Roz Savage succeeds again, making landfall after a solo journey of thousands of kilometres.

An update on Roz Savage, the adventurer who is trying to become the first woman to row solo across the Pacific Ocean: she's arrived at Tarawa, a small island in the Republic of Kiribati, successfully completing the second stage of her journey.

(For some background info, see my earlier post here.)

She was alone at sea for 203 days, having started this stage on May 24 from Hawaii. She rowed almost 4,000 kilometres. (Hard for us on land to image such distances and the physical and mental strain.)

Her overall voyage is planned in three stages. The 41-year-old British woman is also campaigning on behalf of the environment and each stage carries a special message. She began her adventure last summer, when she rowed from California to Hawaii. Her aim then was to draw attention to the damage caused by disposable plastics. This summer's section of the crossing carried the message about our need to take action against climate change.

Next year, Roz hopes to complete the final leg of her amazing trip, taking her all the way to Australia. I'm not sure she's announced the focus of her campaign for the last stage.


But back to her landfall: upon her arrival at Tarawa, she was greeted by hundreds of people and community elders. She was treated to performances of traditional songs and dances in her honour. It looks like it was quite the celebration.


The photos are
provided by her team and are copyright Roz Savage. They are used with permission.

Congratulations, Roz!

Living roofs

If you like green design, you may find these examples of "living roofs" interesting. Architects today are increasingly looking for ways to improve the ecology of cityscapes.

These photos were featured at www.ecosalon.com, and give us an idea of how more buildings will look in the future. The photo above is of Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.

This is a building in Darmstadt, Germany. It's a residential complex called the Waldspirale, built in the 1990s. It features a unique curving roof with landscaping.

Here's a familiar shot for all my friends in Toronto. This is the roof of the Mountain Equipment Co-op store on King Street West. The company is committed to sustainability and in greening its operations.


And this is the roof of California's Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano.

Green roofs reduce energy consumption, reduce our carbon footprint and aid in the beautification of city spaces. They also open opportunities for food production in downtown areas. For more on that topic, I pointed to a link in an earlier post on vertical farms. It was this item from the New York Times.

Why is the water dropping in the Great Lakes?

If you walk along the shores of any of the Great Lakes these days, you notice that the water levels have dropped significantly.

This morning I was down at the Lake Ontario waterfront and saw for myself that the water line is about a foot-and-a-half lower than last year. Moorings and pilings are getting higher and drier.

Scientists and environmentalists are not sure what's causing this drop in water levels. It may be a change in rainfall patterns, it may be related to global warming or, as others suggest, it may be related to human activity, like dredging and industrialization in the Great Lakes basin.

Whatever the cause, it's disturbing. We can only hope it's temporary. According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, between 1998 and 2000 the levels of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron fell at the fastest pace ever recorded and the situation is similar to the drop that occurred during the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Earlier this year, residents on both sides of the Canadian and U.S. border pushed for an investigation into whether erosion in the St. Clair River, between Lakes Michigan and Huron, was causing a big drop in the water level in Lake Huron. The Georgian Bay Association wondered whether dredging had caused erosion significant enough to cause nine billion liters of water per day to drain from Lake Huron into the lower Great Lakes and out into the ocean.

A few weeks ago, the International Joint Commission, which provides information to both the American and Canadian governments, concluded that there's no evidence that erosion is the cause. The findings are still preliminary, but video pictures from the bottom of the channel seem to indicate a stable rock bed. However, many questions remain to be answered and more studies, over longer periods of time, will need to be done.

We've seen lots of related stories in recent months. Residents of Atlanta went through a difficult summer, as a prolonged drought in the Southeast led to significantly reduced water levels in Lake Lanier, a primary reservoir for the city.

Let's hope science provides some clues to the cause of these changes. It really would be a sign of trouble, I think, if the Great Lakes were to continue drying up.

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Photo: http://www.stock.xchng/

More Hemingway material...did he deplete valuable fish stocks?

A very strange question. What's this all about?

In the New York Times' weekly Book Review, Paul Greenberg examines the writer's passion for fishing, particularly for catching big fish like marlin and bluefin tuna. Nothing unusual about this; we've heard this before.

But here's the surprise: Greenberg seriously wonders whether Hemingway's hobby may have been responsible for declining fish stocks today.

The idea is not as far-fetched as it seems at first glance.

By ingenious caclulation based on photographs and historical data, Greenberg figures that Hemingway alone may have caught more than 500 marlin during his years in Cuba.

These fish, you see, never lived to reproduce; and therein lies the tale.

It's an intriguing essay, an environmental perspective with an underlying fondness for the man known as "Papa."

(Illustration is from the US Fish and Wildlife Service)