Month: April 2014 (Page 1 of 3)

A CSX trail hauling oil from North Dakota’s Bakken shale derailed today in Lynchburg, Virginia and is currently dumping an unknown amount of oil into the James River. The river is currently at flood stage, so the oil will be traveling quickly and should begin to reach Richmond sometime on Thursday. Richmond and several other municipalities are making preparations to temporarily use alternate sources for drinking water.

http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/state-regional/train-carrying-crude-oil-derails-in-downtown-lynchburg/article_ca91041c-d096-11e3-ae9b-0017a43b2370.html

http://www.brightsourceenergy.com/ivanpah-solar-project

Last year, the world’s largest solar farm has opened in Ivanpah in California’s Mojave Desert. This is a big step as solar photovoltaics is a renewable source of energy and reduces carbon emissions. In addition, this is a portion of California that gets relatively large amount of sunshine.

The Obama administration and the EPA are celebrating the 6-2 Supreme Court decision to allow the EPA to remain in control of the coal pollution in 27 Midwestern and Appalachian states. This continues the authority of the Clean Air Act and their “War on Coal”

Now we can enjoy the deliciousness of Hershey miniatures in a more sustainable way.   Hershey announced that they redesigned the miniatures wrappers to be lighter and save on paper, saving trees.

http://www.wfmz.com/news/hershey-new-candy-wrappers-will-save-nearly-2000-trees/25700722

Here is the story. Recently, I saw that the recycling bins for bottles and cans in my dorm building were not contaminated at all. My dorm custodian then takes out the recycling bag and places it in the blue outdoor recycling bin. I then see a GARBAGE truck, yep a truck that reads “Lafayette College Municipal Waste” pick up not only trash, but also the contents of that blue outdoor recycling bin. I am concerned that all the recyclables on campus are actually ending up in the landfills.

I am fortunate to be part of the recycling research group in the EGRS 480 (Sustainable Solutions) course. I told Scarlett Jimenez ’15, the project manager of my group, exactly what I saw outside my dorm building.

I am personally collecting used aluminum cans. Although I am doing this for the fundraising I am doing for the overnight walk I will participate in June for suicide prevention in memory of the UPenn student I know who jumped off the parking garage (since I can get paid $0.45/pound when I take them to Easton Iron and Metal; all the proceeds I get will go towards that fundraiser), this also ensures that aluminum is being recycled.

In the meantime, if you have used aluminum cans, DON’T place them in the “recycle” bin. Give them to me instead.

http://www.jibjab.com/view/X96EXd5ATXGlAaXB4KKrhQ

This is a disturbing JibJab animation I found; the animation starts with a pine tree and animals enjoying themselves in a winter scene when all of a sudden, a man shows up with an axe and chops down that pine tree. It causes the tree to fear for his life while the animals become emotional, crying and screaming as they witness their favorite tree being chopped down. The man then brings that tree to his house as a Christmas tree. This JibJab video can be an example of humans’ selfish behavior towards plants and animals.

In case you don’t know what JibJab is, it is a website where you can place photographs of people’s faces into some animated JibJab videos. The man in this JibJab video who chops down the tree, is actually the hit-and-run driver responsible for the injury of Aubrey Baumbach.

Western Australia’s Environmental Protection Authority will be reviewing the West Australian government’s plan to extend its shark bait and cull program to three years from its start in January 2014. Currently the program is targeting bull, tiger, great white, and mako sharks, the latter two of which are protected species. The sharks are baited using lines of floating oil drums 72 units long placed off of popular beaches located in Perth and the surrounding areas. Once they come for the bait, they are shot and killed. The current program, slated to run for 13 and a half weeks this summer (starting in January as their seasons are opposite from ours), has seen the potential to expand to 22 weeks every summer for 3 consecutive years. Despite 11 people being killed by sharks since 2000, seven of which died since 2010, the vast majority of the 10,000 public comments and write-ins about the project have been negative.

The problems that the Environmental Protection Authority must consider are the impacts on the four shark populations, two of which are protected species, the impact on the environment with less apex predators such as sharks, and how the 72 unit drum line placed off the coasts of popular beaches in Perth and west-southwestern Australia. Gerry Waneck, vice-president of Western Australians for Shark Conservation, has said on the project “They’ve only killed tiger sharks so far, which are probably the least aggressive sharks in terms of attacking humans,” and “The drum lines aren’t protecting people at all, the bait is actually attracting more sharks towards beaches.”

Link Here

Rob Greenfield is an adventurer and an environmental activist. Greenfield went a year without a conventional shower but instead, he bathed in lakes and rivers or sat in the rain.  During his natural baths, he sometimes used eco-friendly biodegradable soap. The reason he did this was that he undertook a 100 day bike ride across America without a shower to promote “sustainability and eco-friendly living.” After his ride proved successful, he believed that he could go for an entire year.

Link to his blog and pictures

Most of the crude oil extracted from the Alberta oil sands, shale oil from the Dakotas, and corn-based ethanol is transported by rail. This has put tremendous strain on our freight rail capacity and adds to the energy overhead associated with these fuel sources. This article from the Windsor Star reports that the volume of  liquid fuel transported via freight rail has exploded since 2005 (On occasion, the fuel actually explodes as was the case last summer when a train derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec killed 47 people). This boom in rail transport has created a serious bottleneck in the supply chain for many industries, including the auto industry. The article highlights an ongoing situation where hundreds of new minivans are stranded in Detroit due to a lack of rail cars need to transport them to distribution points.

http://blogs.windsorstar.com/2014/04/23/finished-minvans-sit-on-detroit-riverfront-due-to-rail-car-shortage/

The North Pacific humpback whale was removed from the endangered list in Canada over Easter weekend. The federal advisory committee on endangered species claims that the great rise in the whales’ population since commercial whaling was banned in 1966 has justified the reclassification. However, the whales’ classification downgrade also happens to remove a major legal hurdle that stood in the way of the $7.9-billion Northern Gateway pipeline project.

There are number of articles on the recent change, most of which seem more suspect than happy in tone. The image below is from this article.

Sources: Fisheries and Oceans Canada, WWF Canada
Graphic by Matthew Bambach / The Globe and Mail

In this article, published in the New York Times, author Coral Davenport discusses the true importance of the decision facing President Obama on the Keystone Pipeline, its potential effects on the environment and even the relative insignificance of the carbon emissions associated with opening the pipeline.

According to Davenport, “Mr. Obama’s eventual decision on the pipeline will have a marginal impact on global warming emissions” given that “the oil that would move through the Keystone pipeline would add 18.7 million metric tons of carbon to the atmosphere annually” compared to the already “5.5 billion tons” that is produced by the United States (Davenport, 6-8).

The carbon emissions produced by the oil moving through the pipeline “would amount to less than 1 percent of the United States greenhouse gas emissions, and an infinitesimal slice of the global total” (Davenport, 8).

In order to make significant changes in the current levels of carbon emissions produced by the United States, Davenport suggests, “Mr. Obama’s administration would have to enact policies that would force the two most polluting sectors of the nation’s economy – cars and coal plants – to slash their emissions” (Davenport, 10).

Interestingly, Davenport suggests that the 1% total that the Keystone Pipeline would contribute to the United States’ current emissions does not represent a large chunk, which mathematically speaking, it doesn’t.  But given that the move to slash emissions for cars is already underway and that cutting coal emissions will be much more difficult, shouldn’t we try to stop ourselves from adding anymore?

In this article published in the New York Times, author Stephanie Strom addresses the various consequences of the three-year drought in California, especially for agriculture, farmers and consumers.  Due to the drought, farmers are “forced to make dire choices that could leave as much as 800,000 acres, or 7 percent of the state’s cropland, fallow” (Strom, 5).  Because farmers will be unable to harvest water-intensive crops, their decisions on what to plant and how much of it to plant “will translate directly into higher prices at the grocery store” (Strom, 7).

Californians won’t be the only ones affected, however, as “between one-third and one-half of the nation’s fruits and vegetables are grown in California” (Strom, 8).  Already, the effects of this drought have been felt by consumers: “Last year…vegetable prices were 3 percent higher and fruits cost 2 percent more” (Strom, 9).

Strom also identifies the difficulties facing farmers and consumers based on a growing population and the inaccessibility of water for crops resulting in uncultivated land.