Goodbye, Dr. Wallace J. Nichols

Earlier this week I was deeply saddened when I ran across the following on Dr. Wallace J. Nichol's social media feed (which I follow on both Instagram and Facebook). Nichols, who regularly went by J on his own website, wrote the book Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do. Published in summer of 2014, this marks the 10 year anniversary of his book. Blue Mind happens to be one of my top favorite books of all times, and I have read it at least 3 times....and written about it more than that, as you'll see in my list below.

Seeing this highlighted social media post this week was the first I'd heard of his passing, at the age of 56--far too young AND far too close to my age! News like this never seems realistic when the person passing is fairly young. For years I've been waiting for his next book because I literally "soak up" his writing and couldn't get enough. Now I see that other than his children's book Dear Wild Child: You Carry Your Home Inside of You that he wrote with and for his daughter after California wildfires took their home, that dream of mine will not come to be.

I am mourning this loss of J and how his "blue mind" message was so powerful to me. It probably doesn't help that the '80s girl in me (who has recently watched Brats by Andrew McCarthy and a lot of Brat Pack movies afterward for nostalgia sake) has seen the recent loss of other icons from my younger years: Richard Simmons, Bob Newhart, Shannon Doherty, Dr. Ruth, Martin Mull, and Donald Sutherland. These "younger" losses hit even harder. Especially when I don't feel my calendar/chronological age.

I've been comforted reading about the lost of this blue mind hero of mine with the following tribute articles written by some big name publications in the world of environmentalism, outdoor education, and sustainability.

• Outside Magazine's post "The Legacy of Wallace J. Nichols, Founder of the Blue Mind Movement by Michael Roberts (7/2/2024)

• Plastic Pollution Coalition's post "Honoring Dr. Wallace J Nichols, Longtime Friend and Advisor to Plastic Pollution Coalition (6/16/2024)

• Santa Cruz Works' post "Celebrating the Life and Legacy of Dr. Wallace J. Nichols: A Champion of the Blue Mind" by Doug Erickson (6/17/2024)

• Turtle Island Restoration Network's post "Turtle Island Restoration celebrates the life of Dr. Wallace J. Nichols" by Founder Todd Steiner (7/3/2024)

• National Marine Sanctuary Foundation's post "Foundation Statement on the Passing of Dr. Wallace J. Nichols" by President/CEO  Joel R. Johnson (6/19/2024)

Here is the post on his own website by his family announcing his passing:  "In Memory of Dr. Wallace J. Nichols" (6/21/2024).

In reading so many articles about Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, I even learned he wrote a post on his Patreon site right before his passing, showing all of the upcoming plans he had and how his work was not done. He had plans.

I also pay tribute to J here with my own list here of past posts I've written on the concept of Blue Mind:

• My Backyard BFF  (8/17/2016)
• Blue Mind: The Book  (4/24/2019)
• Outdoor Adventures: Punta Cana's Scape Park  (9/21/2019)
• Blue Mind Days & Hours Outside, Summer 2020  (9/19/2020)
• Blue Mind Revisited  (6/26/2021)
• Green & Blue: What the Doctor Ordered  (7/7/2021)
  
• #Blueminding in Duck, NC  (7/14/2021) 
• Blue Marble Project  (8/17/2021)
• Blue Mind, Concert Style (8/28/2021)
  
• Blue Mind to the Rescue  (10/13/2021)
• Hydrotherapy for the Win  (11/13/2021)
  
• Benefits of Blue & Green Spaces  (8/12/2023)
  
• World Blue Mind Day: July 23rd  (7/22/2023)

To contribute toward the continuation of his work, you can visit The Dr Wallace J Nichols Memorial Fund GoFundMe Page. Here too, you can read his incredible biography of all he accomplished in his 56 years!

J, you will be missed, far and wide. My thoughts go out to your friends and family who feel their immediate holes in their heart and lives where you should still be. Thank you for your work in marine biology, your books, your environmentalism, your Blue Mind Movement, and for putting words in place that beautifully describe my relationship with water.

Wallace J. Nichols' photo quote created by me in Canva.com using words from the text of "Blue Mind" for my June 26, 2021 GTG post: https://www.greenteamgazette.com/2021/06/blue-mind-revisited.html; photo image with Dr. Wallace J. Nichols & blue marble from https://www.santacruzworks.org/news/celebrating-the-life-and-legacy-of-dr-wallace-j-nichols, Google Slide images created by me, with social media posts from July 23, 2024 https://www.facebook.com/wallacejnichols/posts/pfbid037zM699sknKzGKjupCefJ2PmZD4UKnbBgxxrMddQ87edasPKNhKGttPu8GqmBqhfdl, video from https://youtu.be/0dgNVSV1qow?si=lDOWcH6DFrg032jv

Long Live Les Éco-Olympiades

The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris are a week away, beginning on July 26 and running until August 11th. Excitement is building across many sectors for this global, quadrennial event of celebrated humanity and athleticism.

As with events like this, each successive one wants to be bigger and better in as many ways as possible. Paris' Olympics this year is no different:

As mentioned in the video above, one of the ways Paris' Olympics plan to lead are through its green initiatives.  Interesting Engineering's Sujita Sinha's 7-15-2024 post and Forbes' Claire Poole's 7-19-2024 article detail some pretty cool eco-initiatives in place here for this summer's olympics:

• When planning the events, emphasis was put on minimal new construction while also improving existing ones to house the events. Examples include adding a retractable roof to the Georges Vallerey pool and restoration of the Grand Palais.

• When new buildings were built (such as the new aquatics center), sustainable elements were put into place including specialty roof design and solar energy farms. Likewise, seats constructed of recycled plastic were installed where needed. (11,000 to be exact!)  Additionally, these structures were purposely built for reuse.

• The Olympic Village incorporated seashell pavements and air purifiers near the roads.Additionally, the Village is outfitted with furniture specifically created from reused or recycled materials such as badminton shuttlecock-created tables and bottle cap-created chairs, parachute fiber covered bean bags, and couches constructed from metal sidewalk barriers at their base.

• 
  After the games, furnishings in the Olympic Village are planned to reused, donated, or repurposed, giving thousands of items second life rather than have them be a part of the throw-away mentality.
• Using famous landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, the Seine River, and the Palace of Versailles as backdrop settings for a number of sporting events.

• The opening ceremony will be help in the streets of Paris as well as on a Seine River in a flotilla-stryle boat parade. 

• Environmental strides to improve the urban infrastructure include "250 miles of new bike lanes, an extended Métro network, a cleaner Seine, and 300,000 new trees planted."

• Food options for the athletes have emphasis on plant-based menu items as well as being locally sourced.

• The event-winning medals have an emphasis on reuse with each of them containing "18 grams of original iron from the Eiffel Tower inserted, placed at the heart of the medals, to highlight circular economy messaging. The metal was removed and preserved during previous renovation campaigns."

• In an effort to protect seagrasses near Calanques National Park in Marseille where some of the sailing competitions are planned to occur, organizers are preparing to use drone-like buoys. In doing so, this is more protective to the carbon-soaking grasses because there will be less disruption to them due to not being dredged by anchors.

To do a deep dive on the 2024 Paris Olympic's commitment to sustainability and see their nods to the 2015 Paris Agreement (with goal date of 2030),  check out their website and their multitude of reference points, remarks, and reports. Then also watch this video from Interesting Engineering to see how their plan for fewer building projects for these games is both a sustainable AND money-saving move.

 

Videos from https://youtu.be/IMLMJVX4NsU?si=9Mxpz3x42iSjeMJJ and https://youtu.be/WBiPdEcyAlM?si=Voaq7QhXzKhys-Dk, Logo from https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2019-10-24/paris-olympics-2024-logo and https://olympics.com/ioc/sustainability

Environmental Elmo

Elmo, of Sesame Street fame, is one pretty well-known and easily recognizable muppet. A regular on Sesame Street since 1980, he's one of our favorite 3-and-a-half-year-old...at least in our house. 

Elmo was a favored beanie baby in our house with our daughter. One particular trip to the Florida Strawberry Festival (many moons ago) brings back an Elmo fear-factor moment when we realized Elmo was once lost, dropped from stroller snuggles. Luckily, with swift retracing of steps, he was miraculously found before our 2 year old even realized he was missing. 

Phew! Crisis averted!

Just like being found in the vast fairgrounds for us, Elmo is always full of surprises. Elmo's latest is an environmental partnership between Sesame Street and Cut Media's HiHo Kids YouTube Channel. This collaboration pairs Elmo with HiHo Kids and their "Kids Meet" Series to create a two-part video series to help build environmental stewardship and curiosity of our natural world through eyes of kids and Elmo! 

In early May 2024, they released "Kids Meet a BeeKeeper," where Elmo does just that: meet a beekeeper. Bees can be a seemingly scary insect-enemy to small children (and let's face it--many adults). But, through their 7:41 short video, they highlight the importance of bees for pollinating our growing world as well as our grocery stores!

Just released this weekend on July 13th, the second in this series was "Kids Meet a Marine Biologist." With Elmo right there with the rest of the HiHo Kids again, they learn all about the importance of of oceans and how the protect the marine life that lives there by striving for clean ocean waters during this 7 minute short.

To get your Environmental Elmo fix, you can watch these two below. Then definitely check out the HiHo Kids YouTube channel to meet more folks with fascinating positions as well as some of their other series like "Kids Try," "Kids Design," "Don't You Dare," "Kids Show & Tell," "What's Popping," and more. You can also find them on the Sesame Street YouTube Channel. Additionally, Elmo & HiHo Kids paired together in 2022 to "Meet a Dancer" & "Meet a Basketball Player" where they discussed sports, wellness, character traits vital to athletes, as well as unique situations and their personal stories of triumph.

Videos from https://youtu.be/iYVguKQekRQ?si=armDfQWHVDqlw9Gh and https://youtu.be/NNItHwcj2no?si=6koBVqGz0TiaoHKE; Human Images from my camera archive. Elmo images from https://www.instagram.com/sesamestreet/reel/C6wPWYBOZlh/ and https://www.facebook.com/SesameStreet/posts/who-are-elmos-new-besties-the-bees-meet-a-beekeeper-with-elmo-and-our-friends-hi/984188723065117/?locale=af_ZA

Watching Wildlife: Vacation Style

As a follow up to my Watching Wildlife post earlier this summer, it seems only natural to share a little Canva creation I made from our family's Cape Cod adventure last month where we did just that: watched some wildlife. Whales, in fact. We booked a whale watching excursion through Dolphin Fleet of Provincetown, Massachusetts. Leaving from the very tip of Cape Cod, we traveled further north where we witnessed a show of nature.

We managed to find ourselves navigating the boat in and around two pods of 3 whales, and a couple solo swimmers. The one doing a major lounge about in the sun. For a solid five minutes or so, that whale was just doing a playful back stroke, flapping its flippers in the water as if it hadn't a care in the world. It was completely mesmerizing and we got some photos and vides from that day. 

Additionally, the on-board naturalists were phenomenal. We learned so much. On top of that, Dolphin Fleet has cataloged thousands of whales using a photo-identification system. They were able to identify by name the whales we saw. 

It definitely was a memorable experience where photos and videos truly do not do it justice. 

If you ever get a chance to take a whale watching trip--do it!

To learn more about Dolphin Fleet and the educational research of whale watching, click here.

Cape Cod map from https://www.tripsavvy.com/cape-cod-marthas-vineyard-nantucket-maps-3265660, Video created in Canva using my photos/videos from our whale watching trip.