Climate change is making it more dangerous to eat certain fish
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Climate change is making it more dangerous to eat certain fish
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Mind Over Matter – K. C. Cole
READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS
Genre: Science & Nature
Price: $2.99
Publish Date: April 17, 2004
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC
“Ruminations on every scientific subject over the sun—and plenty beyond it”—from the bestselling author of The Universe and the Teacup ( The Boston Globe ).   A San Jose Mercury News Best Book of the Year   A recipient of the American Institute of Physics Award for Best Science Writer, K. C. Cole offers a wide-ranging collection of essays about the nature of nature, the universals in the universe, and the messy playfulness of great science.   In witty and fresh short takes, she explores some of the world’s most intriguing scientific subjects—from particle physics to cosmology to mathematics and astronomy—and introduces a few of science’s great minds. Revealing the universe to be elegant, intriguing, and, above all, relevant to our everyday lives, this book is “an absolute delight [that] belongs on the bedside bookshelf of every science enthusiast” ( San Jose Mercury News ).   “Cole seeks the wondrous in the stuff we mistake for just ordinary.” — Publishers Weekly K. C. Cole, the Los Angeles Times science writer and columnist, always has a fresh take on cutting-edge scientific discoveries, which she makes both understandable and very human. Reporting on physics, cosmology, mathematics, astronomy, and more, Cole's essays, culled from her popular Mind Over Matter columns, reveal the universe as simple, constant, and complex—and wholly relevant to politics, art, and every dimension of human life.
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The Energy Department expects no decline in America’s carbon emissions by 2050.
Which, by the way, is melting.
“This discovery is a game-changer,” said Paul Schuster, lead author of a new study that quantified the total mercury in the Arctic’s frozen permafrost.
And it’s a lot of mercury! To be precise, 793 gigagrams — more than 15 million gallons — of the stuff is currently locked up in frozen northern soils. That’s by far the biggest reservoir of mercury on the planet — almost twice the amount held by the rest of the world’s earth, oceans, and atmosphere combined.
This wouldn’t be a problem if the permafrost stayed, well, permanently frosty. But, as previous research has outlined, it’s not.
Mercury is a toxin that can cause birth defects and neurological damage in animals, including humans. And mercury levels accumulate as you go up the food chain, which is why king-of-the-jungle species like tuna and whale can be unsafe to eat in large quantities.
As thawing permafrost releases more mercury into the atmosphere and oceans, the implications for human health are troubling. Locally, many northern communities rely on subsistence hunting and fishing, two sources of possible mercury contamination. Globally, the toxin could travel great distances and collect in distant ecosystems.
As if we didn’t already have enough reasons to want permafrost to stay frozen.
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The Energy Department expects no decline in America’s carbon emissions by 2050.
Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Oster, PUR, solar, solar panels, solar power, Uncategorized, Wiley
Tagged business & technology, climate-change, discovery, g & f, mercury, news, planet, politics, rely-on-subsistence, twice-the-amount
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About 700 species are already being hurt by climate change.
On Sunday, officials ordered the evacuation of nearly 200,000 Northern California residents with assurances that “this is NOT a drill.” Their communities are at risk of being flooded by water from overflowing Lake Oroville, the state’s second largest reservoir.
After years of drought, California has recently been pummeled by rain and snow. That’s caused the lake’s water level to rise so much that water has flowed out not just via the main concrete spillway, but via the emergency earthen spillway, too. In early February, a gaping hole appeared in the main spillway, and it’s since grown. Authorities have determined that the second spillway is also at risk of failing.
The Sierra Club and two other environmental organizations warned about potential problems with the emergency spillway 12 years ago, but federal and state officials rejected concerns and said the spillway met guidelines, the Mercury News reports.
Situations like the one at Oroville Dam could crop up more often in coming years as climate change intensifies California’s cycles of drought and heavy precipitation. The state inspects its dams more than many others (although that’s not saying much), but extreme future storms can be expected to put enormous stress on the state’s essential water infrastructure.
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Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, Jason, ONA, Ringer, solar, Uncategorized
Tagged anchor, emergency, endangered species, environmental, lake, mercury, mercury-news, northern-california, primates, second, sierra
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Tesla’s labor controversy shows that a green job isn’t always a good job
Tesla’s labor controversy shows that a green job isn’t always a good job
By Heather Smithon May 17, 2016Share
Last spring, a worker installing pipes in the roof of a Tesla Motors shop in Fremont, Calif., slipped and fell three stories onto a concrete floor. He broke both legs, and was concussed so badly that he drifted in and out of consciousness in a San Jose hospital for days.
In the hospital, the worker, Gregor Lesnik, asked for a lawyer. He was part of a crew of about 140 workers who had been brought over on a temporary B1 visa from Eastern Europe by a Slovenian construction company. According to Lesnik, he was paid less than $5 an hour — half the current California minimum wage, and a fraction of the going rate of $52 an hour for similar work in the area. The crew worked 10-hour shifts, six or seven days a week, with no overtime pay.
Lesnik’s accident was a reminder of a very old problem — just because a job is better for the environment, doesn’t make it better for the person who has it. Without strong labor standards, new green jobs can be just as dangerous and exploitative as the old ones they’re meant to replace. Treating workers poorly also risks the political goodwill that has brought the industry so many subsidies and tax breaks over the years.
Tesla told the San Jose Mercury News — which broke the story over the weekend — that Lesnik’s injuries and wages weren’t the company’s responsibility, because he wasn’t an employee. Tesla had hired a German company, Eisenmann, to build the new paint facility, and Eisenmann hired a Slovenian company, Vuzem, to provide the labor. “Mr. Lesnik was injured when he allegedly failed to wear the proper safety harness provided by his employer,” Tesla told the Mercury News. Other men on the Vuzem crew confirmed Lesnik’s story — long hours, working on weekends, no overtime pay — though they were more experienced, and made closer to $10 per hour.
This isn’t the first time Tesla’s use of contractors has caused controversy. Since the article was published, however, Tesla and its founder Elon Musk have promised to make things right.
“We are taking action to address this individual’s situation and to put in place additional oversight to ensure that our workplace rules are followed even by sub-subcontractors to prevent such a thing from happening again,” the company wrote on its blog. “Assuming the article is correct, we need to do right by Mr. Lesnik and his colleagues from Vuzem.”
Tesla’s blog post said representatives from the state’s occupational safety agency investigated the incident and cleared the company of any responsibility. “As far as the law goes, Tesla did everything correctly,” the company said. The sad thing is, they appear to be right.
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Tesla’s labor controversy shows that a green job isn’t always a good job
8 Scariest Facts About Seafood
Posted in alo, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized
Tagged alo, conscious consumer, eating for health, health, mercury, nature & wildlife, shellfish, Turtles
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Billions of barrels of new reasons to not frack California
Billions of barrels of new reasons to not frack California
The health, environmental, and climate impacts of fracking haven’t been enough to convince California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) to curb the process. Even as Brown urges California restaurants to limit servings of water to help conserve during a drought, oil drillers are gearing up to use the water-hungry practice of fracking to suck more crude out of the vast Monterey shale deposit.
But now the federal government has drastically downgraded its estimate of the amount of oil that could be fracked from the deposit, spurring environmentalists to demand yet again, and even more loudly, that Brown support a fracking moratorium in the state.
First, here’s an explanation of the downgrade from KQED:
Federal officials with the Energy Information Administration are reportedly downgrading their estimate of how much oil could be pumped out of the formation. Just a few years ago, the agency projected that oil companies could retrieve 15 billion barrels of oil. Now, it’s down to 600 million.
Just to clarify: these numbers don’t reflect how much oil is underground in California. Most geologists agree that there’s still plenty down there. The EIA is attempting to estimate how much could be pumped out with current technology.
Environmentalists quickly seized on the news. They didn’t want that oil drilled to begin with, and now that much of it may not be extractable, they argue that fracking would be even more wasteful than previously thought. “The myth of vast supplies of domestic oil resources and billions in potential revenue from drilling in California by the oil industry has been busted,” San Francisco billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer told the San Jose Mercury News.
Here are highlights from a letter that a coalition of environmentalists called Californians Against Fracking sent to Brown on Wednesday:
We urge you to move quickly to halt fracking and other dangerous oil-recovery methods in California in the wake of today’s news that the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) will be reducing their estimate of the amount of recoverable oil in the Monterey Shale by 96 percent. …
The EIA’s massively revised estimate for what is currently recoverable is a perfect illustration of the dangerous uncertainty surrounding fracking for oil. On the other hand, what is clear is that fracking, acidizing and other oil extraction techniques are putting Californians at risk today. Communities urgently need protection from fracking and drilling and we are looking to you to provide leadership and relief to these communities.
It seems disingenuous for Brown to tell residents to reduce their water use while allowing frackers to operate in their water-wasteful ways — and that disconnect only grows more glaring with the news that fracking won’t even deliver the oily goods that he had been hoping for.
Source
California’s Monterey Shale: Bonanza or Bust? Nobody Really Knows, KQED
Fracking: New Monterey Shale oil estimate rocks California’s expectations, San Jose Mercury News
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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Posted in ALPHA, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, Monterey, ONA, PUR, Uncategorized, Vintage
Tagged anchor, business, business & technology, californians, facebook, g & f, information, mercury, monterey, monterey-shale, Ona, pur
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Thousands of Californians are about to run out of water
Thousands of Californians are about to run out of water
All Californians are being asked to cut back on their water use to help the state survive its drought emergency. But for members of 17 communities across the state, such reductions might not be voluntary — they’re in danger of running completely dry in the next few months.
Officials in these communities are considering the very real possibility that they’ll need to truck in water or even install portable desalination equipment.
The 17 vulnerable water systems serve as many as 11,000 residents apiece, though the tiniest serves just 39 people. Here’s the San Jose Mercury News with more:
In some communities, wells are running dry. In others, reservoirs are nearly empty. Some have long-running problems that predate the drought. …
“As the drought goes on, there will be more [communities at risk of running out of water] that probably show up on the list,” said Dave Mazzera, acting drinking-water division chief for the state Department of Public Health. …
Lompico County Water District, in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Felton, has long-standing water supply issues and is exploring a possible merger, but so far has been stymied by nearly $3 million in needed upgrades — a hefty bill for the district’s 500 customers.
“We have been unable to take water out of the creek since August and well production is down, and we didn’t have that much water to begin with,” said Lois Henry, a Lompico water board member.
Meanwhile, the San Francisco Examiner reports that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which provides water to 2.5 million people in the Bay Area, could be forced to delay water recycling and water desalinization projects — just when they are needed the most.
The agency pipes most of its water all the way from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park — and a project to reinforce its nearly 200-mile network of water pipes and pumps is running over budget, forcing cuts to other projects.
The good news is that California is finally receiving some winter storms. The bad news is that they won’t be nearly enough to quench the state’s dire thirst for water.
Source
California drought: 17 communities could run out of water within 60 to 120 days, state says, San Jose Mercury News
Water supply project costs could halt plans for desalination, water recycling plants, San Francisco Examiner
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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140 nations — including the U.S. — agree on treaty to slash use of mercury
140 nations — including the U.S. — agree on treaty to slash use of mercury
In seventh grade, our science teacher would, on rare, special occasions, let us play with mercury. This will be my edition of the crazy-things-that-used-to-be-OK stories that parents tell their kids. ”You played with mercury? With your hands?” my kids will ask. Yep. It was stupid.
Where mercury is really dangerous, of course, is in the air. In 2011, the EPA proposed a new standard for the reduction of mercury pollution from power plants. (It is currently under review.) Over the weekend, 140 countries — including the United States — finalized a preliminary agreement to go one step further, proposing to scale back and eliminate a number of uses of mercury, including reductions in emissions from power production. From the United Nations Environment Programme:
[The new reductions] range from medical equipment such as thermometers and energy-saving light bulbs to the mining, cement and coal-fired power sectors.
The treaty, which has been four years in negotiation and which will be open for signature at a special meeting in Japan in October, also addresses the direct mining of mercury, export and import of the metal and safe storage of waste mercury. …
Mercury and its various compounds have a range of serious health impacts including brain and neurological damage especially among the young.
Others include kidney damage and damage to the digestive system. Victims can suffer memory loss and language impairment alongside many other well documented problems.
As you may know, the millinery industry in Victorian England relied heavily on the use of mercury. The “well documented problems” mentioned above were frequently seen in hat-makers, resulting in Lewis Carroll’s famous Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland.
The Mad Hatter had it relatively good. This weekend’s agreement resulted from UNEP’s Minamata Convention on Mercury, named for Minamata, Japan. During the early 20th century, wastewater from a chemical plan in the city leaked a mercury product into a local waterway. The mercury poisoned shellfish, which people consumed; an estimated 1,700 people died from mercury poisoning over several decades.
Science magazine outlines some of the changes proposed in the agreement:
[The treaty] will require its signatory nations to phase out the use of mercury in certain types of batteries, fluorescent lamps, and soaps and cosmetics by 2020.
The agreement also requires countries to limit emissions of mercury from coal-fired power plants, waste incineration, and cement factories. Countries in which small-scale gold mining takes place must draw up strategies to reduce or eliminate mercury use in that sector. Coal power plants and unregulated gold mining are the world’s two largest sources of mercury emissions and releases into the environment.
The delegates agreed to limit mercury amalgam use in dental fillings, and to phase out the use of the element in medical thermometers and blood pressure devices.
In October, governments will begin signing the treaty. The United States has agreed to the treaty in theory, but that will almost certainly result in a heated political debate in practice. The EPA’s proposed mercury rule — a relatively modest reduction in pollution from coal plants — has elicited an enormous backlash. Extending reductions to other industries will only broaden opposition.
Nonetheless, the agreement is a positive step. Mercury’s negative health effects are well-documented and significant; reducing its use will certainly be an international boon. Be warned: Even minor exposure to the chemical has been known to result in tendentious writing, recycled jokes, and an over-reliance on snark. May our children know better lives than we do.
Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.
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140 nations — including the U.S. — agree on treaty to slash use of mercury
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Tagged climate, climate & energy, countries, energy, england, hatter, japan, living, mercury, technology, treaty, victims
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