Earth Wise

By Randy Simon

From green business and new environmental legislation to how nature impacts our environment in ways never before considered, Earth Wise offers a look at our changing environment.... more

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How many episodes does Earth Wise have?

The podcast currently has 2,516 episodes available.

Earth Wise episodes:

July 29, 2019 The Microplastic Diet
According to a new study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, Americans consume more than 70,000 microplastic particles every year from the food they eat, the water they drink, and the air they breathe.
While the health impacts of ingesting these tiny particles are largely
unknown, there is the potential for the plastic to enter human tissues and
cause an immune response or perhaps release toxic chemicals into the body.
The analysis by biologists at the University of Victoria in Canada
examined data from 26 previous studies on microplastic contamination. It found that Americans eat and drink an
estimated 39,000 to 52,000 microplastic particles each year, depending on their
age and sex. The numbers jump to 74,000
to 121,000 when inhalation of microplastics is included.
Americans who drink water solely from plastic bottles consume an
additional 90,000 particles annually, compared to only 4,000 particles for
people who only drink tap water.
The researchers warn that their findings are likely to be drastic underestimates of the problem. Several major U.S. food groups – including poultry, beef, dairy, grains, and vegetables – have not been studied for their microplastic contamination. Thus, the estimate of microparticle ingestion is associated with only 15% of an average person’s caloric intake. Furthermore, there is no assessment currently available for how much plastic might be entering our bodies from food packaging.
The report’s findings suggest that microplastics will continue to be
found in the majority if not all items intended for human consumption. Realistically, the only way to reduce the
human consumption of microplastics will be to reduce the production and use of
plastics.
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Web Links
Americans Consume Tens of Thousands of Microplastic Particles Every Year
Photo, posted June 18, 2016, courtesy of Sirirat Kornsongkaew via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
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2min
July 26, 2019 Indoor Pollution
We mostly think of air pollution as an outdoor problem. The primary culprits are vehicle and factory exhaust as well as occasional wildfire smoke. What we don’t think about is the air quality inside our own homes.
Researchers at Washington State University have found that indoor pollution levels can be surprisingly high and that they vary throughout the day and increase as temperatures rise.
Indoor air pollution comes from a variety of sources, including
building materials, furniture, household chemical products, and from activities
like cooking. One of the most serious
pollutants is formaldehyde, which often is emitted from gypsum wallboard. About half of the gypsum used in homes as
drywall is made from waste products from the coal industry. When the material is heated, formaldehyde and
possibly even mercury can be emitted.
Pollutant levels rise in homes as temperatures increase. Thus, the highest levels of pollution occur
in the afternoon and the lowest are in the early morning. Before this research, manufacturers and
builders assumed that pollution levels were pretty much constant over time.
Building laws require that homes are structurally sound, and that
people are comfortable, but there is little regulation of air quality in
people’s homes. One of the best ways to
clear out harmful chemicals is with ventilation to the outdoors. But with increased concern about reducing
energy use, builders are making homes more airtight, which may inadvertently be
worsening the problem.
We need to balance making more energy efficient homes with protecting
our health by being aware of the dangers that lurk in the air in our
homes. Running the air conditioning or opening
windows are good things to do.
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Web Links
Researchers uncover indoor pollution hazards
Photo, posted October 14, 2010, courtesy of Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
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July 25, 2019 Packing With Banana Leaves
More and more places are instituting bans on single-use plastic bags. Places like California and Hawaii already have bans in place and New Jersey is considering such a ban. New York’s law will go into effect next March. Supermarkets will no longer provide plastic bags at the checkout line. But the laws have some exceptions, including the plastic bags used to hold produce and to pack up meats.
Banning or reducing single-use plastic bags is a growing trend in Asia
as well including places like South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand.
One supermarket in Thailand came up with a novel approach to
eco-friendly packaging: wrapping produce
in banana leaves. The idea quickly
became a viral hit on social media and drew the attention of supermarkets in
Vietnam. Several big supermarket chains
in that country also began experimenting with banana leaves as a packaging
alternative.
Representatives of Vietnam’s Lotte Mart chain said that the banana
leaf packaging was still in the testing phase, but they plan to replace plastic
with leaves nationwide very soon. Aside
from wrapping vegetables and fruits, the grocery chain intends to also use the
leaves for fresh meat products.
Customers seem to be quite positive about the new packaging noting
that it is actually quite attractive visually.
The banana leaf packaging also makes people more aware of the need for
protecting the environment.
While Vietnam is a relatively small country, it turns out that it
ranks number four in the world for the largest amount of plastic waste dumped
into the ocean. The country disposes of
about 2,500 tons of plastic waste per day. So, efforts like the banana leaf
packaging are not just symbolically important, they are genuinely a major
environmental imperative.
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Web Links
Supermarkets in Asia are Now Using Banana Leaves Instead of Plastic Packaging
Photo courtesy of Perfect Homes Chiangmai via Facebook.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
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2min
July 24, 2019 The New York Climate Plan
New York lawmakers have passed a sweeping climate plan that requires the state to eliminate almost all of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The plan calls for the phase-out of gasoline cars and oil- and gas-burning furnaces and requires all of the state’s electricity to come from carbon-free sources.
The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act requires the state
to slash its carbon emissions to 85% below 1990 levels by 2050 and to offset
the remaining 15% by other means such as removing carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere. The bill requires New York
to get 70% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
The challenges of reaching the program’s goals are daunting. New York has so far only reduced its
emissions by 8% since 1990. The state
currently does get 60% of its electricity from carbon-free sources – mostly
hydroelectric dams and nuclear power plants – but it will require offshore
windfarms, ramped-up solar installations, and battery storage systems to push
the numbers dramatically higher.
Transportation, which is responsible for a third of New York’s
emissions, will be particularly tough to tackle. The Trump administration is rolling back
federal vehicle efficiency rules and is trying to prevent states from setting
stricter standards. Currently, electric
car ownership is primarily attractive for single-family homeowners who can plug
in their cars at home. Far more
pervasive charging stations – for example, all over the streets of New York
City – would be needed to make electric cars practical for everyone.
The plan aims for industries to bear most of the financial burden, but
supporters say that the costs of not acting on climate will be vastly greater
for businesses. The plan’s deadlines for
major emissions reductions are a decade away but there will be much to do quite
soon.
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Web Links
New York to Approve One of the World’s Most Ambitious Climate Plans
Photo, posted September 17, 2009, courtesy of Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
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July 23, 2019 Desalination On The Rise
Desalination has been regarded for decades as a solution for providing fresh water to places where it is scarce. With drought becoming more common around the world – sometimes even in places where water supplies were thought to be ample – there is increasing pressure to bring new desalination plants online.
San Diego gets only 12 inches of rain a year and has no
groundwater. It gets half its water from
the distant Colorado River, and that source is becoming increasingly
unreliable. Thus, it is no surprise that
America’s largest desalination plant is in Carlsbad, about 30 miles north of
San Diego. That plant provides about 10%
of the fresh water needs of the region’s 3.1 million people.
There are 11 desalination plants in California, and 10 more are
proposed. Desalination is huge in Saudi Arabia, Australia and Israel. Globally, more than 300 million people get
their water from desalination.
But there are problems.
Desalination is expensive and energy-intensive. If the process is powered by fossil fuels, it
contributes to global warming. There are
ecological impacts as well since it takes two gallons of sea water to make a
gallon of fresh water, and the gallon left behind is extremely briny and
potentially harmful to dump back into the sea.
The intake systems of desalination plants are also harmful to fish and
other aquatic creatures.
The cost of desalination has dropped by more than half over the last 30 years but water from it still costs about twice as much as that from other main sources. The technology is getting better and cheaper, but the industry must confront and solve serious environmental and economic problems in order for desalination to be able to meet the needs of an increasingly thirsty world.
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Web Links
As Water Scarcity Increases, Desalination Plants Are on the Rise
Photo, posted January 12, 2011, courtesy of Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
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2min
July 22, 2019 Why Choose Chicken Over Beef?
Food production is a major driver of climate change. It’s responsible for more than a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions. But the environmental impact of different foods varies greatly, and making seemingly insignificant changes can actually have significant impacts.
According to a first-ever national study of U.S. eating habits and their carbon footprints, choosing chicken over beef will cut your dietary carbon footprint in half.
The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey asked more than
16,000 participating Americans to name all the foods they consumed in the past
24 hours. The research team then calculated the carbon footprint of what people
said they ate. If a respondent consumed
broiled beef steak, for example, researchers calculated what the carbon
footprint would have been had broiled chicken been consumed instead.
The study’s findings illustrate how making one simple substitution can
significantly reduce a person’s dietary carbon footprint. A diet’s carbon footprint is the amount of
greenhouse gas emissions that result from the energy, fertilizer, land use, and
other inputs necessary to produce food.
In general, animal-based foods have a bigger carbon footprint than
plant-based foods. For example,
producing beef uses 20 times the land and emits 20 times the emissions as
growing beans (per gram of protein), and requires 10 times more resources than
producing chicken.
According to the World Resources Institute, keeping the increase in global warming below 2°C will be impossible without limiting the global rise in meat consumption.
Last year, the EAT-Lancet Commission report found that a radical transformation of the global food system was needed because it’s threatening the stability of the climate.
Make a change – big or small – today.
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Web Links
Choosing chicken over beef cuts our carbon footprints a surprising amount
Photo, posted August 30, 2011, courtesy of Ken Hawkins via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
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July 19, 2019 Capital Region Community Solar
New York’s Capital Region is getting a major new community solar farm. A community solar farm is a solar power installation whose output is shared by multiple community subscribers who receive credit on their electricity bills for their share of the power produced. The primary purpose of community solar is to allow members of a community to have the benefits of solar power even if they cannot or prefer not to install solar panels on their own property.
US Light Energy has broken ground on the Sugar Hill Solar Farm, to be
located on 40 acres of land on the Sugar-Hill/Sugar-View Farm in Clifton
Park. The 7-megawatt, ground-mounted
solar project will include nearly 20,000 solar modules. When fully operational later this year, the
facility is expected to produce more than 8.6 million kilowatt-hours of energy
a year.
The farm will be part of New York state’s Community Solar Program, and
the electricity it generates can be supplied to customers anywhere in National
Grid’s existing distribution system.
Residential and commercial properties in Clifton Park will have 30 days
to subscribe before the solar energy generated by the farm is opened to the
general public. Subscribers of community
solar farms typically save 10% on their electricity bills.
There are already community solar programs in operation in several
Capital Region communities, but this is the first one in the Clifton Park
Area. Apart from providing savings on
utility bills, community solar allows consumers to support clean, locally
generated power with little or no upfront costs. Not everyone is in a position to put solar
panels on their roof, but community solar is increasingly an option for New
York residents.
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Web Links
Construction begins on 7-MW community solar farm in New York
Photo, posted March 19, 2012, courtesy of Kate Ausburn via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
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2min
July 18, 2019 Fresh Water Under The Sea
A new survey of the sub-seafloor off the U.S. Northeast coast has revealed the existence of a gigantic aquifer of relatively fresh water trapped in porous sediments lying beneath the salty ocean. This appears to be the largest such formation ever found.
The newly-discovered aquifer stretches from the shore at least from
Massachusetts to New Jersey and extends more-or-less continuously out about 50
miles to the edge of the continental shelf.
The deposits begin at around 600 feet below the ocean floor and bottom
out at about 1,200 feet. If all that
water was found on the surface, it could create a lake some 15,000 miles in
area. The researchers estimate that the
region holds at least 670 cubic miles of fresh water.
Researchers made use of innovative measurements of electromagnetic
waves to map the water, which had not been detected by other technologies. It was already known that fresh water
existed in places under the sea bottom as a result of oil drilling as far back
as the 1970s. But there was previously no
hint of the extent of the undersea aquifer.
The water probably was trapped by sediments deposited during the last
ice age when sea levels were much lower.
But modern subterranean runoff from land sources might also be a
contributor.
If water from the aquifer was to be withdrawn, it would still have to be desalinated for most uses, but the cost would be much less than processing ordinary seawater. There is probably no need to do this in the Northeastern US, but the discovery suggests that such aquifers probably lie off many other coasts worldwide and could provide desperately needed water in places like southern California, Australia, the Mideast or Saharan Africa.
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Web Links
Scientists Map Huge Undersea Fresh-Water Aquifer Off U.S. Northeast
Photo, courtesy of August 1, 2015, courtesy of Michael Vadon via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
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2min
July 17, 2019 Bees And Plastic
Wild bees in Argentina have recently been found to be constructing nests entirely made of flimsy plastic material left on farms and scientists don’t know why.
In 2017 and 2018, researchers at Argentina’s National Agricultural
Technology Institute built wooden, artificial nests for wild bees. These bee species burrow into nests to
individually lay larvae rather than having a large hive with queens and
workers. The artificial nests provide
hollow openings that bees generally fill with cut leaves, twigs, and mud.
Sixty-three wooden nests were constructed and three were found lined
entirely with plastic. The bees
carefully cut bits of plastic in the shape and size of fingernails and arranged
them in an overlapping pattern in their nests.
The plastic seems to have come from plastic bags or films, which have a
similar texture to the leaves bees ordinarily use to line their nests. And, in fact, leaves were readily available
to the bees making use of plastic.
This is the first time that bees have been seen making nests entirely
out of plastic, but for years scientists have known bees were incorporating
plastic into their building materials.
Research is needed to determine the potential impact plastic might have
on bees, but the nest building shows that bees are highly adaptive to changing
environments.
Plastic often forms a threat to wildlife in the form of microplastics
that can be consumed. But there is no
evidence that bees are consuming plastic.
Some researchers have speculated that the plastic in bees’ nests may
form a barrier against common nest issues like mold and parasites.
At this point, it is not clear whether it is a good thing or a bad
thing that some bees are choosing plastic over natural materials, but it is
certainly interesting.
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Web Links
Wild bees are building their homes from plastic—and scientists aren’t sure why
Photo, posted December 12, 2014, courtesy of Judy Gallagher via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
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2min
July 16, 2019 100% Renewables Does Not Necessarily Mean Carbon-Free
Hundreds of companies around the world have committed to use 100% renewable energy in order to fight climate change. But a new study from Stanford University points out that 100% renewable energy does not necessarily mean 100% carbon-free energy.
The problem is that the carbon content of electricity can vary a lot
over the course of a day in many locations.
Using yearly averages can overstate the carbon reductions associated
with a particular power source, in some cases by significant amounts.
Suppose a California company purchases or generates enough solar power
to match 100% or more of their electricity use over the course of the
year. In reality, it may generate far
more electricity than it uses during the afternoon and sell the excess. Then, at nighttime, it purchases power from
the grid, which would be far more carbon-intensive if it involves the burning
of fossil fuels.
But in Britain, for example, the situation is very different. With a high reliance on wind power, grid
carbon intensity is actually lower at night.
So very different consumption patterns over the course of a day would be
less carbon-intensive.
If sufficient energy storage capacity can be implemented into the grid
as well as suitable long-range transmission, these time-based fluctuations in
the electricity supply could be ironed out.
Until such time, electricity consumers need to evaluate the environmental
benefits of their renewable strategies on an hourly basis rather than using
averages. And the best strategies are
entirely dependent upon the characteristics of the specific grid they interact
with. The need for this kind of analysis
will only grow as renewable generation expands.
Transparent, precise and meaningful carbon accounting is necessary.
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Web Links
100% renewables doesn’t equal zero-carbon energy, and the difference is growing
Photo, posted January 29, 2013, courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
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2min

FAQs about Earth Wise:

How many episodes does Earth Wise have?

The podcast currently has 2,516 episodes available.