The Beacon
Blog Tags: New York
Slideshow: NYC World Oceans Day Clean-up
How did you celebrate World Oceans Day? Oceana headed straight to the river. Teaming up with Nautica, we braved the heat and skimmed trash out of the Hudson River in an effort to protect both the river’s natural beauty and the health of its marine life.
What did we find? Fewer cigarette butts than you might think, but plenty of bags, bottle caps and other plastic debris – just the types of trash that are most dangerous to fish and other aquatic life that may end up ingesting or becoming entangled in the plastic.
If you missed World Oceans Day, don’t worry! You can still pledge to be an ocean hero throughout the summer by committing to cleaning up your local waterway, eating sustainable seafood, or recycling.
What If an Oil Spill Happened Near You?
It’s been one year since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded, but the explosion and subsequent months-long spill has largely faded from public consciousness. And if people do think about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, they think about it happening “somewhere else,” to “someone else’s” community, and not really affecting their daily lives.
To mark the one-year anniversary since the worst environmental disaster in our nation’s history, Oceana is asking the question: “What If It Happened Here?” What if the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and spill happened at a well-known and easily recognizable place in America? Would we still be chanting, “Drill, baby, drill?”
To try to personalize this message for people we created an ad campaign on display now in the Washington, D.C. Metro system that depicts the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion happening at the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., the New York Harbor, and the San Francisco Bay.
We hope that by asking the question, “What If It Happened Here?” we will get people to think about how they would be affected, and how their communities would be affected, if the BP oil spill happened off their coasts. We hope these ads will help people realize that we need to stop the drill.
Going Once, Going Twice...
Okay, so stop me if you've heard this one…
What happens when four top NGOs team up with a world renowned art dealer for Earth Day?
You get an unprecedented partnership that culminates in Christie’s First Annual Green Auction: A Bid to Save the Earth. Wait, did you think I was telling a joke?
Oceana, along with Natural Resources Defense Council, Conservation International and The Central Park Conservancy, NBC Universal, Barney’s of New York, Deutsche Bank and Target have been working to put together the April 22 auction that takes place at Christie’s in Rockefeller Center in New York as part of the 40th celebration of Earth Day.
Christie’s is waiving its usual fees, so every penny from the live auction and silent auction goes to the four charities. A ton, and I mean a ton, of amazing artwork and items are up for bid the night of the event, but you don’t have to be at the event to make a bid to save the earth.
Today the online silent auction launches and along with the artwork and items up for bid there are a boat-load (pun most definitely intended) of experiences on the block including swimming lessons with Oceana supporter and gold medalist Aaron Peirsol (with a $5,000 bid as of 10 a.m. this morning) and sailing lessons with Ocean Conservation Yacht Club Commodore Kristen “The America” Berry.
Here are a few of my personal favorites:
Team Oceana Looks Ahead to 2010
Team Oceana ended its inaugural triathlon season last month in Malibu, but there's already plenty of buzz building up to 2010. For starters, we have two athletes from Southern California, Steven and Merrie Regalado, who want to complete the entire Nautica series next year. Steven and Merrie raced twice in the last month alone and will compete in an Ironman 70.3 in Austin this upcoming weekend - that's a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride and 13.1 mile run!
For the 2010 Nautica New York City Triathlon, we already have two spots spoken for by a pair of ocean-loving volunteers from the 2009 event and OCYC Commodore Kristen Berry will likely want to head back to New York to conquer the Hudson again. For South Beach, we hope our two athletes from last spring return for next April's race, but they better bring some friends because we want to grow that team by 10-15 people. The rumors around here are that Oceana Executive Vice President Jim Simon may spend this winter conditioning so he can be one of those new team members in South Beach.
