Earth and Science
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Indoor air pollution worse than the smog outside in China
Though already home to 16 of the planet’s 20 most heavily polluted cities, researchers have recently come up with worse news from smog-clogged China, after findings that the air inside the homes of the lower classes in the country can be up to 10 times worse than the prevailing gloom outside.
Reasons for this include the fact that 70% of homes still burn coal and wood for heat, while half of all Chinese men smoke, adding to a toxic combo of indoor pollution.
Shockingly, it is estimated that over the next quarter-century, 83 million Chinese — a number equaling nearly a third of the total U.S. population — will die of lung cancer and respiratory ailments unless cigarette smoking and indoor fuel-burning are reduced. Though already home to 16 of the planet’s 20 most heavily polluted cities, researchers have recently come up with worse news from smog... more -
War for Oil
The biggest ever sale of oil assets will take place today, when the Iraqi government puts 40bn barrels of recoverable reserves up for offer in London.
BP, Shell and ExxonMobil are all expected to attend a meeting at the Park Lane Hotel in Mayfair with the Iraqi oil minister, Hussein al-Shahristani.
Access is being given to eight fields, representing about 40% of the Middle Eastern nation's reserves, at a time when the country remains under occupation by US and British forces.
Two smaller agreements have already been signed with Shell and the China National Petroleum Corporation, but today's sale will ignite arguments over whether the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was a "war for oil" that is now to be consummated by western multinationals seizing control of strategic Iraqi reserves...
(Follow link for more...) The biggest ever sale of oil assets will take place today, when the Iraqi government puts 40bn barrels of recoverable reserves up for ... more -
Hungry bears surround Russian villages
Dozens of brown bears searching for food have forced two villages in a mountainous region of southern Russia to impose a curfew, after the bears left the forests and began terrorising villagers and killing cattle. Now the inhabitants of Yailyu and Bele would no longer be able to leave their villages without an armed guard during the day and must stay in their homes at night. The bears have left the forest because of a lack of berries and nuts this year. Dozens of brown bears searching for food have forced two villages in a mountainous region of southern Russia to impose a curfew, after... more
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For peat’s sake: A point of no return as alarming as the tundra feedback
A new study in Nature Geoscience (subs. req’d, abstract below) projects that “a warming of 4°C causes a 40% loss of soil organic carbon from the shallow peat and 86% from the deep peat” of Northern peatlands. And that amplifying carbon cycle feedback is dangerous for three reasons:
1. The northern peatlands are believed to store some 320 (+/- 140) billion metric tons of carbon, roughly half of what the atmosphere contains.
2. Peatlands tend to emit much of their carbon in the form of methane, which is more than 20 times as powerful a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide.
3. A warming of 4°C this century is all but inevitable if we don’t sharply reverse emissions trends quickly (see “Is 450 ppm politically possible? Part 0: The alternative is humanity’s self-destruction“).
This study provides yet more evidence that the carbon cycle has a point of no return beyond which it becomes all but impossible to stop catastrophic global warming — the point at which we start to lose the northern peatlands and the permafrost (see Tundra, Part 2: The point of no return).
Most of the world’s wetlands are peat, which are better known as bogs, moors, mires, and swamp forests. Wikipedia notes, “Under the right conditions, peat is the earliest stage in the formation of coal.” The Reuters article on the study explains why peatlands contain so much carbon:
Peat is the accumulation of partially decayed vegetation in very wet places and it covers about two percent of global land mass. Peatlands store large amounts of carbon owing to the low rates of carbon breakdown in cold, waterlogged soils.
The carbon cycle feedback begins as human-caused global warming dries out the peatlands:
“This will cause carbon loss from the soil which means an increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, which will further worsen global warming,” said Takeshi Ise from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology. “So we have to do something to mitigate global warming,” he told Reuters.
This, of course, is very similar to the carbon cycle feedbacks from the melting of the tundra or permafrost (see “Tundra 4: Permafrost loss linked to Arctic sea ice loss“).
Again, if we don’t keep total warming substantially below 4°C, then we risk triggering vast releases of methane and carbon dioxide from the permafrost and the northern peatlands at rates that are much faster than humanity can plausibly reduce our own emissions.
Here is the full abstract of “High sensitivity of peat decomposition to climate change through water-table feedback”:
Historically, northern peatlands have functioned as a carbon sink, sequestering large amounts of soil organic carbon, mainly due to low decomposition in cold, largely waterlogged soils. The water table, an essential determinant of soil-organic-carbon dynamics interacts with soil organic carbon. Because of the high water-holding capacity of peat and its low hydraulic conductivity, accumulation of soil organic carbon raises the water table, which lowers decomposition rates of soil organic carbon in a positive feedback loop. This two-way interaction between hydrology and biogeochemistry has been noted but is not reproduced in process-based simulations. Here we present simulations with a coupled physical–biogeochemical soil model with peat depths that are continuously updated from the dynamic balance of soil organic carbon. Our model reproduces dynamics of shallow and deep peatlands in northern Manitoba, Canada, on both short and longer timescales.
continued A new study in Nature Geoscience (subs. req’d, abstract below) projects that “a warming of 4°C causes a 40% loss of soil organic carbo... more -
Snow slows Mars Lander
As the UA-led Phoenix Mars Lander mission enters its final stages, it is clear that this mission has paved the way for further exploration of the Red Planet.
Carla Bitter, education and public outreach officer for NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, said that changes in the Martian climate have begun to limit the capabilities of the Mars Lander and will soon lead to its termination. As the UA-led Phoenix Mars Lander mission enters its final stages, it is clear that this mission has paved the way for further explora... more -
Scientists Turn Wood into Fuel
Discovery-News.com: Discovery’s Tracy Staedter and Matt Danzico visit University of Massachusetts Amherst to learn how biomass gas be transformed into green gasoline. Discovery-News.com: Discovery’s Tracy Staedter and Matt Danzico visit University of Massachusetts Amherst to learn how biomass gas be ... more
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Blind man sees wife and kids for the first time!
He had loved her voice since he first heard it in 1984. He had kissed her face a thousand times and held her hand. But he had never seen her - until now.
Michael May (54) had been blind since childhood. Then a miracle operation gave him back the gift of sight and his first ever look at his wife, as well as his two kids!
He lost his sight at the age of three. While playing with a powder he had found on the grounds of a chemical factory, it exploded and damaged his eyes.
But Michael never gave up hope. He learned quickly. He studied and founded an electronics firm. He’s a dedicated skier, and has won gold three times at the Paralympics.
He met his wife Jennifer (49) at a reception. She fell in love with him despite his disability and the couple now have two sons, aged 13 and 15.
One day, Michael accompanied Jennifer to her optician as she needed new contact lenses. More as a joke than anything, Michael also had his eyes examined.
But there was an amazing discovery - a new procedure (repairing the retina with stem cells) could be used to cure Michael’s eyes. The complicated operation was a success.
“A torrent of white lights” is how he described the moments directly after the bandages were taken off. Slowly, he began to make out shapes and colours. His heart raced as he began to discern more.
Then came his first view of Jennifer. First he could only make out her pullover: “Oh Heavens, that’s blue.” Then he saw her tender face, her hair. “So that’s what blonde looks like,” he thought. She was just like he had always seen her in his heart, only more beautiful.
He didn’t want to break down and cry because he was frightened of losing the picture.
Michael still has to train his brain to be able to deal with the new flood of images.
He is as happy as ever with Jennifer. Even though he might now and then look at other women on the street! He had loved her voice since he first heard it in 1984. He had kissed her face a thousand times and held her hand. But he had never se... more -
Soyuz with Tourist Launches for Space Station [pics]
Photographs from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan on Sunday, October 12, 2008.
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Turning carbon dioxide into fuel
You might have thought that recycling is limited to paper, plastics and glass. Well, think again. A Californian company is developing a new technique for recycling carbon dioxide, or CO2, and turning it back into fuel.
Carbon Sciences are developing a "breakthrough technology" to make fuel out of waste CO2.
Carbon Sciences believe they have made a breakthrough with their technology, which they say can transform CO2 back into basic fuel building blocks efficiently.
Their biocatalytic process converts CO2 into basic hydrocarbons - C1 (methane) C2 (ethane) and C3 (propane) -- which can then be utilized to make higher-grade fuels like gasoline and jet fuel. You might have thought that recycling is limited to paper, plastics and glass. Well, think again. A Californian company is developing ... more -
ABC relies on the inanity defense to reject Gore’s-truth telling ad
Here’s an update on my recent heavily-Dugg post: “The truth-telling ad ABC won’t let you see — and what you can do about it.”
First, as of today, more than 200,000 people have sent ABC an email. So thank you to everybody who sent them an e-mail or Dugg this post and drew attention to it — and to the many other bloggers who wrote about this.
Second, ABC’s absurd actions have come to the attention of one of the media’s most prestigious watchdogs. What their headline “ABC Declines Renewable Power Ad” lacks in actual head-smackiness, their coverage makes up in credibility. ABC can easily ignore bloggers, but not CJR. ABC was also critiqued by the UK Guardian, with a better headline, “ABC deems Gore climate change advert too ‘controversial’ for TV.”
Third, ABC has offered an explanation for their hypocrisy action or, more precisely, two explanations. The Alliance for Climate Protection says that ABC objected to this fleeting image:
Big Oil Spends Hundreds of Millions to Block Clean Energy
Why? ABC said:
Per our Guidelines, national buildings may be used in advertising provided the depictions are incidental to the advertiser’s promotion of the product or service. Given the messages and themes of this commercial, the image of the Capital (sic) building is not incidental to this advertising. Please replace the image with one that is not of another national building or monument. Thank you.
The Wonkroom notes how ridiculous that claim is, given that ABC runs Chevron’s greenwashing ‘Human Energy‘ ads:
While running ads calling for conservation and depicting happy children and unspoiled nature, Chevron was simultaneously expanding its operations in the tar sands of Alberta, Canada and oil fields of the Niger Delta, and lobbying to lift the offshore drilling moratorium.
Maybe ABC realized the inanity of their original argument because “network spokeswoman Julie Hoover told the Guardian“:
All of our advertising is reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and the context of this particular ad was determined not to be acceptable per our policy on controversial issue advertising.
I suppose the “we’re arbitrary” defense is much better than the “we’re legally inane” defense. Here’s an update on my recent heavily-Dugg post: “The truth-telling ad ABC won’t let you see — and what you can do about it.” ... more -
NYT issues strong editorial on oil, climate, and the election
he New York Times published a blunt lead editorial today, “Up and Down the Learning Curve,” with the blurb:
America’s energy problems are complex, and solving them will require leaders with restless curiosity and an open mind.
The piece notes that despite the “cramped rules of the presidential debates and the McCain campaign’s descent into content-free name-calling.”:
Still, we have heard enough to know that there are big differences between John McCain and Barack Obama.
The NYT notes that Obama “keeps moving up the learning curve on energy issues,” and “His present strategy is coherent and farsighted.” The NYT also details McCain’s strategy. Rather than rehashing that here, let me quote one telling anecdote from the vice presidential debate that I didn’t write about at the time but that the NYT hones in on:
Ms. Palin’s strategy is frighteningly simplistic: drill for more oil. Any doubt on that score was erased in the vice presidential debate, when she delightedly corrected Senator Joseph Biden about the party’s new slogan. He had complained that the Republicans stood for “drill, drill, drill.” No, she said, it’s “drill, baby, drill.”
She seemed downright gleeful repeating this shameful GOP chant. The NYT notes that “if Ms. Palin is to be believed, [McCain] has more or less anointed her as his energy czar.”
Kudos to the NYT for this powerful editorial. he New York Times published a blunt lead editorial today, “Up and Down the Learning Curve,” with the blurb: ... more -
The Genographic Project - Human Migration
A Landmark Study of the Human Journey
Where do you really come from? And how did you get to where you live today? DNA studies suggest that all humans today descend from a group of African ancestors who—about 60,000 years ago—began a remarkable journey.
The Genographic Project is seeking to chart new knowledge about the migratory history of the human species by using sophisticated laboratory and computer analysis of DNA contributed by hundreds of thousands of people from around the world. In this unprecedented and real-time research effort, the Genographic Project is closing the gaps of what science knows today about humankind's ancient migration stories.
****Link did not translate right, here is the correct one***:
https://nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html A Landmark Study of the Human Journey ... more -
Elephants can now text
What an ingenious concept. Instead of killing invading elephants, rangers installed a collar that has the ability to text when an elephant breaks a predetermined "geofence". This allows the rangers to intercept the animal before it gets near the human population. American kids, you might want to be careful if mom and dad gives you a collar for your birthday. What an ingenious concept. Instead of killing invading elephants, rangers installed a collar that has the ability to text when an elep... more
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Oil sands will pollute Great Lakes, report warns
The environmental impacts of Alberta's oil sands will not be restricted to Western Canada, researchers say, but will extend thousands of kilometres away to the Great Lakes, threatening water and air quality around the world's largest body of fresh water.
In a new report, the University of Toronto's Munk Centre says the massive refinery expansions needed to process tar sands crude, and the new pipeline networks for transporting the fuel, amount to a "pollution delivery system" connecting Alberta to the Great Lakes region of Canada and the U.S.
It warns that the refineries will be using the Great Lakes "as a cheap supply" source for their copious water needs and the area's air "as a pollution dump."
The report, which is being released today at a conference at the university, says that as many as 17 major refinery expansions around the lakes are being considered for turning the tar-like Alberta bitumen into gasoline and other petroleum products. While not all will be undertaken, enough of them will be to have a regional environmental impact.
Proposed pipeline and refinery projects around the lakes are expected to lead to total investments of more than $31-billion (U.S.) by 2015, spending similar in scale to expenditures at many oil sands projects. For this reason, the report says the various projects, when taken together, threaten to "wipe out many of the pollution control gains" achieved around the lakes since the 1970s.
The massive expenditures are needed because typical refineries can't process heavy crude derived from tar sands without costly upgrades.
"This expansion promises to bring with it an exponential increase in pollution, discharges into waterways including the Great Lakes, destruction of wetlands, toxic air emissions, acid rain, and huge increases in greenhouse gas emissions," it says.
Most of the projected spending is on the U.S. side of the lakes. Only one major refinery project has been announced for the Canadian side, but that expansion, at a Shell refinery in Sarnia, was put on hold in July because of surging costs.
However, two big Canadian companies, TransCanada Pipelines Ltd. with its Keystone project, and Enbridge Inc., with its Alberta Clipper project, are vying to build pipelines to bring crude from the tar sands to U.S. refineries around the lakes.
The report says the environmental effects in Alberta from tar sands development - from dying ducks caught in tailings ponds to massive carbon dioxide emissions - are well known, but the implications for the Great Lakes "are less well-understood and less extensively explored."
Policy makers around the lakes, in both Canada and the U.S., are largely unaware that the tar sands will lead to massive industrial development in their region, and consequently have no strategy to minimize the environmental impacts, it says.
Some of the harshest criticism is for the Ontario government, which it characterizes as "remarkably unengaged" over how tar sands oil will affect the province and "doesn't seem to even be asking the key questions, let alone contemplating the possible policy answers."
There has been one major dispute in the U.S. over a tar sands-related refinery expansion, at a British Petroleum facility at Whiting, Ind. The company proposed a $3-billion refinery modernization that would raise discharges of two pollutants by about 35 per cent and 54 per cent respectively. But it backed down and pledged not to increase the pollutants after a public outcry. The environmental impacts of Alberta's oil sands will not be restricted to Western Canada, researchers say, but will extend thous... more -
Space tourist blasts off in $30m odyssey
A British-born tycoon made history today as he became the first offspring of a NASA astronaut to go into space.
Richard Garriott, 47, will dock tomorrow at the International Space Station, 225 miles above Earth, 35 years after his father Owen flew aboard one of NASA’s last Apollo missions to Skylab, America’s first orbiting laboratory.
The multi-millionaire computer-game developer, who began his working life as a kitchen assistant at Burger King, blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan today as a private passenger aboard a Soyuz capsule, having paid the Russian space agency $30 million for the privilege and undergone a year’s training.
He will be the only the second person to wear the Union flag in space; Helen Sharman, a chemist for Mars confectioners, was the first when she flew to Russia’s Mir space station on a privately arranged trip in 1991. A British-born tycoon made history today as he became the first offspring of a NASA astronaut to go into space. ... more -
Energy Independence: Harnessing the Awesome Power of the High Five
This ground breaking technology from Cunning Labs could be the most promising alternative energy innovation yet. The system taps into the vast energy potential of the “High Five” to generate electrical energy.
Also known as “Up High” to those in the field, the High Five is a celebratory hand gesture made by two people, each raising one hand to slap the raised hand of the other. In most cultures it is meant to communicate mutual satisfaction or to extend congratulations from one person to another.
Although this design only harnesses the power of the “Up High”, future models may extend to include the “Down Low,” that is assuming they can over come the substantial energy loss of the “Too Slow” factor... This ground breaking technology from Cunning Labs could be the most promising alternative energy innovation yet. The system taps into... more -
John McCain: The Nuclear Option
Building 45 new nuclear plants in this country is insanity and will doom the waterways of this country and put our national security at risk. For a candidate who also talks about fighting the 'war on terror' as well, how could this thought even be entertained in the world we live in? Nuclear energy is not safe, it is not CO2 free, and I am truly getting tired of John McCain talking about what he really knows nothing about. He was on a nuclear submarine that didn't get blown up so that is how he assessed nuclear power is safe? Does he even understand the process of how the uranium is extracted and the toxic pollution it causes to our waterways and land? Does he understand how the toxic waste causes cancer? Does he understand the radioactivity of the waste? The immense amount of water nuclear uses? (Not good in a country now experiencing droughts, especially in the US Southwest) The cost in dollars and in potential lives?
My one message to him and yes, Obama as well who has now flip flopped to say he too engages nuclear is: STOP LYING TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. The strides being made in solar, wind, and geothermal are here and now. We could take the money their congressional subsidies give out for their nuclear pipedreams and repower this country! I will make a pledge that should John McCain be corronated I will call the White House every day regarding this issue and 'clean coal.' And I will do the same if it is Obama.
It is unconscienable to me that they could ever want to foist this antiquated unsafe energy source on us just to appease backers and the lobbyists who get the subisidies from Washington Dc. The nuclear option must be out of the question. It is antiquated. It is unsafe. It is toxic. It wastes water. It is expensive. It puts our national security at risk, and will take too much time in light of the reports coming from peer reviewed scientists regarding the current state of our world. Why don't these candidates ever pick up a report instead of a poll to craft their policies? Building 45 new nuclear plants in this country is insanity and will doom the waterways of this country and put our national security a... more -
Kenya's elephants send text messages to rangers
The text message from the elephant flashed across Richard Lesowapir's screen: Kimani was heading for neighboring farms.
The huge bull elephant had a long history of raiding villagers' crops during the harvest, sometimes wiping out six months of income at a time. But this time a mobile phone card inserted in his collar sent rangers a text message. Lesowapir, an armed guard and a driver arrived in a jeep bristling with spotlights to frighten Kimani back into the Ol Pejeta conservancy.
Kenya is the first country to try elephant texting as a way to protect both a growing human population and the wild animals that now have less room to roam. Elephants are ranked as "near threatened" in the Red List, an index of vulnerable species published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The race to save Kimani began two years ago. The Kenya Wildlife Service had already reluctantly shot five elephants from the conservancy who refused to stop crop-raiding, and Kimani was the last of the regular raiders. The Save the Elephants group wanted to see if he could break the habit.
So they placed a mobile phone SIM card in Kimani's collar, then set up a virtual "geofence" using a global positioning system that mirrored the conservatory's boundaries. Whenever Kimani approaches the virtual fence, his collar texts rangers.
They have intercepted Kimani 15 times since the project began. Once almost a nightly raider, he last went near a farmer's field four months ago.
It's a huge relief to the small farmers who rely on their crops for food and cash for school fees. Basila Mwasu, a 31-year-old mother of two, lives a stone's throw from the conservancy fence. She and her neighbors used to drum through the night on pots and pans in front of flaming bonfires to try to frighten the elephants away. The text message from the elephant flashed across Richard Lesowapir's screen: Kimani was heading for neighboring farms. ... more -
Mexican marijuana cartels sully US forests, parks
National forests and parks — long popular with Mexican marijuana-growing cartels — have become home to some of the most polluted pockets of wilderness in America because of the toxic chemicals needed to eke lucrative harvests from rocky mountainsides, federal officials said.
The grow sites have taken hold from the West Coast's Cascade Mountains, as well as on federal lands in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.
Seven hundred grow sites were discovered on U.S. Forest Service land in California alone in 2007 and 2008 — and authorities say the 1,800-square-mile Sequoia National Forest is the hardest hit.
Weed and bug sprays, some long banned in the U.S., have been smuggled to the marijuana farms. Plant growth hormones have been dumped into streams, and the water has then been diverted for miles in PVC pipes.
Rat poison has been sprinkled over the landscape to keep animals away from tender plants. And many sites are strewn with the carcasses of deer and bears poached by workers during the five-month growing season that is now ending.
"What's going on on public lands is a crisis at every level," said Forest Service agent Ron Pugh. "These are America's most precious resources, and they are being devastated by an unprecedented commercial enterprise conducted by armed foreign nationals. It is a huge mess." National forests and parks — long popular with Mexican marijuana-growing cartels — have become home to some of the most polluted pocke... more -
Why the West should put money in the trees
In 2006, Guyana's President Bharrat Jagdeo outlined an offer to place almost the entirety of Guyana's rainforest under international supervision as part of the world's battle against climate change. In the Green Room this week, President Jagdeo sets out his views on how to reduce the 18% of greenhouse gas emissions caused by tropical deforestation. In 2006, Guyana's President Bharrat Jagdeo outlined an offer to place almost the entirety of Guyana's rainforest under inter... more
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