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This is the weblog of
Raymond Powers.
Here I will be sharing what I find of import, humor, concern, inspiration and on the transformational edge
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A Quote:
A different world cannot be built by indifferent people.
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Raymond lives in Ojai, where the time now is:
01:53AM
Unique Readers:
Primarily
Public Domain
Everything I've written here, except my copyrighted
essays, poetry, lyrics, and music is hereby placed in the public
domain. The quotes from other people's writings, and the pictures
used might or might not be copyrighted, but are considered fair
use. Thus the license here would best be described as:
Primarily Public
Domain.
Please ask permission if there is any question in
regards to public domain usage.
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| Wednesday, March 24, 2004 |  |
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24 Mar 2004 @ 22:24
Green Building Award Winners Unveiled
March 19, 2004
SolarAccess.com
The Northeast region's most innovative, efficient, and resource-smart new architectural gems were recognized through the Northeast Green Building Awards at a ceremony last week. The annual competition, part of the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association's (NESEA) Building Energy 2004 Conference, recognizes outstanding high-performance buildings. SolarAccess.com has taken the opportunity to bring you some images of these striking buildings through the photographs below. More >
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| Thursday, March 18, 2004 | |
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18 Mar 2004 @ 10:24
Hemp Plastics - CD Cases To Be Made From Hemp
Paul Benhaim - Hemp Consultant
3-15-4
From March 2004, jewel cases manufactured from the hemp plant will be available. It is clear that the primary benefits will be environmental; hemp,s biodegradable status makes it a far more desirable material for production when compared with the billion or so CD trays currently made that have no environmentally friendly means of disposal.
The hemp plant is a viable alternative resource in many areas such as paper and plastics production; an acre of hemp produces as much pulp as four acres of trees and while it can take twenty years to once again grow trees on the same land, hemp can be grown and harvested in 90 days, twice a year. In our current climate of deforestation and global warming, such sustainability gives hemp a distinct advantage over products in many markets.
While it may until recently have been the preserve of a more classically environmentally conscious consumer, in recent years such things as the free press, contribution towards a greater awareness of hemp,s manufacturing potential have helped lead it once more to the cusp of being a major industry; amongst others, Giorgio Armani, Mercedes and the Body Shop are just a few who currently use hemp-produced material in several of their products and it is likely that this pattern is to continue in many industries.
As a plant which can be grown and harvested year after year, hemp,s potential as a cash crop is on a scale of industries as vast as those of tea and coffee; such a widespread availability will (in addition to being environmentally desirable) result in hemp being a far more economical way to produce such products as mobile phone cases, computer cases, paper, clothing, jewel cases and so on.
It should also be recognised that hemp products are noted for their strength and durability (in the Second World War American farmers were ordered to grow hemp as part of the war effort where it was used to make parachutes, rope and many other essential materials). Hemp jewel cases have an added advantage over current petro-chemically produced ones in that logos can be embossed on them, providing the ability to further individualise the product in question, whatever it may be.
Now that the stranglehold of big business protecting its own interests is being loosened, hemp is ready to take its place as one of the twenty-first century,s biggest success stories.
Hemp Resources:
www.hemp.co.uk
www.hempmusic.com
www.ecofibre.com.au
www.hempplastic.com
www.hempfoods.com.au
www.onewithus.com
www.alivefoods.com
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| Thursday, March 11, 2004 | |
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11 Mar 2004 @ 20:35
This is from the Independent / UK. Another great reason to shop locally and organic at your farmers market.
Revealed: Shocking new evidence of the dangers of GM crops
Genetically modified strains have contaminated two-thirds of all crops in US
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
07 March 2004
More than two-thirds of conventional crops in the United States are now contaminated with genetically modified material - dooming organic agriculture and posing a severe future risk to health - a new report concludes.
The report - which comes as ministers are on the verge of approving the planting of Britain's first GM crop, maize - concludes that traditional varieties of seed are "pervasively contaminated" by genetically engineered DNA. The US biotech industry says it is "not surprised" by the findings.
Because of the contamination, the report says, farmers unwittingly plant billions of GM seeds a year, spreading genetic modification throughout US agriculture. This would be likely to lead to danger to health with the next generation of GM crops, bred to produce pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals - delivering "drug-laced cornflakes" to the breakfast table.
The report comes at the worst possible time for the Government, which is trying to overcome strong resistance from the Scottish and Welsh administrations to GM maize.
The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee drew attention to the problem in North America in a report published on Friday, and said the Government had not paid enough attention to it. The MPs concluded: "No decision to proceed with the commercial growing of GM crops [in Britain] should be made until thorough research into the experience with GM crops in North America has been completed and published". It would be "irresponsible" for ministers to give the green light to the maize without further tests.
Peter Ainsworth, the committee chairman, accuses the Cabinet of "great discourtesy" to Parliament by making its decision on the maize last Thursday, the day before the report came out, and plans to raise the issue with the Speaker of the House.
This week's statement by Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for the Environment, is expected to fall short of authorising immediate planting of the maize, and provide only a muted endorsement for the technology. She will make it clear that the Government wants the GM industry to compensate farmers whose crops are contaminated. This could make cultivation uncommercial. The US study will increase the pressure on her to be tough.
Under the auspices of the green-tinged Union of Concerned Scientists, two separate independent laboratories tested supposedly non-GM seeds "representing a substantial proportion of the traditional seed supply" for maize, soya and oilseed rape, the three crops whose modified equivalents are grown widely in the United States.
The test found that at "the most conservative expression", half the maize and soyabeans and 83 per cent of the oilseed rape were contaminated with GM genes - just eight years after the modified varieties were first cultivated on a large scale in the US.
The degree of contamination is thought to be at a relatively low level of about 0.5 to 1 per cent. The reports says that "contamination ... is endemic to the system". It adds: "Heedlessly allowing the contamination of traditional plant varieties with genetically engineered sequences amounts to a huge wager on our ability to understand a complicated technology that manipulates life at the most elemental level." There could be "serious risks to health" if drugs and industrial chemicals from the next generation of GM crops got into food.
Lisa Dry, of the US Biotechnology Industry Association, said that the industry was "not surprised by this report, knowing that pollen travels and commodity grains might co-mingle at various places".
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| Thursday, March 4, 2004 | |
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 4 Mar 2004 @ 09:12
Neil Young's Greendale tour runs on biodiesel
Singer had fleet converted to new fuel Reduces chemical emissions up to 80%
JULIET WILLIAMS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MILWAUKEE—Saving the family farm, helping the Earth and reducing America's dependence on foreign oil — they all go together for Neil Young on his Greendale tour.
The veteran Canadian rocker rolled into town yesterday with a fleet of buses and trucks running on biodiesel, an environmentally friendly fuel made from renewable resources such as soybean oil and recycled cooking oil.
Young said switching to biodiesel was his idea.
"Rather than talk about it, I figured just do it," he said, noting there is an environmentalist character in his new show, which includes performance as well as music.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Young said he can still be a capitalist and embrace the environment.
"I'm just trying to make a point. There are other ways to be self-sustaining," he said.
Young, who clearly has done his research, recited the reasons why biodiesel makes sense: It releases no ozone-polluting chemicals and reduces emissions by 60 per cent to 80 per cent; it's entirely renewable and doesn't require major exploration to extract; American farmers could produce it for a living wage; and it would probably save a tree or two slated for demolition in Alaska.
Alternative fuel has caught on in some places. More than 400 fleets across the U.S. now use it, including the U.S. Postal Service, Yellowstone National Park, public utility companies and school districts, according to the National Biodiesel Board. Its use in Canada is also catching on.
But Young said ignorance holds many people back. His longtime trucking company turned him down when he first approached them about switching fuels. He switched trucking companies, too.
"I'm sure a lot of people who consider themselves to be conscientious would use it if they knew more about it," Young said.
"The people who have enough money to buy an Escalade or something like that are the ones who can afford to pay a bit more for this ... SUVs could be offered with a diesel option."
Young said as a member of Farm Aid for 18 years, he's always looking for ways to help the family farmer. He said there are millions of acres of unfarmed crop land in the United States and Canada that could be tapped for renewable energy.
But Young knows it's a struggle to persuade people to end their reliance on fossil fuels during the pro-oil tenure of President George W. Bush.
"You can't change the Bush administration with this. I mean, to them, I'm a tree hugger," he said.
"But I think to affect change you first have to have examples. If the children out there who have a conscience about this planet see this, they might be inspired." More >
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| Saturday, February 28, 2004 | |
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 28 Feb 2004 @ 11:25
Hemp - Could Save America
The Weed That Can Change The World
From Varied Sources
2-25-4
HEMP FACTS
1) Hemp is among the oldest industries on the planet, going back more than 10,000 years to the beginnings of pottery. The Columbia History of the World states that the oldest relic of human industry is a bit of hemp fabric dating back to approximately 8,000 BC.
2) Presidents Washington and Jefferson both grew hemp. Americans were legally bound to grow hemp during the Colonial Era and Early Republic. The federal government subsidized hemp during the Second World War and US farmers grew about a million acres of hemp as part of that program.
3) Hemp Seed is far more nutritious than even soybean, contains more essential fatty acids than any other source, is second only to soybeans in complete protein (but is more digestible by humans), is high in B-vitamins, and is 35% dietary fiber. Hemp seed is not psychoactive and cannot be used as a drug. See TestPledge.com
4) The bark of the hemp stalk contains bast fibers which are among the Earth's longest natural soft fibers and are also rich in cellulose; the cellulose and hemi-cellulose in its inner woody core are called hurds. Hemp stalk is not psychoactive. Hemp fiber is longer, stronger, more absorbent and more insulative than cotton fiber.
5) According to the Department of Energy, hemp as a biomass fuel producer requires the least specialized growing and processing procedures of all hemp products. The hydrocarbons in hemp can be processed into a wide range of biomass energy sources, from fuel pellets to liquid fuels and gas. Development of biofuels could significantly reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and nuclear power.
6) Hemp grows well without herbicides, fungicides, or pesticides. Almost half of the agricultural chemicals used on US crops are applied to cotton.
7) Hemp produces more pulp per acre than timber on a sustainable basis, and can be used for every quality of paper. Hemp paper manufacturing can reduce wastewater contamination. Hemp's low lignin content reduces the need for acids used in pulping, and it's creamy color lends itself to environmentally friendly bleaching instead of harsh chlorine compounds. Less bleaching results in less dioxin and fewer chemical byproducts.
8) Hemp fiber paper resists decomposition, and does not yellow with age when an acid-free process is used. Hemp paper more than 1,500 years old has been found. It can also be recycled more times.
9) Hemp fiberboard produced by Washington State University was found to be twice as strong as wood-based fiberboard.
10) Eco-friendly hemp can replace most toxic petrochemical products. Research is being done to use hemp in manufacturing biodegradable plastic products: plant-based cellophane, recycled plastic mixed with hemp for injection-molded products, and resins made from the oil, to name just a very few examples.
For a Complete hostory and uses chart go to:
http://www.rense.com/general49/could.htm
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| Friday, February 6, 2004 | |
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6 Feb 2004 @ 18:00
Plants give up their secret of splitting water
Friday, February 06, 2004
By Reuters
WASHINGTON — Researchers said Thursday they had taken another step toward understanding how plants split water into hydrogen and oxygen atoms, which may provide a cheap way to produce clean-burning hydrogen fuel.
Producing hydrogen from water is the stuff of science fiction — and some comments by President Bush. But the team at Imperial College London and Japan Science and Technology Corp. in Yokohama said they had taken the best pictures yet of the plant structures that do it every day.
They used high-resolution x-ray crystallography to make an image of the tiny atomic splitter that separates the two hydrogen atoms from an oxygen atom in a water molecule.
"Results by other groups, including those obtained using lower resolution x-ray crystallography at 3.7 angstroms, have shown that the splitting of water occurs at a catalytic center that consists of four manganese atoms," said So Iwata of Imperial's Department of Biological Sciences.
"We've taken this further by showing that three of the manganese atoms, a calcium atom, and four oxygen atoms form a cubelike structure, which brings stability to the catalytic center," Iwata added in a statement. "Together this arrangement gives strong hints about the water-splitting chemistry."
Writing in the journal Science, Iwata and colleagues said they looked at a plant bacterium called Thermosynechococcus elongatus.
"Without photosynthesis, life on Earth would not exist as we know it," Jim Barber of Imperial's Department of Biological Sciences said in a statement. "Oxygen derived from this process is part of the air we breathe and maintains the ozone layer needed to protect us from ultraviolet radiation."
He continued, "Now hydrogen also contained in water could be one of the most promising energy sources for the future. Unlike fossil fuels it's highly efficient, low-polluting, and is mobile so it can be used for power generation in remote regions where it's difficult to access electricity."
Water has always seemed a logical source for hydrogen, but the only known feasible method to separate it, electrolysis, costs 10 times as much as natural gas and is three times as expensive as gasoline, Barber said. More >
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| Friday, January 30, 2004 | |
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30 Jan 2004 @ 21:12
This is a a fun online game to test your environmental knowledge.
The Great Green Game
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| Friday, January 23, 2004 | |
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23 Jan 2004 @ 11:25
I think you'll find this interesting. It is an explanation of the codes on fruit stickers and how to know which fruits are normal, organic, and genetically modified.
You've noticed that tiny stickers that now appear on almost all fruit, and probably been annoyed that you have to peel each one off. These contain bar codes for the check-out clerk, but they also contain a secret the store might not want you to know.
Nutritionist Karma Metzgar of the University of Missouri writes that these stickers also tell you if the fruit is organic or genetically-modified. On conventionally-grown, non-organic fruit, the sticker has only 4 numbers. Organically grown fruit has a five-numeral code, which begins with the number 9. Since organic fruits and vegetables now have to be in separate areas in grocery stores, this confirms that your apple hasn't ended up in the wrong pile. However, the store does not have to reveal which fruits and vegetables are genetically-modified-but you can find out by looking at their stickers, which will begin with the number 8.
According to Metzgar, this means a regular banana would have a sticker saying 4011, an organic banana would say 94011 and a GM banana would say 84011. Lots of people complain that the stickers are too hard to peel off, so it may be a relief to know that the adhesive is safe to eat.
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| Wednesday, January 21, 2004 | |
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21 Jan 2004 @ 17:55
No Water? Drink Coke!
Naeem Mohaiemen, AlterNet
January 17, 2004
Several years ago, I was leafing through a health magazine and came across a piece about Coca-Cola. According to the story, Coke, like many other soft drinks, contains additives that eat away at tooth enamel. Ever since then, I've avoided all soft drinks. This habit presents an etiquette problem whenever I visit Bangladesh. Along with milky cups of tea, Coke-with-ice is the most frequently offered drink to visitors. My refusal of Coke is often seen an snobbishness, or some faddish "health consciousness."
This subcontinental love affair with Coke may soon change drastically. If campaigners assembled at this week's World Social Forum in Mumbai, India are successful, Coca-Cola will soon be hit by a global boycott of unprecedented scale and ferocity. Although the Indian Campaign to Hold Coke Accountable has already been in motion for a year, the WSF meet is globalizing the project. At issue are Coca-Cola's production practices in India, which are draining out vast amounts of public groundwater, turning farming communities into virtual deserts. Completing the cycle of abuse, the plants are also pumping out toxic sludge as waste product. The controversy has been aggravated by recent tests that showed levels of toxic substances in Indian Coke, which are higher than FDA-approved standards for Coke-additives in the US.
Organizers consider Coca-Cola to be one of the most abusive transnationals (TNC) operating in India today. They are particularly irked by the way that Coke, a huge foreign investor in India, has used its commercial clout to bully the government into bending the rules regarding local ownership.
After a year of Indian protests, Coca-Cola's PR department simply said they were the "target of a handful of extremist protesters." For good measure, the corporate website says, "Local communities have welcomed our business as a good corporate neighbor."
But at the end of the WSF, Coke may be facing an organized campaign that cannot be easily dismissed. One of the key benefits of highlighting the Coke case at the WSF meet is the opportunity to link up with similar cases worldwide and turn the project into a global boycott. Since international capital benefits from a borderless world, activists want to create a model where their clout is also increased by the free flow of information between world community groups. In the process they are linking up with campaigners in Colombia, who have targeted Coke for very different abuses. At WSF, the campaign has generated strong feedback from American and European organizers, many of whom see the red-and-whites of Coke as a symbol for businesses that work without accountability.
Draining Local Water
There are now several Indian communities that have lodged complaints against Coca-Cola factories. The most celebrated of these is the Plachimada village in Kerala state, home of one of Coca-Cola's biggest bottling plants in India. This was one of the first villages to allege that the plant was draining water from wells, drying up ponds and destroying the livelihood of more than 2,000 farm families.
Researchers found that the plant had drilled 65 bore holes into the ground, siphoning off a million gallons of water a day. In addition, they also found that Coke was washing bottles with chemicals which were then released, without treatment, into local ground water. British NGO Actionaid has investigated the village and concluded that it was a thriving agricultural community until the arrival of the bottling plant in 1998. Under pressure from activists, 300 of whom were arrested during various protests, the local panchayet announced that it would cancel the plant's operating license.
Coke has vigorously fought back against the allegations, submitting scientific studies and appealing the panchayet's decision. The plant manager, N Janadhanan, indignantly told the AP that, "The villagers are not suffering and we are not exploiting the water resource." But in admission of the severe crisis, Coke now sends around water tankers each morning to supply the villager's with minimum amounts of water. The company is appealing the decision in Indian courts, with activists also determined to press on with their demands.
Another dark spot is Mehdiganj (UP), where Coke built a bottling plant in 1995. Two tube wells draw hundreds of thousands of liters of ground water each day. Geologists have estimated that the company's voracious consumption may have lowered the groundwater level as much as 40 feet. The area's water crisis was further aggravated by the World Bank-funded Golden Quadrangle superhighway project, which shut off the water pipeline from a neighboring area. The Coke plant's proximity to the holy city of Benares has created further controversy. The factory's waste product was being disposed in a nearby canal that emptied into the holy Ganges River.
Local Indians were enraged when they discovered that polluted waste was being dumped into the Ganges. Until recently, there was no clear way to test for Coke-related pollution in the vast Ganges. But in order to make way for the superhighway, construction workers dislodged Coke's waste disposal canal. The company then began disposing its waste products into neighboring fields and mango groves. At this point, the level of toxic waste became readily obvious to local residents. Although Coca-Cola officials claim they use ecological filters, this was easily refuted by looking at waste-submerged areas. In an area of 20 acres covered with factory waste, grass, neem trees, wheat, paddy and chickpea crops had all been destroyed. Health crises were also created by the stagnant waste, including a mosquito epidemic and mysterious rashes on the bodies of local villagers.
Clcik Here to Read More >
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21 Jan 2004 @ 17:50
Give me a break..
Schmeiser's defense has been that Monsanto's Roundup Ready canola blew onto his farm near Bruno, Sask. In September 2002, the Federal Court of Appeals didn't reject the explanation, but said it wasn't an excuse. The court said Schmeiser should have dug the plants up and destroyed them. So, if my neighbor uses Monsanto seeds, and it blows onto my field and contaminates my natural crop without my permission and without even my knowledge, the law says I have to destroy my own crop or get sued by Monsanto???? I thought Canadians had more sense. More >
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| Tuesday, January 13, 2004 | |
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 13 Jan 2004 @ 16:16
The Whispering Wheel
A new Dutch invention can make cars, busses and other vehicles no less than 50 percent more efficient and thus more environmentally friendly. Better still, the technology is already available; it all comes down to a smart combination of existing systems.
This winter, in the city of Apeldoorn, a city bus will be used to prove that the claims about the new invention are true. These are quite bold. E-traction, the company that developed the bus, boasts fuel savings of up to 60 per cent, with emissions down to only a fraction of the soot and carbon dioxide an ordinary bus would blow out of its tailpipe.
In addition, the test bus requires no adaptation, its drivers need no extra training and there'll be no discomfort for passengers. It will simply run on diesel, just like all the other buses, and it should be just as reliable. One thing however will be very different; the Apeldoorn bus hardly makes a sound, hence its nickname "the whisperer".
In-wheel engine
All this is made possible by an ‘in-wheel' electric engine, in fact nothing more than a normal electric engine turned inside out.
Complete Story HereThe Whispering Wheel
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| Tuesday, January 6, 2004 | |
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6 Jan 2004 @ 10:01
Well, things are definitely coming to a head. Our "attacks" on Earth are attacks on ourselves, so isn't it a matter of time when the masochism will become so painful that wel'l be forced to transform or sssloowly decay into no return. The trickster is having a hey day. Consciousness is shifting and changing anyway, we can steward this along or go kicking and screaming into paradise.
Worst environmental exploits of the year Sierra Club readers rank Bush Administration's 2003 attacks on the environment
1. MERCURY RISING - Issued public health warnings to pregnant women and children about mercury after announcing policy changes to triple amount of mercury pollution allowed from power plants.
2. SUPER DUPED - Became first administration to support shifting burden of Superfund toxic waste cleanups from polluters to taxpayers.
3. SOOTY SANTA - Dismantled provision of Clean Air Act that requires oldest, dirtiest power plants and refineries to curb soot and smog pollution.
4. BACK IN BLACKOUT - Proposed a national Energy Bill that did nothing to reduce dependence on foreign oil, repair or address antiquated electricity grid, or protect special places from oil and gas drilling.
5. DRILLING WILDERNESS - Opened nearly 9 million pristine acres in Northwest Alaska to the oil and gas industry for exploration and drilling.
6. STONEWALLING, BIG TIME (tied)- Continued to withhold documents from secret meetings between Bush/Cheney Energy Task Force and energy industry lobbyists.
6. DON'T AX, DON'T TELL (tied) - Promoted a wildfire policy that expanded commercial logging in the backcountry but did little to protect people where they live.
7. NEXT STOP, SHINOLA - Allowed untreated sewage to be blended with treated sewage, cut funding for local sewage treatment, and didn't require health officials to warn public about sewage in water.
8. CRITICAL CONDITION - Obliterated the process of critical habitat designation for imperiled wildlife under the Endangered Species Act.
9. COP OFF - Continued pattern of willful negligence for enforcement of even basic clean water and clean air laws.
10. POST 9/11 LIES - Discovered by EPA Inspector General to have lied about post 9/11 environmental health hazards near Ground Zero.
11. ROAD WARRIOR - Expanded the legal loophole that allows obnoxious road claims through federally protected wilderness, national parks, and public lands.
12. HOG WASH - Secretly negotiated backroom deal to exempt giant animal factories from laws governing air and toxic pollution.
13. POLLUTED LOGIC - Refused to classify industrial carbon emissions, linked to global warming, as an official pollutant under the Clean Air Act.
14. HOT AIR - Proposed fantasy hydrogen power initiative to improve auto fuel efficiency rather than promoting more proven technologies like gas-electric hybrids.
15. ESTATE TOX - Ended a 25-year ban on the sale of PCB-laden real estate.
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| Monday, January 5, 2004 | |
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| Saturday, December 20, 2003 | |
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20 Dec 2003 @ 17:05
Goodbye sunshine
Each year less light reaches the surface of the Earth. No one is sure what's causing 'global dimming' - or what it means for the future. In fact most scientists have never heard of it. By David Adam
David Adam
Thursday December 18, 2003
The Guardian
In 1985, a geography researcher called Atsumu Ohmura at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology got the shock of his life. As part of his studies into climate and atmospheric radiation, Ohmura was checking levels of sunlight recorded around Europe when he made an astonishing discovery. It was too dark. Compared to similar measurements recorded by his predecessors in the 1960s, Ohmura's results suggested that levels of solar radiation striking the Earth's surface had declined by more than 10% in three decades. Sunshine, it seemed, was on the way out.
The finding went against all scientific thinking. By the mid-80s there was undeniable evidence that our planet was getting hotter, so the idea of reduced solar radiation - the Earth's only external source of heat - just didn't fit. And a massive 10% shift in only 30 years? Ohmura himself had a hard time accepting it. "I was shocked. The difference was so big that I just could not believe it," he says. Neither could anyone else. When Ohmura eventually published his discovery in 1989 the science world was distinctly unimpressed. "It was ignored," he says.
It turns out that Ohmura was the first to document a dramatic effect that scientists are now calling "global dimming". Records show that over the past 50 years the average amount of sunlight reaching the ground has gone down by almost 3% a decade. It's too small an effect to see with the naked eye, but it has implications for everything from climate change to solar power and even the future sustainability of plant photosynthesis. In fact, global dimming seems to be so important that you're probably wondering why you've never heard of it before. Well don't worry, you're in good company. Many climate experts haven't heard of it either, the media has not picked up on it, and it doesn't even appear in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
"It's an extraordinary thing that for some reason this hasn't penetrated even into the thinking of the people looking at global climate change," says Graham Farquhar, a climate scientist at the Australian National University in Canberra. "It's actually quite a big deal and I think you'll see a lot more people referring to it."
That's not to say that the effect has gone unnoticed. Although Ohmura was the first to report global dimming, he wasn't alone. In fact, the scientific record now shows several other research papers published during the 1990s on the subject, all finding that light levels were falling significantly. Among them they reported that sunshine in Ireland was on the wane, that both the Arctic and the Antarctic were getting darker and that light in Japan, the supposed land of the rising sun, was actually falling. Most startling of all was the discovery that levels of solar radiation reaching parts of the former Soviet Union had gone down almost 20% between 1960 and 1987.
The problem is that most of the climate scientists who saw the reports simply didn't believe them.
"It's an uncomfortable one," says Gerald Stanhill, who published many of these early papers and coined the phrase global dimming. "The first reaction has always been that the effect is much too big, I don't believe it and if it's true then why has nobody reported it before."
That began to change in 2001, when Stanhill and his colleague Shabtai Cohen at the Volcani Centre in Bet Dagan, Israel collected all the available evidence together and proved that, on average, records showed that the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface had gone down by between 0.23 and 0.32% each year from 1958 to 1992.
This forced more scientists to sit up and take notice, though some still refused to accept the change was real, and instead blamed it on inaccurate recording equipment.
Solar radiation is measured by seeing how much the side of a black plate warms up when exposed to the sun, compared with its flip side, which is shaded. It's a relatively crude device, and we have no way of proving how accurate measurements made 30 years ago really are. "To detect temporal changes you must have very good data otherwise you're just analysing the difference between data retrieval systems," says Ohmura.
Stanhill says the dimming effect is much greater than the possible errors (which anyway would make the light levels go up as well as down), but what was really needed was an independent way to prove global dimming was real. Last year Farquhar and his group in Australia provided it.
The 2001 article written by Stanhill and Cohen sparked Farquhar's interest and he made some inquiries. The reaction was not always positive and when he mentioned the idea to one high-ranking climate scientist (whose name he is reluctant to reveal) he was told: "That's bullshit, Graham. If that was the case then we'd all be freezing to death."
But Farquhar had realised that the idea of global dimming could explain one of the most puzzling mysteries of climate science. As the Earth warms, you would expect the rate at which water evaporates to increase. But in fact, study after study using metal pans filled with water has shown that the rate of evaporation has gone down in recent years. When Farquhar compared evaporation data with the global dimming records he got a perfect match. The reduced evaporation was down to less sunlight shining on the water surface. And while Stanhill and Cohen's 2001 report appeared in a relatively obscure agricultural journal, Farquhar and his colleague Michael Roderick published their solution to the evaporation paradox in the high-profile American magazine Science. Almost 20 years after it was first noticed, global dimming was finally in the mainstream. "I think over the past couple of years it's become clear that the solar irradiance at the Earth's surface has decreased," says Jim Hansen, a leading climate modeller with Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.
The missing radiation is in the region of visible light and infrared - radiation like the ultraviolet light increasingly penetrating the leaky ozone layer is not affected. Stanhill says there is now sufficient interest in the subject for a special session to be held at the joint meeting of the American and Canadian geophysical societies in Montreal next May.
So what causes global dimming? The first thing to say is that it's nothing to do with changes in the amount of radiation arriving from the sun. Although that varies as the sun's activity rises and falls and the Earth moves closer or further away, the global dimming effect is much, much larger and the opposite of what would be expected given there has been a general increase in overall solar radiation over the past 150 years.
That means something must have happened to the Earth's atmosphere to stop the arriving sunlight penetrating. The few experts who have studied the effect believe it's down to air pollution. Tiny particles of soot or chemical compounds like sulphates reflect sunlight and they also promote the formation of bigger, longer lasting clouds. "The cloudy times are getting darker," says Cohen, at the Volcani Centre. "If it's cloudy then it's darker, but when it's sunny things haven't changed much."
More importantly, what impact could global dimming have? If the effect continues then it's certainly bad news for solar power, as darker, cloudier skies will reduce its meagre efficiency still further. The effect on photosynthesis, and so on plant and tree growth, is more complicated and will probably be different in various parts of the world. In equatorial regions and parts of the southern hemisphere regularly flooded with light, photosynthesis is likely to be limited by carbon dioxide or water, not sunshine, and light levels would have to fall much further to force a change. In fact, in some cases photosynthesis could paradoxically increase slightly with global dimming as the broken, diffuse light that emerges from clouds can penetrate deep into forest canopies more easily than direct beams of sunlight from a clear blue sky.
But in the cloudy parts of the northern hemisphere, like Britain, it's a different story and if you grow tomatoes in a greenhouse you could be seeing the effects of global dimming already. "In the northern climate everything becomes light limiting and a reduction in solar radiation becomes a reduction in productivity," Cohen says. "In greenhouses in Holland, the rule of thumb is that a 1% decrease in solar radiation equals a 1% drop in productivity. Because they're light limited they're always very busy cleaning the tops of their greenhouses."
The other major impact global dimming will have is on the complex computer simulations climate scientists use to understand what is happening now and to predict what will happen in the future. For them, global dimming is a real sticking point. "All of their models, all the physics and mathematics of solar radiation in the Earth's atmosphere can't explain what we're measuring at the Earth's surface," Stanhill says. Farquhar agrees: "This will drive what the modellers have to do now. They're going to have to account for this."
David Roberts, a climate modeller with the Met Office's Hadley Centre, says that although the issue of global dimming raises some awkward questions, some of the computer simulations do at least address the mechanisms believed to be driving it. "Most of the processes involving aerosols and formation of clouds are already in there, though I accept it's a bit of a work in progress and more work needs to be done," Roberts says.
Another big question yet to be answered is whether the phenomenon will continue. Will our great grandchildren be eating lunch in the dark? Unlikely, though few studies are up to date enough to confirm whether or not global dimming is still with us. "There's been so little done that nobody really understands what's going on," Cohen says. There are some clues though.
O hmura says that satellite images of clouds seem to suggest that the skies have become slightly clearer since the start of the 1990s, and this has been accompanied by a sharp upturn in temperature. Both of these facts could indicate that global dimming has waned, and this would seem to tie in with the general reduction in air pollution caused by the scaling down of heavy industry across parts of the world in recent years. Just last month, Helen Power, a climate scientist at the University of South Carolina published one of the few analyses of up-to-date data for the 1990s and found that global dimming over Germany seemed to be easing. "But that's just one study and it's impossible to say anything about long-term trends from one study," she cautions.
It's also possible that global dimming is not entirely down to air pollution. "I don't think that aerosols by themselves would be able to produce this amount of global dimming," says Farquhar. Global warming itself might also be playing a role, he suggests, by perhaps forcing more water to be evaporated from the oceans and then blown onshore (although the evidence on land suggests otherwise). "If the greenhouse effect causes global dimming then that really changes the perspective," he says. In other words, while it keeps getting warmer it might keep getting darker. "I'm not saying it definitely is that, I'm just raising the question."
Ultimately, that and other questions will have to be considered by the scientists around the world who are beginning to think about how to prepare the next IPCC assessment report, due out in 2007. "The IPCC is the group that should investigate this and work out if people should be scared of it," says Cohen. Whatever their verdict, at least we are no longer totally in the dark about global dimming. More >
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| Wednesday, December 10, 2003 | |
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10 Dec 2003 @ 17:27
"Green light" for GM trees
Wednesday 10 December 2003
UN diplomats have reached an agreement in principle on Tuesday to include genetically-modified trees in forests planted for the specific purpose of soaking up greenhouse gases.
The agreement made at an Environmental summit in Milan will allow scientists to develop fast-growing trees with a maximized capability of storing carbon dioxide, one of the gases thought likely to be responsible for the heating of the earth's atmosphere.
Under the terms of the UN Kyoto Protocol on global warming, rich countries will be able to plant forests in the developing world and offset the amount of gas absorbed against their own greenhouse emissions.
The agreement in principle was scheduled to be sent to environment ministers at a meeting of the 180-nation UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Milan.
Draft plan
As part of the compromise draft plan, countries who have proposed to plant genetically-modified forests must carry out detailed risk assessments and avoid the planting of what are known as invasive species trees -- those that drive out species native to the region.
An Italian spokesman, Aldo Iacomelli, said the agreement was thrashed out by the German and Brazilian co-presidents of the conference.
Environmental groups have been campaigning against such an extension of biotechnology. And scientists say that growing trees is only a temporary solution to the CO2 buildup.
Greenpeace and the WWF environmental groups, who had opposed GMOs (genetically modified organisms) in Kyoto, said the forest rules were "two steps forward, one step back".
Forest deal
The forest deal was the last to define the mechanisms of Kyoto. Remaining issues include a fund to help developing nations adapt to the feared impact of global warming, ranging from desertification to the melting of polar icecaps.
Under Kyoto, rich nations will be allowed to store up to one percent of their annual emissions of carbon dioxide in such forest sinks. Kyoto seeks to cut rich countries' emissions of carbon dioxide by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
The agreement has to be ratified by Russia before going into effect, and delegates were hoping that an agreement on forest carbon sinks would persuade Russia to stop dragging its feet over the agreement.The Kyoto protocol was severely limited by the walkout in 2001 of the United States, the world's biggest polluter. More >
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| Tuesday, December 9, 2003 | |
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9 Dec 2003 @ 15:35
Despite the hype, bottled water is neither cleaner nor greener than tap water
December 9, 2003
By Brian Howard, E/The Environmental Magazine
"You drink tap water? Are you crazy?" asks a 21-year-old radio producer from the Chicago area. "I only drink bottled water." In a trendy nightclub in New York City, the bartender tells guests they can only be served bottled water, which costs $5 for each tiny half-pint container. One outraged clubber is stopped by the restroom attendant as she tries to refill the bottle from the tap. "You can't do that," says the attendant. "New York's tap water isn't safe."
Whether a consumer is shopping in a supermarket or a health food store, working out in a fitness center, eating in a restaurant or grabbing some quick refreshment on the go, he or she will likely be tempted to buy bottled water. The product comes in an ever-growing variety of sizes and shapes, including one bottle that looks like a drop of water with a golden cap. Some fine hotels now offer the services of "water sommeliers" to advise diners on which water to drink with different courses.
A widening spectrum of bottled water types are crowding the market, including spring, mineral, purified, distilled, carbonated, oxygenated, caffeinated and vitamin-enriched, as well as flavors, such as lemon or strawberry, and specific brands aimed at children. Bottled water bars have sprung up in the hipper districts, from Paris to Los Angeles.
The message is clear: Bottled water is "good" water, as opposed to that nasty, unsafe stuff that comes out of the tap. But in most cases tap water adheres to stricter purity standards than bottled water, whose source — far from a mountain spring can be wells underneath industrial facilities. Indeed, 40 percent of bottled water began life as, well, tap water.
A 2001 World Wildlife Fund (WWF) study confirmed the widespread belief that consumers associate bottled water with social status and healthy living. Their perceptions trump their objectivity, because even some people who claim to have switched to bottled water "for the taste" can't tell the difference: When Good Morning America conducted a taste test of its studio audience, New York City tap water was chosen as the heavy favorite over the oxygenated water 02, Poland Spring and Evian. Many of the "facts" that bottled water drinkers swear by are erroneous. Rachele Kuzma, a Rutgers student, says she drinks bottled water at school because "it's healthier" and "doesn't have fluoride," although much of it does have fluoride.
Bottled water is so ubiquitous that people can hardly ask for water anywhere without being handed a bottle. But what is the cost to society and the environment?
Largely Self-Regulated
The bottled water industry has exploded in recent years, and enjoys annual sales of more than $35 billion worldwide. In 2002, almost six billion gallons of bottled water were sold in the U.S., representing an increase of nearly 11 percent over 2001. Americans paid $7.7 billion for bottled water in 2002, according to the consulting and research firm Beverage Marketing Corporation. Bottled water is the fastest-growing segment of the beverage industry, and the product is expected to pass both coffee and milk to become the second-most-consumed beverage (behind soft drinks) by 2004. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), "More than half of all Americans drink bottled water; about a third of the public consumes it regularly." While most people would argue that bottled water is healthier than convenient alternatives like sugared sodas or artificially flavored drinks, are the third of bottled water consumers who claim they are motivated by promises of purity (according to a 2000 survey) getting what they pay for?
Click Here For More >
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| Monday, December 8, 2003 | |
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| Thursday, November 6, 2003 | |
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6 Nov 2003 @ 10:54
GM crop jumps fence, flowers
November 6, 2003
TRIALS of the nation's first commercial genetically modified food crop have been found to be in breach of their licence conditions.
The Network of Concerned Farmers today released internal NSW Agriculture documents showing concerns over the trials of GM canola near the city of Wagga Wagga.
The documents show the canola, created by BayerCropscience to be resistant to a new type of herbicide, had spread from its small trial plot into a neighbouring wheat field.
Despite efforts to poison and then slash the plants they survived to the stage that they flowered, putting them in breach of their growing licence conditions.
NSW, along with most other states, has a moratorium on GM food crops but is allowing trials such as that staged at Wagga.
But both Bayer and Monsanto, which is waiting on final federal approval for its own GM canola, have sought to plant up to 5,000 hectares of the new plants in NSW as trials next year.
Network national spokeswoman Julie Newman said the failure of the Wagga trial cast doubt over the plans for a 5,000 hectare trial.
"If the GM industry can't even control a small strictly managed trial plot under one hectare, how do they expect to control 5,000 hectares of GM canola spread over 60 to 100 sites throughout NSW?" she told AAP.
"The obvious difficulty that BayerCropscience have had in managing this trial does not inspire confidence within the farming community."
Mrs Newman said the Wagga trial showed how difficult it would be stop contamination of traditional crops by GM crops.
"The difficulty in managing the trials shows just how hard it is to remove canola from wheat, and shows how much work neighbouring farmers will have to do to try to make sure their crops don't get contaminated," she said.
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| Thursday, October 23, 2003 | |
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23 Oct 2003 @ 22:14
If It Ain't Broke, Break It
When it comes to sheer nerve, you’ve got to hand it to George W. Bush. Air pollution is called "clear skies." Wilderness logging is "healthy forests."
The newest Bush attack on the environment doesn’t have an Orwellian name yet, but it could be the most insidious of all—a dismembering of the regulatory process itself.
Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act into law in 1970, at a time when conservatives were still stewards of the environment. NEPA has been the foundation for many of the landmark environmental victories of the past 30 years. It’s the law that requires impact statements and public input on all government decisions that could harm the environment.
And it works. Just recently, George Bush’s own Office of Management and Budget confirmed that environmental protection is highly cost effective. Using the most conservative assumptions, OMB found that, on average, each dollar spent on environmental regulation over the past decade returned more than six dollars in health care savings and improved worker productivity.
So if it’s good for the environment and good for the economy, why is the administration proposing to eviscerate NEPA, by restricting the use of environmental impact reports and exempting projects from public scrutiny? That’s a question for James Connaughton. As head of Bush’s Council on Environmental Quality, which proposed the rollbacks, he’ll soon decide their fate.
Oh yes. Before he was Bush’s top advisor on the environment, Mr. Connaughton had an illustrious career as an oil industry lobbyist.
When it comes to sheer nerve, you’ve got to hand it to George Bush.
Visit TomPaine.com for more information, including reports from the Natural Resources Defense Council and OMB Watch.
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| Thursday, October 9, 2003 | |
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9 Oct 2003 @ 21:24
Mt. Vesuvius Poses Imminent Danger
by Mitch Battros (ECTV)
The Italian government believes Mt. Vesuvius to be such an imminent threat, they are offering residents money to move. Hundreds of families who live on the slopes of the volcano Mount Vesuvius have decided to accept the government's offer of $35,000 to move outside the eruption danger zone.
Many geologists believe that it is only a matter of time before another major eruption by the volcano devastates populated areas around the volcano. a large eruption in 79AD buried the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum. In the first two days of the government's offer, about 900 families applied for the payments to move outside the danger zone.
Vesuvius is a complex volcano. I have recently learned, Vesuvius is part of a Super-Volcano named “Somma”. Mt. Vesuvius sits in a caldera formed about 34,000 years ago. It is known as the ‘Somma Caldera’. This is much the same as Northern America's Yellowstone Super-Volcano.
From 1983-1985 an area of 31 square miles (80 square kilometers) was uplifted, in places up to 5.9 feet (1.8 meters), damaging homes, the harbor, and the tourist industry. In 5960 B.C. and 3580 B.C., Vesuvius had two eruptions that rate among the largest known in Europe. The area was frequently jolted by large earthquakes. The decorative stonework records the damage caused by an earlier earthquake, perhaps the earthquake of 62 A.D. that preceded the 79 A.D. eruption.
Vesuvius is a dangerous and deadly volcano. Mudflows and lava flows from the eruption in 1631 killed 3,500 people. About 3,360 people died in the 79 A.D. eruption from ash flows and falls. Studies of past eruptions and their deposits continue. These studies help volcanologists understand the hazards associated with future eruptions. The population density in some areas of high risk is 20,000 to 30,000 per square km. About 3 million people could be seriously affected by future eruptions. In the first 15 minutes of a medium- to large-scale eruption, those living in an area within a 4 mile (7 km) radius of the volcano, could be destroyed. More >
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Sounding Circle - Category: Permaculture
