Earth Wise

By Randy SimonScience Education Self-Improvement Natural Sciences Nature

Earth Wise episodes

April 26, 2019 China And Plastic Waste
In January 2018, China enacted its “National Sword” policy which banned the import of most plastics and other materials headed for that country’s recycling processors. Those processors had handled nearly half of the world’s recyclable waste for the past quarter century. China took this step because the deluge of soiled and contaminated materials was overwhelming its processing facilities and creating yet another environmental problem for the country, this time not even of its own making.
Prior to China’s ban, 95% of the plastics collected for recycling in
the European Union and 70% in the U.S. were sold and shipped to Chinese
processors. A combination of favorable
rates for shipping in cargo vessels that carried Chinese goods abroad and low
Chinese labor rates made it a very profitable enterprise.
Before China’s ban, only 9% of globally discarded plastics were being
recycled and 12% were burned. The rest
ended up in landfills or simply dumped into the environment. Over the coming decade, as many as 11 million
tons of plastic will have to find a new place to be processed or otherwise
disposed of. There is already evidence
that plastic waste is accumulating in countries that are dependent on
exporting. In many places, including a
number of American cities, there are curtailed collections and new restrictions
on what kinds of plastics are accepted.
Some experts are hopeful that China’s ban might actually have an
upside if it leads to better solutions for managing the world’s waste. North America and Europe need to expand
processing capabilities and manufacturers need to make their products more
easily recyclable. Mostly, the Chinese
ban should be a wake-up call to the world on the need to greatly reduce
single-use plastics.
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Web Links
Piling Up: How China’s Ban on Importing Waste Has Stalled Global Recycling
Photo, posted August 8, 2017, courtesy of Sino-German Urbanisation Partnership via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
2 min
April 25, 2019 Fish And Ships
Solutions to overfishing of certain tuna and shark populations have been hindered by some significant unknowns: where the fishing is happening, and where the fish are. But researchers from Stanford University have recently shed some light on this mystery.
According to a paper recently published in the journal Science
Advances, the researchers have developed a map of shark, tuna, and ship
movements that could help ocean managers identify regions of the sea where
vulnerable species may be at risk.
The researchers’ work builds on a 2018 study in which four years of satellite vessel movement data was used to develop a machine learning algorithm that mapped the footprint of 70,000 different fishing vessels around the world. In their paper, the researchers zeroed in on the activities of 900 vessels from 12 countries in the northeast Pacific Ocean to figure out to what degree fishing fleets, sharks, and tunas overlapped.
The researchers combined the vessel data with the ocean habitat
preferences of sharks and tunas obtained from a decade-long tracking program
called Tagging of Pacific Predators (or TOPP).
According to the IUCN, most of the 876 individuals tagged in TOPP belong
to species that are either threatened or near-threatened.
By synthesizing this data, researchers were able to map where sharks and tunas would have the highest overlap with commercial fishing vessels. Increasing the transparency of where fish meets fleets will allow ocean managers to determine where international protections may be needed.
The United Nations is currently developing the world’s first legally
binding treaty to protect international waters.
The Stanford University researchers hope their findings can help with
this treaty’s formulation.
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Web Links
Tunas, sharks and ships at sea
Photo, posted June 20, 2011, courtesy of Mike Baird via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
2 min
April 24, 2019 Growing Rocks To Store Carbon
The US Geological Survey recently published a comprehensive review of geological carbon storage in sedimentary rocks through carbon mineralization. That is the process by which carbon dioxide becomes a solid mineral, such as a form of carbonate. Certain rocks undergo a chemical reaction when exposed to carbon dioxide and turn into different minerals as a result.
The idea is to use carbon mineralization as a way to permanently store carbon dioxide that has been captured from power plant emissions, other industrial activities, or even directly from the atmosphere.
Two basic approaches are injecting the CO2 deep underground or exposing it to crushed rocks at the surface. The two types of rock best suited for mineralization through injection are basalt and various ultramafic rocks. Pilot studies have shown that injection into basalt can lead to mineralization in under two years.
Exposing carbon dioxide to crushed rock at the surface generally makes use of crushed mining waste. Mineralization can be much faster in this case because there is more surface area on the crushed rock where mineralization occurs. (However, the quantities of rock available at the surface are much less than what exists deep underground).
Like all carbon capture and storage approaches, the key consideration is cost. The USGS study estimates that underground injection would cost around $30 per metric ton of CO2. The crushed rock approach might only cost $8 per metric ton, but that assumes the crushed rock is already available. If it must be newly mined, the costs would obviously go up significantly. To put this into perspective, a typical car produces around 4 metric tons of CO22 per year. So, it would cost somewhere between $30 and $120 a year to eliminate the emissions from one car. Perhaps that is a price we need to pay until we ditch gasoline cars.
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How Growing Rocks Can Help Reduce Carbon Emissions
Photo, posted October 17, 2011, courtesy of Glen Bledsoe via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
2 min
April 23, 2019 More Antarctic Warming
East Antarctica is the coldest place on Earth. It makes up two-thirds of the continent, is home to the South Pole, and has vast ice sheets that have been around for tens of millions of years and are nearly three miles thick in places. Temperatures there hover around 67 degrees below zero. In 2010, a few spots on East Antarctica’s polar plateau reached a record-breaking 144 degrees below zero.
But almost unbelievably, parts of the East Antarctic seem to be
melting.
Scientists are seeing worrying signs of ice loss in the East
Antarctic. Glaciers are starting to move
more quickly and are dumping their ice into the Southern Ocean. Satellite images show the fast-moving
ice. The biggest glacier – the Totten
Glacier – alone contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by over 12 feet.
The Antarctic as a whole contains about 90% of the planet’s ice. In theory, if it all melted, it would raise
global sea levels by an average of 200 feet.
The growing concerns about eastern Antarctica are not that its
interior plateau will soon start to melt.
It is still extremely cold there and should stay that way for a long
time. But its edges, which are in
contact with warming ocean waters, are the real worry. As the region’s ice shelves, which float atop
the Southern Ocean, erode, the vast glaciers behind them could rapidly
accelerate their slide into the sea.
Today, satellites show huge glaciers moving rapidly toward the coast,
with wide rivers of ice sometimes moving several miles a year. In the face of rapid change and limited data,
it is difficult to predict what the Antarctic will do in the future. But it doesn’t look good.
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Web Links
Polar Warning: Even Antarctica’s Coldest Region Is Starting to Melt
Photo, posted January 3, 2013, courtesy of Christopher Michel via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
2 min
April 22, 2019 Earth Day
Today is Earth Day. On April 22, 1970, millions of Americas took to the streets in peaceful demonstrations in favor of environmental reform. Since that first time, Earth Day has now become a global event each year. Estimates are that as many as a billion people in 192 countries take part in Earth Day events.
This year, the theme for Earth Day is “Protect our Species.” The focus is on the fact that the world is facing the greatest rate of extinction since the demise of the dinosaurs more than 60 million years ago.
But unlike the extinctions from that time that were linked to
so-called acts of god like asteroid collisions, the rapid extinction of species
in our world today is mostly the result of human activity.
The global destruction and rapid reduction of plant and wildlife
populations are directly linked to climate change, deforestation, habitat loss,
trafficking and poaching, unsustainable agriculture, pollution, and pesticides.
In order to stem the tide of destruction, the Earth Day Network is asking people to help raise awareness about the accelerating rate of extinction of millions of species and the causes and consequences of this phenomenon. We need to push for the creation of policies that protect broad groups of species as well as individual species and their habitats. There needs to be a global movement that embraces nature and its values. And we need to eat less meat and curtail the use of pesticides and herbicides.
We share the planet with many species, and we need them to be here in
order to sustain our own species.
Something to remember on Earth Day 2019.
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Web Links
Earth Day Network
Photo, posted January 24, 2012, courtesy of Jonas Bengtsson via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
2 min
April 19, 2019 Making Coal To Fight Climate Change
Coal is the most harmful fossil fuel for the environment and, furthermore, for human health. Its use has stubbornly persisted because it is so plentiful and, therefore, cheap. As a result, a big part of efforts to fight climate change is finding a way to remove the carbon dioxide dumped into the atmosphere by the combustion of coal.
Researchers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia have developed a remarkable technology that in effect reverses the process that has led to soaring CO2 levels in the atmosphere. They have found a way to pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turn it into coal, after which it can be stored cheaply and safely underground.
Most previous carbon capture and storage technologies have focused on compressing carbon dioxide gas into a liquid form and then pumping it into rock formations. Such techniques are rather expensive, require lots of energy, and pose risks that the liquid CO2 could escape from its underground storage sites. More recently, research on solid metal catalysts has led to the possibility of turning CO2 into solid carbon, but most of these reactions require very high temperatures and use a lot of energy.
The new technique developed at RMIT uses a new class of catalysts based on metal alloys. With a small jolt of electricity applied at room temperature, CO2 can be converted into solid carbon – basically, coal.
If this technique can be industrialized economically, it would be like
turning back the clock by taking carbon dioxide that entered the atmosphere by
the combustion of coal and turning it back into coal and putting it back
underground. It seems like excellent
environmental justice.
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Web Links
Scientists Turn Atmospheric CO2 Into Coal
Photo, posted March 16, 2015, courtesy of Will Fisher via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
2 min
April 18, 2019 The Price of Chocolate
The Ivory Coast has lost more than 80% of its forests in the last 50 years, mainly as a result of cocoa production.
The Ivory Coast is a West African country the size of New Mexico and it produces more than a third of the world’s cocoa. But around 40% of the country’s cocoa crop – supplying more than a tenth of the world’s chocolate bars – is grown illegally in the country’s national parks and 230 supposedly protected government-owned forests.
Over the decades, as many as one million landless people from
drought-stricken places like Mali and Burkina Faso moved into national parks
and protected forests and started farming cocoa. The Marahoue National Park alone has 30,000
illegal inhabitants.
Most cocoa is grown in monocultures of what is known as the full-sun
system, which requires the removal of all surrounding trees. As a result, many allegedly protected areas
have been completely converted into farms.
Most of the cocoa in the Ivory Coast is grown on small farms, typically
plots of 7 to 10 acres. The farmers are
caught in an exploitative and corrupt system of cocoa trading and land
appropriation, and most earn less than a dollar a day. Meanwhile, government agencies charged with
protecting the forests are more interested in collecting bribes than
safeguarding woodlands.
The Ivory Coast government is unveiling a plan to actually remove protection from most of its remaining forests and hand them over to the world’s chocolate traders. The claim is that this will protect other forests by improving cocoa productivity in already deforested areas. Needless to say, conservation groups are dubious that the new plan will positively impact an already terrible situation.
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Web Links
The Real Price of a Chocolate Bar: West Africa’s Rainforests
Photo, posted April 17, 2015, courtesy of Tom Coady via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
2 min
April 17, 2019 Weather-Responsive Traffic Signals
We all spend time sitting at red lights – sometimes it seems like a whole lot of time. There is a fair amount of science applied in the design of traffic signals that at least has the aim of easing congestion and improving traffic safety.
Signals in modern cities are timed using optimization models that
analyze multiple factors including traffic volume and speed with the goal of
safely getting as many vehicles as possible through intersections. It sure doesn’t seem that way in many places,
but that is the intent in any case.
But a real problem with these models is that they assume normal
conditions including weather conditions.
In places that experience real winter conditions, the assumptions of
traffic models fail. If the road surface
is covered with snow and ice and visibility is poor, variables like speed and
stopping distances become very different.
Researchers at the University of Waterloo in Canada collected data from
real-world intersections and ran computer simulations to determine the effects
of adjusting traffic signal behavior in bad weather (as well as in the presence
of other conditions such as accidents or construction.) They found that such adjustments could reduce
traffic delays by as much as 20%.
Cities with computerized signal systems are already equipped to
remotely and inexpensively adjust the timing of traffic lights. To gain the benefits of smarter signals,
there would need to be video cameras and a certain amount of artificial intelligence
software that would be able to automatically tweak the timing of lights in
response to traffic changes caused by weather, accidents or construction.
It sounds like a great idea.
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Web Links
Weather-responsive intersections could ease traffic congestion
Photo, posted September 22, 2009, courtesy of Tristan Bowersox via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
2 min
April 16, 2019 Trees And The Future Of Cities
The shade of a single tree is a welcome source of relief on a hot summer day. But even a relatively small patch of woods can have a profound cooling effect. A new study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison looks at the role trees play in keeping towns and cities cool.
According to the study, the right amount of tree cover can lower
daytime temperatures in the summer by as much as 10 degrees. The effects are noticeable from neighborhood
to neighborhood and even on a block-by-block basis.
Cities are well-known to be hot spots due to the urban heat islanding effect. Using trees to keep temperatures more comfortable in cities can make a big difference for the people who live and work there.
The man-made structures of cities – roads, sidewalks, and buildings –
absorb heat from the sun during the day and slowly release it at night. Trees, on the other hand, not only shade
those structures from the sun, but they also transpire -or release water in the
air through their leaves – which helps to cool things down.
According to the study, to get maximum cooling benefits, tree canopies
must exceed forty percent, meaning that city blocks need to be nearly halfway
covered by tree branches and leaves. To
get the biggest bang for the buck, cities should start planting more trees in
areas that are already near the forty percent threshold. But
trees can’t just be in parks.
They need to be in places where people are active.
If we want the places where we live to be more comfortable and
resilient in a warming world, we need to plant more trees.
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Web Links
Study suggests trees are crucial to the future of our cities
Photo, posted May 26, 2012, courtesy of Mislav Marohnic via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
2 min
April 15, 2019 Drugs In The Water
According to a new study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, concentrations of pharmaceuticals in rivers and lakes have dramatically increased across the globe over the past 20 years.
Traces of medicines get passed into waterways through the excretion of
active drugs in human waste, the disposal of unused medicines down drains, and
runoff from livestock farms.
The study looked in detail at two specific drugs: carbamazepine, an anti-epileptic drug, and
ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic. The study
found that the risk of ecological damage from the residue from these two drugs
was 10 to 20 times higher in 2015 than in 1995.
Chronic exposure to carbamazepine, for example, has been shown to
alter feeding behavior and reduce egg viability in zebrafish, as well as reduce
reproductive success in crustaceans.
Antibiotics can alter major nutrient cycles and decrease the
effectiveness of bacteria-based wastewater treatment systems.
The study, led by researchers from the Netherlands, created a new model estimating concentrations of the two drugs over a 20-year period in 449 aquatic systems around the globe. The model predicts a relatively high environmental risk in densely populated and dry areas such as the Middle East.
When the researchers compared the model’s results to samples from four river systems in various locations, they found that the actual drug concentrations were even higher than model results, in some cases by a factor of 10 to 100.
The new model should act as a guide for a more thorough investigation into pharmaceutical residues in waterways, which pose significant environmental risks all over the world.
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Web Links
Concentrations of Pharmaceuticals in Freshwater Increasingly Globally
Photo, posted March 22, 2012, courtesy of Rajeev Rajagopalan via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
2 min

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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.