Thirsty? You're Going to Pay

Greed Ascendant

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 ~ If water is not a human right, then what is?



(h/t Keithpp's blog)

Climate Change Flooding

Jakarta is Under Water

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 ~ "Analysts worry the flooding could affect economic investment."

Ya think?

Imagine

A Less Fracked World

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The Existential Angst of the Plastic Bag

Wind, Wave and Whimsy

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 ~ Our oceans swirl with tiny bits of plastic. The infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch, its North Atlantic cousin, and the rest of the 5 gyres contain vast uncalculated quantities of plastic debris that cannot be recovered, cannot be turned into islands, and cannot conceivably serve any good purpose.

Instead, that plastic enters the food chain and in time, we end up eating it. It's a simple thought exercise in sustainability. We don't poison our environment in isolation—we poison ourselves too.

On a related but more bittersweet note, enjoy this 10-minute short on the conflicted life of a plastic bag.

World Water Day

Billions Staying Thirsty

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 ~ World Water Day has been observed on March 22 since 1993. It's purpose is to draw attention to the importance of water to sustain life, and the critical need to maintain clean fresh water supplies.

Climate change threatens our fresh water supply by melting glaciers that provide summer water, by raising ocean levels that render fresh water saline, and by severe weather that disrupts the hydrological cycle, changing the historical availability of water.

Meanwhile, private interests seek to control access to water for profit, even as 10,000 children die every day from preventable water-borne diseases or lack of clean water. Access to water is a human right.

Read more about water.

Acid Redux

Oceans in Trouble

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 ~ The amount of carbon in the atmosphere is increasing and the ocean is becoming more acidic. It may be an "experiment" that the Earth has run before, but it's not the same this time.

The world’s oceans may be turning acidic faster today from human carbon emissions than they did during four major extinctions in the last 300 million years, when natural pulses of carbon sent global temperatures soaring, says a new study in Science. The study is the first of its kind to survey the geologic record for evidence of ocean acidification over this vast time period.

Climate Change Today

It's Lapping Ashore in Miami

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 ~ Apart from those that think climate change isn't happening, there are those that accept the evidence of it, but think it remains a distant problem that is secondary to more immediate concerns. If you live in any number of Pacific islands of course, you know the problem is serious and immediate.

It turns out the signs go beyond inundated islands, melting glaciers, loss of shellfish, disappearing arctic ice, dying coral reefs and other evidence that seems to some perhaps to be far enough removed from where we live in the US.

Today, Miami is seeing rising ocean levels on its city streets. At high tide, salt water seeps up from underground, flooding roads. The problem is not remote, but is growing, with the flood waters are getting higher and more frequent. Unchecked, the problem threatens not just the natural beauty of the area and environmental treasures like the Everglades, but also the Biscayne Aquifer which supplies nearly all of South Florida's water supply.

Feeding the World

It's Getting Harder To Do

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 ~ World population continues to grow exponentially, but, as Malthus observed, our food production is not keeping pace. Worse, feeding those alive today is getting harder:

• Some food crops (e.g. corn) are diverted for making fuels
• Fresh water supplies are dwindling or under threat
• Modern agriculture is heavily dependent on fossil fuel inputs for transportation and fertilizer
• Arable land is vanishing to development and to erosion

To produce enough food for everyone there will need to be many coordinated solutions. One partial solution would be to grow more plants in less space with fewer energy inputs. A new startup company spun out of WSU has technology that does exactly that.

Phytelligence makes smarter plants, or rather, has a smarter process for propagating them and boosting them through their earliest (plantlet) growth stage. It's not genetic engineering, or GMO, but rather the smart application of proprietary technology to grow vigorous and healthy plantlets in less time, at less cost, and with less water and energy.

The Company has already successfully propagated 4 of the top 5 fruits in the US as measured by crop value and by acres planted. There is enormous opportunity in other fruits, tree nuts, and other kinds of crops generally. The nursery business has seen little change in generations; Phytelligence is aiming to bring to the industry 21st Century technology, sustainability practices and logistics.

Come learn more about Phytelligence at the NWEN First Look Forum, this Tuesday, 3:00-5:00 at the Arctic Hotel in Seattle. Reception to follow.

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Update: Phytelligence finished in the top 5. Thanks to NWEN for a great event!

Climate Change Shellfish Impacts

Oysters Threatened

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~ I absolutely love to eat fresh oysters, as do many others; together we eat 700 million farm-raised oysters annually in the US.

So it is distressing to see the unfolding disaster in oyster farming. The fishery has been in decline for decades from various causes, including over-harvesting, disease and toxins. Partially in response, the modern industry now relies heavily on farming techniques, including the raising of oyster "seed" (actually larvae) used to plant oyster beds on both coasts.

Starting in 2007, a series of near-total die-offs started happening at oyster farms and at the hatcheries that supply the oyster seed.

And An Island Never Cries

Rising Sea Level Swallows Land

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~ Some continue to deny, against a flood of evidence, that ocean levels are rising. Such denial is easy if you dismiss reason and ignore your lying eyes. And that's what it takes when an entire island is swallowed by the sea:

A tiny island claimed for years by India and Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal has disappeared beneath the rising seas, scientists in India say.

The uninhabited territory south of the Hariabhanga river was known as New Moore Island to the Indians and South Talpatti Island to the Bangladeshis.

Recent satellites images show the whole island under water...

[snip]

"What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming," said Professor Sugata Hazra of the School of Oceanographic Studies at Jadavpur University in Calcutta.

Professor Hazra added that sea level rise in the Bay of Bengal  has accelerated over the past decade and the overtopping of other islands in the region in the next decade is likely. No one lives on these islands. Others are not so lucky.

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Reposted from my earlier blog of 4/2/10.

Gulf Filtering

Eco-Tec Adsorb-it Filtration Fabric

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~ Lost in the many depressing stories about the devastation of the Gulf of Mexico is one bright highlight: the use of a unique fabric product that had singular success in mopping up slicks before they could foul shorelines and wetlands.

Jerry Brownstein and Herb Pearse of Eco-Tec

The product line from local company Eco-Tec filters water, removing oil, oil sheen, oil-brorne contaminants and suspended solids.

The filtration fabric is made entirely from waste products, is at least somewhat resuable and can ultimately be burned as fuel after it is done cleaning the environment of noxious messes like that from the BP Deepwater Horizon fiasco.

One Year On

The Macondo BP Oil Spill

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~ This 3+ minute video is filled with images of the Gulf Coast and the effects of the Macondo BP Oil spill. (Sadly no embed available; click to go to Youtube):

The surprise comes right at the end. These pictures are current, not from a year ago. The Gulf has not recovered. (When) will it?

Arid Sea

Peak Water Approaches

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~ How does one of the most massive bodies of water in the world vanish?

In the case of the Aral Sea, with sickening speed. What was once the world's 4th largest freshwater lake now is just 10% of its former size.

The causes are several: misguided economic development that ends up destroying, not creating jobs and economic vitality. Unsustainable practices. Grasping behaviors suggesting this may be an early harbinger of water wars to come.

Yet another example of the tragedy of the commons. The practices that are destroying the Aral Sea are not dissimilar to those that are destroying the oceans. Or the mountains. Or our climate.

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This is a repost from the Hydrovolts blog of 4/6/10.

The Electric Leaf

An Energy Solution for the Developing World?

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~ Not the Nissan Leaf, but a device for artificial photosynthesis. Scientists at MIT report they have built an artificial leaf that creates electricity out of sunlight and water. A solar cell the size of a playing card could, in "bright" sunlight make enough electricity to power a developing world home using only a gallon of water. Said lead researcher Daniel Nocera:

A practical artificial leaf has been one of the Holy Grails of science for decades. We believe we have done it. The artificial leaf shows particular promise as an inexpensive source of electricity for homes of the poor in developing countries. Our goal is to make each home its own power station. One can envision villages in India and Africa not long from now purchasing an affordable basic power system based on this technology.

The device splits water into its constituent oxygen and hydrogen, which can then power a fuel cell.

S

~ The Difference One Letter Makes

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~ In France, someone tricked by an April Fool's prank is called a poisson d'Avril, an April fish. (The term "fish" to mean a fool can be found also around the Texas Hold'em table.) Drop one letter 'S' however, and the result is poison d'Avril, April poison. Seems very different! In our Congress these days, however, perhaps instead too scarily similar.

Yesterday, there was a report, later denied, that the Obama administration had signalled to Congressional Democrats that they needed to acquiesce to GOP demands to neuter the EPA, in order to reach agreement on a spending bill to keep the government operating. April Fool us! At issue is the EPA's implementation of the Clean Air Act, stemming from the directive by the US Supreme Court that the EPA must regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as pollutants. The lust by the GOP and fossil Democrats to condone and excuse carbon pollution has now metastasized into a broader assault on the EPA and a pitchforks-and-torches effort to gut the Act beyond just carbon regulation. (That the EPA was proposed and created by famed liberal bleeding heart Richard Nixon, and that he also signed the Clean Air Act, just goes to show how every GOP member of Congress is now politically farther to the right than Nixon. Considering how Ronald Reagan raised taxes—many times!—also shows how they are all farther to the right of him too. In what sense can any Republican now be considered "centrist"?)

UW EIC Winners

3rd Annual Competition Best Yet

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~ It was a great afternoon at the Seattle Center Exhibit Hall for the culmination of the University of Washington's Environmental Innovation Challenge. 17 teams made it to the finals and were scored on their 1-page executive summary, a 2-minute stand-up pitch, the caliber of their exhibit hall demo, and the judges' assessment of the potential impact of their idea.

The first prize winner was Voltaic, maker of modular components for electric vehicle drivetrains, including motor, transmission, braking, and power electronics. The team installed their prototype in a Honda Accord donated from Burien Honda and showed how they could both power the car and brake it by running the motors backwards. Regrettably, we couldn't take it for a real test drive, but I'd sure like to see it out on the track to see what it can really do.

5 Gyres

Surveying Oceans of Plastic

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~ The first scientific survey of the accrued plastic pollution in the five gyres of the oceans is nearing completion. Researchers from the 5 Gyres Institute are on their way to the last of the five: the South Pacific Gyre.

The crew will sail over 2,000 miles from Valdivia, Chile, zig-zagging through the South Pacific Gyre, to arrive at Easter Island on April 7th, and onward to Tahiti on May 10th. Little data on plastic in this region exists, but the researchers expect to find the same kind of plastic pollution--known to harm marine life, to be a navigational hazard, and to possibly threaten human health—that they have found in every sample of the sea surface they’ve taken while sailing 20,000 miles through gyres in the North Pacific, North Atlantic, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

It's a big problem. Floating plastic debris in the other gyres each reportedly cover an area the size of Texas. The debris is mostly tiny, the result of degradation by water and sunlight, but is readily ingested by sea life, which mistake it for food.

Hydrovolts Wins ImagineH2O Contest

Turning Water Into Opportunity

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~ Yesterday Hydrovolts took first place and the 2010 Water Energy-Nexus Prize. The company wins $20,000 and a package of professional services. Awesome!

It's great validation for the concept of distributed microscale hydropower from flowing water. Hydrovolts has identified a diverse collection of market segments each of which could provide real opportunity to fulfill a great need. Several have global scope, and sales could be pretty robust if the company can get a decent product to market before its competitors do.

Some good press on the competition in the past; there should be some more in the coming days.

Renewable Promise

What Percentage of Generation Can Be Renewable?

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Scotland could be run entirely on renewable energy by 2030 according to a report by the Scotland branches of WWF and Friends of the Earth. The country has already reached its aggressive target of 27%, plans to hit 31% by next year and 80% by 2020. It has the most ambitious renewable energy targets of any country in the world.

Lionfish... Yum

Invasive Species Threatens Atlantic, Caribbean

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No one is quite sure how they arrived, but the Pacific Lionfish can now be found in the Bahamas and along the coast from Florida to the Carolinas. Sightings range even more widely. What were scattered sightings in the early 1990s are now confirmed and multiplying populations as these voracious carnivores devour local reef fish. Because the prey population is much larger in the Pacific there is great concern that the Atlantic reef population will not withstand the interlopers.

The solution? Turns out lionfish are rather tasty: