Energize your life in an environmentally positive way
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Today’s post covers the problems we have with using fossil fuels for most of our energy needs. I also briefly review some possibilities of what we can use for energy in the future and what you can to today to help.
Global Warming
Greenhouse gases are formed by both natural and man made sources. They allow sunlight to enter the atmosphere, but they absorb the heat and trap it in the atmosphere.
Three of the major man made greenhouse gases contributors are carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Carbon dioxide makes up by far the largest amount, depending upon your source and how recent the report is, it seems to make up around 75 to 85% of the total. Methane is present in much lower amounts although it is a more potent greenhouse gas (source).
The burning of the fossil fuels: oil, coal and natural gas are the primary source of the human contributed carbon dioxide as well as the burning of wood. The U.S. contributes 25% of the carbon dioxide emissions. Methane comes from landfills, coal mines, oil and gas operations, and agriculture. (source)
Before the industrial revolution the amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 280 parts per milliom (ppm). Now – the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is almost 385 ppm. In 2007, it increased by 2.4 ppm. (source) It has been estimated that the threshold of 450 ppm is where we could have really big problems. (National Geographic, Oct. 2007, p. 32) At the current rate it will take a little more than 3 decades to get there. The average global temperature has already gone up 1 degree Fahrenheit.
Already the three great ice sheets – on Greenland, East Antarctica and West Antarctica are melting and could raise the planet’s sea levels by more than 200 feet. One third of the population lives within 300 feet of sea level could end up under water if global temperatures keep rising. (Scientific American, Feb. 2008, p.60)
What can you do?
One pretty simple thing most people can do now is change your lightbulbs from incandescent to fluorescent if you have not yet done that. They are more expensive but use less energy and last much longer. If every household in the U.S. replaced one light bulb with a fluorescent one, ‘it would prevent greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to that from nearly 800,000 cars. It would also save enough energy to light 2.5 million homes for a year.’ (Source) Even better when LED light bulbs become more readily available – buy those instead.
Currently hybrid cars and solar panels are financially out of reach for most people. Hopefully, in the not so far off future will have more options for more fuel efficient cars, plug-ins, etc. Replacing all old appliances with newer more energy efficient is not something most can afford either, if the current appliance is still functioning. Weather-proofing a house is one way to reduce fuel usage, if you can afford it.
Many other suggestions I’ve seen for saving energy are also not very practical for many people. For example – hanging clothes outside to dry instead of using a dryer. This won’t work for people in apartments, neighborhoods with ordinances against it, places where it is too rainy and cold, places where the clothes could get stolen or destroyed by people, kids or animals. In many places it is also either too hot or cold most of the year and things are too far away for riding a bicycle to be very practical most of the time.
In the future
In the future other sources of fuel will have to be developed. Some of these are listed below:
- Solar
- Wind
- Geothermal
- Biofuels
- Nuclear
– seems promising. In the U.S. lots of land in the west would need to be covered with solar panels and technology to store and transport the energy would have to be developed. (Scientific America, Jan. 2008, p.64)
– wind turbines are another potential source of clean, renewable energy. Wind turbine energy is currently being used in many states in the U.S. and in 2005 generated 17.8 billion kWh of electricity (source).
– this involves the piping of hot water or steam to drive a turbine. Currently it is difficult and expensive finding the reservoirs. Better technology could bring the price down. Another option is the use of geothermal heat pumps, but there has not been a lot of investment in it. Some countries do make use of geothermal energy to heat their houses though. (Discover, April 2008, p.20)
– are made from plants such as corn and sugarcane. In Brazil they have been using ethanol derived from sugarcane to fuel nearly all their cars since the 1980’s. But growing and harvesting sugarcane is labor intensive may lead to deforestation. In the U.S. many people want to use corn to make ethanol, but corn requires lots of herbicide and fertilizer, can result in erosion problems as well as use up land set aside for conservation and its use as biofuel increases food costs among other problems. Other options are making ethanol from the plant parts people don’t use for food – those high in cellulose – but the technology isn’t quite there yet to make it very efficient. Research into using algae for fuel is also taking place but has a long way to go before it will be viable. (National Geographic, Oct. 2007, p. 38)
– some groups think that more nuclear power should be used to replace fossil fuels. Others think it has too many risks of accidents associated with it along with the problem of how and where to store the waste. (Discover, May 2008, p.29)
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Related Posts:
- Eat in a more environmentally sustainable, responsible and healthy manner
- 5 Simple Ways Women Can Make The World Greener
- 3 Reasons Why Science is Important in This Election
April 23, 2008
Extend – the use of the items you use and buy
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Happy day-after Earth Day!
Continuing the series I started here yesterday – today’s topic is Extend the use of the items you use and buy.
The Three R’s
Much of this involves the ‘three R’s’ which we are all familiar with: Reduce – Reuse – Recycle. The EPA’s web site Consumer’s Handbook for Reducing Solid Waste has a lot of ideas that may be helpful. These include:
- Buying only what you need
- Buying less things that are disposable
- Repair broken items if you can
- Donate things you might otherwise throw away to charity
- Recycle things that can be, if you can where you live
- Compost food waste if you can
Another idea is to join Freecycle – it is a web site and ‘nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns’. Its a great way to find uses for items you don’t need anymore also.
Water Conservation
Water conservation is also important, the Earthday.gov web site has a list of great ideas.
I’ll add one more to the list – if you can do it – replace your lawn with a native North American grass like Buffalo Grass (Buchloe dactyloides). We’ve been slowly replacing ours. Buffalo Grass needs very little water – only several inches of water per month during hot weather. There are different varieties that have been developed for different regions. For our region we use a variety called Legacy – it grows easily in a wide range of soil types but actually prefers heavy clay. And it needs minimal mowing, if any, as it doesn’t grow very high. If you are interested in learning more about Buffalo Grass I will periodically write more about it on my Butterfly Gardening blog also. (I don’t have any business affiliation with High Country Gardens, its just the place we bought our plugs from.)
Recycling and E-waste
Another thing you can do is to try to encourage more recycling in the U.S. Apparently much more is recycled in the European Union than in the U. S. According to an article in National Geographic (NG) the European countries Denmark, Sweden and Belgium recycle nearly 100% of their materials, while in the U.S. its a much, much, lower percent that gets recycled.
When it comes to e-waste (computers, T.V.’s, cell phones, etc.) we are doing even worse. According to NG: High-Tech Trash the U.S. doesn’t ‘require green design or take-back programs of manufacturers’. A large percent of our e-waste sent to domestic recyclers actually gets sent to other countries – China, other parts of Asia and West Africa – especially Ghana, Nigeria and Ivory Coast. There the recyclable scraps are salvaged by unsafe methods further contributing to the local contamination of the soil, water and air with toxic substances like dioxin, lead, flame retardants, etc.
Unlike in Europe, there are only a few recycling places in the U. S. that process e-waste, and the metals within it, properly and responsibly. The article highlighted one of these companies: Creative Recycling Systems, located in Florida. Their ‘system can handle 150 million pounds of end-of-life electronic equipment a year’. A few more recycling companies like this and all the the U.S. e-waste could be processed safely.
Who Should Cast the First Stone?
While we complain when China sends us jewelry with high levels of lead – it is very possible that that lead came from the discarded e-waste we dumped in China.
Michael L. Clement and Jeffrey Weidenhamer published a paper in the journal Chemosphere showing that this might be the case: “Leaded Electronic Waste is a Possible Source Material for Lead-Contaminated Jewelry” Chemosphere (2007) doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere .2007.04.023. See Chemosphere Article also at: http://personal.ashland.edu/~jweiden/
What am doing?
So – do I recycle? We have been, but only in limited amounts. We haven’t had the time to make frequent trips to a recycling place and not enough room to store very much. However – I’m quite happy to say that today – the day after Earth Day – we finally got our recycling cart delivered to our house! Our unincorporated St. Louis County home didn’t have any pickup service here but it was recently started. For some reason we were originally skipped in the distribution of carts – but now we have one – so now we can recycle everything that can be recycled!
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- 5 Simple Ways Women Can Make The World Greener
- One last pre-election post
April 22, 2008
Effect the area around you in a positive way
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Happy Earthday!
One of the things you can do to keep the environment healthy is to change the area around you in a positive way.
Here are some of things I’ve found that are either easy for most people to do or if not easy are cool and a lot of fun!
Picking up litter
Something that pretty much anyone can do is to help clean up the trash and litter around the area you live in. Most people don’t have to travel too far from their homes to find an area where people have thrown their trash and left it laying around. Many areas have Adopt–A–Road Programs also where you can volunteer to help keep a stretch of highway clean from debris and litter. Individuals or groups are eligible, but an adult may be required to be present.
Composting
Composting, technically, is the aerobic decomposition of biodegradable organic matter or more simply it is the decaying of food, mostly vegetables and fruit. The end result – compost – is an extremely useful humus-like, soil which is great to use to increase the soil quality in a vegetable or flower garden. Items that can be composted include vegetable and fruit peelings and waste, leaves, grass clippings, sawdust and wood chips.
While composting may be difficult for people who live in apartments, for those who have a little bit of land it is a rather easy thing to do to help reduce the amount of waste going into landfills. For more information on composting see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composting
Get a Certified Backyard Wildlife Habitat
Another great thing to do is to get your backyard Certified as a Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation. They have step-by-step instructions on their web site. Basically, you have to provide a few things for wildlife in your area:
- food sources
- water sources
- places for cover
- places to raise young and
- maintain your landscape in an environmentally friendly way
Its much easier than it sounds! It’s a great way to teach kids about wildlife too and something you can do together with your kids. They have certifications for schools, businesses and churches too.
I’ve been really excited about this program for years, but I’ll admit I’ve not yet got around to actually doing it. So this will be the thing I will pledge to do this Earthday. And I’m saying it here publically – so anyone reading has to hold me to it!
The National Wildlife Federation has a presence on many social media web sites too – I’m sure you can ask them questions about the program there:
Twitter, You Tube, My Space, Facebook, Digg, Pownce, LinkedIn, Stumbleupon
Butterfly and Native Plant Gardening
This is one my special personal interests. I even have a web site and blog about it! Butterfly gardening has been one of the most intellectually and spiritually satisfying things I’ve ever done. Gardening is a great way to get fresh air and exercise too – and it is also very relaxing once you have created a beautiful garden for butterflies and other wildlife to enjoy.
Butterfly gardening basically consists of growing two general categories of plants – host plants and nectar sources. Host plants are the ones that the adults lay eggs on and their babies eat. Each species of butterfly has only one or a few plants that it can lay eggs on. So, the presence of the proper host plants for each species of butterfly native to your area is absolutely necessary for the butterfly to continue to reproduce and exist.
Nectar sources are the plants that the adults feed on – although not all adult butterflies feed on flower nectar.
In general, planting lots of plants and trees native to your area is good for the ecosystem. So many species depend upon the presence of these plants for their food and shelter. And really, creating a butterfly garden pretty much satisfies most of the requirements for a backyard habitat as mentioned above. (And really means I have no excuse for not getting our yard certified!)
So, I plead, get down on my knees and beg to you to please try to do just this one thing, if nothing else: when buying flowers or other plants for your yard – please try to choose at least some that are native to your area!
And I must now stop or I could go on forever about butterfly gardening. Please visit my site or blog above if I haven’t bored you to tears already and you want to learn more!
Come back tomorrow for my next post in this Earthday series: Extend the use of the items you use and buy
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April 21, 2008
Earthday Environmental E’s!
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Since Earthday is this week I’m going to write a series of 4 posts – starting tomorrow – about a few environmental issues and what you can do to help.
I’ve noticed and often get a bit frustrated when I read some of the suggestions given for helping the environment. Many of them are beyond the financial resources of most people and some just aren’t practical, especially depending upon where you live. I’ll explore those issues a bit too, and would love to hear your opinions and suggestions, if any, on how to make some of these things more practical.
The posts will focus on these four topics:
– the area around you in a positive way
Effect
– the use of the items you use and buy
Extend
– your life in an environmentally positive way
Energize
– in a more environmentally sustainable, responsible and healthy manner
Eat
Also – if you post something this week concerning Earthday, please send in your link and I will post it!
Updated: I also added a follow-up Earth Day post: One Last Earth Day E – Educate!
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April 18, 2008
Gender Equality – We’re Not There Yet
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Today is Blog for Equal Pay Day.
Women in the United States are still paid only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. And for women of color, the numbers are even worse. African-American women earn 63 cents and Latinas earn 52 cents for every dollar paid to white men.
What can we do about this situation? At Feministing it is explained that we should take a few minutes and ask our Senators to pass the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
But it goes beyond that.
This past week PalMD blogged about how some people think letting women go to medical school is a waste: “Now imagine you are sitting in the doctors’ lounge, and a senior physician says that sending women to medical school is a bit of a waste.”
And how might this affect those of us who aren’t interested in attending medical school anyway? PalMD continues:
“As a society and a profession, we have to decide to take the role of women seriously. If we demean women’s role in our profession, we may be more likely to demean our female patients and family members. ”
A good discussion follows in the comments.
Other good ways to start fixing this problem would be to make sure women are getting adequate science educations. According to the NSF’s Science and Engineering Indicators 2008 report we aren’t doing very well with that. Basic science questions were asked and women tended to do much worse than men.
Correct answers to basic scientific questions by percent:
The center of the Earth is very hot. (True)
Male 85
Female 75
Electrons are smaller than atoms. (True)
Male 61
Female 48
Does the Earth go around the Sun, or does the Sun go around the Earth? (Earth around Sun)
Male 82
Female 71
How long does it take for the Earth to go around the Sun? Sun: one day, one month, or one year? (One year)
Male 66
Female 46
Why do women not do as well? Maybe older women didn’t have as many educational opportunities when they were young and then were less able to teach their daughters basic concepts like these. We can’t expect to be able to compete as well with men in the workplace if we don’t make sure that young women are learning even the most basic of information about the world around them.
There is a great discussion at The Intersection about Sheril R. Kirshenbaum’s post about this: Is Our Children Learning? (maybe not)
Other women writing about Equal Pay Day include:
Cecelia at Ojibway Migisi Bineshii
Veronica at Viva La Feminista
Lindsay at Female Impersonator
Jess at Pink Wave Feminism
Jill at Writes Like She Talks
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Related Posts:
- Finding a balance between work and family
- One Last Earth Day E – Educate!
- Women and Leadership, Part 2
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