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Nicaragua OKs plan for cross-country canal, environment be damned

by bukaroso Posted on June 17, 2013

Nicaragua OKs plan for cross-country canal, environment be damned

By John Upton

“Let’s cut it in two and let shipping through.”

Nicaragua is one step closer to being carved in half by a massive cross-country canal. Leftist President Daniel Ortega rammed the project through his country’s congress last week.

The lawmakers gave the Hong Kong-based HKND Group a 50-year concession to excavate and operate the canal, which is intended to rival Panama’s. If it’s actually built — and that’s still a big if — it promises to give an economic boost to the bitterly poor country. Nicaragua would get a minority share of profits and, say backers, tens of thousands of jobs too.

But critics warn that would come at the expense of the environment and clean water supplies. From Agence France-Presse:

Centro Humboldt environmental group deputy director Victor Campos told AFP the project to link Nicaragua’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts will jeopardize the watershed that supplies water to most of the impoverished country’s population when it transits through Lake Nicaragua. …

HKDN spokesman Ronald MacLean said the company was considering four possible routes for the waterway, and all would necessarily go across Lake Nicaragua.

In the lake lies an island with an active volcano and some 300 islets that serve as breeding grounds for the American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus), the largest reptile living in Central America and the Caribbean.

One of the possible canal routes would pass through the sprawling Cerro Silva nature reserve between the southern Caribbean coast and the El Rama River port, home to coastal ecosystems, wetlands and tropical forests that environmentalists warn could disappear.

Also in the path of the construction is the Punta Gorda nature reserve in the southern Caribbean, home to more than 120 species of birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, amphibians, mollusks and crustaceans.

MacLean said environmental experts would be hired to measure and minimize environmental and social impacts. But groundbreaking is initially scheduled for May 2014, less than a year away, providing precious little time to prepare environmental analyses and recommendations.

Independent experts are skeptical, meanwhile, saying the plan would be so hard to pull off that it may never be realized. From The New York Times:

Experts say that while the approval process led by President Daniel Ortega has been swift, environmental opposition, changes in shipping patterns and construction costs could easily thrust the proposal onto the large list of discarded plans for a Nicaraguan canal.

“It’s not going to happen, that was my first reaction,” said Noel Maurer, an associate professor at the Harvard Business School who helped write a book about the Panama Canal. “A pipe dream might be too strong, but I would just consider it a really bad investment.”

The challenges for Nicaraguan canal planners have always been enormous, and the current project is nothing if not ambitious. It would entail slashing through around 180 miles of thick tropical terrain — roughly triple the length of the Panama Canal — and then pumping a virtual sea through a series of locks deep enough for massive cargo ships.

Activists are already protesting the plans. “Nicaragua isn’t for sale,” the Movement for Nicaragua, a coalition of civil-society groups, wrote in an open letter to the country, the AP reports. “Nicaragua belongs to all Nicaraguans and isn’t the private property of Ortega and his family.”

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Nicaragua OKs plan for cross-country canal, environment be damned

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Thanks for the oil, Iraq, here’s some cancer

by Felixct7yh Posted on March 20, 2013

Thanks for the oil, Iraq, here’s some cancer

By Susie Cagle

Turns out depleted uranium (DU) munitions are a great thing to use when you’re going to war, so long as you plan on terrorizing people for generations to come. Military-related pollution is suspected of causing a huge spike in birth defects and all kinds of cancer in Iraq since the start of the Gulf War more than 20 years ago.

The last 10 years of the Iraq War, especially, cost a lot of money that we could’ve done way better things with and also killed 190,000 people directly, but that doesn’t cover the full extent of the damage.

expertinfantry

An American soldier in front of an oil-field fire near Kirkuk in 2006.

“Official Iraqi government statistics show that, prior to the outbreak of the First Gulf War in 1991, the rate of cancer cases in Iraq was 40 out of 100,000 people,” Al Jazeera reports. “By 1995, it had increased to 800 out of 100,000 people, and, by 2005, it had doubled to at least 1,600 out of 100,000 people. Current estimates show the increasing trend continuing.” That’s potentially a more than 4,000 percent increase in the cancer rate, making it more than 500 percent higher than the cancer rate in the U.S.

More from Al Jazeera:

As shocking as these statistics are, due to a lack of adequate documentation, research, and reporting of cases, the actual rate of cancer and other diseases is likely to be much higher than even these figures suggest.

“Cancer statistics are hard to come by, since only 50 per cent of the healthcare in Iraq is public,” Dr Salah Haddad of the Iraqi Society for Health Administration and Promotion told Al Jazeera. “The other half of our healthcare is provided by the private sector, and that sector is deficient in their reporting of statistics. Hence, all of our statistics in Iraq must be multiplied by two. Any official numbers are likely only half of the real number.”

Dr Haddad believes there is a direct correlation between increasing cancer rates and the amount of bombings carried out by US forces in particular areas.

“My colleagues and I have all noticed an increase in Fallujah of congenital malformations, sterility, and infertility,” he said. “In Fallujah, we have the problem of toxics introduced by American bombardments and the weapons they used, like DU.”

One researcher said Fallujah had been found to have “the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied.” Another is calling for “large scale environmental testing to find out the extent of environmental contamination by metals and DU.”

A 1977 amendment to the Geneva Conventions prohibits weapons and methods of warfare that cause unnecessary suffering. But who cares about the Geneva Convention anyway? Certainly no one with uranium.

And lest we forget why we dropped all that depleted uranium in the first place, oil industry analyst Antonia Juhasz reminds us at CNN:

Oil was not the only goal of the Iraq War, but it was certainly the central one, as top U.S. military and political figures have attested to in the years following the invasion.

“Of course it’s about oil; we can’t really deny that,” said Gen. John Abizaid, former head of U.S. Central Command and Military Operations in Iraq, in 2007. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan agreed, writing in his memoir, “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.” Then-Sen. and now Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the same in 2007: “People say we’re not fighting for oil. Of course we are.”

And it only took CNN 10 years to figure it out!

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Thanks for the oil, Iraq, here’s some cancer

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Electronics Recycling Program Has Real Community Impact

by HartkePoundstone568 Posted on March 7, 2013

According to a recent informal poll, 84 percent of Earth911 readers said they would be more likely to recycle if it benefited a charitable cause. Are you more likely to donate your old electronics knowing it benefits your local job market?

If you are one of millions of Americans with old computers or electronics gathering dust in your home, there’s never been a better time to get rid of your stockpile – and for a good cause.

Photo: Shutterstock

Dell’s free computer recycling program, Dell Reconnect, makes it easier than ever to donate your old computer or electronics through its partnership with Goodwill Industries, whose primary focus is putting people back to work in their local communities. Because all profits from the Dell Reconnect program go directly to Goodwill, you can make your donation knowing it’s good for the planet and your community.

In 2011, Goodwill provided employment training, services, support and resources to over 4.2 million people.

As a non-profit, Goodwill works to assist those with disabilities and disadvantages earn a living and improve their lives through employment and orchestrate educational opportunities, counseling and other resources.

This was a first-hand experience for Goodwill employee Robbie McKolanis, who oversees the Dell Reconnect program at Goodwill of North Central, Penn.

McKolanis started out in his local Goodwill’s school-to-work transition program, Goodwill Works, and was hired by Goodwill after he graduated high school in 2007. Despite struggling with communication challenges with his speech and extreme shyness, his hard work as part of the production team at the Retail Processing Center in Falls Creek got him noticed, and once the Dell Reconnect program started, he was a tapped to apply his skills in a new direction.

Now responsible for all aspects of sorting, weighing and tracking electronics for more than 30 Goodwill locations, McKolanis has come into his own. He is now well known for having great interaction and communication with his co-workers and community, and can attest to the benefits Goodwill’s programs can provide for education and job advancement.

“It took me a while to learn and get used to everyone,” said McKolanis, adding that now, “It’s exciting talking to people and convincing them, ‘don’t be shy!’”

Having come full circle, McKolanis now mentors others participating in Goodwill Works and provides information to visiting guests.

“As Robbie has grown as an employee and taken on the additional responsibilities of the Dell Reconnect program, his potential for opportunities within the employment sector have increased tremendously, “ said Jason Marshall, executive VP of workforce development and retail services for Goodwill of North Central, Penn.

“This partnership with Dell has allowed for Robbie to find his voice and provided another opportunity for us to witness the power of work.”

The power of work is invaluable to those receiving assistance from Goodwill. In 2011, Goodwill helped place more than 23,000 people in need of employment at Goodwill locations, and 189,000 more were placed in jobs within their communities – including tens of thousands of veterans – a new demographic of people facing unique employment challenges.

In 2012, Goodwill expanded its effort to serve post- 9/11 veterans by rolling out Operation: GoodJobs, a program designed specifically for returning military servicemen and women and their families. In addition to job training and placement, the program offers transition assistance programs to help vets re-acclimate to civilian life and individual development plans to assess and assist with personal needs.

Since 2004, Dell Reconnect has diverted more than 250 million pounds of e-waste from landfills. With more than 2,000 participating Goodwill locations throughout the U.S. and Canada the program allows you to simply drop off used computer electronics of any brand and in any condition for free. The trained staff at your local Goodwill will determine whether each item should be refurbished and resold or responsibly recycled.

Editor’s Note: Earth911 partners with many industries, manufacturers and organizations to support its Recycling Directory, the largest in the nation, which is provided to consumers at no cost. Dell is one of these partners.

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Electronics Recycling Program Has Real Community Impact

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Is McDonald’s coffee really going greener?

by graptorm Posted on March 5, 2013

Is McDonald’s coffee really going greener?

By Susie Cagle

avlxyz

Over the past few years, McDonald’s has grown its subsidiary coffeehouse brand McCafe like a juiced-up Starbucks — there are now 1,300 Mc-coffee shops worldwide. That’s a lot of coffee! And now the company says it wants that coffee to be greener.

Over the next five years, McDonald’s plans to invest $6.5 million to help about 13,000 Guatamalan coffee growers produce fancier, more sustainable beans, to be used in a proprietary arabica blend. The company says it aims “to promote the environmental, ethical and economic long-term sustainability of coffee supplies.” From Bloomberg:

“Investing in both certification and sustainable agriculture training addresses the immediate need to assist farmers today, expands capacity for greater sustainable coffee production in the future and helps assure our customers we will continue to provide the taste profile they have grown to love and expect from McDonald’s,” Susan Forsell, the vice president of sustainability, said in the statement.

The company, which buys coffee from Colombia, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Brazil and Sumatra, said it already gets all of its Rainforest Alliance Certified espresso from sustainable farms. The [new] initiative seeks to address root causes of poverty among farming communities by expanding the use of techniques that will promote sustainable, profitable agricultural, McDonald’s said.

It’s not clear if this is on par with McDonald’s much-lauded switch to “sustainable seafood,” which, it turns out, is not super-sustainable.

As it happens, climate change could wipe out arabica beans. Central American growers are already having problems with higher temps and humidity that are making fungus grow like gangbusters across the region. Drink up while you still can, Ronald, because when arabica’s gone, all we’ll have is bitter but caffeine-jacked robusta.

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Permafrost is even less perma than we thought

by marinavhunt Posted on February 22, 2013

Permafrost is even less perma than we thought

By Susie Cagle

Hey, so, about that layer of long-frozen soil covering almost a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere’s land surface? You know, the stuff that’s started melting and freaking out climate scientists but often isn’t calculated into global warming metrics?

U.N./Christopher Arp

Near Alaska, a chunk of permafrost breaks off into the Arctic Ocean.

Yeah, so, uh, according to a new study published this week in the journal Science, that may be melting way faster than we thought. From Climate Central:

If global average temperature were to rise another 2.5°F (1.5°C), say earth scientist Anton Vaks of Oxford University, and an international team of collaborators, permafrost across much of northern Canada and Siberia could start to weaken and decay. And since climate scientists project at least that much warming by the middle of the 21st century, global warming could begin to accelerate as a result, in what’s known as a feedback mechanism. …

[E]nvironmental scientist Rose Cory, of the University of North Carolina, focused on sites in Alaska where melting permafrost has caused the soil to collapse into sinkholes or landslides. The soil exposed in this way is “baked” by sunlight, and said Cory in a press release, “(it) makes carbon better food for bacteria.”

In fact, she said, exposed organic matter releases about 40 percent more carbon, in the form of CO2 or methane, than soil that stays buried. “What that means,” Cory said, “ is that if all that stored carbon is released, exposed to sunlight and consumed by bacteria, it could double the amount of this potent greenhouse gas going into the environment.”

Permafrost that’s been frozen for hundreds of thousands of years is already starting to melt in the Arctic, not just raising global temps but also razing towns. Y’all up there in the Yukon may consider a move to an ironically warmer area, preferably on high ground. The rest of us will just cower in fear in place.

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U.S. ends record streak of days without tornado fatalities

by nension Posted on January 31, 2013

U.S. ends record streak of days without tornado fatalities

By Philip Bump

Climate Central reports that a weather-related record ended yesterday morning: the longest the U.S. has gone without a tornado-related death, 220 days.

[A] large and powerful tornado struck Adairsville, Ga., killing at least one person in a mobile home park. That tornado, which may rank as an EF-4 — the second most powerful on the Enhanced Fujita Scale — overturned cars on I-75 and damaged numerous buildings in downtown Adairsville, which is about 60 miles northwest of Atlanta.

A local news broadcast included a helicopter flight over the area damaged by the twister.

One reason the no-fatality record stood so long was the unusually hot and dry weather of 2012.

During 2012, the same weather pattern associated with the record heat and drought also stifled tornado activity by keeping a very hot, dry, and stable air mass in place across Tornado Alley. The heart of Tornado Alley was where the drought was most intense. For example, Nebraska had its driest year on record last year, and extreme drought conditions were present in Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa, and other states where spring and summer twisters are typical. While natural climate variability likely played a major role in initiating the drought, climate scientists said global warming may have made the drought worse by making conditions hotter, and therefore drier, than they otherwise might have been.

The man who died was named Anthony Raines. He was 51, and was killed when a tree crushed his mobile home while he slept.

Source

Deadly Georgia Tornado First in a Record 220 Days, Climate Central

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Guacamole Sunday: A better name for the Super Bowl, or a crappy marketing campaign?

by biglermyrta910 Posted on January 30, 2013

Guacamole Sunday: A better name for the Super Bowl, or a crappy marketing campaign?

By Susie Cagle

It’s a good thing that unexpected California frost didn’t freeze out the state’s avocado crop. It’s not just the Golden State that loves nature’s butter. Americans’ appetite for avocados has exploded over the last decade, jumping significantly in 2012 alone, in no small part due to marketing campaigns by foreign avocado growers. This weekend, Americans are expected to eat several tons of avocados on “Guacamole Sunday” while watching the Super Bowl.

Nate Steiner

Twilight Greenaway at the Smithsonian‘s Food Think blog:

Last year, according to the produce industry publication The Packer, about 75 percent of the avocados shipped within the U.S. in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl came from Mexico. Most of the rest came from Chile. And that translates to a lot of the creamy green fruits. This year Americans will eat almost 79 million pounds of them in the few weeks before the big game — an eight million pound increase over last year and a 100 percent increase since 2003.

None of this has been an accident. The avocado industry started promoting guacamole as a Super Bowl food back in the 1990s, shortly after the NAFTA agreement began allowing floods of avocados from Central and South America to enter the country in winter. By 2008, Mexico had become the largest supplier of avocados to the U.S.

Touchdown for the centralized global food system! Funny end-zone dance for big profits! But a painful loss for local farming. Avocado season hasn’t really begun yet, so the ones you buy for Guacamole Sunday aren’t likely to be super-tasty, even after you let them ripen in a bag for a couple days. If you’re going to give in to the green monster, though, just please don’t do this.

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More than half the U.S. is still in drought, and it’s likely to last through April

by RubinkJoseph Posted on January 18, 2013

More than half the U.S. is still in drought, and it’s likely to last through April

By Philip Bump

Do you know where the largest desert in the world is? Go ahead, Google it. I’ll wait. The correct answer: the Antarctic. Even though it is cold and covered with snow, it receives very, very small amounts of precipitation. The more you know, etc.

I bring this up to demonstrate that appearances can be deceiving. Right now, for example, it is winter. And despite that, and despite the fact that the United States saw a decent amount of precipitation last week, much of the country is still under drought conditions — nearly 59 percent of the lower 48 states, in fact.

DroughtMonitor

And that is likely to continue. From Climate Central:

The national drought footprint shrank slightly this week, as heavy rains fell across the South, Southeast, Midwest and parts of the Mid-Atlantic states, and major snowfall blanketed parts of the Rocky Mountains and Northern Cascades, bringing relief to those regions. However, the hardest-hit drought region — the Great Plains — continued to experience drier-than-average conditions, with the drought continuing to hold on.

A new federal drought outlook issued on Thursday projects that the drought conditions are likely to remain entrenched through April, and that the drought may even worsen from the Plains to the Rockies and into the Southwest, along with another area of persistent and expanding drought in the Southeast, including southern Georgia and the Florida Panhandle.

Here’s what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration thinks that persistence will look like by May.

DroughtMonitor

Even in winter, the ripple effects of the drought continue. Over the past 25 years, budget cuts have meant that the Army Corps of Engineers only fully dredged the Great Lakes six times. Without dredging properly, sediment builds up in shipping lanes. Making matters worse, the drought is causing water levels to drop. That combination of higher lake floors and less water is forcing ports along the lakes to close.

The 2012 drought was, by many measures, the worst since the Dust Bowl era. It’s not over yet. Just as a little cool weather doesn’t undermine the concept of global warming, a little precipitation doesn’t end a drought. And sometimes deserts are frozen solid.

Shutterstock

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It’s high-speed rail vs. farmers in California

by johnsmithwindows Posted on December 29, 2012

It’s high-speed rail vs. farmers in California

By Susie Cagle

California High Speed Rail Authority

A planned high-speed rail line in California is looking forward to a bumpy 2013 (and 2014, and 2015 …). It may be attorneys rather than travelers who really win from the largest public works project in the state’s history, at least in the immediate future. The Fresno Bee reports that many farmers and other property owners along the intended route in the Central Valley have vowed to fight the project, potentially forcing the state to exercise eminent domain to seize needed properties.

Up and down the Valley, the rail authority anticipates spending tens of millions of dollars to buy the land it needs in Merced, Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare and Kern counties. The agency hopes to begin construction next year on a stretch of about 30 miles from northeast of Madera to the south end of Fresno — the first portion of what is ultimately planned as a 520-mile system linking San Francisco and Los Angeles.

But some vocal property owners, including farmers, are loathe to part with their property and have vowed to force the state to use its power of eminent domain — a potentially costly and time-consuming ordeal.

The line will eventually connect L.A. to San Francisco, but the first portion to be built will go through the through the Central Valley bread basket, pitting awesome California Cuties against awesome California regional transit. The total cost of the project is currently projected at $68 billion, but that likely doesn’t include enough money to settle cases with all property owners, especially farmers whose livelihoods are directly tied to their property.

Because trains traveling at 220 mph cannot make tight turns, some of the line will slice in an arc through farms rather than skim the squared-off edges of properties or hug existing freight railroad lines.

For farmland, “just compensation” may encompass much more than the per-acre value of the land. Other factors may include the production value of permanent crops on the acreage, the effect that the rail line would have on the remainder of the parcel, whether any structures or irrigation systems have to be moved, and access to acreage that sits on the other side of the tracks and whether those leftover pieces can be farmed economically.

California projects that this first, contentious portion of rail line will be complete by the end of 2017, though that date keeps being delayed.

Federal funding for the project, which is supposed to make up half of its budget, is also in question, as the U.S. Government Accountability Office warned in a recent report. But High-Speed Rail Authority Chair Dan Richard is still optimistic, telling The San Francisco Examiner, “This is truly a statewide rail modernization plan which includes improvements that will greatly enhance the efficiency and reliability of regional transit.”

Yeah, let’s hope the farmers see it that way.

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New York’s energy-efficiency survey suggests that older is often better

by olikellopas Posted on December 26, 2012

New York’s energy-efficiency survey suggests that older is often better

By Philip Bump

dbasulto

The new LEED-certified 7 World Trade Center is much less energy efficient than older buildings.

Here’s a tip for Manhattan building owners looking to build as energy-efficiently as possible: Build your structure 100 years ago.

New York City’s recently-implemented law mandating that buildings report energy use has revealed that the city’s best performers are often not its newest additions. From the Times:

Older buildings tend to have higher Energy Star scores because they have thicker walls, fewer windows and less ventilation — superior “thermal envelopes,” as a report on the early results puts it. They are also less suited to energy-gobbling activities like computer data crunching, the downfall of some youthful but middling performers. …

Unlike cities that depend heavily on automobiles, New York racks up most of its carbon dioxide emissions — nearly 80 percent — in heating and cooling buildings. Tracking this energy use is deemed crucial to meeting the city goal of cutting overall emissions by about a third by 2030, to slash costs and fight climate change.

New York’s largest buildings — just 2 percent of the roughly one million buildings in the city — account for 45 percent of the energy expended by the entire building stock.

We took the data — which is available online — and mapped it by address. (We chose to use greenhouse gas emissions, since the metric used by the Times, its Energy Star rating, had far fewer data points. Clicking an address will reveal both its GHG emissions and efficiency rating.)

If you zoom in on Manhattan (the densest cluster of buildings) you can see that locations in Midtown, just south of Central Park, have higher GHG emissions (indicated by more red in the pie charts).

One of the factors in the energy scores is who’s using the building’s energy.

The disclosure law exempts buildings in which more than 10 percent of the space is devoted to trading floors, data centers and other energy-intensive activities.

Yet work spaces that hum 24/7 seem nonetheless to have played into the results, including [LEED-certified] 7 World Trade Center’s score.

“Seventy-four is good, but I was initially surprised that three of our older buildings scored higher than 7 World Trade Center, and it had to do principally with tenancy,” said John Lieber, who oversees buildings at ground zero for Silverstein Properties. He noted that 7 World Trade Center’s tenants included firms like Moody’s, the financial rating agency.

The higher-efficiency-scoring properties he alluded to — 120 Wall Street, the Equitable Building at 120 Broadway and 570 Seventh Avenue — house nonprofit groups, modeling agencies and other tenants whose needs are of the basic light-switch variety, he said.

(It is our understanding that some nonprofit groups also use the internet; we will update this article once we can confirm that.)

These data may become more useful over time, as indicators of how buildings have improved their efficiency scores or as a means of tracking how neighborhoods have gotten better or declined. For now, we must be content with what we’ve already learned: the greenest building in New York is a windowless one built in 1920 that is home to a modeling agency that never turns on its lights.

Source

City’s Law Tracking Energy Use Yields Some Surprises, New York Times

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