Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn Designated Superfund Status
For over a hundred years, the Gowanus Canal was used as a dumping ground for a host of refining and manufacturing companies. It is now one of the most polluted waterways in the U.S., with high concentrations of heavy metals and PCBs in the sediment. Though the Bloomberg administration was seeking to avoid a Superfund designation (believing that it could manage a faster cleanup without the Superfund stigma), the EPA will now begin the cleanup process, expected to take 10-12 years.
Are Methane Emissions from the Arctic Becoming a Big Problem?
There is some worrisome news coming out of the Arctic, where a recent study in Science has found that methane is bubbling up from deposits in the seafloor. Methane, 25 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, could amplify global warming as deposits located in the arctic permafrost and on the sea floor become more active. However, the short-lived nature of methane (compared to CO2) may make methane less worrisome than some think. Unfortunately the jury is still out.
The G.O.P.’s Green Rogue – Senator Lindsey Graham
Senator Lindsey Graham has been one of the sole Republican members of congress that has been actively pushing for domestic climate change legislation. In case you missed it, Tom Friedman’s column on how Senator Graham frames his push for a price on carbon emissions is well worth a read.
A Polar Bear Jawbone Provides Clues to the Species Evolution
It turns out that polar bear split from brown bears only 150,000 years ago. DNA evidence from a 130,000 year old jaw bone provides evidence that polar bears have been through warming periods before, giving hope that they would be able to adapt to rapidly warming temperatures in the arctic.
When I was younger I remember feeling the Loma Prieta quake while at an after-school program, and then upon returning home, heading next door to see my neighbor’s swimming pool still thrashing about. It was a peculiar sight.
(Photo: Creative Corps / Flickr)
That sense of peculiarity has returned to me these last couple months. First the earthquake in Haiti occurring a little less than a year after I was in the country assisting with a post disaster environmental assessment. And now the earthquake in Chile. Concepcion, Chile, the second largest city in the country that has sustained some of the most horrific damage, was my home for the better part of five months a number of years ago. The epicenter of the quake itself was disturbingly close to a remote stretch of coastline where my friends and I would retreat to camp and surf.
Both of these earthquakes are reminders that Earth is not a static place, but a changing and at times violent one. Some of those changes are gradual, and other times, as we have observed, they are sudden and severe. Both Haiti and Chile offer two examples of the latter case. Continue reading Catastrophe in Chile vs. Haiti and the Built Environment
Stay smart America, science is good for you! While we try and avoid overly political content, this brief summary of the distinction between regional weather and global climate trends is worth it. In this video, President Obama offers a very easy to understand interpretation of some fundamental aspects of the science behind climate change and global warming. It is a response to the claim by global warming deniers that the recent cold spell and snowstorms on the east coast debunk the overwhelming evidence that the globe is indeed warming and that yes, climate is changing with it. Take a peek:
In my recent road trippin’ post, I left off en route to Santa Barbara. I spent a little more than six years of my life living in Santa Barbara and every time I have returned since leaving there in early summer 2007, I wrestle with the gravity of my decision to go. Nestled between the mountains and the sea, Santa Barbara is often called the “California Riviera.”
Fortunately enough, not all my ties to this place have been severed, and I am lucky enough to call on great friends who are still there whenever I am passing through. This time around they had wonderful things in store for us once we arrived.
Santa Barbara is host to an International Film Festival, and luckily for us we were passing through in the middle of it. Of even greater serendipity, however, was that our first night also happened to be the global premier of a new film by my favorite surf filmmaker, Chris Malloy. The film, 180° SOUTH: Conquerors of the Useless, retraces the 1968 journey of Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins, the respective founders of Patagonia and the North Face Clothing Company, to a remote climb in southern Patagonia. The adventure changes the lives of the two men forever, and plants the seedlings for what would later become one of the greatest conservation efforts in South America. Chris Malloy uses Chouinard and Tompkin’s experience as a springboard for a present day journey to the same destination, and to convey the power of discovery, adventure, and ultimately conservation and the impact we have on the special places of the world.
China Reveals Extensive Pollution Survey
China recently released a comprehensive new pollution survey, which took two years and 570,000 staff to complete, and puts China ahead of other developing countries in having a detailed map of who is polluting and where. Government officials speculated that the detailed census suggests that pollution may peak sooner rather than later. Read the story here.
Asian Carp Threatens Lake Michigan
Introduced in the southern United States more than three decades ago, the Asian Carp is an invasive species that can consume up to 40% of its body mass per day. This strain on the food chain can be devastating for an ecosystem, and state and federal officials are watching closely as the fish make their way toward Lake Michigan.
UCLA Develops Synthetic ‘Gene’ Designed to Capture CO2 Emissions
UCLA chemists report creating a synthetic “gene” that could capture heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions, which contribute to global warming, rising sea levels and the increased acidity of oceans. Read a review of the research in Science Daily.
Another Look at Packaging and Food Waste
While we don’t always agree with what the freakanomics guys are doing, we found this article on packaging waste to be thought provoking.
Indonesia to Tackle Climate Change on its Own
Indonesia’s leading climate change advisor said he thinks global consensus on climate change cannot be reached, but hinted at a national strategy currently underway that would allow Indonesia to move forward on tackling the effects of environmental degradation without waiting for another round of international negotiations.
Everything always looks a bit brighter after it rains
This past week my girlfriend and I headed south through California to enjoy a little retreat together before an extended time apart. It is a drive I have done countless times, but it is considerably more enjoyable with company. We started off in Davis, and drove all the way south to San Diego, with plans to head back north through Los Angeles and then Santa Barbara on our way home toward San Francisco, and for Lisa, then off to Cambodia.
This past summer we made a similar drive down I-5 but were met with very different views. January and February have been wet months in California and instead of wide blue skies we were met with gray ones. In September 2009 water was on a lot of people’s minds in California, and none more so than the farmers of Central California. The state’s three yearlong drought (with a fourth on the way) had been especially hard on the Central Valley’s agricultural heartland, and there were dusty reminders of those troubles everywhere you looked (see a previous post on California’s drought and water woes). Continue reading A Drive Through Water, Weather, and Erosion in Southern California
President Obama discussing clean energy during the state of the union. Source: whitehouse.gov
Going into his first State of the Union address to Congress, I was curious to see if Obama would scale back initiatives that he has placed at the center of his agenda in the face of the US’ fiscal problems. I wanted to highlight and provide commentary of his points relevant to Project Groundswell – namely energy, climate change, and transportation.
Obama’s words are in italics. My comments are in plain text. His first mention has to do with infrastructure and transportation:
Next, we can put Americans to work today building the infrastructure of tomorrow. From the first railroads to the Interstate Highway System, our nation has always been built to compete. There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains, or the new factories that manufacture clean energy products.
For anyone who has travelled in Europe or East Asia, the convenience of high-speed rail is without question. The US has eschewed rail as a viable form of transportation (except the northeast corridor) in favor of automobile and air travel. Rail travel has numerous benefits including: comfort, direct access to the center of cities, less of a hassle compared with air travel (security checkpoints, baggage claim), not to mention the environmental benefits. Those that argue that investing in rail travel will involve massive government subsidies fail to mention that air travel and roadways receive massive subsidies.
Tomorrow, I’ll visit Tampa, Florida, where workers will soon break ground on a new high-speed railroad funded by the Recovery Act. There are projects like that all across this country that will create jobs and help move our nation’s goods, services, and information.
The Florida high speed rail network is a start (watch Obama and Biden in Florida announcing this yesterday)– however the fact that high speed rail is such a miniscule part of our national transportation system is unlikely to change very rapidly in the near future. The California high-speed rail plan, linking Sacramento, San Francisco/San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego is expected to cost upwards of $40 billion and take decades to build. This initiative was just awarded $2.25 billion in stimulus funds, out of a total of $8 billion just announced.I support these efforts, and wish that larger, more concrete plans were underway nationwide.
The recent earthquake in Haiti has highlighted a whole host of issues related to development, poverty, the environment, and security. Countries in which natural resources are mismanaged, degraded, or heavily exploited are more susceptible to the devastation brought on by environmental change, and when extreme events and conflicts do occur, these countries are far less likely to effectively respond to the crisis.
Even before the earthquake in Haiti, decades and indeed centuries of deforestation left the country with declining agricultural yields, heavy erosion, and few natural buffers to limit the possibility of landslides, flooding, and subsequent structural failures during the onslaught of seasonal tropical storms and hurricanes. The destruction brought about during the recent earthquake and the 2008 hurricane season illustrated this fact in painfully clear terms.
In this regard, Haiti is not unlike a great deal of other countries in the developing world. While it is an extreme case, it is not a unique one, and increasingly the security community is drawing the linkages between the role natural resources, and now climate change, play in fueling instability and even worse, armed conflict. Continue reading The New Security Climate: Environmental Vulnerability
The following short video from worldfocus was published in February, 2009, but is as relevant today as ever. Prioritizing ecological restoration and supporting environmentally sound infrastructure and development projects will be critical if the country’s long term recovery efforts are to reduce vulnerability to natural disasters such as the earthquake on January 12, 2009, or the hurricanes and tropical storms of August-September 2008.
The following photos were taken during a March 2009 field assignment in Haiti. The purpose of that trip was to conduct a post-disaster environmental needs assessment following the 2008 hurricane season. This gallery offers some images of what Port-au-Prince looked like at that time, and provides a visual context for the sort of building construction and materials that made the city so vulnerable to the January 12 earthquake. It also offers a brief look at some of the environmental challenges facing Haiti. Now more than ever, Haiti will need help to reverse many of these trends as it starts the long process of rebuilding. It will be one of the most significant environmental recovery efforts ever launched.
Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn Designated Superfund Status
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