Incandescents are on the Way Out

In an announcement Tuesday, Australian Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that yellow incandescent lightbulbs would be phased out over the next three years in favor of the more efficient and eco-friendly fluorescent bulbs.

Australia is one of the world’s largest producers of greenhouse gases per capita, but they are being forced to change their ways due to noticable effects of global warming, namely the severe drought that is currently affecting the continent. According to Turnbull, the changes to fluorescent would cut 800,000 tons from Australia’s current greenhouse gas emissions by 2012 and lower household lighting cost by 66%.

After reading a little bit about fluorescent lights, I couldn’t help but wonder why these kinds of changes weren’t made a long time ago.  Fluorescent lights only use 1/3 to 1/4 of the energy an incandescent light does to produce equal intensity lights.  Also, fluorescent lights burn much cooler than incandescent lights and they also last 10 to 20 times longer on average.  The fact that fluorescent lights are more costly is more than made up for in its lower energy consumption and longer life.

I think that when Australia’s changes are put in effect they will set a good precedent for the rest of the world.  Fluorescent lights are obviously the smarter choice environmentally and a have a number of other benefits over incandescent bulbs.  I believe that it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the world decides to switch bulbs, and in doing so makes a big step in the fight against global warming.

http://enn.com/today.html?id=12256

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescent_lamp

image credits: wikipedia.org

Lights Out for Global Warming

In order to draw attention to energy consumption and its effects on the environment and global warming, the Eiffel Tower’s lights will be turned off for five minutes this Thursday.

After reading this article, I wasn’t entirely sure what to think. On one hand, it shows that people around the world are aware and concerned about global warming. However, another part of me had the reaction of “so what?” In my opinion, being aware of the problem and letting others know that you’re concerned doesn’t really do much unless the concerns are acted on.

I also found it interesting that the article noted concerns about possibly causing a blackout when turning the lights on again.  If that is a true concern about the event, then it is obvious that the intentions are in the wrong place.

While it is always good to raise awareness of global warming, I think that this will have little or no positive effect.  Now that the effects of global warming are becoming so much more evident and are progressing so quickly, it is much more important to make actual changes than to continue trying to raise awareness.

http://enn.com/today.html?id=12142

The Continuing Fight for National Parks

Although most people may not see much importance in a huge chunk of desert named Death Valley, it is actually one of the last remaining large national parks in the U.S. Death Valley, which is the largest national park in the lower 48 states, is now at risk for having new highways built on it that would cut right through the park.

Because of the sheer size of Death Valley, it is one of the few remaining California deserts wherein its populations are protected from the dangers of fragmentation. This kind of environment is especially important in Death Valley because it serves as a home to species whose populations may be in trouble such as the desert tortoise and bighorn sheep.

Furthermore, the overall benefit of laying roads through Death Valley seems very little me.  This situation is very similar to the debate taking place over drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  Although it may be at the opposite end of the thermometer, the dilemma is very similar.  The average person doesn’t see the benefit of protecting what appears to be miles and miles of snow and ice when it can be drilled into to provide oil.  However, by taking the smallest shred of effort and researching the topic a little bit, one would quickly realize how important and rare a place like ANWR is…not to mention the fact that the amount of oil there wouldn’t even last us for a year, and that’s at the high end of the estimates.

It seems to me that the only thing additional highways will do is make driving a little more convenient for those who frequently drive in the Death Valley area.  However, anyone who is aware of the uniqueness and environmental imporance of  a place like Death Valley would say you’d have to be crazy to scar a place like that just to make driving more convenient.

Thankfully, there are many who have come to the aid of Death Valley.  Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm is currently fighting the decision for the roads to be laid.  As of now, it is not official that the roads will be built, so all we can do for the time being is wait and hope that people will realize the craziness in what is trying to be done.

A map of Death Valley: http://www.earthjustice.org/assets/subject/objects/dv_map_lores.jpg

http://www.enn.com/net.html?id=1795&ref=rss

Cinnamon Flavored Sea?

Now that we know so much about the world around us and how we affect it, it seems that almost everything we do in our daily lives has some kind of environmental impact – and usually a negative one. According to this article, due to holiday baking, traces of vanilla and cinnamon have been found in the Puget Sound’s waters.

Theses spices end up in the Puget Sound after first passing through our bodies when we eat them, then being passed through a sewage plant and eventually being released into the water as treated sewage. Thankfully, even though the water has been “spiced up” there isn’t any real environmental issue because there isn’t a large enough concentration of the substances. At the most, the fish may be picking up a small vanilla or cinnamon scent during the holidays.

However, there is a darker side to the situation. While the Puget Sound gets cinnamon and vanilla flavoring through its sewage system, many other bodies of water can be found to contain antibiotics, caffein, contraceptives, perfumes, painkillers, and antidepressants coming in from the sewage system. Obviously, many of these things are necessary for humans so the blame cannot be totally on us for letting these dangerous substances into bodies of water. I think it’s necessary for sewage treatment facilities to improve their treatment techniques in order to ensure that only completely harmless sewage is let into contact with the clean water. Holiday spices are one thing, but when harmful substances are being released into natural habitats, a change to the system must quickly be made.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061227/ap_on_sc/cinnamon_sound

Cane Toad Blues

Although I missed most of the cane toad movie we saw on the day before break, I could tell that if the cane toad problem was big enough to have its own movie (and song), it must pose a very significant environmental threat, moreso than that of most other invasive species. This article caught my eye because it shows that the cane toads are still a huge problem and that drastic measures need to be taken to help preserve Australia’s environment.

According to this article, the military may soon have go into action to officially wage war on the cane toads. This could easily be taken as a joke, but it really shows how serious the cane toad problem has gotten. Australian civilians do a good amount of damage to the cane toad population, often selling the carcasses to tourists as seen in the picture. However, now the battle against the toads has become a very serious one. Drastice measures need to be take before irreparable damage has been done to Australia’s environment.

The toads were first introduced in 1935, in a group of just 101, to try and control the population of cane beetles in Australia. Over 70 years later, the cane toads now number more than 200 million, causing a much worse problem for the environment than the beetles ever would. The cane toads have poisonous skin, which is responsible for big declines in many populations of native Australian animals.

It appears that all of Australia is quickly realizing how serious a threat these toads have become to the continent as a whole. Now that more attention is being brought to the problem, it may not be long before Australia finally finds a cure for its cane toad blues.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16361758/

New Soot Standards

According to an article from USA Today, as of Monday, 13 states are suing the EPA to lower soot emissions from smokestacks and exhaust pipes.  The current maximum for soot emissions is 15 micrograms per cubic foot of air.  The suing states want to see this maximum down to 1 or 2 micrograms.  This is a large reduction in soot emissions and can only positively affect the health of the environment and the people if the new limit is met.

One thing that struck me about this article was the fact that it focused on what soot does to human health: “premature death, chronic respiratory disease and asthma attacks.”  However, we know that soot and other emissions affect the environment just as much as it affects humans, causing acid rain and increasing the acidity in bodies of water, affecting the health of animals living in them.

While it is no doubt very important to consider the health of the people, environmental health is just as important because of what can happen in the future.  I think this is a large problem in dealing with environmental issues.  We are too concerned with the immediate effects.  By letting the long term damage get worse and worse, we are setting ourselves and the future up for major environmental disasters.  I do think that lower soot standards would be helpful either way, but we need to make sure we are making these reforms while keeping the big picture in mind.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/regulation/2006-12-18-epa-sued-soot_x.htm?csp=34

Prince Charles’s Changes

Prince Charles has recently announced many lifestyle changes he will be making in order to ensure a healthier environment for future generations.  The Prince, who has always been conscious of protecting the environment, is going to begin taking commercial flights and train rides and also have his cars modified so they can run on biodiesel. 

 

Other environmentally friendly actions Prince Charles will be taking are to make use of sustainable electricity sources at his homes and also to begin measuring the greenhouse gas emissions of his food company, Duchy Originals.  Prince Charles has good motivation for making these eco-friendly changes, saying “We are consuming the resources of our planet at such a rate that we are, in effect, living off credit and living on borrowed time.  So it is, of course, our children and grandchildren who will have to pay off this debt and we owe it to them and to ourselves to do something about it before it is too late.”

 

Apart from the good Charles’s own changes are doing for the world, his environmental attitudes are rubbing off on other members of the Royal Family and the government as well.  Queen Elizabeth II, Charles’s mother, recently took a scheduled train for the first time.  Although this may seem like a very small improvement, it is definitely a step in the right direction.

 

Environmental groups are welcoming Charles’s initiatives, saying that Prime Minister Tony Blair has not been very actively responding to environmental issues such as global warming.  Because Charles is on his way to becoming King, the government will soon have a very hard time ignoring these environmental changes and begin to make some of their own. 

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=11810

Getting the Most Out of Our Thanksgiving Meals

Without fail, for the next couple of weeks following Thanksgiving my lunch is always a  turkey sandwich.  No one ever finishes all the Thanksgiving turkey so there’s always a good portion of leftovers in the fridge that slowly disappears as everyone in my family makes a point to include turkey into their meals somehow.  By the time the turkey’s all gone, I usually can’t even look at turkey lunch meat for at least a month without feeling sick.  However, I feel good knowing I didn’t let any of it go to waste.  But compared to the residents of Plano, Texas, I’m letting a good portion of the turkey go to waste: the fat.

Below is a picture of the kind of turkey normally eaten in Texas – deep fried.  Although this may not be the most healthy way to enjoy one’s Thanksgiving meal, it very well may be the most environmentally friendly.  After Thanksgiving, the town of Plano, Texas, among others, collects turkey fat that is created as a result of the deep frying process.  Over the past year, 1,200 gallons of fat were collected in Plano alone.  500 of these gallons were received the week after Thanksgiving.  This fat is then donated to Biofuel Industries, the first renewable energy-powered plant producing biodiesel fuel in the state of Texas.

Although the current major alternatives to oil right now are coal and natural gas, as has been mentioned in class, turkey fat is on of many alternative biofuels, and as an added incentive it is also a “clean” fuel, as it doesn’t release any carbon emissions. 

Although turkey fat may not be a realistic option for replacing gasoline, programs similar to what is done in Plano help to pave the way for other biofuels in the future.  So next Thanksgiving, be sure to finish all your turkey, because if you’re not going to use it to help fuel your car, at least make sure none of it goes to waste as food. 

http://enn.com/today.html?id=11734

Overfishing is to Blame for Even More Problems

After reading Mr. McKinley’s extensive blogs on the overfishing of cod, these two articles caught my eye. Apparently, lack of fish isn’t the only problem that all the recent overfishing has caused.  Now that it has become much harder to catch the regular fish used for eating, namely cod, fishing fleets are now forced to troll the deep seas in order to find new and more abundant species to use for seafood.  As a result of this, many underwater ecosystems are now being irreparably damaged.

Groups of underwater volcanic mountains, or seamounts, are home to thousand of deep sea organisms like the orange ruffy or the alfonsino.  Many of these deep sea fish are now being fished for much more agressively due to the lack of the fish that usually serves as seafood.  However, this new fishing is beginning to destroy these previously untouched underwater habitats.  “There is an urgency, first of all, to deal with regulating those fisheries and secondly to get out there and look at those habitats before they are gone,” said Dr Alex Rogers, of the Zoological Society of London.

Although there are an estimated 100,000 large seamounts worldwide, there are only about 40 that we have scientific data on.  So not only are we endangering the lives of rare fish, but we are destroying habitats that have yet to be fully studied.  The seamounts are not only being harmed from the physical damage done by trawling, but also by the lack of fish, which not only live in the seamount, but are important to preserving the habitat. 

The bottom line is that humans need to stop worrying so much about making money, and realize that we are slowly destroying major parts of this world all for economic gain.  Instead of learning our lesson from the overfishing of cod, we are simply starting on new species which will soon be depleted just like the fish before them.  It’s not getting us anywhere, it only delays the inevitable.  

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=11664

http://www.animalsvoice.com/PAGES/writes/editorial/news/features/trawling_harm.html

Increasing Ocean Acidity

In addition to the effect that global warming has on climates, it has also begun to affect the oceans in a just as dangerous way.  According to a report called Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Coral Reefs and Other Marine Calcifiers: A Guide to Future Research, there is “very clear evidence” that a variety of ocean organisms, from coral to sea snails to plankton, face an uncertain future due to ocean water made increasingly corrosive by the industrial emissions that also fuel global warming.

Over the past 3 decades, scientists have seen a steady increase in the absorbtion of greenhouse gases into the ocean.  Caron dioxide, one of these greenhouse gases, produces carbonic acid in seawater.  Usually, calcium found in the seawater buffers the effect of this acid, but the added impact from industrial emissions has overwhelmed the balance.

The overall pH of ocean water has dropped from 8.2 to 8.1 since 1800.  Although this may seem like a very small change that took place over a long time period, the drop of .1 has made the water 30% more corrosive.  In addition, scientists expect the pH to drop to 7.9 within the current century, making the water 150% more corrosive than it originally was.

This change in acidity will most affect sea creatures that rely on shells for protection, because increased acidity affects the calcium level in the seawater that the organisms depend on to build their shells.  Also, coral reefs, which serve as a habitat for many ocean organisms, are being affected by this change.  Coral reefs are made from  the calcium-carbonate skeletons of microscopic sea creatures.  The increasingly acidic waters slow the ability of sea creatures to secrete calcium carbonate, and at a high enough level will actually eat away at shells and coral.

In order to get a better grasp of how increasing acidity will affect individual organisms, the report lays out more  in-depth experiments that can be conducted over the next 5 to 1o years.  This includes tracking changes in the calcification of corals and shelled creatures, determining how seasonal and water temperature changes affect pH, and  examining changes to ocean ecosystems with small numbers of shelled sea creatures.

Studies show that the ocean water has not been this acidic for at least 650,000 years.  This means that today’s sea creatures have evolved for a great deal of time under current ocean conditions.  Because of this it is likely that sea creatures will adapt poorly to the ocean’s changes that are only becoming more and more frequent.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2006-07-05-ocean-acidity_x.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3571152.stm