Tag Archives: beach

United Airlines Buys Big Into Biofuels

by Myrna Posted on June 6, 2013

Could the move help clean up a notoriously dirty industry? UnfinishedPortraitmaker/Flickr United Airlines is taking a significant step forward in its use of biofuel with a plan to buy 15 million gallons of the stuff during the next three years. The airline signed an agreement with AltAir Fuels to buy fuel it will use on flights departing Los Angeles beginning next year. United says the renewable jet fuel is “price competitive” with the fuel now used by airlines and should, on a lifecycle basis, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent. “This is a great day for United and the aviation biofuels industry,” Jimmy Samartzis, the airline’s director of environmental issues, said in a statement. The news comes after a period of relative quiet about the use of aviation biofuel. There was a flurry of activity in the time between 2009 and 2011 as airlines around the world announced demonstration flights and passenger flights using a variety of biofuels. Even the military was burning biofuel in fighter jets. But the high cost of alternative fuels at the time made it unlikely cost-conscious airlines would embrace them for the long term. To keep reading, click here. Read the article –  United Airlines Buys Big Into Biofuels ; ;Related ArticlesMethane Leaks Could Negate Climate Benefits of US Natural Gas Boom: ReportGulf Oil Wells Have Been Leaking Since 2004 HurricaneSlicing Open Stalagmites to Reveal Climate Secrets ;

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United Airlines Buys Big Into Biofuels

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Chemical creep: Farmers return to pesticides as GMO corn loses bug resistance

by Amy R. Eddy Posted on May 23, 2013

Chemical creep: Farmers return to pesticides as GMO corn loses bug resistance

By Claire Thompson

Shutterstock

Monsanto’s Bt corn was supposed to reduce pesticide use. The Environmental Protection Agency said as much when the corn, which is genetically modified to resist the crop-ravaging rootworm, debuted in 2003. Sure enough, as more farmers sowed their fields with Bt corn, fewer of them needed to spray pesticides to protect their crops. The share of U.S. corn acreage treated with insecticides fell from 25 percent in 2005 to 9 percent in 2010.

But now, Bt corn has become, basically, too successful: Rootworms are starting to develop immunity to this prevalent crop, driving farmers to return to insecticide use. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Syngenta, one of the world’s largest pesticide makers, reported that sales of its major soil insecticide for corn, which is applied at planting time, more than doubled in 2012. Chief Financial Officer John Ramsay attributed the growth to “increased grower awareness” of rootworm resistance in the U.S. Insecticide sales in the first quarter climbed 5% to $480 million.

The frustrating part is that rootworms’ resistance to the Bt corn gene was entirely predictable — so predictable that some companies seized it as a financial opportunity:

American Vanguard bought a series of insecticide companies and technologies during the past decade, betting that insecticide demand would return as Bt corn started losing its effectiveness. In the past couple of years, that wager has paid off.

The Newport Beach, Calif., company reported that its soil-insecticide revenue jumped 50% in 2012, and company earnings climbed 70% as its stock price doubled. Its insecticide sales rose 41% in the first quarter to $79 million, with gains driven by corn insecticide.

Scientists say that so far, rootworms have only developed resistance to seeds engineered to include just one rootworm trait, and Monsanto says it plans to phase out that seed and replace it with a multiple-trait variety. But the EPA cautions that rootworms resistant to the first seed are more likely to develop resistance to other traits, too. And although Monsanto recommends crop rotation to “break the rootworm cycle,” historically high corn prices are driving more farmers to plant corn every year — and that has also increased the presence of other pests besides rootworm.

So let’s set aside, for the moment, the repetitious debates between pro- and anti-GMO contingents, and consider this simple fact: Bt corn’s success lasted all of seven or eight years before rootworm resistance popped up. The same cycle could easily repeat itself with other rootworm traits or with other pests altogether.

GMOs are supposed to make farmers’ volatile business a little more secure. But when their failure is so predictable that corporations like Vanguard can profitably bet on it, who’s really coming out on top?

Claire Thompson is an editorial assistant at Grist.

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Scientists Map Britain’s Most Famous Underwater City

by Laura Posted on May 13, 2013

Dunwich beach, across which storms pulled the ancient city. Image: modagoo

In 1066, the town of Dunwich began its march into the sea. After storms swept the farmland out for twenty years, the houses and buildings went in 1328. By 1570, nearly a quarter of the town had been swallowed, and in 1919 the All Saints church disappeared over the cliff. Dunwich is often called Britain’s Atlantis, a medieval town accessible only to divers, sitting quietly at the bottom of the ocean off the British Coast.

Now, researchers have created a 3D visualization of Dunwich using acoustic imaging. David Sear, a professor at the University of Southampton, where the work was done, described the process:

Visibility under the water at Dunwich is very poor due to the muddy water. This has limited the exploration of the site. We have now dived on the site using high resolution DIDSON ™ acoustic imaging to examine the ruins on the seabed – a first use of this technology for non-wreck marine archaeology.

DIDSON technology is rather like shining a torch onto the seabed, only using sound instead of light. The data produced helps us to not only see the ruins, but also understand more about how they interact with the tidal currents and sea bed.

Using this technology gives them a good picture of what the town actually looks like. Ars Technica writes:

We can now see where the local churches stood, and crumbling walls pinpoint the ancient town’s remits. A one kilometer (0.6 mile) square stronghold stood in the center of the 1.8km2space (about 0.7 square miles), with what looks like the remains of Blackfriars Friary, three churches, and the Chapel of St Katherine standing within it. The northern region looks like the commercial hub with lots of smaller buildings largely made of wood. It’s thought that the stronghold, as well as its buildings and a possible town hall, may date back to Saxon times.

Professor Sears sees this project as not just one of historical and archaeological importance, but also as a forecast of the fate of seaside cities. “It is a sobering example of the relentless force of nature on our island coastline. It starkly demonstrates how rapidly the coast can change, even when protected by its inhabitants. Global climate change has made coastal erosion a topical issue in the 21st Century, but Dunwich demonstrates that it has happened before. The severe storms of the 13th and 14th Centuries coincided with a period of climate change, turning the warmer medieval climatic optimum into what we call the Little Ice Age.”

So, in a million years, when aliens come to look at our planet, it might look a lot like Dunwich.

More from Smithsonian.com:

Underwater World
Underwater Discovery

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Scientists Map Britain’s Most Famous Underwater City

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Chris Christie slams ‘selfish’ homeowners blocking coastal protection measures

by Gwenn Record Posted on March 27, 2013

Chris Christie slams ‘selfish’ homeowners blocking coastal protection measures

By John Upton

Shutterstock /

Glynnis Jones

Some waterfront residents would rather risk devastating storm surges than lose their views.

Would you like a dose of utter destruction with that view?

In the wake of Superstorm Sandy, some New Jersey residents living in vulnerable oceanfront properties are stymieing efforts to build sand dunes and widen beaches along the coastline to block storm surges. Some fear losing their views. Others worry that new public-access beach areas could be opened up adjacent to their properties.

Gov. Chris Christie (R) said on Tuesday that he has “no sympathy” for property owners standing in the way of a $3 billion federal project to widen beaches and build protective dunes. He announced plans for dealing with these “selfish” property owners during a town hall meeting in Middlesex Borough.

State of New Jersey

Chris Christie tells them what’s what.

“We will go town by town and if we have to start calling names out of the selfish ones who care more about their view than they care about the safety and the welfare of their neighbors, then we are going to start doing that,” Christie said, according to CBS. “I will use my normal sense of gentle persuasion to try to make sure that we bring people along.”

From The Star-Ledger:

Christie has credited sand dunes — some man-made and others the work of nature — with protecting homes and businesses during Hurricane Sandy in October.

Towns without dunes were left vulnerable to devastating wind and rain …

Although Christie has said he will not condemn homes to buy out residents in flood-prone areas, he said last week in Manasquan that he would resort to eminent domain for beachfront property if necessary.

The Asbury Park Press reported in January that about half of the coastal homeowners in one town were resisting dunes and other beach restoration efforts:

[O]fficials are struggling to persuade half of the 127 oceanfront property owners here to sign construction easements that will allow the Army Corps of Engineers to rebuild a wider beach and thick, 22-foot-high dunes against the next storm.

To skeptics, the issue of easements always has been one of ceding private property rights. But to borough and state officials, it’s about saving the community.

Go get ‘em, governor.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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Chris Christie slams ‘selfish’ homeowners blocking coastal protection measures

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Perfect swarm: Giant mosquitos invade Florida

by PierresHood Posted on March 13, 2013

Perfect swarm: Giant mosquitos invade Florida

By Susie Cagle

“Huge,” “giant,” “mega,” and “aggressive” are not the words you want to hear before “mosquito.” But that’s how experts describe Psorophora ciliata, or the “gallinipper” mosquito. Native to the eastern U.S. and immortalized in stories and folk songs for decades, these big biters are now expanding into Florida.

BenSeese

Up to 20 times the size of other mosquitos, the gallinippers aren’t known for spreading disease, but their bites are likened to being stabbed with a knife — and unlike Florida’s other invasive species, they don’t make for an even remotely good meal (we presume). From the Huffington Post:

Doug Carlson, mosquito control director for Indian River County, told WPTV that the insects are so big, “it can feel like a small bird has landed on you.” Meanwhile, Gary Goode of Palm Beach County Mosquito Control told WPBF the mosquito “practically breaks your arm” when it feeds on you.

A warmer winter and stagnant waters left over from Tropical Storm Debby (some parts of the state got 75 inches of rain in 2012) have scientists and residents nervous about the bites to come. The Gainesville Sun reports:

Whatever the mosquito type, locals could be destined for “a very rough summer,” said Paul Myers, administrator for the Alachua County Health Department.

The area’s mild winter spared mosquitoes from the hard freezes that would have killed many of them, he said, adding that major rainfall would amplify the problem. Two-thirds of the county’s population lives in areas with mosquito spraying, but the rest lives in unincorporated Alachua County, where the County Commission has opted not to spray because of concerns about the cost and effectiveness of the treatment, as well as its environmental impacts, Myers said.

New research suggests those sprays aren’t worth much against increasingly invincible super-skeeters anyway, so mosquitoes giant and non- will probably cause an uptick in bloody bites this summer regardless. But it’s not just “this summer” anymore, is it? With extra rain, rising seas, more warm winters, and more warm bodies, gallinippers have good reason to stay in Florida. Wear your long sleeves, folks.

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Perfect swarm: Giant mosquitos invade Florida

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San Francisco plans expensive ‘managed retreat’ from rising seas

by 1LymSlagter473 Posted on February 4, 2013

San Francisco plans expensive ‘managed retreat’ from rising seas

By Susie Cagle

When you live on a coastline, looking down the barrel of imminent and unstoppable rising sea levels, sometimes “managed retreat” is your only option. What if we rerouted the highways before they ever flooded?

Apricot Cafe

That’s the thinking behind San Francisco’s Master Plan for the city’s western shoreline. This retreat is not just managed, but proactive. KQED reports on the “test case” that other coastal cities will be watching: a more than $350 million plan to move the Great Highway and allow the surf to reclaim its turf.

“A lot of the things we’re recommending at Ocean Beach are very expensive,” says Benjamin Grant, who manages the Ocean Beach Master Plan for the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR). “But you have to set them against the costs of the band-aid measures already taking place.”

SPUR is acting as a facilitator for the project, bringing together the myriad city, state, and federal organizations involved.

“We can’t close our eyes to what’s coming and it’s definitely going to get worse and not better,” Grant says. “If we can find a way to work with those processes to achieve the kinds of outcomes and build the kinds of places we want to have in our city, then we’ll be ahead of the game.”

Planning students noodling with designs for this retreat say the reroute “makes it possible to re-imagine the southern end of Ocean Beach as a more socially and ecologically beneficial landscape.” San Francisco is rare in its comprehensive climate change planning, maybe because it’s also rare in being a city surrounded by water on three sides.

But will the city really be able to pave the way for preemptive urban planning for rising seas nationwide, or will we have to suffer a few more Super Sandys before we start really retreating?

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King tides give California coast a taste of warmer, wetter future

by Myrna Posted on December 12, 2012

King tides give California coast a taste of warmer, wetter future

By Susie Cagle

THE KING TIDES ARE COMING. Through the end of the week, California will be experiencing its highest tides of the year, the “king” kind, that come around each winter. It may be galactic gravity that’s pulling the water closer, but it looks a lot like climate change! The tides will be as high as +10.1 feet in some places.

SantaBarbaraOceanGirl

From The San Jose Mercury News:

“Flooding would be a concern if we had a storm system coming through,” said Matt Mehle, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Monterey. Instead, the rising water will offer a teachable moment, scientists say. Already, the ocean off California has risen 8 inches in the past 100 years. As the earth warms, polar ice melts, and the warmer ocean water expands, increasing sea level. That rate of sea level rise is accelerating. A National Academy of Sciences report in July found that, relative to sea levels in 2000, the California coast south of Cape Mendocino is projected to experience sea level rise of 1.5 inches to 11.8 inches by 2030, and 4.7 inches to 24 inches by 2050, and 16.5 inches to 65 inches by 2100.

Just because the Golden State won’t have a Sandy-sized catastrophe doesn’t mean there can’t still be a lesson in all this. The Mercury News calls this “a giant science project” but I call it “scaring people into better behavior.” The California King Tides Initiative is collecting citizens’ photos of the tides in an effort to educate the public about what higher sea levels might actually look like.

These photographs help us visualize the impact of rising waters on the California coast. Our shores are constantly being altered by human and natural processes and projections indicate that sea level rise will exacerbate these changes. The images offer a living record of the changes to our coasts and shorelines and a glimpse of what our daily tides may look like in the future as a result of sea level rise. Photos taken during king tide events document impacts to private property, public infrastructure, and wildlife habitat across the state.

For locals still set on taking a long walk on the beach, the king tides also bring extremely low tides in midday, but the California Coastal Commission has a friendly suggestion for the rest of us.

Just a thought … California’s next king tides will hit in 2013: Jan. 9-11 and Feb. 7-9.

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