Author: Rachel Barron (Page 1 of 2)

India is set to reveal a new climate plan in January according to an Indian business publication. It is likely to include a “peaking year” for India’s GHG emissions. This announcement fits in with what the U.N. climate negotiators are hoping for. Countries are supposed to announce their emission reduction goals by March 2015 and then in December 2015, world leaders are supposed to commit to holding each other accountable to their goals.

Although this is good news, there are still a lot of questions. India is one of the biggest polluters in the world and currently 300 million of it’s 1.2 billion residents don’t have electricity. When those people get access, India’s emissions will most likely increase exponentially. Still, this year China, the U.S., the E.U., and now India have stepped up and demonstrated that they are willing to do something to tackle the looming threat of climate change.

http://grist.org/news/india-may-be-the-next-big-polluter-to-announce-a-climate-plan/

On Wednesday, a accident during maintenance work on the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline resulted in the spillage of million of liters of crude oil. The oil flooded 200 acres of a desert nature reserve about 12 miles north of the red sea. The leak stopped before the oil could cross the nearby Jordanian boarder but dozens of Jordanian nationals were evacuated due to complaints about breathing problems and dizziness. Rehabilitation will probably take months if not years according the the environment ministry general and will consist of drainage with suction equipment and removal of contaminated earth. On ministry official said this was the worst environmental accidents in Israel’s history.

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Oil-spill-near-Eilat-is-one-of-worst-environmental-accidents-in-Israels-history-official-says-383615

Accidents like this make you wonder what is going to happen if they install the keystone pipeline….

A recent study completed by the utility-software maker OPower concluded that solar panels should be west facing instead of south facing. Most solar panels face south to receive the most amount of sunlight but electricity demand is the highest later in the day when the sun is in the west. Recent guidelines from the California Energy Commission state that systems facing west align highly with the needs of the grid. When people come home from the work or school later in the day, they turn on their TV, AC, lights and plug in their electronics. This uses a lot of energy but the energy is not coming from solar power any longer, it is coming from the grid. The problem is incentive. People with solar arrays get paid based on the net power they produce. If they put their solar pannels facing west, they will receive less overall power. To mitigate this problem, OPower suggests that utilities pay for solar power at varying rates to reflect the price of power at different times of the day. Also, solar trackers could allow the panels to follow the sun moving from east to west throughout the day.

http://grist.org/news/a-plan-to-get-solar-headed-in-the-right-direction-literally/

Although solar energy is a great way to save resources, they are currently incredibly expensive and not seen in very many places on the east coast. An Xiaolin Zheng, an engineer at Standford University may have an answer to that question. She has engineered sticker solar panels. They are skinny bendable cells that produce they same amount of electricity as the rigid ones. Furthermore, they offer cost benefits as they can be used over again and again. They are also easier and less expensive to install because they are lighter and are less expensive to produce. Zheng imagines a day when we will be able to buy these solar cells from a corner store (as you would buy batteries) and install them everywhere- windows, doors, sidewalks, roofs, even help power solar cars or planes.

The research is a long way from being applicable on a larger scale but it seems to hold promise for the future.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/12/141203-xiaolin-zheng-emerging-explorer-solar/

This is a bit of a silly article but I still found it interesting.

Seattle mapmaker and urban planner Jeffrey Lin created maps of major U.S. cities under water. Specifically, they show what costal cities would look like if the ice caps completely melt resulting in a sea level rise of 8- meters (260 feet). He created names for the future islands and archipelagos. These estimates are not going to occur in our life time and the amount of time it takes to get this drastic completely depends on how fast our ice caps melt and how much humans enhance the process. However, it the near future estimates state the there will be between a 1.7 and 3.2 foot sea rise by 2100. That is the estimate of a best case scenario if we aggressively cut GHG emissions now. There is still a debate on how fast the ice sheets are melting and a lot of other factors we don’t understand. Still it is an interesting perspective to think that eventually all of LA could be under water.

http://grist.org/cities/heres-what-your-city-will-look-like-when-the-ice-sheets-melt/

California experiences a drought every summer but this past one was especially bad. In fact, according to studies conducted by Daniel Griffin, an assistant professor in the Dept. of Geography, Environment and Society at the Univeristy of Minnesota and Kevin Anchukaitis, an assistant scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, this is the worst draught CA has seen in 1,200 years.

Griffin and Anhukaitis collected new tree-ring samples from blue oak tress in southern and central CA. These trees thrive in some of CA’s driest environments and are a good marker of moisture changes. The research suggests that natural climate system variability is compounded by anthropogenic climate change and is likely to continue to occur. Although CA will bounce back from this years drought with the coming of the rainy season, that may not be the case in the future.

Why does this effect us you may ask? CA is the worlds 8th largest economy and source of a great deal of food. If the droughts continue, crop yields will decrease and there will be a shortage of produce.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141205124357.htm

This relates to my last post. Even if people don’t believe in climate change they should sure be worried about it. Maybe a shortage of food supply and a dramatic increase in prices will change their mind about acting for change.

The Obama administration announced plans this week to launch the “Climate Education and Literacy Initiative.” The plan includes how we can educate individuals about climate change, starting in kindergarden and going up through college. The administration asked education and advocacy groups in October to provide ideas. They received over 150 ideas from more than 30 states. The White House also states that it will provide climate education to National Park Employees and have science workshops for teachers.

According to a Gallup analysis, conducted in April, 1 in 4 Americans don’t believe in global warming or are not worried. They think the temperature rise is due to natural fluctuations. A survey from Yale and George Mason Universities found that while 55% of Americans were “somewhat worried” regarding climate change, only 11% were very worried.

We talked about this in class, and yet I still am incredulous that people don’t believe in climate change. I think this initiative is very necessary to open the public’s eyes and get people worried. What is it going to take before people start seeing this as a major problem and therefore act on it?? It will be interesting to see whether this initiative works or not. My feeling is, it probably won’t due to the lack of support for Obama currently in our country. But this is definitely something that our country needs.

http://grist.org/news/prepare-to-be-schooled-on-climate-change-america/

I came across this article regarding a policy change in the palm oil industry of Singapore. Although this policy change is a business change and not political it still holds a good amount of weight for environmentalist. The palm oil business Musim Mas announced that the palm oil it purchases hasn’t been harvested in ways that cause deforestation. The company handles about 18% of the worlds palm oil. Their decision came one year after Wilmar International agreed to take a stand on the issue. Since then most major corporations have followed suit and currently 96% of the palm oil industry follows a no-deforestation policy.

Deforestation in Singapore has caused loss of critical Orangutan habitat and has led to massive underground fires. These new policies could restore those habitats. Of course NGOs will be motoring the industry closely to make sure they uphold their promise.

http://grist.org/food/the-last-holdout-among-big-palm-oil-producers-joins-no-deforestation-pledge/

The past couple of weeks we have been talking about exploitation in third world countries and trying to combine local empowerment with environmental protection. After reading the grist article, I wondered what kind of conditions the palm oil workers have in Singapore and if their livelihoods are being exploited similar to Brazil. I found this article that talks about a company called Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) a palm oil developer that works in Singapore. The article is on a man who works for the company with the job of pursuading the local people to let GVL plant il palm on their land. He must negotiate terms with the locals which can be tough. However, the company does give them compensation, builds schools and roads, provides jobs, scholarships and hand pumps for water. They are one of the first companies trying to empower the locals to “take charge of their own development.”

http://www.trust.org/item/20140422112933-pihc1/

I thought it was interesting to see a different group (besides NGO) using the same tactic of empowerment.

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

I think as Lafayette students we are all familiar with this pesky brown pest. Originating in Asian, the stinkbug (Halyomorpha halys) was introduced into the United States in the mid 1990s. We all recognize them as the annoying bugs that fly around our room and land on our books and in our clothes. But they are also incredibly problematic for fruit crops.

They have now spread to 41 states. Tracy Leskey is a research entomologist with the United States Department of Agriculture who is working to understand the threat stinkbugs pose, patterns in which they move and how they may be eliminated. The main problem is that nothing in the Unites States eats these stinkbugs. In Asia a parasitic wasp eats the stinkbugs from inside the shell but more research needs to be done to determine what kind of damage introducing the foreign wasp will create on native stinkbugs and whether it will just turn into another invasive species.

Regardless of how it is accomplished, I certainly agree that these pesky bugs should be gotten rid of…finding them everywhere in a dorm room is not very fun!

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141017-stinkbugs-insects-science-animals-nation-control/

Nuclear fuel comes in the form of enriched uranium, which naturally produces heat as uranium atoms split. The heat is used to boil water and produce steam, which drives a steam turbine that spins a generator to create electricity.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/japan-nuclear-crisis1.htm

In March of 2011, Japan suffered the largest earthquake in modern history, which triggered a 9.0 tsunami and destroyed the backup diesel generators that powered the water coolant pumps of the country’s Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear facility. These pumps circulate water through the reactor to remove decay heat. Uncirculated, the water temperature and pressure continued to rise and the reactor radiation began to split the water into oxygen and volatile hydrogen. This resulted in hydrogen explosions, which breached the reactor building’s steel containment panels. If water continued to boil off, a meltdown would have almost certainly occurred. Therefore, the operators decided to flood the reactors with seawater because seawater ruins the reactors. Although the situation could have been much worse, there was an increase in release of radiation, which has led to a massive amount of radioactive water.  After nuclear crisis of 2011, all 48 of Japan’s commercial nuclear reactors were shut down.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-power5.htm

Now, 3 years later, Japan’s nuclear regulatory agency declared that an atomic power plant is safe to operated. The two reactors at the Sendai power plant on the southern island of Kyushu are the first to be certified as safe enough to restart. Final decision on whether to restart the plant will be decided in December by the prime minister. Public opinion polls show that the public remains skeptical about the safety of the plants and the governing liberal democratic party to ensure that safety. It makes sense that after a nuclear crisis such as the one in 2011, the public may be skeptical of restoring the plants to operation and although the agency is stating that safety regulations will be higher than ever, it doesn’t appear that they are taking public concern completely into consideration- especially considering the Sendai plant is in a volcanic area.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/world/asia/japanese-nuclear-plant-declared-safe-to-operate-for-first-time-since-fukushima-daiichi-disaster.html?_r=0

If, like me, you don’t know much about nuclear energy, here is a website that briefly outlines it!

http://www.nnr.co.za/what-is-nuclear-energy/