environmentalism

The report, issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, the United States Geological Survey and other agencies, is one of a series examining the potential effects of a rising sea level on the nation's coasts.

The rise in sea level is accelerating, the report said, because warmer water occupies more space and because of runoff from melting inland glaciers and ice sheets. The Middle Atlantic States are particularly vulnerable because the rates of rise are "moderately high" there, the region is subject to storms, it is densely populated and much of its infrastructure is in low-lying areas.

The report, which is available at climatescience.gov, says that in the 20th century, rates of erosion in the region varied from 2.4 millimeters to 4.4 millimeters a year, or about a foot over 100 years. In the future, the report said, "it is virtually certain" that coastal headlands, spits and barrier islands will erode faster than they have in the past.

As a child growing up in Connecticut, I visited the Bronx Zoo at least five to ten times a year.It was my Disney World and science classroom rolled into one and it inspired a lifelonglove of zoology that led directly (eventually) to ZooBorns .Therefore it was with extremeconcern that I learned of Governor Paterson's proposal to cut funding for New York zoos, aquariums and botanic gardens from $9 million to $4 million in 2009 andcut funding entirely by 2010.

The Governor's plan is to focus funding on "capital initiatives that provide ongoing environmental benefits" rather than "annual operating support" to organizations. I believe the rationale behind this approach to be deeply flawed. Zoos and aquariums communicate the importance of conservation ina tangible way that environmental engineering projects simply cannot. What is more, they reach a far larger and more diverse audience, including millions of children, sowing the seedsofconcern for the living world around us. Essentially whatthese institutions provide is education inits most captivating and inspiring form. I can think of no more worthwhile investmentfor "ongoing environmental benefits" than the education provided by the Wildlife Conservation Society - the umbrella organization for the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, and New York Aquarium.

The Governor's office can be emailed here: http://161.11.121.121/govemail

Tim DeCristopher, an environmental activist, walked into a federal drilling auction and placed a bid of $45,000 for the drilling rights on 22,500 acres of land with no intention of ever drilling on it. His hope is that incoming the Obama administration will withdraw the parcels from auction, because if forced to, he will have to raise the money or face prosecution.

Well, the money has been raised, but the Bureau of Land Management has said it's too late for him to make the down payment because the deposit was due immediately, after last month's auction.

See Tim DeChristopher's homepage for more information and to help out.

President-elect Barack Obama pledges to put a lot of emphasis not only on reinvigorating science, but on making decisions that are grounded in science. As promised, I'm going to seek answers from his environmental and science team to the questions that received the most reader recommendations. Here are the top 10 (actually, 11 because of a multiple tie):

Physicists seldom allow students in their courses to escape without understanding and being able to perform calculations pertaining to energy. Outside of science circles, however, "energy" generally refers not to an overall conserved quantity but rather to the large-scale conversion of stored energy into electricity, locomotion, or manufacture. Physicists have much less contact with the conversion aspect of energy, though it is tremendously important to society.

Two hundred years ago, the ability to harness energy helped stimulate an industrial revolution that was accompanied by an explosion of agricultural productivity, human population, and economic growth. But human society has never before experienced energy availability at today's scales--each year some 4×1020J is converted for human activity. About 85% of that energy derives from the use of fossil fuels. At some point in the near future, humankind must necessarily see a declining annual availability of fossil-fuel resources, given their finite nature and geological limitations to the rate of their extraction. That decline will be most sharply felt for petroleum, but it is also relevant for natural gas, less so for coal. The disappearance of global resources that are so important to our way of life is unprecedented. We have little choice but to adapt by reducing demand, migrating to alternative energy resources, or, very likely, employing a combination of both strategies.

It was with those concerns in mind that I decided to explore the practical side of photovoltaic energy: In 2007 I built a PV system to power my living room. Though reasonably well informed on the semiconductor physics of PV junctions, I felt unsuitably prepared to evaluate the practical realities of owning and operating a personal solar PV system. Because I believe physicists can play a role in our energy future that extends beyond the confines of advanced research, I want to share my experiences in the hope that others might develop home PV projects. What better way to motivate innovation in the alternative-energy sector than to get a talented pool of physicists engaged on a personal level?

President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who heads the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, to be the next energy secretary, and he has picked veteran regulators from diverse backgrounds to fill three other key jobs on his environmental and climate-change team, Democratic sources said yesterday.

Obama plans to name Carol M. Browner, Environmental Protection Agency administrator for eight years under President Bill Clinton, to fill a new White House post overseeing energy, environmental and climate policies, the sources said. Browner, a member of Obama's transition team, is a principal at the Albright Group.

Obama has also settled on Lisa P. Jackson, recently appointed chief of staff to New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine (D) and former head of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, to head the EPA. Nancy Sutley, a deputy mayor of Los Angeles for energy and environment, will chair the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

The episode in question is from the 2nd Season and is called "The Golden Violin," and the scene I'm talking about isn't really very important to the episode, but it struck me as wrong, wrong, wrong (me being a product of early 80s schooling where littering will land you in, or around, the lowest depths of the netherworld). Don, Betty, and the kids have just finished a family pic-nic in the park. As they get ready to return home, Don downs the last of his beer and chucks the empty can into the grass. Betty cleans off the pic-nic blanket by shaking all of the trash onto the ground. They all return to the car and drive away.

I know that Mad Men prides itself on being a faithful representation of the early 60s (font choices notwithstanding), so I'm curious if blatant littering, like it appears in this episode, was common practice back then?

The Mayans and Egyptians constructed incredible feats of architecture able to weather the test of time, but they had no idea their pyramids would inspire the shape of the latest carbon-neutral super-structure to hit Dubai. Dubai-based environmental design firm Timelinks recently released some eye-catching renderings of the gigantic eco pyramid - aptly named Ziggurat - with plans for its official unveiling scheduled for the Cityscape Dubai event which runs October 6-9 of this year. The ginormous pyramid will cover 2.3 square kilometers and will be able to sustain a "community" of up to 1 million.

I hate to be a downer, but the amount of power solar cells provide is a couple orders of magnitude off from what you need to power a vehicle. Think charging your iPod, not your Prius.

A bit of envelope math...

So a good days' charge will provide you with a little less than 8 minutes' worth of freeway travel. Much less if you're not using cruise control @ the speed limit.

I haven't checked into it, but I think a car needs more than 10 horsepower to maintain a highway speed.

About a year ago, while at a supermarket -- can't remember which -- I read a thought-provoking sign that was posted at the check-out counter. In essence, it said the store was using only plastic bags.

On the surface, that seemed to be very environmentally unfriendly. But the sign went on to explain a rationale that hadn't occurred to me until then, asserting that the energy and exhaust fumes expelled to transport the same number of paper bags outweighed the fact that plastic wasn't biodegradable. Paper bags take up more space and require more trucks for transport, so the store believed it was lessening its carbon footprint by using plastic.

It got me thinking, so I looked into it a bit further. According to the Society of Plastics Industry, it requires 400 percent more energy to manufacture a paper bag than a plastic one. And while paper bags are compostable and biodegradable, they also cost the world trees, potentially increasing greenhouse gasses. (I say 'potentially' because if the trees used are from paper farms and were planted only for the purpose of being cut down, then those wouldn't factor in here.)