environment
Whom Should We Save?
The list of endangered species continues to get longer around the world and society is increasingly faced with the nearly impossible decision of which ones to take off life support.
Listening To Volcanoes
Volcanoes are complicated, and we don’t have universally applicable ways to predict when they might erupt. Measurements of seismicity, gas emissions and ground deformation are all useful in trying to figure out what volcanoes are up to. However, it is unlikely that will ever have definitive prediction techniques.
Nitrogen Pollution
Earth system scientists say that there are four major human-caused forces that threaten to cause irreversible and abrupt environmental upheaval: climate change, deforestation, biodiversity loss, and excess nitrogen.
Lots Of Credit For Carbon Capture
These days, the federal government has mostly turned its back on efforts to mitigate climate change or, for that matter, to even recognize its existence. However,the budget bill passed in February contained a major increase in the tax credit known as 45Q, which provides incentives to businesses to develop and utilize carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies.
Farming In Solar Farms
Utility-scale solar installations have been expanding rapidly. The amount of land used for solar projects is becoming quite substantial. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) predicts that 3 million acres will be devoted to solar farms by 2030, and 6 million by 2050. These numbers pale in comparison with the land used for corn, soybeans, and wheat, but are more than used for such familiar crops as oats, barley and rice.
Deepwater Aquaculture
Near-shore fish farms have created many environmental problems. Raising large numbers of fish creates concentrations of fish waste and sea lice, which can adversely impact near-shore ecosystems.
Polar Bears Are Struggling To Find Food
Climate change continues to pose a major threat to polar bear survival. Polar bears, whose native range largely lies within the Arctic Circle, depend on sea ice for nearly all of their life cycle functions. And rising global temperatures are causing that sea ice to disappear.
Fracking And Streams
Hydraulic fracturing – better known as fracking – is a method of extracting oil and gas from shale deposits in which millions of gallons of freshwater and chemicals are injected into deep underground deposits. There has been a great deal of concern related to the effects that this process has on water quality and also on the stability of the ground in the vicinity of where it takes place.
2017 Was Hot
There’s no argument to be made about whether 2017 was hot or not. The only uncertainty is whether it was the second or third warmest year ever recorded.
Trends Influencing Our Cities
The Environmental Protection Agency removed its information hub about climate change last year. In response, 17 cities reposted the information on their own city government sites. This is indicative of the fact that cities are increasingly taking on a leadership role in environmental, social and economic change.
The Automobile Future: Dream or Nightmare?
Visionaries tout a future in which cars are electric, self-driving, and shared. All three of these things are starting to happen today, but will they come together to produce a future where congestion and pollution are things of the past?
[Read more…] about The Automobile Future: Dream or Nightmare?
Climate Change Threatens the U.S. Military
According to a new study from the Pentagon, nearly half of United States military sites are threatened by wild weather linked to climate change. The U.S. Department of Defense states that drought, wind, and flooding that occur due to reasons other than storms topped the list of natural disasters that endanger 1,700 military sites around the world – everything from outposts to large bases.
[Read more…] about Climate Change Threatens the U.S. Military
A Carbon Loophole
Many power plants in Europe and elsewhere are replacing coal with wood. For example, the Drax Power Station in Britain was its largest coal-burning plant and is now using wood pellets shipped from the southern U.S. in its boilers. According to the carbon accounting rules at the EU and elsewhere, the process is considered to be “carbon neutral.” But is it?
The idea is that new trees are being planted in the forests where the trees are cut to be burned in power plants. So, there is carbon neutrality. In principle.
European countries have embarked on a massive effort to switch to generating power from renewable energy. While there has indeed been major growth in wind and solar power in the 28 countries of the European Union, much of the new “green” power has come from burning wood in converted coal power stations.
A group of 200 scientists wrote to the EU last September insisting that bioenergy from forest biomass is not carbon neutral and that there must be tighter rules to protect forests and their carbon. Wood burning has become a loophole in controlling carbon emissions.
There are problems with the claims of carbon neutrality. There is no way to know whether enough new trees are actually being planted to replace those being burned. And then there is the time lag for tree replacement. Trees don’t grow overnight. There are also the carbon emissions associated with harvesting, processing and transporting wood.
There are most certainly ways in which burning biomass can be carbon neutral and can represent real progress over the use of fossil fuels. But caution must be taken to avoid exploiting loopholes in current climate rules that might actually result in increased carbon emissions.
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Web Links
Carbon Loophole: Why Is Wood Burning Counted as Green Energy?
Photo, posted April 26, 2014, courtesy of Flickr.
‘A Carbon Loophole’ from Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
