Category: Environment

Nice to see a shred of environmental good news amidst the morass of disasters both man-made and natural: According to a study in the Journal of Geophysical Research, the Ozone layer has stopped shrinking, thanks to 20 years of international efforts to reduce CFCs, proving that attention and cooperation can make a difference. But don’t get too excited — we’re not out of the woods just yet:

“Chemicals pumped into Earth’s atmosphere decades ago still are affecting ozone levels today,” said Sherwood Roland of the University of California Irvine. “This problem was a long time in the making, and because of the persistence of these chlorine compounds, there is no short-term fix.” The ozone layer remains so thin that cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation is still getting through.

Still, it’s progress.

Thanks Jim

Quit complaining, Yankee. The Dutch are paying the equivalent of $6.48/gallon for petrol. On the other hand, Venezuelans are practically paid to haul it away — they pay a mere $0.12/gallon. Accounting for the disparity is government policy — from huge taxes to extreme subsidies. Wonder which country on the list comes closest to actual free-market prices.

Speaking of methane, the UK Guardian reports frightening data on the thawing of Siberia.

The area, which covers the entire sub-Arctic region of western Siberia, is the world’s largest frozen peat bog and scientists fear that as it thaws, it will release billions of tonnes of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere.

The thaw may represent a “tipping point” of global warming both because of its scale and because of its role as part of a vicious cycle. The thawing is “undoubtedly” caused by human-driven global warming. But once triggered, the thawing itself spawns further warming.

“When you start messing around with these natural systems, you can end up in situations where it’s unstoppable. There are no brakes you can apply,” said David Viner, a senior scientist at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

So while humans take warming risks by scrambling to mine methane for energy from the briny depths, nature’s methane stock may release itself uncontrollably… as a result of other human energy production activities. A spiral reactor.

Via Weblogsky

Looks like the next big energy growth industry is in extracting methane hydrates from oceanic deposits. “Scientists reckon there could be more valuable carbon fuel stored in the vast methane hydrate deposits scattered under the world’s seabed and Arctic permafrost than in all of the known reserves of coal, oil and gas put together.” That is, if you don’t mind the slight downsides:

“There are legitimate concerns that attempts to tap into these reserves could cause very widespread destabilisation of the seabed and damage to ecosystems,” he said. Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, he said, and any released during production would make global warming worse.

Humans, please leave this stuff in the ocean. Fuels that increase global warming should not even be under consideration right now. Bushco, if you want to ban a science, leave stem cell research alone and ban extraction of methane hydrates instead.

Geodog on how the Prius has become the new Volvo, and the danger to bicyclists and pedestrians of having a lot of silent cars on the road (owners say the car is “stealth mode” when runnning on battery power):

With the Prius, you don’t get any warning — the car literally sneaks up on you. After nearly being run over several times in the last month, and again this night on the way back from the Berkeley Cybersalon, I did a little research and turned up quite a few mentions of this problem, the scariest from a blind person’s perspective … the Toyota engineers need to find a way to make the car nosier, even if it involves something as silly as recordings of internal combustion engine noises that the car plays through an external speaker when the car is in battery mode.

While I’ve certainly noticed the local upwelling of Pria (is that a legitimate pluralization? probably not), I personally haven’t had close calls with them. But then I haven’t been biking as much lately due to knee problems. I think the problem is offset by the fact that the kind of person who buys a Prius is likely to be a more considerate driver to begin with. I have a lot more close calls with drivers of SUVs, and with people talking on cell phones (regardless the model of car). Remember too that all cars have become much more quiet in the past decade — it’s gotten to the point that a vehicle from the 1970s seems loud in contrast.

Washington Post:

Unborn babies in the United States are soaking in a stew of chemicals, including mercury, gasoline byproducts and pesticides … The report, by the Environmental Working Group, is based on tests of 10 samples of umbilical-cord blood taken by the American Red Cross. They found an average of 287 contaminants in the blood, including mercury, fire retardants, pesticides and the Teflon chemical PFOA.

Of course if all that goo is in the cord blood, it has to be in the mother as well…