Category Archives: Environment & Environmental Organizations

Emerald Ash Borer Biowarfare and the Great Lakes Smackdown

It took less than 10 years for the  emerald ash borer to spread from Detroit to all eight Great Lakes states and Canadian provinces. It  is the most costly invasive forest insect ever in North America, both in terms of trees killed and economic damage. State officials and homeowners have used insecticides, tree-removal strategies, bans [...]

March Michigan Event Calendar

Approaching Spring by mayerdavid1978 (sorry this update is a little late!) Our Michigan event calendar for the month of March features all kinds of signs that spring is just around the corner with some cautious reminders that objects around the corner may be further off than they appear. Quotes “March is a tomboy with tousled [...]

Lake Huron Sinkholes: A window on the past and future

Great Lakes Echo is a project of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University. The site uses Creative Commons reporting to to help the news community cover the environment of the Great Lakes watershed. Absolute Michigan supports the mission of Great Lakes Echo and will feature articles they produce. While this article [...]

Michigan Books: A 1,000 Mile Walk on the Beach

Next Friday (March 11, 2011) at Brilliant Books in Suttons Bay, Loreen Niewenhuis will release her book, A 1,000-Mile Walk on the Beach. The book chronicles her walk around the shoreline of Lake Michigan and her observations along the way. ABSOLUTE MICHIGAN: What prompted you to do this? LOREEN NIEWENHUIS: I’ve always felt connected to [...]

Absolute Michigan Loves Water!

On a whim, I went to Wordle and plugged in a sampling of Absolute Michigan and Michigan in Pictures. The results are above (click above for bigger view or see it even bigger). One thing is clear: we love water! We’ll use this page to feature some watery goodness – add your own events, comments, [...]

Benzie County Water Festival ~ Saturday, March 19th

Here’s some videos from presenters and performers at the Benzie County Water Festival, along with some of the beautiful water they’ll be talking about! Do you have others to add? Add them in the comments or click that Facebook link to share them there! ‘Lighthouse Dawn’ Point Betsie Lighthouse, Lake Michigan photo by Michigan Nut [...]

The Water Semester at University of Michigan

“Water is the most critical resource issue of our lifetime and our children’s lifetime. The health of our waters is the principal measure of how we live on the land.” ~ Luna Leopold Huron River by Ann279 Our friends over at the Great Lakes Echo tipped us off to an interesting thing that the University [...]

West Michigan rolls out the red carpet for electric & plugin-in hybrids

Hybrid by RichardDemingPhotography West Michigan Strategic Alliance welcomes electric vehicles with charging stations in Crain’s Michigan Business says that Grand Rapids, Holland, Muskegon and other West Michigan communities are laying the groundwork to support electric & plug-in hybrid cars: By next spring, there may be as many as 75 public charging stations located in the [...]

Avian botulism: Invasive species double team?

Today’s post comes via the Grand Vision in northwest Michigan, but through an odd coincidence, we’ve been allowed to use video & photos of dead & dying birds that many may find shocking. They were gathered by filmmaker George Desort on the north shore of Lake Michigan and you are encouraged to click to see [...]

Dead Birds by George Desort

WARNING: Viewers may find the following video & images gathered by filmmaker George Desort on the north shore of Lake Michigan to be deeply disturbing. It is our hope that they are disturbing enough to motivate people to work hard to protect our water & wildlife from the tremendous threat posed by invasive species and [...]