On Thursday, we went to Northeastern University armed with posters about the threats to NOAA funding.  It was a blue sky day.  We set up outside of the Curry Student Center.  We talked with students about the merits of personal comments to the Washington decision-makers. The response was great; comments were posted prominently for all to see.

Live from the Student Center, Max, Owen, Shesha, and Rob recorded and broadcasted a radio episode of Moir’s Environmental Dialogues.  Shesha talked about what went into setting up today’s table. Owen talked about the challenges facing NOAA’s Climate Program Office, and Max talked about the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program and the Husky Environmental Action Team.  Max also told of an oyster fisherman in Washington struggling to find shellfish unaffected by ocean acidification.

Husky Environmental Action Team passed a referendum to implement a one-to-one recycling system.  For every trash can there would be one recycling receptacle. Max and others talked to facilities representatives. They discovered how surprisingly complex recycling is at the university. There are twenty-eight different recycling operators on campus, because each time a new set of trash cans were assigned to a new building the lowest bidder was always a new vendor.  A squirrel pulled a plastic bottle from in front of the Student Center and to much amusement of on-lookers, carried the bottle off into the bushes.  We do not think the squirrel was one of the 28 vendors contracted to recycle plastics.

Tune in for huskies and others calling for fully funding of ocean programs.