Amber Waves of Plastic

Wouldn't it be nice to have bio-degradable plastic? Well, it turns out that not only does it exist, but it's apparently gaining some popularity. An article in the LATimes by Stephanie Simon [LINK] covers the basic ideas. Here's one promising quote:

"'Anything you can make out of petroleum, I can make out of corn and soybeans,' said Larry Johnson, director of the Center for Crops Utilization Research at Iowa State University.

The article also mentions several companies that have products made from bio-plastic. Some of them are big corporations, but some are smaller, and I thought I might add a couple links just to get the word out. So here they are:

• Of the Earth (Oregon, Apparel) [LINK]
  
• Pacific Coast Feather Company (Washington, Beds, Pillows, linens, etc... but I don't know about their animal friendliness yet) [LINK]
  
• Faribauli Mills (Minnesota, Blankets)[LINK]
  

Okay, so that was all for now. Bio-plastic. Space age!! How about growing some bacteria or algae that can just keep reproducing and be harvested for bio-plastic... there's a multi-billion dollar idea.

But Chinese is such a difficult language!

The LA Times has a story today by Evelyn Iritani about the Chinese interest in US businesses [LINK]. I am particularly interested in how this apparent bid by CNOOC Ltd. for Unocal is going to play out. Probably Chevron has them beat, but keep yours eyes peeled. Either way, we are seeing consolidation in the oil industry already, as oil prices climb ever higher. By the way, don't believe this BS about not having enough refineries; that is not why crude oil prices are rising.

See, it's not only NASA

Melinda Mahaffey reports on the Outside Online website [LINK] that the Planetary Society's experimental solar sailing spacecraft was launched, and is now missing. Sad news, to be sure. Solar sails are kind of interesting, and might not be a bad idea, if combined with some kind of engine to get accelerated at the start. The PS still hopes the Cosmos 1 is alive and well, but it seems pretty unlikey at this point.

Deep throat of climate change

So a guy named Piltz has singled out Philip Cooney and Harlan Watson as key players in the administration misusing and misrepresenting climate science [LINK]. I can't go into any depth on this issue here and now, but this is the kind of story that should be out there making big news. Cooney has resigned over the allegations, which I think means something. I'll certainly be trying to follow up on this in coming days. Any input or insight from you would be great... send links if you got 'em.

Hurricanes and climate change

I have commented before about how it is hard to write about findings and controversies in fields closely related to one's own. Today I'm going to go a step further by complaining (or commenting, or reporting, or opining) about a subject that is basically my own field of study, but about which I know very little. Today's topic, without further adieu, is the link between hurricanes and climate change.

My interest in this, at least my more intense interest right now (which will probably dissipate in about 10 minutes), was spawned by an article on the Environmental News Network [LINK], apparently originating from Reuters and written by Michael Chirstie. Here's a quote:

"...studies by Kerry Emanuel, a professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, indicate the 2 degree Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in sea surface temperatures predicted by the IPCC would raise the upper limit on a storm's intensity by 10 percent. Landsea said those changes were largely imperceptible given the overall ferocity of hurricanes. "

The Landsea referred to is Chris Landsea, a well-known atmospheric scientist. Kerry Emanuel is an expert on hurricane intensity and atmospheric convection.

Reading this story made me wonder about the possibility of hurricanes being affected by a warming climate. This is not something I haven't thought of in the past, but I never thought of it as particularly provocative or controversial.

There are a couple of issues here. Well, more than a couple, but only a couple that I want to touch on here. First, we need to address how this story is being covered by this article. After that, I want to just think about the science briefly, mostly to raise some points that are not related to what is being discussed in the article but are obviously relevant to the spirit of the article.

The first point is pretty straightforward. The article is focusing on the potential damage, in terms of dollars, of tropical storms, specifically hurricanes. A hurricane is just a tropical cyclone with a high degree of organization, allowing stronger winds and the famous "eye." The article is really trying to discuss a correlation between hurricane intensity and global warming. It mentions that there is believed to be a long term cycle associated with tropical cyclone intensity, and also notes that "climatologists" believe there is also a trend in "hurricane activity." It highlights this debate, but also tries to bring politics into it by mentioning that some climate scientists feel they are being forced to downplay climate change evidence. In short, the article is confused on several levels.

First let's actually ignore politics other than scientific ones. That is, it is safe to assume that whatever debate is at hand has nothing to do with the federal government or funding or anything like that. These are good scientists who are doing good work, and may or may not have differing opinions based on the evidence.

Next, let's decide what "hurricane activity" is. In my opinion, "hurricane activity" is really referring to the number of hurricanes, or more generally the number of tropical cyclones generated. This is a research area known as cyclogenesis, which maybe could be specialized by tropical cyclogenesis. However, the article itself goes on to discuss the strength, or intensity, of hurricanes. Kerry Emanuel, the same one as above, has a simple thermodynamic model that predicts the potential strength of tropical cyclones. It doesn't deal with cyclogenesis though. The model assumes a cyclone exists, and then just guesses how strong it could give based on the conditions in which it exists. In the article, everyone seems to conclude that in a warmer climate, there would be a slight increase in hurricane strength. This is not something that can be put in stone yet, but let's just take it as given: in a warmer climate conditions will allow hurricanes to be slightly (around 10%) stronger, in terms of maximum sustained wind speed. Fine. However, earlier in the article says, "Last season's $45 billion devastation, when 15 tropical storms spawned nine hurricanes in the Atlantic and Caribbean, prompted climatologists to warn of a link to warming temperatures." This doesn't say anything about hurricane intensity, but rather hurricane frequency.


Now let's think about each effect separately. Does global warming suggest changes in (A) hurricane intensity and/or (B) hurricane frequency.

For (A), we already agreed. Yes. There is probably going to be a slight increase in hurricane intensity, but it probably won't be incredibly dramatic. Warmer sea-surface temperature, greater wind shear, and higher low-level relative humidity will all contribute to stronger tropical cyclones.

What about (B) though? This is the hard part, since the subject of cyclogenesis is tricky. What "spins up" hurricanes? You need to have a big blob of organized convection in the tropics, which then propagates poleward and begins to spin and become more organized. That initial blob and the subsequent propagation and organization are hard to predict. They depend on a delicate balance of wind and moisture influences all happening over nice warm water. A lot of people who think real hard about this have been saying, for many years now, that a key ingredient for many tropical cyclones is a passing "easterly wave." That is, an organized motion in the atmosphere coming from the east. The idea is that the easterly wave can help the initial organization of the storm, and then moves away and allows the cyclone to move away and strengthen. (At least, that's the way I've interpreted it so far.) In the Atlantic, and maybe even in the eastern Pacific, these waves originate over northern Africa. Understanding of these waves, and the precise way they help organize convection over the ocean. is still just beginning. There's a lot of work to be done. What can we say then about cyclogenesis under a global warming scenario? Well, we can expect that these easterly waves have something to do with heating over the continent, which is likely to increase in a warmer climate. Whether this increases the number of waves or the amplitude is not yet known. How such changes would change the number of tropical storms formed is also unknown. The first guess would be that there would be more easterly waves of significant enough amplitude that more cyclones can form and propagate poleward.

If that guess is true, which can't yet be confirmed, at least by me, we can guess the future. More hurricanes in the future, with a slightly higher average intensity. This is not what Chris Landsea thinks will happen, which you can read about on NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory website [LINK]. He cites a few studies, and comes to approximately the same conclusion about peak intensity, but refrains from saying anything about average intensity. However, he doesn't seem to see any reason to believe more or less hurricanes will form. The main reason is that the whole atmosphere will change, so the thresholds for cyclogenesis will change. This, I think, neglects the importance of easterly waves in cyclogenesis. As you can see, this is a complicated problem, and there's no reason to think there should be consensus at this point.

As a further caveat, it is also conceivable that more and/or more intense easterly waves originating over northern Africa could also reduce hurricane formation. By carrying very warm, dry air over the ocean, where young hurricanes might be forming, these layers, called "Saharan air layers," could inhibit convection and stop the hurricane in its tracks. So, yeah, basically you read all the way down to here to find out that we (or I at least) have no answers for you. Sorry about that.

Just the tip of the rapidly melting iceberg

A small story from NYTimes, by Danny Hakim, says that the trend in SUV purchases lost a little steam in the first quarter of 2005. Here's a particularly egregious statement by a Houston auto-purchaser:

The New York Times > Automobiles > A Love Affair With S.U.V.'s Begins to Cool: "For Ms. Cooks, gas prices, which are $2.09 a gallon for regular at a Shell station nearby, were not part of her decision, and she said she came close to buying a Lexus S.U.V. The 300C, equipped with a gas guzzling Hemi engine, is hardly akin to a Toyota Prius.
'Gas prices worry me with any vehicle,' she said. 'One day they're up, the next day they're slightly down.'"

This is what she said as she was buying a Chevrolet 300C. While some consumers are starting to think about fuel economy, I fear that a great many still see the current spate of high gas prices as only that. A temporary increase, probably associated with the summer season. But, Ms. Cook, you are wrong. Things are going to get worse and worse. This is our chance to take some steps away from petroleum, and we really should take them.

Well, what else can we do?

In a rather bland report, NYTimes reporter Felicity Barringer [LINK] says some long-time "environmentalists" are starting to accept the possibility that using nuclear power might be a viable option. While I accept that waste generation and storage/disposal are important problems that still haven't been adequately solved, I have long been in the pro-nuclear power camp. The public at large has serious issues with anything "nuclear" or "radioactive," but it seems like that might have something to do with growing up in a world in which they were constantly threatened with nuclear annihilation. Duck and cover, anyone?

Today we have to make decisions with imperfect knowledge and technology. On the one hand we know that fossil fuels are starting to run low (by the way, I still like "Out of Gas", see previous post) and we also know that using them is contributing to a warming planet. On the other hand, we are afraid of using nuclear technology because it can be used for unfriendly purposes and we don't have a very good way to take care of the waste. Also, nuclear fission is not really a renewable energy source, unless we can mine Uranium out of Earth's core. What do we do? Should we abandon both and hope that somehow other renewable energy sources are quickly improved? I'd say that is not the best solution. Let's face up to the facts, and say that the dangers posed by nuclear power right now are far smaller than those posed by fossil fuels or a global energy crisis. With that decision, the immediate future should rely heavily on nuclear fission, with at least one eye toward the future, which should include nuclear fusion along with renewable energy sources (solar, wind, etc.). Or at least that's how it seems to me.

It doesn't relate to the things I usually post here, but this is too cool not to mention. Some folks at Cornell have made a robot that reproduces itself! Yes, all our dreams have come true. Okay, well, it isn't quite that good, since all it does is reproduce itself, and it can only do that in idealized conditions. It is still a very impressive demonstration. The future applications are endless, once the technology (hardware & sofware) advances. The story can be found on wired.com, and is written by Stephen Leahy [LINK].

A helpful site?

So I heard about this "new" website called GreenerChoices.org. I haven't looked at it much yet, but it might be useful from what I see. It seems to be from Consumer Reports, which isn't a bad thing. If I find anything particularly good, I'll post it later.

Dairy waste as an evironmental problem

It's funny how we become more and more specialized in a field, learing all kinds of details about one little niche, while we can be completely ignorant of other parts of the field. Then you have to wonder about defining a field and subfields and such, but anyway that was just a comment meant to lead into this story. I really don't know very much about air pollution, from the chemical and health sides of the story. Yeah, greenhouse gases or water vapor and I can keep up, but volatile organic compounds and I struggle more than I'd like. Related to a mother's day conversation I had this weekend, I happened upon a story about air pollution due to dairies in California [LINK]. It seems that California somehow classifies the waste produced by cows according to a study conducted in 1938, and now they are trying to decide how to update their classification.

First off, I don't doubt that people could measure cow waste in 1938. It probably isn't that difficult to do. Of course, there might be differences in what you measure, and methods of measuring, but I wouldn't be too surprised if modern techniques gave approximately the same answer for some "control cow." However, I have a strong feeling that today's dairy cows are demonstrably different from those in 1938. Today, dairy cows are raised and used for just a few years before being shipped off to become hamburger or dog food or whatever. These cows don't live like normal cows. They don't wake up each morning, eat some grass, and eventually get milked by some farm hand. They are attached to automatic milking machines, they are forced to continuously produce milk until their production decreases below some threshold, and who knows what kinds of, let's just say medicine, they are given. So, yeah, it is probably nigh time to update that classification.

The article mentions three distinct numbers, ranging from about 6 pounds of waste per year per cow to about 38 pounds per cow per year. This isn't total waste, obviously; if you've ever spent time around cows you'll know they produce about 6 pounds of waste per day, and maybe more. These numbers try to measure the effect on air quality. So that would include the gas cows expel, and some fraction of their solid waste that might end up in the air. I have no clue how they try to measure that, but the range of estimates suggests there is disagreement about how it should be done. The article makes certain to suggest these numbers are "politicized," with environmentalists (whoever they are) favoring the larger number and the dairy industry (or some lawyers who work for some big agri-business) favoring the smaller number.

An interesting tidbit is that the San Joaquin Valley has terrible air quality, and the dairy industry is a giant polluter locally. You can confirm the bad air quality by looking it up, which I did this weekend while investigating a different matter. If the dairies can be shown to be culpable for the pollution, it would be a great step forward to regulate their waste in a more reasonable way. After all, there weren't always 2-million cows being stored in the SJV.

Highly recommended reading: Out of Gas

Over the course of a couple hours (spread over yesterday afternoon and this morning), I read Out of Gas by David Goodstein. It came highly recommended by an astrophysicist friend of mine, and was loaned to me by a fellow climate scientist. Many of you may have already read this very popular book, but for those of you who have not, I can only say it is worth the couple hours.

The subject matter is not cheery. Subtitled, The End of the Age of Oil, Goodstein quickly describes how M. King Hubbert predicted the end of the USA's oil dominance in the 1970s two decades in advance, and goes on to explain that the same factors are beginning to come all too clear in the world oil resources. Goodstein is a physicist, a distinguished professor at Caltech, and has written several books and hosted The Mechanical Universe for PBS [additional bio]. He doesn't work for the oil companies, and neither does he owe loyalty to the Sierra Club. I wouldn't be surprised if he does become a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists at some point, though. The book is political only after it makes its reasoned, scientific arguments. Essentially Goodstein recognizes the impending global energy crisis, makes conservative estimates of how far away this crisis will be (following the more statistically and logically sound reasoning of Hubbert and followers), and concludes that the world can't keep going like this much longer. We must find an alternative to fossil fuels. Keeping a strong grounding in fundamental physics, giving some of the relevant physical and historical context, Goodstein reviews the pros and cons of known alternatives, and finds all of them lacking.

Out of Gas is a call to engineers, physical, social, and even life scientists to wake up and start to address this problem immediately. The stakes are high, and the rewards of successfully averting the coming catastrophe are even greater.

An aspect of this book that I can't help but give some bonus attention is the way all the arguments are based on fundamental, freshman-level physics. A quick look using a popular search engine for either "David Goodstein" or "Out of Gas" or both shows no immediate negative response. Books that politicize or over-dramatize these issues, or are written by non-experts are routinely criticized by right-wingers and nay-sayers for (generally) ridiculous reasons. Having simple arguments using basic physics written by an established, respected physicist lends credibility to Out of Gas unknown to many of the book's peers. In my experience, people arguing against alternative energy or global climate change (also touched on in the book) try to confuse the issues with circular or wrong-minded refutations, but it is harder for them to do so with such clear arguments.

So go now, and read this nice little book. Pass it along to your friends and colleagues. Let's start working on this before the worst case scenario befalls us, and we are sent spiralling into a Mad Max world of regional warlords fighting for water and oil, with widespread hunger, murder, and misery. Yes, we really are talking about the fate of our entire species.

Tiger in the spotlight

I'm not planning on running out to buy the newest version of Mac OS X, but the cnet review [LINK] makes it sound pretty nice. Apparently there are still some problems with wireless compatibility with some secure networks, but that will all be dealt with quickly. I'm also looking forward to an update to 10.3.10 (if it comes) that will give me just a little bit of the new good stuff and make me want the full blown 10.4.

save some soybeans for me

Also out of Science this week (see post below), some studies saying that climate change might adversely affect crops are being published. The news article [Inman 2005 (427): 2] sites two studies that test how increased ozone and carbon dioxide might affect soybeans. It seems the ozone slashes soy yield while CO2 boosts the yield, but not as much as previously thought. The article ends with a quote from Julia Slingo, a prominent climate scientist: "These results are very serious ... Food security is much more insecure than we had thought."

it's not all bad news

A story in the NYTimes by James Gorman [LINK] discusses to rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker in eastern Arkansas. Apparently this bird has been thought to be extinct for years, and the cause of their extinction was destruction of their habitat. According to the article, people have been looking for this bird for a long time, and liken it to a "holy grail" of birdwatching. The discovery is published in Science Online [LINK]. Only one male has been confirmed, but there is enough habitat to support a small population, and the search for more continues.

Don't freak out

This morning I saw an article [LINK to PolitInfo.com] about replacements for CFCs being "greenhouse gases."

Okay, let's stay calm. First the review: CFCs are chlorofluorocarbons, molecules that contain chlorine, fluorine, and carbon, and were used as refrigerants (and whatnot) for many years. Unfortunately, these long-lived molecules make their way into the stratosphere, where they interact (read destroy) ozone. This is an unambiguously bad thing because that ozone resides in the "ozone layer." The ozone layer is an unambiguously good thing because ozone strongly absorbs ultraviolet light, which damages and mutates living cells. So the OZONE LAYER stops the ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION from giving us SKIN CANCER, but the CFCs destroy the OZONE, allowing harmful radiation to reach the surface. Okay that is the CFC science review. As for the history, basically some chemists (Rowland, Molina, Crutzen) figured out that these molecules do destroy ozone, and linked them to observed "ozone holes," mostly found over Antarctica (but not exclusively). Somehow governments from around the world actually got together and ratified the Montreal Protocol in 1987, strengthened it in London in 1990, and CFCs should be eliminated completely by 2010. They'll still be in the atmosphere and ocean, but slowly they will disappear.

Okay, I won't do a review of the greenhouse effect. Suffice to say that greenhouse gases absorb infrared radiation, which essentially trap energy in the atmosphere, warming it. There are six main greenhouse gases (not including water vapor), and the two most important are carbon dioxide (CO_2) and methane (CH_4). The new report says that the replacements for CFCs are also "heat trapping gases." Okay, that is bad news, but the amount of that material must be miniscule compared to carbon dioxide. The response should be an investment in finding more suitable replacements for these materials, and as pointed out by UN Environment Program spokesperson Michael Williams, proper treatment of the currently used materials:

"'What you can do is prevent leaks. You can make sure that when these substances need to be replaced or when the equipment is being thrown out that they are not simply being vented into the atmosphere. That they are destroyed afterwards - contained and destroyed,' he said. 'We also need to have more research on some of the emerging technologies where there could be gases that do not have this problem, where they could be good for both the ozone and the climate change. And, that obviously will be the long-term solution.' "

While this is a problem that should be addressed, we can not lose sight of the big picture. The flux of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere must be reduced before we do irreparable harm to the climate system.

fixed the link color

Okay, SSRD told me a while back to change the color of the links because they were too light. Finally today I did it. All the links should now be approximately black. YAY!!

To help pass the time

I don't think I've blogged this site before, but Earthwatch Radio is an excellent resource for environmental news. It can be a little ecology-centric, but we have to understand how phenomena like global warming and urban sprawl affect wildlife and ecosystems. The really nice thing about the site is that it is available in several formats. It is all on the web for browsing, which you can get to by the above link. The stories are also available on the radio, which I have never listened to, but is neat. They also have short podcasts, which is how I became aware of Earthwatch Radio. That means you can download mp3s of the shows (which are quite short, usually about 2 minutes) and listen to them at your leisure, like on the bus to or from work. Podcasting essentially requires an RSS feed (see Wikipedia) to keep you updated, but also allows RSS readers (like Firefox) to check on updates, making browsing even easier.

Okay, so my rambling aside, there are two points to this post:

1. Earthwatch Radio is kind of interesting, and you might want to check it out.

2. Podcasting is also kind of interesting, and I recommend checking out this phenomenon before you fall too far behind the curve.

I'm moving to Canada

In yet another good decision, the Canadians have struck a deal between the "auto industry" and the government. Apparently they've come to an understanding which will promote less disgusting vehicles [LINK]. Honestly, this sounds really amazingly good, but I don't know from this story exactly what kind of auto industry really exists in Canada. The story makes it seem like an important part of the economy, but I'm not aware of any Canadian cars... but that's just because I haven't moved there yet. I can't wait, but I guess I'll have to buy a jacket.

I see you

I read this story in E-Commerce Times today [LINK] about Google introducing a new feature wherein a search for a location returns not only a nice map (with the possibility of driving directions) but also a satellite picture. At first I thought it might be kind of cool, but not mind-blowing. Seeking just to waste a few minutes, I went and checked it out. Of course, the first place I looked for was my house, and since I'm in the middle of LA, I knew the satellite images would exist. I type in my address, and click on the maps.google.com link that appears [LINK], and then up comes a satellite image of west LA. No surprise. There is, however, a little zoom bar, so I zoom in, and in again. It gets down to about the size of my neighborhood, which isn't too bad. Then I was impressed enough to blog the new feature, and I tried to save the picture. Well, they don't seem to allow that in any obvious way, for which I don't blame them. On a related note, they also tile a copyright in transparent text across the image. In trying to save though, I accidently dragged the picture, and IT MOVED!! Yes, you can drag a little hand cursor around and the map scrolls around, and builds itself when you go beyond the initial area of the search. It is really cool. You can zoom out to the continents and zoom in to neighborhoods (where images are available). Some places have lower resolutions than others, but it's really good in cities. A handy tool that I don't think is implemented yet would be a location grabber, so you can click a spot and get it's address or coordinates or at least zip code or something. That is probably a tough thing to do though, so might take a while.

Here today, gone tomorrow?

Apparently the big science/climate story today is that the "Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) Synthesis Report" was released. Although the stories I've read (e.g.,EarthTimes.org), haven't made it very clear, this report was issued by the UN, and the information in it was compiled by people working for the UN (and in conjuction with the UN). You can read the official press release, which actually has more information than the news stories I saw online, at this link. It is the first of a series of seven reports that will be released dealing with the state of global ecosystems and human well-being. The bottom line is that humans are f'ing up the environment, and ecosystems are going to suffer badly in the near future.

Of course, this is all well and good, but who reads this report? The answer: no one does, not even the people who wrote it will read the other parts. The report is some 2500 pages! You can actually download it (~7MB), at this link, or you can see the "popularized version" at greenfacts.org. Actually, it looks like that popularized version is pretty nice, giving several layers of information, from bullet points to more detail, and then linking to the actual report. Nice job, greenfacts.org.

Don't get this report confused with the well-known IPCC report on climate change. The fourth assessment report of the IPCC is starting to be written this year, and will probably come out next year. While the MA report probably won't be read much, the IPCC is essentially used as a text book because it is a careful, complete, and technical review of the state of knowledge of the climate system and climate change. It is the one that is honest enough to say that we know X about climate change, but the uncertainty is Y (or is unknown), and that is what anti-environmentalists like to use to say "we just don't know." Actually, we do know, but there are uncertainties that could allow a variety of solutions. Anyway... stay tuned for more news about the IPCC coming in the next months.