Tag: Environment

Bookmarked Plastic Recycling Doesn't Work and Will Never Work (theatlantic.com)

If the plastics industry is following the tobacco industry’s playbook, it may never admit to the failure of plastics recycling. Although we may not be able to stop them from trying to fool us, we can pass effective laws to make real progress. Single-use-plastic bans reduce waste, save taxpayer money spent on disposal and cleanup, and reduce plastic pollution in the environment.

Consumers can put pressure on companies to stop filling store shelves with single-use plastics by not buying them and instead choosing reusables and products in better packaging. And we should all keep recycling our paper, boxes, cans, and glass, because that actually works.

Judith Enck Jan Dell explains how recycling plastic is a ruse. Firstly, there is no singular plastic product, while chemical recycling is not viable in that it creates its own issues. The answer is simply to vote as consumers.
Liked Wait, There’s Noise Pollution at the Bottom of the Ocean? (daily.jstor.org)

Deep-sea ecosystems are so vastly understudied, it’s unclear how human noise pollution might affect Challenger Deep’s inhabitants. But based on the effect it has had on other marine species, the impact is likely to be negative. That said, thanks to the data collected during this project, oceanographers now have a record of sounds that can double as a baseline for the health of this ecosystem. As future studies continue to eavesdrop on Challenger Deep, they can use this data to assess how the soundscape has changed over time, and more importantly, if this noise pollution problem is getting worse.

Bookmarked How to Rewild Your Balcony, One Native Plant at a Time by Jeff VanderMeer (Esquire)

Rewilding has huge momentum right now. The idea, as most artfully expressed by entomologist Doug Tallamy, is that even in suburban and urban areas, we can make a huge difference in helping the environment by planting native plants and trees. “Native” refers to “pre-settler” and acknowledges the legacy of Indigenous land management for the good of the environment and human beings. Native plants have evolved over thousands of years to be the best hosts for the largest number of birds, butterflies, bees, and other organisms. Audubon suggests that yards be comprised of at least 70 percent native plants, bushes, and trees, or, for example, chickadees can’t find enough caterpillar food for their young.

Jeff VanderMeer shares eight tips for rewilding your yard even when there is limited space.

  1. Become familiar with the wildflowers native to your area.
  2. Decide the scope of your ambition.
  3. Buy your wildflowers or seeds from the right sources.
  4. Be extra aware of how close planting can affect native plants.
  5. Avoid actively harmful plants.
  6. Mix in some useful non-native flowers to round out your selection.
  7. Consider scale and the effect of pruning on plant health.
  8. Think about the caterpillars.

This had me going to my local council and looking for resources. Also, the mention of the raccoon reminded me of the grapples faced with possems.

Bookmarked The wonder material we all need but is running out (bbc.com)

Natural rubber is a uniquely tough, flexible and highly waterproof material. It puts tyres on our vehicles, soles on our shoes, it makes seals for engines and refrigerators, insulates wires and other electrical components. It is used in condoms and clothing, sports balls and the humble elastic bands. Over the past year it has played a pivotal role in the pandemic in personal protective equipment worn by doctors and nurses around the world.

In fact, rubber is deemed to be a commodity of such global importance that it is included on the EU’s list of critical raw materials.

Unfortunately, there are signs the world might be running out of natural rubber. Disease, climate change and plunging global prices have put the world’s rubber supplies into jeopardy. It has led scientists to search for a solution before it’s too late.

Frank Swain discusses concerns associated with running out of natural rubber and the various alternatives.

“We have enough dandelion seed to put in 40 hectares (0.15 sq miles) of vertical farm, and 3,000 hectares (11.6 sq miles) of guayule, but we need the funds to do it,” says Cornish. “We need some of those billionaires to get involved. I am determined to get this established before I die. We’ve got to get it to work. The consequences to the developed world if the crop fails are unthinkable.”

Bookmarked don’t get firewood from the fruit-bearing trees by Alex Hern (The World Is Yours*)

What are the practices which will leave the world better than it is now? What are the aspects of our environment that we wish to encourage, compared to those we want to avoid? How can we ensure that the things we like become the norm by the time our grandchildren arrive?

Don’t get firewood from the fruit-bearing trees. Strip the bark from the poisonous ones.

Alex Hern discusses Charles C. Mann’s book on Americas before Columbus. He reflects on the impact of smallpox, as well as the misunderstanding of how the Amazonians learnt to live with nature, rather than strip it back.

Mann suggests, the Europeans were wrong. They had quite literally failed to see the forest for the trees. The environment laden with fruit, vegetables and calories wasn’t something that happened to people: it was the result of people. The lush, dense rainforest, so alien to Europeans hacking through it with machetes, was not actually a tabula rasa, any more than the American northwest. It was, instead, the result of an independent invention of agriculture – and an agriculture quite unlike any other in the world.

Interesting to consider alongside Beau Miles’ work and his appeal to radical change.

Listened Waste management: ingenuity, mindset and working with nature from ABC Radio National

Human civilization has a waste problem, and it’s likely to get worse as population levels grow and a consumerist mentality becomes the global norm. But there are many clever, practical ways to deal with waste, including bioremediation – a nature-inspired approach.

Antony Funnell leads an investigation into the way in which nature is being used to clean up the environment. Whether it be vegetation designed to clean up gases from rubbish tips to clams used to clean up the water in Hong Kong. This reminds me of permaculture, Natural Sequence Farming and reclaiming drought-ridden land.
Replied to https://daily-ink.davidtruss.com/the-mass-of-trees/ (daily-ink.davidtruss.com)

While it is interesting to dig into the science of this and learn about photosynthesis, and study the exchange of gasses, and what happens to carbon in the process, it’s also wonderful to marvel at the idea of what’s happening: Trees grow and get their size out of the air.

David, you might be interested in Colin Tudge’s book The Secret Life of Trees, as well as Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate. Maria Popova has an interesting write-up.

I also enjoyed RN Future Tense’s exploration of the role played by trees in the fight against global warming.

Bookmarked Can we heat buildings without burning fossil fuels? (bbc.com)

When it comes to the transitions towards zero carbon, heating is a promising target. Cutting edge technology could make the ingoing energy more renewable and less wasteful. And more broadly, these designs are about tailoring heating systems to the environment around them, from pulling ambient heat from the sewers below, to taking note of the precise angle of the sun in the winter sky.

Rather than pitting our heating systems against the environment, they can be redesigned to make the most of it.

Laura Cole investigates alternatives required to reach zero emmissions. These initiatives include utilising renewable heating and cooling from sewers and houses. This is something also explored by Richelle Hunt and Warwick Long in the Conversation Hour with the work being done at Cape Paterson.
Bookmarked Nature Deserves Legal Rights—and the Power to Fight Back (Wired)

The idea of giving personhood to nature has been slowly gaining adherents. Environmentalists have prodded governments and courts to award rights to lakes, hills, rivers, and even individual species of plants. The New Zealand parliament has given legal rights to the Whanganui River, while Colombia has made the Páramo de Pisba region in the Andes—threatened for years by mining—a “subject of rights.” About three dozen towns across the US are passing Toledo-style bills, and the Florida Democratic Party lists the rights of nature in its party platform.

Clive Thompson suggests that with all the talk of innovation and change, maybe what we really need is to given nature legal rights.

The climate crisis is fully main stage, with California burning and Florida drowning. If we’re going to forestall worse to come, we need innovation not just in tech—more clean energy, resilient cities, genetically modified crops that need less fertilizer—but in law, the rule sets that architect our behavior.

Bookmarked ‘Spreadsheet towers’ populate every major city — and they’re becoming a major problem (ABC News)

Plenty of clever techniques to demolish exist. Some start at the base and work up, others in reverse.

The 40-storey Akasaka Prince Hotel in Tokyo was slowly demolished in 2012-13 using a technique where a cap was built on top of the building.

It was stripped floor by floor as the cap was lowered, so all the dust, mess and debris was contained and removed with no effect on the environment.

Buildings are wrapped in scaffold and protective fabric then literally dismantled in the reverse order to which they were built. In the process building waste can be recycled and reused rather than dumped.

Reverse building involves removing the glass, then the frames, taking off the wall cladding, then scraping away at the concrete and steel frames bit by bit.

Concrete is removed to expose the steel reinforcing bars, which are then separately removed and recycled. In the process unwanted material can be uncovered, like asbestos, which needs particular care in handling.

Norman Day discusses the process of un-building where outdated skyscrapers are progressively broken down and recycled.
Liked When Balloons Fly, Seabirds Die (zoo.org.au)

The CSIRO (2016) outlined balloons as being in the top three most harmful pollutants threatening marine wildlife. Every day, balloons are released or accidentally escape from outdoor events where they almost definitely end up in waterways and oceans and can be mistaken by animals for food.

Bookmarked Why the world is running out of sand (bbc.com)

Awareness of the damage caused by our addiction to sand is growing. A number of scientists are working on ways to replace sand in concrete with other materials, including fly ash, the material left over by coal-fired power stations; shredded plastic; and even crushed oil palm shells and rice husks. Others are developing concrete that requires less sand, while researchers are also looking at more effective ways to grind down and recycle concrete.

Vince Beiser digs into the world of sand. Interestingly, it is used in a number of different contexts, from the increase of land to the creation of glass. Also the mining of the resource is having both an environmental impact on rivers and people forced to work.
Listened Controlled Environmental Agriculture from Radio National

Vertical farming is a bit of a buzz term. Despite the hype, it’s an important part of a growing approach to food production known as Controlled Environmental Agriculture.

Controlled Environmental Agriculture promises to be cleaner and greener. It’s focussed on technology and it’s essentially about bringing food production closer to the point of consumption.

We examine the potential and the pitfalls.

Guests

Dr Asaf Tzachor – Lead Researcher for Food Security, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, Cambridge University

Viraj Puri – CEO and co-founder, Gotham Greens

Jeffrey Landau – Director of Business Development, Agritecture

Dr Paul Gauthier – Senior Agricultural Scientist, Bowery Farming

Dr Pasi Vainikka – CEO, Solar Foods

Here was me thinking that I would be eating bug burgers, looks like it might be a mixture of bugs and bacteria.
Bookmarked ‘Plastic recycling is a myth’: what really happens to your rubbish? (the Guardian)

You sort your recycling, leave it to be collected – and then what? From councils burning the lot to foreign landfill sites overflowing with British rubbish, Oliver Franklin-Wallis reports on a global waste crisis

Oliver Franklin-Wallis discusses the current global recycling crisis. Just like the argument around reducing flying, we need to systemically review our use of plastics in the aisles of our supermarkets.
Bookmarked
Clive Thompson discusses the power of big data to support making clearer decisions around climate change. In the New Dark Age, James Bridle argues that there is a certain irony associated with using technology to solve the problems of technology.

Thinking about climate change is degraded by climate change itself, just as communications networks are undermined by the softening ground, just as our ability to debate and act on entangled environmental and technological change is diminished by our inability to conceptualise complex systems. And yet at the heart of our current crisis is the hyperobject of the network: the internet and the modes of life and ways of thinking it weaves together (Page 79)

The other problem is where the data gets manipulated to support vested interests.

Bookmarked ‘Just add water’: Lake Eyre is filling in a way not seen for 45 years (ABC News)

In Central Australia, one of the largest and most pristine river systems on the planet is flooding.

Dominique Schwartz reports on the water currently filling Lake Eyre. What is unique about this is that it is all just nature. Although locals fought an attempt in 1995 to introduce large-scale irrigated cotton farming on the Cooper, there has not been any other attempts. It makes me wonder about rewilding and letting things take their cause.