Shale Gas: A Brief History of Supply & Demand

By Nicole Behler

For years and years, coal has been the resource that has literally fueled the United States and many other countries around the globe. As a millennial, I don’t remember a time where natural gas wasn’t our main source of energy. Being born in the later part of the 90’s, I was witnessing the rise of shale gas in the United States without even knowing it.

According to the article “The Conventional Wisdom on Oil is Always Wrong”, experts were in unanimous agreement that US oil production was in permanent decline; well, the consensus was wrong as production has increased more than 50 percent since 2008 making it an all time high in the past three decades (Casselmen). Experts did not expect the impact of what is called the “Shale Boom” for a number of reasons: 1. they didn’t think natural gas could be produced from shale, 2. they thought shale couldn’t reverse the decline in US production, and 3. they thought rising US oil production would not be enough to affect global gas prices. The price of oil is hard to predict even by expects because there are so many variables that affect price such as geopolitics and technology (Casselmen).

Another reason experts’ predictions were wrong is because of the assumption that slow drilling equals so production; although the US is drilling half as many gas wells as we were five years ago, we are producing a third more gas than we previously were because even after a well has been drilled it can keep producing for decades to come (Casselmen).

Before the rise of shale gas, there were no price controls on coal but because of the shortage of natural gas a price control was placed. In the 1990’s the price control was lifted, shifting the supply curve outward. In the early 2000’s, the US experiences a push to develop domestic oil sources; both the Bush and Obama administrations increase strategic oil reserves. In 2001, when the devastating 9/11 attack occurred, energy portfolios were impacted and oil extraction from the Middle East created a conversation about National Security.

In 2005, after the United States invades Iraq, the price of global oil increases from the previously lower prices of 2000. Because of the shift in the supply curve to the left, the price of a barrel of oil increased as quantities decreased. The US wanted to increase its domestic oil supply, and because of increasing technology we are able to now extract shale gas from tar sands. Prior to this, it was thought that the extraction process of oil from tar sands was too expensive. In order to extract the oil, hot water is injected into the sands to separate the oil and refine it. After this technology is discovered, we see a dramatic increase in development and domestic oil production. As technology improves over time, marginal extraction cost decreases. When marginal extraction costs are low, firms will usually decide to extract large amounts of the product to keep in reserves. OPEC is a prime example of a company that holds off on their supply in order to control the price of oil.

In 2008-2009, the recession causes oil demand to plummet. Technology further reduces the demand for oil over the long run as more Americans stop driving large SUVs and make the switch to hybrid cars. Since the demand is so low, the price of oil decreases. Post-recession, prices start to rebound back to similar prices as in 2000. At this point, the price of oil is so low that it doesn’t make economic sense to keep developing tar sands.

The decreasing development of tar sands is a good thing environmentally speaking because the process of developing tar sands and fracking cause many negative externalities specifically on water resources. Hydraulic fracturing uses significant amounts of water and generate large wastewater streams (Manson). Recent studies also suggest that there is a high correlation between fracking and earthquakes. Conca says:

There is a connection between fracking and earthquakes in the central and eastern United States. But the earthquakes are not a result of fracking itself. They mostly result from the injection of fracking wastewater and other waste and production water, even from non-fracking wells, at depths well-below the fracking horizon. The larger the volumes of water injected into the subsurface, the larger the earthquakes can be.

All in all, shale gas has had a long and continuing history all around the world. Although shale gas does have positive externalities like lowering CO2 emissions in the switch from coal, we should also consider that displaced coal could be exported and used elsewhere which would cause global greenhouse gas implications; and previously un-economic oil supplies have been unlocked by modern hydraulic fracturing, lowering global gas prices, and increasing demand in transportation and other sectors causing negative implications for climate change. Shale gas is a better alternative to coal, but hopefully in the future we will continue to increase our use of renewable energy resources such as wind and solar.

 

Works Cited

Casselmen, Ben. “The Conventional Wisdom On Oil Is Always Wrong.” FiveThirtyEight, FiveThirtyEight, 18 Dec. 2014, fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-conventional-wisdom-on-oil-is-always-wrong/.

Conca, James. “Thanks To Fracking, Earthquake Hazards In Parts Of Oklahoma Now Comparable To California.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 7 Sept. 2016, http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/09/07/the-connection-between-earthquakes-and-fracking/#2fe825e6d68e.

Mason, Charles F., Lucija A. Muehlenbachs, and Sheila M. Olmstead. The Economics of Shale as development Annu. Rev. Resour. Econ. 7.1 (2015): 269-289.

“U.S. Energy Information Administration – EIA – Independent Statistics and Analysis.” Natural gas expected to surpass coal in mix of fuel used for U.S. power generation in 2016 – Today in Energy – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), 16 Mar. 2016, http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=25392.

Coal in your Stocking?

By Alex Gonzalez

Above is some woke Holiday cheer if you’re looking for it, but the moment particularly entertaining in beginning this blog on energy is at 1:57 in the video and written below:

Santa: Careful there, Jessica, or you might get some coal in your stocking!

Jessica: From where? We both know coal is a dying industry!

---

The conversation on coal has, as of late, become much less about energy efficiency and much more about job security. The president ran on a campaign that promised to bring job security and stability back to the “forgotten” men and women of this country through the practice of making “America great again” even if that means the dismantling of the current laws and regulations that keep us and our planet safe. Taking steps backwards, whether it is done by withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, repealing the Clean Power Plan (an Obama-era policy that “limiting carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants”), or cutting red tape in front of a stack of paperwork that is supposed to represent a bunch of 1960s regulation the Trump team is getting rid of (???) it is clear the current administration holds a contempt for the environment and/or science.

We understand part of the reason that the president loves coal is for political gain. Many Americans do believe that their jobs are being taken from them whether that is by an immigrant or by the government, these men and women are convinced there is a leftist agenda to hurt and neglect them. According to J.D. Vance, a young man from Appalachia, in his book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, “we talk about the value of hard work but tell ourselves that the reason we’re not working is some perceived unfairness: Obama shut down the coal mines, or all the jobs went to the Chinese. These are the lies we tell ourselves to solve the cognitive dissonance—the broken connection between the world we see and the values we preach.” That being said, coal country voted for Donald Trump overwhelmingly so, but economists and other scholars speculate as to whether or not the administration will be able to change the course of the energy progress cascade by removing regulations from the industry.

As we can observe from the graph above, coal production has been on it’s way down since the late 90s with a significant trade-off coming after 2008 between decreasing coal use and increasing reliance on natural gas. Thus, we see a relative false connection made between Obama and the decline in coal jobs that the Trump admin would like us to internalize because coal was on decline a decade before the senator entered office. As a confirmation of the above information provided by a graph from NPR, below is a chart generated by the US Energy and Information Administration that includes projections for electricity generation in the years 2017 and 2018 as well.

 

Works Cited: 

https://www.npr.org/2017/01/01/507693919/coal-country-picked-trump-now-they-want-him-to-keep-his promises

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/15/trumps-love-affair-with-coal-215710

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/electricity.cfm

Human Induced Climate Change and Natural Disasters

It has already been proven that climate change is the cause of the recent surge of natural disasters. There are climate models that are used to predict the trend of natural disasters based on the rate of climate change in the past years (earthobservatory.nasa.gov). Each model does not agree on every detail, but do predict similar trends among them. The increasing emissions of greenhouse gases will raise the temperature globally. Effects and changes will vary from region to region though. Some possibilities are an increased risk in droughts, increase intensity of storms, tropical windstorms with higher speed, wetter Asian monsoons, and more intense mid latitude storms. One very recent and extremely destructive natural disaster are the wildfires in California. Across the United States this year, 58,000 wildfires have burned more than 9.2 million acres this year. 2017 is only second to 2015 as the worst wildfire season (Vox.com). In California alone, 1 Million acres and 10,000 structures have burned and 42 people have died. The Thomas Fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties has burned an area larger than New York City. Six of the ten largest wildfires occurred in California in the past decade. All of this damage has been caused by human induced climate change. Climate change can also have different effects on the wild life and plants that live in areas suffering from climate change. One example is the Pine Beetle found in California. They say the Pine Beetle has been kept in check due to harsh winters, but global warming has caused them to go on a rampage. This means that they start to destroy trees which causes more flammable material due to the higher abundance of dead trees (latimes.com). Sea levels are also on the rise as a negative effect of global warming. This increase in sea level also increases the risk in storm surges. Our two recent hurricanes Harvey and Irma were most likely a result of this. There is an interesting article that talks about the indirect costs of these natural disasters and the economic definition of resilience. The author says that “The welfare impact of a disaster does not depend only on the physical characteristics of the event or its direct impacts in terms of lost lives and assets. Depending on the ability of the economy to cope, recover, and reconstruct, the reconstruction will be more or less difficult, and the welfare effects smaller or larger. This ability, which can be referred to as the macroeconomic resilience of the economy to natural disasters, is an important parameter to estimate the overall vulnerability of a population.” (Documents.wordbank.org). They say that resilience can be broken down into two components; instantaneous resilience and dynamic resilience. Instantaneous resilience is the ability to limit the magnitude of the immediate loss of income for a given amount of capital losses. Dynamic resilience is the ability to reconstruct and recover quickly. The paper also proposes a way to estimate macroeconomic resilience based on the interest rate, reconstruction duration, and a ripple-effect factor that increases or decreases immediate losses. I think this is a very interesting way to define and calculate resilience through economic concepts. It also makes sense as the article uses reconstruction duration and includes factors that can increase and decrease immediate losses. Based on these results, a risk management strategy can be devised to reduce impacts and indirect impacts. An article that was just written 6 days ago says that the next climate change meeting in Paris, the One Planet Summit, will focus on the economics of climate change(independent.co.uk). This is very beneficial because topics like resilience and the negative externalities associated with climate change such as the increased surges of natural disasters may be huge discussion points. The article also shows that Soenke Kreft, leader of the Munich Climate Insurance Initiative at the United Nations University, also agrees that the recent surges of natural disasters are heavily linked to climate change. He said “understanding the links between natural disasters and climate change was important, as it can play a role in convincing policymakers and citizens of the threat posed by climate change and encouraging them to take action”. Climate change is a very serious threat that affects all humans worldwide. It may not have extremely harmful direct effects on us, but the indirect effects of climate change can be very deadly to humans. This is why humans should take the initiative to reduce climate change and be more mindful of the effects we are having on the environment.

Sources used:

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/12/12/16762120/los-angeles-california-fire-climate-change

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-climate-change-natural-disasters-20170907-htmlstory.html

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/RisingCost/rising_cost5.php

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-natural-disasters-link-increase-global-warming-report-warning-a8103556.html

http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/186631467998501319/The-indirect-cost-of-natural-disasters-and-an-economic-definition-of-macroeconomic-resilience

 

 

How the tobacco industry is causing pollution

According to the World Health Organization, in 2012 967 milion daily smokers consumed approximately 6.25 trillion cigarettes and each year 7 milion people die because of tobacco. Not only smoking has bad consequences for the health of smokers, it also has effects on the health of non-smokers with passive smoking as many people already know. However, the tobacco industry has also negative effects on the environment : it contributes to deforestation, which is one of the leading cause of climate change : one tree is destroyed for every 300 cigarettes; it produces enormous amounts of waste and it is also a major cause of pollution, that is what we are going to focus on in this article.

Advertising for Camel cigarettes

First of all, let’s talk about the pollution created during the production and manufacturing process of cigarettes, as well as pollution created during the transportation of tobacco products, since it is the one of the greatest source of environmental damage caused by tobacco according to the WHO. Tobacco is a fragile plant and it is often a monocrop, therefore the plants and the soil are « weak in natural defenses and require larger amounts of chemicals for growth and protection from pests » (CNN). Indeed, lots of chemical pesticides as well as « petroleum based fertilizer » ( Action on Smoking and Health) is used for the production of tobacco : these products contribute to air pollution and most of them deplete the ozone layer. When those chemicals used for the production of tobacco get into the soil or into groundwater, they are dangerous for the wildlife and they can pollute water that is going to be consumed. Furthermore, a lot of energy (coal and gas mostly) is used during the manufacturing process of tobacco, especially to shred and assemble tobacco, as well as during the transportation of tobacco products : these sources of energy are pollutant and harmful for humans and the environment, since they contribute to global warming by releasing Co2. Once the tobacco products are made and distributed around the world, another source of pollution is created : when smokers consume cigarettes. The smoke produced by the consumption of tobacco releases 6,000 metric tonnes of formaldelhyde and 47,000 metric tonnes of nicotine : these components are harmful for human health as well as for the environment. Furthermore, tobacco smoke contains 4,000 chemicals, among these 250 are harmful, and it also contains Co2 and methane, which are greenhouse gases (CNN). Not only the smoke that is exhaled by smokers is pollutant and dangerous for both humans and the environment, there is a thing called third-hand smoke : it is a long-lasting residue resulting from the smoke exhaled by smokers. Third-hand smoke accumulates in dust, on objects and surfaces where tobacco has been smoked, and it can end up in landfills and waste (when those objects are thrown out for instance) : when third-hand smoke react with other compounds in the environment, it can lead to a degradation of the air quality; it can also end up in waterways through the air, which causes water contamination. Many children die because of third-hand smoke that accumulated in indoors spaces, since their immune system is not that developped they are more vulnerable to air pollution. Furthermore, the smoke released by smokers can highly contribute to air pollution in cities, by creating high concentrations of pollution. Pollution caused by the tobacco industry does not stop with the consumption of cigarettes however. Indeed, a lot of cigarette butts are thrown on the ground, and many end up in rivers or lakes even : these cigarette butts contain toxins. When they end up in some kind of water, they are dangerous for the living organisms but also dangerous for humans since, even water treatments can’t completely eliminate these compounds sometimes : therefore, toxins can be found in the water we consume. And when cigarette butts are actually thrown away in trash cans and they end up in landfills, it releases chemicals : when tobacco waste is mixed with all other kind of waste, it leads to air pollution and ozone depletion even. The tobacco industry is the cause of the waste of a lot of plastic as well, since it’s used for the packaging of cigarettes packs, yet plastic is extremely pollutant and takes a lot of time to decompose.

The pollution caused by the tobacco industry has economic effects as well and it is a negative externality. Indeed, the tobacco industry is responsible for a lot of pollution, which then results into health and environmental damages, yet the tobacco industry does not really bear the costs, and neither do the consumers of tobacco. According to a report by the UN environmental program, the tobacco industry would not be profitable if it paid for the environmental damages caused by its manufacturing. One economic solution to the pollution caused by the tobacco industry would be to increase taxes on tobacco and those taxes would be used to do prevention and to respond to the pollution caused by the tobacco industry : this way, producers and consumers of tobacco would bear the costs of the pollution they are causing, and it might lead them to consider quitting smoking (for consumers) or being more careful, at least with the waste they produce (for producers). Furthermore, many firms that produce tobacco are outsourcing their production to countries with less stringent environmental standards, so that they can continue their production without making it less pollutant or without paying the consequences of it : therefore, the WHO proposes to have harmonized standards around the world, so that « companies have nowhere to run ».

As a conclusion, let’s reflect on a saying by Dr. Armando Peruga from the WHO : « tobacco not only produces lung cancer in people, but it is a cancer to the lungs of the earth ».

 

By Alissia Leclerc

 

Sources :

• http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/255574/1/9789241512497-eng.pdf?ua=1
• http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/31/health/tobacco-environment-who-report/index.html
• https://ash.org/earth-day-2017/
• https://www.livestrong.com/article/175352-how-smoking-causes-pollution/
• http://smoking.ygoy.com/smoking-and-the-environment/

Food Waste: Why We Should Care

Even though one in every eight Americans struggles to put food on the table, forty percent of the food in the United States is never eaten in the first place. This has significant consequences for the environment as well; for instance, producing all this extra food also causes excessive greenhouse gasses that contribute large amounts of CO2 up to the atmosphere. Sadly, the problem is expected to continue growing. In the year 2007 alone, the world emitted around 3.3 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere in order to produce all this extra food. That same year, over 1.6 billion tons of food were wasted.  This could be avoided if we were not making more food than that that is going to be consumed. This topic causes me to think about the Malthusian theory of population growth: will humans outnumber our resources? In order to examine future food demand, we must have a good understanding of food waste first. By managing food efficiently, we will be able to reduce our carbon footprint and ensure a healthier environment for humans to exist in, in general.

Food waste happens at various point along the supply chain, however, there is a big problem in food production. Technological advances and better resource allocation will allow for more efficient production. For instance, better preservation methods for meats, fruits, and vegetables will be a great advancement, as these go bad quickly if not properly stored. These technologies should be green, meaning that they should be, for example, solar powered. There are solar powered technologies, such as solar dryers, that increase the lifetime of several foods in storage. This kind of technology benefits both the supplier and the consumer; the supplier gets greater economic profit because the product has a longer shelf life, and the consumer has more time to eat a certain food before it goes bad.

A good way to tackle this issue from the consumer’s end is composting. By composting, we are adding nutrients back to the soil. This is good for cultivation, as it acts as a natural fertilizer; consequently, composting reduces greenhouse emissions related to fertilizer and pesticide production. Because the soil is healthier in general, there is less fuel usage for tilling the soil. Also, by reducing methane emissions, composting lowers our carbon footprint.

Food waste is the third biggest producer of greenhouse emissions in the world, preceded by the USA and China. These wastes end up in landfills, which then produce a large amount of methane. This gas is more powerful than CO2. An excess of this gas is what absorbs infrared radiation and heats up the earth’s atmosphere. The effects of this are palpable today: global warming and climate change.

Other than these effects, food waste has other negative effects that are not as perceptible, such as water waste. By wasting food that needed water to be produced, we are taking advantage of the world’s natural water resources and, essentially, throwing them away. The amount of water used to produce food that is not eaten is around three times the volume of Lake Geneva.  To put things in perspective, throwing away 1 kg of beef is like throwing away 50,000 liters of water. Essentially, food waste is slowly depleting the Earth’s freshwater and ground water resources. If cautionary methods are not taken in order to decelerate this process, we may see the need to ration water, which will translate to dryer lands and a sudden drop in food production.

Education is a big part of resolving the problem. States such as California have proposed bills in order to change the wording related to expiration dates used on packaging. This will prevent consumers from throwing out products that are still good to eat. The bill proposed writing “best by -”, followed by the date in which the food is at its highest quality, and an “expires on -” followed by the date in which it becomes unsafe to consume that particular food.  Grocery stores are also taking initiatives to prompt shoppers to consider buying fruits and vegetables that do not look as “nice” as others, but that are still perfectly good to eat or cook with.

If there is a big enough drive to wanting to preserve food availability, it is possible to aid food waste issues through simple tasks such as composting. However, many are skeptical about beginning to do so because they are not aware of the severity of the problem, or simply do not know enough about it and its benefits, to begin doing so.  Regardless, if there is not a world-wide effort to reduce food waste, the negative effects of emissions from landfills and water waste might catch up to the world when it least expects it.

By: Fabiola Aquino

“Composting At Home.” EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, 20 Mar. 2017, www.epa.gov/recycle/composting-home#benefits.

Harvey, Chelsea. “The Enormous Carbon Footprint of Food That We Never Even Eat.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 28 Mar. 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/03/28/the-enormous-carbon-footprint-of-the-food-we-never-eat/?utm_term=.da6364a0f70d.

“How Are Greenhouse Gases Bad for the Earth?” Sciencing, sciencing.com/greenhouse-gases-bad-earth-23688.html.

June 16, 2016 Jillian Mackenzie. “Composting Is Way Easier Than You Think.” NRDC, 16 Nov. 2017, www.nrdc.org/stories/composting-way-easier-you-think.

“The Environmental Impact of Food Waste.” Move For Hunger, 19 Aug. 2016, www.moveforhunger.org/the-environmental-impact-of-food-waste/.

To Adapt or Not to Adapt?

 

Recently there had been a several hazardous fires within the California.

(Source: “Los Angeles, Cal.: Pollution of Streams.”)

This, however, is not the start of California’s everlasting clash with pollution effects.

 

Backtracking to the summer of 1943, an acrid cloud settled over downtown Los Angeles. On the streets below, cars collided as “lacrimous fumes” blinded drivers. City officials received letter after letter complaining that the smoke destroyed the community, “depressed … [the] spirits,” interfered with vital war production and the pursuit of happiness, and threatened the public health.l A municipal judge found conditions so unbearable that he considered adjourning court until the fumes lifted, while the tuberculosis ward at General Hospital reported increased hemorrhages and death (“Los Angeles, Cal.: Pollution of Streams.”).

Since 1970, California has been trying to enact a law to stop the emission of greenhouses. The California Environmental Quality Act, was supposed to create an environment review and minimize the effect of pollution There has been an influx of major problems. The Senate recently stated that “California communities have to be redesigned to make it easier for people to walk, bike, or take transit” (Board). Under the CEQA rules, a project in particular has created more negative externalities than thought of before. The project views roads in Los Angeles through a dependent on speed. The project in totality was geared on getting cars to move faster. This is counteractive to the entire project as this pushes for the opposite of the objective. Prioritizing cars to go faster, pushes the increase of greenhouse gases.  

Under current CEQA rules, a project has a negative environmental impact if it would slow the speed of traffic or add to congestion. There are several major problems with this approach.

Now, the method of operation it to disincentivize people to use cars and to rely on other sources of transportation. Though L.A. does have their own underground transportation, a reinvestment in such a project is more feasible to ensure the sustainability of air control in the city.

Despite the negatives of the act, the positive and beneficial regulations include the stipulations of the Los Angeles river. Under the “Pollution of Streams” clause, it is unlawful for any person, corporation to deposit or to cause permit to be deposited, in any reservoir or aqueduct, or in any pipe” (Sage Productions  2207). That effort to push sustainability thought the effort was initial.

All the contaminants that smog, pollutants, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and hydrocarbons, articulates, nitric acid, and cyclic concentration pattern with maxima in the winter” ( Mosher et al  576).  In 1971, the mean squared for residuals for the model with carbon monoxide is 192.0, a reduction of 36 percent from since 1970.

(Source: “Los Angeles, Cal.: Pollution of Streams.”)

Most recently the had been fires in Los Angeles this year that destroyed hundred of homes and moved thousands of people. This massive inferno occurred in Ventura county and had been increasing the threat to Santa Barbara, and other coastal communities. The fire had headed to Santa Ynez Mountains. The methods to stopping the fire was not an efficient solution either.

There needs to more attention toward intergenerational equity. By the applying this, it will prioritize every depletable resource within the confines of cultivated land. It also prevents the increasing rate of negative externalities from occuring. This minimizes not only pollution but the chance of cities having to use a bandaid solution towards the violation of the environment.

These occurrences highlight the need of more incentivization. All in all, there also needs to be more education involving such practices so people can humanize the potential casualties that can result from environmental haphazardness.

Consumers must take heed to the climate change and its impacts to the environment. Adapting had been done in areas Texas, Atlanta, normally hot places that have been exposed to colder climates. California’s extension of pollution which only contribute to the speed of the climate transformation. Actively producing such harmful chemicals in the air–black carbon, and other greenhouse gases–will push California to act in a speed they are not ready for. They could not adapt to the rampant fires plaguing to the city due to environmental barriers, but their behavior progresses such and creates a quick sand of climate changing actions.

  

(Source: Balbus)

 

The recent droughts in California are only one of the repercussions. Efficiency has to be in the state’s trajectory or there will be no quick enough and adaptable way to maintain human life there.

There also needs to be a prioritization of sufficiency. With this, comes the incentivization of using more environmentally sound practices. The easiest and most efficient way of getting people to follow such a movement is to consistently remind them of the repercussions of not doing so.

Potential incentives is adding or expanding bike lanes and minimizing travel for those with motor vehicles (CEQA’s problems). For example, cities like New York City, New York; housing the highest disincentives of driving and more of an influx on underground transportation. Adding more fees to curb those from all income who drive is crucial in fortifying this eco-friendly bandwagon. This method is not only optimizing but in some respects, maximizing in that train carts fill up due to other people’s incentive to get to their destination. Showcasing method such as the aforementioned help in deterring people from.

     

Understanding the limitations of the environment we in also helps in instilling that supply and net benefit increases when operation at perfect competition is actualized. There is also an increase in marginal net benefit when the policies works towards efficiency.  It reaches new zeniths and promises a equity for the present and future. The “rates of loss of animal and plant species, arable land, water quality, tropical forests and cultural heritage are especially serious” (“Intergenerational Equity.”).

Another incentivizing method that enforces is installing more deposit-return systems. The revenue would come from  

This rudimentary practice would increase the narrative in remaining and sustaining eco-friendly systems. Increasing the importance of such for every individual will exponentially multiply the impact.

Hopefully the movements and adjustment California makes move towards less negative externalities, and forward economic growth.

 

Priscilla Omisore
*Proper Format*

Works Cited

 

Balbus, J., et al. “Ch. 1: Introduction: Climate Change and Human Health.” The Impacts of

Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment, 4 Apr.

2016, health2016.globalchange.gov/climate-change-and-human-health.

 

Board, The Times Editorial. “If California is serious about climate change, the car can’t be king

of our roads.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 14 Dec. 2017, http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-ceqa-vmt-20171216-story.html.

 

Mosher, John C., et al. “Air Pollution in Los Angeles.” Science, vol. 173, no. 3997, 1971, pp.

576–580. JSTOR, JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1731708.

 

Serna, Joseph, et al. “’This fire is a beast’: Massive inferno keeps growing despite all-out battle.”

Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 14 Dec. 2017,

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-thomas-fire-ledeall-20171214-story.html.

 

“Intergenerational Equity.” Equity – Intergenerational Equity, Sharon Beder,

http://www.uow.edu.au/~sharonb/STS300/equity/meaning/integen.html.

 

“Los Angeles, Cal.: Pollution of Streams.” Public Health Reports (1896-1970), vol. 27, no. 52,

1912, pp. 2207–2208. JSTOR, JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4569115.

 

Fossil Fuels and Trump’s Admin. Fools and a Glimpse of Hope

Sabrina Torres

Donald Trump gained pull from the mining industry to assist the “war against coal.” Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, filed a proposal to formally repeal the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan that was designed to hasted state utilities’ adoption of renewable energy, improve air quality and public health across the nation and finally, have the United States meet its commitment under the Paris climate accord of a 26% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 (Kormann). Pruitt stated that the C.P.P. would have “devastating effects” on the American people because it ignored states’ concerns and their longstanding and important partnerships. These ‘relationships’ being the hundreds of thousands of dollars donated by Trump’s administration to private coal companies for popular appeal.

   The Environmental Protection Agency can no longer stop the decline of coal with the current figures in place that believe climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. Pruitt and and Trump are completely ignoring market signals that the coal industry cannot last sustainably or efficiently, simply to keep stable relationships with fossil-fuel million-to-billionaires who put them into office. This ignorance can lead to disastrous consequences for climate and the global economy. Luckily, investors in the private market have recognized the long-term instability in high-carbon industries.

    Mark Campanale, a financier and environmentalist, reported in the Carbon Tracker INitiative project, that there was a significant problem with the way fossil-fuel stocks were prices. He started to identify that there is a finite “carbon budget,” meaning, if humans wish to avoid Climate Change induced catastrophes, then humans must limit emissions so the world’s average temperature rises no more than two degrees celsius; which is the agreed target in the Paris agreement (Kormann). Campanale looked at data on the planet’s known fossil-fuel reserves and calculated how much carbon would be released if all of it was burned. His calculations resulted in 2.8 trillion tons being released which is five times greater than Earth’s carbon budget for the next forty years. He warns that up to eighty per cent of the remaining oil, gas and coal, or what he references as “unburnable carbon,” needs to stay in the ground if humans wish to continue living on this planet. The environment will continue without humans, however humans cannot continue without the environment.

    Of course, fossil-fuel companies and investors deem Campanale’s project and stance as fruitless. So long as there is a repeal on C.P.P. and a lingering false sense of security in high-carbon industries, the Trump administration believes they are ‘winning.” However, the concept of the Carbon Tracker Initiative is advancing elsewhere.The energy sector is continuing to move in a climate-friendly direction. There has been a high point of investors interested in recognizing climate risks. Norway, a country well-known for their green initiatives, declared that it would require some of its partners to disclose “what influence their lending practices have on carbon emissions.” For those who question the effects of the workers within the mining industry, there are opportunities for them with green advancements.

   With a decline in the coal industry due to cheaper alternatives such as natural gas,  (Cardwell) what are these miners to do as they continue to be laid off by the thousands? Luckily these workers possess promising skills in the industry that is ever expanding: renewable energy. Thankfully some businesses within this expansive movement are aware of the culture surrounding the coal lifestyle on families and communities so they have began offering information sessions for previous coal workers to understand renewable energy and learn that this too is something they can be proud of. Some players in this emerging industry is encouraging those who are willing to transition with incentives to utilize the skills the workers attain previously working with fossil fuels. The “catch” being that these individuals may have to be willing to relocate to areas in the country that produce the highest levels of wind or receive the most sun. So these programs are showing to appeal more to younger workers with post secondary education who are motivated to follow through and more willing and able to relocate. (Reily). In Wyoming, a major coal-producing area, a wind turbine manufacturer is offering training to former miners. In Appalachia, Coalfield Development is attempting to revitalize the region’s economy with workshops in solar installation and woodworking. The program aims to reclaim mines and remodel dilapidated buildings.

  Although Trump’s administration pushed hard on appealing to the coal industry, they cannot complete with the current facts that hundreds of thousands of workers have been terminated, the burst of natural gas interest, and the general consumers’ preference to cleaner energy (Riquier). The administration focused on profiting coal industry owners, not the workers sacrificing their lives. Luckily, the industry of renewable energy is displaying interest in introducing and building positive relationships with workers willing to transition their skills. There is opportunity to move beyond the false promises this administration created on coal.

 

Works Cited

Cardwell, Diane. “What’s Up in Coal Country: Alternative-Energy Jobs.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 30 Sept. 2017, http://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/30/business/energy-environment/coal-alternative-energy-jobs.html.

Kormann, Carolyn. “There’s a Dangerous Bubble in the Fossil-Fuel Economy, and the Trump Administration Is Making It Worse.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 19 Oct. 2017, http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/theres-a-dangerous-bubble-in-the-fossil-fuel-economy-and-the-trump-administration-is-making-it-worse.

Reilly, Michael. “The U.S. Coal Industry Is Dying, and Retraining Workers for Solar Isn’t Easy.” MIT Technology Review, MIT Technology Review, 11 Aug. 2016, http://www.technologyreview.com/s/602151/can-we-really-retrain-coal-workers-for-jobs-in-solar/.

Reilly, Michael. “The U.S. Coal Industry Is Dying, and Retraining Workers for Solar Isn’t Easy.” MIT Technology Review, MIT Technology Review, 11 Aug. 2016, http://www.technologyreview.com/s/602151/can-we-really-retrain-coal-workers-for-jobs-in-solar/.

Riquier, Andrea. “Even as Trump Focuses on Coal Miners, Renewable Energy Jobs Are Booming.” MarketWatch, 30 June 2017, http://www.marketwatch.com/story/paris-agreement-or-not-solar-employment-looking-brighter-than-coal-2017-06-02.

Climate Change and Resilience By: Cecile Edleman

Taking action to help stop climate change and reduce its negative effects is not just about saving the Polar Bears. Climate change is an issue some STILL deny to be prevalent to this day, but the death tolls due to climate change are rising. According to the World Health Organization Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year, from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea, heat stress and other climate change related issues. Climate change affects not just environmental but social determinants of health, clean air, safe drinking water, sufficient food and secure shelter (WHO).

So what is climate change exactly? Climate change in simple terms is a change in the Earth’s climate. This could be a change in Earth’s usual temperature or it could be a change in where rain and snow usually fall on Earth (NASA). Although this doesn’t sound like a big deal even a small changes in Earth’s temperature can have huge effects.

What causes climate change? We do! Yes, Climate change can occur naturally on earth over an extended period of time but humans are excelling it at a dangerous rate. A leading cause to climate change or global warming is the burning of fossil fuels. The burning of fossil fuels like oil when we heat/ cool our houses or drive our cars lets out toxins into the air. Air pollutants coal plants let out into the environment include the major one, CO2 and additionally, Sulfur dioxide, Nitrogen Oxides, Particulate matter (or fly ash) and Mercury (NCSUSA). Air pollutants released with the burning of fossil fuels can’t all be absorbed so this leads to the heating of the atmosphere.

Climate change can also lead to an increase in natural disasters and extreme weather. “The combined result of increased temperatures over land, decreased equator-versus-pole temperature differences, and increased humidity could be increasingly intense cycles of droughts and floods as more of a region’s precipitation falls in a single large storm rather than a series of small ones. A warmer, wetter atmosphere could also affect tropical storms (hurricanes)” Scientists believe over the next 100 years the earths temperature will continue to rise causing more than just the melting of the earths ice caps. This would cause more snow and ice to melt. Oceans water levels would rise. Some places would get hotter. Other places might have colder winters with more snow. Some places might get more rain. Other places might get less rain. Some places might have stronger hurricanes (NASA).

Climate change is also proven to make the problem of air pollution worse. Air pollution deaths are expected to rise because of climate change. New research predicts that air pollution worsened by climate change will cost tens of thousands of lives if changes are not made (CBS). Hotter temperatures “can speed up the reaction rate of air pollutants that form in the atmosphere,” lead study author Jason West states.

The direct damage costs to health due to climate change is estimated to be between US$ 2-4 billion/year by 2030 (NASA). All of these are factors that if happen people would need to be prepared for in order to stay safe. Areas with weak health infrastructure, mostly in developing countries, will be the least able to cope without assistance to prepare and respond. Essentially those of a lower socio-economic standing will have the most trouble with adapting and surviving to changes that climate change will cause. Yet this is the group of people we ask to be the most adaptable.

This brings up the discussion of how do we prepare and become resilient? How can we prepare for heat waves, hurricanes and other affects of global warming when many people in society do not even believe that the issue of global warming even exists. The term resilience means ones capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. But I don’t think the people wan to get used to an increase in death tolls due to climate change; so a progressive attitude in preparing for this extreme weather and motivation to stop contributing to making the driving causes of climate change worse. Now, I’m not saying the only solution is for everyone to build state of the art storm shelters for an apocalypse; but possibly a change in government spending and regulations when it comes to infrastructure. Using concrete that absorbs water more efficiently and other progressive attitudes in a change towards being more ready and resilient.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Dunbar, Brian. “What Is Climate Change?” NASA, NASA, 13 May 2015, http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/what-is-climate-change-k4.html.

 

 

“Climate Change and Health.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs266/en/.

 

News, CBS. “Air Pollution Deaths Expected to Rise Because of Climate Change.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 31 July 2017, www.cbsnews.com/news/air-pollution-deaths-expected-to-rise-because-of-climate-change/.

 

“Coal Power: Air Pollution.” Union of Concerned Scientists, www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/coal-and-other-fossil-fuels/coal-air-pollution#.WeO8YzZZREc.

 

“The Rising Cost of Natural Hazards : Feature Articles.” NASA, NASA, earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/RisingCost/rising_cost5.php.

The Climate Change Mistake: The Call to Action

Joseph Pacifico

Blog Post #4 Climate Change

ENV 310

 

Climate Change. The ongoing debate whether or not the world’s temperatures are indeed rising, when scientists everywhere agree that they are, is doing nothing but delaying further progress. This illusion that there is even a debate about climate change, coupled with the leader of the west pulling out of the only internationally held agreement that we have to deal with climate change and all the aspects of life that it impacts, is an obvious step in the wrong direction and makes our future seem dim. Despite these setbacks, we do continue to see progress by the forward thinkers that will guide us to a solution.

The world needs to shift towards clean energy and renewables such as wind and solar. The atmosphere has some absorptive capacity when it comes to emissions from CO2, SO2 and methane, so we aren’t talking about a planet-wide embargo on oil and coal, just providing a way to not be so dependent on dirty energy. Recently at the One Planet Summit in France on December 12^th, the World Bank announced that they will stop funding oil and gas projects starting in 2019. “Trillions of dollars must be invested in clean energy technology to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting average global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.” [1] By investing and subsidizing clean energy developments, markets are formed and provide alternatives to conventional methods. By subsidizing this investment, the cost to the consumer of clean energy is cheaper, incentivizing cheaper energy can make people and large businesses make the crucial switch.  “A lack of money has long been a constraint to the global effort to limit global warming, worsened by US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw America from the Paris Agreement and slash funding for climate projects.” [1] Lack of funding will hinder our ability to find the next breakthrough solution to the energy crisis we face. Only through invention, and the subsequent spreading of those ideas and inventions through global trade, and then fostering innovation of those inventions to perfect it further, can we drive society into the future. A lack of invention due to budget cuts of the green economy will impede progress. By adding new minds and thinkers through the creation of new markets, and fostering their development from early on, there is a greater chance of developing that new method for energy that can cure the problems we have. But to get there, we cannot start by cutting that funding and investment, and giving it to fossil fuel interests. “In its 2016 annual report, the World Bank Group said it had invested just over US$3 billion in “extractive industries”, which also include mining, in 2016 – three times as much as the year before.” [1] The World Bank provides financial loans for the development of capital programs, which will then foster economic activity in other countries. They also focus eliminating extreme poverty. [2] In addition to this, they are now starting to appeal to clean energy. Governments should follow in this example and invest in their own countries’ green economies. Through competition in these markets, better quality goods (in this case clean energy methods) and cheaper goods become widely available to consumers. Wide acceptance of these goods (in this case clean energy) causes a wide-scale reduction in emissions that help the poorest of the population get access to cheaper energy. A wide-scale reduction in emissions and getting the poor to have energy and electricity should be amongst the top concerns for a government. This is only possible by investing, subsidizing and incentivizing the economy.

Another recent development is with Tesla’s electric Semis. Walmart, PepsiCo, JB Hunt Transportation Services, Ryder System Inc., and DHL all have placed reservations on Tesla’s new vehicle releasing in 2019, even with the reservation price jumping from $5,000 to $20,000. The trucks cost $150,000 for a 300-mile range and costs $180,000 for 500-mile range. This trend follows a renewed effort by large corporations to cut their emissions along their supply lines by 2030. [3] “It has been shown that the average annual cost of operating a tractor trailer for one year is approximately $180,000 per year or $1.38 per mile, depending on the number of miles the truck drives in one year.” [4] The major driving cost in operating a typical tractor trailer with a combustion engine is the diesel fuel associated. Statistical data is not yet available as to the average annual cost of operating a Tesla electric Semi, but the numbers here are comparable. The price to just buy the Tesla Semi costs the same amount to own and operate a typical tractor trailer in widespread use today. In order to incentivize more than just the biggest corporations to switch to electric semis, the market needs to reduce the cost to the consumer. Small businesses use vehicles for a large amount of their operations, and these businesses will not be able to switch off of cheaper oil. In the long-term, the price will decrease due to new competitors entering the market and technological innovations that make the construction of these products become better and thereby reducing the inputs required. But that’s long term. And even then, small businesses might still use dirty semis because they are cheaper. The government needs to step in and subsidize the market, and further enhance green projects.

A study was done in China that studied the adoption of electric vehicles (EV) and projected sales trend. “Penetrations of EV can lower health-impairing pollutants and greenhouse emissions, thereby providing sources of domestic employment and investment.” [5] It should be the goal of any governing body of a people to do an action that promotes the health and saves lives of those people. Promoting EV use and having them become prevalent in a society has the direct effect which has been proven by many studies, of saving lives. It also creates jobs and investment in the economy, another purpose of government. “Our results of EV sales show rising trend, corresponding with that in the U.S. and U.K. Yet the numerical result is bigger due to the large vehicle fleets that China already has.” [5] The data show that people are responding to this growing phenomena by actively buying EVs. If the consumer is reacting to EVs by buying them, it shows a growing market that should be invested in and expanded further while it grows. Now is the time to do so. “For policy makers, incentive strategies can be formulated based on the multivariate models, such as subsidies, tax adjustment, and employment encouragements.” [5] Incentivizing the economy is imperative in order to fully exploit the benefits of the market. Instead of subsidizing an overproduction of corn and wheat, the government can shift a portion of these subsidies towards the green economy in the form of tax breaks and active employment marketing. “Thus, improvements made to reduce full social lifetime cost is a direct incentive for the boost of EV market, including the size and lifetime of key components (i.e., batteries, electric motors), the cost of key materials (i.e., lithium, platinum and membrane) and the maintenance and repair requirements…usually, incentive policies include the subsidy-based and the tax-based policies. The former include purchase, charging as well as maintenance subsidies.” [5] If these EVs can provide users with a reduction in “full social lifetime cost[s]” then businesses and individuals will make that switch, and feel good doing it. Right now, the costs are very high, and the better-off portion of society only has access to these EVs. If the price drops, due to a change in government policy towards subsidizing the green economy (which would be in line with the Paris Climate Change Summit’s overall goal), then more of the common everyday commuters will go out and buy EVs.  “Enhancing the recharging infrastructure, and the availability of fast-charging points is another direct incentive. A potential buyer will not purchase an EV unless he/she is assured of having constantly-available charging places.” [5] With firms naturally profit maximizing, big oil companies will make the switch if the EV market is profitable enough. This will in turn prompt them to convert their gas stations into electric charging stations, or at least add on to their current gas stations an electric charging station. Making these available and synonymous with gas pump prevalence will encourage more EV buyers. “Other incentives include urban sprawl control and lane access that are specially designed for EV; free parking or electricity; exemption of emissions test; and better insurance products.” [5] Even developing houses far from the city centers will be encouraged, which creates the problem of promoting an agenda of inefficient dispersion, as oppose to efficient concentration (sprawl). Urban sprawl also creates more emission problems, and EV use can help reduce these effects and would be a less expensive way of doing so as oppose to moving houses. Insurance cuts to EV buyers can also lead to encouragement of EV use, with clients making an active switch in order to save money in the long run.

Climate change will not be solved without governments playing an active role. Delays in this process will only exacerbate the inevitable problems that will come. The data is there. Mobilizing the green economy, which is already showing powerful signs with a lack of government incentivizing; Imagine with the government backing it. The change will only hurt the lobbying interests of fossil fuels. According to the World Health Organization, “Ambient (outdoor air pollution) in both cities and rural areas was estimated to cause 3 million premature deaths worldwide in 2012.” [6] We must meet this growing pandemic by nothing but impactful action and just policy making that meet the needs of the people, and help them make choices that better their situations.

 

Work Cited

 

[1] Agence France-Presse. “World Bank Will No Longer Finance Oil, Gas Projects from 2019.” South China Morning Post, 12 Dec. 2017, http://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/2124040/world-bank-will-no-longer-finance-oil-gas-projects-2019-pressure.

 

[2] “World Bank Group – International Development, Poverty, & Sustainability.” World Bank, http://www.worldbank.org/.

 

[3] Geuss , Megan. “Who’s Putting Money down for a Tesla Semi?” Ars Technica, 29 Nov. 2017, arstechnica.com/cars/2017/11/whos-putting-money-down-for-a-tesla-semi/.

 

[4] “The Real Cost of Operating a Truck.” Find a Trucking Job, http://www.findatruckingjob.com/trucking-info/trucking-articles/real-cost-operating-truck.

 

[5] Zhang Y, Zhong M, Geng N, Jiang Y (2017) Forecasting electric vehicles sales with univariate and multivariate time series models: The case of China. PLoS ONE 12(5): e0176729. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176729

 

[6] “Ambient (Outdoor) Air Quality and Health.” Ambient (Outdoor) Air Quality and Health Fact Sheet, World Health Organization, Sept. 2016, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs313/en/.

 

“Climate Change: A Hot-Button Issue”

By Olivia Cobleigh

I want to start this blog with a story about my research of this topic that proves a prudent issue. The first article I read about climate change and the Earth’s heating specifically, was called “The Uninhabitable Earth.” Written by David Wallace-Wells who is not a scientist but a journalist who conducted this article by interviewing scientists and using their data so bear this in mind. Seeing that he himself was not a scientist I wanted to first research the authenticity of this article and what I found was many scientists “deemed the paper erroneous and misconstrued”. I read what these scientists had to say and what shocked me was how these scientists down played the severity that Wells was presenting. They stated that he was “too bleak!” In a world with rising seas and thousands of people dying from heat waves, for a fact. How can concern about this “be too bleak?” Not to mention it will only get worse as time goes on without intervention, so this shocked me and I think it is part of the detrimental “out of sight, out of mind” policy that a lot of people have with climate change.

Global warming, the driver of climate change, is exponential and on a scale that we can never properly measure. As temperatures continue to rise we will see more ice shelfs falling into the sea, more heat waves and this all will release more CO2 and possibly methane that will serve as a catalyst. And the even scarier part… we are seeing the effects of heating and climate change now from decades ago. This will catch up to us and humans still haven’t fully prepared, or even acknowledged that the warming of the Earth could (will) be our biggest problem.

What specifically should we be most afraid of right now, you might ask? The ice caps. As the Earth warms this doesn’t just melt the ice caps it makes huge shelfs of land ice break off into the ocean that immediately increase ocean levels. But what’s even worse, this permafrost is meant to stay permanently frozen, because trapped inside are enormous amounts of CO2 and methane. It is estimated there is one to two times the amount of CO2 in the permafrost that is currently in out atmosphere. So, imagine doubling the already devastating amount of pollution in the atmosphere in one fell swoop.

As we discussed in class, what do people do when it gets hot? They turn on their air conditioners. These air conditioners are part of an exacerbating cycle which is exactly what caused the heat wave in the first place. But it probably saved some lives because in the 2003 heat wave of France, 15,000 people died. It is this injudicious human behavior that is simply a catalyst to our possible catastrophe.

Economically, I don’t even have to tell you that rising temperature will cause ruin. For the cities and peoples who live near coasts or on islands, they will become climate refugees. This aid and relocation will be astronomically expensive. There is also the question of where will they go? Will neighboring countries let them in? Will America or the UN have to redistribute people? I think we are just hoping this doesn’t happen and if we ignore it, it will go away but this is already happening.

For the currently cold places like Russia, the Northern United States and Canada, they will see some positives, so at least it’s not all doom and gloom, if you can forget about the rest of the world. These areas will develop longer growing seasons mainly. With the ice melting, Canada and Russia will have more accessible land and more access to channels in the ocean.

A hotter Earth will exacerbate every climate issue we currently face, from worsening allergies and asthma to more smog and to stronger natural storms like hurricanes. The costs of rebuilding after super hurricanes alone, is immense, not to mention they decrease GDP. Another economic yet moral issue we see especially in America is that the poor, or the people who are least able to help themselves are left to bear the brunt of things, like in the case of hurricanes and air and water pollution.

“Since 1980, the planet has experienced a 50-fold increase in the number of places experiencing dangerous or extreme heat” (Wallace-Wells). As temperature continue to rise at exponential rates this is problematic and lethal for equatorial countries especially. In the summers, with 90%+ humidity and temperature about 100 degrees it would be dangerous just to go outside. Not only will the people have to stay indoors but for countries like Costa Rica and El Salvador where their livelihood depends on agriculture and outdoor tourism, this will be impossible.

To conclude, this is just scratching the surface of all the issues we as a species will face due to rising global temperatures. I think if we take away anything from this is that we literally need to change drastically right now, or we have to fund Elon Musk more. It is our choice, and it goes against our nature, and anthropocentric views for most people, but we have already entered a war with climate change.

Works Cited

Amadeo, Kimberly. “Global Warming Effects on the Economy.” Thebalance.com, November 13, 2017. https://www.thebalance.com/effects-of-global-warming-on-the-economy-3305692

Bamat, Joseph. “France takes steps to avoid repeat of deadly 2003 heat wave.” France24.com, July 1, 2015. http://www.france24.com/en/20150701-france-paris-heat-wave-alert-deadly-2003-summer-guidelines

Lawson, Ashley. “It’s certain: The Earth is getting warmer, and human activity is largely to blame.” C2es.org, March 10, 2017. Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. https://www.c2es.org/2017/03/its-certain-the-earth-is-getting-warmer-and-human-activity-is-largely-to-blame/

Mooney, Chris. “Scientists challenge magazine story about ‘uninhabitable Earth’.” Washingtonpost.com, July 12, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/07/12/scientists-challenge-magazine-story-about-uninhabitable-earth/?utm_term=.a5f1e9c00efc

Wallace-Wells, David. “The Uninhabitable Earth.” Nymag.com, July 9, 2017. New York Media LLC. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html

Reducing energy consumption By: Eduardo Salomon

Science and technology are developing faster and faster and helping us, humans, save and protect our world from more environmental problems we are causing. We have different research teams around the world coming up with innovative technologies and methods to make life on earth more sustainable. We have new things like producing energy from urine to products like the Coffee Joulies (“thermodynamic stones that capture excess heat and then slowly disseminate heat back”)[2]that help us save energy, but the real change has to come from within us, the human race.

 

It is really difficult to convince people to lower their energy consumption levels. Most of us do not know how much energy we are consuming in our day to day activities, also we do not specifically know what amount of energy each of our appliances use. Many different methods have been tested to make people more conscious about their energy consumption levels; but in my opinion, the best way to implement this change in someone is if the change comes from within them. The change has to come from within oneself for it to be a real and strong one.

 

To have an effective reduction of energy consumption levels over time the change has to be steady or incremental as time passes. For this to happen our subject has to compromise and start, passively and almost automatically, to change their behavior towards energy misuse. Having stated this, the change has to first be a psychological one so it then becomes a behavior one.

 

In the University of Kent, located at Canterbury (UK), a programmed called Integrated Persuasive Technology and Energy Delegate (IPTED) was implemented. This initiative consisted of a set of software and hardware introduced in sixteen different students’ residence houses (with 112 students each) with the purpose of reducing their energy consumption and CO2 emissions. A real-time system that measured the consumption of energy of the students was applied to the dorms, then energy saving delegates were appointed in eight of the residential houses and for the other eight residential homes, the students got weekly emails showing the energy consumption of the building. [1]

 

The study showed that in the eight residential halls where both the real-time feedback and the delegates were appointed the energy consumption went down by 37%, saving 1360.49kWh and 713.71kg of CO2. In the other hand, in the eight residence halls were only the real-time feedback and weekly emails were implemented the energy consumption only went down by 3.5%, saving 165kWh and 86.56kg of CO2. These results show us how important the human factor is in this equation: when we had the energy delegates we see how the savings were more than ten times of those were we did not have them. Peer social pressure can be key when promoting energy saving. [1]

 

Reducing energy consumption not only has a positive environmental effect but decreasing the energy consumption levels in a building also help with cost reduction; the less energy is consumed the less energy one has to pay. There are different ways to reduce the energy consumption, one way is by switching from incandescent bulbs to LED bulbs. This change can help reduce energy consumption up to 75%. Turning off electronic appliances when not in use or simply by changing to more energy efficient devices can also reduce the consumption by a significant amount. Reducing the energy use levels is not a hard task and by everyone helping a little we can make a huge impact on our planet.

 

Environmental practices are gaining ground in people’s priorities, but there is still a long way to go. In my opinion, more social programs like this are the ones that have a positive and long-lasting effect on people. Changing people to become more environmental one by one can cause a great effect as a whole. Having people realize that we have to take better care of our environment is key for the human species to survive. The next step to achieve for environmentalist should be to spread the word and educate all the population on environmental issues and the importance of preserving our planet, both for the present and the future.

 

• Emeakaroha, A., Ang, C., & Yan, Y. (2012). Challenges in Improving Energy Efficiency in a University Campus Through the Application of Persuasive Technology and Smart Sensors. Challenges,3(2). doi:10.3390/challe3020290
• Freeman, K. (2012, February 15). 4 Unique Ways to Generate Renewable Energy. Retrieved December 15, 2017, from http://mashable.com/2012/02/15/renewable-energy-methods/#0XdqsOKrUEqO

 

 

Can Pace “Go Clean”?

Lauren Costa

Sustainability can be defined as responsible use of resource over an indefinite period of time. Responsible resource use has become increasingly more important as human population continues to grow and consume natural resources at an unprecedented rate. James Griffin states “In industrialized economies, clean energy becomes increasingly important as a policy goal as incomes rise and standards become more exacting, and it will probably always be so as those standards remain perpetually out of reach. Indeed, today there is no perfectly clean technology free of some negative attribute”. Witht that being said the overarching challenge is to make that transition at minimum cost and without economic disruption. Energy saving technologies will play a pivotal role. Energy efficiency is a fundamental step to reducing our impact on climate change and creating a sustainable energy future.

As a world, country, and community, the use of natural resources as a source for energy is becoming overused and destructive. It is time to put renewable resources to use within the community in hopes for a widespread result. Some renewable resources require a specific environment for the most efficiency. New and modern innovations have come into the renewable energy source spectrum that could be a beneficial component of environmental sustainability. A technology known as the Pavegen, uses the power of footsteps. It is a piezoelectric tile made completely of recycled material, that when force is placed down upon will generate a usable energy. Pavegen as a company stands for clean energy through changing human behavior. From climate change to rapidly expanding cities, we face complex environmental and social challenges. Pavegen enables people to directly engage with clean energy, to increase their understanding of sustainability issues, and to connect purposefully with brands. The new, creative technically is a multifunctional custom flooring system. As people step on the tiles, their weight causes electromagnetic induction generators to vertically displace, which results in a rotatory motion that generates off-grid electricity.

The use of the Pavegen has a deeper future impact. It has not only the power to generate electricity, but also influences community togetherness. In a case study performed at Simon Langton School, in which an energy walk way was implemented, the students and faculty felt a personal contribution to the renewable energy system. This case study also coincides with a survey done that resulted in 79% of people admitting they would go out of their way to generate clean and efficient power. The Pavegen system adds to the community and allows individuals to feel as though they are making a real difference. Yes, the Pavegen system will help achieve environmental sustainability, but it will also create a community bond that will really change the meaning behind “go clean.”

Could pace “go clean” and install a Pavegen walk way on campus?

The engagement of students is what will make or break the success of the Pavegen on campus. Without footsteps, the energy will not be generated and collected for use. It is necessary that once the word of the system is out, that students will continually make their way across the Pavegen tile daily. If the students understand that each of their footsteps makes a significant difference, it is assumed they will go out of their way to generate clean energy. Students will benefit from the project by generating clean and efficient energy for their school’s campus, while engaging in fitness simultaneously. With the help from students on campus, we could make flyers and have some sort of ceremony to bring attention to the Pavegen system. This project will truly only be successful, if the Pace community is able to unify and work together to generate energy.

 

Citation:

Buy Clean Energy 2017, buycleanenergy.org/why

Griffin, James M. “Climate Change and the Search for Clean Energy.” A Smart Energy Policy: An Economist’s Rx for Balancing Cheap, Clean, and Secure Energy, Yale University Press, New Haven; London, 2009, pp. 103–122. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1nq062.8

McLean, Peter. “Introduction: The Need for Sustainability.” The American Biology Teacher, vol. 71, no. 5, 2009, pp. 267–268. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27669428

“Pavegen – What We Do.” Pavegen – The Next Step, http://www.pavegen.com/what-we-do/.
SACHS, JEFFREY D. “The Road to Clean Energy Starts Here.” Scientific American, vol. 296, no. 5, 2007, pp. 39–39. JSTOR, JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26069265.

The Failures of Our Food System

By: Christina Thomas

Food is an integral part of our lives. As families, we sit around the table to share a meal. In between classes and meetings we run to grab a quick slice of pizza or a sandwich if we can find the time. First dates are usually centered around a meal together. Even the holidays become a great excuse to eat our fill and then some while catching up with friends and family.

But our obsession with food goes beyond just basic survival. It has become a social occasion and something to look forward too.

But where does our food come from? Of course farming helps get groceries on the shelves and, eventually, our tables. However, the United States no longer gets a majority of its food from small family farms. Instead, because of our increased demand for food, especially meat, dairy, and poultry, we, as a society, have reverted to Concentrated Animal Feeding Grounds (CAFOs), more commonly known as factory farms.

An example of a concentrated animal feeding ground.

While this term may seem overused and more of an abstract idea as opposed to an actual place, the truth is that the animals that are raised in these factory farms for slaughter face horrible conditions and abuse on a daily basis. Most of these animals are fed a mixture of corn, grain, and rejected animal parts from fellow slaughterhouse animals that either died prematurely, were not large enough to package once slaughtered, or are just not demanded by the general public, such as cattle blood and poultry litter (Pluhar, 2010, p. 457). Calves raised for veal are kept in small cages where there isn’t even enough room for them to lay down with their legs outstretched or turn around (Pearce, 2011, p. 442). Cows frequently spend their lives standing in their own excrement and have their horns cut off without anesthesia to avoid them injuring other animals who live in such tight quarters. Pigs get their tails docked, chickens and other birds get their beaks cut off to avoid them pecking at themselves and others as the conditions slowly turn them crazed (Pearce, 2011, p. 442), and the list goes on. Countless well-known documentaries, such as Earthlings, Food Inc., Cowspiracy, among others have shown these conditions through undercover work and watching anyone of them can make one’s stomach turn. Despite this, our public policies are still incredibly lax in regards to how these farms are regulated and rarely do you hear public outcry to change such conditions or even phase away from factory farming altogether by means of public policy, as Europe is currently doing (Pluhar, 2010, p. 462).

So why is this?

While culture influences our ever-increasing demand for meat and meat products, economic drivers have continued to influence factory farming. Due to such a large supply of meat that has been fed with cheap grain and crammed into a small space, prices remain low for consumers relative to disposable income (Pearce, 2011, pp. 438-439). In other words, “more animals means greater economies of scale and lower cost per unit” (Pearce, 2011, p. 438).

A cattle farm.

However, the biggest problem with this is that the factory farming industry does not take into account externalities such as the negative effects to the environment, contributions to climate change, and the negative effects to human health.

When it comes to environmental consequences, agricultural run-off from these farms remains a huge issue, especially in terms of animal waste. This proved to be a huge issue in North Carolina in 2016 after Hurricane Matthew flooded many hog and poultry farms (Hernandez, Fritz, & Mooney, 2016). As the flood waters receded, it carried with it tons of waste and dead animal carcasses back to the ocean, seeping into groundwater the entire time. But hurricanes are not the only way waste can get into the water supply. Just simple day-to-day activities, improper disposal, and lack of monitoring can lead to waste running off into the local rivers and water supply, causing illnesses such as E. Coli and Salmonella poisoning. To top it off, factory farming requires large patches of land, which can be traced back to our current land-use changes within the United States and the inefficiencies this causes (Bartling, 2012, p. 28). In addition, it is not news to anyone well-versed in climate change science that methane gas, which is released by cows when they flatuate, is a huge problem and can even pose a bigger challenge than carbon dioxide.

Perhaps the most compelling argument against factory farming from an anthropocentric point of view is how bad factory farmed animals are for our health. Recall above that I mentioned many of these animals are fed a questionable concoction of grain, corn, and animal byproducts. The biggest issue here is that whatever these animals eat, we wind up eating further down the food chain. Little research has been done to show how this may affect human health directly but recent correlations have shown that many infectious diseases that can spread to human populations develop more readily in factory farms than anywhere else (Pearce, 2011, p. 452). Matters are also not helped by the fact that increased use of antibiotics in animals, which are used to minimize spread of disease as well as help these animals grow larger, has lead to many strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and viruses, thus compounding the ability for sickness to get spread among these animals while being packed in such close quarters.

A milking parlor on a modern farm.

Currently, as a society, we are rather limited when it comes to “solutions” to factory farming. Several ideas that have been proposed include becoming vegetarian or vegan or simply cutting back on how much meat we consume daily, closing factory farms and reverting to old-style small, family farms that follow organic practices, and in-vitro meat, where cells of one animal can be grown in a laboratory setting into a single slab of meat, such as the muscle of a pig being grown into a single slab of bologna (Pluhar, 2010, p. 463). However, the truth is that our demand for meat and meat products is not going to dwindle anytime soon and the draw for people to become farmers is just not there anymore. To top it off, technology to develop in-vitro meat have not been advanced enough to the point that we can satisfy the world’s meat demand cheaply. However, as Prince Charles of Wales stated, “farms have been reduced to little more than factories and must be brought into greater harmony with the planet” (Starkey, 2017). While we will not stop our meat consumption anytime soon, we must find away to bring meat farming into greater harmony with nature if not just for the well-being us but also for the environment and the animals who are subjected to the cruelty of factory farming and I believe we can start by pricing this food while taking into consideration the externalities that it causes.

References

Bartling, H. (2012). A chicken ain’t nothin’ but a bird: Local food production and the politics of land-use change. Local Environment, 17(1), 23-34. Retrieved from http://rlib.pace.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edb&AN=70354350&site=eds-live&scope=site

Hernandez, A. R., Fritz, A., & Mooney, C. (2016, October 16). Factory farming practices are under scrutiny again in N.C. after disastrous hurricane floods. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A466739970/AONE?u=nysl_me_pace&sid=AONE&xid=3437f7c9

Pearce, J. I. (2011). A brave new jungle: Factory farming and advocacy in the twenty-first century. Duke Environmental Law and Policy Forum, 21(2), 433-467. Retrieved from Academic OneFile database. (edsgcl.280092018)

Pluhar, E. B. (2010). Meat and morality: Alternatives to factory farming. Journal of Agricultural & Environmental Ethics, 23(5), 455-468. Retrieved from Academic OneFile database. (edsgcl.236244471)

Starkey, J. (2017, July 11). Factory farming puts humanity in danger, Charles warns. The Times, p. 10. Retrieved from http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A498226331/AONE?u=nysl_me_pace&sid=AONE&xid=0132ceee

 

 

 

 

 

Land Use and the Importance of Density

By Carl Wojciechowski

How we use land impacts our lives and the environment in a myriad of ways. When food is grown far from where it is consumed CO2 is emitted in transportation. Where the farms are located and strain local water sources. Low density construction destroys swaths of forests that contain valuable habitat. Building sprawling suburbs can create traffic problems and pollution as workers from far flung parts of a metropolitan area jostle to reach the city center where jobs are. Limited housing stock in cities leads to skyrocketing home prices, leaving the most disadvantaged without proper housing. Disparate as they may seem, all of the above are connected. To solve many of these problems, we need more density in our urban cores.

Density of the New York City Metropolitan Area, showing the dense urban core and less dense outer fringes. Source: US Census

As our cities sprawl outward, they use up land at the fringes of the metropolitan area. What this land is made up of is dependent on the area, but in many areas it will be agricultural land. Our current model of food distribution and consumption reflects an inefficient system of food distribution. With some exceptions like farmer’s markets, our fruits and vegetables are likely flown in from far flung states or countries. However, if we had a more efficient system of growing food locally, we would want farms to be relatively close in to the city. The building of suburban housing can eat up enormous amounts of land and restrictions on expanding outward.

This can also have an impact on forests. Thought forest cover has grown overall over the past few decades, in the northeast some 133,000 hectares of forest were lost to the development of homes other urban amenities between 1990 and 2010. This is a direct impact on the forest due to sprawl. The pattern of home-building in the exurbs of many cities in the northeast is to carve into forests to build home developments, shopping centers and golf courses which use up large amounts of land. This is opposed to denser development further into the urban core would allow for similar population growth at rate that doesn’t impact land use.

Sprawl in Orange County New York. This photograph shows how the establishment of Harriman-Bear Mountain State Parks, on the right, helped contain some of the sprawl. Source: Google Maps

Density restrictions within urban cores can also have an impact on inequality within our cities. Brookings showed that land use restrictions, such as restricting multi-family dwellings in given areas can have an adverse impact on low income families that can’t afford a single family home. As regulation of land use has risen, migration of lower skilled workers to areas with opportunity has fallen. This means that low skill workers cannot afford to move to areas with economic opportunities because the cost of housing is too high a barrier to overcome. This has even been cited as one possible reason for rising income inequality as low income workers are unable to pursue new opportunities and contribute to the economy. Density in the urban and existing suburbs could drive down housing prices to the point where these workers can find a place to live.

It is also likely that zoning regulations create a significant impact on the economy overall. One research paper showed that zoning regulations may mean the economy is 14% than it would be otherwise if not for the constraints. They argue that constraints in highly productive cities like San Francisco and New York mean many workers who may otherwise live and work there opt not to due to the price of housing, restricting the size of the economy and the amount of growth. They attribute this to the development of housing restrictions through the late 20^th century that restricts density.

So if there are so many benefits, how to we increase density in cities? There are many ways of approaching this. First, we have to change zoning laws that restrict density in cities. Second, incentives need to be created that encourage land owners to build up. In New York City for example, the city allows developers to build additional units in exchange for a public good like affordable housing or a public plaza. In less dense parts of the country, if we want landowners to increase density, a city might give a tax break to homeowners that add density on their property that can also give them revenue in the form of rent. Restricting sprawl by creating an urban growth boundary is another technique for reducing sprawl. It essentially creates a boundary around the metropolitan area where development is limited to within the defined boundary. Such a system exists in Portland today. However, one would need to be matched with increased density to allow for growth.

By whatever means we achieve it, increased density is an imperative. Our population and economy continue to grow, and sprawling to the peripheries is simply unsustainable. The impacts on inequality, the economy, our environment, and our food sources are too great when we choose to sprawl. The good news is that planners and officials around the country are realizing this and are adapting their cities to respond. Transit oriented density is being developed in cities like Nashville, which proposed its first light rail line, and Minneapolis, where it’s two light rail lines have ridership that have defied expectations and have spurred dense development along them. The future looks a little tighter knit.

 

Works Cited

Hsieh, Chang-Tai, and Enrico Moretti. “Housing Constraints and Spatial Misallocation.” 2015, doi:10.3386/w21154.

Reeves, Richard V., and Dimitrios Halikias. “How Land Use Regulations Are Zoning out Low-Income Families.” Brookings, Brookings, 15 Aug. 2017, http://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2016/08/16/zoning-as-opportunity-hoarding/.

Riebel, Phil. “The State Of North American Forests, And The Causes Of Deforestation.” Printing Impressions, 31 Oct. 2014, www.piworld.com/post/the-state-of-north-american-forests-and-the-causes-of-deforestation/.

Qureshi, Mona, and Robin King. “3 Ways Land-Use Planning and Zoning Can Increase Urban Density.” The City Fix, 18 Aug. 2015, thecityfix.com/blog/three-ways-land-use-planning-zoning-can-increase-urban-density-mona-qureshi-robin-king/)

Shoag, Daniel, and Peter Ganong. “ Why Has Regional Income Convergence Declined?” Brookings, 4 Aug. 2016.

The Hidden Externalities Behind Animal Agriculture

By Nicole Behler

Animal agriculture is a seemingly ordinary industry to the every day American. When we see meat or dairy in the store, most people don’t think about the economics behind a carton of milk or a T-bone steak. The reality is that the production of meat and dairy causes many negative externalities to the environment and human health, and is one of the leading causes of climate change. Animal agriculture impacts the planet in a variety of ways including increasing greenhouse gas emissions, causing deforestation, and creating toxic waste runoff.

The first negative externality and one that many people may laugh at, is that animal agriculture accounts for about 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions (Livestock’s…). According to Independent, “Robert Goodland, a former lead environmental adviser to the World Bank, and Jeff Anhang, a current adviser, suggest that domesticated animals cause 32 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), more than the combined impact of industry and energy” (Correspondent). The article then articulates the fact that livestock emits about 37 percent of the world’s methane. A high human population means the demand for more and more livestock to feed our populations resulting in higher greenhouse gas emissions. According to Goodland and Anhang, “A key risk factor for climate change is the growth of the human population, projected to be roughly 35 percent between 2006 and 2050.In the same period, the FAO projects that the number of livestock worldwide will double, so livestock-related GHG emissions would also approximately double” (15).

The second negative externality that I want to touch on is land use. The use of land for animal agricultures causes another string of negative externalities on its own. In order to raise cattle, the animals need pastures to graze on; because of the growing human population and resulting growing number of cattle being raised to feed our population, more and more land is being cleared in order for this industry to grow. Clearing land for agricultural use causes deforestation, habitat destruction, species extinction, and pollution of waterways. Deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest has become one of the main points of focus for environmentalists. “Until 1970 the deforested areas used for agriculture and cattle ranching in Amazonia accounted for less than 3 percent of the total area of the region. Today, such areas account for over 10 percent” (Margulis, 9). Habitat destruction is considered one of the biggest causes of biodiversity loss. When forests are cleared, animals are either killed or forced to migrate to neighboring areas; this is called habitat fragmenting. Habitat fragmenting is harmful for a number of reasons; it causes populations to split off into smaller groups making it harder for them to repopulate, increasing crowding, and decreasing food availability. The increasing friction between native animal populations and humans developing land increases loss of biodiversity in places like the Amazon.

Lastly, toxic waste runoff is another huge negative externality that animal agriculture causes. The runoff produced by the waste of cattle causes ocean dead zones when not disposed of properly. Many factory farms do not dispose of their waste properly because of the cost of waste water treatment. Ocean dead zones are basically parts of the ocean that cannot support life because of the lack of oxygen in the water. According to Scientific American:

“Dead zones occur around the world, but primarily near areas where heavy agricultural and industrial activity spill nutrients into the water and compromise its quality accordingly. Some dead zones do occur naturally, but the prevalence of them since the 1970s—when dead zones were detected in Chesapeake Bay off Maryland as well as in Scandinavia’s Kattegat Strait, the mouth of the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and the northern Adriatic—hints at mankind’s impact.”

Overall, this is a hard subject to talk about because everything involved is connected in some way and an impact on one part of the environment causes a chain reaction to other parts. As much as I wish I could keep writing  further about each area mentioned above, I will leave it at this and hopefully learning a few facts about the hidden externalities behind the animal agriculture industry will make you think twice about the products you consume and the industries you choose to support.

Work Cited

Correspondent, Martin Hickman Consumer Affairs. “Study claims meat creates half of all greenhouse gases.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 31 Oct. 2009, www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/study-claims-meat-creates-half-of-all-greenhouse-gases-1812909.html.

Goodland, Robert & Anhang, Jeff. “Livestock and Climate Change: What if the key actors in climate change are…cows, pigs and chickens?”. WorldWatch. November/December 2009

“Livestock’s Long Shadow: environmental issues and options”. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Rome 2006

Margulis, Sergio. Causes of deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon. The World Bank, 2004.

Pesticides in the Nation’s Streams and Ground Water, 1992–2001—A Summary, Mar. 2006, pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2006/3028/.

“What Causes Ocean “Dead Zones”?” Scientific American, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ocean-dead-zones/.

Energy: Natural gas, A Cleaner Alternative? By: Cecile Edleman

“The United States contains just over 4 percent of the world’s natural gas reserves” (NaturalGas). We’ve all heard of natural gas but do many of us understand what it is? Natural gas is a non- renewable resource way beneath the earths surface, kind of like oil in that way. Natural gas consists of mainly methane and also contains small amounts of hydrocarbon gas liquids and non-hydrocarbon gasses (EIA GOV). Natural gas was formed millions of years ago, the same way oil was with the remains of dead animal and plant life that decayed and built up in thick layers over time. Over time these layers were buried under sand silt and rock, this and additional pressure and heat eventually over a long period of time turned some of this organic material to coal, oil or natural gas (EIA GOV). Thus why natural gas is typically found near oil deposits. The deeper you go the more compression has occurred and you can find more pure natural gas. Natural gas then either pools into large cracks under layers of bedrock, tiny pores within formations of shale and other rock or I coal deposits (NaturalGeographics).

In order to extract natural gas fracturing must occur. Now there has been a debate on whether natural gas could possibly be “the lesser of two evils” between oil as an energy resource as of late. As oil burns and releases a significant amount of gases that are primary contributors to acid deposition and smog which affects the environment and our health. Compared to natural gas, when it is burned and used for energy it is one of the “cleanest fossil fuels” but it also lets out an abundance of methane into the environment.

Natural gas can also be extracted relatively safety with the use of vertical fracturing or drilling vertically into the earth. But vertical fracturing is limited to the natural gas that it encounters. Hydraulic fracturing or horizontal drilling is much more efficient but come with negative externalities on the environment but expand the amount of natural gas we can access. “Hydraulic fracturing, is a process that splits open rock formations with high-pressure streams of water, chemicals, and sand. The sand props open the rocks, which allows gas to escape and be stored or transported” (Natural Geographic). The National Bureau of Economic Research finds that horizontal drilling and hydrofracturing led to extra wages and royalties within producing counties and an overall increase of U.S. employment by 725,000 jobs” (nber). So ignoring the negative externalities on the environment, horizontal drilling and hydrofracturing, both used to obtain natural gas, also helps boost the economy and create jobs. The problem is hydraulic fracturing when done correctly is safe, but in certain areas where the bedrock differs can cause issues. These issues are issues the private market tends to ignore. Essentially negative externalities that are not taken into account during production. An additional flaw to this is that it uses a massive amount of water to extract the natural gas. So as byproduct we typically see highly toxic water run off. Fracturing can also cause micro-earthquakes; which to me is insane to think about. We cam affect the earth so much that we are now causing earth quakes.

Today competitive forces are being relied upon more heavily to determine market structure and operation. However this has not always been the case, in the 1970’s the U.S government had strict price controls on Natural gas. This led to tremendous difficulties in the industry and for it to really be too expensive to be an economically viable option in comparison to oil as an energy resource. Now a days fracturing for natural gas is relatively cheap and cleaner than coal, besides the methane natural gas releases. It is cheap now because we historically price controlled it. Supply is now increasing so naturally the price is decreasing.

So the question is can natural gas be an efficient energy source keeping the economics and environment in mind? Natural gas is still a non-renewable energy source but on the other had is called one of the cleanest fossil fuels. But using oil as an alternative also produces a lot of negative byproducts’ as well. Essentially the real question becomes, what is the lesser of two evils?

 

Works Cited

“Natural Gas.” Natural Gas – Energy Explained, Your Guide To Understanding Energy – Energy Information Administration,

 

“NaturalGas.org.” NaturalGasorg, naturalgas.org/regulation/history/.

 

Society, National Geographic. “Natural Gas.” National Geographic Society, 9 Oct. 2012, www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/natural-gas/.

 

Home – Energy Explained, Your Guide To Understanding Energy – Energy Information Administration, www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=natural_gas_home.

 

“Environment and Energy Economics.” Environment and Energy Economics, www.nber.org/programs/eee/eee.html.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Bad Trip: Ocean Acidification

Rowan Lanning

Climate change has been the term adopted instead of the once abundant phrase “global warming” to describe the anthropogenic changes to our world and the results of such a shift. The substitution happened in part because although global temperature is increasing, there are other far more pressing and immediate effects that human pollution is causing, and the focus should perhaps be shifted away from simply temperature increase, and towards more disturbing concerns.

So – let’s talk about Ocean Acidification. In the past 50 years the oceans have absorbed between 24 and 33% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. They act as a huge carbon sink, sucking up lots of carbon dioxide that would have been released to the atmosphere. While at first this high absorption rate seems advantageous in moderating the rate and severity of climate change effects, the high input level of CO2 forms carbonic acid and lowers the pH of water, having adverse chemical effects in ocean habitats. Ocean acidification and global warming stem from the same source – the burning of fossil fuels and excess release of carbon therein – but are wildly different problems. These changes are particularly threatening for calcifying sea creatures or shelled organisms that use carbonate and calcium to build shells and skeletons.

The economic costs of ocean acidification have not yet been fully adequately researched or included in estimates of the social cost of carbon (SCC), a dollar measure of the long term damage done by a ton of CO2 emissions in a given year. Below I have inserted a table from a study by Talberth and Niemi which shows the plausible worst-case scenarios and values at risk from ocean acidification and warming. Their preliminary results from the study suggested that overall SCC will be raised 1.5-4.7 times higher than the current federal rate when accounting for ocean acidification.

Resource or service at risk	Scenario	Values at risk($2016 billions/yr)
Net primary productivity	Ocean net primary productivity reduced by 16%	$9,232.00
Coral reefs	Loss of at least 50% of current coral reef area	$5,661.70
Coastal infrastructure	Additional SLR of 3 meters via WAIS collapse	$3,561.69
Charismatic species	25% of charismatic marine species go extinct	$1,104.08
Carbon sequestration	50% loss of ocean CO2 uptake	$641.16
Mangroves	Loss of at least 15% of current mangrove area	$287.42
Fisheries	400 million at significantly increased risk of hunger	$245.74
Coastal ecosystems	Marine dead zones expand in area by 50%	$126.82

The Third Symposium on the Ocean in a High-CO2 World reported several statements about ocean acidification in varying ranges of confidence. Socio-economic impacts are discussed at the medium confidence level, expecting economic damage that results from impacts to coral reefs, tourism, food, and shoreline protection. Just how big a cost is uncertain, but was estimated in the report at somewhere around $1 trillion for coral reef loss alone. In an article by Cherie Winner, oceanographer Sarah Cooley states that while it’s hard to put a dollar value on the benefits provided by coral reefs, that value is undoubtedly very high. The worldwide value of shoreline protection by reefs estimated at about $9 billion/year, and hat plus reef-supported fisheries evened out to about $30 billion/year. The same study revealed that in 2006 the Caribbean island of Tobago accounted for 30% of GDP from coral reef tourism, 1/2 of which was indirect income in the form of money spent on land by tourists, and the other half from direct income in visits.

Economic impacts for commercial fisheries and the industries associated within are much easier to tangibly quantify. Sarah Cooley’s own research found that the first direct impact on humans will be through declining revenues from shellfish, their predators, and all coral reef habitants. Their study states that in 2007 the $3.8 billion annual domestic ex-vessel commercial harvest contributed $24 billion to US gross national product, 19% of which ($748 million) was mollusks alone – the primary focus of their acidification research. They also focused on economic losses from harmful algal blooms, another colorful result of ocean acidification and warming, which cost the US about $12 million annually by causing sickness in both fish and humans, habitat loss, and lower tourism.

The only true mitigation strategy for ocean acidification is the same carbon elephant in the room with all discussions on climate change – limiting and eventually halting the use of fossil fuels to address the CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. Because ocean acidification and climate change at large operate on longer timescales than humans do in their day to day lives, we are often able to sustain the illusion that it is a problem we will simply be able to deal with later. Ocean acidification will drive biological changes over about 50 years and economic effects will compound over time. Despite the small up front costs, reducing CO2 emissions over the next few decades is the only way to provide noticeable economic benefits over the coming generations.

Thirsty Tapas: The Price of Agricultural Water Use

Rowan Lanning

In 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirmed the right of everyone to adequate food. However it was not until late July of 2010 that the UN General Assembly recognized the human right of all humans to water, declaring the access to clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right. We can all agree today that the right to food and water should be a basic and universal one, but the right to water within the context of food and its production is a more complicated discussion.

Water as a rival and non excludable economic commodity provides goods in drinking and irrigation water, and services in both recreation and amenity as well as hydroelectric power that are utilized by individuals, industries, and agriculture. Yet the scope of imbalance in resource consumption is startling. Agriculture accounts for about 80% of the entire nation’s consumptive water use, as a major draw of both ground and surface water, and globally accounts for majority 70% but up to 90% of consumptive water use (where consumption refers to withdrawals net of returns flows and evaporation)

source: http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/y5582e/y5582e04.htm

Water is demanded by industrial and domestic sectors, but the agricultural sector is by far the main user of the natural resource. What’s worse, the agricultural sector often inefficiently manages and consumes their water resources to the point of high levels of waste, which has been encouraged by subsidized low charges for water use, or for low energy tariffs for pumping. Water is essential for agriculture whether animal farming or monoculture production. To produce 1kg of daily food for a person, about 2,000 to 5,000 Liters of water are required. To produce 1kg of beef requires 15,500 L of water, which is three times the water used for daily food consumption.

Water use for agricultural production is intrinsically tied to the environment it is present in. Both yield and use stem from bioregional factors like slope, climate, and soil type/permeability, and no matter the source, irrigation techniques and technology and their adoption remain a source of high curiosity in the field. A study from UC Berkeley analyzed the role of prices in agricultural water use with interesting implications for the design of water pricing and delivery policies in the states. This study revealed that in many areas of the US, water allocation is typically based on queuing systems, sets of laws defining property rights that dictate who has priority access to water, when and how water may be used, and how much water may be used, as opposed to standard markets. This queuing system tends to be a “first come first serve” basis as a use-it-or-lose-it system of water property rights, leading to high levels of inefficiency and inequity, which is described economically, through the following figure from the aforementioned study at Berkeley.

If a unit of water provided to junior rights holders (those who do not receive enough water when scarcity exists) has a positive marginal variable product (MVP), queuing is inefficient since senior rights holders (those who DO receive enough water when scarcity exists) apply water to the point where their MVP will be equal to 0, as there’s no real incentive for senior rights holders to adopt modern technology since water is typically just diverted as needed according to a farmer or organization’s place in the hierarchical queue. The study suggested a move from queuing to markets, but there are additional problems implicated by shifting water resources to a market system for agricultural users, as private market, or for-profit companies that operate water systems for regions or communities will often end up operating as monopolies due to the high economies of scale, which has lead to pricing problems.

Thus, the issue of inefficient use of water use in food production typically falls on the irrigation technology and individual decisions of farmers and organizations. Since vegetable and fruit crops return more per dollar invested in irrigation water than monoculture field crops, farmers in countries with higher water stresses and increased irrigation costs may need to shift the variety of crops they grow. For example, in Israel, 1000 L of irrigated water produces $0.79 worth of groundnuts, but only $0.12 worth of wheat. There are also currently 263 transboundary river basins sharing water resources, resulting in an increase of agriculturally driven water conflicts globally from averaged 5 per year in the 1980s to 22 in 2000, the cost of which was an estimated $55 billion from 1990-1997. Now that’s an expensive bill for a bite to eat.

The EU Mistake with Food and Why it Shouldn’t Be Repeated

Joseph Pacifico

Blog Post: Food

ECO 310

 

As GMO technology progresses and becomes more and more effective in producing food, the world will see food prices fall and become widely available for the masses. With more food that is cheaper in world markets, shoppers at supermarkets will see better, more affordable fruits, vegetables, and meats. GMOs directly help those in poverty. By increased use and acceptance of GMOs, people will have more disposable income and be able to eat better food as well. Why is McDonald’s Big Mac so cheap? Why are there fast food restaurants on every block? Why is a salad so much more expensive than a hamburger? People who earn less end up eating fast food often due to pure necessity (that they lack the disposable income to be able to eat somewhere else, perhaps healthier). Beef can be frozen. Spinach expires faster in supermarkets. Fruits expire after a few days. Chocolate can take months to expire. Because it is more perishable, healthier options are often more expensive to transport (if deliveries are late then the supermarket has less time to put it out on the shelves and less of an opportunity to get it sold, adding to their waste costs). If a fruit has a blemish or looks undesirable, people will not buy it. A study was done that analyzed this effect. In order to “prevent the crop from browning, the company silenced an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase (PPO) that drives oxidation in apples. The benefit of these apples, the company says, is that it cuts down food waste—about 40 percent of apples are currently wasted, with much of that waste from superficial bruising and browning.” [3] With GMOs, producing fruits and vegetables become easier, more efficient and more widespread. Making it easier to get more of the product to its customers, especially with lower prices, makes it easier for poor people to skip McDonald’s for the day and go somewhere healthier. This simple fact can lead to reductions in diabetes, heart disease, and other health problems. It can also lead to reductions in methane due to the decrease in consumption of beef, and the decrease in cows (where fast food chains would cut back on the need to supply so much beef to the market due to consumption patterns). Making meat in a lab as opposed to getting it from a cow in a field reduces the amount of methane we release into the atmosphere. The negative effects of climate change can be reduced by changing the way we eat food. Making fruits, vegetables and meat cheaper for the masses also helps us export it to other countries who face famine or drought as foreign aid. If we can make food cheaper by supplying more of the good in the market, we can drive down prices, and more people will be able to eat cheaper and eat better by choosing better alternatives.

An example of this effect is happening in the U.S. with apple production. “Apple consumption in the U.S. has been stagnant for 20 years amid worsening obesity…Apple consumption in the U.S. has been stagnant for 20 years amid worsening obesity…Carter anticipates increasing that number to more than 1,000 acres by 2020. The company is planning future plantings in Canada and other countries. More than 90 percent of the consumers that tried them said they would buy them if available in their local stores. “The purpose of Arctic apples is definitely to promote healthy eating, boost apple consumption and reduce food waste, no matter what your age, income, or any other factor,” Carter said.” [4] By increasing the acres of GM products, the prices will fall due to market oversupply. Most consumers in this study said they would purchase the GM apples, which makes sense because if an apple tastes like an apple, then most people wouldn’t really care if it’s GM or not.

Another factor is that GMOs can reduce costs in production. A study shows how profitable this effect can be for small farmers. “Data collected between 2002 and 2008, and controlling for nonrandom selection bias in technology adoption, we show that Bt has caused a 24% increase in cotton yield per acre through reduced pest damage and a 50% gain in cotton profit among smallholders. We conclude that Bt cotton has created large and sustainable benefits, which contribute to positive economic and social development in India. The results show that Bt cotton adoption has caused sizeable socioeconomic benefits for smallholder farm households in India.”[6] This same result can and does occur in farms in every country, not just India. GMOs produce additional profits for smaller business due to more successful harvests and cheaper input costs. Small businesses create competition and further stimulate the economy, which can save underdeveloped countries and help them advance.

The problem is that the many countries, including western members of the EU, have limitations or outright prohibitions on the cultivation or importation of GMOs. “Other factors are trade protectionism, pressure from activists, public uneasiness or a desire to protect a country’s image—such as the French belief that a genetic crops could “contaminate” the country’s reputation as a world food capital.” [7] This is the most obvious step in the wrong direction. If anything, GMO use needs to be more widespread. What matters most is people making healthier choices, and more importantly, that poor people can have easier access to more foods, not a country’s “image.”

“The report found that the EU authorization procedure is generally considered to achieve the objectives of the protection of human and animal health through the use of science-based risk assessment, and that there were no cases of animal or human health problems resulting from GMOs to date. The study also noted that, due to the lack of availability of GM-labeled products in the EU markets, it was not easy to evaluate public acceptance of GMOs.” [2] The anti-GMO interests of lobbying groups is making cheaper, more widely available food impossible in most of these countries. They can’t even make an informed opinion about this because it’s so restricted. What about the poor overseas? They often suffer the most from most of these restrictions.

Furthermore, the EU report “came to the conclusion that benefits from growing GM crops mainly derive from increased yields, which are greatest for small farmers in developing countries. Apart from higher yields, the adoption of GM-crops can reduce production costs by reducing pesticide use, labour and fuel costs. Barfoot and Brookes (2007) estimated that even with seed costs of GM crops being higher than for their conventional counterpart, total farm benefits are higher for GM crop adopters, amounting to about $7 billion (5.23 billion €) globally per year.“ [1] $7 billion collectively is being missed in GDP, in potential small farmers not going bankrupt, in more people get fed.

A study was done in Uganda that further exemplifies the positive impacts of GMO adoption. “Banana bacterial wilt (BBW) is known as the top banana-killer disease in the Great Lakes region. Instead he has engaged in aggressive sanitation measures that include surveying his plantation twice daily and cutting down and burying diseased trees. He and his workers now carefully clean their tools with fire or bleach to ensure they don’t transfer the disease to uninfected trees. Plant scientists like Dr. Namanya make clear that both vitamin A and BBW-resistance genes have been introduced to existing farmer-preferred varieties, thereby safeguarding their future in Ugandan agriculture.” [5] GMOs allowed this Ugandan farmer to continue his farming business despite the powerful force of nature itself. If we are even remotely capable of doing this, in the ideal society, we would be lucky. Instead, we are preventing this same type of practice from being adopted and used in the countries that need it most. Leading nations in the EU should set the example for the rest of the world and further develop and invest into this industry, and then make these more innovative GMO methods readily available for any country that wants it.

As this writing outlines the benefits of GMOs that are either unrealized or ignored, the international community should push harder for GMO adoption, and the EU’s mistake in this regard should not be allowed to continue. A world without GMOs will hurt the poor population and small farmers of the world the most, and help big business and government interests. If we live in a world where people continue to ignore the facts of science for selfishness and greed, we begin to forget what it is to be human. It is the duty of the government to lead us towards the right and away from the wrong.

 

Work Cited

 

[1] Kaphengst, Timo; Nadja El Benni; Clive Evans; Robert Finger; Sophie Herbert; Stephen

Morse; Nataliya Stupak (2010): Assessment of the economic performance of GM crops

worldwide. Report to the European Commission, March 2011.

 

[2] Papademetriou, Theresa. “Restrictions on Genetically Modified Organisms: European Union.” Restrictions on Genetically Modified Organisms: European Union | Law Library of Congress, Library of Congress, 1 Mar. 2014, http://www.loc.gov/law/help/restrictions-on-gmos/eu.php#_ftn25.

 

[3] Chow, Lorraine. “GMO Apples Arriving on U.S. Shelves for First Time.” EcoWatch, EcoWatch, 8 Nov. 2017, http://www.ecowatch.com/gmo-apples-arctic-2507751729.html.

 

[4] Mulvany, Lydia. “GMO Apples Head to the Midwest.” Bloomberg.com, Bloomberg, 2 Nov. 2017, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-02/get-ready-for-gmo-fruit-salad-as-modified-apples-head-to-midwest.

 

[5] Conrow, Joan, and Mark Lynas. “Uganda Biotech Law Opens Door to Disease-Resistant GMO Crops.” Cornell Alliance for Science, Cornell Alliance for Science, 9 Oct. 2017, allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/uganda-biotech-law-opens-door-disease-resistant-gmo-crops.

 

[6] Kathage, Jonas, and Matin Qaim. “Economic Impacts and Impact Dynamics of Bt (Bacillus Thuringiensis) Cotton in India.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 109, no. 29, 2012, pp. 11652–11656. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41685132.

 

[7] “Where Are GMOs Grown and Banned? #GMOFAQ.” GMO FAQ, Genetic Literacy Project , gmo.geneticliteracyproject.org/FAQ/where-are-gmos-grown-and-banned/.

Smogging Up The Future

 

Smogging Up The Future

Countries like China, India, and some places in the United States are environmentally retrogressing. The combinations of iodine, ozone, and oxides have a substantial effect on smog reactions (Hamilton 191). Inputs of iodine is released from animal residues, use of fertilizers and pesticides and into the atmosphere (Whitehead 273). This provides a damaging to the soil around and the soil used for cattle. The abundance of polluting human practices is the something that many are paying close eye to. The production of iodine in many nations has many questioning if the efforts of declaring war on pollution will be enough to slow the rate of the dwindling environment. In response, the beijing “government this year started to require about 15,000 of the country’s largest factories to publicly report emissions and wastewater discharges. And an official report in the spring on soil contamination, a subject previously deemed a state secret, was hailed by many observers” (Makinen, “China’s battle plans in war on air pollution under

scrutiny”).

And due to colliding efforts of redlining and gerrymandering many of these conditions are borne by helpless children financially restrained and generationally trapped. Dating back to the New Deal, more loans were allowed and distributed to non-minorities, enabling them to purchase a house. From then, many suburbs abided by racist policies that prevented non-whites from entering the neighborhood (Galyean et al, “Levittown”). With that, those neighborhoods were considered more profiting, “better,” and thereby more affluent. Prices in property went up and people were able to sell their houses to buy even better ones, another enabling stone for their progress. While whites had this help and access, other racial groups were unable to catch up with paying their bills, a result of lacking job opportunity, and as well an almost damned environment. Many generations still reside in the same neighborhoods involuntarily. With the help of political practices such as redlining and gerrymandering, not much change was encouraged neither allowed. With fluctuating district lines changing for voting power towards certain demographics, it was even more of crippling stone. Where “bad” neighborhoods residues, was where pollution thrived. The government was legally forcing them into heinous environments which became the impetus of their struggle to survive, much more than anyone else. Within in this past year, metro Detroit suffered approximately 2402 asthmas attacks and missed a total of 1,751 school days due to asthma (Radio Newsroom, Shaffer, “Detroit air pollution disproportionately affects

African-American children”)

Not only that oil refinery in Michigan has been a leading cause towards increased rates of cancer in the residency around. Despite the emaciation of Detroit, there are adding factors that prevent the biologically development and vitality.

Pakistan has undergone severe smog conditions.

 

At its peak, Lahore’s levels of PM 2.5, the particles most damaging to health, were more than 30 times the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) safe limit. Environmentalists say air pollution is getting worse every year. According to WHO figures, in Pakistan during 2012, nearly 60,000 people died because of PM2.5 particles in the atmosphere (Islamabad, “Maybe the smog can bring us together’: toxic air chokes Pakistan and India”).

 

Currently PM levels are also increasing as we speak. This is due to the aforementioned pollution activity and regulatory policies placed or lack thereof (Casselman). There’s a mutual response to this by organizations such as Clean Air Task Force (CATF).

 

Almost 3 million kids go to schools within a half mile of oil and gas facilities—and face an elevated cancer risk because of it. “That’s the conservative estimate on the new edition of the Oil & Gas Threat Map by environmental nonprofits Clean Air Task Force and Earthworks”(Gans, “2.9 Million Kids Are at Risk From Oil and Gas Operations”). Data from the EPA’s National Emissions Inventory concluded that about 238 counties in the nation have elevated cancer risks associated with oil and gas facilities.

A probable solution to this would be to deter from oil use and production in areas that directly affect the people surrounding. Clean air is necessity in order to prevent the number of potential casualties and deaths that can arise. Another solution would be to minimize the amount of gas wells.

Currently, the U.S. is drilling half as many gas wells today as it was five years ago and producing a third more gas. This goes to show that the number of gas refineries and profitable activity is not necessarily positively correlated. By understanding this, it may incentivize companies to stop expanding in proximity to urban areas.  The cost of drilling is also another expense that has risen. The current motivation for many companies drilling is Wall Street and the promise of monetary investment. Depending on such a factor can severely lack and leave an unlimiting bore in the amount of natural resources available. Consideration is crucial towards development and the “promising new oil” fields in ND may prompt those to act accordingly.

 

There has also been talk about creating a renewable resource in order to make a steady growth rate for crop population and thereby directly regulating production. If the resource stock falls, then labor productivity in the resource sector falls, the Ricardian production possibility frontier shifts in, and thus establishes a new temporary equilibrium with a lower harvest (Brander, Scott,  “The Simple Economics of Easter Island: A Ricardo-Malthus Model of Renewable Resource Use. The American Economic Review”).

 

The Coalition for Clean Air organization plans on stifling this retrogression in more ways than one. A way how is by  Educating school children about air quality monitoring is another key goal for CCA. The program was formulated to allow kids to build and use their own air quality monitoring devices at school, the organization brings the concept of air quality monitoring to the forefront and helps educate the next generation

 

There are a many alternative uses to curb pollution exhaustion. All in all, the alarm and worry for pollution effects and the effect of the solutions produced is a worry for many. The progress towards a cleaner and safer environment is unpredictable, just as the profitability of oil trends that determine it.

Priscilla Omisore
– Proper Format –

 

References

 

Brander, James A., and M. Scott Taylor. The Simple Economics of Easter Island: A

Ricardo-Malthus Model of Renewable Resource Use. The American Economic Review 88, no. 1 (1998): 119-138.

 

Gans, A. (2017, November 18). 2.9 Million Kids Are at Risk From Oil and Gas Operations.

Retrieved November 19, 2017, from http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/29-million-kids-are-risk-oil-and-gas-operations

 

Galyean, C., Brown, Z., Cohn, J. G., Stern, A. E., Covkin, S., Barnes, R. L., & Brackemyre, T.

(n.d.). Levittown. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from http://ushistoryscene.com/article/levittown/

 

Hamilton, W., Levine, M., & Simon, E. (1963). Atmospheric Iodine Abates Smog Ozone.

Science, 140(3563), 190-191. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.rlib.pace.edu/stable/1710984

 

Islamabad, N. A. (2017, November 17). ‘Maybe the smog can bring us together’: toxic air chokes

Pakistan and India. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/17/maybe-the-smog-can-bring-us-together-toxic-air-chokes-pakistan-and-india

 

Makinen, J. (2014, September 10). China’s battle plans in war on air pollution under

scrutiny. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-la-smog-policy-20140909-story.html

 

Radio Newsroom , M., & Shaffer, C. (n.d.). Detroit air pollution disproportionately affects

African-American children. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from http://michiganradio.org/post/detroit-air-pollution-disproportionately-affects-african-american-children

 

Whitehead, D. (1979). Iodine in the U.K. Environment with Particular Reference to Agriculture.

Journal of Applied Ecology,16(1), 269-279. doi:10.2307/2402746

 

 

Pollution close to Home

By: Alex Gonzalez

Often times, when people talk about pollution I think they jump to things that seem far away and almost out of reach like air pollution and wads of garbage floating somewhere off the coast of Antarctica or California. Distancing ourselves from the issue as if it is not a result of our own behavior. To reference my last blog post, less than 50% of people in the U.S. believe climate change will affect them. Part of this has to do with our lack of recognition for the little things we do in our everyday lives that contribute to the larger problem of global pollution. An example of this that is ever present in New York City is litter and the overflowing trash bins that have become a part of our everyday lives.

For starters, a few facts about trash in NYC (from Grow NYC). GrowNYC is a sustainability resource for New Yorkers. They provide free tools and services anyone can use in order to improve our City and environment. The following facts are provided on their site:

• New York City has no landfills or incinerators, yet residents produce 12,000 tons of waste every day.
• The United States produces 33% of the world’s solid waste, with 4.6% of the global population.
• 80% of US products are used once and then thrown away.
• New York City residents currently recycle only about 17% of their total waste–half of what they could be recycling under the current program.
• 7.5% of our waste stream consists of plastic film such as supermarket bags.
• Exporting our garbage to other communities cost New York City taxpayers $290 million in 2007.  This does not include the cost of collection.

According the NY Times, “The Sanitation Department spent $58.2 million to clean streets last year, up from $49.5 million the year before.” It goes without saying we have a trash problem, but what is the city doing about it? Preventive policy and laws are currently in place to try and ameliorate the effects of litter and trash pollution in the city. Litter is something we consider to be a cumulative harm. A cumulative harm is something that might not affect us much when done in small numbers, but as more and more accumulates the harm becomes more prominent. If only one person in the city of the New York chose to litter today, I probably wouldn’t be writing a blog about this. However, much more than one person decided to litter today and we can be almost certain of that because of how our city looks each day. Just like if one company was emitting carbon into the atmosphere, but none others were, then we would for sure have less of a problem with air pollution. It is the mass participation in pollution that makes the negative effects so detrimental to our society. This accumulation of litter and waste here, across the country and around in the world is what makes trash disposal such a crucial issue in understanding sustainability and pollution.

Here are two example of NY state laws that work to curb littering from the National Conference of State Legislatures:
N.Y. Vehicle and Transit Law §1220 (Littering on highways and adjacent lands) First conviction: fine up to $350 and/or a requirement to perform services for a public or not-for-profit corporation, association, institution or agency not to exceed 10 hours. Subsequent convictions:  fine up to $700 and/or a requirement to perform services for a public or not-for-profit corporation, association, institution or agency not to exceed 15 hours.
N.Y. Railroad Law §52-e (Littering on railway or subway tracks) First conviction: fine up to $250 and/or community service for up to eight hours. Subsequent convictions punishable by a fine up to $500 and/or community service for up to eight hours. Fines are deposited in the New York subway littering prevention fund.

New York City itself has an extensive list of codes and violations on littering you can check out here: http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dsny/about/laws/cleaning-laws.shtml

You’ll notice that all of these laws involve perpetrators paying a fine for having done the crime. It is the city and state’s hope that these steep fines will deter people from littering, however as citizens of New York we know that this offense is not being pursued by police as a real issue. Which we can argue isn’t a bad thing because police might unfairly target certain members of our community and burden them with fines they cannot pay, but then we must adapt these laws and our system to stop the litter before it happens. We can do this pay eliminating the use of plastic bags citywide or increasing a hefty bag tax. We can put more trash receptacles on every corner so that no one will have to think twice about how to dispose of their garbage. We can offer recycling incentives in tax breaks and monetary compensation to businesses who recycle and promote recycling. The result of green policies like these would work to actively stop litter pollution and therefore are crucial for us in the coming years.

New York’s Growth Can be Measured in Trash Bags https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/nyregion/new-yorks-growth-can-be-measured-in-trash-bags.html

New York Today Complaints of Dirty Streets https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/20/nyregion/new-york-today-complaints-of-dirty-streets.html

Recycling Facts from GrowNYC https://www.grownyc.org/recycling/facts

States with Littering Penalties http://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resources/states-with-littering-penalties.aspx

Making the Switch to Renewable Energy

Energy is a necessity in all of our lives. We depend on energy for almost everything from food production, to heating our homes in the winter time. Our main source of energy are fossil fuels. It has already been proven that fossil fuels are very harmful to the environment and our planet. Thankfully there are different and cheaper alternatives to fossil fuels. These alternatives have been known for years, but fossil fuels still persists to be the main source of energy. Fortunately, many countries around the world, United States included, are making huge strides in the switch to renewable energy. Of course, some countries are doing a lot better than the United States, China is one that immediately comes to mind, but we are somewhat on the right track. Some cities in the United States had made huge advancements in there switch to renewable. A lot of cities are setting goals, or at least talking about setting goals to make the switch to renewable energy. So far, three cities in the United States have made the switch to one hundred percent renewable energy. These three cities are Greensburg Kansas, Burlington Vermont, and Aspen Colorado(thinkprogress.org). This only took three years for these cities to make full switch to renewable energy. Based on this, it probably isn’t that hard to switch to renewable energy as some may claim. Despite this great progress, we are still years behind other main users of fossil fuels in the switch to renewable energy. Trump promises to put coal miners back to work while countries like China are moving in the opposite direction. China has 2.5 million people working in the solar power secret alone, compared to 260,000 people in the United States. China has pledged to invest 367 billion dollars in renewable energy such as wind, solar, hydro and nuclear by 2030. This will add about 10 million jobs to the sector(money.cnn.com). Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement because he believes that making the switch to clean energy is not feasible for the American worker as the fossil fuel industry is. Based on China, it would seem much better for our economy and provide a lot more jobs than the fossil fuel industry if we put more effort into making a switch to renewable energy. There are many simple ways for us to start making the switch to renewable as China has started doing. One way would be for us to stop subsidizing and incentivizing the use of fossil. We subsidize renewable energy too, but not as much as fossils. If we can get rid of these things that facilitate the use of fossil fuels and transfer them to renewables, many cities and companies will start to make the switch(huffpost.com). There are some arguments that renewable energy such as wind and solar is not very reliable because it isn’t always sunny or windy. This maybe true, but of course, there are simple ways of getting around this. It may not always be windy or sunny in one particular spot, but it will definitely be windy or sunny somewhere else in the country. That means that there would need to be a way to transfer energy from one place to another. Luckily, there are ways to transfer energy through generators and high voltage power lines. This is already being done in places like Vermont(smithsonianmag.com). It would be extremely beneficial for us to make a switch to renewable energy. It doesn’t have to even be fully renewable to start to see the positive effects of making the change to renewable. As of now, 66.9% of our energy is provided by the use of fossil fuels. Some believe that if we can cut that down to anywhere below 30%, we may see a decrease in carbon emissions from 33% to around 70 from our 1990 levels(instituteforenergyresearch.org). Some believe that our use of fossil fuels may rise in the near future. I don’t necessarily believed this to be true. With the current trends of huge fossil fuel using countries like China making the change to renewable, and the United States slow but steady change to renewable, is the reason why I believe that to be untrue. More people than ever are realizing the harmful effects of fossil fuels and are in support for renewable energy. There are even more politicians than ever supporting the use of renewable energy. This May be a bit of a stretch, but I am not joking when I say that I believe that it may be possible for 70% percent of all energy provided in the world to be renewable somewhere between the next ten to twenty years.
Sources
https://thinkprogress.org/what-will-it-take-for-america-to-go-100-percent-renewable-c2cf0c622bbf/
http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/18/technology/china-us-clean-energy-solar-farm/index.html
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-renewable-energy-will-replace-fossil-fuels_us_596cad4de4b022bb9372b313
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/us-could-switch-mostly-renewable-energy-no-batteries-needed-180957925/
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/topics/encyclopedia/fossil-fuels/

By Jama Tasfay

Excessive Groundwater Pumping in California: Plausible Solution to State’s Drought?

The state of California, which has the sixth largest economy in the world, is getting a billion-dollar hit to manage the increasing effects of climate change.  The golden state has seen many droughts and environmentalists are sure that humans’ emissions have intensified them from fifteen to twenty percent. As an effect, California’s agriculture industry, which is responsible for producing the majority of the country’s fruits and vegetables, is suffering because of the poor soil conditions.  The reduction in production caused a drop in supply and an increase in price, leading to a stump in the state’s economy. California has had to turn to alternative methods, such as groundwater pumping, to access enough water to continue cultivation. Even though this method works, it is an expensive and ineffective solution for long-term issues, such as climate change.

The cause of the drought is because high pressures in the Western Pacific are blocking the path of storms that reach the state during winter time, leaving the area without the needed rainfall for proper crop cultivation. Agriculture uses up to 80% of the state’s water availability, but in 2014, California saw a 6.6-million-acre-foot reduction in the surface water available for agriculture.  This caused a loss of around 1.5 billion—this amount includes the losses incurred in potential crop value, potential dairy and livestock value, and groundwater pumping costs. Groundwater was the “saving grace” for the 2014 drought, supplying water to 75% of the aforementioned 6.6 million-acre area, and currently provides around 30% to 46% of the whole state’s water supply.

Groundwater is dependent upon surface water, meaning, that not much groundwater will be available if there is a dry-year. Groundwater wells collect water that would’ve otherwise ended up discharged to streams or lakes as part of the hydraulic process. This is not a convenient long-term solution, as it reduces the same groundwater quality, increases the possibility of sinking ground, and, as groundwater levels decrease, significantly increases energy costs to extract this water. Despite these contraindications, some communities in California are completely dependent on groundwater for both commercial and agricultural use.

The current season has brought more rain and snow to the area, which has relieved the state’s groundwater stores; however, this is only a temporary fix as California has more dry years than wet years. There have been over 40 trillion gallons of groundwater extracted from the Central Valley from 1920 to the present. This caused subsidence, or ground sinking, to occur at a record pace; it also caused bridges to sink, and canals to crack. These fixes cost around $1 billion during the 70’s. Adding to the negative effects of groundwater extraction, according to the U.S Geological Survey, it will take around 50 years for the Central Valley aquifers to refill naturally, but only if groundwater pumping stops immediately. This is because groundwater pumping empties the aquifers faster than natural systems can replenish them. The state is drilling so deeply to find water, it is permanently damaging the soil and even destroying future groundwater extraction possibilities in the area, in case of future excessive droughts.

Groundwater pumping is poorly regulated and there is little information on the total availability of groundwater for the present and future. Though they will be required to do so in the future, farmers are not currently required to report how much groundwater they extract. In addition, information on groundwater used for non-agricultural purposes is out-of-date and unreliable. The new regulations on groundwater pumping are controversial to some farmers, as they believe it interferes with their property rights. Some of those who reject regulation, such as the California Farm Bureau, believe that excessive groundwater extraction, and its negative effects, are not occurring because of lack of regulation, rather because of “outdated environmental policies”, population growth, and climate change. Needless to say, as many Californians depend on farming as their main source of income, they are hesitant to comply with policies that will make them reduce their water usage, which is essential to their cultivation.

Groundwater pumping is not a long-term solution to the California drought issues. The only way to see bettering in the state’s situation is if greenhouse emissions reduce, causing the droughts to be less intense as an effect of man-caused contamination.

Fabiola Aquino

Works Cited:

“6 Industries Hurt by the California Drought.” Fortune, fortune.com/2015/04/09/6-industries-hurt-the-most-by-the-california-drought/.

Bland, Alastair. “How Wet Weather Impacted California’s Groundwater Deficit.” Water, News Deeply, 4 May 2017, http://www.newsdeeply.com/water/articles/2017/05/08/how-wet-weather-impacted-californias-groundwater-deficit.

California, State of. “Groundwater Information Center.” CA Department of Water Resources, http://www.water.ca.gov/groundwater/gwinfo/.

Gillis, Justin. “California Drought Is Made Worse by Global Warming, Scientists Say.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 20 Aug. 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/21/science/climate-change-intensifies-california-drought-scientists-say.html?_r=0.

Palmer, Brian. “What Would We Eat If It Weren’t for California?” Slate Magazine, 10 July 2013, http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/explainer/2013/07/california_grows_all_of_our_fruits_and_vegetables_what_would_we_eat_without.html.

Not Another Veggie Sob Story: Economic Value of Giving Up Meat

Sabrina Torres

    Many people feel hassled by so called “radical” environmental or animal rights organizations that promote eating less meat or lowering carbon emissions. Environmentalists have received major critique over the years by not considering more factors beyond nature and public health. Although this should be enough, it’s not. In this day of age, people are focused on money, profit and success. In this article, we will discuss how cost effective it is to consume less meat and/or live a plant based lifestyle.

   Besides discussing facts of reducing animal suffering, it’s time for environmentalists to speak the language people are interested in and consider how environmental benefits and healthier lives translate to raised annual income, more jobs and raised overall national revenue. There is a “social cost of carbon” which estimates the value of damages caused by each additional ton of carbon emissions (Chavez, 2016). By considering health costs caused by environmental degradation, $180 billion dollars would be saved in the United States alone by reducing 56% red meat consumption.      

   The meat and dairy industry are top contributors to the climate change. This industry is not concerned over quality and health of the consumers but on the maximum profits they can gain. It contributes to 14.5% of the world’s anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and requires ineffective amounts of resources (Lusk, 2017). It takes 3.4 million gallons of water a day to supply water for animals for the meat and dairy industry. To put this in perspective, it takes 50 gallons of water to produce two slices of cheese. This inefficient practice in agro-economics is unsustainable and thankfully adjusting with the population’s current demand for more plant based options. Consuming less to no meat has become a method some take to reduce agricultural pollution (David, 2016).

    People now have more access to education than ever and are learning about healthier options for themselves and their environment. With consumers becoming more aware of farming practices, there has been noticeable opposition towards the existing market seen through the large push for increasing the size of cages for chickens and sourcing beef from free-range farms (David, 2016). This recent shift in demand aligns environmental ethics and economics simultaneously; a direction I believe most people can agree to climb on board with. Entrepreneurs and consumers are exhibiting an entirely new conscious food economy that is disrupting the existing food system with healthier, more sustainable foods. The benefits of eating less or no meat includes preventing up $1 trillion dollar annually in healthcare costs caused by agriculture-related carbon emissions. The economic benefits include less resources than animal agriculture such as for every 9 gallons of water, 30 gallons of soy milk is created. On the other side of the spectrum, for every 30 gallons of water, 1 gallon of cow’s milk is produced. Businesses save money spending less on resources to produce alternative goods consumers demand and are willing to pay even a bit extra for. The plant based sector brought $4.7 billion dollars in revenue creating 65,000 jobs and is associated with lessening greenhouse gases ten times less than beef based products (Martinko, 2017). Shifting away from meat consumption, when performed ethically and efficiently, is the more sustainable route for agriculture.

   Take a second to reflect how frequently meat has appeared on your plate? American society loves their protein based diet and are easily offended when spoken to about the questionable ethics behind eating animals. Let’s say these exemplary type of people even understand the environmental impacts behind the meat and dairy agriculture industry. What if the impacts of a non-meat diet was discussed on a micro level on how much their carnivorous lifestyle costs compared to a non-meat eaters diet. Multiple studies have found that just a one-percent reduction in meat consumption per week would save an individual $2.40 (The Economics of Vegetarianism). Over a years span equates to a savings of nearly $125 dollar. For some homes, that is at least two to three months worth of groceries. According to PBS, the average American eats about 50 pounds of chicken per year which adds up to about $250 dollars just on chicken. The equivalent for a vegetarian would be about $50 dollars a year for black beans, saving them about $200 dollars by simply consuming less-to-zero meat. Remember, when buying meat, for example beef, the consumer is paying for the grains fed to the animal; the rancher’s overhead; the animal’s slaughter; and the processing, packaging, and transporting of the meat (Null)

   In conclusion, there is ethical, environmental and now economic evidence on reasons to consider lessening meat intake. It is a fair statement that most people have experienced the economy in someway. This is a route I recommend environmentalists and animal enthusiasts to take when encouraging others to consider adjusting their lifestyle. Speak to them in ways they are concerned about. If money is their current concern in life, use the economic statistics to your advantage. The truth is revealed in the figures that show how cost effective plant based foods are compared to the existing, heavily market meat industry. Businesses are adjusting to the dramatic shift in demand for sustainable food products. The plant based sector has made an impression that is a wonderful start in ways people can make more conscious decisions for their health, their environment and their wallet.

 

Works Cited

Chavez, Veronica. “Plant-Based Food Isn’t Just Helping the Planet, It’s Helping the U.S. Economy Too!” One Green Planet, 21 Sept. 2016,

Davis, Lauren Cassani. “The Economic Case for Worldwide Vegetarianism.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 28 Mar. 2016

Lusk, Jayson L., and F. Bailey Norwood. “Some Economic Benefits and Costs of Vegetarianism | Agricultural and Resource Economics Review.” Cambridge Core, Cambridge University Press, 15 Sept. 2016

Martinko, Katherine. “Study Reveals Tremendous Benefits of Eating Less Meat.” TreeHugger, Treehugger, 12 Sept. 2017

Null, Gary. Economic and Taste Benefits of a Vegetarian Diet (October 2011) Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients, Oct. 2011

“The Economics of Vegetarianism.” VegOnline.org, 13 Feb. 2013, vegonline.org/becoming-vegetarian/economics-vegetarianism/.

Oil Pollution in Venezuela By: Eduardo Salomon

 

It is not a very known fact, but Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. Apart from this, it is fifth largest oil producer in the world and one of the top four oil providers for The United States of America.

Venezuela is considered a monoproductor country, because oil revenue adds up to more than half of all the government venue and a quarter of the country’s GDP. The extraction of oil in the country started more than 100 years ago so the environment has been suffering a long exposure to all the extraction processes. [2] The country’s dependence on oil has become very dangerous because regardless of what happens the government of the country cannot stop their production and selling of the resource, this has made the government act at least shady with regards to oil. They have constantly cover or lied about different situations that have happened in the last years that could harm their production.

 

Many leaks and spillovers along the Caribbean Coastline of Venezuela have cause levels of pollution at sea to reach unsustainable levels. One example can be found in the fishing industry; the environment has been so damaged that many fish have become toxic to a level where they cannot be consumed. Also in the worst circumstances, full schools of fish have been found dead due to pollution.

 

Water pollution is also a huge problem for the population of the country. Almost 80% of the total country’s population lives in the coastline and all this water is polluted, between the oil spills and that only 25% of all used water gets treated before it gets put back to the ecosystem it is not shocking to learn how in a country that has so much water sources many people have gotten used to having water in their houses only a couple hours every two days.

 

The burning of oil and natural gas has made Venezuela the top carbon dioxide emissions producer in the South American region. This is not only really harmful to the environment and contributes to global warming, but it also has health adverse effects on people’s health. These emissions are very noxious especially to children and the elderly population, but it also affects adults that have suffered from long exposures to this gas. The main negative health effects this gas causes in humans are related to the lungs and the respiratory organs.

 

One of the places that have been affected the most is the Lake Maracaibo. This lake takes its name from the city it is located in and it is situated in the north-west area of the country. It is the largest lake in South America. One of the biggest concentration of oil in Venezuela is located in the Maracaibo area, and all the processes and extractions have severely damaged the environment of the zone.

 

Because of all the land that has been extracted for the oil processes the lake’s shore has been dropping approximately three inches a year. The government response to this problem was to build a dam to keep the water at bay. More than a solution to the problem this can be regarded as an extension that will make the problem grow worst and worst.

 

 

Another big environmental problem faced by Venezuela is deforestation. About half of the country is covered by forest and studies have shown how Venezuela experienced the loss of forest cover twice as much faster than the average South American country in the 90s. [3]

 

The price of oil has been constantly falling for the last couple of years and because of Venezuela is one of the members of OPEC they have to accept and follow the stipulated levels of production and the price. This is also very worrying because without money the government will not be able to keep doing what they are doing, so this problem could finish to drive the country to the grounds. If with all the years of oil prosperity that the country lived in the government was not able to keep the country afloat and affluent now that we are reaching a breaking point of oil industries it is hard to believe that Venezuela can come on top of the situation. [2]

 

 

 

 

1. Chinea, Eyanir, and Andrew Cawthorne; “Venezuela’s PDVSA says oil spill controlled, Orinoco unaffected.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 9 Nov. 2016,

 

2. Clemente, Jude. “Venezuela’s Oil Problems Abound.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 6 Nov. 2017, http://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2017/11/05/venezuelas-oil-problems-abound/#3f71d0e86104.

 

3. “Corrosion and Pollution in Venezuela.” Corrosion Doctors, corrosion-doctors.org/AtmCorros/mapVenezuela.htm.

 

4. “Opec: Venezuela.” OPEC : Venezuela, http://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/about_us/171.htm.

 

5. com, Jeroen Kuiper -. “Venezuela’s Environment Under Stress.” Venezuelanalysis.com, 1 Mar. 2005, venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/973.

 

Food waste : its economic and environmental consequences

According to the UN, one out of nine people in the world does not have access to sufficient food and more people die from hunger than from AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. However one third of the food produced in the world is wasted : that discarded food would be enough to feed the 870 million hungry people around the world according to the FAO. More than a moral responsability, food waste has a strong impact on the environment and the economy.

First let’s see the difference between food loss and food waste. Food loss is unintentional wastage : it is often due to poor equipment, transportation and infrastructure. Food loss often occurs in developping countries whereas food waste, which is food voluntarily thrown away by retailers and consumers, occurs more frequently in wealthy countries. There are several reasons as to why food waste occurs : an important part of the food is wasted during the production process and a bigger one is wasted during the distribution and consumption process. Food waste can happen because of oversupply of food, because of stringent quality and aesthetic standards, because consumers fail to plan their meals and their food goes past the expiration date or because consumers do not buy products that are misshaped or « ugly ».

Let alone the fact that food waste is immoral because of the millions of people starving in the world, it has severe environmental and economic consequences. In a time were water, and especially fresh water, is precious, throwing away food contributes to wasting water : studies have shown that throwing away 2 pounds of beef equals to wasting 50,000 liters of water that was used to produce that meat. Then, they are serious concern about how to feed the world’s growing population : there is not enough land to feed everyone some say, but the truth is that one third of world’s agricultural land is used to produce food that is not going to be consumed. If that land was not wasted to produce that uneaten food, it could be used for efficient purposes! Wasting water and land is not only a resource problem, it is also an economic problem : taking care of the land, fertilizing it and putting crops on it cost money : a lot of money is lost because of food waste. Furthermore, fuel is used to process, refrigerate and transport that food : not only fuel is expensive, it releases greenhouse gases that cause climate change. But what is maybe the most alarming fact about food waste is that the food that is uneaten often goes to landfills where it decomposes and emits methane, which is a dangerous greenhouse gas.  Food that is sent to landfills emits 7% of total greenhouse gases emissions : if food waste was a country, it would be the third emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, after the United States and China.

Let’s see in terms of money the consequences of food waste. A report by WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) says the total cost of food waste is approximately 400 billion dollars a year. If we take the case of consumers, a study in the United Kingdom has shown that on average, a family discard 1170 dollars worth of food each year ! By buying food in harmony to what is really going to be eaten, consumers would save money that could be used for better quality food or for purchasing other products or services : their level of welfare would be higher since they would be able to purchase more with the same budget ! Governments would also save money by not sending food to landfills : it cost money to transport that food, and one of the aftermaths of food waste being climate change, it cost money as well to respond to the consequences of climate change.

So what has been done and what else can be done to prevent food waste ? A few counties in the United States, such as the Hennepin County (Minnesota), provide grants to local businesses and non profit organizations to help recycle food products or turn them into compost. In South Korea, people have to pay for garbage removal proportionally to the weigh of their garbage : it encourages people to throw out less food. WRAP in the UK has launched several campaigns to urge consumers to plan before they do their grocery shopping and to freeze their food, WRAP has also worked with supermarket chains to reduce waste by clarifying expiration dates and selling smaller portions : these efforts have cut food waste by 21% between 2007 and 2014 in the UK. Also, the supermaket chain TESCO has targeted « waste hot spots » : lettuce is one of the product that is thrown away very often. Therefore, TESCO has changed its lettuce packaging : lettuce is sold in a bag with two compartments, this way the consumer can une one half while the other stays fresh. To prevent food waste, producers should really take into account the demand and better harvesting, storing and distributing processes should occur, and if despite these efforts there is food that remains uneaten, it should be redistributed to people in need or at least turned into compost : this way it is good for the cultures and it does not releases greenhouse gases, contrary to when it is send to landfills. As for consumers, the should plan their meals so that they don’t buy more than they need and they should not be afraid of buying « ugly » products : « ugly » vegetables still can be used in soups for instance !

 

Alissia Leclerc

 

Sources :

• https://www.moveforhunger.org/the-environmental-impact-of-food-waste/
• https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/26/us/food-waste-is-becoming-serious-economic-and-environmental-issue-report-says.html
• http://static.newclimateeconomy.report/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/WRAP-NCE_Economic-environmental-gains-food-waste.pdf
• https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2015/aug/12/produced-but-never-eaten-a-visual-guide-to-food-waste
• http://www.fao.org/food-loss-and-food-waste/en/

Climate Change on Human Health

By Lauren Costa

There is consistent scientific argument that greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activity will change Earth’s climate. Human health has always been linked and influenced by weather and climate change. Fluctuations in climate and altering extreme weather patterns affect the environment that directly provides us with healthy air, food, water, shelter, and security. Climate change combined with other natural and human-made threats, risk human health in many ways. These different health impacts are already being experienced in the United States. There is an abundance of growing evidence that climate change cause increasing health risks and has already contributed to the increased morbidity and mortality in many places in the world. Climate change can affect human health in two main ways; first, by changing the  frequency of health problems that are already affected by climate or weather factors. and second, by making unanticipated health problems or health threats in places and times where they have not previously occurred

“The World Health Organisation estimates that the warming and precipitation trends due to anthropogenic climate change of the past 30 years already claim over 150,000 lives annually. Many prevalent human diseases are linked to climate fluctuations, from cardiovascular mortality and respiratory illnesses due to heatwaves, to altered transmission of infectious diseases and malnutrition from crop failures” (Patz). Through extensive research, Jonathan A. Patz  and Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum found that global average temperatures are projected to rise between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees celsius by the end of the century. Sea level is expected to increase 40 cm, putting a number of humans at risk for flooding, by the end of 2080.

Looking specially into non-infectious health effects, Europe has shown what this can begin to look like for humans. The summer of 2003  was Europe’s hottest summer in over 500 years, with average temperatures 3.5 8C. That summer approximately 22,000 heat-related deaths occurred across Europe in just two weeks, making it the most shocking example of health risks due from temperature change. Reflecting from this extreme scenario, the European heatwave in 2003 was well outside the range of expected climate variability. Exposure to extreme heat can lead to heat stroke and dehydration, as well as cardiovascular, respiratory, and cerebrovascular disease. The connection between climate change and regional heatwaves show a large potential for more frequent and more severe heat waves in a future warmer world. Warmer average temperatures will lead to hotter days and more frequent and longer heat waves. These changes will lead to an increase in heat-related deaths. Exposure to both extreme hot and cold weather is correlated with increased morbidity and mortality.

Climate change also causes infectious diseases. Vectorborne diseases are illness that are carried by disease vectors. Most common vectors include mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas. These vectors are prone to carrying infectious pathogens, such as viruses, bacteria, and protozoa, from animals to humans. Research found that changes in temperature, precipitation, and extreme events, increases the spread of diseases circulating by vectors and can lead to illnesses occurring earlier in the year.

Manutation remains one of the largest health crises worldwide and according to the World Health Organization, approximately 800 million people are currently undernourished, with close to half of these living in Africa (Patz). Droughts and extreme weather conditions and have a direct impacts on growing food and can influence the food supply.  

Research shows there is a profound impact between climate change and the link to infectious diseases. People can fall ill if exposed to contaminated drinking or recreational water. “Climate change increases the risk of illness through increasing temperature, more frequent heavy rains and runoff, and the effects of storms”(epa.org). Health impacts have been linked to gastrointestinal illness like diarrhea, effects on the body’s nervous and respiratory systems, or liver and kidney damage.

Overall, there is enormous amounts of evidence pointing to climate change impacting human health. These impacts threaten our health by affecting the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the weather we experience. Although the impacts seen danting and extreme, there are a lot we can do to prepare for and adapt to these changes. Understanding the threats of climate change on human health will help to lower the risk and be prepared for the future to come.

Work Cited:

“Climate Impacts on Human Health.” EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, 13 Jan. 2017, 19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/climate-impacts/climate-impacts-human-health_.html.

Patz, Jonathan A., and Diarmid Campbell Lendrum. “Impact of Regional Climate Change on Human Health.” Nature, 17 Nov. 2005, www.nature.com/articles/nature04188.

Motavalli, Jim. “Connecting the dots: the emerging science of conservation medicine links human and animal health with the environment.” E, Nov.-Dec. 2004, p. 26+. Environmental Studies and Policy, rlib.pace.edu/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com.rlib.pace.edu/ps/i.do?p=PPES&sw=w&u=nysl_me_pace&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA125335738&asid=4ffd0597fae9d8960595c5b823891479. Accessed 19 Nov. 2017.

Stowell, Jennifer D., et al. “The Impact of Climate Change and Emissions Control on Future Ozone Levels: Implications for Human Health.” Environment International, vol. 108, Nov. 2017, pp. 41-50. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.envint.2017.08.001.

Weldu, Yemane W. “Life Cycle Human Health and Ecosystem Quality Implication of Biomass-Based Strategies to Climate Change Mitigation.” Renewable Energy: An International Journal, vol. 108, Aug. 2017, pp. 11-18. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.renene.2017.02.046.

Is the Ocean the Next Fertile Crescent?

It is common knowledge that we as a species consume too much, waste too much and destroy resources at an alarming rate. So, it is no wonder that scientists are turning to new and increasingly elaborate ways to grow food. You’re probably thinking that now I am going to talk about growing food in space but actually instead of looking up at the sky we are going to be looking down into the ocean. We are going to examine the chic underwater growing pods off the coast of Noli, Italy that you may not even know existed.

Inside these large glass pods tethered to the sea floor, divers and scientists are growing vegetables, fruits and herbs. This project was created in 2012 and is referred to as “Nemo’s Garden” and right now there are 7 pods (or biospheres) that each can hold about 22 plants (McEachran). The goal of the project is to bring this to the commercial market as an agricultural aid and some hope for it to be a replacement.

So how do these hydroponic biosphere gardens work? Half the pod is filled with sea water and via evaporation the water desalinates and collects on the ceiling of the pod. Like when you leave a half empty water bottle in a warm spot, you see the condensation gather on the inside of the bottle. The fresh water then drips onto the plants, simulating rain. This sounds like a sci-fi type of resource, but there are actual benefits that make these particular biospheres very useful. Crops above ground are susceptible to all the natural disasters, droughts and soil (if not rotated) will lose its fertility over time.

I think these pods, if commercialized and used agriculturally, could be a massive economic aid. Countries like those in the Middle East who have access to the sea and not much viable soil could utilize these pods to grow their own foods and they wouldn’t have to import. But then this begs the question; isn’t it expensive to install in the first place? Would that outweigh the export cost? These are questions we can’t answer just yet, but it reminds me of how we face(d) this same installation conundrum with solar panels. We could also follow the solar panel path to success and subsidize the new pods making them more accessible.

But then again, at the rate we degrade soil, and disasters are planned to increase (including droughts), these pods could be the solution. We all remember the dust bowl and its impact on the economy, so that is something we absolutely must avoid. According to Dr. David Pimentel, in “the last 40 years, nearly one-third of the world’s arable land has been lost by erosion and continues to be lost at a rate of more than 10 million hectares per year” (Pimentel). He among many scientists have pointed out that our population and food consumption increases every year (if not day), while our food production is beginning to decline. With this trend of increasing demand and decreasing supply we will create sky high prices and shortages.

Unfortunately, the biospheres cannot become a public good because only qualified divers can access them. It would be dangerous to have people diving several meters down into the sea, untrained. Yet I think this method should seriously be considered for agriculture because if it is not the solution it could be an off ramp from over worked farms. And who knows what it could be an on ramp to? Sooner or later the world will be investing more time, money and energy into new technologies and methods because we can already see our planet is exacerbated. And being on a finite piece of land with finite resources, we have to proceed with caution. We have learned this from Easter Island, that if we don’t want to suffer the same fate as them, institutional changes must be implemented.

When it comes to the food (crop) industry, I don’t think a tax or Pigovian tax would provide any real benefit, I think it is already in too much trouble. Look at coffee for example. The farmers in South America who have been growing coffee for generations are now competing with other parts of the world that started growing and selling coffee cheaper. So, the South American farmer’s response is to grow more because this is all they can do. This in turn creates too much supply of coffee thus decreasing the price even further and exacerbates the issue. These farmers are economically stuck, because in this case farming is all they know and to improve the economy they would have to give up their welfare.

To conclude, I believe the sea-biosphere project will continue and I hope it evolves into a viable alternative to ease farms, and produce more information on how we can implement it on a major scale. It will definitely take years but just like the journey we have embarked on with solar energy and electric cars, we will make the jump eventually and be closer to sustainable food production, and perchance we can even curb our consumption.

By Olivia Cobleigh

Works Cited

Arsenault, Chris. “Only 60 Years of Farming Left If Soil Degradation Continues.” ScientificAmerican.com. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-farming-left-if-soil-degradation-continues/

Ahmed, Nafeez. “Documents reveal Middle East regimes fear food, water, energy shortages.” Medium.com, October 12, 2017.  https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/documents-reveal-middle-east-regimes-fear-food-water-energy-shortages-exclusive-61b30a5c5ce8

David Pimentel, C. Harvey, P. Resosudarmo, K. Sinclair, D. Kurz, M. McNair, S. Crist, L. Shpritz, L. Fitton, R. Saffouri and R. Blair. “Environmental and Economic Costs of Soil Erosion and Conservation Benefits.” Science, vol. 267, No. 5201 (Feb. 24, 1995), pp. 1117-1123.http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2886079.pdf?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Dockrill, Peter. “These Underwater Biospheres in Italy Could Be The Farms of The Future.” ScienceAlert.com, July 5, 2015. http://www.sciencealert.com/these-underwater-biospheres-in-italy-could-be-the-farms-of-the-future

“Economics of Coffee.” Blackgoldmovie.com. PBS. http://blackgoldmovie.com/economics-of-coffee

McEachran, Rich. “Under the sea: the underwater farms growing basil, strawberries and lettuce.” TheGuardian.com. August 13, 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/aug/13/food-growing-underwater-sea-pods-nemos-garden-italy

Forests as a Resource

By Carl Wojciechowski

Logging has long been seen as an important part of the economy in America’s forested areas. The lumber that is produced is essential, used in home construction, for paper products, furniture and much more. In the past in the United States, logging occurred largely unabated, with loggers felling huge swaths of forests across the country. However, as the environmental movement picked up steam in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, many citizens and governments moved to protect the quickly shrinking forested areas. In New York, these efforts resulted in the passage of the Forever Wild article of the New York State Constitution.  This clause protects over 2 million acres of land in the Catskills Mountains and the Adirondack Mountains from any kind of intensive use.

Map of Forest Preserve Lands, 1892 to 2017. Source: New York State

The creation of this preserve wasn’t and isn’t totally without controversy, of course. In 2011 a state legislator proposed legislation that would allow logging on new parcels acquired by the state in the Adirondacks region, citing an economic need in the region. The bill never passed, but it is emblematic of the struggle to balance the need to protect forests for a myriad of reasons, including preserving habitats and protecting streams and water quality, as well as providing recreational opportunities.

Trees themselves are generally considered a renewable resource. When a tree is harvested, a new tree (or several new trees) will grow in its place in a relatively short period of time. However, over use of a renewable resource can lead to depletion, either to the forest itself or species that depend on that forest. Suppose the forest in question was an old growth forest, and that the forest was recut. The old growth wood, typically more valuable than younger wood, is now gone. After the forest was cut, the land where the forest once lay is redeveloped into a suburban tract housing. If there is a species that depends on old growth, and old growth forest is eliminated across a large area, old growth habitat and species that depend on it could disappear.

We could consider old growth forests to be a depletable, non-renewable resource. Once we deplete the supply of available old growth, we not only lose the more valuable older wood, but also the habitat that goes with it. If the land that was deforested is re-purposed for other purposes after the fact, it could be considered depleted since the resource won’t regrow, at least not for a long time. Though that isn’t the case with most forestry in the United States today, it is the case in many other countries around the world facing deforestation.

Deforestation in Oregon. Source: Google Maps

So what are some possible answers to these problems? One would be to separate uses. In the United States, forests often serve dual purposes, as conservation easements that may allow some logging. Logging is allowed on much of land owned by the US Forest Service. What if, instead we created plantations where the sole purpose of the land is to grow and harvest timber? This way land set aside for conservation could remain undisturbed. One would have to assume a large amount of land would need to be used since trees grow relatively slowly, and that may create an economic barrier.

Another intriguing possibility that will allow logging to continue while protecting critical ecosystems is the use of technology to recognize biodiversity “hot spots”. Dr. William Hawthorne of the University of Oxford developed a system for identifying such areas using surveys and mapping techniques. These areas can be protected while logging other areas. The system has already been adopted in Ghana, and is being established in other places as well.

With a more complete understanding of how a forest operates and the economic conditions around logging, authorities could analyze the cost of the timber industry to apply these methods. Presumably, practicing more sustainable, less invasive forestry will increase extraction cost. One concern here would be the increase in cost of wood products as result of this cost, but this may spur the development of alternatives.

Forests serve an important ecological role in many different facets. The act of logging forests is an important economic activity that provides society with a much needed resource. Though forests regrow, the need for old growth, extensive and undisturbed forests for many ecological reasons complicates the effort of creating sustainable forestry. The use of economic modelling, in combination with our knowledge of how forest ecosystems operate, could help us to find a way to be able to extract wood and still maintain relatively undisturbed stretches of forests. The development of new technology also offers a way forward, opening up new opportunities to use our forest resources more sustainable and allow future generations to benefit from them as well.

 

Citations

Armstrong, Joseph E. “Are Trees a Nonrenewable Resource or Are They a Renewable Resource?” Madsci, 26 Nov. 2003, http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2003-11/1069877707.En.r.html.

“Importance of Old-Growth Forests.” Importance of Old-Growth Forests – Old-Growth Forests: Minnesota DNR, Minnesota DNR, www.dnr.state.mn.us/forests_types/oldgrowth/importance.html.

“Article XIV of the New York State Constitution.” Article XIV of the New York State Constitution , New York State DEP, http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/55849.html.

“The Economic Importance of New York’s Forest Based Economy.” Northeast State Foresters Society, 2013. http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/lands_forests_pdf/economicimportance2013.pdf

“Balancing Conservation and Commerce in the World’s Forests.” University of Oxford, www.ox.ac.uk/research/research-impact/balancing-conservation-and-commerce-world%E2%80%99s-forests.

Food Waste and the Environment By: Cecile Edleman

Natural resources are constantly a part of our daily life. Not one person today goes through their day without using some form of a natural resource and humans have been consuming natural resources since the beginning of time. Everyone gains tremendous utility in some fashion from the environment. Natural resources provide everything from food we consume daily to the (relatively) clean air we breath to the beautiful National Parks everyone is free to enjoy. One major utility we get from the environment is food through agriculture. We would like to think that we are living in Pareto Optimality; that given the current conditions society is optimally using its resources, but unfortunately this is not the case. One major resource we are insufficiently using is agriculture.

We’ve all heard form our moms at least once before “finish your dinner there’s people starving in Africa” but are we really aware of the extent food waste is around the world? In the United States alone, food waste is estimated at between 30-40 percent of the food supply (USDA). Additionally, 31 percent food loss at the retail and consumer levels, corresponded to approximately 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food (USDA OCE). This amount of waste has far-reaching impacts on food security, resource conservation and climate change. This is food that could’ve helped feed families in need being sent to landfills. The main aspect of food waste most people think about it all of the people in need that food could’ve helped. The food discarded by retailers and consumers in the most developed countries would be more than enough to feed all of the world’s 870 million hungry people, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Society tends to be anthropocentrism meaning we tend to discount ecological impact our consumption and waste causes. In addition to this great loss in opportunity to feed the needy there are environmental implications and degradation that takes place with excessive food waste. This environmental degradation occurs in the agricultural side of farming the food and when this food is wasted. Environmentally wise, “food waste is the single largest component going into municipal landfills. When food sits in landfills it quickly generates methane, helping to make landfills the third largest source of methane in the United States” (USDA OCE). Additionally The land, water, labor, energy and other inputs used in producing, processing, transporting, preparing, storing, and disposing of discarded food are pulled away from uses that may have been more beneficial to society – and generate impacts on the environment that may endanger the long-term health of the planet.As the global population increases, so does the demand for agricultural products and as most of us are aware our population has been increasing exponentially.

An economic theory, the Malthusian Trap, states as economic growth progresses population growth would outstrip food growth. This has yet to happen thus far due to technology has allowed us to avoid this and help develop economies. This has influenced research on carrying capacity and population growth. Agricultural best management practices help lead to the sustainable use of natural resources and the environment. Resource economists address how choices are made by farmers, ranchers, and policymakers; how policy incentives might motivate better choices; and the potential consequences and distribution effects of these choices (NIFA USDA).

Production of food consumes vast quantities of water, fertilizer and land. The fuel that is burned to process, refrigerate and transport it also adds to the environmental cost. Most food waste is thrown away in landfills, where it decomposes and emits methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Globally, it creates 3.3 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases annually, about 7 percent of the total emissions (NYTimes). Somre policies and solutions to this in order to reduce hunger and the environmental damage created by wasted food are as follows. In the event of a food surplus, re-use within the human food chain by finding secondary markets or donating extra food to feed lower income members of society. If the food is not fit for human consumption, the next best option is to divert it for livestock feed, conserving resources that would otherwise be used to produce commercial feedstuff. Where re-use is not possible, recycling and recovery should be pursued by-product recycling, anaerobic digestion, compositing, and incineration with energy recovery allow energy and nutrients to be recovered from food waste, representing a significant advantage over dumping it in landfills (NYtimes). Uneaten food that ends up rotting in landfills is a large producer of methane, a particularly harmful GHG. The only down side to these possible solutions is that it would take extra effort on both producer and consumer sides. Unfortunately meaning, without a mandate change happening soon seems bleak.

 

 

Works Cited

Nixon, Ron. “Food Waste Is Becoming Serious Economic and Environmental Issue, Report Says.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 25 Feb. 2015

“National Institute of Food and Agriculture.” Environmental & Resource Economics Programs | National Institute of Food and Agriculture, nifa.usda.gov/program/environmental-resource-economics-programs.

“Food Waste in America / Society of St. Andrew.” EndHunger, endhunger.org/food-waste/.

“Food Waste Harms Climate, Water, Land and Biodiversity – New FAO Report.” FAO – News Article: Food Waste Harms Climate, Water, Land and Biodiversity – New FAO Report, www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/196220/icode/.

USDA | OCE | U.S. Food Waste Challenge | FAQ’s, http://www.usda.gov/oce/foodwaste/faqs.htm.