Important Info From the Cleo Institute
What do a coyote, manatee and Burmese python all have in common?
They each play an integral role in a new mural project (www.miamimurals.org) in Miami, Florida to raise environmental awareness. These murals have the unique distinction of using A.R. or “Augmented Reality” created by Cheung and her team of MIT graduates. Artists from Miami have joined forces with the MIT team to create a social campaign where “Art brings in that emotional element that’s been missing. Change requires an injection of empathy and inspiration” states Cheung. The animals in these murals represent at least 10,000 species going extinct each year. This translates to 150-200 species of animals going extinct every day. This is 1,000-10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate!
In addition, the CLEO Institute founded by Caroline Lewis, who was recognized by TIME magazine as one of the 31 most influential people in the South, has joined forces with this mural project team to form “Before It’s Too Late” (www.beforeitstoolate.earth). Lewis was appointed as 1 of 11 environmental education professionals to the EPA’s National Environmental Education Advisory Council in 2012. According to Kerry Emanuel, Ph.D. From the Massachusetts Institute, “A child born today can expect the ocean levels to rise between 1-4 feet in their lifetime. In the U.S. alone, 5 million people live within 4 feet of the local high tide level.
There is no debate that our sea levels are rising. Earth’s oceans are taking in 90% of the heat from global warming and it’s affecting all species of animals as well.
In New Jersey:
According to 24/7 Wall Street, a Delaware-based financial firm, “35 American cities are at risk of becoming uninhabitable due to flooding and climate change by the end of the 21st century.” It is predicted that nine of these cities are in New Jersey with Hoboken as being number 2 right behind Miami, Florida. In 40 years 29.5% of homes will be underwater, with 49.8% homes under water by 2060 and a whopping 71.3% by 2,100. Mayor Ravinder Bhalla of Hoboken has hired “Rebuild by Design” to come up with solutions such as wet weather pumps, resiliency parks, and underground retention tanks in order to thwart off this dire prediction. The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development or (HUD) launched a competition in the summer of 2013 to develop ideas to improve physical, ecological, economic and social resilience in regions affected by Superstorm Sandy. The proposed project was one of the six winning concepts to develop goals to reduce frequent flooding due to storm surge, high tides, and heavy rainfalls. HUD awarded $230 million to the state of New Jersey for the Project in the municipalities of Hoboken, Weehawken, and Jersey City. The proposed project takes a multi-faceted approach intended to address flooding from both major storm surges and high tides as well as from heavy rainfall events. To find out more about their work go to https://www.nj.gov/dep/floodresilience/rbd-hudsonriver.htm
What we must do:
We must understand our role as informed consumers. According to Caroline Lewis, there are three essential understandings we must have in order to reduce our mass consumption of greenhouse gases which include oil, coal and natural gases. These stored carbons took over 1 million years to create. Yet our carbon dioxide levels are increasing way too rapidly. The carbon cycle has been compromised which means we:
- Must live as small as possible minimizing our carbon footprints. Drive less, use compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL) which last for about 10,000 hours and use much less energy than incandescents – about 75% less.
- Vote and hold our elected officials accountable. We each must speak up so they will listen to us.
- Create programs and initiatives which engage masses of people to be involved in every way possible.
- Must be well informed in order to transform our earth and all of it’s inhabitants.
For More Information:
There are 3 institutions which you can receive more information on this subject. One is NOAA (https://www.noaa.gov) which is an agency within the Department of Commerce; NASA (https://www.nasa.gov) helps to warn us of harmful algal blooms in lakes and reservoirs and looks for freshwater resources. Additional articles from various ongoing scientific publications and journals including Discover, Scientific American and Popular Science.