Depave.org: Giving Unnecessary Paved Spaces Back to Nature

It’s no secret that paved surfaces aren’t great for the earth. They increase pollution runoff, reflect sunlight and increasingly take over the beauty of the natural world. And yet, more and more of the world is paved with every day that passes. Imagine if instead, we had livable cities where people and wildlife coexist and thrive amidst clean air, clean water and an abundance of plants, trees and vegetation. That’s what Depave.org is hoping for, and they’re helping to remove unnecessary concrete and asphalt from the earth, one property at a time.

Depave.org, a project of Portland, Oregon nonprofit City Repair, provides instructions and inspiration for getting rid of unnecessary paved surfaces.  Their goal is to:

• Provide information, inspiration, and technical assistance to those wishing to remove concrete and asphalt
• Educate the public about the benefits of pavement removal
• Advocate to minimize and/or reduce the amount of impervious pavement in public construction and repair projects.
• Promote responsible and creative reuse and recycling of concrete and asphalt
• Provide an opportunity for greater connection with the natural world

The Depave.org website provides some great examples of what can be done with formerly lifeless slabs of concrete. Big pieces of useless land are transformed into gardens and enjoyable green spaces.

Of course, there’s the question of what should be done with all that broken up concrete and asphalt, called ‘urbanite’. Depave.org has an answer to that to, and some of the examples are stunning. Old concrete driveways are turned into retaining walls for raised garden beds and fire pits.

Check it out – perhaps you’ll get some inspiration to transform your own paved space into something beautiful and natural!

Link [Depave.org]

Commercial Shipping Returning to the Eerie Canal

Commercial shipping is making a comeback in the Eerie Canal after decades of decline. Soaring gas prices have caused some companies to rethink sending goods via truck, turning instead to barges – and they’re not alone. More companies are beginning to look into it. So far this season, there have been 42 shipments up the canal – up from 15 last year. 42 shipments is still far from the numbers seen during the Eerie Canal’s heyday, when 33,241 shipments passed through the lock at Frankfurt, 54 miles east of Syracuse.

From The New York Times:

The canal still remains the most fuel-efficient way to ship goods between the East Coast and the upper Midwest. One gallon of diesel pulls one ton of cargo 59 miles by truck, 202 miles by train and 514 miles by canal barge, Ms. Mantello said. A single barge can carry 3,000 tons, enough to replace 100 trucks.

As the price of diesel climbed over $4 a gallon this summer — the national average is now about $3.31 a gallon — more shippers rediscovered the Erie Canal. On one trip in mid-October, the Margot motored down the canal at about seven knots, pushing a barge loaded with a giant green crane. The machine was being transported from Huger, S.C., to the Pinney Dock, operated by the Kinder Morgan Company in Ashtabula, Ohio.

“It really just came down to economics,” said Lee Demers, the dock’s manager. The other option was to move the crane through the St. Lawrence Seaway, adding more than 1,000 miles and greater fuel costs to the trip.

Wow, who knew barges were so green? If a single barge can replace 100 trucks, that’s really getting somewhere.  Of course, the environmental impacts of a huge increase of barges in the canal would have to be considered, but it’d still be a hell of a lot better than having all those trucks on the road. Interesting, how we’re returning to simpler ways of doing things in so many cases.

Link [The New York Times]

World Energy Outlook ‘Patently Unsustainable’

Grim news from the International Energy Agency this week. The organization’s annual World Energy Outlook reports that the earth simply can’t sustain current trends in energy supply and consumption, and that we’ve got to cut back, stat – but it won’t be easy.

Nobuo Tanaka, the IEA’s Executive Director, says rising imports of oil and gas from the increasingly concentrated production in a small number of countries puts us at even bigger risk of major disruptions. At the same time, our greenhouse gas emissions will continue to rise, putting the world on track for a global temperature increase of up to 6 degrees Celsius.

From The Daily Green:

If government policies don’t change, the world will spend $1 trillion on energy — much of it fossil fuels — and demand will grow 45% by 2030, a slightly slower rate of growth than was predicted last year because of the economic crisis. China and India would account for half the growth in world energy demand, and world cities would account for three-quarters of total demand.

Demand for oil would rise nearly 25% and will remain the world’s “main source of energy” for years to come, even under the most “optimistic” alternative scenarios. But it could come at an increasing cost, as supplies dwindle, oil supplies are nationalized, sources shift to non-traditional forms like oil shale, oil sands and deep-sea deposits, and political instability disrupts supply. “The era of cheap oil is over,” Tanaka said.

Renewable energy, even under current government policies, will become the second-biggest source of electricity sometime in the next few years.

Carbon dioxide emissions will increase 45% by 2030, if current trends continue unabated. Three-quarters of the increase will come from China, India and the Middle East. Reducing emissions to prevent a 3-degree (C) rise in temperature would take a $4.1 trillion investment ($17 per person per year) by 2030 primarily in energy efficiency so that vehicles, homes and appliances demand less energy. That investment would deliver fuel-cost savings of $7 trillion or more. But to prevent a 2-degree temperature increase, the cost would rise to $9.3 trillion, as the world invested heavily in non-polluting forms of energy, and the fuel-cost savings drops to just $5.8 trillion.

Scary. I don’t know about you, but things like this make me even more grateful that we’ve at least got President Elect Obama about to take charge, instead of another Republican who’d continue the status quo. This is no time to let oil industry buddies influence how we move forward on such a pressing problem.

Link [The Daily Green]

Bush Admin Wants To Open Thousands Of Acres Near National Parks For Drilling

In yet another act seemingly bent on cementing the Bush Administration’s reputation as worst ever on the environment, the Bureau of Land Management is giving even more land over to oil and gas companies for drilling. And this time, it will include tens of thousands of acres on or near the boundaries of three national parks.

From The New York Times:

National Park Service officials say that the decision to open lands close to Arches National Park and Dinosaur National Monument and within eyeshot of Canyonlands National Park was made without the kind of consultation that had previously been routine.

The inclusion of the new lease tracts angered environmental groups, which were already critical of the bureau’s original lease proposal, made public this fall, because they said it could lead to industrial activity in empty areas of the state, some prized for their sweeping vistas, like Desolation Canyon, and others for their ancient petroglyphs, like Nine Mile Canyon.

The bureau’s new maps, made public on Election Day, show not just those empty areas but 40 to 45 new areas where leasing will also be allowed.

Park managers are concerned about how the proximity of industrial activity might affect the air, water and wildlife within the parks. The Park Service was not given time to comment on the leases. The tracts will be sold at auction on December 19th, the final lease sale before Bush leaves office. If any leases are sold that day and delivered to buyers before Inauguration Day, Obama’s new administration may not be able to reverse the decisions.

Bush sure does love oil, doesn’t he? We’ve been so happy about the fact that he is about to leave office, but it seems as if he’s cramming another 4 years of bad decisions into these last few months. Bush is doing all he can to give his buddies in the industry a few last favors before Obama takes over, since Obama will be unlikely to put their needs above those of the environment and the people.  Sickening, but not surprising at all.

Link [The New York Times]

China’s Dirty Secret: 60 Minutes Follows America’s Electronic Waste

The gangs who run the electronic wasteland in China don’t want you to see it. In fact, they’re so keen on keeping it out of the media that they attacked a 60 Minutes crew that was attempting to document the frightening, toxic mess full of lead, cadmium, chromium, polyvinyl chloride and other dangerous substances. But, 60 Minutes and correspondent Scott Pelley got the scoop anyway, exposing what happens when our electronics are illegally shipped overseas for dumping.

From CBS News:

It’s worth risking a visit because much of the poison is coming out of the homes, schools and offices of America. This is a story about recycling - about how your best intentions to be green can be channeled into an underground sewer that flows from the United States and into the wasteland.

At a recycling event in Denver, 60 Minutes found cars bumper-to-bumper for blocks, in a line that lasted for hours. They were there to drop off their computers, PDAs, TVs and other electronic waste.

Asked what he thought happens once his e-waste goes into recycling, one man told Pelley, “Well my assumption is they break it apart and take all the heavy metals and out and then try to recycle some of the stuff that’s bad.”

Most folks in line were hoping to do the right thing, expecting that their waste would be recycled in state-of-the-art facilities that exist here in America. But really, there’s no way for them to know where all of this is going. The recycling industry is exploding and, as it turns out, some so-called recyclers are shipping the waste overseas, where it’s broken down for the precious metals inside.

60 Minutes followed the container of e-waste that was collected in Denver for 7,459 miles to Victoria Harbor, Hong Kong. It turned out that the carton of e-waste that would supposedly be ‘recycled’ was just one of thousands on an illegal smuggling route, to be dumped in poor communities. The town of Guiyu was described by 60 Minutes as ‘a sort of Chernobyl of electronic waste’.

Greenpeace has been filming around Guiyu and caught the recycling work. Women were heating circuit boards over a coal fire, pulling out chips and pouring off the lead solder. Men were using what is literally a medieval acid recipe to extract gold. Pollution has ruined the town. Drinking water is trucked in. Scientists have studied the area and discovered that Guiyu has the highest levels of cancer-causing dioxins in the world. They found pregnancies are six times more likely to end in miscarriage, and that seven out of ten kids have too much lead in their blood.

The whole article over at the 60 Minutes website is definitely worth a read. It’s a sobering reality check for anyone who thought that recycling drives are the answer to our massive electronic waste problem. Both consumers and manufacturers have got to take responsibility for where these products end up when they’ve outlived their usefulness to us.

Watch a video of the attack on the 60 Minutes crew at The Huffington Post.

Link [60 Minutes]

5 Terrible Bush Environmental Policies We Hope Obama Fixes

The Bush Administration was the worst on record in terms of the environment, perpetrating one crime against nature after the other as they pushed their industry-first agenda at the expense of human and environmental health. And they’re not even done yet – Bush is in the midst of a sprint toward destruction, enacting as many harmful environmental laws as he possibly can before President-elect Obama takes up residence in the White House in January.

Eight years worth of horrifying misdeeds won’t be cleaned up easily; some of the measures Bush is pushing through at this very moment will take months or even years to undo, and Obama is no miracle worker. But we know that the environment – and global warming, in particular - is one of Obama’s top priorities, and we’re hopeful that he’ll get to work quickly to reverse the damage that Bush and Co. have done.

These five examples are, of course, only a sampling of Bush’s environmental follies. To get a real sense of the worst president in history’s environmental record, we recommend reading Crimes Against Nature by possible future EPA Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Putting lobbyists in top environmental positions

Bush has a lot of lobbyist friends, and he wasn’t afraid to give them top-tier jobs in his administration. The same goes for industry lawyers, spokespeople and advocates. More than 100 high-level officials in the Bush Administration once represented the industries they now regulate.

Some examples include putting a former meat-industry lobbyist in charge of determining how meat is labeled, giving an energy lobbyist the job of handing out parcels of land for oil drilling to his former clients and friends, and appointing a lawyer who formerly represented utility companies – some of the biggest polluters – as head of the EPA division that controls air pollution.

More so than any President before him (save, possibly, Nixon), Bush brought a culture of corruption into Washington – an essential conflict of interest that ensured that these officials would not properly do their job. It’s a case of the fox guarding the hen house. Luckily, we’re pretty confident that Obama will put the safety of the people first and choose officials who will be truly dedicated to their jobs.

Refusing to address climate change

For far too many years, Bush was silent on climate change and what we need to do to address it. By the time he finally acknowledged – albeit begrudgingly – that global warming poses a significant threat, years of inaction had passed. And, even after some empty speeches about how serious the problem is, Bush still sat on his hands, doing absolutely nothing meaningful to address it.

Unsurprisingly, Bush has suggested completely voluntary limits on greenhouse gas emissions. It’s obvious to most of us why that won’t work (haven’t we learned by now that businesses will do whatever they can get away with?), but Bush has been all too content to give in to pressure from his buddies in the industry. Bush also famously refused to sign the Kyoto Treaty, insisting that it would seriously harm the U.S. economy (yeah, because his way of doing things worked out great, didn’t they?).

President-elect Obama, on the other hand, has mentioned climate change as a top priority many times throughout his campaign, vowing to begin an aggressive fight to reverse its effects. Obama has pledged to reduce U.S. emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and then a further 80 percent by 2050 via a cap-and-trade program. That will likely be just the beginning as we begin as a nation to turn toward an economy based on renewable energy.

Failing to protect endangered species

Bush’s parting moves on the environment have been a sobering reminder of just how much damage he has done in his nearly decade-long presidency. George W. Bush already has the worst track record of any president for listing endangered and threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, allowing hundreds of species to continually decline in population while waiting to be added. Now, his administration is creating significant exemptions to regulations that require expert scientific review of any federal project that could possibly harm endangered or threatened species. The proposal would also let federal agencies pass on considering the impact of global warming on species.

It’s like Bush is giving us all the finger before he finally makes his big exit. His administration knows that no matter what, Obama won’t be able to change the laws that Bush is currently pushing through for months or possibly even years, especially with the economy taking so much of his attention. It’s their parting gift to the businesses who fear that Obama will no longer give them a free ride when it comes to profiting at the expense of the environment. And don’t doubt that he won’t – Obama, unlike Bush, is no industry’s bitch.

Rolling back laws on clean air and water

Another of Bush’s recent moves was to reduce pollution runoff limits for factory farms, literally opening the floodgates to allow toxic substances into our water. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Under pressure from polluters, the Bush Administration repeatedly took steps to remove Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act safeguards. Only the passionate opposition of conservation groups, dedicated members of Congress and citizens did Bush and Co. fail to carry out quite as much damage as we initially feared they would when he was elected.

The New York Times recently noted that they expect the EPA to issue a final rule that will weaken a program created by the Clean Air Act, which currently requires utilities to install modern pollution controls when they upgrade their plants to produce more power. The EPA is also expected to issue a final rule that will make it easier for coal-fired power plants to operate near national parks, despite longstanding Congressional mandates to protect air quality in such areas.

Obama, of course, will reverse these decisions. Upholding the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act are common sense, when you don’t have puppet masters pulling your strings.

Always putting oil first

The era of oil is coming to an end, but if Bush had his way, we’d cling to it until the last human on earth exhaled his dying breath. After all, Bush comes from an oil family and has many ties to the industry. And, he certainly hasn’t been shy about doing favors for oil companies while the clean energy industry had difficulty getting off the ground due to lack of funding and support.

Back in 2001, the Bush Administration’s National Energy Policy was created based on recommendations from coal, oil, nuclear and other dirty energy companies. Since then, Bush has leased nearly 27 million acres of public lands to oil and gas companies for drilling and has opposed incentives to promote clean energy. See what Bush said about renewable energy versus what he actually did at the Center for American Progress.

There’s hope, though – Obama’s clean energy plan is so large we can’t even fit it all here. But for starters, he will create 5 million new green collar jobs through the investment of $150 billion in clean energy, a move that will address both the economic crisis and the energy crisis at once. He’ll also put 1 million plug-in hybrids on the road, and ensure that 10% of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012 and up to 25% by 2025.

Hope. We’ve heard that word a lot over the last two years, and now it’s becoming reality. Not being angry and fearful of the government’s environmental decisions sure will take a weight off our shoulders.

NYC Reduces Light Pollution, Saves Energy with Efficient Lighting

The New York City skyline is a little dimmer as of late, a result of more energy-efficient lighting that saves money, reduces consumption and keeps light pollution to a minimum – at least, as minimal as it can be in such a large city. Office buildings, apartment towers and other structures in NYC are using motion sensors to ensure that unoccupied rooms aren’t being lit for no reason, and dimmers soften overhead lights that would otherwise burn bright all night.

From The New York Times:

Gone are the days when cheap electricity, primitive lighting technology and landlords’ desire to showcase their skyscrapers kept floor after floor of the city’s highest towers glowing into the night. Now, rising energy costs, conservationism, stricter building codes and sophisticated lighting systems have conspired to slowly, often imperceptibly, transform Manhattan’s venerable nightscape into one with a gentler glow.

Instead of tower after tower shining at all hours — the World Trade Center stayed aglow long after its occupants went home — the skyline is becoming a patchwork of sparsely sparkling buildings decorated with ornamentally lighted tops.

Unshielded traffic lights, neon signs and illuminated billboards once made NYC one of the most light-polluted cities in the country.  Though some people might mourn the loss of NYC’s formerly dazzling, glitzy display of city lights, this is a great development. Imagine how much electricity is being saved, especially compared to just a few years ago when everything was constantly ablaze!

Link [The New York Times]

Is Your Cell Phone Drenched in Blood?

Cell phones were once a luxury, something that people thought were sort of frivolous. But in today’s age of ever-advancing technology, we’ve come to consider them an absolute necessity. Now practically everyone owns one – and we replace them with new ones every 1-2 years. But at what cost? It turns out that a vital raw material used in many cell phones is often mined illegally, and by slave labor.

As we told you back in July, coltan – short for Columbite-tantalite – is refined to create a heat-resistant metal powder called tantalum that sells for $100 a pound, and illegal operations have cropped up in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Rwandan rebel soldiers were sending prisoners – including children – down into the dangerous mines to do the dirty work. All so we can enjoy our electronics.

Now, we’re being warned that the coltan mining in Congo is threatening the endangered Mountain Gorilla.

From The Inquisitr:

As well the mining of Coltan is located in the area as the Kahuzi Biega National Park which is the home of the Mountain Gorilla and because of this mining the gorilla population has been decimated. Whether it be from starvation because the mining is removing their habitat or from being shot to feed the people doing the mine this need for Coltan has a growing effect on both the people and the animals of the Congo.

Watch this video on coltan mining to get a real sense of the problem. It really makes you think about whether these gadgets are really worth it, doesn’t it?

Learn more about the effects of coltan mining and what electronics companies have to say for themselves in our previous post, ‘African Minerals and Electronics: Technology Soaked in Blood’.

Link [The Inquisitr]
Photo credit: Pulitzer Center

Mexican Water Monster Nearing Extinction

We’re possibly about to lose one of the coolest, most unique creatures in existence on the planet. The Axolotl (pronounced ACK-suh-LAH-tuhl) salamander, also known as the Mexican Water Monster, is facing extinction. This roughly foot-long amphibian, which resembles some kind of alien fetus, is being threatened by pollution and nonnative species populating the same waters. Frankly, it’s sort of amazing that it lasted this long.

From MSNBC:

The axolotl, also known as the “water monster” and the “Mexican walking fish,” was a key part of Aztec legend and diet. Against all odds, it survived until now amid Mexico City’s urban sprawl in the polluted canals of Lake Xochimilco, now a Venice-style destination for revelers poled along by Mexican gondoliers, or trajineros, in brightly painted party boats.

But scientists are racing to save the foot-long salamander from extinction, a victim of the draining of its lake habitat and deteriorating water quality. In what may be the final blow, nonnative fish introduced into the canals are eating its lunch — and its babies.

Researchers say it could disappear within five years, and some are pushing for axolotl sanctuaries in canals cleared of invasive species. Others are considering repopulating Xochimilco with axolotls bred in captivity.

We can only hope that scientists and conservationists will be able to save this creature, named after Xolotl, the dog-headed Aztec god of death, lightning and monstrosities.  It would be such a shame to see it go.

Link [MSNBC]

Photo credit: National Geographic

New Bush Rule Eases Pollution Restrictions on Factory Farms

With just months left in office, it seems that President Bush has a fire under his ass to destroy the environment in as many ways as possible before he vacates the White House. The Bush Administration is already rushing to ease endangered species laws so government-approved building projects can move forward; now, we’re hearing that they have made thousands of factory farms exempt from needing permits that limit water pollution. The EPA also decided not to improve controls for bacteria and other pathogens that pose risk to human health and wildlife.

From The Daily Green:

Confined Animal Feeding Lots or CAFOs, as factory farms operations are known, are huge polluters. They create large amounts of waste that doesn’t become fertilizer for farms but often runs off into waterways, contaminating drinking supplies and harming aquatic life. The release says that the EPA estimates that these facilities generate three times more waste than people do nationwide.

According to the NRDC, the new rule:

• Creates a loophole allowing facility operators to avoid permits by claiming they won’t have a discharge.
• Adopts a scheme that allows facilities to avoid certain environmental enforcement. For instance, if an operator certifies that the facility won’t have a discharge, environmental authorities will ignore enforcement action, even if the facility discharges to the nation’s waters.
• Rejects improvements in technology that would reduce harmful bacteria and other pathogens contained in animal waste, missing an opportunity to prevent water pollution and threats to public health.

Maybe this is just an extension of his gleeful “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter!” exclamation at the G8 summit – in other words, he’s a little kid willfully trashing the place in disobedience. Congratulations, Bush – you’ll go down in the history book for many things, not the least of which is being the WORST. PRESIDENT. EVER.

Link [The Daily Green]
Photo credit: StoptheMegaDairy.org

Prisons Go Green with Organic Farming, Composting, Recycling

A beekeeper carefully tends his honeybees, while in the background, a man in an orange suit stirs compost with a pitchfork. Three more men are bent over in the garden, pulling weeds and checking on the tomatoes. It would be an idyllic scene, if not for the presence of towering chain-link fences and guards with guns. This isn’t a rural farm; it’s a prison.

Cedar Creek Corrections Center in southwest Washington grew 8,000 pounds of organic veggies this year, composted 100% of their food scraps and even recycled shoe scraps into playground turf. Inmates at this minimum-security prison get fresh air and exercise, and the prison saves money by implementing practically every green initiative they can think of.

From MSNBC:

“It reduces cost, reduces our damaging impact on the environment, engages inmates as students,” said Eldon Vail, secretary of the Washington Department of Corrections, which oversees 15 prisons and 18,000 offenders. “It’s good security.”

As around-the-clock operations, prisons are voracious resource hogs, and administrators are under increasing pressure to reduce waste and conserve energy and water.

In 2007, states spent more than $49 billion to feed, house, clothe, treat and supervise 2.3 million offenders, the Pew Center on the States reported this year.

Cedar Creek is far from the only prison to be using sustainability to their financial advantage. The Indiana Department of Corrections installed water boilers that run on wood chips and built a wind turbine that generates about 10 kilowatts per hour. Ironwood State Prison in Blythe, CA has 6,200 solar panels that feed energy back into the grid, and North Carolina’s Department of Corrections had inmates turn 50-gallon pickle barrels into rain cisterns.

What a smart idea – with as much money as states spend on prisons, this is a huge help in so many ways. Why not take it a step further, and train inmates for green collar jobs? Of course, we’d like to see law-abiding citizens get that opportunity first, but it’s an idea for the future.

Link [MSNBC]

7 Environmental Problems That Are Worse Than We Thought

With as much attention as the environment has been getting lately, you’d think that we’d be further along in our fight to preserve the world’s species, resources and the beautiful diversity of nature. Unfortunately, things aren’t nearly that rosy. In fact, many of the environmental problems that have received the most public attention are even worse than we thought – from destruction in the rain forest to melting glaciers in the Arctic. We’ve got a lot of work to do.

7. Mammal Extinction

Image via National Wildlife Federation

One in four mammals is threatened with extinction. That’s 25%, a huge number that will totally change the ecology of every corner of the earth. We could see thousands of species die out in our lifetime, and the rate of habitat loss and hunting in crucial areas like Southeast Asia, Central Africa and Central and South America is growing so rapidly, these animals barely have a chance.

If you think the extinction of an animal like the beautiful Iberian Lynx is no big deal, and wouldn’t have that much of an effect on the planet, think again. Not only would we be losing – mostly due to our own disregard for our surroundings – so much of the awe-inspiring diversity of nature, mass extinctions like this would cause a serious imbalance in the world’s food chain. When a predator disappears, the prey will multiply. When prey dies out, the predator will see its ranks decrease as well. Many people fail to realize just how interconnected all species on this planet really are.

6. The Ocean Dead Zones

Image via NASA

In oceans around the world, there are eerie areas that are devoid of nearly all life. These ‘dead zones’ are characterized by a lack of oxygen, and they’re caused by excess nitrogen from farm fertilizers, emissions from vehicles and factories, and sewage. The number of dead zones has been growing fast - since the 1960’s, the number of dead zones has doubled every 10 years. They range in size from under a square mile to 45,000 square miles, and the most infamous one of all is in the Gulf of Mexico, a product of toxic sludge that flows down the Mississippi from farms in the Midwest. These ‘hypoxic’ zones now cover an area roughly the size of Oregon.

Spanish researches recently found that many species die off at oxygen levels well above the current definition of ‘uninhabitable’, suggesting that the extent of dead zones in coastal areas that support fishing is much worse than previously thought. Robert Diaz, a Virginia Institute of Marine Science biologist, said “Everything is pointing towards a more desperate situation in all aquatic systems, freshwater and marine. That’s pretty clear. People should be worried, all over the world.”

As if that weren’t bad enough, global warming will likely aggravate the problem. A rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will change rainfall patterns, which could create an increase in runoff from rivers into the seas in many areas.

5. Collapsing Fish Stock

Image via Pew Environment Group

Millions of people across the world depend upon fish as a major staple in their diet. As such, commercial fishermen have been pulling such a huge quantity of fish from the oceans that we’re heading toward a global collapse of all species currently fished – possibly as soon as the year 2048. Like large-scale mammal extinction, the collapse of fish species would have a major impact on the world’s ecosystems.

It’s not too late – yet – if overfishing and other threats to fish populations are reduced as soon as possible. Marine systems are still biologically diverse, but catastrophic loss of fish species is close at hand. 29 percent of species have been fished so heavily or have been so affected by pollution that they’re down to 10 percent of their previous population levels. If we continue the way we are fishing today, there will be a 100 percent collapse by mid-century, so we’ve got to turn this around fast.

4. Destruction of the Rain Forest

Image via Encyclopedia Britannica

‘Saving the rain forest’ has been at the forefront of the environmental movement for decades, yet here we are facing huge losses in the Amazon all the same. You might have thought that, with all the attention the rain forest has gotten, it wouldn’t need so much saving anymore – but unfortunately, global warming and deforestation mean that half of the Amazon rain forest will likely be destroyed or severely damaged by 2030.

The World Wildlife Fund concluded this summer that agriculture, drought, fire, logging and livestock ranching will cause major damage to 55 percent of the Amazon rain forest in the next 22 years. Another 4 percent will see damage due to reduced rainfall, courtesy of global warming. These factors will destroy up to 80 percent of the rain forest’s wildlife. Losing 60 percent of the rain forest would accelerate global warming and affect rainfall in places as far away as India. Massive destruction to the rain forest would have a domino effect on the rest of the world.

The WWF says that the ‘point of no return’, from which recovery will be impossible, is only 15 to 25 years away.

3. Polar Sea Ice Loss

Image via National Snow and Ice Data Center

Polar sea ice is melting at an unprecedented rate, and it’s not showing any signs of slowing down. It’s perhaps the most dramatic, startling visual evidence of global warming, and it’s got scientists rushing to figure out just how big of an effect the melting is going to have on the rest of the world.

British researchers said last week that the thickness of sea ice in the Arctic decreased dramatically last winter for the first time since records began in the early 1990s. The research showed a significant loss in thickness on the northern ice cap after the record loss of ice during the summer of 2007.

Scientific American warns that “human fingerprints have been detected” on both the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Antarctica had previously appeared to be the only continent on the planet where humanity’s impact on climate change hadn’t been observed. The collapse of the Larsen B and Wilkins ice shelves in the Antarctic Peninsula shows just how fast the region is warming.

2. CO2 Levels in the Atmosphere

Image via Visible Earth

The aforementioned polar sea ice loss is yet another sinister sign of carbon dioxide levels building up in the atmosphere – the main force behind global warming. Greenhouse gas emissions caused by our modern way of life – vehicles, power plants, factories, giant livestock farms – will bring devastating climate change within decades if they stay at today’s levels.

Average temperatures could increase by as much as 12 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century if emissions continue to rise, a figure that would easily make the world virtually uninhabitable for humans. A global temperature rise of just 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit would cause a catastrophic domino effect, bringing weather extremes that would result in food and water shortages and destructive floods.

The most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change represents “the final nail in the coffin” of climate change denial, representing the most authoritative picture to date that global warming is caused by human activity. According to the panel, we must make a swift and significant switch to clean, efficient and renewable energy technologies in order to prevent the worst-case scenario.

1. Population Explosion

Image via Wikimedia Commons

Whether we like to admit it or not, our very own rapidly multiplying presence on this planet is the biggest environmental problem there is, and it’s getting bigger by the minute. We voraciously consume resources, pollute the air and water, tear down natural habitats, introduce species into areas where they don’t belong and destroy ecosystems to the point of causing millions of species to become endangered and, all too often, go extinct.

It took nearly all of human history – from the first days of man on earth until the early 1800’s – to reach a global population of 1 billion. In just 200 years, we’ve managed to reach 6.5 billion. That means the population has grown more since 1950 than in the previous four million years. We’re adding roughly 74 million people to the planet every year, a scary figure that will probably continue to increase. All of those mouths will need to be fed. All of those bodies will need clean water and a place to sleep. All of the new communities created to house those people will continue to encroach upon the natural world.

All seven environmental problems detailed above are very serious, and we’ve got to start treating them that way. We may not have easy solutions, but the fact is, we simply can’t continue living our lives as if everything is peachy. These problems aren’t going to magically solve themselves. We should have begun acting generations ago, but we can’t go back in time, and that means we have to step up our efforts. If we want to keep this planet a healthy place for humans to live – for our grandchildren to enjoy – it’s time to buckle down and do everything in our power to reverse the damage we’ve done.

NYC Gets 105 New Public Recycling Bins

Manhattanites now have 33 new public places where they can bring their recyclables as part of an expansion of a pilot recycling program that began in March 2007, when 126 blue and green recycling bins were placed in high-traffic areas at 10 sites throughout the city. New York City residents are required by law to recycle at home, so it’s about time they were given the ability to do it in public, too.

From Gothamist:

Starting yesterday, an additional 105 blue and green bins can be found throughout all five boroughs. The mayor’s office stressed that the expansion comes at minimal cost to taxpayers through the use of existing Department of Sanitation collection resources and partnerships with 18 Business Improvement Districts. Bloomberg said yesterday that “the key to maintaining the City’s high quality of life—even during tough times—is learning to do more with less. Because of careful planning by the Sanitation Department, this expansion of public recycling will have virtually no impact on the City’s budget.”

This is great, but… doesn’t the NYC city council realize that you can’t paper that has gotten wet? The paper recycling bins are open to the sky. That means a whole lot of well-meaning people are going to be bringing their newspapers and other recyclable paper to these bins, and they’ll end up getting thrown away anyway. A Gothamist commenter suggested putting the bins on the subway platforms. Makes sense to us.

See the list of places where the new bins have been added at Gothamist.

Link [Gothamist]

Mexico Pays Fishermen to Save Porpoises

The endangered vaquita porpoise has an unlikely new group of friends: commercial fishermen who were previously accidentally trapping and killing the animals while trying to catch shrimp, mackerel and sharks.  The Mexican government is paying 800 fishermen in the northernmost area of the Gulf of Mexico to stop fishing with nets and, in some cases, stop fishing altogether.

From The New York Times:

Probably no more than 150 vaquitas survive, conservationists say. The population could fall to 100 in a couple of years. If that occurred, there would be too few sexually mature adults left for the species to recover.

“We have one or two years,” said Omar Vidal, the director of the World Wildlife Fund in Mexico and a biologist who has studied the vaquita for 25 years. “We’re on the brink.”

The Mexican government agrees. It has spent about $20 million over the last two years on conservation measures, primarily to persuade 800 of the 4,000 registered fishermen in the area to accept its offer to stop using nets or to cease fishing entirely, according to the environment minister, Juan Elvira Quesada. Next year, officials hope to spend an additional $13 million to continue the plan.

Many of the fishermen who accepted the offer say they’ll use the money to start new businesses, but for those who wish to keep fishing, there’s a new net available developed with help from the World Wildlife Fund that won’t trap the vaquita.

Now, that’s the way to work together to protect endangered animals.  Hopefully this last-ditch effort will work, because they’re running out of time. A cousin of the vaquita, the Chinese river dolphin, was declared extinct last year.

Link [The New York Times]
Photo credit: Cetacean Society International

Is Food Still ‘Local’ if it’s Grown by a Nationwide Brand?

If you live in Florida, is a Tropicana orange ‘locally grown’? That’s what Environmental Economics is wondering after a recent USA Today article questioned what the term ‘local food’ really means. While retailers have been quick to jump on the consumer desire for food grown closer to home, some of them seem to be stretching the boundaries of what’s really considered local, like – surprise – Wal-Mart.

From USA Today:

• Wal-Mart, the nation’s biggest retailer, considers anything local if it’s grown in the same state as it’s sold, even if that’s a state as big as Texas and the food comes from a farm half the size of Manhattan, as in the case of the 7,000-acre Ham Produce in North Carolina.

• Whole Foods, the biggest retailer of natural and organic foods, considers local to be anything produced within seven hours of one of its stores. The retailer says most local producers are within 200 miles of a store.

• Seattle’s PCC Natural Markets considers local to be anything from Washington, Oregon and southern British Columbia.

Jim Prevor, editor of Produce Business and author of the blog Perishable Pundit, disputes Wal-Mart’s characterization of citrus grown in Florida but sold nationwide as a local product, saying that counting a product that is nationally shipped as local doesn’t seem to fit the meaning of ‘locally grown’.

It’s definitely a good thing to be on the lookout for greenwashing, but being on high alert all the time can perhaps lead us into a sticky quagmire of questions with no real answer. Many people equate ‘local’ with ‘small business’, and would simply rather give their business to the little guy instead of the huge corporation, while others would accept those large companies as local brands.

But, people often don’t consider the fact that some varieties of food simply don’t grow well in their area, and farms looking to take advantage of the local food movement could use environmentally unsound practices in an attempt to, say, grow bananas in Arkansas (and then market said bananas to Arkansans as local). So, in some cases, unless you’re willing to give up food that doesn’t grow well in your area (which, of course, would be the greenest choice), it can make less of an impact to import food from its native region. The mind spins. What’s your take?

Link [USA Today] via [Environmental Economics]
Photo credit: Flickr user jonny.hunter

The Upside to a Total Breakdown in Society, Or Why Utter Chaos Might Not Be So Bad (For the Earth)

Gas stops flowing and the roads are all but desolate, as only a few vehicles are still able to run. Container ships from China stop pulling into port, grocery store trucks can’t deliver supplies and emergency services can’t answer desperate pleas for help. Governments fall apart as they fail to control an angry, hungry, rioting population which, after a long period of total anarchy, finally begins breaking into pockets. Civil wars arise over resources like clean water. Civilization in general returns to a simpler time when everyone was left to fend for themselves, depending on the land for survival.

It’s pretty much the worst-case scenario, whether it were to come about due to a terrorist strike on the oil market, a shutdown of the economy, war or some other extremely disruptive event. And, though it may seem like it comes straight from the mind of a tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorist, it’s entirely possible that society will experience a major breakdown sometime in the next couple of generations. We don’t like to think about it, and that’s part of the problem – we’re totally unprepared.

EarthFirst has already delved into what would happen if there were an extreme, widespread, prolonged gas shortage –basically, utter chaos. There would be numerous repercussions. Many would die. Our lives would change drastically. Few people would feel safe and stable. We’d be thrown straight back to the Pre-Industrial Revolution era, with a strange mix of 21st-century ideas and technology thrown in. But, could there be an upside to the dissolution of our modern world?

Barring nuclear war, the biggest beneficiaries of a total breakdown in society would be the earth and all of the non-human creatures that live on it. Like it or not, the major decrease in the human population that would come part and parcel with a total breakdown in society would be the single biggest environmental benefit this world could possibly experience. None of us want to imagine our communities, our families, ourselves dying off in war, hunger, disease and lawlessness – it’s a nightmare. It would be hell on earth, for a while. But the remaining population would pick up the pieces and find a new way, and the earth would be better off for it.

Imagine: a dystopian, practically technology-free society where factories no longer pump pollution into the air, cars no longer idle in freeway traffic jams, and people are forced to re-use everything they can. No more endless processions of plastic junk down the assembly line, no more hormone- and antibiotic-packed Frankenmeat being raised in inhumane, environmentally damaging conditions.

As life became almost completely local, we’d be forced to take over growing our own food, effectively stopping the environmental damage done by factory farms. Since production would stop on synthetic fertilizer, farmers would go back to using organic solutions instead. That means no more constant streams of poison going from the cornfields of middle America to the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi River, expanding the ever-growing dead zone that threatens sea life. We’d no longer be shipping tons of food from one end of the country to another, or importing it from overseas. We’d be eating fresh, healthy, seasonal food and we’d make damn sure not to waste any of it.

We’d get incredibly creative with re-using items. People would pore through landfills looking for things once tossed away without a thought, but which would now be seen as still serving a valuable purpose. Since disposable items would be a thing of the past, every item would be used until it literally fell apart. With factory production at a standstill, we’d see a resurgence of nearly-lost arts like hand sewing, blacksmithing, woodworking and food preservation.

Walking onto a suburban homestead in this practically post-apocalyptic world, you’d see a strange melange of simple old-fashioned tools, whatever 21st century technology still works and plenty of green tech like improvised wind turbines and greywater systems. It’d be like Mad Max, without all the mullets and pleather.

With construction at a standstill, forests would remain intact and animals would get a chance to build their populations back up. In many areas we’d likely see wildlife taking over abandoned industrial sites, like something out of a disaster movie. Since humans would no longer be expanding into untouched areas like a plague, ecosystems would have some time to rebalance themselves. Perhaps some endangered species could even rebound from the brink of extinction.p

Let’s break down a few of the benefits, just in the U.S.:

• Over 300 million cars off the road in the U.S. alone. (238,697,097 vehicles were in use in 2005, the last year for which we have a concrete figure). The EPA calculates that each passenger vehicle in America emits about 5.5 metric tons of greenhouse gases annually, so in a year we’d save at least 16.5 million metric tons from entering the atmosphere.
• Power plants no longer pumping CO2 into the air. The consumption of electricity in America accounted for more than 2.3 billion tons of CO2 in 2006, with coal-fired power plants responsible for 1.9 billion tons. That number is undoubtedly higher today.
• Over 300 million cans of beverages per day no longer consumed. Americans use approximately 212,000 aluminum cans every 30 seconds, and only a small fraction of those cans are recycled. The rest end up in the landfill. If we stopped drinking soda, we’d stop mountains of trash from accumulating – and soda cans are just one small example of the disposable products that would stop piling up.

Sure, there would still be plenty of opportunity for harm to the environment. Governments, struggling to regroup, would hardly be concerned with policing environmental offenses like dumping trash in the ocean, or the maintenance of toxic waste sites. We’ve already done too much damage to be able to simply turn back the clock to a time when most of the world’s population lived far more eco-friendly lifestyles simply by virtue of living closer to the land. But in all honesty, the earth would still be a hell of a lot better off than it is right now.

It’s unfortunate that it could possibly take a catastrophic event to force us to live in a way that’s healthier for the entire planet - including our own species - so that we could extend our time on this earth and ensure that it remains a pleasant place to live. But, let’s face it. Without us, this planet would grow up around our ruins and return to the lush, diverse, amazing collection of life that it was before we began messing it up.

Photo credit: I Am Legend, Children of Men, Mad Max

China: Economic Miracle, Environmental Disaster

China’s economy has been on the upswing for decades now, and it’s expected to continue growing at an extremely rapid pace for many more decades into the future. As more of the country’s population has begun to enjoy better standards of living and China’s esteem has raised in the eyes of the world, however, there was a price to pay. China’s economic miracle has come at the expense of the environment, and it’s only going to get worse going forward.

From CNN:

At home, the Chinese people watch as environmental degradation and pollution transform their landscape, and in the process endanger their health and future livelihoods.

No one is exempt from the environmental consequences of China’s brand of unfettered economic development, but as Stephen Voss’ pictures so heartbreakingly illuminate, China’s poorest are particularly vulnerable.

In China’s cities, merely walking out the front door results in an immediate assault on the senses. The Chinese people complain most often about noise pollution. A cacophony of construction booms and car horns is a permanent fixture of life. The sky is often blanketed in a thick gray haze of pollutants.

The culprits are the ever-present coal-fired power plants and giant heavy-industry complexes that fuel the country’s growth, and more and more the noxious emissions of automobiles.

The environmental toll is enormous. China has five of the world’s 10 most polluted cities, and on an average day in China’s major cities, 75 percent of the residents are breathing unclean air. The end result: 750,000 Chinese die prematurely every year from air pollution-related respiratory diseases.

China is following the example of the West, where we have enjoyed such luxuries as private cars, air conditioning and carbon-intensive leisure activities.  China’s people certainly deserve a better way of life than what they’ve been given, but all of these advances are putting a huge strain not only on the earth, but on their own health as well.

Chinese officials have yet to tackle even the most basic of needs, like clean water. Among over 660 cities in China, only one small city – Lianyuan – can claim to provide clean drinking water straight from the tap.

Although the middle class in China is growing, the poor people have it worse than ever, dealing with poisoned water and air, sick children and ruined crops. A slideshow of photos by photographer Stephen Voss gives a heartbreaking look into what these people really have to deal with.

As China’s economy continues to improve, it’s doubtful that there will be any real incentive to protect the environment. We can only hope that clean, renewable energy gets implemented as quickly as possible so we don’t see the rest of the world’s efforts erased by the dirty deeds of the Chinese government.

Link [CNN]
Photo credit: Stephen Voss/CNN

Exxon Valdez Payments Delayed Again After 19 Years of Waiting

An imminent payment from Exxon Mobil Corp. to the commercial fishermen affected by the nation’s worst oil spill has been delayed once again.  The damages have been put off for 19 years so far, and this time it’s due to lawyers for Sea Hawk Seafoods, Inc., a Seattle-based company that ran a fish-processing plant in Valdez, filing court papers objecting to the allocation plan.

From The Huffington Post:

They are seeking a new plan that conforms to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June, which awarded up to $507.5 million in punitive damages to nearly 33,000 commercial fishermen, cannery workers, land owners, Alaska Natives and others who claimed harm from the 1989 crude oil spill. The plaintiffs had been seeking $5 billion.

After the Supreme Court decision, lawyers for the plaintiffs and Exxon worked out a partial settlement under which Exxon agreed to release $383 million.

The money was to be distributed under an allocation plan approved in 1996 by Anchorage federal Judge H. Russel Holland, and Sea Hawk contends that it is flawed.

According to the company, the Supreme Court decided that the size of punitive damage awards must be proportional to the size of compensatory damage awards already paid to plaintiffs. The company argues the current plan assigns some plaintiffs larger or smaller shares than they deserve.

Big shocker. This payment has been delayed so many times for so many reasons – usually through efforts of Exxon to avoid opening their wallet. This time, it’s infighting among the plantiffs. Exxon, of course, is fighting this effort by Sea Hawk Seafoods, claiming that their demands will deprive other plaintiffs of their fair share of the damages (like they’re really worried about that - they just don’t want to pay).

Prior to this development, Exxon had avoided paying the damages because ever since Sarah Palin stepped in as governor of Alaska, she has failed to collect the money. The previous governor had presented Exxon with a demand to pay the extra $92 million in estimated damages due for ‘unanticipated environmental injuries’ from the spill. Since Palin was elected, she hasn’t pressed the issue, while Exxon has continued to reap record profits in Alaska.

Aren’t the damages for this spill a drop in the bucket for a company that has raked in ungodly amounts of money in the last few decades? It’s obscene.  This needs to be laid to rest as soon as possible.

Link [The Huffington Post]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Whale Protection Increased Despite Sarah Palin’s Protests

Whales 1, Sarah Palin 0.  While the Republican vice presidential nominee has been railing against increased measures to protect Beluga whales that live in the Cook Inlet of Alaska, her objections failed to keep the federal government from putting the whales on the endangered species list.  Palin’s administration has opposed the Beluga listing because of its potential to restrict offshore oil and gas drilling.

From The New York Times:

The relatively small, whitish whales, sometimes visible from downtown Anchorage, declined by almost 50 percent in the late 1990s, and federal scientists say they have not rebounded despite a series of protections, including a halt to subsistence hunting by Alaska Natives. About 375 whales have been counted in Cook Inlet each of the last two years, according to scientists with the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The announcement, made on a predetermined schedule under the Endangered Species Act, drew further attention to Ms. Palin’s positions on environmental issues. The governor, the Republican nominee for vice president, has come under scrutiny for her ambiguous statements about climate change and her administration’s failed effort earlier this year to prevent another species, the polar bear, from being listed as threatened. The state is suing the federal government over the polar bear listing.

The fisheries agency says that the Beluga whale population has been threatened by general development, pollution and oil and gas exploration.  So, for now, these whales may be saved from the brink of extinction – no thanks to Sarah Palin, running mate to so-called ‘environmental advocate’ John McCain.

Link [The New York Times]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

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