Manoa vog
The afternoon sun was an unnatural-looking orange smudge in the sky when I got off work yesterday. The city was covered in a blanket of gray. I honestly thought there was huge fire somewhere. Nope, just the vog back again.
These were taken the today, looking into Manoa valley.
9 a.m.
6:30 p.m.
Mel breaks down the vog phenomenon, for those unfamiliar.
Weather people say it should clear by the end of the weekend when the winds change. One TV newscast reports that the most noxious of the sulfurous fumes dont travel too far from the eruption. *cross fingers* Tho the Big Island gets the worst of it, vog is causing health problems across the islands and apparently economic ones, too.
My contacts feel like plastic wrap on my eyeballs; sinuses and throat are itchy. I think I’m building up an immunity tho, last month I was sneezing and sniffling like crazy. Meh.
More info:
- Vog Safety Tips [Honolulu Advertiser]
- Volcanic Emissions Cover State [KITV]
- Vog in Hawaii: Information and Resources [Virtual Scratchpad]
earth day every day: plastic bags
It’s a pet peeve of mine how bag-happy the local grocery stores can be. Does the 12-pack of soda–with the handle–really need to be double-plastic-bagged?? I think not. Sheesh. My theory is they use as many bags as possible so you feel like your $80 worth of groceries got you something, but canvas, mesh and reusable plastic bags tell the truth, well, at least, they hold more and don’t require double-bagging.
A few years ago, I was too shy to bust out my own bag at the store. I didn’t want to be that granola chick holding up the line at Long’s offering a funky net bag or tote bag to the cashier. But when I got three of these bags for Christmas, I figured I’d at least use em at Kokua Market where the organic-loving clientele wouldn’t blink. Now I’m so used to carrying them around, I have no shame to bust em out at Safeway or the corner liquor store. Sometimes the clerk even thanks me.
Apparently normal plastic bags take like 1,000 years to degrade (or a few decades, depending on the source) and require obscene quantities of crude oil to make. When you combine that with the huge number we go through and the damage they can do in marine environments, it def becomes a problem–but a solvable one. You can easily find out more, it’s a trendy topic right now. Regarding that last link, I personally don’t see the need to make a fashion statement out of a shopping bag, I think it kind of misses the point that if you only have a few things to carry, any old bag will usually do, messenger, backpack, tote bag, whatever, but yea, whatever.
At the same time, banning plastic bags outright doesn’t seem totally necessary. They’ve recently done this in San Francisco and are discussing it in Hawaii and in a number of cities elsewhere. I think charging for (biodegradable) plastic bags would be fair and offering recycling for plastic bags seems like a great idea.
Of course if a store choses to ban them, more power to to them. But paper isn’t really environmentally that much better and there are a lot of ways to reuse plastic bags, from garbage to lunches, and my lil sis tells me that they’re essential for picking up dog poo. Or even these crazy lil craft projects that I’ll never do.
Filed under Hawaii, environment | Comments (6)huge shark deep under waters near Molokai
Says one of the University of Hawai’i researchers who captured this footage: "It’s not the biggest shark ever seen, nor is it a new species. It captures a moment when an experienced pro meets that kid he was when he started out so many years ago."
Filed under Hawaii, environment | Comment (1)total eclipse of the moon
The clouds came in after we saw a brilliant, full, manapua moon get ate by the shadow of the earth. We experienced the “totality” but missed the orange effect. It was still amazing, really hypnotic. And thanks to this (mostly) steady-handed youtube user, we got an idea of what we missed.
Filed under Hawaii, environment | Comment (0)
