Before and After Images of Global Devastation Hotspots

Skeptical about human impact on the environment? WeHeartWorld has taken UNEP’s Atlas of our Changing Environment, which shows hotspots of human destruction around the world, and picked 11 places that portray the most dramatic changes through satellite imaging.  There’s absolutely no doubt that the human race has negatively affected these areas, which include regions of Spain, Mozambique, Tanzania and China, among others.  We’ve diverted rivers, cut down forests, wasted water resources and set fire to ancient trees. We’ve destroyed ecosystems, killed billions of animals, turned entire regions from lush, fertile lands to dry, near-barren deserts.

Here are two of WeHeartWorld’s picks.  Judge for yourself, and check out the rest at WeHeartWorld.com.

Almeria, Spain

This pair of satellite images shows the impact of massive and rapid agricultural development in Almeria Province along Spain’s southern coast.

In the earlier image, the landscape reflects rather typical rural agricultural land use. In the 2000 image, much of the same region-an area covering roughly 20 000 hectares (49 421 acres) - has been converted to intensive greenhouse agriculture for the mass production of market produce.

Greenhouse-dominated land appears as whitish gray patches.

In order to address increasingly complex water needs throughout Spain, the government adopted the Spanish National Hydrological Plan (SNHP) in 2001.

Initially, this water redistribution plan involved the construction of 118 dams and 22 water transfer projects that would move water from parts of the country where it was relatively abundant to more arid regions.

In 2004, the Spanish government announced it would begin exploring more environmentally friendly water-saving technologies, such as wastewater recycling and seawater desalinization.

Santa Cruz, Bolivia

“Where People Go, Nature Dies”

Santa Cruz is situated in Bolivia’s rich, fertile lowlands, a region highly suitable for agriculture.

In the 1975 satellite image, the region’s forested landscape appears as a dense, essentially unbroken expanse of deep green that extends to the Rio Grande (Guapay) River.  It was beautiful from the sky and on the ground.

By 1986 roads had been built that linked the region to other population centers.

As a result, large numbers of people migrated to the area.

A large agricultural development effort (the Tierras Baja project) led to widespread deforestation as forests were clear-cut and converted to pastures and cropland.

By 2003, almost the entire region had been converted to agricultural lands, including the area east of La Esperanza across the river.

In the area north and west of Los Cafes (upper left), notice the grid of squares on the landscape, each with an internal star-shaped pattern.

At the center of each square is a small community.

We’re doing such a great job taking care of this planet to ensure that it’s still hospitable for generations down the road, aren’t we? People suck.

Link [WeHeartWorld]

Mother Nature Smackdown: 9 Natural Disasters Throughout the Ages

When it comes down to it, we’re at the mercy of Mother Nature. Natural disasters will always occur, no matter what we do, though our careless treatment of the planet can make them more frequent and severe. As modern civilization marches on, belching chemicals into the air, tearing up forests and rapidly changing ecosystems, the earth will occasionally flex to show us the raw power that it’s capable of. It’s just another reminder that though the earth will go on, we as humans may not.

As we’ve seen throughout history, nature can throw some pretty crazy disasters at us, from droughts and floods to hurricanes and volcanic eruptions. Here are 9 of the most dramatic natural disasters through the ages.

AD 79 - The Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius

Image via Wikimedia Commons

Mount Vesuvius, located on the southwestern coast of Italy near Naples, gifted the surrounding area with extremely fertile soil that attracted a large population who lived off its renowned agricultural bounty. During the first century, Pompeii was just one of a number of cities that flourished in the area, including nearby Herculaneum. A series of small earthquakes that began on August 20, 79 should have been a warning, but people in the area were used to frequent tremors, which were common in that area of Italy.

On the afternoon of August 24th, the eruption started, and soon devastated the entire region, burying Pompeii and other cities. The people who weren’t able to get out in time were burned or asphyxiated. The death toll is unknown, but about 1,150 remains of bodies have been found in and around Pompeii, and 350 in Herculaneum. Neither city was ever rebuilt, and they were forgotten until their accidental recovery in the 18th century. Vesuvius, which has erupted many times since then and is still active, is now a national park.

1200-1202 – The Nile Drought and Famine

Image via Flickr user Nasser Nouri

Inhabitants of the fertile Nile River valley in Egypt depended upon annual flooding brought on by heavy rains to replenish farm fields and irrigate crops. In the year 1200, about two months before the floods were expected, Egyptians noticed a foul smell and green tint to the Nile, caused by insufficient rain at the Nile’s source.

It didn’t take long before the lack of rain and floods caused widespread famine. Chroniclers maintain that the lack of food got so bad, the population turned to cannibalism. People began eating their dogs, and then moved on to fresh corpses. Over time, young children began to vanish, and grotesque accounts by eyewitnesses claim to have seen cauldrons with children’s heads floating in them. Then, people reportedly got really desperate and started killing and eating each other. One inheritance was reportedly passed on to 40 heirs in one month.

When the Nile failed to rise again the following year, the devastation was on a smaller scale due to the simple fact that the population was so dramatically reduced.

1815 - The Eruptions of Mount Tambora

Image via Nature.com

Though the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa is more renowned, the eruption of Indonesia’s Mount Tambora in 1815 had more far-reaching, dramatic consequences. It led to incredibly strange weather patterns that crossed the globe, including what has been called ‘The Year Without a Summer’.

A series of eruptions of Mount Tambora between April 5th and 15th in 1815 seems to have caused a volcanic winter, during which severe summer climate abnormalities destroyed crops throughout Northern Europe, the American Northeast and eastern Canada. In May of 1816, a frost killed off most of the crops that had been planted, and large snowstorms blanketed the eastern Canadian and New England countryside. Lake and river ice were reported as far south as Pennsylvania in July and August. A widespread famine resulted from the strange temperatures. Hungary saw brown snow, while the flakes falling in Italy were red. Unusually severe storms, abnormal rainfall and floods were also attributed to the eruptions.

The Mount Tambora eruption was the biggest in 1,600 years, and ejected enormous amounts of volcanic ash into the atmosphere.

1888 - The Great Blizzard

Image via Wikimedia Commons

In the year 1888, America experienced a snow storm like no other. Referred to as The Great White Hurricane, the blizzard that devastated much of the Northeastern United States seemed to come out of nowhere – temperatures had previously been unseasonably mild. Heavy rains rapidly turned to snow as temperatures fell dramatically. The snowstorm started on March 12th and lasted a day and a half, dumping nearly 50 inches of snow on Connecticut and Massachusetts, while New Jersey and New York saw 40 inches. Drifts up to 40 feet were reported.

Despite the severity of the situation, many people still tried to get to work for fear of losing their jobs. On their way home, 30 of them in New York alone froze to death on their way home after finding that the electricity was out. The resulting transportation crisis led in part to the creation of the New York City subway system.

1921-1922 - The Soviet Union Drought and Famine

Image via Wikimedia Commons

A drought in the Soviet Union in 1921, combined with disruption of agricultural production due to war, caused massive crop failures, with 20 percent of Soviet farmland seeing total crop destruction. The rules at the time, the Bolsheviks, ignored the famine and failed to react to the natural disaster. Lenin reportedly ordered food purchases from other countries, but had them delivered only to politically important cities, while peasants died in huge numbers.

But, even if the government had reacted to the best of their abilities, it’s unlikely that they could have stopped the deaths in such a large population. The famine had devastating consequences: it killed an estimated 5 million people.

1931 - The Great Flood of China

Image via Nature.com

In 1931 came the greatest natural disaster of the 20th century: the China floods. Up to 4 million are estimated to have been killed. In the period before the floods began, the country was in the grips of a severe drought, so when the snowstorms began in the winter months of late 1930, people were grateful. However, a quick spring thaw turned all of that snowfall into water very rapidly, and heavy rains raised the water levels even higher. The rains continued into the summer, when the country was also hit by 7 cyclones in July alone.

The majority of China’s rivers flooded including The Yellow River, the Yangtze and the Huai. The Yangtze river basin is one of the most populated places on earth, and the rising waters drove 500,000 people from their homes in that area by the beginning of August. Many of those who died were victims of starvation and waterborne disease after the flood waters receded.

1993 - The Great American Flood

Image via Wikimedia Commons

In 1993, the Mississippi and Missouri rivers overtook their boundaries in response to unusually heavy precipitation. Storms battered the Midwest with inch after inch of rainfall, swelling the rivers to the point of no return. This Midwestern flood was among the most costly and devastating natural disasters ever to hit America, and caused $15 billion in damages. The flooded area totaled 30,000 square miles, displaced thousands of people and caused catastrophic crop damage.

It surpassed the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, which was at the time the largest flood ever recorded on the Mississippi. 1,000 levees failed. Some locations along the Mississippi remained flooded for nearly 200 days. The towns of Valmeyer, Illinois and Rhineland, Missouri were subsequently relocated to higher ground.

2004 - The Earthquake and Tsunami in the Indian Ocean

Image via Wikimedia Commons

On December 26th, 2004, an earthquake rocked the Indian Ocean, shaking the ground violently and spurring giant waves that are said to have traveled across the ocean at the speed of a jet airliner. The earthquake – estimated to have released the energy of 23,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs - instigated the tsunami that went on to kill over 150,000 people. Millions were suddenly homeless in 11 countries as the giant waves overtook communities. Property was demolished from Thailand to Africa. The 2004 tsunami is thought to have been the most dangerous in history.

The 9.0 magnitude earthquake had been caused by the shifting of a portion of the Earth’s crust known as the India plate under the section called the Burma plate. The rupture has been estimated at 600 miles long.

2005 - Hurricane Katrina

Image via Wikimedia Commons

After crossing Southern Florida as a mild Category 1 hurricane, Katrina regained strength in the Gulf of Mexico and slammed into southeastern Louisiana on Monday, August 29th, 2005 as a Category 3. Severe destruction was left in its wake, with the worst effects felt in New Orleans, which flooded catastrophically after the levees failed. 80% of the city became flooded, buildings were destroyed and a failure on the part of the U.S. government to properly respond left thousands of people stranded and starving. The coasts of Mississippi and Alabama were also greatly affected.

An estimated 1,836 people lost their lives from the hurricane and floods, and 705 remain categorized as missing. That makes Katrina the second-deadliest hurricane in terms of lives lost (the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane was the deadliest). The total damage from the storm totaled an estimated $81.2 billion.

Pilot Whales Brutally Slaughtered Annually in the Faroe Islands

Residents of the Faroe Islands, an autonomous province of Denmark, slaughter and eat pilot whales every year, as these photos graphically depict.  The Faroese are descendents of Vikings, and pilot whales have been a central part of their diet for more than 1,000 years.  They crowd these intelligent animals into a bay and kill them, cutting the dorsal area through to the spinal cord.   In the process, their main arteries get cut.  As you can see, the waters in the bay turn bright red from all the blood.

Ironically, this practice, called grindadráp, is diminishing the population of 5,000 islanders.  Many of them get sick and die from high mercury levels in the whales.  Mentally retarded children are reportedly being born at alarmingly high rates.

To be clear, the whales are not endangered and animal rights organizations have largely backed off due to the fact that this process is such an integral part of Faroese culture, and because the Faroese aren’t involved in commercial whaling.  That doesn’t make the pictures any easier to look at, though.

PBS has a video about the mercury problem and this culture’s deeply held beliefs called ‘The Faroe Islands – Message from the Sea’, viewable here.

Link [PBS] + [Wikipedia]

Beijing: ‘Sorry the Garbage Plant Stinks’

It’s rare that Chinese officials actually apologize for anything.  Somehow, one way or another, it’s either someone else’s fault or it didn’t happen at all. But apparently, Beijing citizens were so riled up about the stench coming from a garbage plant in the city, officials decided to do something about it.  No, they didn’t put all of the protestors in jail, surprisingly.

From Reuters:

Several hundred people clashed with security forces in Beijing’s eastern Chaoyang district last week, complaining that noxious fumes from Gao’antun Garbage Landfill Plant were affecting their health, a Hong Kong-based rights group reported.

The local government promised residents the smell would disappear within 20 days, and that 91 million yuan ($13 million) would be spent to clean up the plant, whose fumes had kept nearby residents awake at night, the Beijing Youth Daily said.

“The smell from the Gao’antun Garbage Landfill Plant has affected the normal lives of surrounding residents. I apologize on behalf of the Chaoyang District government,” the paper quoted spokesman Yin Xiufeng as saying.

It seems that China has been growing so fast, new communities are popping up at never-before-seen rates – and the local governments aren’t communicating very well with each other.  That has spurred so many clashes between government and private citizens, who feel as if they’re being stepped on, that officials in some cases have no choice but to actually… address the problem.  Shocking.

So, they’re willing to apologize for a smelly garbage plant, but not for the insane pollution that’s killing their citizens at this very moment?

Link [Reuters]
Photo credit: Flickr user Boris van Hoytema

7 Places Global Warming is Smacking the Crap Out of the Earth Right Now

Droughts. Hurricanes. Floods. Monsoons. Disappearing coastlines. These are just a few of the weather effects we’re currently experiencing and will see more of in the future, courtesy of global warming. And they aren’t pretty – they lead to destruction, injury and the death of millions of people, not to mention the effects on the earth’s ecosystems.  Scientists are noting more weather disturbances than ever, and it’s only going to get worse. Right now, in seven places across the globe, people are already dealing with the frightening effects of global warming, from India to Alaska.  It’s a foreboding sign of what may be to come for the entire world as we battle global warming and experience its full effects.

1. Bihar, India

Image via The Bihar Times

Floods are certainly nothing new – but lately they’ve been increasing in intensity and frequency. Bihar, India was swamped by the Kosi river two weeks ago, and nearly half a million people in this eastern state remain stranded, perched on rooftops, surviving off plants and dirty water.  The river was swollen by monsoon rains attributed to global warming, and burst an upstream dam in Nepal. Millions are now homeless, scores have died and the death toll is expected to rise due to waterborne illnesses and food riots.

Bihar is one of India’s poorest states, typical of the areas that are expected to be affected the most by global warming-related weather patterns. The crops that residents of the area depend upon have been destroyed by the deluge, and lingering caste discrimination has exacerbated problems with the relief efforts.

2. The North Pole

Image via Mail Online

For the first time in history, the North Pole has become an island.  Melting ice has opened up the North-West and North-East passages, to the delight of shipping companies eager to cut thousands of miles off their routes and the chagrin of experts who understand the gravity of the situation. Pictures produced by NASA confirm that Arctic ice is melting at an unprecedented pace.

The Natural Resources Defense Council says, ‘The Arctic is global warming’s canary in the coal mine’.  Such rapid melting of ice is already dramatically affecting the ecosystem of the Arctic, and those changes will affect surrounding ecosystems as well in a sort of trickle-down effect.  The melting ice is accelerating global warming, causing the earth to absorb more sunlight and get hotter.  Land-based ice sheets and melting glaciers contribute to rising sea levels, which are currently threatening coastlines around the world, as you’ll see on the rest of this list.

3. South Australia

Image via BBC News

Australia is currently experiencing its worst drought in 100 years, and the lack of rain has caused once-lush lands to turn into deserts.  Farmers are watching their crops dry up in a wide-scale agricultural disaster, and don’t have enough water to sustain their livestock.  Lake Albert, in South Australia, has receded so much that vast areas of land once covered by water now resemble a moonscape.  The region seems to be on the brink of environmental collapse, with large populations of animals dying or migrating elsewhere.

Worse yet, the drought is taking place in Australia’s main food-growing region, the Murray-Darling basin. Irrigated crops like rice and grapes have been hit the hardest, as well as horticulture: 80% of eucalyptus trees in an area the size of Germany and France combined are brown and dead.  Slowly warming temperatures combined with the lack of rainfall are to blame. Climate scientists warn that every rise of 1 degree Celsius reduces river inflows by 15%.

4. The Maldives

Image via Wikimedia Commons

This tiny chain of islands in the Indian Ocean has watched sea levels rise dramatically for years, with the islands growing smaller and smaller. President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom has been entreating other nations for help since 1992, telling the UN, “I stand before you as a representative of an endangered people. We are told that as a result of global warming and sea-level rise, my country, the Maldives, may sometime during the next century, disappear from the face of the Earth.”

Many efforts have been put forth in attempts to save The Republic of Maldives from rising sea levels, including a sea wall on one island, and a new man-made island built to relocate communities to a safer area.  But over half of the islands are still eroding at an alarming rate, and Maldivians may see their ocean paradise disappear sooner than anyone thought.

5. The West African Coastline

Image via Yahoo News

A 2,500-mile stretch of the West African coast will be ‘brutally redrawn’ over the next century by rising sea levels caused by global warming, and citizens living in the area are already experiencing negative effects.  The countries most threatened by the effects are Gambia, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Ghana.  The coastline of Guinea is expected to disappear altogether, salty sea water threatens intrusion into agricultural land and the region’s income-generating oil fields are extremely vulnerable to flooding.

Increasingly violent tropical storms are contributing to the rising sea levels, as well as the melting of the Greenland ice cap, which covers an area three times the size of Nigeria. Floods will likely occur again and again over the coming decades, displacing millions.  Africa is expected to be hardest hit by global warming.

6. Coastal Alaska

Image via USA Today

Escalating erosion, storms and flooding have threatened some Eskimo communities in Alaska so much that villagers are being relocated.  Alaska experiences the effects of global warming much more than the rest of the U.S., because it’s in a polar region. Temperatures have been steadily rising since the 1950’s, and as a result permafrost melting has caused the erosion and flooding.

Six remote villages, including the Yupik Eskimo community of 400, have been named as the most vulnerable and are getting millions of dollars of aid from the government in an attempt to protect them in the coming year. Earlier this year, a tiny Inuit village sued some of the world’s largest oil, coal and power producers, saying global warming was threatening the villagers’ existence.

7. Western North America

Image via Wikimedia Commons

Though the effects of global warming may be more dramatic in Alaska than other areas of North America, that doesn’t mean we’ve escaped unharmed thus far. In Canada, high-elevation white bark pine trees that usually have life spans longer than 1,000 years are being killed at a frightening pace by a little beetle that has proliferated due to warmer winters.   The pine bark beetle has killed lodgepole pine forests from the British Columbia Coast Range to the Continental Divide, and it’s expected to sweep through the Washington and Oregon Cascades, the Sierras of California and the Rockies.

The white pine is a vital part of the ecosystem in these areas, where ‘tree islands’ slow the melting of snow and hold the soil together on high, windy ridges.  Pine seeds are an important food for grizzly bears, and many other species depend upon the trees for survival.  The western forests of America could see dramatic, life-altering changes as warming trends continue.

UK Fishermen Dump Catch Overboard to Make More Money

The European Union put fishing quotas in place for a reason: to prevent the kind of overfishing that experts warn could lead to mass extinction of marine life in the coming decades. But, European fishermen aren’t pleased with the quotas because they limit profit possibilities. So to get around that, they’re doing something pretty horrifying: dumping tons of perfectly good dead fish back into the water. Fish that should never have been caught in the first place.

Recently, the Norwegian Coast Guard shot video of UK fishermen doing just this, and the sight of such wastefulness (a whopping 5 tons of dead fish) has shocked many people who didn’t realize the extent of what was going on. Check it out at The Guardian.

From The Guardian’s Environment blog:

The practice is legal, as the EU only sets quotas for fish landed at ports, not what is actually caught at sea. In this case, it appears the fishermen were discarding low-value small (but legal) fish in order to fill their quota with higher-value big fish.

But the wasteful consequences of Europe’s fisheries policies, though well-known, are rather abstract to most people - it all happens a long way out at sea. And that’s the power of the video. At the start, a stream of dead, silvery fish slip down a chute and into the water. It goes on. And on. Seagulls gather to snap up a free lunch.

But this is apparently not rapid enough. So the men start dumping whole boxfuls of their catch over the side. And then another load comes up from the hold, and so on.

What an incredible waste, and a slap in the face to conservationists who are working so hard to maintain sustainable numbers of fish in our oceans. WTF. This is incredible disrespect and disregard not just for the fish but the future of humanity. What’s going to happen when our oceans are overfished to the point of irreparably damaging the delicately balanced ocean ecosystems?

Learn more about the problem of overfishing by reading the article ‘More Species Considered Overfished’ at the Florida Museum of Natural History website.

Link [The Guardian]

Dipping into the EarthFirst.com Archives for Green Sex Toys, Wind Powered Win, Miniguns, and Stupid Americans

Happy Sunday!

EarthFirst.com has been officially live since mid-May when we finally shook the ugly off and put up our current design, but I was writing daily for months before that. We didn’t have many readers at the time and used the space to work on our editorial voice.

I’ll be pulling out the old files from time to time to share a few good posts. This week we’ll be revisiting the archives for green sex toys, badass chain gun tree saws, idiot manchild CEOs, stupid Americans, and a whole lotta f-bombs.

Take a stroll down EF.com memory lane with us…

• 2,250 Minigun bullets to cut down a tree

• The hippies had it right- stop washing your hair!

• What’s better than a good wine buzz? A green wine buzz!

• Fsck Planet Earth. Fsck fsck fsck fsck fsck. But, you know, spelled with a u.

• Garbage, especially plastic, is choking the planet.

• This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone paying attention, but 18% of Americans are very, very stupid.

• How’s that GM stock doing Bob Lutz? Couldn’t have happened to a better guy.

• Break out the glass dildo and get your sexy green groove on chemical free! Yes, organic sex toys.

• OMFGFSMBBQ, do I want one of these all terrain transformer like badass super truck. Yeah, so it’d rip shit up, but damn, take a look at this thing!

An Artist’s Log of Three Years of Street Trash

From May 5th, 2002 to May 4th, 2005, artist Nico Van Hoorn took a daily 30-minute walk looking for the perfect piece of trash in the street.  It could be paper, plastic or metal but it had to be smaller than 10×15cm and as flat as possible.  The trash was scanned daily, and what results is a series of portraits of trash that really make you think, was this little item – whatever it was, whatever it was used for – worth littering the streets for?

Check out more of the photos at Trashlog.com

Link [TRASHLOG]

Beijing is Even Smoggy on Google Maps

There’s no hiding this kind of nasty funk in the air.  Beijing authorities might try to tell everyone it’s ‘mist’, but take a gander at the dirty lookin’ air hovering above the city on Google Maps.  Yuck.  How’d you like to breathe that in every day? Olympic athletes only have to deal with it during the games; Chinese citizens have to deal with it for life.

Link [Google Maps]

How to Fix NY’s ‘Bigger Better Bottle Bill’

Groovy Green has reposted a great article by Daniel T. Weaver of the Daily Gazette about how to make New York state’s bottle deposit program work for everyone – states, environmentalists and soft drink companies. New York currently has a 5 cent deposit on all soft drinks, and unclaimed deposits are kept by the soft drink companies. Many New Yorkers support a ‘bigger, better bottle bill’ that would include bottled water, sports drinks, tea and other beverages, but the bill has failed consistently over the last several years.

Dan’s suggestion? Raise the deposit fee to 25 cents. Oh yeah, and to the environmentalists of the state: stop trying to grab the unclaimed profits for yourselves.

From Groovy Green:

The proposed legislation goes too far in some areas and not far enough in others. Let me explain. First, the bill does not include the large plastic beverage cups that people get from fast food restaurants and convenient markets. I find these along my road all of the time. Secondly, the bill does not increase the amount of the deposit on returnable bottles and cans. The amount has been a nickel for twenty-five years. Most people won’t bend over to pick a nickel off the ground, and the nickel’s lack of value accounts for the many cans and bottles that are thrown out of car windows, left on beaches, etc.

The legislation requires that all unredeemed deposits be turned over to the State Environmental Protection Fund. Currently the beverage industry keeps the money, which totals more than 100 million dollars each year.

Dan points out that at 25 cents per bottle, there would be very few unclaimed bottles. That means far less bottles littering the roads, beaches and other areas of New York. The state currently only has a 70.2% return rate on bottles. So the income from unclaimed bottles would be far less for beverage companies, but as Dan suggests, compromising with them might help the legislation get through.

We like this idea for a lot of reasons, and think it should go nationwide. Charge people extra for beverages that come in a bottle or a can, and they’ll think twice about throwing it in the trash. More will be recycled and homeless people will be able to earn more. The caveat? People might buy far fewer canned and bottled beverages in the first place, which is probably exactly what soft drink companies are afraid of. Thus, the lobbying that prevents the bill from being passed. But still, good call Dan – and thanks Groovy Green for picking this up!

Link [Groovy Green] + [The Daily Gazette]
Photo credit: Flickr user judepics

High-Flying Kites Could Produce Enough Energy for a City

Kites aren’t just toys anymore – they could be a new form of renewable wind energy that has the potential to power not just one house, not just a city block, but an entire city. Delft University of Technology scientists have developed a way to harness energy from kites, tethering a 10 square meter kite to a generator. They were able to produce 10 kilowatts of power – enough to power 10 homes. They plan to scale the experiment with a 50 kilowatt kite and a 100 megawatt version to be called the Laddermill, which could potentially power 100,000 homes.

From Inhabitat:

The promise of kite power lies in its inexpensive materials and its potential to harness enormous amounts of power, since high altitude winds can carry hundreds of times more energy than those on the ground. Airborne kites produce power by pulling on a ground-bound generator, which reels the kites back once they reach their maximum height. Also, unlike a field-full of wind turbines, kite power requires a minimal amount of land use.

Check out video of the test flight below. It’s amazing how many brilliant solutions are possible when researchers have the drive and the funding. Wind and solar power have so much potential beyond PV panels and turbines, and we’re just beginning to see what might provide clean, renewable power in the future.

Link [Inhabitat]

NYC Waterfall Installations Might be Killing Trees

So, those NYC waterfall installations might not be so great after all. Four waterfall installations located around the NYC metropolitan area were installed in June and lauded for their efforts to green it up by reusing the materials in construction projects after the installations come down. They also took pains to avoid harming aquatic life. Too bad they didn’t think about how all that salt water would affect trees downwind of one of the waterfalls.

Gothamist has it:

Artist Olafur Eliasson may soon have tree blood on his hands – the Brooklyn Bridge waterfall installation is kicking up such a salty spray that downwind trees are turning brown and “looking as if it’s November,” the Post reports. The saltwater is interfering with their photosynthesis, and the owner of the River Café, which has gardens just south of the bridge, is worried that the trees he planted over three decades ago are suffering too much for public art. The Parks Department agrees they’re “showing signs of stress,” and the Public Art Fund, which is producing the NYC Waterfalls, has hired a tree service to try and save them.

Oops. Hopefully they’ll be able to save the trees. That would certainly be a waste. Waterfalls are cool and all, but they’re just for human enjoyment and it would be a shame if they messed up the local ecosystem.

Link [Gothamist]

China Cleans up for the Olympics, but its Citizens Still Suffer

Looking out across the horizon from a tall building in the southeastern part of China on an average day, you won’t see much. The skyline is obscured by a gray haze generated by the country’s many polluting factories and automobiles. From the ground, sometimes it’s difficult to see the tops of the buildings around you. Though the area does occasionally see clear days, they’re getting fewer and further between.

The rather startling satellite image below shows a thick layer of polluted air covering a large swath of southeastern China. It was taken in January 2008 by NASA’s AQUA satellite. When you realize that China is the world’s largest greenhouse-gas emitter (recently taking the title from its previous owner, the United States), it’s not so surprising.

It’s hardly an ideal spot for world-class athletes to practice and compete, and yet here they are, opening day of the 2008 Summer Olympics, huffing and puffing, many wearing masks to protect their airways from the heavy smog. In fact, it’s so bad that endurance events like the marathon and road cycling will need to be postponed if smog levels continue to increase before the games are set to begin.

Many had hoped that the Olympics would provide a strong incentive for China to clean up their pollution problems, since the country pledged to present “pristine skies, waterways, and cityscapes” during its bid to host the games back in 2001. They’ve had seven years to follow through, but only started last-minute emergency efforts to reduce the obvious smog in the skies this summer.

An article by The Guardian on Wednesday explained the worrisome problem:

Official readings collated by Beijing’s municipal environmental protection bureau yesterday gave an air pollution index (API) of 91 for Beijing as a whole, and 87 at the Olympic stadium. The World Health Organisation regards an API of more than 50 as high, and a reading of 100 or more is considered unsafe. The authorities monitor air quality hourly, including levels of particulates, carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide, and take limited readings for ozone.

Of course, Chinese officials will tell you that the oppressing haze that cloaks the city is nothing but mist, and that the media is exaggerating pollution problems. They’ve even got the International Olympic Committee repeating their stance, with chairman of the medical commission Arne Ljungqvist stating, “The mist in the air that we see in those places, including here, is not a feature of pollution primarily but a feature of evaporation and humidity.”

China has spent the last month in a desperate race to clean up the air pollution in Beijing before the Olympics, going so far as to severely limit traffic within city limits and shut down hundreds of polluting factories and other businesses. The city is alternating the days citizens can operate their cars on the roads according to whether they have odd- or even-numbered license plates. Only Olympic vehicles and taxis are exempt.

Right now, the air pollution issue in China is big news because of the Olympics, but citizens of this populous, rapidly industralizing nation are the ones who will be facing it for decades to come. It poses little threat to visitors and athletes, who will only be exposed to it for a short period of time. Far greater is the danger it places upon the Chinese people: athsma, infections, heart disease and lung cancer.

The World Health Organization has deemed China’s air pollution the deadliest in the world, estimating deaths caused by indoor and outdoor pollution at 656,000 per year. Polluted drinking water kills another 95,600. Damaging air pollutants include ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter (a mixture of very small particles and water droplets). China’s people are breathing in coal smog, tailpipe emissions, concrete dust and plumes of who-knows-what from steel mill smokestacks.

Though China has been furiously struggling to clean up the air in recent times, things will undoubtedly go back to the way they were before after the games are over. All of these measures are merely temporary, and can’t be sustained. China isn’t likely to step up to the plate to protect its own citizens from health ills when the future of the country’s economy is top priority. The World Health Organization is currently trying to work with the Chinese government on more permanent measures, but considering China’s single-minded march toward building as many coal plants as humanly possible, success is doubtful.

Polluting factories play a vital role in China’s development, and the government cites the number of jobless people who would starve if they were shut down. They see it as choosing one or the other: economy or environment. The people of China, on the other hand, want to see more emphasis on cleaning up pollution. According to NPR, 93% of the residents in Shanxi province believe that cleaning up environmental pollution should be a priority.

The United States plays a large part in China’s energy and pollution problems. In pre-Olympics coverage, the media has largely ignored the fact that America and other Western nations bear some of the blame for China’s dirty air and water. As our country’s companies have moved into China to take advantage of cheap labor, they’ve created many of the factories that are now spewing toxins into the air the Chinese people breathe. The fact is that these companies don’t care if they’re harming the health of people on the other side of the earth; they care about their profit margin.

China certainly needs to step up and put regulations in place to control the issues that are harming citizen’s health so dramatically, but until we stop fueling the problem, not much will be achieved in terms of cleaning up this country of 1.3 billion people. Standards need to be created in the United States as well. Until we clean up our own country and demand that American companies take responsibility for the pollution they create in China, we can’t expect China to get very far.

We need to show other nations in the world that it’s possible to have a strong, growing economy that thrives on renewable, non-polluting energy. We’ve given China a very bad example to live up to, and that’s exactly what they’ve done – in the country’s own efforts to achieve better standards of living, they’ve made the same mistakes that the United States has made. We’ve got to set a better example going forward – a clean, green example.

Photo credit: Flickr user gbrunett + Yves Herman/Reuters + Flickr user Terminalnomad Photography

The Impossible Task of Cutting Plastic Out of Your Life

Image via Algalita Marine Research Foundation

Plastic is a cancer on the environment and yet we just can’t get enough of it. Just try to get through one day without plastic – it’s impossible. Your shampoo is in a plastic bottle. Your car has plastic all over the interior. Open your fridge door – plastic. Turn on a light – plastic. Brush your teeth, have safe sex, wear a Hawaiian shirt – plastic, plastic and more plastic.

Though I was always aware of plastic being problematic for the environment, I never considered trying to dramatically reduce my use of it until I had a wake-up call a few months back. After discovering that I had several health problems related to high levels of estrogen, a female hormone, I started doing some research and learned about the connection between hormones like estrogen and compounds found in plastic, such as Bisphenol A (BPA). Tests have shown BPA to be an endocrine disrupter, and it’s linked to health issues like breast cancer, prostate cancer, infertility, early onset of puberty and insulin resistance. BPA is found in plastic water bottles, reusable food containers, baby bottles and canned food liners, among many other items.

That led me to examine how much plastic I’ve really been using on a daily basis. Once you start thinking about how much plastic is in your life, it can be overwhelming. It’s everywhere, and health effects are far from the only dangers of the petroleum-based material. From the raw materials used to create it to where it ends up when we no longer want it, plastic has an incredibly large, negative footprint on the earth. Cradle to Cradle it’s not.

Plastic begins its life as petroleum, which is drilled and transported to refineries. Then the crude oil and natural gas is refined into ethane, propane and thousands of other petrochemical products. Ethane and propane are “cracked” into ethylene and propylene using high-temperature furnaces, and then a catalyst is combined with them in a reactor, resulting in what’s called ‘fluff’ – powdered polymers. The fluff is combined with additives in a blender, fed into an extruder where it’s melted, allowed to cool and then fed to a pelletizer that cuts it into small pellets. The pellets are shipped to manufacturers who then process it into various products (Source: ReachOutMichigan.org).

As you can see, the production of plastic is yet another way in which we’re dependent on foreign oil, and oil drilling is hard on the environment. Plastic also clogs our landfills. It can take 200 to 400 years to degrade, and only 3% of plastic waste is currently recycled, partially due to the fact that facilities to recycle most types of plastic simply don’t exist in most cities (Source: Learner.org). Consumers have little choice but to throw their plastic waste in the trash.

Ocean Gyres: The Pacific Gyre is top center. Image via Wikimedia Commons

As if that weren’t bad enough, then there’s the plastic that ends up in our oceans. The swirling vortex of plastic trash in the Pacific Ocean, known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, is a prime example of how our love affair with plastic is damaging the environment. The trash gyre takes up an astonishingly large area of the Pacific Ocean – twice the surface area of the continental United States. It’s essentially the world’s largest garbage dump, and it’s held in place by swirling underwater currents. It stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the coast of California, across the northern Pacific nearly as far as Japan. Researchers have called it ‘plastic soup’, and includes everything from footballs and kayaks to children’s toys and shopping bags.

Plastic is believed to account for 90% of the trash in oceans, and it’s been known to kill marine life. The UN Environment Program estimates that plastic debris causes the death of more than 1 million seabirds each year, along with 100,000 marine mammals. Entanglement or ingestion of plastics have been known to cause death or suffering to at least 267 different species including turtles, seabirds, seals, sea lions, whales and fish.

Motivated by all of this knowledge, I set out to reduce the amount of plastic that I used in my daily life as much as possible. It didn’t take long to discover that cutting plastic out of your life in this day and age is virtually impossible. You’d have to totally change practically every facet of your life in order to avoid it. I began my quest to reduce my plastic use mainly concerned with plastics that come into contact with my food and drinks, as well as the products I apply directly to my skin, like lotion. It wasn’t too hard to replace my food containers and cups with all glass and ceramic, but then I started thinking about all of the plastic that surrounds me every day and how hard it would be to totally avoid it.

One thing I realized early on is that attempting to avoid plastic can either be really cheap or really expensive. If you go the cheap route, you’re bound to be living a pretty primitive existence, because finding alternatives to plastic for everyday items isn’t always possible. If you try to replace everything you own that’s made with plastic, you’re going to get frustrated fast because often, alternatives just aren’t out there.

You can get wooden or cloth kids toys instead of plastic, replace your toothbrush with a wooden one, buy staples in bulk (and use glass containers to house the items), only wear natural fabrics and replace cheap fixtures around your house with vintage glass or ceramic. But, you’ll have to forgo sunglasses, electronics and those little plastic pumps on your liquid hand soap. Forget medical or dental work - plastic abounds. Want to paint your house? The paint cans are plastic. Switching to tap water instead of bottled? You’ll have to drink it straight from the faucet, because filters are encased in plastic. Better switch to an entirely whole foods diet, because one stroll through the grocery store will show you that most items are encased in plastic bottles, bags, wrap or mesh.

Christine Jeavans with some of her plastic purchases – Image via BBC News

One woman in the UK is attempting to go without plastic for the entire month of August, and will be documenting her journey on the BBC News website. Christine Jeavans has resolved not to purchase anything that contains plastic or is packaged in plastic, and in preparation for this, she has kept all of the plastic she used in the previous month – totaling 603 items. Included in that total were 67 food packaging bags and films, 13 yogurt cups, 10 milk bottles and 120 disposable diapers. Once faced with all of this plastic, Chris was more resolved than ever to change her lifestyle. She’ll be updating her blog with her progress throughout the month.

I’m still sorting through my own attempts to reduce the amount of plastic I use, with mixed results – but hoping to do better going forward. While I can’t yet replace all of the plastic items in my home with longer-lasting, safer alternatives, I will definitely be far more conscious of what I purchase in the future. I’m already avoiding food with unnecessary packaging and thinking about where each item I purchase will end up when I’m done with it.

Luckily, the world at large is beginning to wake up from our decades-long plastic nightmare. Many new companies are offering plant-based packaging that breaks down when composted. Biodegradable packaging can be seen on everything from take-out containers to personal care products, and biodegradable options are available for items like trash bags and packaging tape.

There’s no doubt that plastic has revolutionized the way we live, and greatly sped up the advancement of modern civilization. But, times are once again a-changin’ – and we’ve got to find a better way. We’re a long way away from completely cutting plastic out of our lives – and it may never happen. But with the green revolution fueling sustainable technology like never before, we’re sure to see more ways that we can cut back.

Perhaps more companies will soon discover the merits of the Cradle to Cradle design philosophy, and we’ll soon have a wealth of materials that are even better than plastic that don’t harm the earth. And perhaps we can all be a little more conscious about the life cycle of every item we purchase – especially plastic – for our health and for the earth.

Ant Problem? Tackle it with Green Solutions

Once you start seeing ants around the house, it seems like it’s a never-ending problem – unless you want to resort to dangerous chemicals, which can be toxic to kids and pets (not to mention the environment). There are actually some fairly easy, humane, green ways to kill ants – or if you’re really a softie, to divert them away from your house.

Your mileage may vary with these four methods from wikiHow, and which one you choose might depend on your ability to stomach ant violence. Method 1 involves pipe tobacco, glue, baby powder, red pepper, chalk and lavender – check it out on the wikiHow page. The following three methods are a bit simpler:

Method 2: Fill a spray bottle with highly concentrated soap water. When you see ants, just spray them and they’ll be dead on contact. Wipe up the carcasses with whatever they were trying to eat. Within an hour, any stragglers will have dissipated.

Method 3: Collect a large number of ants from one ant hill (easy to do just leave some food in a container, return after 2 hours and you should have heaps. Drop all the ants in the container onto another ant hill and the ants will start fighting each other resulting in many casualties.

Method 4: Spray 3 parts dish soap and 1 part water on them and they will die instantly.

Method 3 seems kind of cruel but fun for those with suppressed homicidal maniac tendencies. If you’re too squeamish to kill them, one tip is to place a partially open jar of honey up in a tree in your backyard. The ants will seek out the honey instead of raiding your home in most cases.

Link [wikiHow]
Photo credit: Flickr user striatic

Genetically Modified Tobacco Plants Turn Red Around Land Mines

Now, here’s a case where genetic modification is actually a good thing: scientists have developed a tobacco plant that turns red when it detects nitrogen oxide leaks from landmines. It takes about ten weeks for the plants to change color. The plants will also help researchers determine whether an area has been successfully cleared.

From Mail Online:

The tobacco plants has been chosen because it is hardy, easy to grow and has wider leaves.

UN and landmine clearance groups are watching the tests with interest.

Aresa chief executive Steen Thaarup said: ‘This could be an efficient and economic way of clearing mines.

‘There is irony in using tobacco for this - it could end up saving lives for once.’

Becky Maynard at the No More Landmines charity in London, which raises funds to clear mines, said the plants would be a useful tool but communities would still rely on engineers to physically remove them.

There an estimated 80million landmines buried worldwide, covering 120,000 square miles.

Awesome. Natural solutions for manmade problems FTW! This could keep tobacco farmers in business even if they wanted to stop fueling the cigarette death machine, which is another plus.

Link [Mail Online]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

China’s Attempts to Clear Air Pollution Not Working

7 days to go, and Beijing’s attempts to clean up its air quality before the Olympics aren’t looking successful at all. Despite very aggressive efforts, it’s just too little too late. Despite the fact that the skies are still filled with smog, officials deny that air pollution will lead to a need to postpone some events. In fact, they deny that the pollution is there at all.

From Breitbart.com:

“Sometimes it looks like it’s a foggy day, but the air quality is actually good,” Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Beijing Olympic Organising Committee, told AFP.

“Our confidence is based on our 10 years of effort (to clean up the air). We are now implementing a continued plan to ensure clear air during the Olympics.”

Chinese officials routinely refer to the city’s smog as “fog”.

Yeah, right. ‘Fog’. Keep telling people that, and over time they’ll really start to believe it, I’m sure. How crappy for Beijing’s residents. Once again, it’s clear that the government doesn’t care about their health – only about impressing foreigners during the games. Sad.

Link [Breitbart.com]
Photo credit: Flickr user WolfieWolf

Cell Phones Blamed for Fatal Lightning Strikes

Throughout the month of July alone, lightning has killed and injured more than a dozen people according to Russian officials. Three sunbathers and one woman talking on her cell phone while walking along a river were killed, and a representative from local weather observation FOBOS says he believes that the accidents might be connected to increased use of portable electronic devices.  Cell phones and mp3 players are said to be electromagnetic field carriers, therefore making them conductors that would attract lightning.

Shit.  Now in addition to going sterile and getting brain cancer, we have to worry about lightning hitting our cell phones.

Link [InventorSpot]
Photo credit: Flickr user DDFic

Many Face Scrubs Contain Tiny Water-Polluting Beads of Plastic

Just when you think you’ve heard it all in regards to dangerous, unhealthy, bad-for-the-environment ingredients in cosmetics and personal care products, here comes more bad news. If you use an exfoliating face scrub to keep your skin smooth and healthy-looking, you may want to check the ingredients. Many companies are using tiny particles of plastic to get that smooth effect, which in turn end up in our watershed and may be ingested by marine life.

From Yahoo! Green:

One Australian researcher found that plastic fragments smaller than 1 millimeter are increasingly common in our oceans. In one British estuary, 85 percent of the plastic garbage was this “microplastic” debris. Sewage treatment systems can’t filter it out, so this tiny plastic junk pollutes the watershed and can be ingested by marine life.

Those little beads may feel nice on your skin, but in the long run, they’re not doing the planet any good. Besides, you can find plenty of cleansers that use natural stuff to scrub the dirt off your face.

Some of the eco-friendly brands have been around for ages, they don’t cost any more than the plasticized versions, yet they won’t clog up poor little fishy bodies when we’re done with them.

The brands using plastic beads include Aveeno, Clean & Clear, Dove, Neutrogena, Noxzema, Olay and Phisoderm (see Yahoo! Green for the full list, and a list of safe alternatives). While you could continue purchasing pre-made scrubs that are more natural and don’t contain plastic (Christ on a bicycle, plastic? Really?), I’ve got a simple trick for you that I’ve been using for years. Keep a shaker of sugar, salt or baking soda in your bathroom. Add a little to your regular face wash when you need some exfoliating power. It seriously works better than any pre-packaged product I’ve ever tried, it’s ultra cheap, it saves packaging and you’ll know for sure exactly what’s in it.

Check out this Slate article, ‘Scrubbing Out Sea Life’, for more details on how harmful those little plastic beads can be.

Link [Yahoo! Green] + [Slate]

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