Air Pollution: Anathema To COVID 19 Sufferers?

Given that they already have compromised respiratory systems, does COVID 19 sufferers in cities with high levels of air pollution more likely to die that their counterparts in clean air locales?

By: Ringo Bones

Public health policymakers have been warning us for decades that polluted air is a serious threat to people with compromised respiratory systems – like ones suffering from asthma and related preexisting chronic lung conditions. Since the year 2000, about a million people die annually in Mainland China’s urban centers where the air quality falls far below the acceptable guidelines set by the World Health Organization. But since the advent of the COVID 19 pandemic, does polluted air spell the death knell to COVID 19 sufferers?

A recently published research from the Harvard University School of Public Health shows that COVID 19 sufferers living in cities with severe levels of air pollution are more likely to die than ones living in regions with much cleaner air. Even though pollution levels in cities have declined since lockdown measures were enforced. Polluted cities COVID 19 death rates are up to a third higher compared to cities with cleaner air and stricter enforced clean air policies.

Given that the Trump administration had rolled back the EPA’s Clean Air Act back in 2017, the increased levels of COVID 19 deaths in the United States could be attributable to increased pollution levels in major metropolitan areas. The Harvard study now highlights the importance of effectively enforced clean air laws when it comes to formulating public health policy.

COVID 19 Lockdown: Good For The Environment?

Given that the COVID 19 pandemic has disrupted life around the world, does the resulting carbon dioxide emission drops spell good news for the environment?

By: Ringo Bones

The resulting lockdown of the COVID 19 pandemic was seen to have resulted in the largest drop in emissions in recent years and also probably the most fitting way to celebrate the 50^th Anniversary of the very first Earth Day. But sadly the disruption only results in a tiny drop of the overall concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because of how long the gas effectively lingers. The current carbon dioxide concentration in our atmosphere now stands at 418 parts per million and according to climate experts, this needs to stay at 350 parts per million to avoid a runaway global warming.

It was estimated that for the entire 2020, the carbon dioxide emissions could be down by 6-percent compared to previous years but according to experts, we need an annual reduction of 7.5-percent to reach the 350 parts per million targeted by 2050 in order for catastrophic climate change to be avoided. Still, according to energy and climate expert Constantine Samaras, the message is clear: Just because this devastating pandemic has only a small impact on today’s atmospheric carbon dioxide levels doesn’t mean the climate crisis is lost.

Can Old Mattresses Be Used To Grow Food?

It may sound so unbelievable at first, but are old mattresses the secret to growing food-crops in the most challenging of environments?

By: Ringo Bones

Until recently, the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks about old mattresses is our looming solid waste landfill problem, but a team of scientists from the University of Sheffield are turning old discarded mattresses into “foam soils” that allows any prospective farmer to grow food-crops in the most challenging of environmental conditions. The team of scientists managed to successfully grow tomatoes and other vegetables in a Syrian refugee camp located in the Jordanian desert – an environment that’s so challenging when it comes to growing food-crops – using disused mattresses formerly owned by the refugees themselves. The idea first came to one of the scientists witnessing a few tomato plants managing to grow in the Syrian refugee camps’ discarded mattress dump despite only receiving scant desert level rainfall during the past few years.

The chopped-up mattress material is put into waste containers along with a nutrient mix. Seedlings are planted straight into the foam, which supports the plant’s roots as it grows. This method of growing crops uses up to 80-percent less water than planting into soil, the scientists claimed, and does not require the use of pesticides. It looks like a version of low-cost hydroponics was discovered by accident in a Syrian refugee camp in the middle of the Jordanian desert.

If it works in other challenging environmental conditions, “foam-soils” based hydroponics could not only alleviate the problem of disposal of old and disused mattresses, but also could minimize the food logistics of humanitarian relief organizations. Imagine if most of the food requirements of a refugee camp are grown in situ via foam soils hydroponic – as opposed to being either flown in or shipped in. Not only proving helpful in alleviating a pressing humanitarian crisis, but also a pressing environmental problem as well. 

Greta Thunberg As Time Magazine’s Person of the Year: A New Hope For Environmentalism?

Despite of Donald trump and scores of climate change denying heads-of-state, is the choosing of a 16 year old Swedish environmental activist as Time magazine’s Person of the Year represent a new hope for environmentalism?

By: Ringo Bones

I’m always reminded of that quote by Robert Frost on when I was young my teachers were old but the older I get, the younger my teachers had become. And while the 16 year old Swedish environmental activist named Greta Thunberg has been telling us this year t start panicking, sadly, I’ve been panicking for the last 30 years – from the murdering of Amazon rain forest anti deforestation activists with impunity since the late 1980s to Operation Desert Storm, the original blood for oil incident and in recent years the election of Donald Trump and scores of climate change denying heads of state around the world, it seems that environmental activism had became a lost cause since 2016, but does the choosing of Greta Thunberg as Time magazine’s Person of the Year represent a new hope of environmentalism especially when it comes to tackling climate change?

Given the recent political deadlock of COP 25 in Madrid where the now AWOL Australian PM Scott Morrison apparently managed to make the ongoing brush fires in Australia a non-issue, it seems that panicking when it comes to environmental issues is not an irrational move. But let us not forget that Greta Thunberg’s environmental activism for the year 2019 alone had managed to shake the world’s climate change denying heads of state – especially Donald Trump who had managed to go out of his way to pick a Twitter fight with 16-year-old Greta Thunberg while embracing wholeheartedly every elected mass murderer on the planet. Has America just elected history’s greatest shame?

Sulfur Hexafluoride: Clean Power Generation’s Dirty Little Secret?

Often used in science shows to lower the pitch of the human voice, is sulfur hexafluoride the clean power industry’s “dirty little secret” because it is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide?

By: Ringo Bones

Ever seen those science shows on TV – now mostly on You Tube – where the presenter uses a gas called sulfur hexafluoride to lower the pitch of their voices like the opposite of what helium does? Well, unfortunately, sulfur hexafluoride unbeknown to many of us, is a very dangerous greenhouse gas – as in it possesses 23,500 times the atmospheric warming power of carbon dioxide and could exacerbate the effects of global warming. Atmospheric scientists had found out that concentrations of sulfur hexafluoride in our atmosphere had been increasing during the past five years. But given it is a very potent greenhouse gas, why is sulfur hexafluoride relatively widely available that science show presenters can casually use it in a demonstration to lower the pitch of their voices?

Due to the recent rush to wean our reliance on fossil fuels in industrial electrical power generation – namely wind turbines, sulfur hexafluoride is a necessity when it comes as fire suppressant in large-scale electrical distribution systems – i.e. high capacity circuit breakers and relays. Given that the alternatives are more damaging to the ozone layer – like the chlorofluorocarbon based Halon –or prohibitively expensive when use in the scale we currently use – i.e. the inert gas argon, it seems that the electrical power industry must now find ways to minimize the leaking of large amounts of sulfur hexafluoride into the atmosphere. Worst still, like most petrochemical derived plastics, sulfur hexafluoride doesn’t break down easily in nature.

Given that the electrical power industry now has notice on the potential problems posed by unnecessary leaking into the atmosphere of sulfur hexafluoride, the due diligence doesn’t solely fall on them. Back in the 1990s, sulfur hexafluoride was used to fill the cushioning bubbles of running shoes and who knows what other consumer products, making a renewed regulation of sulfur hexafluoride throughout the various industries somewhat of an uphill battle. Maybe science show presenters must now find other more earth-friendly alternative gas to be used in demonstrations to lower the pitch of their voices. Maybe the argon gas production industry could pitch in?

Trump Rolls Back Endangered Species Act: One Giant Step Back For Environmentalism?

If his prison for migrant children wasn’t already reprehensible enough, does President Trump rolling back the Endangered Species Act in the name of economic concerns a death-knell for American biodiversity?

By: Ringo Bones

Back in Monday, August 12, 2019, the Trump Administration announced it has finalized a controversial rollback of protections for endangered species, including allowing economic factors to be weighed before adding an animal to the list. Putting money before the environment – what could be more morally reprehensible – Donald J. Trump Prison For Migrant Children perhaps or declaring Mexican Americans as “invasive species”?

The Interior Department regulations would dramatically scale back America’s landmark conservation law , limiting protections for threatened species, how factors like climate change can be considered in listing decisions and the review process are approved on their habitat. This is tantamount to the Trump Administration letting GOP Rep. Steve King rape Mother Nature in front of John Muir.

The Endangered Species Act was first passed in 1973 and is considered a success globally, surpassing protections for flora and fauna in many other countries. Environmentalists see it as one of America’s premier environmental laws. Looks like this is another decent legislation from the Nixon era that would be gutted by the Trump Administration’s so called Hitlerian policies.

Air Travel Carbon Offsetting: Making Civil Aviation More Environmentally Friendly?

Even though less than half of the world’s airlines offer carbon offsetting, does the practice really offer genuine environmental benefits?

By: Ringo Bones

With our global climate about to reach the point of no return when it comes to the ongoing climate change issue, it seems that every possible scheme has been on offer by every commercial and industrial sector to save us from climate catastrophe. Even though the airline industry forms just 2-percent of overall man-made green house gas emissions, it has become one of the most criticized for not doing enough to clean up its act. So clean up it did. One of these schemes is called carbon offsetting, but does it really work? But first, here’s a brief primer on carbon offsetting.

Carbon offsetting is the process of compensating for greenhouse gas emissions through schemes that are designed to make corresponding reductions in emissions from other parts of the economy. From donating to wind farms to replanting or protecting parcels of forest in at-risk areas, these offset programs offer a diverse amount of options for air travelers. Whilst it seems a fairly straightforward system that ensures you are making the sustainable decision transport-wise, it has drawn a fair share of condemnation from environmentalists.

On delving deeper into the definition of carbon offsets, it becomes clear why airline offset schemes have become controversial. Balancing the carbon dioxide emitted by your air travel through the planting of several trees in South America does not involve the solitary act of placing a tree in the soil. In order to plant the trees, there are several steps. Firstly, the trees must be bought from a supplier, transported to a warehouse before being driven out to the tree planting site that also needs to be prepared prior to the tree seedlings being planted – all of these actions produce their own share of carbon dioxide emissions, which are not always taken into account. If your tree planting offset scheme produces more carbon dioxide emissions than your flight – or by not buying any emissions offset at all – then it is really not an offset. Would spending the carbon offset funds by paying off persons who own large track of forested land to not allow their property to be developed into a residential neighborhood or an industrial farmland be a more low-carbon solution?