The Cost of Processing
One of the risks of eating meat comes from processed foods. The same risk, however, exists with veggie burgers, particularly those made with soy. Processing introduces a myriad of chemicals into the foods you eat that you may not know about.

Veggie burgers, for example, are made using a chemical called hexane to extract oils from the final product. The problem is that hexane exposure can cause a host of health effects, including depression of the central nervous system, dermatitis and nausea. If you’re concerned about environmental impacts of a meat-based diet, these are valid drawbacks.

Livestock and Energy Costs
One of the reasons that some may choose to follow a vegetarian lifestyle may lie with health concerns over antibiotic use in factory farms. While the FDA has recognized the problem, little headway has been made to alleviate the health risks associated with antibiotic use in livestock.

One of the drawbacks of eating meat is the environmental cost of bringing the product to market. However, a study by the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology and the Agroscope Reckenholz-Tänikon Research Station in Switzerland found that while eating veggie burgers has less of an impact on global warming, it requires the same amount of energy to produce as a meat burger.

The Farm Stage
The farm stage has the largest carbon footprint during meat production. An alternative that has less of an environmental impact is grass-fed beef. It is a healthier choice in terms of antibiotic resistance. Energy use is minimized by feeding livestock this type of diet. It alleviates some of the concerns regarding animal welfare. For those wanting to green up their lifestyle, it may offer a viable option.

The facts about veggie burgers show how important it is to research and know what you’re eating. You may not be able to eliminate your carbon footprint, but you can make choices that have less of an environmental cost.

Islands of trash are becoming commonplace in the world’s oceans and are especially known in the Pacific. The great Pacific garbage patch, as many have come to call it, continues to grow as plastics enter the world’s waterways. According to recent a recent study by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography there is 100 times more plastic waste in the Pacific Ocean now than there was just in the 1970s.

A growing number of cities and counties are enacting plastic bag ban laws in order to reduce pollution and decrease the impact on the environment. Recently Los Angeles County, all counties of Hawaii and Seattle have joined the list of those banning plastic bags. The first city to do so was San Francisco back in 2007. Since then Malibu, Palo Alto and other cities have been added to the list in California. Forty-seven cities just in the state of California have banned plastic bags with Los Angeles now joining the group.

The Los Angeles City Council passed the ban on plastic bags recently with of vote of 13-1. The ban makes Los Angeles the largest U.S. city, having a population of about four million, to have a plastic bag ban, signaling a potential change in plastic bag use across the country. The ban will need to be given an environmental review but once this is done the ban will be enacted.

Major stores will have six months to phase out the use of plastic bags, with small stores having a year to do so. Once these time periods have passed the retailers are permitted to use paper bags during checkout at no expense to the consumer. However, after this time period the retailers will be required to charge 10 cents per paper bag. The cost is meant as an incentive to have customers bring reusable bags. However, the council had contemplated banning paper bags as well and will look in on the possibility once more in another two years.

An estimated 2.7 billion plastic bags are used each year in Los Angeles. Forty-three percent of the trash in Los Angeles is compiled of plastic, nineteen percent of which is plastic bags.

Heart Disease and Air Pollution
How air pollution affect your cardiovascular system is not well understood. However, its effects have been documented in terms of the risk factors to heart disease. A study by the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute and the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California found that exposure to car exhaust was associated with a thickness of the arteries, which can increase your risk for a heart attack.

A thickening of the arteries coupled with high blood pressure is a dangerous combination. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, with strokes ranking third. These findings show that where you live may also play a role. This evidence is especially disturbing in light of the fact that air pollution, in essence, can be a factor in nearly half of the deaths in Western societies.

Documenting Responses to Air Pollution Levels
A study published in the May 16 issue of JAMA offers additional insights. The 2008 Beijing Olympics provided researchers with a unique opportunity to study the effects of changing air pollution levels on biomarkers for cardiovascular disease, such as inflammation and blood clot formation.

During this time frame, pollution levels increased and then returned to baseline levels to make a positive association between these scenarios. The researchers found that systolic blood pressure and systemic inflammation worsened during the period of increased air pollution levels during the Olympics. They also documented increases in heart rate among participants.

These findings show that the human body responds to the negative influences of air pollution even in the short term. While this may not be significant in healthy individuals, it can have harmful implications for others with pre-existing conditions or other risk factors. With the rise in industrialization worldwide, effects of air pollution may become more of a health issue on a global scale.

The SHOAL Consortium along with the BMT Group recently created robotic fish in order to monitor water pollution in real time. The robotic fish are approximately five feet in length and are able to blend in with their environment. The robotic fish are even said to swim like fish and are able to avoid obstacles, such as boats and marine life.

The robotic fish are currently being tested in northern Spain, in the port of Gijon. This is the first time the fish have been tested outside the lab and if successful, the fish will be manufactured in order to be placed in various locations across the globe. Each fish costs more than $31,000 but could potentially save coastal communities and countries much more if they detect pollutants prior to severe damage setting in.

The fish are equipped with sensors to pick up pollutants in the sea, ranging from chemicals dumped at sea to leaking boats. The design also enables the scientists to place specific pollutant sensors on the fish in order to pick up a variety of pollutants. The presence of pollutants will immediately be registered at a local laboratory and will be able to be dealt with in a much more timely manner than current methods employ. The fish also map their locations and return when their batteries begin running low, which takes approximately eight hours.

A senior scientist working on the project, Luke Speller, stated: “At the moment, in harbors, they take samples about once a month. And in that time, a ship could come into the harbor, leak some chemicals somewhere, then it’s gone all the way up the coastline. The idea is that we will use robot fish, which are in the harbor all of the time, and constantly checking for pollution.”

Carbon Sequestration
Biofuels often play a role in carbon sequestration. This is the process by which plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and retain it in biomass. In essence, it is a natural way to lower atmospheric carbon dioxide by tying it up, as it were, in plants.

Depending upon the use of harvested timber, the carbon dioxide contained with the trees may be released or continued to remain in sequestration. Because certain tree species grow quickly, they have been considered as a possible biofuel source. However, doing so would eliminate their important role in carbon sequestration.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a pine plantation can sequester about one metric ton of carbon dioxide each year. Carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas affected. Methane and nitrous oxide are also players. In addition, small amounts of sulfur dioxide are released when forests are used as biofuels.

Unexpected Twist
The development of biofuels carries another unexpected twist that can have serious implications in terms of carbon sequestration. If the fuel source is corn-based ethanol rather than trees, this may motivate other countries to grow crops such as soybeans.

This action can, in turn, lead to deforestation in developing countries and exacerbate the problems with greenhouse gas emission. The EPA estimates that loss of tropical rainforests accounts for about 20 percent of the global carbon dioxide emissions each year. An incentive to increase deforestation can drive this figure even higher.

What this possible chain of events shows is that the solution to global warming is equally as complex as the phenomenon itself. Any development of alternative fuel sources must take into account the consequences to other aspects of the environment. The goal, after all, is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, not shift the source to someplace else. It also underscores the need for a global approach that is acceptable in the long term.

A variety of species depend upon seagrasses for food, including manatees and dugongs-which is their primary source of food. In addition, seagrasses contribute to the food supply of sea turtles, sea horses and a variety of fish as well. Some of these same species call seagrasses their home, making seagrass also an important habitat.

Now a new study indicates that seagrasses may be vital in fighting climate change as well. According to a study recently published in the journal Nature Geoscience, seagrasses absorb more carbon than trees do comparatively on land. Trees are considered a major carbon sink on land, however, seagrasses appear to beat tree absorption levels by nearly triple.

The study determined that a square kilometer of seagrass can hold upwards of 83,000 metric tons of carbon. Comparatively, a square kilometer of forest holds approximately 30,000 metric tons of carbon. Seagrasses were determined to be responsible for at least ten percent of all carbon absorbed by the global oceans each year. In addition, the researchers determined that much like permafrost, seagrasses in many places have stored carbon for many millenniums. All of this is despite seagrasses only covering 0.2 percent of ocean terrain.

Of the seventy-two known seagrass species, fifteen are endangered, vulnerable or near threatened. Seagrasses are suffering from habitat loss, biodiversity loss and also potentially at the hands of global warming. Pollution is the main reason for declining seagrass. In addition, sedimentation is an increasing problem due to runoff which has increased alongside deforestation. Sewage and agricultural pollution are also major factors in the decline in seagrass. Largely seagrass is no longer along the coast of countries with significant pollution, such as China.

Sources and Recovery
In essence, humans use more of the resources of the planet faster than it can recover. For the annual toll of humans’ overuse, it takes the planet 1.5 years to restore the losses. It is easy to see why the Earth is on this course.

The countries with the most significant impact may surprise you, however. While the United States ranks in the top 10, countries like Kuwait and Denmark have a greater ecological footprint. The effects have been greatest on tropical species, with declines of about 70 percent in freshwater tropical species.

The Effects of Biodiversity Losses
The decline in biodiversity can have widespread and profound impacts. Biodiversity provides a genetic pool for adaptation to the changing environment. As human pressures grow, it becomes more critical for plant and wildlife species to cope. A loss in biodiversity can mean a potential decline in the resources that humans need, such as food and medicines.

There is another more subtle, yet potentially serious consequence. Just as the larger genetic pool benefits the environment, it also helps humans live and thrive. Exposure to microbes in the environment, for example, builds the immune system capacity to withstand harmful pathogens.

A study by the University of Helsinki in Finland found that individuals living in rural environments had a greater diversity of skin bacteria and a lower allergen sensitivity than their urban counterparts. This difference may give a biological edge to the rural-dwelling individuals when it comes to the prevalence of inflammatory diseases.

These findings put a whole new light on the importance of biodiversity in the environment on a global scale as well as from an individual perspective. Some experts warn that biodiversity decline is on a par with climate change in terms of its potential impacts.

As it stands now, species loss is up to 1,000 times that of the natural rate. With growing populations worldwide, this figure is likely to increase, along with the negative consequences it brings.

Growing warmth in the Arctic is of great concern due to the plethora of permafrost and methane in the region. The warming causes increased thawing of permafrost which has significant deposits of methane and carbon dioxide. Permafrost is essentially frozen soil which contains many layers of decayed carbon materials, such as plants. Permafrost can be very thick and contains carbon dating back many thousands of years. The thawing from increased temperatures causes the release of both carbon dioxide and methane.

Methane is a strong greenhouse gas, which is between 20 and 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide. The release of methane, along with the carbon dioxide, due to global warming will simply compound the issue of climate change. According to recent studies, permafrost could contribute 300 or more billion metric tons of carbon emissions by the year 2100.

Now a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience has determined methane trapped for thousands of years is now escaping from melting ice in the Arctic. The researchers were able to differentiate ancient versus more recent (or man-made) sources of methane using carbon isotope ratios. 150,000 methane leaks were found during ground and aerial surveys in Alaska and Greenland lakes. The Arctic holds a considerable level of methane as it is found within permafrost, in sea beds and within lakes such as those studied.

The researchers wrote: “If this relationship holds true for other regions where sedimentary basins are at present capped by permafrost, glaciers and ice sheets, such as northern West Siberia, rich in natural gas and partially underlain by thin permafrost predicted to degrade substantially by 2100, a very strong increase in methane carbon cycling will result, with potential implications for climate warming feedbacks.”

The researchers pointed to the potential impact the methane leaks could have on global warming. The increasing global temperatures could result in the melting and release of methane deposits which would then simply feed the warming more.

Water Crisis in the Making
According to the World Health Organization, 1.1 billion people across the globe have no access to treated water. This situation has resulted in 1.6 billion deaths annually from lack of access to safe water, of which 90 percent are children under five.

Even more sobering is the fact that this water crisis is projected to increase. Based on current data, over five billion people may face water shortages by 2025. The strain on surface water sources will rise due to the population changes as well as the impacts from global warming. Already this scenario has begun to play out as evidenced by the water shortages in Texas in 2011 due to drought.

Precious Water Sources
There are, of course, alternatives to energy. If not coal, then natural gas or clean energy sources can help fill the gaps. With water, there exists a vulnerability unlike anything the world has known on such a grand scale. Water, therefore, has the potential to become something of a liquid form of gold.

Adding to the stress on water systems is the pressure to upgrade and maintain existing facilities. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated in 2003 that up to $20 billion may be needed to keep up with the demand for water infrastructure.

This potential water crisis stresses the need to implement water recycling and water conservation at the industrial and energy levels in order to keep the demand in check. Never before has water conservation become so imperative. With the added risk of climate change and its effects, the situation has become more critical.

Businesses have made the move toward green practices to save money and garner increased public support. In the years ahead, it is likely to become a necessity rather than a public relations maneuver if the threat of water shortages is to be curtailed.

The earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan decimated the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The six reactors were subsequently put out of commission and the entire area, extending some twelve miles from the plant, is devoid of life due to measures to protect from radiation. Japan has 54 nuclear reactors and 53 were gradually shut down for maintenance, the 54th has recently been shut down leaving Japan with no nuclear energy.

Prior to the March 2011 disaster, thirty percent of Japan’s energy needs were met through nuclear energy. Now the last nuclear reactor being shut down ushers in a time of no nuclear energy, the first time Japan has been without such energy since 1970. Concerns are running high that the lack of nuclear energy will subsequently cause shortages and blackouts. Japan has increased their fossil fuel imports to counteract the lack of nuclear power.

All of the plants have been shut down in order to perform maintenance and ensure that they are able to withstand earthquakes and tsunamis. In addition, authorities in the region of each nuclear reactor are required to sign off on whether the plants can come back on line. Thus far, two reactors in the country have been determined to meet the safety requirements but the local government has not approved their use. The government is hoping the two reactors can be used to reduce shortage issues come summer.

Numerous protests have been held by citizens of Japan in order to push for ending the nuclear program altogether. It is thought that the government is considering ending the nuclear program but it is not yet known. The main hurdle at the moment is for the country to endure the summer months without major shortages and blackouts. It is thought that without major inconveniences such as these the country may in fact look towards ending their nuclear program.

As of mid-May none of Japan’s nuclear reactors have been brought back on line, with the pressure of citizen protests player a major role in the situation. However, the Prime Minister of Japan recently announced that the government is considering starting operations once more at Kansai Electric’s Ohi nuclear plant with two reactors. However, it is not yet a certainty.

In the meantime the Japanese government is requesting citizens to reduce their electricity use this summer in order to decrease the possibility of blackouts. In a request for the months July, August and September, citizens are asked to reduce usage by 15 percent or more. The reductions are not mandatory at this time, although the request is greatest in the larger industrialized and populated areas.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura stated: “The government will try hard to figure out how to implement the measures decided today so that the power savings will affect the economy and people’s livelihood as little as possible. But I would like to repeat here our appeal to the nation to save power this summer.”