Caroline Brown, image courtesy of the City of Sierra Madre, click to enlarge
Press Release posted 11/5/14 – Sierra Madre resident and local environmentalist, Caroline Brown, is featured on new READ posters and bookmarks by the Sierra Madre Public Library. “I love to read. I have several books going at once by my bed as well as on my iPad,” said Brown. The book she chose to feature on the READ bookmarks is, Moby-Duck: An Accidental Odyssey: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalist, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them by Donovan Hohn.
Moby-Duck charts the movement around the North Pacific of over 28,800 rubber ducks that spilled from a cargo container and ended up in garbage islands, or gyres, in the Pacific Ocean. They were called the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” and grew from the size of a football stadium to twice the size of Texas.
A former environmental science teacher at Claremont High School, Brown has a special interest in the health of the ocean. “The ocean is the heartbeat of the earth and, as we treat it so badly, we only bring ourselves more and more environmental misery. The tale of the ducks must help us to do better,” she said.
Brown is a member of the Environmental Action Council, helped form the local Mountain Conservancy, volunteers with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife Service, and helps preserve Sierra Madre’s Urban Forest.
Moby-duck is available at the Sierra Madre Public Library.