When Leonardo DiCaprio isn’t starring in award-winning movies, he’s working to save the planet. He sits on the boards of several environmental nonprofits, is well known for his generous contributions to environmental causes,lends his voice as narration in powerful environmental films and was recently appointed as UN Messenger for Peace by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon who called DiCaprio a “new voice for climate advocacy.” Now, DiCaprio is launching a new project: Blackadore Caye, a Restorative Island.
When the island resort in Belize opens in 2018, which is owned in part by DiCaprio, it will be replete with all of the standard features of a luxury resort-“sprawling villas, infinity pools and stunning sunset views,” says The New York Times. But the resort will be wholly different than most. The “restorative” aspect doesn’t only refer to its hopefully healing effect on visitors, but also on the island itself. Overfishing, an eroding coastline and deforestation of the island’s mangrove trees have taken their toll. DiCaprio has teamed up with Paul Scialla, of Delos, a New York City-based developer, to restore the island’s natural environment.
“The villas for guests on Blackadore Caye will be built atop a massive platform that stretches in an arc over the water, with artificial reefs and fish shelters underneath,” says The New York Times. “A nursery on the island will grow indigenous marine grass to support a manatee conservation area, and mangrove trees will be replanted, replacing invasive species.” A team of researchers will monitor the resort’s impact on its surroundings.
“The main focus is to do something that will change the world,” DiCaprio told The New York Times. “I couldn’t have gone to Belize and built on an island and done something like this, if it weren’t for the idea that it could be groundbreaking in the environmental movement.” DiCaprio fell in love with Belize on a scuba diving trip in 2005, and soon purchased Blackadore Caye for $1.75 million with Jeff Gram, the owner of another island resort in Belize.
“Belize is truly unique,” says DiCaprio. “It has the second largest coral reef system in the world, and it has some of the most biodiverse marine life, like the manatee population and almost every species of fish you can imagine. Then there are the Mayan temples and the culture.”
Ecotourism has become a booming industry in recent years with 8 billion ecotourist visits a year worldwide. But Scialla and DiCaprio don’t want this to be like some resorts that pay a lot of lip service to environmental stewardship but have little to show for it. “The idea at Blackadore Caye is to push the envelope for what sustainability means-moving the idea beyond environmental awareness into restoration,” Scialla said. “We don’t want to just do less harm or even have zero impact, but to actually help heal the island, to make it better than before.”
And DiCaprio realizes the stakes are high, which is why he has a bold vision for the island. “With the onset of climate change, there are huge challenges, so we want the structure to not only enhance and improve the environment, but to be a model for the future.”
With Brazil’s historic drought drying up its hydroelectric plants, the South American country is turning to solar power to help relieve its foreboding energy crisis.
The nation announced that within four months, it will commence pilot tests of a gigantic floating solar farm located atop the Balbina hydroelectric plant in the Amazon. It’s currently unclear how physically large the floating farm will be, but the enormous reservoir it will sit on covers 2,360 square kilometers.
At 350 megawatts, Brazil’s ambitious project would easily trump Japan’s currently largest 13.4 megawatt floating solar power plant in terms of power output. To put that in another perspective, the largest solar farm in the world is the 550 megawatt Desert Sunlight Solar Farm in California.
Diversifying energy sources is clearly a necessity for the notoriously parched country. Brazil is experiencing its worst drought in four decades, causing electricity blackouts in many regions. Below-average rainfall in the last few years have depleted its reservoirs, thus gutting its formerly plentiful supply of hydropower, which supplies more than three-quarters of the country’s electricity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
As Climate News Network reported, “the reservoirs in the drought-affected region could fall to as little as 10 percent of their capacity, which … Mines and Energy Minister Eduardo Braga admits would be ‘catastrophic’ for energy security.”
While the sunny country has tremendous potential for solar power, Brazil has been slow to embrace this form of renewable energy. It was only in October 2014, when Brazil made its first foray into this sector with the construction of 31 solar parks, its first large-scale solar project with a combined capacity of 1,048 megawatts.
A shift to solar energy might be fitting, as the Balbina Dam (where the proposed solar farm will eventually sit) has been criticized for emitting more greenhouse gases than a coal-fired power plant.
“We are adding technological innovation, more transmission lines, diversifying our energy generation source, introducing solar energy in a more vigorous manner and combining solar energy with hydroelectric energy,” Braga told reporters about the solar farm project.
“We are preparing ourselves to win the challenge in 2015 and be able to deliver a model and an electric system starting in 2016 which will be cheaper, more secure and with greater technological innovation,” Braga said. Electricity produced at the farm is expected to cost between $69 and $77 per megawatt hour, reports say.
Inventors Shawn Frayne and Alex Hornstein are looking to revolutionize the business of small-scale solar panels with The Solar Pocket Factory, a backyard photovoltaic panel printing system. Successfully funded by a Kickstarter campaign, the two have placed themselves at the forefront of the micro solar movement, which aims to cheaply and quickly produce small PV panels.
Enthusiastic about all things solar, inventors Shawn Frayne and Alex Hornstein have built everything from lights to USB distribution grids. Through the process of designing and manufacturing their products, they found that the micro solar panels they used to power their devices were brittle, expensive, and poorly made. Taking matters into their own hands, they traveled the world and spent months researching current models. They found that half of the cost of conventional panels lay in their assembly, as many parts of the body are pieced and soldered by hand. They also observed that 15% of panels contained flaws from imperfect soldering, and in many cases, the materials used were cut-rate and disintegrated over the period of a few years.
They figured that if they could automate the production, they could eliminate 25% of the price tag and reducing the number of defects. By using higher quality materials, they could also create panels that are more efficient, gather more light, and last longer. The result of their labor is The Solar Pocket Factory, a small automated machine that can churn out panels on a smaller scale than a sprawling factory. The device resembles a desktop 3D printer, and the team hopes to have a full working model completed by April. When finished, the Solar Pocket Factory will be able to churn out a panel every 15 seconds – that means that just one machine could potentially power 1 million devices each year! Viva la revolucion!
Mr Sigurjonsson said the problem each time arose from ballooning credit during a strong economic cycle.
Frosti Sigurjonsson’s report, entitled A Better Monetary System For Iceland
He argued the central bank was unable to contain the credit boom, allowing inflation to rise and sparking exaggerated risk-taking and speculation, the threat of bank collapse and costly state interventions.
In Iceland, as in other modern market economies, the central bank controls the creation of banknotes and coins but not the creation of all money, which occurs as soon as a commercial bank offers a line of credit.
The central bank can only try to influence the money supply with its monetary policy tools.
Under the so-called Sovereign Money proposal, the country’s central bank would become the only creator of money.
“Crucially, the power to create money is kept separate from the power to decide how that new money is used,” Mr Sigurjonsson wrote in the proposal.
“As with the state budget, the parliament will debate the government’s proposal for allocation of new money,” he wrote.
Iceland’s three largest banks collapsed
Banks would continue to manage accounts and payments, and would serve as intermediaries between savers and lenders.
Mr Sigurjonsson, a businessman and economist, was one of the masterminds behind Iceland’s household debt relief programme launched in May 2014 and aimed at helping the many Icelanders whose finances were strangled by inflation-indexed mortgages signed before the 2008 financial crisis.
The small Nordic country was hit hard as the crash of US investment bank Lehman Brothers caused the collapse of its three largest banks.
Iceland then became the first western European nation in 25 years to appeal to the International Monetary Fund to save its battered economy.
Its GDP fell by 5.1pc in 2009 and 3.1pc in 2010 before it started rising again.
From where I’m standing, the city-sized Baogang Steel and Rare Earth complex dominates the horizon, its endless cooling towers and chimneys reaching up into grey, washed-out sky. Between it and me, stretching into the distance, lies an artificial lake filled with a black, barely-liquid, toxic sludge.
Dozens of pipes line the shore, churning out a torrent of thick, black, chemical waste from the refineries that surround the lake. The smell of sulphur and the roar of the pipes invades my senses. It feels like hell on Earth.
Welcome to Baotou, the largest industrial city in Inner Mongolia. I’m here with a group of architects and designers called the Unknown Fields Division, and this is the final stop on a three-week-long journey up the global supply chain, tracing back the route consumer goods take from China to our shops and homes, via container ships and factories.
You may not have heard of Baotou, but the mines and factories here help to keep our modern lives ticking. It is one of the world’s biggest suppliers of “rare earth” minerals. These elements can be found in everything from magnets in wind turbines and electric car motors, to the electronic guts of smartphones and flatscreen TVs. In 2009 China produced 95% of the world’s supply of these elements, and it’s estimated that the Bayan Obo mines just north of Baotou contain 70% of the world’s reserves. But, as we would discover, at what cost?
Element of success
Rare earth minerals have played a key role in the transformation and explosive growth of China’s world-beating economy over the last few decades. It’s clear from visiting Baotou that it’s had a huge, transformative impact on the city too. As the centre of this 21st Century gold-rush, Baotou feels very much like a frontier town.
In 1950, before rare earth mining started in earnest, the city had a population of 97,000. Today, the population is more than two-and-a-half million. There is only one reason for this huge influx of people – minerals. As a result Baotou often feels stuck somewhere between a brave new world of opportunity presented by the global capitalism that depends on it, and the fading memories of Communism that still line its Soviet era boulevards. Billboards for expensive American brands stand next to revolution-era propaganda murals, as the disinterested faces of Western supermodels gaze down on statues of Chairman Mao. At night, multicoloured lights, glass-dyed by rare earth elements, line the larger roads, turning the city into a scene from the movie Tron, while the smaller side streets are filled with drunk, vomiting refinery workers that spill from bars and barbecue joints.
Even before getting to the toxic lake, the environmental impact the rare earth industry has had on the city is painfully clear. At times it’s impossible to tell where the vast structure of the Baogang refineries complex ends and the city begins. Massive pipes erupt from the ground and run along roadways and sidewalks, arching into the air to cross roads like bridges. The streets here are wide, built to accommodate the constant stream of huge diesel-belching coal trucks that dwarf all other traffic.
After it rains they plough, unstoppable, through roads flooded with water turned black by coal dust. They line up by the sides of the road, queuing to turn into one of Baotou’s many coal-burning power stations that sit unsettlingly close to freshly built apartment towers. Everywhere you look, between the half-completed tower blocks and hastily thrown up multi-storey parking lots, is a forest of flame-tipped refinery towers and endless electricity pylons. The air is filled with a constant, ambient, smell of sulphur. It’s the kind of industrial landscape that America and Europe has largely forgotten – at one time parts of Detroit or Sheffield must have looked and smelled like this.
Quiet plant
One of our first visits in the city is to a processing plant that specialises mainly in producing cerium, one of the most abundant rare earth minerals. Cerium has a huge number of commercial applications, from colouring glass to making catalytic converters. The guide who shows us around the plant explains that they mainly produce cerium oxide, used to polish touchscreens on smartphones and tablets.
As we are wandering through the factory’s hangar-like rooms, it’s impossible not to notice that something is missing. Amongst the mazes of pipes, tanks, and centrifuges, there are no people. In fact there’s no activity at all. Apart from our voices, which echo through the huge sheds, the plant is silent. It’s very obviously not operating. When asked, our guide tells us the plant is closed for maintenance – but there’s no sign of that either: no maintenance crews, no cleaning or repairs being done. When pushed further our guide gets suspicious, wonders why we are asking so many questions, and clams up. It’s a behaviour we’ll encounter a lot in Baotou – a refusal to answer questions or stray off a strictly worded script.
As we leave, one of our party who has visited the area before suggests a possible explanation: could local industry be artificially controlling market scarcity of products like cerium oxide, in order to keep rare earth prices high? We can’t know for sure that this was the case the day we visited. Yet it would not be unprecedented: in 2012, for example, the news agency Xinhua reported that China’s largest rare earth producer was suspending operations to prevent price drops.
One of Baotou’s other main exports is neodymium, another rare earth with a variety of applications. Again it is used to dye glass, especially for making lasers, but perhaps its most important use is in making powerful yet lightweight magnets. Neodymium magnets are used in consumer electronics items such as in-ear headphones, cellphone microphones, and computer hard-drives. At the other end of the scale they are a vital component in large equipment that requires powerful magnetic fields, such as wind farm turbines and the motors that power the new generation of electric cars. We’re shown around a neodymium magnet factory by a guide who seems more open than our friend at the cerium plant. We’re even given some magnets to play with. But again, when our questions stray too far from applications and to production and associated environmental costs, the answers are less forthcoming, and pretty soon the visit is over.
The intriguing thing about both neodymium and cerium is that while they’re called rare earth minerals, they’re actually fairly common. Neodymium is no rarer than copper or nickel and quite evenly distributed throughout the world’s crust. While China produces 90% of the global market’s neodymium, only 30% of the world’s deposits are located there. Arguably, what makes it, and cerium, scarce enough to be profitable are the hugely hazardous and toxic process needed to extract them from ore and to refine them into usable products. For example, cerium is extracted by crushing mineral mixtures and dissolving them in sulphuric and nitric acid, and this has to be done on a huge industrial scale, resulting in a vast amount of poisonous waste as a byproduct. It could be argued that China’s dominance of the rare earth market is less about geology and far more about the country’s willingness to take an environmental hit that other nations shy away from.
And there’s no better place to understand China’s true sacrifice than the shores of Baotou toxic lake. Apparently created by damming a river and flooding what was once farm land, the lake is a “tailings pond”: a dumping ground for waste byproducts. It takes just 20 minutes to reach the lake by car from the centre of the city, passing through abandoned countryside dominated by the industrial architecture on the horizon. Earlier reports claim the lake is guarded by the military, but we see no sign. We pass a shack that was presumably a guard hut at one point but it’s abandoned now; whoever was here left in a hurry, leaving their bedding, cooking stove, and instant noodle packets behind when they did.
We reached the shore, and looked across the lake. I’d seen some photos before I left for Inner Mongolia, but nothing prepared me for the sight. It’s a truly alien environment, dystopian and horrifying. The thought that it is man-made depressed and terrified me, as did the realisation that this was the byproduct not just of the consumer electronics in my pocket, but also green technologies like wind turbines and electric cars that we get so smugly excited about in the West. Unsure of quite how to react, I take photos and shoot video on my cerium polished iPhone.
You can see the lake on Google Maps, and that hints at the scale. Zoom in far enough and you can make out the dozens of pipes that line the shore. Unknown Fields’ Liam Young collected some samples of the waste and took it back to the UK to be tested. “The clay we collected from the toxic lake tested at around three times background radiation,” he later tells me.
Watch the black byproduct of rare earth mining pouring into the lake at Baotao (Credit: Richard John Seymour/Unknown Fields)
Unknown Fields has an unusual plan for the stuff. “We are using this radioactive clay to make a series of ceramic vessels modelled on traditional Ming vases,” Young explains, “each proportioned based on the amount of toxic waste produced by the rare earth minerals used in a particular tech gadget.” The idea is to illustrate the impact our consumer goods have on the environment, even when that environment might be unseen and thousands of miles away.
After seeing the impact of rare earth mining myself, it’s impossible to view the gadgets I use everyday in the same way. As I watched Apple announce their smart watch recently, a thought crossed my mind: once we made watches with minerals mined from the Earth and treated them like precious heirlooms; now we use even rarer minerals and we’ll want to update them yearly. Technology companies continually urge us to upgrade; to buy the newest tablet or phone. But I cannot forget that it all begins in a place like Bautou, and a terrible toxic lake that stretches to the horizon.
So you’re a conservationist, eh? Can you prove it? Can you stop washing your hands before this fish runs out of water? For his appropriately titled Poor Little Fishbowl Sink, designer Yan Lu created a very direct incentive to minimize water usage – when you turn the faucet on, the water level in the fishbowl decreases. It reminds us how precious this resource is, and how our everyday actions can affect the creatures around us. It also reminds us of our childhood pet goldfish, aww. Read on to learn more about this fish-traumatizing faucet.
In case you were worried, the water sources for the fish bowl and the faucet are separate: you wouldn’t be washing your hands in fish excrement or sending soapy water back into the bowl. The fish’s “aquarium” is simply designed to lower its water level until you stop washing your hands, although it never drains completely. Still, we can’t help but feel that this rapidly changing environment must be tough for the little guy (which, come to think of it, makes his situation pretty similar to the real world). Poor little fish indeed.
Spain is getting the vast majority of its electricity from carbon-free sources, the country’s grid operator reported on Tuesday.
CREDIT: ree.es
According to Red Electrica de Espana (REE), the Spanish peninsula got 69 percent of its electricity generation in March from technologies that produce zero carbon emissions – that is to say, renewable energy plus some of its nuclear power. Nuclear as a whole provided 23.8 percent of the country’s electricity in March, while 47 percent came solely from renewable sources.
Most of the renewable electricity being generated in Spain comes from wind, which alone provided 22.5 percent of the country’s electricity last month. Wind often competes with nuclear for the title of Spain’s top electricity generation source overall – in fact, though nuclear pulled through in March as the top source of electricity, wind has overall provided more electricity to Spain in the entirety of 2015. From January to March, according to REE, wind provided 23.7 percent of electricity generation while nuclear made up 22.7 percent.
Spain has long been a leader in renewable energy, just recently becoming the first country in the world to have relied on wind as its top energy source for an entire year. The country is attempting to use wind power to supply 40 percent of its electricity consumption by 2020, according to CleanTechnica.
At the same time, Spain is also developing other renewable sources of energy, particularly solar photovoltaic. Though it currently only accounts for about 3 percent of electricity generation, Spain’s solar industry is one of the largest in the world, according to Al Jazeera. In 2012, it reported that solar power accounted for almost 2,000 megawatts of energy. Comparatively in the United States, there were 3,313 megawatts of solar photovoltaic installations that same year.
Though the U.S. may have more solar cumulatively, Spain’s solar makes up more more of the smaller country’s electricity use as a whole. In 2013, solar accounted for about 0.2 percent of the net electricity produced in the United States, according to the Institute for Energy Research. That same year, solar accounted for 3.1 percent of Spain’s total electricity, according to REE.
Still, Spain’s renewable energy story has not been all roses. The country’s aggressive goals have been heavily subsidized by its government, and the government has fallen into economic distress as a result. Specifically, the New York Times reported in 2013 that Spain’s tariff deficit had built up a cumulative debt of about €26 billion ($35 billion). Since then, however, the country has slashed its subsidies, putting the bulk of costs back on the power utilities themselves.
The subsidy cuts happened last summer, and since then renewable energy has not significantly grown in the country as a whole. But it has grown substantially in at least one part of Spain – the tiny island of El Hierro, which is nearing its goal to be powered 100 percent by wind and water.
President Obama is scheduled to announce new initiatives to help bolster the country’s solar workforce on Friday, including a goal to add 75,000 solar workers by 2020, and a new program aimed at providing solar training to veterans.
The goal to add to the nation’s solar workforce adds to the President’s last commitment to solar training, which promised 50,000 solar workers by 2020. According to a statement released by the White House, the solar industry is adding jobs “10 times faster” than the rest of the economy, and prices for solar installations are falling, having declined 12 percent in the past year alone.
The announcement, which will be made during a visit to Utah’s Hill Air Force Base, will also lay out plans for a program aimed at providing military veterans with skills to enter the solar workforce. Dubbed “Solar Ready Vets,” the program will be a joint-venture between the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense, and will take place at 10 military bases across the country.
Solar Ready Vets, the White House says, is “based on the specific needs of high-growth solar employers, is tailored to build on the technician skills that veterans have acquired through their service, and incorporates work-based learning strategies.” The program will train service members in all facets of solar installation, teaching them how to size solar panels, connect electricity to the grid, and deal with building codes.
According to the White House, the Department of Veterans Affairs will help by encouraging state agencies to make G.I. Bill funding available to veterans interested in the program. The Department of Labor will also work to make sure that veterans are aware of job opportunities within the solar industry.
The President’s announcement comes just days after the United States submitted its climate commitments to the United Nations, which promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 28 percent by 2025. A report issued Monday by the NewClimate Institute said that meeting carbon-reduction goals would create nearly one million “green jobs” by 2030 in the United States, China, and the European Union.
Enlist Duo’s active ingredients are glyphosate and 2,4-D, both of which have been shown to increase the risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
“This poorly conceived decision by EPA will likely put a significant number of farmers, farm workers and rural residents at greater risk of being diagnosed with cancer,” said Scott Faber, senior vice president for government affairs at Environmental Working Group. “The agency simply ignored a game-changing new finding from the world leading cancer experts, and has instead decided the interests of biotech giants like Dow and Monsanto come first.”
Last month, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a branch of the WHO, elevated its risk assessment of glyphosate to “probably carcinogenic to humans” based on a review of the evidence by a panel of 17 leading oncology experts.
Glyphosate is the most used pesticide in the U.S. The bulk of it is applied to genetically engineered corn and soybean crops. It is also the main ingredient in Monsanto’s signature weed killer RoundUp.
EPA’s decision will allow Enlist Duo to be sprayed on fields of genetically engineered corn and soybeans in Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and Oklahoma. It was previously approved for use in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
“Instead of taking steps to protect the public from toxic chemicals, the EPA has only sped up the pesticide treadmill that will now put millions more people at risk,” added Faber. “These toxic herbicides easily make their way off farm fields and into the air and water we and our children breathe and drink.”
The April 1 snowpack assessment in California, which set an all-time record for lowest snowpack levels in the state’s history, finally spurred Governor Brown’s office to issue an executive order to residents and non-agricultural businesses to cut water use by 25 percent in the first mandatory statewide reduction in the state’s history.
Food & Water Watch California criticized Governor Brown for failing to cap water usage by oil companies and corporate farms, which grow water-intensive crops like almonds and pistachios, most of which are exported out of state or overseas, reports Nermeen Shaikh of Democracy Now! “In the midst of a severe drought, the governor continues to allow corporate farms and oil interests to deplete and pollute our precious groundwater resources,” says Scow.
Shaikh and fellow reporter, Amy Goodman, then turn to Mark Hertsgaard, author of a new book, Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth, andwhose latest story is “How Growers Gamed California’s Drought.” Hertsgaard, an expert on big agriculture and the drought in California, discusses how the price of water is far too low and how we’re still wasting far too much water. “If we priced [water] properly, which means a little bit higher, there’s enormous strides California could be taking with water efficiency,” says Hertsgaard. “We could essentially wipe out the effects of the drought.”
But right now we have billionaire farmers like Stewart Resnick bragging about record profits and record production in water-intensive crops like pistachios, almonds and alfalfa, while poorer communities where farmworkers live “don’t have water coming out of their taps anymore,” says Hertsgaard.
Aside from yoga, a workout I love for enhancing flexibility is the Five Tibetan Rites, also known as the “Fountain of Youth,” because this practice effectively strengthens and stretches all the main muscles in your body. It also helps with balance. I know at least five elderly women (over 80) who keep themselves limber and strong by performing these rites daily. I recommend you learn this simple practice, which you can do in just ten minutes.
I recommend doing the rites in the morning rather than the evening, because they do stoke your energy. Begin by practicing five to seven repetitions of each rite, and build up to 21 reps.
Rite 1
Stand with your arms outstretched and horizontal to the floor, palms facing down. Make sure your arms are in line with your shoulders. Your feet should be about hip distance apart. Draw the crown of your head up toward the ceiling. Focus on a spot in front of you so that you can count your rotations. Spin around clockwise until you become a little dizzy. Gradually increase the number of spins from two to 21. When I first started, I could only do about seven rotations; I’m now up to 14.
Breathing: Inhale and exhale deeply as you spin.
Tip: If you feel super dizzy, interlace your fingers at your heart and stare at your thumbs. Also have a chair very nearby to grab onto to steady yourself if you feel as if you are going to fall.
Rite 2
Lie flat on the floor. Fully extend your arms along your sides and place the palms of your hands against the floor. If you have lower back issues, place your fingers underneath your sacrum. As you inhale, raise your head off the floor, tucking your chin into your chest. Simultaneously lift your legs, knees straight, into a vertical position. If possible, extend your legs over your body toward your head. Then slowly exhale, lowering your legs and head to the floor, keeping your knees straight and your big toes together.
Breathing: Breathe in deeply as you lift your head and legs, and exhale as you lower them.
Rite 3
Kneel on the floor with your toes curled under. Place your hands on the backs of your thigh muscles. Tuck your chin in toward your chest. Slide your hands down the backs of your thighs as you draw your shoulders back and your head up toward the sky. Keep in mind that you are arching your upper back more than your lower back. Move your head back as if you were drawing a line with your nose on the ceiling. Slowly return to an upright position and repeat.
Breathing: Inhale as you arch your spine and exhale as you return to an erect position.
Rite 4
Sit down on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you and your feet about 12 inches apart. Place your palms on the floor alongside your sitz bones. As you gently drop your head back, raise your torso so that your knees bend while your arms remain straight. You are basically in a table-top position. Slowly return to your original sitting position. Rest for a few seconds before repeating this rite.
Breathing: Breathe in as you rise up into the pose, hold your breath as you tense your muscles, and breathe out fully as you come down.
Rite 5
Lie down on your belly with your palms face down and in line with your bra strap. Press up into an upward-facing dog by curling your toes under, lifting your heart, and drawing your shoulders back. Your arms should be straight. Look straight ahead of you, or if you are a little more flexible, gently draw your head back, taking your eyes toward the sky. Then draw your hips up and back, extending your spine, into downward-facing dog pose. Repeat by moving back and forth between downward- and upward-facing dog.
Breathing: Breathe in as your rise up into upward-facing dog; breath out as you push back into downward-facing dog.
Body Rolling
The final activity that I recommend for improving flexibility is body rolling using a body roller. If you are very sensitive, you might want to go with a foam roller, but if you prefer something harder, you can go with a piece of PVC pipe or order one of the many great body rollers online.
Why I love rolling out: it stretches the muscles and tendons and helps release the fascia (structure of connective tissue surrounding muscles, joints, and tendons). Rolling before a hard workout increases blood flow to your soft tissue, and rolling after a workout helps release your muscles. While body rolling isn’t a workout in and of itself, it is invaluable for keeping your muscles soft and pliable.
California’s dire drought conditions have finally triggered more meaningful action at the state level. Today, Gov. Brown issued an executive order which calls on state and local water agencies “to implement a series of measures to save water, including increased enforcement to prevent wasteful water use, streamline the state’s drought response, and invest in new technologies,” said California Coastkeeper Alliance.
“Today we are standing on dry grass where there should be five feet of snow. This historic drought demands unprecedented action,” said Gov. Brown. “Therefore, I’m issuing an executive order mandating substantial water reductions across our state. As Californians, we must pull together and save water in every way possible.”
The lack of snowpack will result in very little or no runoff from the Sierra into California’s reservoirs and rivers, posing a serious problem for the already incredibly water-starved state. Only a few weeks ago, NASA scientist Jay Famiglietti warned “the state has only about one year of water supply left in its reservoirs.”
Gov. Brown directed the State Water Resources Control Board to implement mandatory water reductions in cities and towns across California to reduce water usage by 25 percent. After a series of weak measures involving voluntary conservation orders issued by Brown’s administration, organizations such as Waterkeeper Alliance, California Coastkeeper Alliance and Los Angeles Waterkeeper praise the mandatory conservation order.
The organizations said they “are encouraged by measures to increase reporting and monitoring of water usage, a needed move to improve local enforcement.” They also praised “the requirement that local water agencies adjust rate structures to implement conservation pricing.” They are however concerned “about how streamlining permitting of drought salinity barriers could harm Delta smelt, Chinook salmon and other threatened and endangered fish and other species.”
According to the governor’s statement, the issue will also:
Replace 50 million square feet of lawns throughout the state with drought tolerant landscaping in partnership with local governments;
Direct the creation of a temporary, statewide consumer rebate program to replace old appliances with more water and energy efficient models;
Require campuses, golf courses, cemeteries and other large landscapes to make significant cuts in water use; and
Prohibit new homes and developments from irrigating with potable water unless water-efficient drip irrigation systems are used, and ban watering of ornamental grass on public street medians.
This executive order comes on the heels of emergency legislation, which was signed by Gov. Brown last week to fast-track more than $1 billion in funding for drought relief and critical water infrastructure projects.
As for whether the order will be a game changer, Liz Crosson, Los Angeles Waterkeeper executive director says, “Local jurisdictions have to implement and enforce these measures to actually reduce water usage. Many of the State Board’s mandatory measures are still not enforced in Los Angeles. Until Californians take the drought seriously, we will continue to see reserves depleted and the future become more uncertain. The next step for California is to set mandatory daily limits on gallons per person per day.”
And while California may be one of the farthest “up the creek,” Marc Yaggi, executive director at Waterkeeper Alliance, points out climate threatens all of our world’s waterways. “Nearly every region in the country is facing increased risk of seasonal drought and as we’re seeing in California, climate change is wreaking havoc on the sustainability of our water supplies,” says Yaggi. “We need to amplify the voice of communities that are suffering in order to demand action from our leaders at the global level before it’s too late.”
By the year 2050, the Earth’s population will reach more than 9 billion people. With so many mouths to feed, agribusiness giants have argued that genetically modified crops are the answer to global food security as these plants have been spliced and diced to resist herbicides and pesticides and (theoretically) yield more crops.
However, a new analysis from the Environmental Working Group (EWG) slams this conventional agribusiness argument-and recommends much more sustainable solutions to feed the world.
The report, Feeding the World Without GMOs, argues that genetically engineered crops (also known as GE or GMOs) have not significantly improved the yields of crops such as corn and soy. Emily Cassidy, an EWG research analyst who authored the report, found that in the last 20 years, yields of both GE corn and soy have been no different from traditionally bred corn and soy grown in western Europe, where GE crops are banned. Additionally, a recent case study in Africa found that crops that were crossbred for drought tolerance using traditional techniques improved yields 30 percent more than GE varieties, she wrote.
The report also said that in the two decades that GE crops have been a mainstay in conventional agriculture, they “have not substantially improved global food security” and have instead increased the use of toxic herbicides and led to herbicide-resistant ” superweeds.” (FYI: superweeds have spread to more than 60 million acres of U.S. farmland, wreaking environmental and economic havoc along the way).
She pointed out that while corn and soybeans take up the vast majority (about 80 percent) of global land devoted to growing GE crops, they are not even used to feed people but instead as animal feed or fuel.
Unfortunately, this practice is unlikely to change in light of increased consumption of meat around the world, as well as U.S. biofuel policy requiring production of millions of gallons of corn ethanol to blend into gasoline, Cassidy observed. “Seed companies’ investment in improving the yields of GMOs in already high-yielding areas does little to improve food security; it mainly helps line the pockets of seed and chemical companies and producers of corn ethanol,” she said. “The world’s resources would be better spent focusing on strategies to actually increase food supplies and access to basic resources for the poor, small farmers who need it most.”
Gary Hirshberg, chairman of Just Label It, an organization advocating for federal labeling of GMO foods that also provided funding for the EWG report added, “Biotech companies and their customers in chemical agriculture have been attempting to sell the benefits of GMOs for two decades. Between exaggerated claims about feeding the world and a dramatic escalation in the use of toxic pesticides, it is no wonder consumers are increasingly skeptical.”
Fortunately, as Cassidy noted, there are ways out of this mess that will not only produce enough food for the world’s burgeoning population but will also make minimal impacts on our environment. It comes down to four main approaches:
Smarter use of fertilizers: Fertilizer should be used in places with nutrient-poor soils where it would have the greatest impact, instead of over-fertilizing industrial-scale farms. This switch could increase global production of major cereals by 30 percent, the report said.
A dramatic shift in biofuels policy: A World Resources Institute analysis found that by 2050, biofuels mandates could consume the equivalent of 29 percent of all calories currently produced on the world’s croplands. According to the report, reversing course on food-based biofuels policies could alleviate the need to double the global calorie supply.
A significant reduction in food waste: By weight, a third of all food grown around the world-accounting for a quarter of calories-goes uneaten, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. Food gets tossed before it reaches the market, much less anyone’s plate. So in theory, by eliminating all food waste in fields, grocery stores and at home would increase the global calorie supply by 33 percent, the report noted.
A better diet: Meat production currently uses up three-quarters of all agricultural land, and on average, it takes about 10 calories of animal feed to produce just one calorie of meat. This suggests that a shift from grain-fed beef to a diet emphasizing chicken or grass-fed beef could reduce the amount of land devoted to growing animal feed such as corn and soy (Beef also stands far above the production of other livestock for its negative environmental impact).
Cassidy concluded that investment in genetic engineering is no substitute for solving the real causes of food insecurity and poverty, such as improving access to basic resources and infrastructure in developing countries.
“The alternative strategies of smarter resource use, improving the livelihoods of small farmers, reducing food waste and changing diets could double calorie availability and reduce the environmental burden of food production, all without relying on GE foods,” she wrote.
With the Paris climate talks looming in December, nations are being challenged to come up with climate action plans to mitigate their own impacts on climate change. The informal target for climate plans to be submitted to the UN is today and they have begun to trickle in.
The U.S. released its plan today, putting it ahead of such major countries as China, India, Russia, Canada and Australia. Australia, which has been a laggard on climate issues thanks to Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s commitment to fossil fuels, has said it will not release its plan until mid-year, and it is currently seeking public input on what its emissions reduction target should be.
The U.S. said it would reduce emissions 26 to 28 percent over 2005 levels cut by 2025, the same pledge that President Obama made last November in Beijing. Many other countries are looking to the U.S. pledge for direction.
“The U.S. is strongly committed to reducing greenhouse gas pollution, thereby contributing to the objective of the Convention,” said the announcement. “The target is fair and ambitious. The U.S. has already taken substantial policy action to reduce emissions, taking the necessary steps to place us on a path to achieve the 2020 target of reducing emissions in the range of 17 percent below the 2005 level in 2020. Additional action to achieve the 2025 target represents a substantial acceleration of the current pace of greenhouse gas emission reductions.”
“By announcing its plan ahead of Paris as agreed, the U.S. has at least shown it is committed to the negotiation process and willing to push the other nearly 200 countries to deliver,” said Greenpeace legislative director Kyle Ash. “It is incredibly important countries move quickly in developing strong proposals for climate action so we can step back and assess the progress toward an agreement in December.”
Americans agree. A new poll released yesterday found that 72 percent of Americans support the U.S. signing an international climate agreement.
“We applaud the Obama Administration for following through on the ambitious commitment made last November with China by pledging clear, significant action to tackle the climate crisis and protect our children and grandchildren,” said Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune. “We’ve seen the effects of unmitigated carbon pollution take their toll around the world, but this announcement is further proof that the U.S. is stepping up to lead the world in pursuing solutions.”
“Momentum for real climate action is building at a historic rate. With our nation moving away from coal and the world embracing clean energy at a record pace, this announcement and others like it open the door to meet the 2 degree celsius goal needed to avoid catastrophic climate change. In the coming months, we expect additional ambitious commitments to pour in that will further prove the world is ready to act and keep us on the right track to Paris and beyond,” Brune concluded.
On Friday, Mexico became one of the first countries to formally submit its plan, saying it will cap its greenhouse gas emissions by 2026 and reduce them by 22 percent by 2030. The country, considered an “emerging” nation, said it would do so without financial help from wealthier, developed countries.
“The U.S. welcomes the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) submission by President Peña Nieto earlier today and applauds Mexico for being the first major emerging economy to formally submit its INDC,” said a White House press statement. “Mexico is setting an example for the rest of the world by submitting an INDC that is timely, clear, ambitious and supported by robust, unconditional policy commitments. We hope that Mexico’s actions will encourage other economies to submit INDCs that are ambitious, timely, transparent, detailed and achievable.”
In addition, President Enrique Peña Nieto and U.S. President Barack Obama announced a new joint clean energy and climate policy task force intended to “further deepen policy and regulatory coordination in specific areas including clean electricity, grid modernization, appliance standards and energy efficiency, as well as promoting more fuel efficient automobile fleets in both countries, global and regional climate modeling, weather forecasting and early alerts system.”
“On the occasion of Mexico submitting its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), President Barack Obama and President Enrique Peña Nieto reaffirm their commitment to addressing global climate change, one of the greatest threats facing humanity,” said the White House. “The leaders underscore the importance of jointly addressing climate in their integrated economy.”
Switzerland was the first country to submit its INDC plan, which promises to reduce its emissions by 50 percent from 1990 levels by 2030. It did so on February 27. The 28-nation European Union (EU) followed on March 6 with a promise of a 40 percent reduction in the same time frame. Norway also submitted its plan on Friday, making a commitment identical to the EU’s while suggesting it might step up its level of commitment.
“If it can contribute to a global and ambitious climate agreement in Paris, Norway will consider taking a commitment beyond an emission reduction of 40 percent compared to 1990 levels, through the use of flexible mechanisms under the UN framework convention, beyond a collective delivery with the EU,” said Norway’s climate and environment minister Tine Sundtoft in a statement. “We need more international cooperation to meet the climate challenge. Both Norway and the EU have high ambitions on climate and view climate measures in the context of long-term transition to low-emission societies. By linking our climate efforts, we can achieve better results.”
According to the New Climate Institute, which is tracking the submissions, the first wave submitted by the end of March is expected to cover less than 30 percent of global emissions, but more than 50 percent are likely to be covered in plans submitted by June. Oct. 1 has been set as the deadline for the submission of all INDC plans in order to assemble the final report for the December talks.
Paris itself is gearing up for the talks by moving toward divestment. Paris city council voted earlier this month to divest from fossil fuel holdings, the first European city to do so. If ratified by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, it would bar the city’s newly created endowment fund from investing in fossil fuel industries and phase out such investments from the city’s pension funds.
In an open letter to Hidalgo, 350.org founder Bill McKibben, 350.org France campaigner Nicholas Haeringer and This Changes Everything author Naomi Klein, along with 18 French co-signers, said, “People concerned about climate change were so happy to hear the news that the Paris City Council had gone on record as favoring divestment from fossil fuel companies. The motion is a very important step towards a fossil fuel free future. That’s why it’s so imperative that the city government now agrees to implement this wise recommendation, and ensures that the newly created endowment fund never invests in fossil fuel companies, while making sure that the council members’ pension fund divests from the sector.”
“With Paris playing host to the next climate talks at the end of the year, it has a responsibility to set an example and to go a step further,” they added. “The city could take a leadership role in local authorities’ climate action and call other cities in France to join the divestment movement. The momentum behind a Fossil Free France would help immeasurably as the world heads toward the important climate negotiations in Paris this December.”
Scientists have discovered that honey bees, Apis mellifera, have an extraordinary talent. Using their superior sense of smell, even more sensitive than that of a dog, bees can be trained to detect specific chemical odors. Those odors include biomarkers associated with lung, skin, and pancreatic cancer, as well as tuberculosis.
A Portuguese designer, Susan Soares, took that knowledge and developed a device that can utilize trained bees to detect serious diseases.
Bees are simply placed in the glass chamber and the patient simply exhales into it. The bees fly into a smaller, secondary chamber if they detect any cancer.
Bees don’t always live terribly long lives, but this method is still effective because bees can be trained in just 10 minutes by using Pavolv’s reflex, which connects certain odors with a food reward.
When bees are exposed to that odor, they are fed sugar and water as a reward. Once taught, the bees remember for the entirety of their six-week-long lives.
Early diagnosis is key for treating these deadly diseases, and fortunately, bees can help. Just one more reason to do everything we can to save the bees.
With a little help from a spray can, a London-based street artist is swarming urban walls with a simple but important message: Save the bees.
According to the artist’s website, Louis Masai Michel and his collaborator Jim Vision have painted these beautiful bee murals to raise awareness about the planet’s dwindling bee population and the “detrimental effects upon the human race if they disappear.”
Protecting the planet’s fragile bee population is not only important for saving honey and wax, honey bees-wild and domestic-perform about 80 percent of all pollination worldwide. In fact, seventy out of the top 100 human food crops, which supply about 90 percent of the world’s nutrition, are pollinated by bees. However, our favorite black-and-yellow pollinators are dying off due to pesticides, drought, habitat loss, pollution and other major environmental concerns, scientists have said.
Insights writer Dr. David Suzuki wrote that neonicotinoid pesticides, or “neonics,” have been identified as one of the main culprits to the die-offs. While scientists say the evidence is clear, the global food market has been slow to wake up to this reality. As Suzuki pointed out, “Neonics make up about 40 percent of the world insecticide market, with global sales of $2.63 billion in 2011-and growing. That may explain why, despite increasing evidence that they’re harmful, there’s been such strong resistance to phasing them out or banning them.”
A report from the U.S. National Agriculture Statistics found that the honey bee population in the country has declined from about six million hives in 1947 to 2.4 million hives in 2008, a 60 percent reduction.
Looks like being a bee isn’t so easy. Some of Michel’s artworks appears to show what life may be like for the buzzing insects. Check out the murals below with the haunting words, “When we go, we’re taking you all with us” on a wall in Shoreditch.
Photo Credit: Louis Masai Michel
There’s also this grim closeup of an overturned bee with a sign that says “Save me” on Brick Lane’s Sclater Street in England.
Photo Credit: Louis Masai Michel
According to Colossal, after the murals became wildly popular in the English capital, they have since spread to Bristol, Glastonbury, Croatia, New York, Miami and New Orleans. You can track the artist’s work with the Twitter hashtag #SaveTheBees. Below, you’ll see a commissioned mural at a quince farm in Devon, England.
Photo Credit: Louis Masai Michel
Photo Credit: Louis Masai Michel
The inspiration behind the murals stemmed from a trip to South Africa where Michel learned about the devastating impacts of colony collapse disorder that’s plaguing honeybee populations around the world. Colossal writes that Michel is currently taking a break from the bee murals to work on a different art project, but he plans to pick up phase two the bee project sometime next year.
Photo Credit: Louis Masai Michel
Ever the artist-conservationist, Michel also creates art to raise awareness for other rare or endangered animals species around the world, such as the grey African crowned crane, Rothschild’s giraffes, rhinos and more.
Michel realizes there is only so much that art can do, but points out the importance of raising awareness. “I’m not saying that by me painting a painting it’s going to save any animals,” he says in the video below (where he’s spray-painting a picture of a Scottish bobcat at an art party). “But it might mean that people are a little but more woken. They’re like, ‘Oh, okay, there’s only 400 bobcats left in the world. That’s pretty interesting.’ And then maybe they might look into it a little bit.”
The collapse of our planet’s natural ecosystem is accelerating, but it turns out nature may have already developed the technology to save us. And it’s right under our feet.
Mycelium is the vast, cotton-like underground fungal network that mushrooms grow from-more than 2,000 acres of the stuff forms the largest known organism on Earth. Omnipresent in all soils the planet over, it holds together and literally makes soil through its power to decompose organic and inorganic compounds into nutrients. It has incredible powers to break up pollutants, filter water, and even treat disease, and it’s the star of a film called Fantastic Fungi that’s currently raising funds to bring awareness to how we can wield its many properties to save the world.
“Mycelium offers the best solutions for carbon sequestration, for preserving biodiversity, for reducing pollutants, and for offering us many of the medicines that we need today, both human and ecological,” says famed mycologist Paul Stamets, who’s the main voice of the film.
A regular keynote speakerat major think-a-thons like TED, Stamets has authored several seminal books on fungi, and done groundbreaking research on the medicinal, environmental, and ecological power of fungus with the likes of the Department of Defense, Environmental Protection Agency, and Centers for Disease Control. He’s also filed more patents and research papers than you can shake a mushroom stick at-not to mention that his signature hat is made of fungus.
“Fungi, I think, hold the greatest potential solutions for overcoming the calamities that we face,” he says.
The apparent intelligence of mycelium lead Stamets call it “nature’s internet.” If a plant is harmed, mycelium tied up with its roots transmits the warning to other connected plants (turns out most plant life is part fungus). It’s responsive, reacting immediately to disruptions in its environment to find a way to make it into food for itself and, thus, everything around it. Mycelium can also learn to consume compounds it’s never encountered before, breaking them down into nutrients for countless other organisms, and sharing the knowledge throughout its network.
This adaptive power can be applied in amazing ways. Stamets and co. showed the critical role mycelium plays in mitigating bee colony collapse and filtering bacteria like H1N1 out of water. When removed of spores, certain strains become potent attractors for termites and other pests. A side-by-side comparison showed that oyster mushrooms were superior for breaking down pollutant hydrocarbons into basic nutrients that in turn fed foraging insects and animals, a process called mycoremediation. Mycelium was also literally trained to eat VX, the nerve agent used by Saddam Hussein against the Kurds in 1988.
All this speaks to a wide range of critical roles fungus has played in our past, and how it may be essential to our future if we choose to embrace it.
Conversations about them inevitably drift toward psilocybin and its mind-expanding properties. While it’s also being researched for uses in less cosmic concerns like breaking addiction and treating cancer, psilocybin’s third-eye-opening properties aren’t superficial. Some theories argue that modern human intelligence itself was borne of consumption of the stuff. Magic mushrooms are something about which Stamets is (naturally) an expert, having written the book on the topic, even identifying four new species. It’s something he largely credits for his own mycological insights.
“I’ve never been an apologist for this, but in my younger days I consumed a fair quantity of psilocybin mushrooms,” he says. “My experiences using those mushrooms opened up my mind’s eye to nature, and frankly I think it’s rewired my brain and made me a lot more intelligent than before.”
Ultimately it’s just such a perspectival shift that may be necessary to steer our fate away from a world in which nature as we’ve known it is just a memory. This isn’t a call to wandering into the forest and trip on mushrooms (although I’m certainly not saying you shouldn’t). Stamets’s proposed solutions are actually quite practical, centering on fostering the health of mycelial networks so that they are better able to equalize out ecosystems and provide us the benefits like those listed above. Encouraging people to garden and grow mushrooms (which spread mycelium), or halting the practice of forest burns and the removal of dead wood, both of which rob essential nutrients for mycelium, are among other examples. Utilizing mycelium in these ways will also require a wider understanding of its nature, which is why Stamets suggests making mycology a mandatory part of primary education, with funding more equivalent to the computer sciences.
“The good news is these things can be put into practice very very quickly,” Stamets says. “Mycelium reacts quickly. I’m an impatient person, so mycelium and me are perfect partners.”
If you lived in the many parts of the United States and Europe last week and were in need of a reprieve from persistent, frigid temperatures, you would have found relief in the most unlikely of places.
Part of Antarctica hit a record high of 63.5 degrees Fahrenheit last Tuesday, the hottest ever reported, according to the climate monitor OGIMET.
By comparison, Washington DC was 46 degrees, New York City reached 45 degrees, and the temperature in London topped 50 degrees.
While scientists warn not to draw conclusions from a single weather event, the temps hue closely to more alarming, long-term trends in the southern continent.
Antarctica’s floating ice shelves have recently decreased by as much as 18 percent in some spots over the last 18 years, says a new study, published in the journal Science. As the oceans have warmed, they’ve spurred more of the frozen mass to become water, researcher Fernando Paolo told VICE News.
“There is evidence that the amount of warm ocean water reaching the ice shelves has increased, so more warm water under these is causing the melt,” Paolo, a PhD candidate with UC San Diego’s Scripps Institute of Oceanography, told VICE News. “And there is a lag in the response time of the environment. So, even if conditions changed now, 20 years from now the environment will still be reacting this way.”
And the findings indicate that sea levels are certain to continue rising, Doug Martinson, a professor with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, told VICE News.
“You could stop global warming tomorrow but that doesn’t matter from this perspective because there’s already so much heat stored in the ocean, it’ll keep coming up and melting the ice,” Martinson, who was not involved in Paolo’s study, told VICE News.
The study, which advanced previous research on Antarctica’s ice mass, compiled 18 years of continuous data starting in 1994, and found that the bulk of melt occurred between 2003 and 2012, Paolo noted.
“We could see there was an acceleration of loss,” Paolo said of the ice mass. “Another important thing we were able to see was that some of the ice shelves have a large fluctuation of gain and loss in volume over time. So, if you look at a shorter period, you won’t see the trend.”
Air temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula – where the record high was documented last week – have been found to further affect ice melt there, Paolo said, so such steamy weather could certainly cause more reason for concern.
“On the Antarctic Peninsula we have a weather station so we know the weather is responsible for changes,” Paolo said.
Still, one or two extremely hot days cannot be directly attributed to global warming, said Hugh Ducklow, also a professor with Lamont-Doherty. He warned of drawing too many conclusions from the 63.5-degree weather.
“I don’t believe that you can attribute any isolated event to global warming. This is just like saying the next 100-degree day or next hurricane in NYC is due to global warming,” Ducklow told VICE News. “A warmer climate could increase the likelihood of occurrence of hot days, but the individual events are not ’caused’ by global warming.”
And regardless of the air temperature, the ocean’s conditions actually have a far stronger impact on the melting ice and rising sea levels, Martinson explained.
“The heat contained in water is thousands of times stronger than the heat of the atmosphere,” Martinson said of the sea’s ability to dissolve Antarctic ice.
“Heat is absorbed in the ocean like a sponge, and a good amount of that heat is coming up. Where it comes up it melts underside of the ice shelves,” Martinson said, warning that the phenomenon could push the sea level dangerously high. “I don’t like to say ‘doomsday scenario’ but this is sort of pointing toward it.”
Sometimes all the talk in the world can’t prepare you for cold, hard reality. At a Nebraska Oil & Gas Conservation committee hearing, an oil and gas commission was left in utter silence when a farmer brought in three cups of fracking water and offered each of them to take a sip.
It’s a brilliant visual reminder that what’s at stake when we talk about the dangers of fracking isn’t dollars and cents, but something much simpler: Security in knowing that one of the most basic necessities of life, access to clean drinking water, is safe from harmful pollutants.
Nebraskan James Osborne appeared at the hearing to discuss an oil company’s application to ship out-of-state fracking wastewater into Nebraska to be dumped into a “disposal well” in Sioux County. According to a Fox Business report on the proposal, the waste would be coming from states like Wyoming and Colorado, but dumped in Nebraska because nobody else wants anything to do with it:
The commission heard 2½ hours of public comment Tuesday at its Sidney headquarters before convening a specific hearing on the proposal from Terex Energy Corp. The Broomfield, Colorado-based company wants to truck salty groundwater and chemical-laden fracking wastewater that result from oil searches and production in Wyoming, Colorado and, eventually, Nebraska, to a ranch north of Mitchell, Nebraska. As much as 10,000 barrels a day of the water would be injected into an old oil well on the ranch.
Lest people think Osborne is a bleeding heart tree-hugger, he notes that he’s worked in the oil industry and still even has family who work in fracking. However, his background can’t stand in the way of the troubling facts about what fracking does to the environment, particularly to a farming and livestock intensive state like Nebraska which relies heavily on its water reserves to function.
On a table, Osborne sets down three water cups, filling each with some purified water. There is no question that anyone would feel comfortable drinking that water. But in the event of fracking wastewater leaking into the streams and rivers of Nebraska, residents shouldn’t expect their taps to remain safe. Instead, Osborne dumps in the kind of yellow-brown sludge common in fracking runoff water. This is what the water would look like. The audience gasps.
“So you told me this morning that you would drink this water,” Osborne tells the commission. “So would you drink it? Yes or no?”
The group stares silently at the display. After an awkward pause, one says he won’t answer any questions.
“Oh, you can’t answer any questions? Well my answer would be no. I don’t want this in the water that will travel entirely across this state in three days,” Osborne says. “There is no doubt there will be contamination. There will be spills.”
So far the commission hasn’t made a ruling on the controversial proposal. They chose to delay a ruling to think it over more carefully. In the meantime, environmental group Bold Nebraska has launched a petition to get public support against the fracking dumpsite.
Author: Jameson Parker I cover US politics, social justice issues, and other current events which aren’t getting the attention they deserve. Feel free to follow or drop me a line on twitter.
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