facing rising interest rates and job loss, the top priority is now saving jobs. Fighting climate change has fallen to seventh in public opinion polls.

Still, Australia, the hottest driest continent on Earth, is committed to cutting carbon emissions by 5% by 2020.

If there is strong international support, the Australian government would like to increase it to 25%.

Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter, and plays a key role in coal-fired energy production. Any move they make will be huge.

It’s the short-term view that will keep on destroying the environment. And when we say environment, we are talking about our planet. Our rivers, lakes, oceans, air, wildlife, - we are its caretakers. We owe something to all who will pass through in the future, including our children, our children’s children, and on forever.

Only by taking a long-term view can we change the destructive path we now tread. The end result of our human economy is waste, poison, chemicals, and garbage.

Looking down the road we can see the huge mess we’ll eventually all choke on.

The Green Man Blog is written to spread environmental awareness and appreciation of the natural world around us. Thank you for visiting! Stay green, support the organic movement, and be sure to visit www.greenmantshirts.com or www.robjuszak.com for the best in organic cotton and bamboo t shirts!

A Sea Lion Dies Slowly From Strangulation

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:41:00 -0700

Photo by Angela Harrell, owner of Hike, Bike and Kayak, La Jolla.

It breaks your heart to see an injured animal like this: this sea lion, on the rocks in La Jolla near San Diego, California, has several loops of fishing line tangled around its neck and is slowly strangling to death.

A fishing hook is embedded in its head.

Sea World officials, alerted to the problem, can’t attempt a rescue because of the difficult area the sea lion is in.

Nearby lifeguards are watching the animal in case it moves to a more accessible area. If so, they’ll call the Sea World Rescue Team for a capture attempt.

If the sea lion cannot be rescued, it will surely die an excruciating death.

The Green Man Blog is written to spread environmental awareness and appreciation of the natural world around us. Thank you for visiting! Stay green, support the organic movement, and be sure to visit www.greenmantshirts.com or www.robjuszak.com for the best in organic cotton and bamboo t shirts!

Time for A Light Change

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:39:24 -0700

I discovered at the local Dollar Tree store that our utility company is promoting fluorescent light bulbs. They had the bulbs there for, naturally, a dollar each.

At Walmart and Target the prices are still $3.00 to $4.00 for the same bulbs.

So I grabbed 16 or so and switched out all my incandescents. Some fixtures I couldn't switch out because the new fluorescent bulbs didn't fit. But I got 14 lights switched over.

Then of course I had to break out the calculator and see what wattage I saved.

The new bulbs are 100 watt bulbs, but only consume 23 watts. So I am now using 322 watts for those light fixtures, whereas I was using over 1900 watts before. (I had mostly 100 watt incandescents, but also some 250 and 150 watt).

I kept my incandescent bulb in my reading lamp. The fluorescent bulb just wasn't cutting it.

But everywhere else they work great. Hopefully, I'll start seeing a 70% to 80% in my light bill each month.

The Green Man Blog is written to spread environmental awareness and appreciation of the natural world around us. Thank you for visiting! Stay green, support the organic movement, and be sure to visit www.greenmantshirts.com or www.robjuszak.com for the best in organic cotton and bamboo t shirts!

Sailing Out From the Past

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:02:29 -0700

Photograph by A J Stevens

The Star of India, the world’s oldest active sailing ship, is docked at San Diego. This beautiful ship is currently undergoing needed repairs, including a $42,000.00 sandblasting job of her hull.

All told, the entire refurbishing project is expected to cost close to $300,000.00.

The Star began her sailing life in 1863. Originally named Euterpe, she was built at the Ramsey Shipyard on the Isle of Man.

Her first two voyages did not go well. On the first, Euterpe suffered a collision and a mutiny. On the second, a cyclone caught her and tore away the topmasts. On the same trip her caption died and was buried at sea.

But the great ship carried on and eventually logged 21 circumnavigations, carrying cargo to India and hauling immigrants to New Zealand, Australia, California, and Chile.

The Star of India was officially retired in the 1920s, and after a series of failed plans to restore her she was left decaying in the San Diego harbor.

But famed writer and sea-adventurer Alan Villiers, visiting San Diego on a 1957 lecture tour, rallied San Diego citizens to raise money to begin restoration.

In 1976, the Star of India put out to sea once again for a short sail through the San Diego harbor, now a yearly tradition for the great sailing ship.

The Green Man Blog is written to spread environmental awareness and appreciation of the natural world around us. Thank you for visiting! Stay green, support the organic movement, and be sure to visit www.greenmantshirts.com or www.robjuszak.com for the best in organic cotton and bamboo t shirts!

You Better Get On This List: It Could Save Your Life

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 07:23:47 -0700

Are you wearing the coat pictured at left? You shouldn’t be. You don’t want to be standing near a fire on a chilly night while wearing it: it violates the flammability standards, and you might very well go up in flames.

So how do we know this?

Continue reading "You Better Get On This List: It Could Save Your Life"

Our Border Wilderness is in Trouble

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 09:59:00 -0700

We tread lightly on political issues here at the Green Man Blog. We prefer to leave the shouting and screaming for the political pundits on television.

But some of our pristine wilderness areas are being destroyed, and it needs to be talked about. The problem is this: illegal immigration.

The numbers are staggering. Consider the following:

The Tohono O’odham Indians, caretakers of 2.8 million acres of wild, beautiful wilderness running along the Arizona/Mexico border, cleaned up in one year over 7,000 abandoned cars and 65,000 pounds of narcotics left behind by the drug trade running through the area.

Human smuggling gets even worse, in terms of trashing the environment. Since 2007, Arizona’s Undocumented Migrant Waste Program has collected thousands of pounds of trash, nearly 100 tons of it so far, throughout some of the most isolated and formerly pristine wilderness areas close to the border.

Illegal immigrants collect in huge sites known as “layups,” and here all manner of garbage is dumped. When we say garbage, we’re talking about piles of human feces, tampons, drugs, backpacks, clothing, food cans, toothpaste, blankets, toys, water bottles, syringes, and used condoms.

One site, north of Nogales, Arizona, was so heavy with debris one could walk one-half mile over the garbage without ever touching the actual ground.

It’s so bad that the sites qualify as “biohazards,” and volunteers who clean the mess up have to be protected and trained to avoid exposing themselves to infectious diseases and contamination.

There are thousands of these layup sites. Experts estimate illegal immigrants leave behind 2,000 tons of garbage in our border wilderness every year.

Besides the garbage, hundreds of miles of trails are haphazardly cut through wildlife habitats, including those of coyotes, bears, mountain lions, deer, bobcats, and more. Streams are polluted and watering holes trampled, leaving wildlife struggling to source water in the desert areas.

Private groups have been documenting the destruction for years, shooting videos and posting it on YouTube.

Spaulding, Baseball, and the Cliffs

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 04:53:00 -0700

Photo by Donald McTim

San Diego’s Sunset Cliffs Natural Park goes all the way back to the early 1900s.

The cliffs stretch for about 1.5 miles along the western face of the Pt. Loma peninsula.

The dramatic scenery attracts photographers from all over; fishermen brave the crashing surf; and nearly 100 weddings are performed here each year.

Daredevils like to jump off the cliffs into the surging waves below, though it is illegal to do so.

But it sure looks like fun.

Locals have tagged various sections with names like Claibornes Cove, Pappys Point, Luscombs Point, the Rock Pile, Ab’s Reef, Newbreak beach, and No Surf Beach.

There should be a section called Spaulding’s beach, or maybe Curveball Beach.

Albert Goodwill Spaulding, the man who started the famous sporting goods store, (and was also elected to Baseball’s Hall of Fame with a pitching record of 253 wins and 55 losses, a 2.14 ERA, and a .313 batting average), built a grand park along the cliffs in 1915.

Photo by San Diegan photographer Nick Chill.
www.NickChillPhotography.com

The park cost Spaulding $2 million to build, and contained landscaped walkways, palm-thatched shelters, arched bridges, and several caves to explore.

The featured attraction was a 15x50 saltwater swimming pool cleverly carved into the natural rock so that the high tides flushed it clean every day.

When Spaulding later bequeathed the park to the City of San Diego, he asked the city to maintain it. The city instead neglected the park, and over the years, despite attempts by other San Diegans to save it, Spaulding's park was lost.

A few footings and handrails can still be seen here and there from the old park structures.

Photograph by Emilio Azevedo

It's Easy To Forecast This Problem...

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Sat, 22 May 2010 16:48:00 -0700

Notice the population growth map* at left: it measures the population growth in the arid Southwest over the last 38 years. See the problem?

We look at it and see the staggering population growths, and we have to wonder: where's the water going to come from in the future?

Already in San Diego we are facing water droughts, rationing, etc...And the future is looking bleak.

There are not currently any long-range plans to increase our southwestern water supply for the future. Any plans should have been made 38 years ago, but we fear it's too late now.

*map from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC)

Art T Exhibition Starts Today

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Fri, 21 May 2010 00:18:00 -0700

The Australian art event Creative Gippsland has been going on during the whole month of May, and we're proud to be small part of it.

Starting today, at the Stratford Courthouse Art Gallery, owner Anna Roberts is featuring an Art-T exhibition where people can create their own t-shirt designs. Anna is displaying great t-shirts from around the world, including a few of ours.

Hey, we never dreamed our work would be exhibited in an art gallery, mush less one down under in Australia, but that's the power of the internet. Sometimes what you do gets noticed, even if it's something simple like making t-shirts.

Quite an age we live in, isn't it?

Polluting the Children

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 05:08:00 -0700

Three million children die each year from environmental factors like these:

Contaminated Surface Water
Groundwater contamination
Indoor Air Pollution
Industrial Mining Activities
Metals smelting and processing
Untreated sewage
Urban air quality
Used lead acid battery recycling

Children make up 10% of the world’s population, but over 40% of the global burden of disease falls on them.*

*Blacksmith Institute

A Tour of Oak Oasis

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Fri, 07 May 2010 04:33:00 -0700

The famous October 2003 San Diego wildfires were a disaster residents will never forget. The fires were so massive that satellites clearly captured the disaster from space.

Among the millions of dollars in property damage was also all the damage done to our wilderness and wildlife. One of the casualities was the 400 acre Oak Oasis Preserve that was 95% burned over during the fires.

It had to be closed for several years to allow it to recover, but nature has made a wonderful comeback. The preserve is once again open. Few people use the 2.5 mile loop trail that runs through the park, and should you go you'll probably have it all to yourself.

Continue reading "A Tour of Oak Oasis "

Cave Luxury in Turkey

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 20:42:00 -0700

A troglodyte cave house? Well, that’s what they call it themselves, so we’re not being insulting here.

Gamirasu is the name of a twenty-room hotel opened in 1999, in Ayvali Village, Turkey.

The hotel was built around a thousand-year-old Byzantine monastic retreat, which, according to the hotel literature, “offers modern conveniences without distracting from the spiritual feeling of the area which has been known to be inhabited for more than five thousand years.”

Looking at the pictures, we must say it looks inviting to us. Of course, last time we slept in a cave it was on a wet and rainy backpacking trip. Believe us, our cave was furnished nothing like the one pictured here.

The twenty rooms available come in a standard double, a deluxe version, and three different suites: cave, family, and superior.

Depending on the room and the season, rates run from $100.00 to $500.00 per night.

New Horizon Sailing In

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:00:00 -0700

After 25 days at sea, the New Horizon will be docking at the Scripps Institute in San Diego. It has spent all this time studying ways to clean up a floating quagmire of plastic twice the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean.

This quagmire of plastic lies about 1,000 miles off the California coast. This region, known as the North Pacific Gyre, is the eventual destination of debris and trash dumped into the ocean. A plastic bottle discarded at a San Diego beach could spend as long as six years circling the Pacific before reaching the gyre.

Conducting a study like this costs $30,000.00 per day. The total cost of $1.1 million was paid for by a grant of $600,000.00 from the University of California's Ship Funds, and donations from various sources in the United States. The biggest single donation, however, came from the Belgium-based Bureau of International Recycling.

With any luck, the good people at Scripps will find a way to clean this mess up and get all this plastic junk out of our oceans.

Here is a good animation showing the area studied by Scripps.

Hot, Green, and Shameless

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:40:57 -0700

…is the slogan for the new Angry Green Girl blog.

Just launched, the blog features the Angry Green Girl herself, plus Jessica the reviewer and Jamie the Intern.

Their first promotional bid was washing hybrid cars while dressed in bikinis.

Sadly, Green Man Blog was not there to (un)cover the event. But the site looks promising. We’ll be keeping an eye or two on these girls.

Green Man T-Shirts in Trouble!

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Sat, 01 May 2010 06:33:00 -0700

The Australian magazine Trouble honored us recently by featuring one of our t-shirt designs. The design is "Tasmanian Wolf x1933", although they prefer to call it Tasmanian Tiger.

Trouble is a popular print and online magazine filled with interesting and off-beat articles about the Australian art scene and more. You can subscribe by email, as we did, and have a good read each month about what’s happening down under.

Right now, one of the biggest Australian art events is the Creative Gippsland event going on during the whole month of May.

At the Stratford Courthouse Art Gallery, owner Anna Roberts is featuring an Art-T exhibition where people can create their own t-shirt designs. And Anna is also displaying great t-shirts from around the world, such as t-shirts from that American company called Green Man T-Shirts. Naturally.

Rain? What's that?

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:02:52 -0700

The joke in San Diego is that we have but one season: summer.

But that isn’t true. We have four seasons like everyone else.

We call ours: before summer, summer, after summer, and not summer.

We’ve had some unusual weather activity the last day or so. Oddly, water fell from the sky. Schools closed, and legions of local scientists came out to investigate. It was determined that this phenomenon was called rain.

If it happens again we’ll be asking to be declared a national disaster area.

Last summer, we visited Chicago and ate at one of the many fine restaurants there.

On a pleasantly cool evening that was just off the heels of a beautiful warm day, our waiter commented how fine the Chicago weather had recently been. He asked how the weather was in San Diego.

We had to honestly answer, “Like this. But every day.”

We didn’t mean to burst his bubble, but it’s true. There just isn’t any finer weather to be found.

The picture at right shows one of the huge cumulus clouds that form over our eastern horizon in the right conditions. It usually means a summer rainstorm, especially in the mountains. These clouds can really be something to see, oftentimes towering thousands of feet high.

The Ship Breakers

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 04:56:00 -0700

Type in “Alang, India” into Google Earth and do a flyover of the beach. See the ships?

This is where ships go to die.

At Alang the ships are broken up into small recycled pieces of scrap. Prior to the current recession, the ship breakers broke down 50 ships a month.

Now they are down to about 25 ships per month.

The working conditions are poor, and the 20,000 workers receive Rs.240 per day ($5.00).

There has been a push in recent years to improve the workers’ safety and health, and to be more environmentally conscious.

The environmental consequences of the ship breaking so far has been horrible, with both the workers and the environment inundated with pollutants such as asbestos, lead, and poisonous chemicals.

Going...Going...Gone?

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:29:00 -0700

Aral Sea 1964

In the 1960s, the Aral Sea was the 4th largest lake in the world. But because the two major rivers feeding it have been diverted away for nearly 40 years, the lake is disappearing.

Aral Sea 1973

The rivers now irrigate millions of acres of land for cotton and rice, but an ecological disaster is occurring for the Aral Sea and its human neighbors.

Aral Sea 1987

The Aral Sea is now half its original size, and the salinity content has increased from 10% to more than 23%. The local fishing industry has been devastated as the fish have died off.

Aral Sea 1999

The exposed lake bed is prone to massive dust storms, blowing up to 75,000 tons of soil, salt, and pesticide residue each year across the land.

Respiratory conditions are common throughout the area, and inhabitants say the overall climate is hotter and drier than ever before.

Abandoned fishing boats now lie on dry sands miles from the receding shore.

With the fishing industry gone, abandoned boats sit miles away from the ever shrinking sea.

A Staggering Population Growth

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 02:55:00 -0700

Take a look at the following numbers:

World Population Growth

Year Population

1        200 million
1000   275 million
1500   450 million
1650   500 million
1750   700 million
1804   1 billion
1850   1.2 billion
1900   1.6 billion
1927   2 billion
1950   2.55 billion
1955   2.8 billion
1960   3 billion
1965   3.3 billion
1970   3.7 billion
1975   4 billion
1980   4.5 billion
1985   4.85 billion
1990   5.3 billion
1995   5.7 billion
1999   6 billion
2006   6.5 billion
2009   6.8 billion
2011   7 billion
2025   8 billion
2050   9.4 billion
*Source: Matt Rosenberg, About.com

It took 1800 years for the world’s population to grow from a mere 200 million to 1 billion. But it has taken only another 200 years to grow from 1 billion to nearly 7 billion.

Staggering, isn’t it? Things are changing; they must change. The old ways of doing things will not work anymore. The Earth’s resources must be managed wisely. We cannot waste, we cannot wantonly destroy, we cannot use the world as a sewer and chemical dump any longer.

The population growth means our combined impact upon the planet can now be measured. The old days where it “didn’t matter” are gone.

From now on, all of us share a responsibility for the world.

The Green Man Blog is written to spread environmental awareness and appreciation of the natural world around us. Thank you for visiting! Stay green, support the organic movement, and be sure to visit www.greenmantshirts.com or www.robjuszak.com for the best in organic cotton and bamboo t shirts!

Shame on California

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 04:59:00 -0700

Palomar Mountain shaded glade.

After years of fiscal mismanagement in California, the state is starting to cut back on expenditures. Unfortunately, state parks are on the chopping block.

One of the parks scheduled to close is Palomar Mountain.

Palomar Observatory, near the summit.

This 1,683-acre park is one of our favorites in southern California. It has a unique feel and look to it, being filled with thick forest and deep fern-heavy glades, and it has a Sierra-Nevada atmosphere despite being only 6,140 feet high and so far south.

In a busy year, over 100,000 people visit the park. But unless additional money can be found, the park will close indefinitely after Labor Day because of the state's budget crisis.

Sunset magazine recently named Palomar one of the 50 best campgrounds in the western United States. It’ll be a shame to lose it.

A Madman’s Forest

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:01:00 -0700

Modern Turkmenistan was, for a time, ruled by a madman named Saparmyrat Niyazov. He called himself the Prophet and was wealthy beyond all comprehension, stealing the country blind and building huge monuments to himself throughout the region.

During his reign he banned beards, gold teeth, opera, and forbid education after the ninth grade on the theory that uneducated people were easier to govern. He renamed the twelve months of the year, using his own name for January and names of family members for the other months.

He isolated the country from the outside: no internet, no cell phones, no satellite communications, no international telephones. Criticism was not allowed; anybody who dared disappeared or were tortured in his prisons.

He made Turkmenistan into a heaven for himself and a hell for his people.

One of his fantastic projects was to create a forest for Turkmenistan. He wanted Turkmenistan—rocky, barren, dune-covered, wind-swept, a sun-baked plain crossed with ravines and gullies, two-thirds covered by the Kara Kum desert—to resemble Russia with its great pine forests.

“I will build a forest in the desert,” he proclaimed. And so he had millions of Douglas firs and White pines planted, only to have the trees wither in the desert heat and blown flat by the scouring winds.

Niyazov died in 2006.

Al2 SiO5

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:27:00 -0700

We have a natural interest in all things green, of course, and we came upon something new the other day. At least, new to us.

Kyanite crystal comes not only in green, but also in blue, yellow and black. It is a fairly hard mineral used in industry for various things, but its more interesting properties are metaphysical.

According to many, green kyanite puts one in touch with nature’s spirits. Many craftspeople use green kyanite in exotic jewelry for that reason.

We learned about green kyanite from a blog article written by fellow San Diegan Kristin Malotte. Kristin also creates jewelry from kyanite, and sells it on her Etsy site.

The World's Most Polluted River

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 02:28:00 -0700

We usually think of the South Pacific Islands as beautiful, mostly untouched areas.

But that’s not true anymore. Industry has hit many parts of the area hard, with predictable results.

Near Jakarta, West Java, the Citarum River bears the garbage and pollution from over 500 factories and 9 million people.

Residents “farm” the river, picking out garbage to sell or recycle for a few pennies.

Continue reading "The World's Most Polluted River"

Submit Your Article!

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 04:11:00 -0700

Have a story you’d like to see here?

Well, then, send it along!

We encourage submissions of all types, but here are some suggestions:

1) Focus on environmental news, Green Man themes and legends, wilderness backpacking adventures you’ve had, great photographs you’ve taken, or events coming to your area that are interesting or that deserve promotion.

2) Short is good: under 500 words, 6 photographs or less (500 pixel width is perfect).

3) Submitting a blog article from your own site is fine, but try to make it a stand-alone article. In other words, readers should be able to grasp the essential story without knowing anything about your blog (but we’ll be glad to post a link back to it).

4) Don’t be discouraged if we don’t feature your piece. Chances are high we will, though.

5) Tell us a little about yourself so we can preface the article with something about you: your name, where you live, things you like. Naturally, you don’t want to bare your soul (this IS the internet, after all; things go around the world here in nanoseconds), but readers like to know who is doing the writing.

Do these things and you’ll see your piece in lights, or something like that.

Here are some downers, though:

A) Political rants: we’ll leave these to the pundits.

B) Obscenity: we like a clean environment.

C) Plagiarism: your own photographs are best by far, and if you quote or use information from another source please cite it.

So how to send it to us? Easy. Use our email: greenman@greenmanblog.com

Attach your article and photographs, and we’ll put it all together and post it!

Submit Your Photo!

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 08:01:00 -0700

Have a great photo of yours you'd like to see get published on our Photoblog?

Send it in!

If we like it, we'll put it in the Photoblog with your name and the year it was taken.

Photos should be no more than 500px in width, color or black and white, and preferably show an outdoor scene, or people engaged in outdoor activties or events.

Send your photo as an attachment to:

greenman@greenmantshirts.com

About Us: Dave Urban and Rob Juszak

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:00:00 -0700

Standing on Mt. Whitney, September 2008. (Rob is on the right, Dave on the left). We came up the west side to avoid the crowds coming up the main trail from Lone Pine. What a trip; two weeks in the Sierra Nevada and finishing with summiting the highest point in the lower 48. Life is good. (photo by Ryan McKee, who was kind enough to take the photo and email it to us later because we forgot to bring our cameras).

Green Man T-Shirts is two guys who have known each other for over 40 years: Dave Urban and Rob Juszak.

Like many others, we’ve had countless adventures, including touring by bicycle from San Diego to Vancouver, rowing down the Baja coast, motorcycling all across the Southwest, hiking the Sierra Nevada, bushwhacking through the Mojave Desert, and many other adventures both large and small.

Both of us are accomplished linguists, speaking American, Australian, English, Canadian, and some amount of Spanish.

Rob is the artist; Dave muddles through the technical side of things and writes the blog (using the super-secret name Green Man).

Both of us have spent way too much time in the corporate world—specifically the retail corporate world—where things are run just like that wonderful movie, Office Space.

And so we made a solemn vow to each other, with a blood oath and everything, that we would never run our own business the way the mega-behemoths run theirs. (The red stapler showing in all our videos is our reminder to us).

Now we have Green Man T-Shirts: a business dedicated to selling the most basic of clothes, something everybody can use, and using the business to give something back to the world.

Giving away 25% of the profits to environmental causes isn’t the way to get rich. But we hope, with your help and support, to make a small difference in the world. Heaven knows, it certainly needs it.

So look at our site, read the blog, watch the videos, and maybe buy some t-shirts. You buy them anyway, right? So buy them from us!

Best wishes,
Dave and Rob

Contact: greenman@greenmantshirts.com

Nature Taking It All Back

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 04:19:00 -0700

The Rhyolite Cook Bank Building in its heyday. The original cost to build it was $90,000.00

Nature has a way of reclaiming its own. It takes time, but we think nature has plenty of that.

Cook Bank Building in the 1930s.

You see this happening across the American Southwest with all its ghost towns. Rhyolite, in Nevada, is one such ghost town.

Cook Bank Building early 1940s

The town began in 1905 as a mining camp. Gold was the big draw, and at one point 8,000 people populated the little town. By 1907, Rhyolite had running water, electrical lines, a newspaper, a hospital, a school, and even an opera house.

Cook Bank building 1948

But a reversal of fortune hit the town; the biggest mine dried up, and new investors weren't willing to throw more money into mining the area. By 1920, there was no one left.

The town, what was left of it, became a site for movies, and tourists came to see the remnants of the town and all its abandoned buildings.

Cook Bank Building today.

But eventually the buildings crumbled away or were scavenged for other uses, and today there is only a fraction to see of the original town.

The photos at right, from the Nevada Historical Society, show the decay of one of Rhyolite’s finest structures, the Cook Bank Building, over time.

A Lilypad Like No Other

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 03:04:00 -0700

"Lilypad" floating ecopolis. Design by Vincent Callebaut.

What if…you built a huge floating city that was completely self-contained and sustainable?

Architect Vincent Callebaut came up with the idea pictured above, dubbed Lilypad.

Lilypad would be huge, capable of housing 50,000 people. It would float along the natural currents of the Earth, like the Gulf Stream.

Its center section would be a lagoon that catches and stores fresh rain water, and would act as a giant ballast system for the floating city. Marinas attach to the perimeter.

"Lilypad" floating ecopolis. Design by Vincent Callebaut

The designer used an Amazon lilypad plant called Amazonia Victoria Regia as a model. The ecopolis would derive energy from the sun, wind, and wave action; recycle all its waste; and have zero carbon emissions.

Sick Water and Flying Toilets

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 07:18:00 -0700

Yesterday was World Water Day, and the UN released this statement in its global water report: “Every year, more people die from the consequences of unsafe water than from all forms of violence, including war––and the greatest impacts are on children under the age of five.”

Continue reading "Sick Water and Flying Toilets"

How Many Ways Can We Recycle?

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 22:19:00 -0700

At Green Man T-Shirts, we are always trying to do the “green thing.”

We reuse shipping boxes, scour Craigslist for “experienced” office furniture and supplies that deserve a new life (instead of being consigned to the dump), and anything else we can think of.

Continue reading "How Many Ways Can We Recycle?"

Anza-Borrego Film Wins Top Honors

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 02:17:00 -0700

The Anza-Borrego desert is truly one of the most stunning wild areas we have in California.

We’ve hiked through it extensively, yet the 600,000 acre state park is so large we’ve barely covered a small fraction.

Continue reading "Anza-Borrego Film Wins Top Honors"

This Beatle Doesn't Eat Meat

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 19:21:23 -0700

Watch this horrific video; it might change your mind about eating meat.

Continue reading "This Beatle Doesn't Eat Meat"

A Walking Tree Man?

nospam@example.com (Green Man) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 04:24:00 -0700

Yeah, we’re guilty of the whole YouTube thing. Aimlessly clicking around from one video to the next…where do people come up with this stuff?

The video we saw today made us laugh. It’s silly, clumsy, amateurish, but also oddly endearing for its sincere message.

Believe it or not, it has gotten 12,000 hits.