Back on April 5th 2009 a “New York City” sized “chunk” of the Wilkins Ice Shelf (in Antarctica) broke off and floated away. That amounts to nearly 270 square miles of ice that dispersed.

However, don’t panic…this ice came from ice shelves that were already floating in the ocean (sea ice). That means the ice was already displacing the water. You should NOT expect the volume of water that this large amount of sea ice contains to make any substantial impact in rising sea levels.

Discover more: a few ice cubes and place them in an empty glass. Fill it to a desired level and mark the water level with tape or a marker. Wait for the ice to melt. And, bingo…that is a crude example of what generally takes place in the above event.

So, what are the greatest influences of rising ocean water levels? I am so glad you asked.

1. The retreat (melting) of land ice (glaciers) and
2. Thermal Expansion (water takes up more space as it gets warmer).

P.S. the impact this has on changing the ocean’s salinity is a good topic for another time.

Bookmark It

To bag, in this sense of the word, is to keep. It is amazing how many uses you can find for something. In this entry I wanted to share 10 ways you can reuse a paper bag and extend its usable life-cycle. That is, until you recycle it and start the process over again.

So here it goes……

1.  Take it with you the next time you get take out. I have been guilty of watching employees of my favorite food establishments filling a paper bag (yes and sometimes plastic) with a to-go meal for the family, or just me. Now, I take a medium-sized paper bag with a handle on it. It works great.  Of course, plan ahead if you picking up food for a large group. Hey, it works great for other shopping runs too.

2.  Protect your paperbacks (and other books too). Some do it only to protect their borrowed school books from damage. Others do it to show off their artistic creativity or both.  Reusing a paper bag to cover a book is a great way of extending its reusable life-cycle before being recycled again.

3. Wrap a present in style. Cut holes in it like Swiss cheese, paint it, draw on it, or leave it plain. There are many possibilities. I made a pirate map on a paper bag, crumpled it up to give it an aged look, included a birthday wish on the paper, and wrapped the gift with it. You save money on paper, a card, and resources too.

4. The grocery/shopping bag that keeps on giving. Well, this one is obvious and helps my list get to 10. Reusing and recycling a paper bag can eliminate the possibility of it ending up in landfills that already receive a ridiculous amount of paper. According to Environmental Paper Network: “Approximately 40% of the municipal waste stream is paper and paper products.”

5. Countless craft projects. Make a kite, cut out snowflakes, a hat, and puppets, create holiday decorations, or use it as bark for that tree you are making for your school play. What have you seen done?

6.  Contain your recycled paper. On trash/recycling day I see, and pick up, a lot of paper that gets blown out of recycle bins. An easy solution, use a paper bag to hold smaller pieces of recycled paper products so they don’t become an eyesore and make it to the recycling center.

7. Protect your floor or counter. This reuse and then recycle trick works best with dry spills. You can cut open a bag and place it on the counter or use as a doormat.  The paper can catch the loose stuff and can then be easily disposed of properly with little cleanup.

8.  Enjoy fruit faster. Is your local farmers market, or grocery store, out of fruit that is at the peak of your preferred ripeness?  A few fruits that ripen faster in a paper bag include plums, pears, bananas, nectarines, and peaches to name a few.

9.  Lists that last. Do you buy the same items at the grocery each time? Well, even if you don’t you can cut the bag into smaller pieces. Use the scraps as shopping lists (and reuse them) or write notes to family or friends.

10. Make your sales stand out. Many of you do a great job using old garage/yard sale signs for other events. Why paint over the old wording. A few paper grocery bags and some tape can recover the old sign for use again. Lemonade 25¢, Yard Sale this Sunday, Welcome Home, Happy Birthday, Go Cubs!!  — o.k. I think you get the point.

Bookmark It

A recent poll at planet-u.com asked how often folks run the water while brushing their teeth. The results:

• 55% – said they use it only to moisten and rinse
• 30% – run the water the whole time
• 10% don’t use water during this particular oral hygiene practice

Only around 1% of the earth’s water is drinkable. So it is no wonder why water conservation, as a whole, is a big deal. Congrats to the folks that use it sparingly in daily tasks like brushing teeth (at the least, Dentists feel it’s important to do daily).

I can sure spout out a bunch of ways of conserving water. But in this post I thought I’d soak up your suggestions. So, what are your ideas for water conservation?

A single faucet dripping 5 times a minute can add up to you paying for an additional 231 gallons of water per year. If a million households did that it would save 231,439,894 gallons of water per year.

I’d love to have you participate in the next poll. Check it out on the right side of the page here: planet-u.com

Bookmark It

Air pollution causes millions of deaths each year.  Three of the nastiest contributors of air pollution are Nitrogen Dioxide, Particulate Matter, and Sulfur Dioxide.

• Nitrogen Dioxide is a bi-product of mills, factories, and the gasoline-powered engines.
• Particulate Matter are the bits of soot, dust, pollen, etc. that floats around in the atmosphere. The source: organic and inorganic matter made airborne from construction, mills, factories, etc.
• Sulfur Dioxide is a bi-product of coal-powered factories or anything powered by gasoline. Manufactures use it in industrial processes including refrigeration, making chemical compounds and even used in bleaching processes.

See anything that keeps appearing in the description above? Yes, industrial emissions are a huge contributor. It may come as no surprise that many larger cities are some of the problem areas — especially those cities with lots of industrial complexes and those with lots of vehicle traffic. How do we know this? Well, we have the ability to test the air, use satellite imagery, and other technology to accurately measure and identify the largest concentrations of air pollution.

For example, in Beijing (home of this year’s Summer Olympics) the topic of air quality has been part of Olympic related news and highlights almost as soon as the  International Olympic Committee awarded Beijing the 2008 games all the way back in 2001. In fact, Beijing is one of the worst places you can be to compete or even be a spectator.  Some people joke about L.A., California being smoggy, but compare that city to Beijing.

According to the World Bank’s 2007 Pollution statistics, it is clear how Beijing stacks up against L.A. when looking at the “big three”. Beijing has:

• 64% more Nitrogen Dioxide than L.A.
• 161% more Particulate Matter than L.A.
• 900% more Sulfur Dioxide than L.A.

That’s 10 times as much Sulfur Dioxide…wow.  Of course, other factors contribute to air quality including VOCs, changes in temperature, lack of wind, etc.

The China Climate, Energy and Pollution Program and local government collaborated to help minimize pollution during the summer games. Have you seen video shots of the roads and traffic? City officials implemented a ban that decreased the amount of vehicle traffic by as much as 50%. They also shut down certain factories for a time to reduce the impact of the “big three”. Heck, they even have a system in place to induce rain by launching rockets containing silver-oxide to provide a catalyst for showers. Although I am not sure that is very safe, but it helps dissipate air pollution and cuts down on its stinky odor. Kudos for the efforts.

Now if countries like China could put that same momentum into implementing green programs and cleaner operating facilities…hmmm.  I am not knocking the green actions already underway, just pondering the point.

Bookmark It

Did you see or read “Back to The Future”? One of the characters, named Doc, fuels his flying car with banana peels, pop, etc. Are we there yet? No. However, alternative fuel sources like cellulosic ethanol may become more prevalent in the next few years. In fact, there are already several companies manufacturing it in the U.S.

What is cellulosic ethanol anyway? It’s a carbon-neutral biofuel (energy source) made from plants. Unlike corn-derived ethanol, it makes good use of the entire plant structure. That means we can make more ethanol when combining methods of corn and cellulosic forms. This can decrease our dependency on oil and increase the potential of a feed crop distributed for non-energy use (to feed the hungry for example).

How can that be possible? We don’t need to cut down trees and plant crops to get there. Think of all the people that have trees that have fallen in their area due to a storm. We can make them into ethanol. Believe it! Experts have spent at least a decade exploring the possibilities of harvesting source material. It is just a matter of identifying a cost-effective way of doing the gathering. Here’s a short list of material from which you make cellulosic ethanol:

• Perennial grass (lasts 2 growing seasons, or more, after harvesting)
• Scraps from sustainable logging practices and wood mills (wood chips)
• Corn stover (the leaves and stalks left over after harvesting the corn)
• Your tree trimmings and grass clippings
• Straw (stalks of cereal crops)
• Fast growing trees
• Rotten logs
• Hay

What are the benefits? It can lessen the demand on other biofuel sources like Palm Oil. Case in point, logging of rainforests in Borneo and Sumatra has threatened the habitats of, and members of, thousands of species including the orangutan. The methods of clearing include burning which releases CO2 only contributes to the stacking problem of global warming. Using alternative biofuel sources like cellulosic ethanol can help curb the demand on municipal solid waste plants by diverting material that would normally go there.

At what cost? America and other larger consumer countries have already had both a direct and indirect influence on third world countries by driving the demands of related biofuel exports. Will they just swap one product in demand for another? Furthermore, chemicals used in the making of such biofuels, and the manufacturing plants used to make them, need to be safer and greener than the alternative.

Cellulosic ethanol is just an example of where we can source biofuel. Other sources include algae, vegetable oil, and bagasse (the fiber/pulp left over in the process of turning sugarcane to sugar). Can you think of others?

Bookmark It