The Recovery Scenario is more than just wishful thinking. Rather,
it's an irrational, optimistic belief in fundamental human
sanity.
The trend lines, for those who are paying attention, are quite
bleak. But the ApocoDocs remember that Lake Erie was declared
dead from pollution back in the 70s, yet managed to recover. So
we have hope that we haven't tipped past the tipping point in the
natural world, and that humankind can wake up and repair the
damage we've done. Or, if we have indeed passed some tipping point,
we can move quickly enough to mitigate the impending harm.
Recovery will require sacrifice. This will be difficult for the
generations spoiled by the last fifty years of cheap energy,
bountiful resources, and seemingly limitless capacity for
economic growth. Like a spoiled boy stomping his little foot,
they will believe that they have the natural right to commute
alone in SUVs, the right to convenience at the expense of nature,
the right to dispose of anything they no longer want, the right
to eat fresh fruit in January. Perhaps like that spoiled boy, we
can grow up, and realize that there are limits.
Recovery will require a societal awakening. We need to become
disgusted with ourselves, and embarrassed by what we've done. We
must identify the polluters, and demand they stop -- recognizing
that consumer prices will rise. We will need to find social
systems and economic rewards to motivating right action, and
disregard namecalling regarding "tree huggers" and
"eco-nazis." We must
recognize that occasional terrorist outbreaks are nothing
compared to the terror of environmental collapse.
Recovery will require political action. Small farms should get
more tax benefits than factory farms, penalties for waste must be
devised, carbon taxes must continue to be developed. Mostly, it
will require a common vision that extends beyond the next
political cycle.
Recovery will require scientific action. We must listen to
experts, even if it hurts. It will require encouraging engineers
to develop small-scale and large-scale solutions. It will require
the wealthy world to provide affordable options to the poor
world, so they don't repeat our mistakes.
Above all, recovery will require recognition -- that we all face
up to what we've done, what we're doing, and what will happen if
we don't change. This may be the most difficult task ahead of us.
We are hypothesizing, over the next ten years, the following
scenario:
- Leaders are elected who are willing to risk their offices to
save humanity.
- Small-scale farming, even backyard gardening, is encouraged by
tax benefits and small-business loans
- Small-scale energy options -- backyard wind and solar power --
are similarly encouraged
- The EPA is given power to meaningfully penalize toxic
effluviant
- Genetically modified crops are labeled as such
- Over five years, federal gasoline taxes rise to $5/gallon, to
be used for environmental reparations
- Telecommuting replaces commuting for most white-collar jobs
- Internet/cellphone systems are developed to allow share-a-ride,
bring-the-groceries, and other means of making any drive serve
multiple purposes
- Intense efforts are initiated, regardless of the cost, to scrub
CO2
from coal-fired plants
- An increase in vegetarian diets decreases the demand for beef
- Rainforest logging is stopped worldwide, via support from the
developed nations
- Local, community-based systems for sharing large tools,
tillers, canoes, and more, decreases idle consumption
- Recycling increases, but more importantly, biodegradable
materials are used at the consumer level: no more plastic sacks,
no more plastic plates, no more plastic cups
- A toxin tax is developed, to build the "true cost" of poisoning
the world into the economy
- Public health systems worldwide integrate to recognize and
respond to viral and bacterial outbreaks
- We acknowledge that we have to pay, for the next fifty years,
for the environmental and economic debt accumulated during the
wild party of the last fifty years.
If we can make these, and other changes, then we can help repair
the world. The enemies of recovery are those who have a vested
interest in maintaining the current, wasteful, toxic,
unsustainable system. These enemies have trillions of dollars of
investment in that system, and will struggle mightily -- as they
did on climate warming for the last thirty years -- to confuse
the issue, ridicule the opposition, lobby state and federal
politicians, and avoid responsibility.
We must not let them.
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| Recent Recovery News |
Better Wind Turbines
ExRo Technologies, a startup based in Vancouver, BC, has developed a new kind of generator that's well suited to harvesting energy from wind. It could lower the cost of wind turbines while increasing their power output by 50 percent.
The new generator runs efficiently over a wider range of conditions than conventional generators do.... ExRo's new design replaces a mechanical transmission with what amounts to an electronic one. That increases the range of wind speeds at which it can operate efficiently and makes it more responsive to sudden gusts and lulls.
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Pitt researchers use fluorescence to develop method for detecting mercury in fish
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have developed a simple and quick method for detecting mercury in fish and dental samples, two substances at the center of public concern about mercury contamination. The technique involves a fluorescent substance that glows bright green when it comes into contact with oxidized mercury.... The intensity of the glow indicates the amount of mercury present.
Developed in the laboratory of Kazunori Koide, a chemistry professor in Pitt's School of Arts and Sciences, the new method can be used onsite and can detect mercury in 30 to 60 minutes for dental fillings (or amalgams) or 10 to 30 minutes for fish, Koide explained. "Our method could be used in the fish market or the dentist office," he said. "We have developed a reliable indicator for mercury that a person could easily and safely use at home."
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Japan's Trash Technology Helps Deodorize Dumps in Tokyo
TOKYO -- It doesn't smell like a dump.
If it did, there are a quarter-million neighbors to complain about Tokyo's Toshima Incineration Plant, which devours 300 tons of garbage a day, turning it into electricity, hot water and a kind of recyclable sand. ... Remarkably, this does not create a big stink, literally or politically.
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Amazon to scrap plastic packaging for recyclable cardboard boxes
It has pledged to stop sending toys, computers and other goods out in difficult-to-open plastic boxes.
The shopping website has joined leading manufacturers, including toy company Mattel and software giant Microsoft, to come up with a solution it says is both eco and customer-friendly.
Called "frustration free packaging", the company aims to replace plastic wrapping with a simple, recyclable cardboard box.... "Every Christmas we produce an extra three million tonnes of waste, and this could impact significantly on that. But we need manufacturers to think about this too -- it really comes back to the product design stage, and that needs to be re-thought."
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Discovery may lead to organic acrylic glass made from sugar
A new discovery make it possible in the future to manufacture acrylic glass from organic materials including sugars, alcohols or fatty acids.... The researchers say that the biotechnological process is "far more environmentally friendly" than the conventional chemical production process for PMMA.
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MIT: A quicker, easier way to make coal cleaner
Instead of capturing all of its CO2 emissions, plants could capture a significant fraction of those emissions with less costly changes in plant design and operation, the MIT analysis shows.
"Our approach -- 'partial capture' -- can get CO2 emissions from coal-burning plants down to emissions levels of natural gas power plants," said Ashleigh Hildebrand, a graduate student in chemical engineering and the Technology and Policy Program. "Policies such as California's Emissions Performance Standards could be met by coal plants using partial capture rather than having to rely solely on natural gas, which is increasingly imported and subject to high and volatile prices."
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Going green - all the way to the grave
...Each year, along with their dearly departed, Americans bury 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid and 30-plus million board feet of timber, according to the Green Burial Council, an advocacy and certification organization in New Mexico.
Its founder, Joe Sehee, says we bury enough steel to rebuild the Golden Gate Bridge, and enough concrete vaults - to keep the ground over graves from sinking, which makes maintenance easier - to pave a highway halfway across the United States...
Now people are being buried in coffins made of wicker or bamboo. In Ecopods of recycled paper. Even in simple shrouds. A San Francisco company offers them in linen, silk and ethnic textiles.
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Nasa fights global warming with bathtime favourite
After years of research -- and with the fate of planet Earth hanging in the balance -- the Nasa scientist who helped to put a robot on Mars has finally completed work on a device that can measure how fast Greenland's ice-cap is melting.... When glaciers surge, they move at up to 100 times their usual speed. Scientists believe that surging could be caused by water from melting ice on the top of a glacier flowing into tubular holes and eventually reaching the base, where it acts as a lubricant, speeding the movement of the glacier towards the coast.
Cue the rubber ducks. In August, Dr Behar flew to the Jakobshavn Glacier and landed near one of the tubular holes, known as "moulins". Into one of the moulins he dropped 90 ducks, each labelled with the words "Science Experiment" and "Reward" in three languages along with an e-mail address.
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Mysterious microbe plays important role in ocean ecology
An unusual microorganism discovered in the open ocean may force scientists to rethink their understanding of how carbon and nitrogen cycle through ocean ecosystems.... Unlike all other known free-living cyanobacteria, this one lacks some of the genes needed to carry out photosynthesis, the process by which plants use light energy to make sugars out of carbon dioxide and water.
The mysterious microbe can do something very important, though: It provides natural fertilizer to the oceans by "fixing" nitrogen from the atmosphere into a form useable by other organisms.
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Dumb eco-questions you were afraid to ask
If I switch the light on and off every time I enter and leave a room, does this use more energy than leaving it on all evening?... How clean does the pizza box have to be for it to be recyclable? Likewise cans and bottles... What's the most fuel-efficient way to drive?
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Demand for organic products driving growth of local farms
The exact number of farms in the region focusing on organic products isn't known. The N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services doesn't count organic farms.
But Daryl Bowman, director of the N.C. Crop Improvement Association -- a membership-based organization that certifies farms, ranches and other things as organic -- says about 500 N.C. farms are using natural methods.
"That number is growing by 25 percent a year," he says.
The growers have few problems finding buyers.
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Park life: Why living in a green area improves your health
Living near parks and forests improves your health and lengthens your life, according to new research published today.
Scientists also found the health gap between rich and poor was narrower in greener areas.
Lead author Richard Mitchell from Glasgow University said their findings showed the impact of green spaces was bigger than once thought.
'The size of the difference in the health gap is surprising and represented a much bigger effect than I had been expecting,' he said.
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Recycling waste piles up as prices collapse
Thousands of tonnes of rubbish collected from household recycling bins may have to be stored in warehouses and former military bases to save them from being dumped after a collapse in prices.
Collection companies and councils are running out of space to store paper, plastic bottles and steel cans because prices are so low that the materials cannot be shifted. Collections of mixed plastics, mixed paper and steel reached record levels in the summer but the "bottom fell out of the market" and they are now worthless. The plunge in prices was caused by a sudden fall in demand for recycled materials, especially from China, as manufacturers reduced their output in line with the global economc downturn.
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Rocks Could Be Harnessed To Sponge Vast Amounts Of Carbon Dioxide From Air
Scientists say that a type of rock found at or near the surface in the Mideast nation of Oman and other areas around the world could be harnessed to soak up huge quantities of globe-warming carbon dioxide. Their studies show that the rock, known as peridotite, reacts naturally at surprisingly high rates with CO2 to form solid minerals -- and that the process could be speeded a million times or more with simple drilling and injection methods.
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Under Obama, Dark Days Seen Ahead For Fossil Fuels
Under President-elect Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., the fossil fuels industry may face "dark days ahead," while alternative energy sectors are likely to flourish.
Although it will take years to engineer and implement, an Obama administration energy and environment policy marks a tectonic shift for the nation. He would move the U.S. away from petroleum as its primary energy source and towards renewable energy, advanced biofuels, efficiency and low greenhouse-gas-emitting technologies.
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Palm oil agreement could lead to logging moratorium
The view that the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is merely a way of making companies appear politically correct without making difference to de-forestation could be about to change if agreement on an important new resolution is reached.... Each year the burning and degradation of Indonesian peat swamp forests releases a staggering 2 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. This accounts for nearly 4 per cent of global emissions from less than 0.1 per cent of the world's land surface.... There is a possibility that they could be awarded funds through carbon credits under the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) scheme that is currently under discussion.
Under the terms of this new resolution the RSPO will also start a programme to support the responsible development of suitable land. These would include land swaps where forest concessions could be exchanged for waste land concessions and the establishment of soft loan funds.
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Solar power game-changer: 'Near perfect' absorption of sunlight, from all angles
An untreated silicon solar cell only absorbs 67.4 percent of sunlight shone upon it -- meaning that nearly one-third of that sunlight is reflected away and thus unharvestable. From an economic and efficiency perspective, this unharvested light is wasted potential and a major barrier hampering the proliferation and widespread adoption of solar power.
After a silicon surface was treated with Lin's new nanoengineered reflective coating, however, the material absorbed 96.21 percent of sunlight shone upon it -- meaning that only 3.79 percent of the sunlight was reflected and unharvested. This huge gain in absorption was consistent across the entire spectrum of sunlight, from UV to visible light and infrared, and moves solar power a significant step forward toward economic viability.
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New type of fuel found in Patagonia fungus
A team led by a Montana State University professor has found a fungus that produces a new type of diesel fuel, which they say holds great promise.
Calling the fungus' output "myco-diesel," Gary Strobel and his collaborators describe their initial observations in the November issue of Microbiology.... Strobel, who travels the world looking for exotic plants that may contain beneficial microbes, found the diesel-producing fungus in a Patagonia rainforest. Strobel visited the rainforest in 2002 and collected a variety of specimens, including the branches from an ancient family of trees known as "ulmo." When he and his collaborators examined the branches, they found fungus growing inside. They continued to investigate and discovered that the fungus, called "Gliocladium roseum," was producing gases. Further testing showed that the fungus -- under limited oxygen -- was producing a number of compounds normally associated with diesel fuel, which is obtained from crude oil.
"These are the first organisms that have been found that make many of the ingredients of diesel," Strobel said. "This is a major discovery."
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Coca-Cola agrees to cut water use and stabilize emissions
SAN FRANCISCO - Coca-Cola Co., the world's largest soft-drink maker, vowed to more efficiently use water and stabilize its carbon-dioxide emissions linked to global warming under an agreement released last week with the World Wildlife Fund.
Coca-Cola pledged to improve efficiency at bottling plants 20 percent by 2012 though overall water use will increase as business grows. The manufacturing changes will save about 50 billion litres (13 billion gallons) of water during the next four years, the Atlanta-based company said. Coca-Cola also will hold emissions at current levels, said spokeswoman Lisa Manley.
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Neil Young on gas guzzlers: Long may you run
Leave it to Neil Young to make green technology cool.
The rock legend has created a company called Linc Volt Technology to promote the conversion of existing gas-guzzling cars into vehicles that run on alternative energy. But we're not talking about boxy little e-cars here. Young, who likes his cars old and big, is launching his effort by converting a 1959 Lincoln Continental to run on electricity and natural gas.... "All we're doing is showing that you can run a car like this at 100 miles per gallon or more," said Young...
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A bounty sprouts in the city with MyFarm enterprise
Some might look across this city's rolling hills with its waves of roofs and see some of America's priciest real estate.
Trevor Paque saw virgin farmland.
He calls his enterprise, MyFarm, a "decentralized urban farm." His aim is to turn San Francisco's under-used, overgrown backyards into verdant plots of green that will provide organically grown food for the city's residents.
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Cleaning Heavily Polluted Water At A Fraction Of The Cost
A European research project has succeeded in developing a water treatment system for industrial oil polluted water at a tenth of the cost of other commercially available tertiary treatments, leaving water so clean it can be pumped safely back out to sea without endangering flora or fauna.
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Carbon footprint standard for all products drawn up by Government
The world's first standard to measure the carbon footprint of every product in our shops will be launched tomorrow by the Government in an effort to end the continuing confusion over "eco-labels".... The document, known as a Publicly Available Specification or PAS 2050, will tell producers how to calculate a product's carbon output, from the raw materials, through manufacturing and consumption, to the waste produced.
It will enable companies to estimate the amount of CO2 in grams used in the life of a product and therefore its potential impact on global warming.
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Europe cracks down on fishing for deep-sea species
Europe's exotic deepwater fish, some of which can live up to 150 years, won more protection from the European Union on Monday as fisheries ministers agreed to hefty quota cuts for the next two years.
Bearing names like forkbeard, black scabbardfish, greater silver smelt and roundnose grenadier, Europe's deep-sea fish grow and reproduce far more slowly than fish in shallower waters and are far more vulnerable to overfishing.... With the depletion of mainstay commercial fish such as cod and hake in recent years, they have become an attractive catch as trawlers switch from their regular fishing grounds.
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Biogas converters -- making fuel and fertiliser from biodegradable waste
Most of the food we throw away in this country ends up in landfill sites, where methane emissions are a real problem.
Not so long ago all these gases were allowed to waft up into the atmosphere or were simply burnt off with flares to stop explosions.... The digestors are really silos designed to speed up the rotting process and collect the methane that's released. The brilliant thing about it is that all the gas can than be used for electricity generation -- or even for vehicle fuel.
And what's left behind is a great fertiliser -- so almost nothing is actually wasted.
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Plug points in street will boost battery car revolution
Charging points for electric cars are to be installed in thousands of car parks and on streets as part of a government plan to convert drivers from petrol and diesel to electricity.
Under the scheme, motorists will be able to plug in and recharge their batteries while shopping or at work. In the longer term, those who are unable to wait will be able to exchange their empty battery and drive on with minimal delay.... They intend to borrow ideas pioneered in Israel, where half a million recharging points are being installed in a scheme known as Project Better Place.
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Corals gain climate-change shield
Rare species of staghorn corals may bear some good news for reef conservation: It appears that some rare types of staghorns can readily breed with related species, creating hybrids that may be far more resilient to climate change or other stresses than anyone thought.... "This is good news, to the extent that it suggests that corals may have evolved genetic strategies for survival in unusual niches," notes Zoe Richards, who led the effort.
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Green Practices: When Do Corporations Respond To Stakeholders' Pressure?
The authors find that firms with powerful marketing departments were more responsive to pressures from customers and competitors... In contrast, they find that firms with powerful legal departments were more responsive to pressures from regulators and environmental NGOs, and were especially likely to adopt government-initiated voluntary programs.
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UK announces world's largest algal biofuel project
The world's biggest publicly funded project to make transport fuels from algae will be launched today by a government agency which develops low-carbon technologies.
The Carbon Trust will today announce a project to make algal biofuels a commercial reality by 2020. The plan could see up to 26m pounds spent on developing the technology and infrastructure to ensure that algal biofuels replace a signficant proportion of the fossil fuels used by UK drivers.
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Magic solar milestone reached
UNSW's ARC Photovoltaic Centre of Excellence has again asserted its leadership in solar cell technology by reporting the first silicon solar cell to achieve the milestone of 25 per cent effiency.... "Our main efforts now are focussed on getting these efficiency improvements into commercial production," he said. "Production compatible versions of our high efficiency technology are being introduced into production as we speak."
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Organic farming 'could feed Africa'
Organic farming offers Africa the best chance of breaking the cycle of poverty and malnutrition it has been locked in for decades, according to a major study from the United Nations to be presented today.
New evidence suggests that organic practices -- derided by some as a Western lifestyle fad -- are delivering sharp increases in yields, improvements in the soil and a boost in the income of Africa's small farmers who remain among the poorest people on earth.
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Some Nuclear Energy Backers Say Uranium Alternative Could be a Magic Bullet
In the midst of renewed global interest in nuclear energy, a long-overlooked nuclear fuel, thorium, is being re-examined as a potential solution to some of the industry's most daunting problems, including disposal of waste. Widely available in the sandy beaches of India, Australia, and the United States, among other places, thorium is a naturally occurring, slightly radioactive element that is being heralded by advocates as a safer alternative to uranium that could help limit the production of nuclear waste and prevent nuclear technology from being used for weapons rather than energy.
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Wood heat rises again
But as people polish their stoves and admire their woodpiles, environmentalists and health officials are expressing concern that burning wood in old or poorly designed stoves could add significantly to air pollution. And although wood represents a local and renewable fuel source, its credentials as a "carbon neutral" fuel -- not adding to global warming -- are hazy at best.... "I like to call it '75 percent carbon neutral,'" Mr. Gulland says. While wood burning does release carbon dioxide and methane, advocates argue that the trees would do that anyway in the forest as they die, fall over, and decompose.... "On a scale of carbon neutrality, it's better than burning a fossil fuel, but it's not the same as wind or solar," Rector says. "It's a very complicated question," she says. "We still need to let the scientists figure it out."
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Pesticide Concentrations Decreasing
Over the years, frequent research has detected pesticides in ground water around the country, including in aquifers used for drinking-water supply. Over the past few decades, the use of some pesticides has been restricted or banned, while new pesticides have been introduced. One goal of the study was to track the retention of various types of contaminants that would be found in the different pesticides used over the years.... “The results of this study are encouraging for the future state of the nation’s ground-water quality with respect to pesticides,” said Laura Bexfield, who conducted the data analysis. "Despite sustained use of many popular pesticides and the introduction of new ones, results as a whole did not indicate increasing detection rates or concentrations in shallow or drinking-water resources over the 10 years studied."
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