Siskowet Ocean Foundation

01/08/2025

I get that tech companies are making the argument that it's not their responsibility, and we don't really want them to be the last arbiters of "truth". I actually agree on both fronts. Even though they make many, many, many billions by hosting these platforms, it's not their responsibility. It's not their responsibility because their lobbying efforts in Congress have been so successful. It is Congress' responsibility to create a regulatory environment within which these companies operate, just like they do for all other industries. And, do we really want to be backed into the corner where we rely on greed-driven bastards like Zuckerburg and Musk to gin up a mathematical model of "truth" and apply it to information that, like it or not, informs how we go about our lives?

Given the enormous societal-scale influence of these companies, there needs to be some reasonable guidelines on the information flowing through these channels. Since that is not in the offing, I will be closing down my Facebook and Instragram accounts by the end of the month. I may explore Bluesky as an alternative. I will maintain my LinkedIn profile and my account on WhatsApp (I know it's Zuckerburg's too). You can always reach me through Siskowet.com. Please reach out if you would like to stay in touch. It has been wonderful reconnecting to you this way.

I hope you will join me in this small protest action. As Marshal McLuhan said - the medium is the message.

11/12/2024

My newly minted sheepskin: Chief Sustainability Officer from MIT. It is impossible to adequately thank everyone. But, there are some notable people, without whom, this would have been much less rewarding. Gaurav Das, Patrick Cellie, Flavio Fuertes, Miyelmi Abraham, and Andy Prior gave freely of their important first-hand knowledge and industry experience to provide applied context to the coursework. Professors Oliver de Weck, and John Fernandez, Dr. David Nino, and Dr. Afreen Sidiqi, all leaders in their respective fields, guided us through the theoretical and technical aspects of Sustainability across the 5 courses (Leadership and Innovation, Sustainability: Strategies and Opportunities for Industry, Sustainable Infrastructure Systems: Planning and Operations, Life Cycle Assessment: Quantifying Environmental Impacts, and Circular Economy: Transition for Future Sustainability). Isidora Díaz Heredia provided invaluable support and guidance on our Impact Project. Clara Piloto Ed.M, and Mr. Bhaskar Pant (pictured below) from MIT, along with the entire Global Alumni Madrid team, made this giant machine function smoothly, keeping all the moving parts timed perfectly.

My Impact Project team - ArcBender: Design...Like the World Depends on It - Carsten Hochmuth, Lee Smith, and Anila Prabhu found creative, practical, and meaningful ways to decrease the impacts associated with materials choices at the critical moment of design where 90% of product life cycle impacts are determined. ArcBender provides rapid, qualitative impact information across all 9 Planetary Boundaries (https://lnkd.in/gYe5tTGT
), not solely focused on carbon impacts. This allows designers to choose materials that help claw back some of the exceedances that define the climate polycrisis.

Lastly, I made some wonderful friends during this journey, many of whom were my cultural, technical, and personal teachers as well as classmates and collaborators. This would be a never ending post if I tried to list you all here. So, I will simply say that I am profoundly grateful to you all and wish you all the successes coming your way.

Mens, manus, et cor.

08/13/2024

The American Geophysical Union has drafted an Ethical Framework for Climate Intervention. As we accelerate into the greenhouse world and the urgency increases, there is a concern that technology responses to the problem may produce uneven results. This draft framework attempts to anticipate what those might be.

AGU describes its plans to lead the development of an ethical framework to guide the research and possible deployment of climate change intervention measures.

08/13/2024

It's important to see this and reinforce that we have a massive mess to clean up. All of the positive forward motion to promote corporate responsibility for their products, ending single-user plastics, etc. all of that is focused on plastics that have yet to come into existence.

You may have seen this image circulating before. 📸 ⁠ We're resharing it as it commemorates the 1976 and is an important reminder that 48 years later, plastic still pollutes. Choose plastic-free reuse & refill, and help us push for systems change.

08/09/2024

This new study shows the importance of soil conditions in the carbon cycle of trees. Trees are often the obvious first thought when we think about ways to sequester carbon from the atmosphere. However, it is clear that we also need to pay attention to the carbon processes in the soil and the ways in which microbial communities and nutrients facilitate carbon sequestration. I have seen studies indicating that the soils in some old growth forests can contain as much carbon as the above-ground tree biomass. What I have not seen is an attempt to include soil in carbon budgets and mitigation efforts used by industry. The practical question is: what makes old growth soils so capable of collecting carbon and how can we capitalize on those processes and functions?

Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

07/22/2024

I am excited to see the White House produce a strategy for addressing plastic pollution. I would like to see more of an emphasis on reducing the production of plastics - especially single use plastics. Also, I would like to see more meaningful investment in cleaning up the mess we already have. Too often, the conversation around plastic produces policy ideas that are centered on plastics that have yet to come into existence. We have a massive mess to clean up. We need technological advances and resources to work on that aspect of the problem as well.

Today the White House released a new strategy for U.S. Federal Government action on plastic pollution. It is their most comprehensive plan to date, yet critical gaps remain.

04/26/2023

The White House just released their draft plan to reduce plastic pollution impacts. The comment period will be open for 45 days once it is published in the National Register.

EPA releases the Draft National Strategy for Reducing Plastics and Other Waste in Waterways and Oceans

02/21/2023

This is a well done summary of the plastic pollution crisis and some international legal instruments that can be implemented to bring about solutions.

There are many benefits to be realized by applying a disaster risk reduction framework to the context of plastic pollution, especially in regards to o…

02/13/2023

This study clearly lays out the financial and physical effort required to clean up discarded plastic pollution in the Oceans.

25 tonnes of plastic (6 tonnes of which were flip flops!) removed from the beaches of one small atoll in the Seychelles. At the current Republic of the Seychelles electricity tariff rates, that plastic could have cleanly generated between 700 and 1200 WHr, depending on the mix of plastic types, and between $90 and $415 (U.S. dollars) by selling it back into the Seychelles grid.

Instead, the plastic was collected and hauled away where hopefully it will be managed better than it was originally. The Scope-3 carbon footprint costs of extracting the oil, converting it to the various forms of plastics, cleaning up the discards, and hauling it for landfill managment need to be included in the accounting in addition to the more obvious biological, conservation, and human-societal costs.

Small island states receive unprecedented amounts of the world’s plastic waste. In March 2019, we removed as much plastic litter as possible from Aldabra Atoll, a remote UNESCO World Heritage Site, and estimated the money and effort required to remove the remaining debris. We removed 25 tonnes at ...

01/19/2023

“I will keep our ocean debris-free by not throwing my debris on the roadways, and I will pick up debris on the beaches.” - K’Moya S. (Grade 3, U.S. Virgin Islands), a winner of the annual Marine Debris Program Art Contest and the featured January artist in the 2023 Marine Debris Calendar.

Learn more about how you can help prevent marine debris: https://marinedebris.noaa.gov/discover-marine-debris/how-help

12/17/2022

This is an important conversation that is occurring in the U.S. Congress about plastic pollution. It is worth watching.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?524861-1/hearing-reducing-plastic-waste&vod&link_id=1&can_id=e9f73ba7c8f1811533495f8b7a16551b&source=email-i-need-your-help-to-hold-the-line-against-the-plastics-industry-firstname-default-friend-3&email_referrer=email_1759068&email_subject=what-i-just-told-the-senate-in-dc-why-i-need-your-help-firstname-commonize-default-friend

11/09/2021

Self-sustaining Active Ocean Cleanup with a Carbon-Negative, Plastic-Negative, Ecosystem-Positive triple bottom line