Category Archives: environmentalism

The End Of The Smokestack Age – The move to a sustainable future

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The terms he uses are different. Man has always extracted things. A  good case can be made that for much of our species existence we have caused things to go extinct as well. We need to quit both. The human race could survive off our garbage dumps from here to eternity if we just made product loops that left no waste. That is if we treated everything and everybody for their intrinsic value.

That last sentence is a little shaky but that is because we live in a throw away culture.

http://steadystate.org/the-end-of-the-age-of-extraction/

The End of the Age of Extraction

by Brent Blackwelder

BlackwelderToday’s global economy is causing shortages of natural resources (both renewable and nonrenewable) as we come to the end of what might be called the Age of Extraction. A true cost, steady state economy, on the other hand, would prevent resource problems by maintaining population and resource consumption well within the carrying capacity of the planet.

Energy and mineral shortages, along with depletion of forests and fisheries, are driving the extractors and harvesters to evermore remote places. No longer able to find gushing oilfields, vast stands of virgin timber, or waterways teeming with fish, the extraction companies are racing to the farthest reaches of the planet in search of profits.

The end of the Age of Extraction does not mean that such resources will disappear. In his recent book, The Quest, Daniel Yergin describes oil and gas discoveries that he predicts will turn the Western Hemisphere — from Canada to Brazil — into the next Saudi Arabia. But today’s extraction is pursuing fuels that are either dirty or hard to get. We see more pollution, both from accidents and mundane chronic causes, increasingly pushing civilization beyond the carrying capacity of the earth, wiping out more and more species, and accelerating climate destabilization.

Today’s global economic operating system tolerates and even abets severe pollution damages as industries externalize the costs from their books. Scarcity has made some of the most environmentally devastating energy and mining projects “short-term cost effective.” For example, according to price and revenue figures, it’s cost effective to extract oil from tar sands in Alberta, a process that requires huge energy inputs, grotesquely contaminates land and water, and poisons people, fish, and wildlife.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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Vermont Nuclear Closes – One down and 105 more to go

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Unfortunately the plant will sit there in “safe mode” for 60 years until it cools down enough to begin to dismantle it. Hopeful by then a safe disposal site will be designated for the whole US so that the site can be returned to greenfield status. This country should have started a glassification program a long time ago, but besides getting the idea of nuclear power all wrong for cold war purposes, we have got the whole process wrong to make it at least feasible ever since. What a waste of time and money this last 60 nuclear years have been. Our grandchildren will look back on our time as a sad one indeed.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/27/vermont-yankee-nuclear-plant-closure/2707987/

Vermont nuclear power plant to shut down in 2014

Terri Hallenbeck and Tim Johnson, Burlington (Vt.) Free Press

Company said the plant is no longer economically viable.

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. — Entergy Corp. will close Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, which it had fought so vigorously to keep open, by the end of 2014, the company said Tuesday.

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin called the shutdown “the right decision for Vermont” and pledged to help the plant’s workers find new jobs.

Entergy (ETR), which bought Vermont Yankee in 2002 from eight Vermont utilities, made the decision Sunday to shut down the 600-megawatt nuclear power plant just outside of Vernon, Vt., on the Vermont-New Hampshire border about 2 miles north of the Massachusetts border but informed the Vermont governor of its decision Tuesday morning

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Go there for a joyous read. More next week.

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Fukishima Disaster Cause Huge Fungus – What other things are mutating

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OKOKOK this an example of bad journalism or AT LEAST cultural differences between 2 countries forms of journalism. Either way it made me slightly angry. If you read the article you will see that a fungus which is a really important food source but also a source of naturopathic medicines in Japan is at the heart of this article. (and yes, the disaster continues apace but the world has gotten tired of it and the Nuclear Power industry has wanted everything to die down) But if you actually read the article, the fungus is new and with great potential but it was discovered or at least the sample was taken in 2006 and the only connection to the Fukushima  meltdowns is that the fungus is in a village closed to the public because of its proximity to the site and the mention comes at the END of the article. Now in the US, except in the tabloids, these kinds of headlines would not be allowed. But I guess any tie-in in Japan to something that is still roiling the country is allowed.

 

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0000379803

 

New fungus discovered in Fukushima

The Yomiuri Shimbun A fungus found in the village of Iitate, Fukushima Prefecture, in 2006 is a new species, it has been learned.

The fungus, named tsubugata-aritake, is a type of tochukaso, or caterpillar fungus, that grows and feeds on insects and is valued as an herbal remedy. The formal acknowledgment came as a German specialist journal on mycology carried a paper on the fungus earlier this month.

Unlike other caterpillar fungus in Japan, tsubugata-aritake is a “takeover” type that feeds on insects such as ants and cicadas that have already been parasitized by another tochukaso, scientifically termed Ophiocordyceps sinensis.

The Chinese and Tibetan caterpillar fungi that parasitizes larvae of ghost moths is well known as a Chinese medicine. According to the Japanese Society for Cordyceps Research, a society for caterpillar fungus researchers and enthusiasts, there are about 500 types of the fungi, 450 of which have been found in Japan, where research and studies on fungi are thriving and many new types have been discovered. In recent years, the caterpillar fungus has been attracting attention for use in health supplements.

“If it has any medicinal benefits, I’d like to commercialize it and donate sales profits to reconstruction [of the prefecture],” said Yoshitaka Kaitsu, a pharmacist in Date in the prefecture who discovered the fungus.

Kaitsu, the society’s vice chairman, has a good track record in finding caterpillar fungi. In 1986, he found another type of caterpillar fungus that also turned out to be a new species and was named “kobugata-aritake.”

 

 

 

 

 

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I Believe The Future Is Not Thorium – But many many people disagree

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I wrote the following rant in response to a question from my stepson Gus. I did it the way I write emails, minues capital letters and punctuation. I may change that later but for now here it is.

as one of my professors used to say.. think about the question before you ask it because it will have an answer….so my first answer is that nuclear anything is an inappropriate use of technology and worse yet design….at least here on the earth…at least until the END…now in space that is another matter…as a small is beautiful person schumacher said that – building nuclear power plants is like using a firehose to knock an ant off your toilet seat…it would do it but it would trash the rest of the bathroom….

using commercial grade nuclear power plants to generate electricity are by their natures large and complex with many moving parts.. they were larely invented by scientists who had a hard on for large complex machine and the military who needed cover for their nuclear weapons program…so it really has no relation to the actual generation of electricity in the world and represents a valid dichotomy in intellectual thinking .. ie. large and central vs. separate and continuous … to me diffuse power systems make a lot of sense…1. they require far fewer power lines so transmission lose is reduced and 2. there is much less of a chance of an actual power failure…then there is the cost

finland is currently the most committed nuclear power plant builder…i know that sounds very weird but it is true and they are right next door to norway the home of the first commercial thorium nuclear test reactor…(what a great segue and a return to your real question)…finland’s last nuke was projected to cost 3 billion $$$ and it came in last year (5 years late) at 8 billion $$$…now understand findland kinda models the earth towards the end of our sun’s useful life…where nukes make sense…they gots no fuel besides wood and it is colder than hell there much of the year…(plus as a political side note they got russia as a neighbor.. big yuk) still it really makes no sense…

so if you can accept the facts of large complicate expensive energy systems and find the current nuclear ones to be dangerous then thorium salt generators may seem to hold promise…i would argue that if the usa was going to go nuclear in the 1950s this is the direction we should have gone…in fact oak ridge build 2 such reactors one, a straight salts burner (remember fission is just a large fire) and 2, a burner with a “mat”….they were quickly shut down because they did not involve highly concentrated uraniun and plutonium…so from that perspective thorium reactors are much safer…generate higher temperatures and generate much “safer” waste…

again for me we got the biggest nuke that we need in the SUN…usens puny humans caint do no betters…so i say we use that until it begins to fail and then use all the stuff we could burn then…unfortunately we have burned 1/2 of it already so we better stop quick….and for the record…contrary to the science fiction models…i do not believe we are going anywhere in this solar system anytime soon so to all the capitalists that have been treating this planet as disposable i say tsck tsck tsck….the billionaires currently have a huge hard on for mars…well they have not solved the radiation, speed and food problems yet let alone the fuel problems so i say have a go at it bloke…i will stand by the side and watch…remember that voyagers 1 and 2 where launched when i was a child and they are just now leaving the solar system…thought votes are still out as to whether they have yet or not…

 

BUT THEN THERE IS SOLAR:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2013/07/08/germanys-solar-industry-is-imploding/?partner=yahootix

Germany’s Solar Industry Is Imploding

William Pentland, Contributor

I write about energy and environmental issues.

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The title says it all. Go there and read. More next week

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Traveling Green – The world of EcoTourism

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I must start with the opening cautionary note. Traveling to Asia is expensive. Staying at hotels that claim to be “green” is expensive too. When you approach such things with a clear understanding that thinks can go wrong and and ask all the questions you can think of, things often turn out well. Finally I have never used any of these commercial enterprises so I nor CES can vouch for them.  As always check with the Better Business Bureau first.

http://www.wildasia.org/

My Opinion: Green Is Always The Way To Go

 

As a commercial contractor, I have had my fair share of opportunities to see the implementation of green building materials. This has led to the advent of LEED-certified constructions. However, what piques my interest the most are the individuals who have used these facilities in an eco-friendly manner, particularly the facilities where I actually work. Such individuals and I acknowledge that what’s going on shouldn’t be recognized solely from a standpoint concerning LEED certification.

 

In Asia, such efforts that contribute to saving the environment are applauded. Categories such as cultural preservation, community engagement and development and resource efficiency are among those recognized. An Asian based accommodation provider the “Wild Asia Responsible Tourism Awards”, hands out awards to various organizations.

 

Las Vegas is one of the major destination spots making strides in preserving the economy. This is evident by the fact that many hotels in Las Vegas have committed to using items that meet LEED-certified standards. Recently the Las Vegas Palazzo Resort was deemed the “Most Eco-Friendly Hotel in America”. It relies on a number of self-sustaining elements and reuses most of its own waste. Las Vegas hotels have clearly set an example that all hotels throughout America, and elsewhere, can follow. Most of the hotels in NYC have also gone the extra mile to reduce their carbon footprints and accommodate for waste recycling. The ink48 Hotel, in particular, has an amazing program called Earthcare. This allows members of the program to have a platform for discussing the ways in which they can contribute to the betterment of the planet.

 

Nonetheless, it’s a beautiful thing, in my opinion, to see people act in one accord, making their facilities more sustainable and eco-friendly. It’s 10 times sweeter when you’re directly involved in such work. Today, there are hundreds of thousands of hotel rooms, and Las Vegas alone managed to pull in more than 40,000,000 travelers last year. If others followed the Palazzo and ink48’s lead, we will all see an extremely positive impact.

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Go there and look around. More next week.

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Fracking Should Be Banned In Illinois – But apparently the frackers have decided to forge ahead

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I got an email from Southern Illinois that said 30 big rigs had rolled through town yesterday morning. I figure that that is enough for 2 wells. It seems like some drilling company has decided to “go for it”. Which makes sick and disgusting sense. Many of the leases die at the end of April. I suspect that these will be test wells, because no one knows what is down there. It takes about  7 days to to drill a well and frack it. That would have the wells beginning to come in as the lease expires. This is what I said in print.

Thursday, April 11,2013

Letters to the Editor 4/11/13

Fracking and litter control act

By Letters to the Editor

 

FRACKING STINKS

I am writing to argue for a moratorium against fracking in Illinois (SB 1418). Chicago environmentalists argue that “fracking is going to happen anyway.” That is a total capitulation to the industry. The bill that the environmentalists endorse (HB2615) is amazing in the things it does not prevent. It does not force the frackers to recycle their water, allows for methane flaring, allows wells within 300 feet of water sources, allows wells within 500 feet of a house, does not allow adequate testing of produced waters especially for radiation and then allows that waste to be deep well injected and finally allows for the state to overrule counties and municipalities who do not want fracking or more protective measures.

Many states have tried to establish hydraulic fracturing regulations that would allow the industry to drill safely. The problem is regulations do not work. The industry always violates the regulations and when caught pays the fine as part of standard operating procedure. These violations include injecting radioactive water underground, open pit storage of fracking and waste waters even where not permitted, the production of toxic fumes and the sickening of residents, well water contamination and the direct dumping of toxic water into springs and streams. They have gone so far as to sell toxic water to county townships to suppress dust in the summer and to de-ice roads in the winter as if that was safe. Homeowners are duped into selling mineral rights without being told that it will make their houses impossible to sell and wreck their mortgages. In Pennsylvania their violations include:

– 224 violations of “failure to properly store, transport, process or dispose of residual waste.”

– 143 violations of “discharge of pollutional material to the waters of Commonwealth.”

– 140 violations of “pit and tanks not constructed with sufficient capacity to contain pollutional substances.”

This does not include the actual damage that they do to the environment, like damaging the roads where they work, and flaring the natural gas that should be harnessed as a fuel source and the constant noise pollution that the above activities produce. I was visiting a friend in Colorado when such a well was put in and the noise and smell alone were enough to sicken me.

Doug Nicodemus
Riverton
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Go there and read. They did a whole 5 page article on the issue. More later.

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Is There A Pandemic Building In China – Oh God let’s hope not

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There are many things that environmentalists have said over the years. The 2 most consistently true ones are that there are too many people on this planet and the other is that we will pay a price for befouling our planet. This has led some to talk about the possibility of a human “die back”. Is this what the beginning of one might look like?

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/04/01/is_this_a_pandemic_being_born_china_pigs_virus

 

Is This a Pandemic Being Born?

China’s mysterious pig, duck, and people deaths could be connected. And that should worry us.

BY LAURIE GARRETT | APRIL 1, 2013

Here’s how it would happen. Children playing along an urban river bank would spot hundreds of grotesque, bloated pig carcasses bobbing downstream. Hundreds of miles away, angry citizens would protest the rising stench from piles of dead ducks and swans, their rotting bodies collecting by the thousands along river banks. And three unrelated individuals would stagger into three different hospitals, gasping for air. Two would quickly die of severe pneumonia and the third would lay in critical condition in an intensive care unit for many days. Government officials would announce that a previously unknown virus had sickened three people, at least, and killed two of them. And while the world was left to wonder how the pigs, ducks, swans, and people might be connected, the World Health Organization would release deliberately terse statements, offering little insight.

It reads like a movie plot — I should know, as I was a consultant for Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion. But the facts delineated are all true, and have transpired over the last six weeks in China. The events could, indeed, be unrelated, and the new virus, a form of influenza denoted as H7N9, may have already run its course, infecting just three people and killing two.

Or this could be how pandemics begin.

On March 10, residents of China’s powerhouse metropolis, Shanghai, noticed some dead pigs floating among garbage flotsam in the city’s Huangpu River. The vile carcasses appeared in Shanghai’s most important tributary of the mighty Yangtze, a 71-mile river that is edged by the Bund, the city’s main tourist area, and serves as the primary source of drinking water and ferry travel for the 23 million residents of the metropolis and its millions of visitors. The vision of a few dead pigs on the surface of the Huangpu was every bit as jarring for local Chinese as porcine carcasses would be for French strolling the Seine, Londoners along the Thames, or New Yorkers looking from the Brooklyn Bridge down on the East River.

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Go there and read. More next week.

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Global Warming Revealed – It will involve upper atmospheric pulses

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What the planet can expect in the future and humans should be prepared for. A pulse starts some where when it is either cooler or warmer than the rest of the world. This temperature variant then pulses around the world until splat, it strikes a particular area with an unknown effect. Fire here, drought there, and a flood occasionally.

http://theenergycollective.com/josephromm/201816/weather-extremes-atmospheric-waves-and-climate-change

Weather Extremes: Atmospheric Waves And Climate Change

Authored by:

Joseph Romm

By Vladimir Petoukhov and Stefan Rahmstorf, via The Conversation

The northern hemisphere has experienced a spate of extreme weather in recent times. In 2012 there were destructive heat waves in the U.S. and southern Europe, accompanied by floods in China. This followed a heat wave in the U.S. in 2011 and one in Russia in 2010, coinciding with the unprecedented Pakistan flood — and the list doesn’t stop there.

Now we believe we have detected a common physical cause hidden behind all these individual events: Each time one of these extremes struck, a strong wave train had developed in the atmosphere, circling the globe in mid-latitudes. These so-called planetary waves are well-known and a normal part of atmospheric flow. What is not normal is that the usually moving waves ground to a halt and were greatly amplified during the extreme events.

Looking into the physics behind this, we found it is due to a resonance phenomenon. Under special conditions, the atmosphere can start to resonate like a bell. The wind patterns form a regular wave train, with six, seven or eight peaks and troughs going once around the globe (see graph). This is what we propose in a study published this week together with our colleagues of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

Planetary waves

Normally, an important part of the global air motion in the mid-latitudes of the Earth takes the form of waves wandering around the planet, oscillating irregularly between the tropical and polar regions. So when they swing northward, these waves suck warm air from the tropics to Europe, Russia, or the US; and when they swing southward, they do the same thing with cold air from the Arctic. This is a well-known feature of our planet’s atmospheric circulation system

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Go there and read. More next week.

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Fukushima Catastrophe – 2 years later it is still a mess

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It is sad but true that at roughly 3:00 pm Japanese time the world changed. While not one event starting with a powerful earthquake at 9 on the Richter scale that did not itself cause much damage but, followed by a tsunami that washed 20,000 people out to sea. This then was followed the next day with with a nuclear meltdown. 4 of them to be exact. What cast radiation into the air, probably to most areas of Japan. I am not trying to downplay the nuclear disaster but a woman on the radio said that it was clear where the Japanese had built in flood zones.  Which unfortunately could not readily be discerned before the flood because all of the clutter that had accumulated over the years (fences, roads and trees etc.) I hope they do not rebuild there again.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/03/every-day-is-a-fukushima-memorial/

Every Day Is a Fukushima Memorial’

TOKYO, Mar 10 2013 (IPS) – Japan prepares to mark the second anniversary of the Mar. 11 triple disaster – an earthquake, tsunami and a critical nuclear reactor accident – with much soul searching across the country.

For Yukiko Takada from Otsuki-cho, a scenic fishing town in Iwate prefecture that was turned into rubble in a few hours on that fateful day, the upcoming memorial Monday will simply be another day.

“For me, as it is like for the survivors who experienced the horrible tragedy, everyday remains a memorial, not just March 11, as we struggle to accept what happened and to get our lives back after the devastation,” she tells IPS.

The young woman represents one of the more poignant stories in lessons learnt following the disaster. Takada launched her own community newspaper last June. It was a project, she says, that was imperative to the recovery of the local community.

Otsuchi Shimbun, published weekly, provides up to date information on issues such as relocation of families, temporary housing, employment opportunities and local government decisions. It plays a crucial role in the rebuilding of people’s confidence.

Supported mainly with revenue from local ads, the newspaper, a one-woman show, carries diverse voices, and includes a focus on women. Takada says women have displayed mind-boggling will power to restart their lives for the sake of their families.

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Go there and read. More next time.

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Renewables Cheapest Downunder – Australia is in a good position to kick coal

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This is actually happening all around the world. During one day last year the Germans got all the power they used from renewables. All the old bullshit it turning into compost and will be forgotten.

http://grist.org/climate-energy/renewables-cheaper-than-coal-in-australia-a-preview-of-things-to-come/

Renewables cheaper than coal in Australia — a preview of things to come

By:

David Roberts

Energy, politics, and more

I’m morbidly fascinated by the way conventional wisdom lags behind evidence, like the notion that renewable energy is expensive and fossil fuels cheap. In fact, there is a tectonic shift underway. Renewable energy prices are declining as technology improves, economies of scale kick in, financing mechanisms mature, and public policy begins to take some (inadequate) account of the negative externalities of fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, the cost of coal-fired electricity is heading up. It’s getting harder to finance coal plants in the face of competition from clean(er) energy, activist opposition, and the inevitability of some kind of carbon policy. Construction costs are rising. Transportation costs are rising. It’s getting harder to reach the coal that’s left in the ground. Etc.

The two lines — falling renewable energy costs and rising coal costs — are going to cross. It’ll happen everywhere eventually. According to a Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) analysis, it’s already happened down under: “Renewable energy now cheaper than new fossil fuels in Australia.”

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Go there and read. More later.

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