Fun resolutions

Yes, New Year's Eve was more than a month ago. And after the parties and resolutions come taxes. Ugh. It's never a fun process to pull together the pounds of paperwork, receipts and get the databases in order for an accountant to make sense of them. Doing taxes each year really does make us take stock of the year before. Going through the paperwork reminds us of all the people we've worked with, all the events we've been to, and of course, just all the work we did in 2009. And makes us think of all the events, work, and fun to be had in 2010.

It's never too late to adopt a new resolution, so I wanted to share one of the best ideas I heard this year. It wasn't to exercise more, lose weight, quit smoking, learn French, or anything that sounds like work. It was simply to have more fun. I thought about this and it seems that really is the driver for all those resolutions that don't sound like fun. People resolve to lose weight, quit smoking, or try new things because those things either provide more time to have fun with friends and family. Healthier people are happier people, right?

So this blog is a virtual toast to having more fun in 2010. For us that means more kayaking, sailing, boating, and fishing on the Bay. What's your fun resolution this year?

Oh, the weather outside is frightful

We have a few very confused daffodils blooming in the snow. After a couple of warm weeks in January, our bulbs thought spring was on its way. What a rude awakening. We're having our second blizzard in a week here in southern Virginia. Both of these storms brought historic snowfalls, from a foot or more in the lower Chesapeake region to closer to 3 feet in western and northern areas. While we dig out our cars and try to remember how to drive in real winter conditions, it might be easy to think that our climate isn't really changing after all.
It isn't just mid-Atlantic weather that's wacky this winter. Canada and Greenland are losing big money this year because they don't have the snow they normally have. We have friends in Miami who had frozen geckos falling off trees last month. And the citrus growers were none too happy about frozen trees either. Even winter appears to be heading south for the season.
Wacky weather may be the new norm thanks to our changing climate. And believe it or not, even though it's only about 10 degrees outside now our planet is heating up. The ten hottest years ever recorded for Earth have all occurred since 1995. The Chesapeake Bay is rising (more than 1 foot over the last century) and flooding our coastlines and urban areas all too frequently. Researchers project that most of the Chesapeake's wetlands will be lost as sea levels continue to rise. Wetlands aren't just for the tree huggers, they're important to anyone who loves a good crab feast or to take their kids fishing. Without wetlands, we'll have far fewer crabs and fish than we have now, and much more coastal flooding.
As we sit by the fire after a day of sledding, we realize that it isn't really the weather outside that's frightful, it's the climate.

Being the Bay

It's not easy being green..... Actually Kermit was wrong. It really is easy and fun. My husband and I started Be The Bay just for fun. The idea came to us in 2007 and then we drew the "Have a Nice Bay" logo. We're professional environmental scientists who are frustrated with the gap between Science and real people. Real people may read scientific journals, but we don't know many of them. Most real people we know just want to understand (in actual English) how the Bay is doing, or what they can do to help. So we put our non-stop doodling to work and created a line of Bay-themed apparel and eco-friendly items. We write newsletters and blogs about how the Bay is doing, offer simple tips anyone can do at home to help the Bay, and we donate at least 10% of our annual profits back to support Bay restoration and education projects. Since 2007, that percentage has been between 20-25%. Did I mention we were scientists, not business majors?
Anyway, that's our story and we're sticking with it. We hope to encourage other Bay businesses to adopt a similar model and give back to the Bay.