Insects Contribute to Climate Change

Humans are often at the center of the climate change debate. But bugs do their part to warm the planet as well.

In Bangkok, experts met to discuss new ways of controlling 100 kinds of pests, which they say are a major contributor to global warming.

"Each cockroach produces 600 babies in their lifetime and we have more than 100 entrants, so our success to date is that we are reducing 60,000 cockroaches without using any chemicals at all and that's the beauty of it," Suchart Leelayuthyotin, director of the Thailand Pest Management Association, told Agence France Press (AFP).

The event usually discusses new methods of pest control, but this year's summit brought with it a global message -- insects cause climate change.

Suchart said bugs are one of the main contributors to global warming because of the CO2 they emit when passing wind.

"Every termite will emit CO2 from their gut because when they consume the wood and digest it they get wind," Suchart explained.

The summit says that by killing the queens of colonies, they prevent thousands of climate changing insects from being born.


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Australia's New Conservation Discovery

Australian scientists are hoping to put their new discovery of untapped geothermal energy to use. Reports came out today that claim the unused geothermal energy could produce 26,000 years worth of clean electricity. The government announced Wednesday they would spend 50 million Australian dollars to help develop this new potential goldmine.

The project involves converting geothermal energy into base-load electricity. Water would be pumped out of the ground, where it would be heated. The heated energy would be used to generate power. Geoscience Australia has mapped out the nation’s geothermal energy by using “temperature recordings from decades of drilling by energy and exploration firms, sometimes a depth of five kms.” (Three miles) Over 5,000 petroleum boreholes across the continent were used to conduct the map.

Australia, being the world’s largest coal exporter, uses it to generate about 77 percent of its electricity. The Australian government has plans to bring up the Aussie country’s renewable energy target to 20 percent by the year 2020.

“Geothermal energy which is sometimes known as hot rocks has got huge potential for Australia, both as a solution to climate change and in terms of national energy security,” Resource Minister Martin Ferguson said. (Michael Perry, Reuters)

Geoscience’s Anthony Budd told Reuters that “hot rocks” need to be 150 degrees Celsius to produce electricity. An Australian Geothermal Energy Association report forecasted this week claims the company could produce 2,200 megawatts of base-load power by 2020, bringing Australia’s renewable energy goal up to 40 percent. “Geothermal energy provides clean base-load power and is potentially a very important contributor to Australia’s energy mix in a carbon-constrained world,” Minister Ferguson said.

Since last November, Australia’s elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd won by promising to include the country in the Kyoto Protocol, whose goal is to “cut emissions by 60 percent of 2000 levels by 2050.”

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Pond Scum Solves Biofuel Dilemma

Scientists at the University of Virginia believe that algae may be the best answer to alternative fuel methods. Algae, otherwise known as pond scum, are comprised of little tiny “biological factories that use photosynthesis to transform carbon dioxide and sunlight into energy so efficiently that they can double their weight several times a day.” (ENN)

Algae can produce 15 times more oil per acre than other plants used for biofuels. It can grow in salt water, freshwater, and contaminated water, at sea or on ponds, and even on land not usually suitable for food production. The fungus can grow even better when fed too much carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. It also grows better when fed sewage. “If so,” University of Virginia report writes, “algae could produce biofuels while cleaning up other problems.”

Lisa Colosi, who is a professor of civil and environmental engineering, is part of the University of Virginia’s research team, which has been funded by a 3,000 dollar grant given from the new U.Va. Collaborative Sustainable Energy Seed. The team will try to decipher the true value of algae biofuel production. They hypothesize that by feeding the algae more carbon dioxide they could tentatively boost oil yield production by as much as 40 percent by weight. “The main principle of industrial ecology is to try and use our waste products to produce something of value,” Colosi said.

The U.Va team will experiment with only a few liters of algae to begin with. They will attempt to optimize the oil output by testing basic issues like whether or not it’s beneficial to grind up materials before feeding them to the algae.

If algae can indeed thrive within these means, a door will open to all kinds of ecological possibilities. For example, the new technology would help with wastewater treatment, “where dealing with solids is one of the most expensive challenges.” (ENN) It could even help reduce emissions of CO2, such as coal power-plant flue gas, “which contains 10-30 times as much carbon dioxide as normal air.”

If the team’s efforts prove successful, the group of three, including Mark White and Andreas Clarens, may be looking at even more grants from agencies like the U.S. Department of Energy.

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Elephant Seals Help Global Warming Scientists

By strapping sensors onto elephant seals, scientists are able to see what lies beneath sea ice.

"They have made it possible for us to observe large areas of the ocean under the sea ice in winter for the first time," said co-author Steve Rintoul from Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO).

Sea ice reflects sunlight back into space, so less sea ice means that the earth is absorbing more energy, causing more warming.

Sea ice also affects the amount of dense around the Antarctic, which in turn drives ocean currents that transports heat around the globe, in addition to providing a critical habitat for krill, penguins and seals.

The seals have already increased the available information by 30-fold, allowing scientists to more accurately calculate how rapidly sea ice forms during the winter months than by topical devices like monitoring from ships, satellites and drifting buoys alone.

"If we want to understand what's going to happen to climate in the future we need to know what the sea ice is going to do. Will there be more or less and will it form more or less rapidly?" Rintoul told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Both Polar Regions play an important role in controlling the earth’s climate, which is why it is critical to find out why the Southern Ocean is warming faster than the rest of the world’s oceans.

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Amazon Dispute Yet to be Solved

A recent debate has arisen in the Amazon recently, where construction was approved to build one of two dams planned within the giant rainforest. Environmentalists are worried the dams, Jirau and Santo Antonio, will flood up to 494,200 acres of land, “dramatically changing the ecosystem.” (Stuart Grudgings, Reuters)

But the Brazilian government sees the dams on the Madeira River as “crucial to prevent energy shortages in its fast growing economy over the next decade.” The Madeira river, which is the Amazon’s biggest tributary, would have 2 dams built within it for millions of dollars, allowing Brazil’s agriculture exports easier to manage. Brazil’s environmental minister, Carlos Minc, attached 40 provisions onto Monday’s approval of the installation of the Santo Antonio dam, which slowed the process down.

Environmentalists claim the government has not provided enough safeguards for this type of work. They claim that Minc is bluffing in his provisions act, “pretending his agency is demanding a lot of rigorous measures” Glenn Switkes said, Director for a California-based group that protects rivers and communities around them. Activists claim the dams violate the Equator Principles on project financing.

But the government has threatened to reopen the auctions or take over the two projects through “state-controlled generator Electrobas” if no agreement is reached soon. Conservationists at this point have failed to hold up licensing on their part, creating more friction between the two opposing parties.

But Erasto Almeida, an energy analyst at Eurasia Group in New York, played down threats of delay. “The Brazilian government really wants to get these projects done because of concerns about potential power shortages,” he said. He says there may be legal action but the two dueling sides will come to an agreement.

The Amazon has the highest biodiversity of fish and among the highest of birds in the world.

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EPA Says Biofuels Not Risky To Food Or Environment

The fight against global warming has taken several complex turns in recent months. Biofuels made from ethanol-based crops like corn emit zero carbon when burned, but compete with food supply already in crisis levels in many areas of the globe. Most recently the Environmental Protection Agency rejected a request to cut the quota for the use of ethanol in cars, boldly declaring that for the time being, the nation's reliance on oil outweighs any effect on food prices.

According to CNET news, EPA administrator, Stephen Johnson, said that the mandate was "strengthening our nation's energy security and supporting American farming communities," and that it was not causing "severe harm to the economy or the environment." The EPA may have formed their reasoning after concluding that 'only' 3.5 billion gallons of renewable fuel was used in 2004--mostly from ethanol, and that patterns over the past three years project a goal of 5.4 billion gallons by the end of 2008.

But are the EPA's claims entirely accurate? For right now it's difficult to say, but there is a lot of evidence coming from all sides offering a contrary view. Corn prices have risen steadily in recent years. Many farmers have attributed the rise to growing global demand for grain-fed meat, with many Asian countries like India and China consuming more meat products than ever before in history. Another study recently reported in the Guardian found that claim to be false. The World Bank conducted a confidential, and very damning assertion that studied the rises in global food costs on a month by month basis. Claimed as the first, in-depth study of the situation, it concluded that ethanol based biofuels were responsible for rising food prices up to 75%.

The Guardian wrote, "Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush."

America and several other wealthy European nations have downplayed the negative factors of biofuels, and rarely ever mentioned is the fact that harvesting them may actually create enough carbon emissions to negate their benefits as a clean fuel. The Searchinger study that appeared in the February 7, 2008 issue of Sciencexpress made one such claim. The study calculated it's findings based on an approximation of what would happen if corn ethanol production was six times greater that of today. It states that land converted to farming will release 25% of its soil carbon, an average of 351 metric tones per hectare. Based on this, researchers calculated that it would take 167 years to pay back soil carbon losses. This means that corn-thanol would emit double the greenhouse gases of gasoline over the first 30 years of production.

Even though the Searchinger study bases its findings on a hypothetical reality, it makes sense that ethanol production would increase by six times as it would most likely be necessary for biofuel mass-production.

It seems strange to me that the EPA would be ignorant of such studies. They might be catering to the private interests of the renewable energy industry, or they are gathering data from their own scientists who have yet to publish findings. Either way, the global food crisis is a serious issue, stirring violence in some of the poorest nations of the world and even affecting wealthier countries in subtle but growing ways. There's also the simple fact that technology, while it can create efficiency and wealth, is not detrimental to human survival, or even the quality of life--just ask the Amish, or even those who prefer books to video games. The day our cars become more important than our food will be the darkest day we've ever known.

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Ecoliteracy Brings Nutrition Back to the School Lunch Room

Alice Waters is a California culinary fixture. Back in 1994, she helped found a garden program at a Berkley area middle school, called the Edible Schoolyard.

The Edible Schoolyard program provides an educational connection for students to learn more about where there food comes from. They also learn about nutrition and how to make healthy choices as well as eat healthy food in the school’s lunchroom, which are grown right on campus, all of which are important tools for students to know in the growing fight against childhood obesity all over the nation.

The Center for Ecoliteracy has played an important role in developing a curriculum for children to learn more about their ecological impact and how it relates to their health and well-being. Core concepts of the program include: Networks, Nested Systems, Cycles, Flows, Development, and Dynamic Balance.

The Edible Schoolyard Program has grown exponentially from it start over a decade ago, which involved the collaborative efforts of one celebrity chef and the principal of a school. Since then, the school has built a full-time staff and the program has been replicated in schools around the country.

At the edibleschoolyard.org, you can find resources to start your own garden and ecoliteracy program at your local school.

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