Author: Jaejoon Yang (Page 1 of 2)

Scientists have engineered a new form of plastic which is composed of chitin derived mainly from discarded shrimp shells. Although the material is not waterproof and must be coated in a thin layer of wax in order to be so, it is completely biodegradable when exposed to the right conditions. In addition to degrading more than current “green” bioplastics, there are no harmful byproducts when the material is produced. If the process could be scaled, this new plastic could help fill a need for new sustainable materials.

By the way, in this article there is an interesting video showing a plant growing in chitosan-based soil.

Link Here

San Francisco, considered by many to be the greenest city in North America, has recently come close to passing a resolution banning the sale of single-use plastic water bottles. Americans throw away over 50 billion plastic water bottles a year, only 23% of which are recycled. The resolution is being protested by the beverage industry, but those in favor of the ban cite statistics such as these as evidence for its necessity.

Link Here

On Wednesday, McDonalds announced new goals for sustainability to be implemented by 2020, including supporting sustainable beef production, purchasing 100% of fiber-based packaging from recycled sources, increasing recycling by 50%, and serving 100% more fruit, vegetable, or whole grains in nine of its top markets. However, many environmental groups found the goals very modest and not transparent enough, stating that “Their whole business model is based on an unsustainable practice, so they have a long way to go.”

Link Here

The National Climate Assessment, a periodical report issued by the United States government informing the nation about the current status of the climate and anticipated trends for the future, was released by the Obama Administration earlier this week. The 840-page report gives a region-by-region breakdown of how climate change is impacting the United States, stating that “Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present. Corn producers in Iowa, oyster growers in Washington state, and maple syrup producers in Vermont are all observing climate-related changes that are outside of recent experience.”

The report was quickly dismissed by Republicans who claimed that it would be used to push job-killing regulations and costly emission levels reform. “Instead of making the environment drastically better, the president’s strategy will make the climate for unemployed Americans even worse,” said Sen. John Barrasso, R-WY in a statement.

Link Here

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

The Keystone Pipeline Project is basically a plan to build a pipe from Canada’s Alberta tar sands to PA in the U.S in order to transport crude oil more efficiently.

President Obama has extended his review of the Keystone Pipeline Project indefinitely. The reason for this hold up is due to a Nebraska judge ruling one of the state’s laws, allowing the pipeline to be built, unconstitutional. As the pipeline must pass through Nebraska, this will pose a major challenge.

The companies in Canada which are working on the pipeline are not happy with this and many other political hold ups in the U.S.

What do you think of the pipeline project? Is it sustainable since it would increase efficiency and produce jobs, or is it not since it would increase the use of fossil fuels?

Link here

I attended Thomas White’s presentation on dolphins. He is a strong advocate for the protection of dolphins and their rights as intelligent individuals. He started by asking why humans have “human rights.” This was answered with a description of defining human characteristics, some of which include self-awareness, self-control, emotions, individual personalities, and respect for one another. It was then shown that dolphins are also believed to have many similar characteristics, based on studies done over the past few decades. If it is unethical to treat humans in a poor manner due to these characteristics, then it makes sense that dolphins should also be treated with respect; not kept in captivity or hunted.

Thomas White mentioned his website which, you can see in this link.

This article is about the future of off-the-grid living, and how we may be at a turning point due to the availability of cheap batteries from Tesla Motor’s new factories. I think these batteries would make sustainable energy sources much more viable, such as when used with solar panels (see my last post).

Link Here

This article espouses the benefits of solar power once it becomes competitive with and eventually cheaper than fossil fuel power. The main point is that this will help lower wealth inequality since everyone will have access to their own cheap power. However, I don’t believe this makes complete sense because many places in the world do not have enough sunny days for solar power to completely replace fossil fuels. This does not mean that solar power won’t have a large part in the future of energy, but just that energy storage needs to improve at the same rate that solar panel costs go down.

Link Here

Vertical Farm

Vertical Farming has finally been implemented commercially in Singapore.

It also seems to be making money, which is one of the key points of making vertical farming sustainable for the future.

It saves land  and water by being around 10 times more efficient than a conventional farm.

A Killer of Bats Inches Towards Texas

The disease we talked about in class, the White Nose Syndrome, is now moving towards Texas. The extent that cavers are willing to go in order to prevent disease spread is larger than I thought. As the article said, hopefully bats in the US will develop an immunity or non infected bats can take over.

On March 17th, due to adverse weather conditions which caused major smog and air pollution to overhang Paris, the local government banned half of all non-electric or hybrid cars and motorcycles from the city for two days. Based on the last number on a license plate, vehicles with a even number were banned on March 17th and vehicles with a odd number  were banned on March 18th.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26599010

Climate Change Shrinks Salamanders

Researchers at Loyola University say that climate change has been decreasing the average size of salamanders by as much as 8%, as well as decreasing their population.

They think that this is due to having to burn more energy in a warmer environment. Smaller salamanders could be the ones more likely to survive or the size changes could have have resulted from “plasticity” (which is explained in the article).

Colors of the Wind (Pocahontas) – Connie Talbot

Our Town (Cars) – James Taylor

I just came across this building while working on the project. It has a lot of AMAZING features that led it to receive PlATINUM Certification from LEED.

The building’s roof provide not only habitat for birds but also includes four BEE HIVES, housing 60,000 bees!!

http://vansustyevents.wordpress.com/2013/05/05/117/

Olympic Winter Games have damaging effect on Sochi’s environment

The Sochi Olympics, while they may have been exciting, destroyed many areas around the town, including vital wetlands and forests.
They also built houses next to the flooding river and on the mountains where they can be damaged.
Despite the protests of many ecologists and townspeople, the Russian government went ahead with its preparations.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/03/09/china-drone-idINDEEA2800G20140309

China, with its huge smog and pollution problem, seems to be trying alternative methods to reduce the smog rather than simple regulations such as those in the US and other countries. It recently deployed drones which release a catalyst to destroy the smog.

Bloom Energy “Click Here”

Bloom Energy Servers are highly efficient fuel cells which can convert natural gas, biogas, and other compatible fuels into electricity. Rather than electricity being distributed from one main source such as a coal power plant, around 100 homes or small businesses, and perhaps individual homes in the future, would each have their own individual source of power generation. This increases efficiency by removing all power line transmission losses (since all electricity is produced on site), and the fuel cells themselves are also more efficient than any power plant. The total efficiency ends up being about 50% compared to as much as half of this for a typical power plant. In my opinion, due to the great increase in efficiency and the capability to produce power from cleaner sources, Bloom Energy Servers would make a good stop-gap solution to our energy problems until something such as nuclear fusion comes along and solves everything.

Link Here

This is an article about scientists being able to bring extinct species back to life. I thought this could help with sustainability because it would allow one of the problems of non-sustainability (extinction) to be solved ; namely, bringing species back to life or even breeding some endangered species.

Some of the arguments against reviving species which were mentioned include: revived species often do not have their original habitat, and they may not be considered true animals by some but only engineered curiosities, since often a full DNA sequence is missing and scientists have to fill in missing parts from other species.

Overall, I think it would be good if extinct species were revived, but only if their original habitat already exists or could be somewhat revived as well. Personally, I am hoping to visit the Jurassic Park in the future… haha