MoJo Blog Posts: blue marble

Elephant Liberation: Step One

By Julia Whitty — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:10:37 -0800

The BBC reports the Central Zoo Authority in India has confirmed that zoos and circuses in the country will no longer be allowed to keep elephants.

That is good news. According to the BBC:

A spokesman for the authority said a binding directive had been issued by the authority for the animals to be sent to national parks and sanctuaries. It is estimated that there are about 140 elephants in zoos and circuses… The CZA says circus and zoo elephants can play an important eco-tourism role in national parks and animal sanctuaries, where they can be properly supervised by mahouts—or elephant handlers.

This doesn't free working elephants but it does promise to liberate those in cages or under the big top. I trust these transitions from captivity to pseudofreedom will be made as humanely and elephantely as possible.

Greenland Melting Faster

By Julia Whitty — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:32:05 -0800

Just in time for Copenhagen, here's another shot of data to bust the policy clots preventing a meaningful agreement. According to a new study in Science, the Greenland ice sheet is loosing mass at an accelerating rate. The reason is twofold:

First, from increased iceberg production driven by acceleration of Greenland’s fast-flowing outlet glaciers. (I've blogged on the mechanisms of this several times.)
Second, from increased meltwater production on the ice sheet surface. (I've blogged on this mechanism too.)

The Greenland ice sheet contains enough water to cause a global sea level rise of 23 feet. Since 2000 it's added to a global sea level rise of ~0.02 inch a year, for 0.2 inch total.

Recent warm summers between 2006 and 2008 accelerated the loss, adding 0.03 inches to the global sea level rise a year.

Jonathan Bamber, an author on the paper, told the U of Bristol:

"It is clear from these results that mass loss from Greenland has been accelerating since the late 1990s and the underlying causes suggest this trend is likely to continue in the near future."

Now combine the Greenland meltwater with melting elsewhere in the Arctic and, increasingly, the Antarctic, plus thermal expansion of the warming ocean... combine with my blog from yesterday—about Europe freezing over in the span of a few months the last time the Northern Hemisphere saw a vast dump of freshwater into the Arctic and North Atlantic—and, well, it could get Biblical on us.

News From TreeHugger: White House Food Policy, Climate Fasting & Malaria-Proof Wallpaper

By Matthew McDermott of TreeHugger — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:00:41 -0800

Editor's Note: A weekly roundup from our friends over at TreeHugger. Enjoy!

7 Highlights (and a Few Lowlights) in Food Since President Obama Was Elected

Just about one year ago, Barack Obama was elected to be the 44th President of the United States. Proclaiming change across the board, Obama swept in to office on a wave of hope and optimism for millions of people, and his mandate for change created some pretty high expectations for fast, meaningful change. Those passionate about food, food safety, and the politics of safe and sustainable food production were certainly among those counting on the President to put his presidency where his promise had been. A year later, this is where we're at.

Will the Climate Bill Grant Obama the Powers of Dictator?

No, no, it won't. I wish this could be a one-word post, but unfortunately, I think I'll have to do some explaining. You see, in one of the odder charges against the now-bipartisan climate bill, Senator David Vitter (R-LA) has taken to saying that it will arm Obama with the powers of a dictator. This, of course, is not the case, but that never stopped these bizarre mutterings from developing into full-fledged talking points.

IEA Whistleblowers Say World Oils Stats Deliberately Inflated to Avoid Financial Panic, Appease the US

World oil reserves are far lower than officially reported, the situation far more serious than publicly admitted, and we're already past peak oil. That's the word from two anonymous IEA whistleblowers. To add insult to industry, the figures were deliberately massaged, at least in part, to appease the United States. Somehow this all seems painfully expected.

Will "Green Religion" Save Us or Sink Us?

To me environmentalism is anything but a matter of faith, but rather a question of sound scientific understanding that material resources. And since the Earth's ability to support life is limited it's in our own self interest to live within our planetary means. But it proves how much attention I've been paying to headlines as a UK court has determined that belief in global warming is indeed akin to a religious or philosophical conviction. Depending on who you talk to, this could either be good for environmentalism, or very, very bad indeed.

Pesticide-Soaked 'Wallpaper' Cuts Malaria Exposure, Safer Than Spraying

To lower mosquito exposure in malaria-prone places there are two basic pesticide use strategies. The half-century old approach is to spray entire towns, as well as the surrounding countryside, with a pesticide such as DDT or pyrethrin. Now comes news of promising results from field trials of carbamate-impregnated polypropylene, non-woven fabric or "sheeting" as it is being called. We're not talking Ralph Lauren wallpaper over drywall...

Climate Justice Fast Begins - Hunger Strike Continues Through End of COP15 Conference

Calling it a "moral response to an immoral situation" and drawing inspiration from social justice luminaries like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., the organizers of Climate Justice Fast, and a growing list of 150+ supporters from around the world, have begun a hunger strike to last through the end of the COP15 climate change conference on December 18th. Fasters will subsist on water alone for more than 40 days.

Ice Age Froze Europe In Months

By Julia Whitty — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:58:51 -0800

Freako-frakkin-nomics notwithstanding, climate change is a thing of violent swiftness. New research indicates it took only months for Europe to freeze solid 12,800 years ago.

The most precise analysis yet of the onset of the "Big Freeze" reveals that Europe froze not in a decade—as previously thought from analysis of Greenland ice cores—but in less than 12 months.

The Big Freeze was triggered by the slowdown of the Gulf Stream. It terminated the Clovis culture, the dominant culture in North America at the time. Once triggered, the cold persisted for 1,300 years.

New Scientist reports on the research of William Patterson of the U of Saskatchewan whose group studied a mud core from ancient Lough Monreagh in Ireland, slicing layers 0.5 to 1 millimeter thick to study three-month intervals. No prior measurements from this period have approached such fine detail.

Turns out, at the start of the Big Freeze temperatures plummeted and lake productivity ceased within months or a year at most. Patterson presented the findings at the BOREAS conference in Finland. According to him (via New Scientist):

"It would be like taking Ireland today and moving it up to Svalbard."

We know the Big Freeze was triggered when a glacial lake covering most of northwest Canada burst its banks and poured into the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, diluting oceanic salinity (I wrote of fears of this in MoJo's The Fate of the Ocean) and rerouting the oceanic currents that deliver climate to the Northern Hemisphere:

Two studies published in 2006 show that the same thing happened again 8,200 years ago, when the Northern hemisphere went through another cold spell. Some climate scientists have suggested that the Greenland ice sheet could have the same effect if it suddenly melts through climate change, but the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded this was unlikely to happen this century.

Well, that's out of date. We already know Greenland is turning to slush frighteningly fast.

Patterson's team have now set their sights on even more precise records of historical climate. They have built a robot able to shave 0.05 micrometer slivers along the growth lines of fossilized clam shells, giving a resolution of less than a day. "We can get you mid-July temperatures from 400 million years ago," he says.

Hey, Barack Obama, you know, The Day After Tomorrow could happen after all. On your watch. One season all balmy in the Northern Hemisphere. The next a frozen hell. Sure you don't want to go to Copenhagen before the glaciers block your route?

Your DNA = $$$

By Andy Kroll — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:40:40 -0800

It's been a great couple years for the personal genomics company 23andMe: an Oprah appearance, a Invention of the Year accolade from Time magazine. But despite all the good press, last month the news turned sour: it was confirmed that 23andMe had laid off employees due to the economic downturn. "This was a very difficult decision," a company statement read, "but one that we felt was necessary to achieve 23andMe's long-term business development goals and maintain our strength in the industry."

Which begs the question: What exactly are those "long-term business development goals" for 23andMe, and indeed for the nascent personal genomics industry as a whole?

The genomics companies claim their goal to help us live longer, better lives; to understand what diseases we're predisposed to; and to better prepare for the future. But as Shannon Brownlee, author of the award-winning book Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer, writes in the November/December print issue of Mother Jones, this selling point isn't what these companies are actually after. What they really want is your genetic data for large-scale research; in their hands, that data can be sold to researchers and Big Pharma to develop new medications—and for much more than peddling personal tests. "We are the broker," 23andMe cofounder Linda Avey tells Brownlee. "We make the connection between [the drug firms] and the individuals."

Consumers can plunk down as much as $68,500 on one of these tests. But as Brownlee points out, in many instances the data they get back isn't even all that useful—or accurate. The personal genomics field is still in its infancy; even 23andMe mentions in its genetic reports that its findings shouldn't be used by doctors for prescriptions. Actual, useful data is years, even decades away, she writes, though that won't stop these services from cashing in on your DNA in the meantime.

Diagnosing Health Care's Carbon Footprint

By Julia Whitty — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:44:11 -0800

Ever wonder how much of the American carbon footprint is caused by the American health care system? In a research letter published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, U of Chicago researchers estimate for the first time. The result: a surprising 8 percent, or nearly a tenth of the country’s bindmogglingly fat CO2 emissions.

Interestingly, health care accounts for 16 percent of US gross domestic product. So are health care costs way out of whack? Or is the health care business unusually light on the C02?

Not hard to guess that one.

The biggest wastrel? Hospitals, with their high energy demands for temperature control, ventilation, and lighting.

Second biggest wastrel? The pharmaceutical industry, with its high energy costs of manufacturing and researching drugs, combined with high transportation costs for drug distribution.

Fixes? The authors suggest that hospitals create recycling programs (they don't have those already?) and buy goods and services from environmentally friendly suppliers.

As an example, the U of Chicago Medical Center's sustainability program created a plastic recycling program diverting more than 500 pounds of waste a day from landfills and mandating that 90 percent of cleaning supplies have Green Seal certification. These measures reduced waste costs from $55,000 to $35,000 a month. Apparently green is good for the medical greenback.

The Brits are assessing their health care footprint too. James Black blogging at Health and Environment says that Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) is Europe’s largest public sector contributor of CO2 emissions and accounts for a quarter of the UK’s total carbon footprint. He suggests this triage:

The average face to face staff meeting costs the NHS $415, and 82% of those attending meetings typically claim around $67 each in expenses. One meeting costs the Earth an average of 47kg of CO2. The NHS estimates that if just half of its management and frontline staff were to use video conferencing, 219,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions could be saved every year.

(Not that technological cures are carbonless.)

Jeannette Chung, lead author of the JAMA research letter, diagnoses the American system when she says:

"In this country, the primary focus is on issues surrounding patient safety, health care quality, and cost containment at this current point in time. The health care sector, in general, may be a bit slower than other sectors to put this [emissions] on their radar screen. But given the focus on health care policy and environmental policy, it might be interesting—if not wise—to start accounting for environmental externalities in health care.

Rx: Get wise. Fast.

Also, play more, get healthier.

Plastic Water Bottles as Art

By Ben Buchwalter — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:46:32 -0800

Turns out plastic bottles—like the ones Fiji Water comes in—are good for something after all: art. Earlier this year, environmental activist David de Rothschild set sail with a crew of six to steer a boat made entirely of used plastic bottles around the world. Meanwhile, back in the US, artist Ellen Driscoll constructed a miniature landscape made entirely of 2,600 #2 plastic bottles. According to Driscoll, the project, titled "FastForwardFossil: Part 2" is "a ghostly translucent visual fugue in which a nineteenth century trestle bridge plays host to an eighteenth century water-powered mill which spills a twenty-first century flood from its structure." The exhibit closed this week at the Smack Mellon Gallery in Brooklyn, but photos are online here. And click through to see more below the jump.

Loch Ness Golf Balls

By Kiera Butler — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:12:07 -0800

Whimsical: A group of Scottish scientists recently went looking for the Loch Ness monster. Not-so-whimsical: They found no trace of Nessie. Instead they found evidence of...old people. In the form of golf balls. Thousands of them. The balls came from a nearby driving range popular among tourists.

So clearly this is fodder for another, even sadder, verse of "Puff, the Magic Dragon" about Jackie Paper's insipid golden years. But if the coming-of-age overtones alone aren't depressing enough for you, consider this: According to CNN, the 300 million golf balls that are lost or discarded every year in the US will take up to 1,000 years to decompose. During that time, they can contaminate surrounding ecosystems with heavy metals:

It was found that during decomposition, the golf balls dissolved to release a high quantity of heavy metals. Dangerous levels of zinc were found in the synthetic rubber filling used in solid core golf balls. When submerged in water, the zinc attached itself to the ground sediment and poisoned the surrounding flora and fauna.

And friendly water monsters, too, no doubt. Maudlin!

Cute Animal in Danger: Bonneted Bat

By Jen Phillips — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:00:00 -0800

The Florida bonneted bat (Eumops Floridanus) is one of 249 species which are candidates for federal protection under the Endangered Species Act. Since taking office this year, President Obama has only listed one new species (a Hawaiian plant) as endangered, and is scheduled to list another species in December. In contrast, noted conservation foe George W. Bush listed an average of 8 species a year, and Bill Clinton listed an average of 65 species a year. The Florida bonneted bat is currently being reviewed for protection, but it really can't come fast enough. There are only an estimated 100 individuals left.

The Florida bonneted bat lives only in Florida, and is one of the largest bats in North America, with a wingspan of more than a foot and a half. While its wings are large, the bat's body is about the size of a sparrow's: three to four inches long and weighing only one to two ounces. The bat has been spotted in North Fort Myers and in near Miami, roosting in barrel-tile roofs or in the hollow trunks of trees. One of the largest known colonies of the Florida bonneted bat lives in a suburban backyard, first in a single-celled, and now in an upgraded three-chamber bat house built by the Organization for Bat Conservation. The bat house now has more than a dozen bats living in it, including an albino bat born around 2003.

While some Floridians are making a concerted effort to save the bat, its populations have been compromised by pesticide use, which poisons the insects that are the bat's main food source. In addition, habitat loss continues to be an issue. The bats prefer large, old trees with deep cavities for roosting and rearing young. But many of these trees are removed for various development projects, like one with eight bats in it that was removed back in 1979. Twenty-four species have gone extinct waiting to be listed as endangered. Hopefully, now that it's actually under review, the Florida bonneted bat won't be among them.

Eco-News Roundup: Tuesday November 10

By Jen Phillips — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:05:00 -0800

Conserving Power: Kevin Drum muses on why conservatives obsess about nukes.

Late Night: House finally passes healthcare bill, but with last-minute abortion amendment.

Fiscal Health: Abortion amendment is bad for women, costly for all of us.

Dems Sign Off: Sixty-four Democrats vote for healthcare bill, with Stupak amendment. [American Prospect]

Cap and Fade: Healthcare squabble may forever doom a Pelosi cap-and-trade push.

Overcompensating: GOP leaders say problem is we all have too much health insurance.

Too Slow: Obama slower than Bush on saving endangered species. [MongaBay]

Penn's Pick: Senate confirms controversial mining head from Pennsylvania.

Green Divide: Majority of green groups support climate bill but a few still holding out.

Friend or Foe: Soldiers in Iraq say contractors exposed them to dangerous chemicals. [Nashville Post]

Water Win: California approves several water bills that might overhaul system.

GOPcare: Republican healthcare plan is cheaper because it leaves people out.

Bad Advice: Bonner and Associates gets fired by its ethical adviser for climate letter scam.