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It's hard to believe that it's the last day of July and back-to-school time and the end of summer will be here before we know it. But before the ennui sets in we want to bring you a special week of content to inspire you to soak up the sunshine, bond with Mother Nature, and enjoy a break outdoors. We'll be back next week with our regularly scheduled programming but in the meantime send us your favorite places to visit outdoors and let us know what you like to do there, we'll include a roundup in Friday's email!
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 Great Outdoors
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Making Time for Self-Care Outside
In 2018 it's difficult to avoid the subject of self-care--but for good reason! Taking the time to care for our mental, emotional, and physical health is a critical part of ensuring overall wellness, and taking time to practice self-care outside can even amplify the benefits! Heading outside for a walk or run, to read a book or meditate, or to work in the garden can serve as a serious boost to your health. Even caring for animals outside like feeding birds and planting flowers for bees and other pollinators can increase people's health, happiness, and connection to nature. And growing evidence shows that when we feel more connected to nature our physical and mental health improves, which just goes to show that the best self-care is found outside!
Why This Matters: The news these days, especially for those who value environmental protection, can feel really dismal and draining. Oftentimes we can all feel a little hopeless but this underscores the reason why we need to make sure that we take care of ourselves so that we can take care of our planet.
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 Literature
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Get Reading Outside with the "Man Booker Dozen"
Reading outdoors is an easy form of self-care and an even better way to enjoy the warm summer weather. Speaking of books to read outside, literature about planet-related themes gained recognition last week on the highly prestigious Man Booker Prize “Longlist:” the list of finalists for the fiction book judged the very best published in the English language each year. While books with ecological themes have appeared on the finalist list before, this year the panel seemed especially focused on such works. The chair of the Man Booker Prize judges, Kwame Anthony Appiah, explained the judges’ reasoning in saying:
“Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the times, there were many dystopian fictions on our bookshelf – and many novels we found inspirational as well as disturbing. Some of those we have chosen for this longlist feel urgent and topical, others might have been admired and enjoyed in any year.”
Ecologically themed books were of special interest to the Booker Prize judges this year, Appiah added, given growing concerns about the state of our planet. Among the finalists for the 2018 Man Booker Prize are: The Overstory, by Richard Powers, a story of four seemingly unconnected people who are “brought together in a last and violent stand to save the continent’s few remaining acres of virgin forest.” Critics have called “The Overstory” an “impassioned novel of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of—and paean to—the natural world.” The Washington Post said that the novel “remakes the landscape of environmental fiction.” (If you are still not sold, watch this short video of the author discussing the human connection with trees as he walks through the Arnold Arboretum.)
Another Man Booker finalist with environmental themes is The Water Cure by Sophie McIntosh. It’s a story about a dystopian future where women are being “poisoned by environmental toxins” and subjected to violence at the hands of men – and the story of one family (with three daughters) confronting this reality. (Think Handmaiden’s Tale with an environmental twist.) The Guardian called it “an extraordinary otherworldly debut” novel for author Sophie McIntosh, a young British author.
Why This Matters: If you're reading ODP, you already follow environmental news. But not everybody does! Environmentally-themed literature is another way to reach people who may not follow environmental news, and raise their awareness and concerns about our planet. Seeing books with these themes get this kind of prestigious recognition is another way to get these messages out to a broader audience.
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 Animals
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Nesting Kemp's ridley sea turtle. They are very rare and critically endangered. Photo: National Park Service
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Humans Must Act to Save Turtle Lives
We've written before that caring for wildlife is a meaningful way to connect to nature and boost your own wellbeing, especially for species needing our help like sea turtles. Sadly, however, there has been a spike in sea turtle deaths in southern Florida, according to the Associated Press. The Florida Department of Fish and Game has reported 287 deaths, which is twice as many as normal for a year. The culprit is likely a large toxic algal bloom that has at times stretched all the way from Tampa Bay to the Florida Keys. The turtles get sick and die when their food is contaminated by the toxic bloom. Most of the sick or dead sea turtles are trapped at the surface or stranded on a beach. Sick turtles are often unable to dive beneath the surface or evade predators like sharks.
The current algal bloom (or red tide as it is more commonly known in Florida) is strong and has persisted well past when they usually end in April. This year the red tide has overlapped with the height of the turtle reproductions cycle when sea turtle nesting is at its peak. As a result, adult turtles are in nearshore waters and coming onto the beach to nest putting them more at risk. The typical seasonal pattern has the blooms ending in April It has been pushed closer to shore due to strong winds and surf, according to the Fort Meyers New-Press. When the waves crash on the shore it releases toxins into the air, making it dangerous or at least an annoyance to the local residents even when they don't come into contact with the surf. And the tide has also caused the death of a whale shark, that washed up on the beach in the same region.
Why This Matters: The turtle species most impacted are loggerhead and Kemp’s ridley sea turtles -- both are protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The law is under attack by both Congress and the Trump Administration, who are working quickly to roll it back before the Congressional midterm elections. Most of the turtles have been mature adults, and since only 1 in 1,000 makes it to adulthood, so the severity of this could impact the ability of the species to recover its numbers. The potency of this red tide should come as no surprise given the problem of algal blooms all over the state. As we reported on July 16, Governor Scott has declared a five-county state of emergency due to the mushrooming algal bloom in Lake Okeechobee.
What You Can Do: Aside from voting for candidates who support the ESA and marine protection, here is a useful roundup of ways that humans can take action to protect sea turtles.
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 Food
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Photo: Jordan Shearer/Forum News Service
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Gardening For Good Health
Getting your hands dirty in a garden is truly a therapeutic experience and serves as a counterbalance to our modern world which makes us feel disconnected from the origins of our food. As CNN reported, the sensory experience of gardening "allows people to connect to this primal state," says James Jiler, the founder and executive director of Urban GreenWorks, a Miami-based nonprofit that creates garden and park programs for low-income neighborhoods. Working in the garden has other, less spiritual rewards. In addition to being a source of fresh, healthy produce, gardening can ease stress, keep you limber, and even improve your mood.
For this reason, community gardens have been becoming more prevalent all across the country (check out these initiatives in places like Brooklyn, Nashville and Minnesota just to reference a few!) and are giving people of all ages a rural escape in urban places--especially as backyards become smaller. Community gardens are also a great way to develop community (as the name implies!) and are an opportunity for neighbors to form a gathering space and bond over growing healthful food and maintaining access to green spaces in cities and suburbs.
Why This Matters: Aside from providing fresh produce which is essential for good health, growing a garden outdoors is a good form of exercise--double the benefits! Community gardens especially turn ugly, unused plots of urban land into thriving green space that can not only feed the community but also beautify the neighborhood and help support local ecosystems by providing habitat for pollinators.
Get Involved: If you don't have space for a garden at your home contact your city (or visit the American Community Gardening Association's website) to ask about existing community garden plots. If you're not ready to tend to a large plot by yourself, oftentimes you can sign up for a share of a plot or get a group of friends to go in on it with you. And if there aren't any community gardens available in your area, consider these tips for starting your own! Bring your kids along too, gardening is a wonderful way to bond as a family and help teach children about where their food comes from.
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 Land
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Humorous Spoof on Trump Monument Shrinkage -- LOL
After the Trump Administration's emails about cutting back national monuments came to light, The Washington Post's satirical columnist Alexandra Petri wrote a spoof of their internal deliberations about whether to save or revoke particular monuments. She "considers" more than two dozen. "Why protect these places, when they are full of oil and minerals that could be harvested to good effect? Tear them down. " she muses. Here is a hilarious sampling of her take on which monuments should go:
- Poverty Point: This administration is doing too much to preserve poverty as it is.
- Prehistoric Trackways: If they had been used in the past thousands of years, they would be called “Trackways” so I think we are safe to get rid of them.
- Rainbow Bridge: Pride month is over!
- Statue of Liberty: Ditch this! It keeps encouraging people to come to America.
Visiting National Monuments is probably one of our favorite forms of outdoor self-care at ODP. We're laughing until we're crying at the thought of how the Administration is going to scale so many back. Sigh.
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