Month: November 2014 (Page 2 of 2)

A year, or two ago I remembered watching a 60 minutes piece on the growing issue of urban animal populations. The most interesting of these during the piece was the problem going on in India’s leopard population. Even with the lost of habitat space and food sources the leopard population has not shrunk and instead has adapted to many large urban landscapes. Furthermore, it is not uncommon to spot a leopard roaming the city at night in India. Obviously, this top predator has scared the population (for good reason) and now the Indian government is prepared to make a re-evaluative decision on the matter because the issue has resulted in many preventable injuries and deaths.

It’s a hard problem to swallow because its not the leopards fault for moving into our urban areas, but something needs to be done to curve the risks associated. A healthy, top predator population usually signals to scientists that an ecosystem is good and working, yet can this problem be resolved without hurting the the top of the ecosystem? My answer is that it cannot be and the leopards will be eventually hunted  because preserving human safety is the underlying topic here and human safety is always prioritized. (Below are two articles I read on recent examples of this urban problem)

The city of Meerut’s cat problem 

Leopard Populations already dwindling in India

I know this post is not related to the topic we are discussing in class but I came across this article when I was doing research for my paper. I think it is a great overview of the benefits and costs of fracking.

The article discusses Amwell Township in Southwest PA. The township is compromised of poor farmers who all hold second jobs to provide for their families. The average yearly income of the area is $18,000 a year.

Amwell sits on top of a Marcellus Shale bed. Starting in 2006, families were approached by gas companies to allow drilling on their land. It is a great deal for the families as they can make up to $500,000 for leasing their land plus a percentage of the royalties from the gas produced on their land.

However, the royalties start to die out after a couple of years and the gas is used up and the farmers still have to hold second jobs. And although the economic benefits are great, the health repercussions seen in the area are disgusting. Animals began dying, the air smells like rotten eggs, and children became sick with heavy metal poisoning. Stacey Haney is a mother of two kids who works as a nurse. After leasing her land, her dog died at age 1 1/2 years old,  and her son became extremely sick with elevated levels of arsenic. She had herself, and her daughter tested as well. Results showed levels of heavy metals in their blood. Their drinking water became black and smelled like rotten eggs. Every time she sent a complaint to the gas company, they denied the fact that they used those chemicals. They refused to provide her with fresh drinking water until she showed them the tests from her son and when Haney and others complained to the DEP it went unreceived.

The article is long but clearly demonstrates that although there is an economic benefit to hydrofracking, the health costs far outweigh the benefits. Until companies start paying attention to the health problems they are causing and find a way to make the process more safe, hydrofracking should be stopped.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/magazine/fracking-amwell-township.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/03/india-air-pollution-cutting-crop-yields-by-almost-half

Scientists have found that air pollution in India has become so severe that yields of crops are being cut by almost half. “While temperature’s gone up in the last three decades, the levels of smog and pollution have changed much more dramatically,” says Jennifer Burney, an environmental scientist at University of California, San Diego. Comparing crop yields in 2010 to what they would be expected to be if temperature, rainfall and pollution remained at their 1980 levels, the researchers showed that crop yields for wheat yields were as much as 50% lower. Researchers that looked for wheat and rice production alongside pollution data, concluded significant decreases in yield could be attributed to two air pollutants, black carbon and ground level ozone.

What does this mean for the future of Agriculture in our world?

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/11/5/a_big_win_for_climate_change

In a video clip of Lee Fang and Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, last Tuesday’s elections are discussed in regards to what it means for climate change policy. With Republicans winning the Senate, leadership of certain committees will be in the hands of very serious climate change skeptics. Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe made a video for the climate denying think tank “The Heartland Institute” about how climate change is just rhetoric for Democrats to get elected; he will be in control of the environment committee. Senator Ron Johnson will control the homeland security and government reform committee, meanwhile Senator Ted Cruz may serve as head of the science sub committee within the commerce committee, which controls federal science research.

By placing climate change skeptics in important positions, there will be a lot of pressure on the EPA to rollback or delay proposed rules on carbon emissions, a push for exporting oil and Keystone XL, and a call for fracking. Although Democrats also accept campaign funding from fossil fuel industries and haven’t eliminated the idea of increased fracking, very conservative Republicans were elected. In other clips that Democracy Now has shown, Ralph Nader has called this era, “the most militaristic, corporatist, cruel, anti-worker, anti-consumer, anti-environment, anti-women, even anti-children programs of the Republican Party” and senator Bernie Sanders has said “The United States is on the verge of becoming an oligarchy.”

With a divided government and even more anti-environmentalists in place, how do you think the rest of the government will respond to these elections? How about the public?

“We don’t want to claim that we’re going to solve all of humanity’s problems,” cautioned Ferrari (a graphene researcher at University of Cambridge), “but we are in for a very interesting next ten years.”

This was the closing quote form an NBC article about this supposed miracle material called Graphene. From the article, “It makes batteries charge faster and last longer. It can detect light better than the best sensors. It could lead to flexible, impossibly thin touchscreens, super-strong composites and implantable electronics.” The article also reported that labs around the world are inventing things that use this material almost every day. What is the material? Its simply an almost two dimensional sheet of carbon arranged in hexagonal shapes.

It will be interesting to keep this material in the back of our minds as technologies press on into more and more innovative places. Apparently, the implications are huge, and the EU already has a billion dollar flagship program which hopes to roll out strong, conductive polymers in the next ten years, and then move from there.

Environmentally, this industry would have little to no impact simply because carbon is everywhere. With the heavy quote “We don’t want to claim we’re going to solve all of humanity’s problems,” one can’t help but imagine all the great this material could do.

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/wonder-material-graphene-just-getting-started-researchers-say-n236766

A Swiss non-profit technology company has invented white solar panels.  These panels can be used as the walls of buildings, produce energy and cool the building.  The panels also have no visible connectors or cells, making them more desirable. This is a great invention, but we are still waiting for solar panel windows.

http://www.treehugger.com/solar-technology/white-solar-panels-could-blend-buildings-cool-them-down.html

http://theweek.com/speedreads/index/270848/speedreads-stephen-colbert-credibly-blames-the-nra-for-legal-dog-and-cat-eating-in-pennsylvania

I thought this might be an enjoyable clip to watch. When we talked about the ethics of meat-eating among environmental movements (i.e. some radicals agree that we are animals and should eat animals; ecofeminists believe that it promotes domination), it took it out of context from pets. Due to our culture around dogs and cats, many meat-eaters in America wouldn’t dream of eating them… but pigeons? Nah, shoot them dead. It was more important to keep gun rights above animal lives, even man’s best friend. By eliminating consideration of this bill, the NRA seems to continue our domination over the natural world and has even pushed us further than the norm of respect of pets.

Oddly, it’s very difficult to find mainstream news sources that have information on the bill or even the topic (NYTimes had nothing to show). Any thoughts on why the topic was hidden by everyone but Colbert?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-democratic-strategists-acknowledge-challenging-environment-as-tuesday-looms/2014/11/02/2c4d2f28-629b-11e4-9fdc-d43b053ecb4d_story.html

This Article is of the opinion that the environmental issues have cooled, making it harder and harder for more liberal candidates to get elected with that issue on their side. Voters are just no longer as friendly as they once were to the environment.

So who is to blame? According to the author, President Obama. As said by one democratic consultant, “It’s not just anger at [the Affordable Care Act]. He has become, rightly or wrongly, the symbol of dysfunction in Washington. That has led to a demoralized Democratic base, energized Republicans. And those in the middle have an easy way of venting their frustration, and that is to punish the president’s party.”

Democratic Candidates made it obvious they wanted to distance themselves from the President’s politics.“President Obama isn’t the cause of this bad environment, but how candidates have chosen to handle his lower approval ratings has often compounded their problems,” as said by Erik Smith, a veteran Democratic operative.

Democrats remain hopeful, their more environmentally friendly party will still be able to have an influence in congress, even with the bad blood Obama has left in the halls of Congress.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/01/us-climatechange-denmark-idUSKBN0IL35R20141101

Denmark’s Climate, Energy and Building Minister (Helveg Petersen) has made a tentative proposal that the country will phase out of coal use by 2025, even stating that the cost, “would not be significant.” Denmark has been known to have a very green track record. However, the record downsizing in coal use is aside from the amount they use: 6 million tons a year, and coal constitutes about 1/3 of electricity use. As details are being worked out, some estimates say that wind turbines will generate over half of all the country’s electricity by 2020.

Goals like these made me think about two different components. 1) Political motives or impacts and 2) How the country was culturally accepting of a shift. Firstly, Denmark gets a good deal of its coal from Russia, according to the article. What impact would goals like these have on imports/exports on the global market? If other countries began mapping out proposals, how would some countries respond as opposed to others? Second, the article also detailed lifestyle choices of the Danes that makes a goal like this seem acceptable: “41 percent of people in Copenhagen cycle to work or school”, for example. Copenhagen has cycle lanes, has cleaned up the polluted water, and created livable environments for families. As we’ve all noticed bike sharing systems popping up in places like NYC, how far away do you think the US is from being culturally accepting of national green goals? Thinking back on the 60s and 70s grassroots movement, in what ways can the public begin to take more individual and/or structural interest in supporting environmental goals?