Environment, The Archives
I don't know how I didn't know about this sooner - how everyone doesn't know about this already - but there is a huge, continent-sized, pile of garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean. Or actually there are two masses that sometimes join together to create, by some accounts, an area that is twice the size of the entire United States. Why isn't this something that we care about! Why aren't we doing something about this? Who/what is to blame? Well, for starters, plastic. Plastic is believed to constitute 90 per cent of all garbage floating in the oceans. And there are garbage patches in most of the world's other oceans too. The UN Environment Programme estimated in 2006 that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic.
This is having devastating effects on marine life. In addition to blocking sunlight from getting down into the ocean which can affect algae production (and thus be a contributor to global warming), marine animals can ingest or become entangled in the debris like this photo of a deformed sea turtle who likely crawled into that plastic ring when it was much smaller. From GreenPeace's website:
The larger items, however, are consumed by seabirds and other animals which mistake them for prey. Many seabirds and their chicks have been found dead, their stomachs filled with medium sized plastic items such as bottle tops, lighters and balloons. A turtle found dead in Hawaii had over a thousand pieces of plastic in its stomach and intestines. It has been estimated that over a million sea-birds and one hundred thousand marine mammals and sea turtles are killed each year by ingestion of plastics or entanglement.
The garbage patch can even provide a mechanism for invasive species to travel to parts f the world they would never normally get to by floating on the plastic.
This actually has led to action, with some governments, like the city of San Fransisco putting an outright ban on the use of plastic bags. Many countries are also following suit, with Australia, Bangladesh, Botswana, Canada, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kenya, South Africa, Singapore, Taiwan, Tanzania, Uganda, and perhaps most surprisingly China banning plastic bags. Found out about most of these from last week's ZapRoot videoblog from ViroPop (which I get through the increasingly impressive TiVoCast downloads functionality on my TiVo). Completely coincidentally ZapRoot has a feature about the garbage patch or Gyre on this week's show.
Find out more about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch at Wikipedia or listen to this NPR segment.
These photos of Hyenas and their handlers/owners in NIgeria are amazing. They are part of an exhibition of the work of Pieter Hugo at Yossi Milo Gallery. Check out all these links for more.
[Via Cool Hunting]
I have been in something of a theme with my current reading and when you are keenly aware of a topic it is hard not to notice an aggregation and honing of ideas starting to happen both within me and in the world at large. And since it is Blog Action Day and the both the topic of this year's action and the one I have been immersed in are the environment, a post seems in order. I have been meaning to post on several environmental topics recently but now these will all just be jumbled into this one post.
Cradle to Cradle by By William McDonough & Michael Braungart is a great book I have had on my to read list for many years and really got me thinking about the way we make things. The mindset we have when we create (and ultimately purchase, use, and dispose of) things is crucial to starting to see the full life of that thing - far past its initial use.
I have just begun reading The World Without US by Alan Weisman (more on the book, with interviews) and it mirrors nicely with the last fiction book I read: Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake (which I highly recommend). Both deal with life after the fall of mankind, albeit in much different capacities.
Jason posted about green accounting and included a great excerpt:
When a majestic, 300-year-old red-wood is cut down and turned into picnic tables, the logging and picnic table-building activities add to the gross domestic product (GDP), while no deduction is made for the loss of that tree and all the nonmarket services it provides. When a paper mill dumps dioxin-laden wastes into a river, the paper-making boosts the GDP, but no deduction is made for the costs associated with the water pollution. Conversely, no addition is made to the GDP for the air and water cleaned by wetlands or old-growth forests.
It is long overdue that we start accounting for non-monetary assets in the way described.
Lastly, this article about bottled water really got me thinking. "We pitch into landfills 38 billion water bottles a year--in excess of $1 billion worth of plastic." I drink bottled water, or I did, and never really thought much about it (typical brain-dead consumer). The amount of energy that it takes to make the bottles, fill them, transport them , and consume them (not to mention market them) is astronomical. The article tackles the issue of bottled water from many angles and presents varying viewpoints - it is worth reading. One of the facets of this topic that most interests me is the mentality that bottled water is somehow better than tap water in the United States and how the bottling and selling of water takes a large toll on the environment and that this tool, at least in the U.S. is mostly unnecessary, and as it turns out, very costly on a personal level, too.
In San Francisco, the municipal water comes from inside Yosemite National Park. It's so good the EPA doesn't require San Francisco to filter it. If you bought and drank a bottle of Evian, you could refill that bottle once a day for 10 years, 5 months, and 21 days with San Francisco tap water before that water would cost $1.35. Put another way, if the water we use at home cost what even cheap bottled water costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000.
We do quite a lot in this country to make sure we have potable drinking water in every home, we pay for the infrastructure in taxes and when we build our homes. Why not make use of this resource and forgo the petroleum-based container variety?
I have tried not to post about this subject because, as my wife reminds me, it just lends credibility to the wackjobs out there but this seems like big enough news because there are actually people out there that let some old German dude in a dress make up their minds for them.
Yes, out of nowhere a voice of reason from within the religious world! The pope has said what reasonable people had concluded long ago. Namely that evolution and spirituality need not be mutually exclusive. "While there is much scientific proof to support evolution, the theory could not exclude a role by God." He goes further. stating "that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.”
In addition Pope Benedict had word about the environment and our role as stewards.
"Benedict also said the human race must listen to 'the voice of the Earth' or risk destroying its very existence" and that "willfully damaging the environment is sinful."
While I usually applaud politicians thinking big and having dreams, there are some dreams that are worth crushing. One of these dreams is that of ethanol-based fuels for mass-market automobiles. I have long dismissed ethanol and ethanol blends as simply another wasteful use of our public money in the form of subsidies and also environmentally and economically dubious. The wonderful group of researchers at FactCheck.org agree and bust some of the dreams of leading Democratic presidential hopefuls in the process.
Charles Wheelan, author of
Naked Economics has a new
Big Idea: An Energy Tax
Create a carbon tax -- basically a tax on energy calculated based on its carbon content -- and use the new revenue to provide offsetting cuts in the income tax, the payroll tax, or both.
The whole package should be revenue neutral, meaning that it will not increase or decrease the total amount of revenue the government collects. The money will simply come from different sources.
The idea is a great one and constitutes a progressive tax that also happens to be completely "fair".
The tax burden will go up for those who use more than the average amount of carbon-based energy and down for those who use less.
In the grand scheme of global injustice (e.g., being born in a malarial village in rural Africa), that just does not strike me as terribly unfair. If you contribute more than your fair share to global warming, traffic congestion, air pollution, and propping up a repressive regime in Saudi Arabia, then you should pay more.
And if you bicycle to work from your modest, solar-powered home, then society should cut you some slack.
The only drawbacks I see are that the tax base could erode as more people reduce their carbon usage and the cost of reducing carbon usage could cause some inflation in consumer goods. I like the idea of axing the income tax altogether and instead using just a carbon tax and a sales tax (with some modifications for luxury and near-luxury items to make it less regressive). Something like this tax is the only way to get people to seriously consider reducing their use of fossil fuels. Smugness can only get us so far.
A pair of new tv spots are now airing across the country extolling the virtues of, what else, carbon dioxide. Yes, the Competetive Enterprise Institute is back at the task of trying to confuse Americans about environmental issues, but focusing on the stuff we breathe out. How can something that people and animals, and the ocean, create be bad? (stupid ocean) And who would suffer if those mean scientists make us cut back on CO2 production? Our kids, our food, and especially our use of neon signage would, of course.
Maybe, just maybe, the CEI has other things in mind than making sure we can breathe without consequence. From their website:
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a non-profit public policy organization dedicated to advancing the principles of free enterprise and limited government.
Translation: We believe corporations and profits are more important than individuals and health and safety.
But I am sure that isn't true, I mean their donor list surely should support the idea that the CEI is actually looking out for us right? (incidentally, if you are interested in a list of the most evil corporations this will also apply:
ExxonMobil, Amoco Foundation, Inc, Coca-Cola Company, CSX Corporation, Ford Motor Company, Philip Morris Companies, Inc., Pfizer Inc., Precision Valve Corporation, Texaco, Inc., American Petroleum Institute, Burlington Northern Railroad Co., Cigna Corporation, Dow Chemical, General Motors Corporation, IBM.
I wish I could take credit for such a great photo but alas no, this is not my almost-pet fox. Rob Lee from Evergreen, CO holds that honor and he has
a whole slew of great shots of this creature. Over the course of a year this fox has become decreasingly timid of Rob and had even come inside the house when the door was left open. The comments on many of these photos warn of feeding wild animals (which Rob does not do) which apparently someone has been doing.
Perhaps President Bush was teased when he was young about his surname and so is inflicted with an unnatural hatred for all things green and leafy. Whatever the case, it is certain that the disregard Bush shows national parks and forests, not to mention, clean air and water takes a seat far behind corporate and industry interests.
Unfortunately, this disregard has been rampant in politics for many years, with the Clinton years, in some respects being just as bad as the current and previous Bush's. The misdeeds and blatant flaunting of corporate power and influence are outlined in bleak fashion, page after page, in the book Been Brown so Long, It Looked Like Green to Me: The Politics of Nature by Jeffrey St. Clair. Been Brown So Long... is hard to read for a number of reasons - none of which relates to the writing. Its just that it is hard to keep a train of thought going when every couple of minutes you have to stare at the pages in disbelief and its especially hard to turn pages with clenched fists.
Why does our government bow down to industry and commerce so frequently? Is it really all about money? Can people really be that shallow? News flash: Our economy would function just as well without all the corporate welfare - tax breaks, kickbacks and special privileges - businesses will figure it out. And if capitalism needs those crutches to thrive then it really isn't that great efficient system it is purported to be. Let it evolve, economies aren't explained by intelligent design.
- Patent Room is a very neat site showcasing drawings submitted with patent applications of the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s.
- I really need very little reason to post a link about Daniel Quinn's novel Ishmael Jason's post/mini review of it seems like reason enough. I have been thinking more and more about these issues lately. These things go in cycles.
- Flash + Evangelical Christianity + Kirk Cameron = A maddening desire to kill
- Nice CSS dropshadow technique that doesn't use CSS hacks or javascript.
- If you saw any of the following: Hollow Man, Vertical Limit, A Knight's Tale, The Animal, or The Patriot in a theater you may be entitled to your money back (pdf). Looks as though Sony used a made-up film critic named: David Manning to hype those films. God, if I could just get the same deal for: American Psycho, Blade, Congo, The Haunting, Malibu's Most Wanted, and Mr. Deeds.
- Snopes' list of unanswerable questions they have received that have a sense of urgency to them. Some favorites include mention of: Cat's eating a dead person's face off, hickies, penguin eggs, bananas, witches, and Corona among many other bizarre requests. Some of the requests however really give Snopes a lot of credit. Here is my favorite:
if anyone understands what im (sic). saying please e-mail me at this e-mail adress (sic).
does anyone here bilieve (sic) that there are aliens in other planets? who really made us is there really a god? im not saying there isnt (sic). but who made god? seriously please answer back at me
- Ever wanted to compare Google Maps and Microsoft Virtual Earth side-by-side?
Atheist. Agnostic. Thanks to the writings of Kurt Vonnegut, I now have a new label to use when describing my views: Humanist
I do not think that corporations should have the same rights as actual human citizens. Further, I think we should revisit the pacts that corporations function under when granted such status from the states in which the incorporate. I am not proposing that the privilege of incorporation be granted solely to enable activities that benefit the public, such as construction of roads or canals, as was the case when corporations were first established. But wouldn't it be nice it they were at least neutral to the public's interests?
You'd think that things like disasters, or the purity of childhood, or even milk, let alone water or air, would be sacred. But no. Corporations have no built-in limits on what, who, or how much they can exploit for profit. [The Corporation]
The states used to impose certain conditions on those corporations that were granted (some of which remain on the books, though unused) like these:
- Corporate charters (licenses to exist) were granted for a limited time and could be revoked promptly for violating laws.
- Corporations could engage only in activities necessary to fulfill their chartered purpose.
- Corporations could not own stock in other corporations nor own any property that was not essential to fulfilling their chartered purpose.
- Corporations were often terminated if they exceeded their authority or caused public harm.
- Owners and managers were responsible for criminal acts committed on the job.
- Corporations could not make any political or charitable contributions nor spend money to influence law-making.
[SOURCE:
Reclaim Democracy's: Our Hidden History of Corporations in the United States]
Through lobbying and paying off politicians over the years, corporations have rendered all of these laws (and more) obsolete and have effectively put themselves above the law - even those laws that apply to you and me. If you throw a McDonald's wrapper out the window of your car (I recommend neither eating McDonald's nor littering) you could get a fine of up to $700 but America's industry throws the equivalent of millions of wrappers into our air, water and land each day without consequence. And while we all (well most of us) pay income taxes like suckers, our "corporate citizens" often pay little or no income tax1.
The main problem is that corporations are treated as real persons according to some laws but not others. Furthermore, corporations do not have the same moral obligations that people do. The only lawful obligation a corporation has is to generate profit for its shareholders. If making money way your only motivation, how would your actions change? Even the most unscrupulous of people in business have at least a few other motivations. Most corporations corporate persons, do not share this with us.
Corporate personhood is the doctrine that corporations are considered to be individual persons in the eyes of the law. Corporate personhood is the most critical social and political issue of our time. It lies at the heart of campaign finance reform, labor abuse, deterioration of communities, destruction of the environment, and more. [PersonsInc]
Some corporations are beginning to see how their corporate actions are affecting the earth (it's people, societies, and environment) and are taking steps to ensure that our kids' kids will be able to enjoy a life such as ours. Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface, Inc, the world's largest carpet manufacturer (and maker of the very cool interface flor tiles) has identified the following "7 Fronts" on which to wage a war of change:
- Eliminate Waste: Eliminating all forms of waste in every area of business;
- Benign Emissions: Eliminating toxic substances from products, vehicles and facilities;
- Renewable Energy: Operating facilities with renewable energy sources – solar, wind, landfill gas, biomass and low impact hydroelectric;
- Closing the Loop: Redesigning processes and products to close the technical loop using recovered and bio-based materials;
- Resource-Efficient Transportation: Transporting people and products efficiently to reduce waste and emissions;
- Sensitizing Stakeholders: Creating a culture that integrates sustainability principles and improves people’s lives and livelihoods;
- Redesign Commerce: Creating a new business model that demonstrates and supports the value of sustainability-based commerce;
Interface has even set up an entire website at interfacesustainability.com to outline its sustainability practices.
Since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring began to expose the abuses of the modern industrial system, there has been a growing awareness that profit at the expense of Earth--of individuals, society, and the environment--is unsustainable. - Ray Anderson, CEO, Interface, Inc.
There is far more that I could post now than I should post now, so I will end this post with a few links to some groups — actually a suprisingly large number of groups — taking up this, and related, issues. Here are a few:
1 - Even in the "over-taxed" state of Minnesota, there are plenty of large companies (3M, U.S. Bank, Target, General Mills to name a few) that legally pay less than a 5% effective tax rate by utilizing methods of tax reduction not available to "average citizens". See the story.
Companies like Propel Fuels of Seattle Washington are making a big push in the promotion of biodiesel fuels as the next great energy source for the U.S. and for the world.
In a recent interview for Make Magazine, a former co-worker Rob Elam makes a compelling case for this, clean-burning, soybean-based fuel source.
Could this make vehicles such as the Volkswagen Turbo Diesel Golf, Jetta, Passat, and Beetle viable consumer options for clean, lean energy consumption? I know I had looked into these for a while as they get upwards of 50 mpg, however the relative dirtiness of the emissions had turned me off. Maybe that has changed now. Perhaps the first major adopters of this fuel source could be commercial trucking companies, etc.
UPDATE: I didn't know Willie Nelson has been promoting his own "Willie Fuel" I should have titled this post "On the road again with biofuel" or maybe "You can't even pretend to think you know about biodiesel! Who do you think you are?"
Is this type of thing really acceptable in this age?
"ICG/ITSU's Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Honolulu detected Sunday's quake, modelled the likelihood of a massive surge and issued a warning bulletin -- all within 15 minutes. But the Honolulu staff's attempts to get the warning out to the countries at greatest risk failed.
"We tried to do what we could," centre director Charles McCreery said. "But we don't have contacts in our address book for anybody in that part of the world."
I am appalled.
The Bush Administration has decided that it will stand by its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces, according to internal documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility
-via bitterpill - via wonkette
Also in the news, the Bush administration is drafting legislation requiring any science teacher when asked the question "Why is the sky blue?" to also provide the alternative answer, "Because Jesus is looking down upon us from heaven with his big blue eyes." When asked what if a child is Jewish or Muslim President Bush responded, "Well, the sky ain't brown now is it, heh heh."
If you feel so inclined contact your senator and tell them that the Edwards amendment is worthy of acceptance tomorrow as part of the new the energy bill. This would give states the option of setting stricter clean-air requirements than the federal government (which as we all know are much lower now that big business has its power back).
Bush doesn't stop with drilling for oil in national forests and loosening restrictions on air polluters, now
he's after those damn whales and dolphins.
Although Navy officials claim no harm will come to marine life "environmentalists argue that with the convergence of sound waves from each of the speakers, the intense effects of the system would reach farther, as if the signals were 235 decibels.
Environmentalists fear the sonar will cause whales to beach themselves
Some biologists believe whales are irritated by sounds louder than 110 decibels and that a whale's eardrums could explode at 180 decibels."
There are some "protective measures that the Navy is supposed to take like "visually scan for marine mammals and sea turtles and to shut down the sonar whenever they are detected".
But this is just another case of those crazy tree-huggers trying to stop progress right? Well, no... when the Navy tested this new sonar system in March 2000 "at least 16 whales and two dolphins beached themselves on the islands of Abaco, Grand Bahama and North Eleuthera within hours. Eight whales died. Scientists found hemorrhaging around the brain and ear bones, injuries consistent with exposure to loud sounds."
In another incident involving low-frequency sonar in 1996, 12 whales beached themselves and died.
Oh well, at least those damn Russian subs won't be able to hide from us...oh wait Russia can't afford to make subs anymore, hell they can't even afford a sandwich at Subway.
What's next W. clubbing baby seals?
Alt Text has been included as one of 10 weblogs in a study/project in developing an open source search tool called
latent semantic indexing (LSI). From what I have seen it is pretty promising. Some of the results may not contain the keywords you entered, but use the LSI algorithm to determine relevancy based on like words and topics.
There are still some holes in it as it is in development. It works with keywords only - there are no phrase searches allowed. Words that appear in only one post are not indexed, and the interface leaves a lot to be desired, but it is a very cool idea that I hope spreads.
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My dad on
President W's recent surgery: "They are looking for his head."
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Electric SUV coming (to California) from Toyota
The Bush administration once again
has decided for us that the environment should take a back seat to the energy industry and the special interests lining their pockets.
You have to admire their tenacity at least. They don't seem to give a damn about the public outcry that they have caused with all their repeals of other laws that had protected the environment.
Not to be discouraged though, by his
recent admission that global warming does, in fact, exist, Bush has NASA working on a plan that won't require us to reduce our consumption, come up with better, cleaner, technologies, or, god forbid, burn less irreplaceable fossil fuels. Nope NASA's new plan is simple -
just move the earth farther from the sun.
I like Star Wars as much as the next guy, unless of course the next guy is one of
these people. Here is a link to
their site.
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This book looks very interesting and I plan on picking up a copy soon (I am trying to get it from the library - part of my cost saving measures lately - and as it turns out slightly more environmentally friendly). It is about "how humans relate to their environment" - meaning that in a closed environment like the one we are basically in (not including the input from the sun) we (humans) alone create waste that is not readily used by other organisms and broken down. And that we must strive to create products, but also the means of making the products, that are more in harmony with the ecosystem in which we live.
There is a nice review on this book, titled
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things to be found
on slash dot here.
Excerpts from the review:
"Our model of technology and development is completely counter to the natural cycles and principles that worked for millions of years to create the environment we so cleverly manipulate"
"The authors envision a world where, when a material item gets worn out, you simply throw it on the ground to decompose. Buildings should produce more energy than they use. Eliminate the concept of "waste" entirely. "
Here are some links I was too busy/lazy to post about throughout the week:
It would be very interesting to see
this on a PC.
EtherPeg is quite a cool idea. A
Linux version called Driftnet (though done independently was made too.
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Fingerprint readers flawed says study. They can be fooled with $10 of supplies and a little bit of work.
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Is
this the new dating scene? "Honey look over there. Don't we know that pair of pasties from college?"
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URLizer.com will turn those long unruly links into shorter unruly links suitable for sending in emails. [Source:
broomeman.com]
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How to Piss Me Off 101: Lesson 3:
Bring in a corporate mentor consultant type to have us "bring 5% more awareness to our feelings".
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I know that this site:
The Rainforest Site is lame but if they really can really preserve 11.4 square feet of rainforest each day I click, from the fools they sell banner ad space to, then more power to them. [Related, of course, are
The Hunger Site and
The Breast Cancer Site]
This group has a great slogan.
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Speaking of the woods or forests in general, why is it our president doesn't want to keep any or keep our air clean, or water.... Yes, when President Bush took office he stated that the Kyoto protocol was too drastic as a response to global warming since we don't even know that global warming exists. Then he sent the problem to the national academy of science to be studied. Within the week, the academy had denied the request stating that the topic has already been studied to exhaustion and everything we know tells us that global warming is happening.
He was a bit humbled, but not one to get discouraged, Bush then started using economic excuses for not following Kyoto. At any rate, global warming is not a question anymore it is a fact.
After doing some research, I found that there were virtually no articles denying the fact that global warming exists (some scientists debate about whether such
warming is necessarily bad, however). To me it seems like common sense that if you introduce such a drastic change to an ecosystem you will throw out any balance that did exist, and life, all life, will be upset and either adapt or die off. Since it took our current systems millions of years to develop is seems pretty apparent that changing it in a couple decades seems like maybe not the best idea.
I don't know what my point to this post is other than to give a warning in my own small way:
- Our "leadership" needs more forward thinking and less political maneuvering for the votes and dollars of big business
- We need to be doing more development of energy efficient vehicles and powerplants and reduce our use of fossil fuels - why think about this when they are gone - why not save some for usage where renewable sources aren't practical (rocket fuel)
- These things have to happen from the ground up. We all have to take more of a stake in our world, and more responsibility to preserve it for future populations. The health of our support system - this world we live on - should be the highest priority of our world governments. By comparison taxes don't matter, campaign finance reform doesn't matter, missile defense doesn't matter, Middle East peace doesn't matter.
- Diversity is a good thing. Ecological diversity more than any other kind is perhaps the most important characteristic of our environment. Every time an acre of forest or species of insect is destroyed, we are that much closer to ecological disaster.
I meant to post some thoughts about the environment and the presidency of George W. Bush on Earth Day, but I was too angry to formulate coherent thought. Luckily Al Gore can restrain himself a bit more in this NY Time letter he wrote on the 21st:
The Selling of an Energy Policy.
My anger began to rise when, in his first weeks in Washington, Bush rescinded many of the Environmental Protection Pact laws to help his buddies (and family members) in the Oil, Energy, [insert big business sector here] industries.
On Earth Day 2002 "Bush mentioned various environmental policies his administration has pursued, emphasizing the "Clear Skies" legislation to set air pollution limits from power plants. 'With Clear Skies legislation, America will do more to reduce power plant emissions than ever before in our nation's history,' he vowed."
At which point "Gore scoffed at that remark. "The Bush administration's so-called 'Clean Skies' initiative actually allows more toxic mercury, nitrogen oxide and sulfur pollution than if we enforced the laws on the books today,' he said. 'It ought to be called the 'dirty skies' initiative.'"
"Bush favors mandatory limits on nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides and mercury, but soon after taking office backed away from a pledge to put limits on carbon dioxide as well. Yesterday Gore criticized the president for that reversal. 'The day after he took his oath of 'honor and integrity' he made that his very first broken promise,' Gore said." [Excerpt from
The Washington Post]
I have some more thoughts on the environment and specifically Bush's lack of foresight on this issue but I will reserve them for another day.
[
Additional Commentary on the NY Times Article]
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On a related note, I think that
the All Species Project is cool but I question the importance of such an undertaking when there are so many more impending causes. I would prefer an organization that vows to maintain our global ecological diversity to what that simply catalogs it.
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Last night was a big night for our dog Sadie as well as us, as pet owners. She actually slept the whole night outside of her kennel in our bedroom on the floor. Our lil' girl is growing up.
