Human “Overgrazing” Is Catching Up To Us

A recent report put out by the World Wildlife Fund was able to summarize our planet’s predicament with natural resources in one simple sentence: “People are turning resources into waste faster than nature can turn waste back into resources.” The bottom line of this report was that if drastic lifestyle changes are not quickly implemented, by the year 2050 our world will need two planet’s worth of resources every year in order to sustain itself.

Many species populations such as a variety of fish and mammals are steeply dropping, falling by about one third from 1970 to present. This is directly due to human impact and huge overuse of natural resources, resulting in pollution, the clearing of forests, and overfishing. While humans are greatly harming other species, our population is still skyrocketing, rising from 3 billion in 1960, to 6.5 billion currently.

A quote from WWF Director-General James Leape does a good job of summing up humans’ effect on the earth in recent years: “For more than 20 years we have exceeded the earth’s ability to support a consumptive lifestyle that is unsustainable and we cannot afford to continue down this path.” What he is saying is that through our various ways of getting around environmental resistance, we are damaging other species and setting ourselves up for a harsh population crash.

America in particular is one of the top countries abusing the use of natural resources. An astounding statistic from the WWF’s report is that if everyone around the world lived similar lifestyles as those in the U.S., we would require 5 planets worth of natural resources to support us. The country placing the most “environmental stress per capita” is the United Arab Emirates. In addition to the U.S., other countries at the top of this list were Finland, Canada, the U.K., Australia, Russia, China, and Japan.

Further complicating the current situation with natural resources is the world’s booming population. Not only is the human population soaring, but this is negatively affecting a great variety of other animal populations. An index tracking 1,300 vertebrates found that most of the populations had fallen by about 30 percent, mainly due to loss of habitat to make room for human structures.

It is obvious that humans as a whole are on a steeply increasing “J curve.” However, the signs are unmistakable that we are reaching its peak and that a drastic and sudden population crash is just around the corner unless major changes are implemented worldwide.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061024/sc_nm/environment_wwf_planet_dc

Our Nation’s Food Chain Can Spread More Than Just Food

The recent E. coli outbreak from California spinach is just another incident in a long line of outbreaks which expose the flaws in our nation’s food chain. Our nation’s system of transporting food quickly across the country can just as easily spread deadly bacteria.

Like most of our food, spinach travels from the field it is harvested in to a central facility where it is mixed with spinach from a variety of other areas in the country. It only takes a small amount of tainted spinach to effect the whole batch and spread the bacteria across the country. In the recent E. coli outbreak which occured on August 30th, tainted spinach from California was spread to almost two dozen states, sickening nearly 200 people and causing two fatalities. The fact that this is already the 20th time that lettuce or spinach has been blamed for an outbreak of illness since 1995 strongly suggests that the problem lies within our nation’s food safety policies.

Food safety advocates are calling for stricter regulations and believe that a single agency needs to be made in charge of making sure that our food is safe. “If you raise spinach in the Salinas Valley and it’s in 40 states in a few days, you can’t have a system that says we won’t do anything until somebody gets sick,” said Carol Tucker Foreman, director of food policy for Consumer Federation and a former USDA official.

The FDA has repeatedly urged the industry to make the changes necessary to control the current problem, but without the inspection and safety programs used by agencies like the Agicultural Department, the FDA has very limited power.

A 1993 E. coli outbreak in beef products caused the Agricultural Department to begin tightening its inspection policies. In 1996 it switched from a visual inspection of meat, to a scientific one. Since then illnesses from E. coli have dropped 29 percent.

An important step in dealing with the tainted beef was figuring out how the meat became infected in the first place. Natural Selection Foods, which is at the center of the current E. coli outbreak has begun sampling every shipment of lettuce and spinach that comes in and is holding shipments until the test results come back. Finding out where the bacteria is coming from is more critical for greens than it was for beef because spinach and lettuce is eaten raw, whereas with beef it is generally pre-cooked providing a better opportunity for getting rid of bacteria.

Currently, the spinach and lettuce industry is in need of more time for finding out exactly where the bacteria is coming and from and what to do about it. However, what’s important is that something is being done about the problem and that in due time, potentially live-saving changes will be made.

http://enn.com/today.html?id=11414

Population Milestone No Cause for Celebration

It has been predicted that sometime during this month, the United States’ population will reach 300 million. In the past, a demographic milestone such as this may have been celebrated. However, given our current country’s situation this is far from something to be happy about.

A variety of factors are contributing to the dangerous increases in our population. Births are currently exceeding deaths by nearly two to one, causing our population to grow by almost 1.8 million, or 0.6 percent every year. In addition to this, immigration adds about another million people every year, bumping our population growth to 0.9 percent every year. If the U.S. continues on with its current growth rate our population will increase by another hundred million in under forty years.

The problems of an over-populated country can be seen on a smaller scale by looking at an ecosystem that has had its top predator removed, such as what has happened in Illinois. Because wolves and other top predators have been killed off, the deer population is steadily growing with nothing to stop it. This larger population eats up all the vegetation until the ecosystem is depleted of the plant that served as the deers’ source of food, causing all kinds of additional problems within the ecosystem.

On an urban level, this process is much the same. The swfit population growth contributes to the water shortages that are already plaguing the western half of the country, and with a larger population, these droughts will begin to spread.  Also, more people mean more cars. Each U.S. car requires nearly one fifth of an acre of paved land for roads and parking space. The U.S. has already paved 4 million miles of roads. In addition to more paved roads, more cars cause more congestion which leads to higher gas usage. These various problems are only scratching the surface of what overpopulation can and will do to the country.

Population control is a difficult problem to deal with, but some kind of national policy must be implemented before it is too late.  Almost all of the other industrial countries have either stable or declining populations.  Now is the time for the U.S. to stabilize its population or else it must pay the many consequences. 

http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2006/Update59_data.htm

 http://enn.com/net.html?id=1675

Locust Swarms

Although not yet large enough to be called a plague, an unlucky combination of environmental conditions has caused the Mexican town of Cancun to be overridden with locusts.

For the past 3 weeks, vast swarms of locusts have been causing uproar in Cancun, already having devoured 2500 acres of farmland, and making walking a couple of blocks a major chore for residents of Cancun. The reasons for this swarm are that it’s been an especially hot summer, sparking a heavy breeding season. Along with that, there has been a lack of the windy storms that usually serve as a way to keep the locust population under control.

In retaliation to the insects’ swarm, officials have dispatched squads armed with pesticide pumps to conduct nightly raids on the locusts when they are at rest and most vulnerable. With no storms coming anytime soon, the Cancun residents can only wait and pray.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/09/060928-locusts-mexico.html

Man vs. Elephant

A quickly growing population in Africa is contributing to an increasing problem for African Farmers. In the last 5 years, elephants trampling or eating crops has turned into a major problem for Kenyan farmers. A growing population has forced humans into closer living quarters elephants, and apparently the elephants are gaining the upper hand.

The farmers are in a no-win situation as their attempts to scare off elephants no longer phase the animals and are now beginning to anger them, endangering the lives of many farmers and locals. Kenyan farmers are forced to keep watch all night and now must be more cautious during the day as elephant related injuries are becoming more common. The only option the Kenyans have is to abandon their land or to keep fighting a hopeless war. Many are angry with the Kenyan government, saying that it values the animals more than its people. The people also complain that the forest guards and KWS game rangers, whose job it is to control the elephants, are not helping the situation. The Kenyans also cannot take the matter into their own hands as it is illegal to kill wildlife in Kenya.

This is obviously a touchy situation because the land belongs to the wildlife just as much as it does to the humans. I agree that the people should not be allowed to kill the wildlife themselves, but something definitely needs to be done. I think the best idea would be to introduce a new organism to the environment which will naturally limit the number of elephants. However this must be done with great caution as this strategy as backfired numerous times, severely harming the ecosystem. As of now, all the Kenyan government has been doing is moving elephants out of the area to a reservation. This has proved to be an ineffective strategy and also unfair to the elephants by taking them out of their natural habitat. The Kenyan government needs to step in and take a serious look at this developing problem in order to find a solution that will benefit both parties equally.

http://enn.com/today.html?id=11315

Update to Arctic Ice

In my previous post, I explained how Arctic Ice was now melting at a rate that was almost unbelievable, however, it appears that scientists may have actually underestimated the increase in melted Arctic Ice that we would see this year.   Apparently, an opening in the ice has become so big that it takes up more space than the British Isles and was actually big enough to allow a ship to sail clear through the normally frozen solid area, to the North Pole.  According to Mark Drinkwater of ESA’s Oceans/Ice Unit, “This situation is unlike anything observed in previous record low ice season.”  In other words, the ice has melted to such a degree that it is enormous even in comparison to the lowest ice has ever been up to this point.  These incredibly high rates of melting ice are in part due to late summer storms that increased melted ice 5% to 10% more, after it had already reached its peak of melting from the summer temperature increase.  Fortunately, with autumn temperatures coming in, the sea has begun to refreeze and these enormous openings appear to have closed.

If this trend continues in upcoming years, it is possible that this northern sea route will be open for longer periods of time.  The use of this route may have positive economic effects and even create the ability to sail around the world across the Arctic Ocean.  However, above all else it is a warning sign of the increasingly dangerous effects of global warming and that if drastic changes aren’t made soon, the world will continue accelerating down this dangerous path.    

http://enn.com/today.html?id=11298        

Arctic Ice Melting Faster

Arctic perennial sea ice, which stays frozen year-round, regularly melts by about 2 percent per decade.  However, this year the ice was was 6 percent smaller than the average amount has been over the past quarter-century.  According to scientists this is a clear sign of the increasing effects of the greenhouse affect which is contributing to global warming.

The satellite images that were taken of the ice to determine how much it has decreased also provided additional information on the degree of melting that has taken place.  Photographs of ice north of Alaska showed a large hole in the ice called a polynya.  A polynya has never been seen in this area before and this particular one was about the size of the state of Maryland.

This problem of quickly disappearing ice does not only have obviously dangerous implications for the earth itself but also the animals inhabiting the area.  The polar bear population in Hudson Bay has recently dropped by 22 percent.  Polar bears are becoming more commonly seen in Inuit settlements which means that the bears are being forced to leave their normal hunting ground on the ice due to its depletion and are having to move inland.

Scientists say most of this global warming is due to the greenhouse effect when greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels.  According to James Hansen of NASA, it isn’t too late to save the Arctic, but important changes need to be made within the decade.

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=11258

Billion Dollar Bacteria

Some of the earth’s tiniest organisms may be on their way to helping the world save billions of dollars spent cleaning toxic waste.  Microbes discovered in old waste sites in Australia have been found not only to be resistant to toxins found in contaminated industrial sites or poisoned waterways, but actually break down these substances so they are no longer a threat to humans or the environment.

Scientists working at a government-backed environmental research center located in South Australia have isolated these amazing microbes and are currently working on enhancing their amazing abilities to enable them to break down toxins even faster.

 Industrial contamination is a major threat facing societies world-wide, with Australia alone facing a $3.8 billion cleanup bill.  Anywhere there has been something like a fuel dump or old chemical factory is at risk for leaking toxic substances into the groundwater.  With the use of these microbes, the cost of cleaning these types of sites up will be virtually gone as the problem will be taken care of by mother nature herself.

However, technology like this definitely sounds too good to be 100% true.  The catch is that there is not one single type of microbe that can be used everywhere.  Scientists have to first find the bacteria at the site that is to be cleaned because this way the bacteria will be suited to that site’s type of contaminant.  Then they must enhance the toxin fighting power of the bacteria or find a way to greatly increase their numbers before they can be used to clean the site.  Researchers in India, China, and South Korea are currently being trained on how to find and cultivate the microbes in their respective areas.

Although putting these microbes to good use is not as easy as it initially sounds, with a little bit of work the world may soon see a newer and much cheaper way of dealing with contaminated sites.

 http://enn.com/today.html?id=11217

Hydrogen Power for Electricity & Heat

There is a good chance that hydrogen power will have a big future in conserving energy.  In Wicasset, Maine a $250,000 demonstration project has been unveiled at the Chewonki Foundation’s environmental education center.  The system uses solar panels to produce hydrogen from water through the process of electrolysis.  Also, new technology that produces the gas at high pressure allows the system to operate without a costly compressor.  Hydrogen energy is much safer for the environment than traditional sources of energy because it reduces the need for fossil fuels which in turn can help ease global warming   Although the generator is primarily for educational purposes, Maine’s governor John Baldacci recently signed an executive order to promote the development of hydrogen energy in Maine which he hopes will help influence the rest of the nation to turn to hydrogen as a new source of energy better for the environment.

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=11153