Advocacy Project: Letter and Fact Sheet

December 6th, 2010

Amy Klobuchar - Democrat
U.S. Senator
302 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Vote 'Yes' on H.CON.RES.309 Expressing the sense of Congress regarding the need for a $500 million recovery fund focusing exclusively on travel and tourism to be administered by the Gulf Coast Claims Facility in the wake of the BP oil spill.

Dear Ms. Kolbuchar,

The proposed bill for a $500 million recovery fund from BP to focus on travel and tourism in the gulf region would greatly enhance the lives of families affected my a catastrophe that they had nothing to do with.  The gulf economy is heavily reliant on tourism, and many of the jobs that families depend on for survival depend on the tourism that has been dramatically scaled back because of the oil spill.  I am not writing to simply capitalize upon the emotional appeal of the situation, but more to encourage the people in positions of power to make change happen and set things right.  What has happened can not be undone.  But what we do from now one can influence how long it takes for the region to get back to a state of normalcy.  This bill will accelerate the recovery of the tourism industry and help many people whose lives have been affected get back to the way things were so that they too can enjoy their lives again instead of wondering what will happen if we lose our jobs?

Opposition to this bill would likely come from BP, as they would bear the cost of this project.  I think for them it would be good PR to be associated with the clean up of the mess they created.  They have already donated millions to relief funds but it is simply not enough.

I hope you know how strongly I, and many other Americans, feel about taking care of our own.  We need to do this now.  It is important to protect the livelihood of our citizens.  I encourage you to vote "Yes" to H.CON.RES.309.  If you would like, I can provide you with additional information.  You can contact me at harol034@d.umn.edu.

-Dane H

Fact Sheet

Who is affected?

The U.S. Travel Association said the disaster, triggered by an explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in April, could cost coastal-tourism interests and those that do business with them as little as $7.6 billion over 15 months or as much as $22.7 billion over three years.

Tourism supports 400,000 jobs in the Gulf Coast region, where leisure-and-hospitality employment in counties along the shore accounts for 15 percent of all private-sector jobs, compared with 12 percent for the nation overall.

In the worst-case scenario, Florida's $60-billion-a-year tourism economy would sustain more than three-fourths of the region's financial losses, or $18.6 billion over the three years, according to the Oxford Economics study. 

How can the region be helped?
The U.S. Travel Association as part of a 10-point plan it calls "Roadmap to Recovery," hopes to convince the federal government and BP that spending $500 million now on an oil-response marketing fund could generate $7.5 billion in tourism spending that would help offset the group's projected losses.

Sources:

Hotel Online

ABC News

APEX News Network

TIME

Oil Spill Recovery Institue

Share & Voice: Waste Management

Waste Management Recycling

When I was paying my bill for WM this month, I decided to search their website a bit for anything interesting, since I am always looking for new and interesting thoughts related to recycling.  I discovered that as the North America's largest recycler, they offer a lot more than just curbside pickup of all the traditional recyclables. They also offer safe disposal options for fluorescent lightbulbs, batteries, and other electronics that are good to keep out of the landfills.  My advice to all would be to see what your garbage/recycling provider offers for services and follow through on disposing of your waste the right way.

Reflections: Week 13-14 & Overall Course

Weeks 13-14:

Over the past two weeks we have done several interesting things to wind down the class including finishing our Advocacy Projects, Eye Opener exercises, and Eco-chic Lifestyle Changes.  We also had a show and tell with our junking projects (mine is shown at on the right) and had a chance to tour Goodwill Industries.  I realized how important Goodwill is to the communities it inhabits.  They provide an excellent place for good to be recycled or donated, with the money going to help the communities.  They also provide a lot of jobs for people of all abilities.  My junking project involved recycling old beer bottles into new drinking glasses.  I had a lot of compliments on them from the people I showed, and I will be doing more of these in the future.


Overall Course:
Overall there are things that we learn in this class that will affect far more than our academic lives.  Of all of the classes I have taken at UMD, this is the one that I feel will affect my day to day life more than any of the others.  This class has changed the way I look at waste, recyclables, the food I eat, and the way business works.  I found it really interesting to see how the food industry operates.  I found it to be very shocking to find that a patent can be put on life when we watched the documentary focusing on the court cases of Monsanto.  Or how the bottled water industry works on the 'Tapped' documentary about water mining and bottle pollution.  The book I read for Read 'n' Seed, The Omnivore's Dilemma, was a good read that helped me understand how the food industry does work, and how I feel it should work.  As I said in the opening sentence to this summary, I know that what I have learned in this course will not soon be forgotten.  This class has taught life skills that will help me for many years to come.

Share & Voice: How to cut a beer bottle to make a glass

Recently I made a project for a class that had to involve junking.  For my project I decided to use some old beer bottles I hadn't yet recycled, and tried a project I read about in Men's Health Magazine this summer.  The project works like this:

1. Tie a string around your bottle
2. Remove tied string
3. Dip your string in lighter fluid (or another flammable fluid)
4. Put string back around the bottle
5. Light string on fire, turning bottle to make sure all of the string catches on fire
6. Just before the fire dies out dunk the bottle into cold water while pulling apart.
7. Sand sharp edges of bottle for safety

This was a challenging process to master but I am really happy I did it.  It was a very interesting way to reuse bottles for both storing things, as you will see in the video below, or drinking out of again.  Enjoy the video!

Share & Voice: Recycle More Minnesota

On my way home from a Vikings game a couple weeks ago I stopped to get gas in Hinkley and saw this recyclable container near by with a website attached.  I thought it was great to see an option besides just throwing bottles in the trash at gas stations, I think this is why it stood out enough for me to take a photo.  I personally would like to see these at all gas stations, but while this probably wont happen in the immediate future, I think it is something to shoot for.  I also think it would be a good marketing campaign for any gas station chain that would adopt these cans.  The website is www.recyclemoreminnesota.org and has lots of information on what people can do to help recycle more.  I strongly encourage anyone to check out this website and see if there is anything that interests you to do more.

Eye Opener: Online Learning Activities

JD @ Earth and Me JD
JD asked us to fill out a crossword puzzle that had answers related towards helping the environment. The answers were:

• Across:

• 2 - Reduce
• 3
• 5 - Junking
• 6 - Bus
• Down
• 1 - Recycling
• 2 - Reuse
• 4

 The crossword was hard! I cant come up with two of the words.  I have words that fit in theory but don't match the letters available.


Matt @ Matt's Smoke Free Zone
Matt has linked us up to a game that feeds you glass shard freeze pops.  I fed the characters as much as I could.  Even when it was wrong to do so.  The first level I scored 30... pretty bad.  The next level I tried to do well, and scored 810.  So I think the more glass you eat, the better! (nooooot!)

Sam @ Sustainability with Sam
I took Sam's linked quiz on asthma and scored 3/5.  I know there are things I need to learn about it, not just for this but because I was diagnosed with it a few years ago after an extreme illness.  One important thing I learned was that dust can be a cause.  I will be dusting my room tonight.

Kristen @ Kristen's Atmosphere
Kristen had three linked videos to her post.  The first was a parody of the Brady Bunch introduction where the parents, when introduced, are smiling and holding cigarettes, and blow the smoke into the kids' screens. It also talked about what the children were suffering from because of this. 

Second video was the most disturbing to me.  The part that stood out most was when the fat was squeezed from the artery.  I'll never be a smoker, but if I ever had wanted to I think that image will stop me from ever trying it.

The third video showed what happened when a person sucked all the tar out of 400 cigarettes and boiled the tar water down to show exactly how much tar is in cigarettes.

Carly @ Go Blue Too
The link for the 'Are You Food Savvy?' link was not working.  But there was another quiz you could take asking questions about how to store food which I found interesting and reminded me of when I took nutrition class many years ago. For someone who routinely lets food get close to expiration date, I found a lot of this information useful.

Advocacy Project: Duluth Oil Spill

Topic Background:

Can you imagine how the Lake Superior region would be affected if it were to be struck with a catastrophe similar to the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill?  Who would be affected? What business' would be affected? What wildlife would be affected?  These are all real questions that have been asked in the gulf region over the last 6 months.  The purpose of this exercise is to bring the magnitude of this environmental disaster home.

To be clear, the tourism and economy dependent on our region varies from the gulf region's, but many lives will be affected none the less. In this TIME magazine article you can see the affect that the BP Oil Spill is having on the economy of the gulf states.  Duluth's economy is more dependent on tourism than you would think.  3.5 million visitors each year contribute more than $400 million to the local economy.  If we faced the kind of decline in our tourism numbers that the gulf states face, you can likely cut those numbers in half.

Assignment:
What I want you to do, is try and put yourself in their shoes.  Think of how your life could be affected by this potential scenario.  Please write a short essay including your perspective on the following:

• How it would affect your job
• How it would affect your friends/family member's jobs
• How it would affect the places you like to go and activities you like to do
• What do you think the national perception of Duluth would be? Would they still want to vacation in the area?

I think when we start to be able to add answers to these questions, it sheds a new light on what people are going through that have their lives tied to the gulf region.  Please feel free to use any other websites you might like to use to further research this topic.