Pressing environmental news example for today:
In the island nation of Papua New Guinea, in the Indonesian archipelago, indigenous people and their tribal chiefs are fighting a giant palm oil company out of Malaysia called KLK - Kuala Lumpur Kepong, who has moved in to their land in Collingwood Bay, Papua New Guinea, a pristine land and marine environment upon which the people depend on for their economic sustenance. The regional government has apparently given KLK a commercial lease on this land to raze down the trees and peat bogs, but the people and their tribal leaders have not been consulted. The international bank HSBC is funding KLK's palm oil ventures. Another example of how today's globalism is a modern-day version of the robber baron acts of previous centuries.
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Thursday, July 25, 2013
New insights, new potential discoveries with wide-ranging applications in clean energy and clean manufacturing processes seem to be happening every other week or so. It is simply amazing to read about the regular and rapid advancements and progress being made in areas such as wind energy installations, recycling of waste, portable ovens powered by the sun, photovoltaic solar energy cells, the harnessing of tidal waves for energy, and so forth. It is also distressing to hear and read about continuing "accidents" that cause spills of oil and gas into the environment. In the spring of this year in Arkansas, a burst underground oil pipe owned by Exxon Mobil spilled toxic oil into the homes and properties of hundreds of homes. Many of these homes are not fit for residence and will need to be razed down, if this hasn't happened already. This is just one of many burst oil pipes that are occurring in the U.S. and Canada on a regular basis. There are several websites that list and display where and when these failures are happening, the Sierra Club being one of them.
So, what definitely is unfolding in front of the nation's eyes is a dramatic opposition between the old world's dirty energy practices and beliefs and dogma and the new world's clean energy emerging and demonstrated technologies, beliefs, and creeds. The evidence for the severe shortcomings and injurious risks of the old world's energy dogmas is ample: the continuing oil pipeline spills, the huge BP oil spill in 2010, the massive coal ash spill in Tennessee a few years ago, and the list goes on and on. The evidence for hugely-increased risks of grave damage to the environment is being demonstrated by the multiple barrages of anti-environmental legislation being levied by the rabid, pro-pollution congresspersons in our Congress. They are coming out with drastic cuts to the EPA, huge and wide exemptions for polluters to increase their polluting activities, and reducing if not eliminating any accountability for their pollution and continuing accidents.
On the other hand, we are seeing this new wave of exciting and promising developments that is rapidly opening doors to a clean energy economy that can be, and is being, established now. One of these latest developments is an environmentally-friendly battery made from wood upon which sodium ions are set within a base of tin on the wood. These sodium ions apparently can conduct electricity just as well as lithium ions, without the destructive environmental impact that lithium has. And the wooden base is supple and flexible, able to hold the sodium ion-laden water much better than the stiff bases seen in the batteries of today. If you would like to read more about this, here is a link to the scientific article: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl400998t
Think green, think clean! (TM, 2013)
So, what definitely is unfolding in front of the nation's eyes is a dramatic opposition between the old world's dirty energy practices and beliefs and dogma and the new world's clean energy emerging and demonstrated technologies, beliefs, and creeds. The evidence for the severe shortcomings and injurious risks of the old world's energy dogmas is ample: the continuing oil pipeline spills, the huge BP oil spill in 2010, the massive coal ash spill in Tennessee a few years ago, and the list goes on and on. The evidence for hugely-increased risks of grave damage to the environment is being demonstrated by the multiple barrages of anti-environmental legislation being levied by the rabid, pro-pollution congresspersons in our Congress. They are coming out with drastic cuts to the EPA, huge and wide exemptions for polluters to increase their polluting activities, and reducing if not eliminating any accountability for their pollution and continuing accidents.
On the other hand, we are seeing this new wave of exciting and promising developments that is rapidly opening doors to a clean energy economy that can be, and is being, established now. One of these latest developments is an environmentally-friendly battery made from wood upon which sodium ions are set within a base of tin on the wood. These sodium ions apparently can conduct electricity just as well as lithium ions, without the destructive environmental impact that lithium has. And the wooden base is supple and flexible, able to hold the sodium ion-laden water much better than the stiff bases seen in the batteries of today. If you would like to read more about this, here is a link to the scientific article: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl400998t
Think green, think clean! (TM, 2013)
Friday, November 30, 2012
Effects from climate change trending more visible
A husband and wife who both are scientists have been going for years to tiny Tatoosh Island, off the coast of Washington State, for many years now. Dr. Cathy Pfister and her husband, Timothy Wootton, are both biology professors at the University of Chicago, and first began traveling to the island in the 1980s along with their then-graduate adviser, Robert T. Paine (Solie, New York Times, Oct. 7, 2012, 22), a now-retired zoology professor.
Drs. Pfister and Wootton have been measuring the pH balance of the Pacific Ocean's waters off the island since 2000 and have been registering a steady decline in the pH since then. The pair of scientists, along with many others, attribute this decline to the increasing deposit of carbon dioxide, C02, in the ocean waters which occurs as CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere by way of the "greenhouse effect." Their pH measurements have been confirmed by many other scientists.
Pfister and Wootton have linked the increasing CO2 in the ocean waters to a decrease in the hardness and durability of the exoskeletons of mussels and goose barnacles, and in coralline algae that latch onto rocky shorelines (Solie 22). Simultaneously, the scientists have observed a decrease in the population of the island's bird populations of gulls and murres, which depend on these shell animals for food. They say that the populations of these birds are a mere half of what they were 10 years ago. Pfister and Wootton find this drop in population to be disturbing, and they regard this, along with the increased acidity in the ocean waters due to CO2 absorption and the weakening of shell animals, to be a danger signal for how climate change is altering long- established relationships in the natural environment.
People, please pay attention to this, and to other communications from the scientific community regarding the effects of climate change. This dedicated wife-husband team of scientists are not necessarily traveling to this water-drenched island, living in a one-room cabin with their children, for their personal enjoyment, although it may be quite invigorating and healthy to breathe in the fresh, ocean air!
Drs. Pfister and Wootton have been measuring the pH balance of the Pacific Ocean's waters off the island since 2000 and have been registering a steady decline in the pH since then. The pair of scientists, along with many others, attribute this decline to the increasing deposit of carbon dioxide, C02, in the ocean waters which occurs as CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere by way of the "greenhouse effect." Their pH measurements have been confirmed by many other scientists.
Pfister and Wootton have linked the increasing CO2 in the ocean waters to a decrease in the hardness and durability of the exoskeletons of mussels and goose barnacles, and in coralline algae that latch onto rocky shorelines (Solie 22). Simultaneously, the scientists have observed a decrease in the population of the island's bird populations of gulls and murres, which depend on these shell animals for food. They say that the populations of these birds are a mere half of what they were 10 years ago. Pfister and Wootton find this drop in population to be disturbing, and they regard this, along with the increased acidity in the ocean waters due to CO2 absorption and the weakening of shell animals, to be a danger signal for how climate change is altering long- established relationships in the natural environment.
People, please pay attention to this, and to other communications from the scientific community regarding the effects of climate change. This dedicated wife-husband team of scientists are not necessarily traveling to this water-drenched island, living in a one-room cabin with their children, for their personal enjoyment, although it may be quite invigorating and healthy to breathe in the fresh, ocean air!
Thursday, September 27, 2012
The push to carry out hydro-fracturing operations ("fracking") is widespread and growing in our country as well as abroad, and it is worrying. Despite industry's claims that they are using safe procedures and that there are no harmful side effects from drilling deep into subterranean rocky surfaces to extract natural gas and oil, the facts are that there are numerous, very toxic side products that result from the use of toxic chemicals in the extraction process. Because of the depths accessed in hydro-fracturing, much of these toxic chemicals are left behind in the depths and the opportunity for these chemicals to migrate into underground water supplies is considerable. In fact, this has already happened to water supplies of residents in various states, and just recently the EPA has made a determination of "likely" that hydro-fracturing related contamination of underground water deposits has occurred in the state of Washington. In addition to the use of toxic chemicals, huge amounts of valuable water is used in the fracturing process.
It is important that citizens decide what they think about this important issue and take a subsequent stand. If you are for reasonable and needed regulation of fracturing, which currently is not regulated at all, then please call your congressperson and request that such regulation and control be put into law. Thanks!
It is important that citizens decide what they think about this important issue and take a subsequent stand. If you are for reasonable and needed regulation of fracturing, which currently is not regulated at all, then please call your congressperson and request that such regulation and control be put into law. Thanks!
Friday, November 11, 2011
Good News for Biofuels and Congratulations to Continental-United Airlines
It is nice, for a change, to hear about one of our nation's giant commercial operators, that being Continental-United Airlines, putting into action some of the "green" promises and announcements that so many companies have been issuing lately. On Monday, November 7th, the airline flew a Boeing 737-800 plane from Houston to Chicago's O'Hare airport using a fuel blend that partially consisted (40 percent) of oil produced by genetically modified algae that feed off plant waste and produces oil. Imagine that, folks! And to boot, Alaska Airlines, on Wednesday, November 9th, was scheduled to begin flights over the next several weeks utilizing a fuel blend containing 20 percent recycled cooking oil, with the company claiming that the biofuel blend will reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent. Again, how about that, folks!
Yes, there still remain formidable challenges and problems to overcome and solve but the situation here is excitingly clear: the airlines have begun the commercialization of a clean energy source, and they being major consumers of fossil fuels as well as significant producers of carbon emissions (2 percent of total carbon emissions in 2000, on the way to 3 percent by 2030), this is good news indeed. Major beneficiaries include our overloaded atmosphere, our burgeoning clean energy industry, including its investors, and people, plants, and animals everywhere. Congratulations to Continental-United Airlines, to Alaska Airlines, and to Solazyme Inc., the company which produced and provided the biofuel for Monday's Continental flight. May you put those algae to good use!
Yes, there still remain formidable challenges and problems to overcome and solve but the situation here is excitingly clear: the airlines have begun the commercialization of a clean energy source, and they being major consumers of fossil fuels as well as significant producers of carbon emissions (2 percent of total carbon emissions in 2000, on the way to 3 percent by 2030), this is good news indeed. Major beneficiaries include our overloaded atmosphere, our burgeoning clean energy industry, including its investors, and people, plants, and animals everywhere. Congratulations to Continental-United Airlines, to Alaska Airlines, and to Solazyme Inc., the company which produced and provided the biofuel for Monday's Continental flight. May you put those algae to good use!
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
A way to quantify a major environmental benefit
Amidst the woefully ignorant din and clamor of the anti-environmentalists in Congress feverishly working to strip our nation's environmental laws and protections for the sake of these representatives' business bidders and masters, it was heartening and enlightening to learn about the results of a series of studies first begun in the mid-nineties and carried on for several years later.
The initial question poised for the study was: "Don't trees clean the air?," asked by the then- current mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, Jr., in 1989. A series of other questions followed such as: "What is the character of an American urban forest? How did trees interact with the ecosystem? Do they really affect air quality?" Daley started an ambitious tree-planting program at that time but wanting to find some answers as well, he obtained federal funding for a study progam through the efforts of long-time North Shore representative Sidney R. Yates (D-Ill). The first fruits of this study was titled "The Chicago Urban Forest Climate Project." Several facts were revealed including: the Chicago metro area's urban forest contained roughly 51 million trees, two-thirds of which were in "good or excellent condition." And, in Chicago, the street trees made up only a tenth of the urban forest, buy they provided a quarter of the tree canopy. And, the canopy shaded only 11 percent of the city, less than half of the proportion city officials believed was ideal (Jonnes, Jill, The Wilson Quarterly, Winter 2011, p. 38).
A panapoly of other facts emerged from the study: in 1991, trees in Chicago removed an estimated 17 tons of carbon monoxide, 93 tons of sulfur dioxide, 98 tons of nitrogen dioxide, 210 tons of ozone, and 234 tons of particulate matter. And that's not counting the 155,000 tons of carbon dioxide that our trees in Chicago sequestered a year. Sad to say, that impressive amount accounts only for the tons of carbon put out by motor vehicles in the Chicago area during one week. But, as the author notes, "over time, the urban forest could sequester as much as eight times more carbon if the city planted greater numbers of large, long-lived species such as oaks or London planes and actively nurtured existing trees to full maturity." She states that a large tree that lives on for many decades or even a couple of centuries is able to "sequester a thousand times more carbon than, say, a crab apple with a life span of 10 or 20 years."
Regrettably, Mayor Daley did not whole-heartedly adopt the implications of this groundbreaking report. He supported the planting of trees in the city but not in the larger-scaled, strategic manner that the report recommended. Nevertheless, his support pushed forward in a big way the study of trees and their public health implications for urban areas and the citizens who live in these areas. In 993, the Sacramento Municipal Utility did a large-scale assessment study after it had planted 110,000 trees in the front yards of residential customers for free. Among other things, the study found that "a tree planted to the west of a house saved about three times more energy ($120 versus $39) in a year than the same kind of tree planted to the south." The utility's shade program "collectively saves the utility from having to supply $1.2 million worth of electricity annually (_39).
In 2006, in New York City, the Parks Department asked the original study's authors to assess the value of all of the city's 592,000 street trees. The lead authors, by this time, had significantly more sophisticated data tools on hand, and were able to determine for the department that the city's street trees delivered an annual energy savings of roughly $28 million, or $47. 63 per tree. The researchers then calculated multiple other parameters such as savings to stormwater systems through the trees' interception of rainwater ($35.6 million annually); removal of air pollutants ($5 million annually); and a host of other compounding factors such as: hospital patients who could see a tree out of their room were discharged a day earlier than others who could not; shopping areas with trees had more customers than areas that did not; public-housing projects that had leafy tree areas suffered less violence than bare, tree-less projects, and so forth. Together these assessments and findings delivered a summary value of $122 million per year in savings to New York City, or about $209 per tree. This is truly amazing, both for the value that our trees serve up and for the data-finding abilities of these reports. These findings offer a promising potential to turn the minds and mindsets of those radical extremists who are frothing at the bit to remove environmental protections, to dismiss out of hand any efforts to establish a mutually-beneficial relationship with the environment that supplies us with pretty much all of our essential needs. All they do is to chant the jobs mantra. Well, how many jobs do they really think they are going to create as they tear up our nation's national parks, devastate through pollution our nation's rivers, lakes, and streams, and clog our nation's air with mercury, particulates, sulfur dioxide and all the other pestilences? And what kind of variety in jobs do they promise? And at what kind of salaries?
The data from these studies add significant support to the contentions and calls for a positive, supportive approach to our environment as we continue to draw out from it the natural resources that we require, and also over-require through greed and very high expectations for our quality of life. Thanks for reading my blog. I hope you will gain something valuable and important from this.
Note: The authors of these studies along with other professionals have come up with a free software progam called i-Tree which now has the ability to quantify the monetary benefits of any urban tree in America.
The initial question poised for the study was: "Don't trees clean the air?," asked by the then- current mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, Jr., in 1989. A series of other questions followed such as: "What is the character of an American urban forest? How did trees interact with the ecosystem? Do they really affect air quality?" Daley started an ambitious tree-planting program at that time but wanting to find some answers as well, he obtained federal funding for a study progam through the efforts of long-time North Shore representative Sidney R. Yates (D-Ill). The first fruits of this study was titled "The Chicago Urban Forest Climate Project." Several facts were revealed including: the Chicago metro area's urban forest contained roughly 51 million trees, two-thirds of which were in "good or excellent condition." And, in Chicago, the street trees made up only a tenth of the urban forest, buy they provided a quarter of the tree canopy. And, the canopy shaded only 11 percent of the city, less than half of the proportion city officials believed was ideal (Jonnes, Jill, The Wilson Quarterly, Winter 2011, p. 38).
A panapoly of other facts emerged from the study: in 1991, trees in Chicago removed an estimated 17 tons of carbon monoxide, 93 tons of sulfur dioxide, 98 tons of nitrogen dioxide, 210 tons of ozone, and 234 tons of particulate matter. And that's not counting the 155,000 tons of carbon dioxide that our trees in Chicago sequestered a year. Sad to say, that impressive amount accounts only for the tons of carbon put out by motor vehicles in the Chicago area during one week. But, as the author notes, "over time, the urban forest could sequester as much as eight times more carbon if the city planted greater numbers of large, long-lived species such as oaks or London planes and actively nurtured existing trees to full maturity." She states that a large tree that lives on for many decades or even a couple of centuries is able to "sequester a thousand times more carbon than, say, a crab apple with a life span of 10 or 20 years."
Regrettably, Mayor Daley did not whole-heartedly adopt the implications of this groundbreaking report. He supported the planting of trees in the city but not in the larger-scaled, strategic manner that the report recommended. Nevertheless, his support pushed forward in a big way the study of trees and their public health implications for urban areas and the citizens who live in these areas. In 993, the Sacramento Municipal Utility did a large-scale assessment study after it had planted 110,000 trees in the front yards of residential customers for free. Among other things, the study found that "a tree planted to the west of a house saved about three times more energy ($120 versus $39) in a year than the same kind of tree planted to the south." The utility's shade program "collectively saves the utility from having to supply $1.2 million worth of electricity annually (_39).
In 2006, in New York City, the Parks Department asked the original study's authors to assess the value of all of the city's 592,000 street trees. The lead authors, by this time, had significantly more sophisticated data tools on hand, and were able to determine for the department that the city's street trees delivered an annual energy savings of roughly $28 million, or $47. 63 per tree. The researchers then calculated multiple other parameters such as savings to stormwater systems through the trees' interception of rainwater ($35.6 million annually); removal of air pollutants ($5 million annually); and a host of other compounding factors such as: hospital patients who could see a tree out of their room were discharged a day earlier than others who could not; shopping areas with trees had more customers than areas that did not; public-housing projects that had leafy tree areas suffered less violence than bare, tree-less projects, and so forth. Together these assessments and findings delivered a summary value of $122 million per year in savings to New York City, or about $209 per tree. This is truly amazing, both for the value that our trees serve up and for the data-finding abilities of these reports. These findings offer a promising potential to turn the minds and mindsets of those radical extremists who are frothing at the bit to remove environmental protections, to dismiss out of hand any efforts to establish a mutually-beneficial relationship with the environment that supplies us with pretty much all of our essential needs. All they do is to chant the jobs mantra. Well, how many jobs do they really think they are going to create as they tear up our nation's national parks, devastate through pollution our nation's rivers, lakes, and streams, and clog our nation's air with mercury, particulates, sulfur dioxide and all the other pestilences? And what kind of variety in jobs do they promise? And at what kind of salaries?
The data from these studies add significant support to the contentions and calls for a positive, supportive approach to our environment as we continue to draw out from it the natural resources that we require, and also over-require through greed and very high expectations for our quality of life. Thanks for reading my blog. I hope you will gain something valuable and important from this.
Note: The authors of these studies along with other professionals have come up with a free software progam called i-Tree which now has the ability to quantify the monetary benefits of any urban tree in America.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Fish-eating coal power plants
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Many of us may not be aware of it, perhaps many are, but our nation's power plants, pretty much all fed by coal, are slicing and dicing millions of the fish that live in the streams, rivers, and lakes upon which the power plants are situated. Power plants do this unfortunate, brutal, and, now unnecessary, act by drawing in millions of gallons of water per day to cool their power equipment inside their plants. They then shoot out the water back to where it came from but now, the water is warmed considerably and is not conducive at all to survival of the remaining fish and plants in the rivers, streams, and lakes. And, as noted already, the fish that are drawn in are chopped up into countless bits. Besides killing the fish, this process also endangers all the marine life, insects, plants, and animals, that depend on these fish for their nutrition and survival, as well do the fishermen and sportsmen who fish from these waters.
There is now a new technology that can be installed by the power companies that can reduce the intake of water for cooling purposes by some 97% percent or so. But, as usual, the power companies don't want to pay for this new technology, and they are pressing the EPA very hard to exempt them from having to adopt newer, stringent standards regulating the use of our nation's waters for industrial cooling purposes. It seems that industry in America has the opinion that they have the exclusive right to use and exploit our nation's resources in the same, old ways that they have been doing it for decades, and centuries, really. But the rest of us have to change, don't we? So why shouldn't they as well?
Above this article, there are two links to an informative and colorful animation that depicts the practice of power plants drawing in huge amounts of water, killing millions of fish, and also verbalizes these companies' selfish attitude and stubborn refusal to change their position on this matter. Please take a look at this great animation and then sign the petition that's on the website of the Sierra Club urging the EPA to hold these selfish and greedy power plants to the new proposed standards. Come on, are you really fine with having Charlie the tunafish and all his relatives and friends sucked into massive turbine engines that cut them all up into microscopic pieces??
Thanks!
Many of us may not be aware of it, perhaps many are, but our nation's power plants, pretty much all fed by coal, are slicing and dicing millions of the fish that live in the streams, rivers, and lakes upon which the power plants are situated. Power plants do this unfortunate, brutal, and, now unnecessary, act by drawing in millions of gallons of water per day to cool their power equipment inside their plants. They then shoot out the water back to where it came from but now, the water is warmed considerably and is not conducive at all to survival of the remaining fish and plants in the rivers, streams, and lakes. And, as noted already, the fish that are drawn in are chopped up into countless bits. Besides killing the fish, this process also endangers all the marine life, insects, plants, and animals, that depend on these fish for their nutrition and survival, as well do the fishermen and sportsmen who fish from these waters.
There is now a new technology that can be installed by the power companies that can reduce the intake of water for cooling purposes by some 97% percent or so. But, as usual, the power companies don't want to pay for this new technology, and they are pressing the EPA very hard to exempt them from having to adopt newer, stringent standards regulating the use of our nation's waters for industrial cooling purposes. It seems that industry in America has the opinion that they have the exclusive right to use and exploit our nation's resources in the same, old ways that they have been doing it for decades, and centuries, really. But the rest of us have to change, don't we? So why shouldn't they as well?
Above this article, there are two links to an informative and colorful animation that depicts the practice of power plants drawing in huge amounts of water, killing millions of fish, and also verbalizes these companies' selfish attitude and stubborn refusal to change their position on this matter. Please take a look at this great animation and then sign the petition that's on the website of the Sierra Club urging the EPA to hold these selfish and greedy power plants to the new proposed standards. Come on, are you really fine with having Charlie the tunafish and all his relatives and friends sucked into massive turbine engines that cut them all up into microscopic pieces??
Thanks!
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