The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

TakePart Gang:

Chasing the DNC Flame by Fonda Berosini

TakePart at Slow Food Nation by Wendy Cohen

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Nicole Hughes:

State Fair Having Trouble Keeping It Green

TOMS Wrap Boot: Shoe Addicts Saving Lives

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Andy Kondrat:

Mexican Gov Spends $16M to Save Endangered Porpoise

Wilco Offers Section on Website for Carpooling to Shows

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Jon Popham:

Portland Gym Utilizes Human Energy

Angkor Wat Threatened by Tourism Boom

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Gina Telaroli:

10 Powerful Women Using Their Power for Good

10 A+ Worthy Movie and TV Teachers

Last month, the Mexican government planted eight million trees to symbolize its commitment to the environment, and now it’s one-upping itself by providing $16 million to try and save an endangered porpoise.

The vaquita marina - which literally means “little sea cow” - is dwindling at a population of only about 150, down from 500 a decade ago. The porpoise is threatened by fishermen along the Gulf of California, who catch the animals in their nets by the dozens each year. From the Associated Press:

Plans include paying fishermen to avoid the porpoise’s habitat or give up drag nets that drown dozens of the shy, dolphinlike animals each year. Some will even be paid to stop fishing forever.

Working fishermen will be paid $4,500 a day to not fish.

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Penguins are adorable.  And they make great documentary subjects. And they are also important indicators of marine life. In today’s New York Times, biologist P. Dee Boersma explains why climate change is threatening their future:

the dwindling numbers [of penguins] do not just mean the birds are suffering, Dr. Boersma writes. Because penguins are “marine sentinels,” their decline is a blunt message that their marine environment is in trouble, chiefly from overfishing and pollution from offshore oil operations and shipping.

Magellanic penguins can swim almost 100 miles a day, she said in an e-mail message, but to get enough to eat now they must venture as much as 40 miles farther from their nests than they did a decade ago.

Some of the food shortage is fishing-related, Dr. Boersma said, but some appears to be caused by climate change. As glaciers and sea ice retreat, she writes in her article, “even small variations can have major consequences for penguins.

takepart and adopt a penguin!

Related:
A New Twist in Penguins’ Already Uncertain Future

If you’ve got a hankering for seafood, there are several reasons why you should pass on the Chilean sea bass. Overfishing in our oceans is a major issue, and The Daily Green reports that scientists have warned this particular bass is critically overfished and on the verge of extinction.

The fish, also known as the Patagonian toothfish, Antarctic toothfish, the black hake and icefish are slow growing fish, and can take years to reach an age when they can reproduce, leaving them particularly vulnerable to overfishing. The fish are caught with bottom longlines which damage the floor of the ocean, and also lead to high rates of bycatch. Bycatch is the death of other “nontarget” species like seabirds and turtles. Chilean sea bass are also very high in mercury content, so add your health to the number of reasons one should pass on this bass.

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A group of retired NYC subway cars are now swimming with the fishes - they’re being used to create artificial reefs to buoy local fishing industries on the East Coast. Forty four subway cars found their final resting place on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean last Friday, 21 miles off the coast of Maryland. The reef is designed to attract fish for the state’s lucrative sport-fishing industry, which contributes about $1 billion per year to Maryland’s economy. Ocean City Mayor, Rick Meehan says that the reefs will provide quality habitat for marine life off the coast, benefiting not only the environment, but also local business.

The 18-ton stainless steel cars — minus wheels, windows and doors — were stacked two-high on a barge where a bucket crane with a specially designed hydraulic lift picked them up one by one and dropped them into 90 feet of water.

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. In celebration of Earth Day 2008, we made ‘green’ the major theme on the TakePart blog this week - green documentaries and television programs, Earth Day quotes and action activities, as well as some great film reviews. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

Katie Halper:

Top 10 Earth Day Videos From the Hub

Joanne Herring Invites You to “Charlie Wilson’s War” Screening Discussion - Free DVD!

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Nicole Hughes:

Top 10 Documentaries About the Environment

Top 10 Ways to Take Action On Earth Day 2008!

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Andy Kondrat:

Top 10 Quotes About the Environment

Disney Launches DisneyNature to Make Documentaries - I Freak Out

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Jon Popham:

B Corporation Takes the Guesswork Out of Going Green

Sea Level Rise Explorer

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Giulia Rozzi:

Oprah and My Mom Going Green

Green It. Mean It.

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Gina Telaroli:

Taking Part In the Blogsphere With “The Visitor” and “Standard Operating Procedure”

“The Soloist” Explores the Homeless and Mentally Ill With Grace and Music

Celebrate Earth Day 2008 with these top 10 documentaries about the environment. The films below address a variety of ecological issues including climate change, vegetarianism, crude oil, industrial development and our oceans. When you’re properly inspired to green up your eco-behaviors and help preserve Mother Nature for future generations, and check out these top 10 ways to celebrate Earth Day!

1) An Inconvenient Truth

An Inconvenient Truth offers a passionate and inspirational look at one man’s fervent crusade to halt global warming’s deadly progress in its tracks by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround it. That man is former Vice President Al Gore, who, in the wake of defeat in the 2000 election, re-set the course of his life to focus on a last-ditch, all-out effort to help save the planet from irrevocable change. [climatecrisis.net]

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Just call him a wavehugger–Ted Danson’s been lobbying on behalf of our oceans since 1987, when he founded the American Oceans Campaign. Danson, now a board member of advocacy group Oceana, which merged with Danson’s organization, is calling on Americans to pay more attention to the problems of overfishing and contamination, as the AP reports:

“This is not about saving fish from the goodness of our hearts or taking care of our oceans because we want to be thought of as environmental. It is economic. It is moral, and it is public health”¦I guess it’s really tough to get people to focus on this great big, beautiful, gorgeous ocean.”

Find out what you can do to help protect our great big, beautiful, gorgeous oceans at Oceana.org. 

Check out these Top 10 stories from January 2008 about social action written by our very own TakePart bloggers. From Cadbury to Clooney, these advocacy-oriented stories will encourage awareness and action to create positive changes in our communities and in the world.

1) Clooney Claims Role as Peace Messenger

2) The Reinvestment Fund Helps Low-Income Baltimore Families During Sub-Prime Fallout

3) Ron Hunter Is A Superstar!

4) Great YouTube Video About Burma From Michael Stipe

5) Cadbury Strikes Sweet Deal With Cocoa Farmers

6) Uptown Girls Is Down on Power Lines

7) Greenpeace Persuades Chefs to Support Sustainable Seafood

8 ) BGCI Helps Save Medicinal Plants From Extinction

9) Top 5 Socially Conscious Movie Trailers

10) I Believe That Children See the Future Drawings of Climate Change

Greenpeace is throwing a launch party tomorrow at London’s Old Billingsgate Fish Market to celebrate its new campaign to convince chefs “to sign a pledge to stop using or promoting unsustainable fish species and to support the creation of marine reserves to help fish stocks recover.”

Raymond Blanc, a top British chef, is joining Greenpeace’s efforts to convince his fellow chefs to rethink their fishy choices:

“Protecting the diversity of fish in our seas is as important as looking after wildlife on land. Those of us who are passionate about cooking and serving seafood will be equally passionate about using only sustainable species, as the fish we cook and eat now will determine what we have in the future.”

To learn more about sustainable seafood, check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch.