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Aussie Sheep Wear Gas Masks

It sounds like a woolly idea, but Australian sheep are to be fitted with gas masks to find out how much they are affecting the climate.

From DailyMail:

Researchers will fit the masks over the sheep for a short time to obtain a reading from their breath so it can be established how much methane gas they are emitting. Read the entire article here...

Hurricane Ike Spilled 12,000 Barrels of Oil

Is Offshore Oil Worth the Risk?

From The Daily Green:

"At least 500,000 gallons of oil — nearly 12,000 barrels — spilled into the ocean and tidal wetlands along the Texas and Louisiana coasts after Hurricane Ike ripped up oil platforms, and ruptured tanks and pipelines, according to an Associated Press investigation. That's about 5% of the oil spilled due to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Read the entire article here...

Holy Hangover! Wine Bottles Cause Air Pollution

When a Wine Bottle Manufacturer Is Fined for Air Pollution, You Know There's More to Think About Than Red or White

From The Daily Green:

"Glass has a pretty good environmental reputation. The material is 100 percent recyclable and is used to make new glass.

While plastic gets plenty of grief for its environmental effects (um, see the large plastic creatures floating at sea), glass is often spared a tongue lashing.

But what about the production process? The EPA reports that the nation's second largest glass manufacturer, Saint-Gobain Containers, is facing a fine (again) for violating air pollution rules. Allegedly, the folks at Saint-Gobain's wine bottle manufacturing facility in Madera, California, have violated the federal Clean Air Act. Read the entire article here...

Ocean Pollution: Noise

From mental_floss

"It’s not so much that the noise we humans produce underwater is greater than what we produce on land, but that creatures of the sea are so much more sensitive to it..." Read the entire article here. 

Plastics in our Oceans

From the Ocean Watch Essays

"Imagine the massive breadth and spread of our great state of Texas. Now imagine every milli-inch of that piled high with trash: bottle caps, cigarettes, cigarette lighters, tampon applicators, plastic nets, discarded flip flops, Frisbees, soda bottles, milk jugs, diapers, six-pack rings, busted tennis rackets, empty pens, shampoo bottles, empty squeeze bottles of jam, you name it.  Now take that image, double it, and plunk into the water.  That’s what is floating around the eastern corner of a 10-million-square-mile oval known as the North Pacific subtropical gyre.  Nicknamed the “Eastern Garbage Patch,” this buoyant stew of toxic pollution—most of which is plastic—is only one of five such garbage heaps caught in the swirling high-pressure currents characteristic of gyres.  The others reside in the South Pacific, the North and South Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean. And each year, perhaps unwittingly, each one of us adds to plastic to the heap... Read More.

Green Basics by Treehugger

Treehugger has put together some very informative, yet to-the-point backgrounders on eco-related processes. Here are some of my favorites:

CFL Bulbs or Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs: Energy Savings, Mercury, Recycling and More

Hybrid-Electric Cars: How They Work, Battery Technology and More

Ethanol: How the Fuel is Produced, Growing Corn and Other Feedstocks, and More

Compost: How to Make It, Bins, Piles and More

Biodiesel: How It's Made, Environmental Impact, Where to Find a Fueling Station, and More

50 Techniques To Boost Your Gas Mileage

Submitted by Online University Lowdown

"Hypermiling" is the term for altering your driving habits in order to get the most miles per gallon of gas. Let's face it, gas prices are outrageous and the economy as a whole is being affected. If you are having trouble making ends meet and want to get the most out of your gas money, follow the 50 hypermiling tips below.

Before You Drive

There are a few things you can do before you start your drive that will aid your hypermiling. Follow the tips below.

1. Consider a Stick Shift - So few young adults even know how to drive a stick shift these days. However, a manual car allows you to shift more efficiently for hypermiling.
2. Trade in Your Whale - If you are driving a huge, gas-guzzling beast, then you should consider something smaller and more fuel efficient.
3. Lighten Your Load - Remove any heavy items from your car, particularly items in your trunk. This excess weight will slow you down and waist more energy.
4. Remove Luggage Racks - Anything on your roof will cause wind resistance, including the metal racks.
5. Keep Your Tank Half-Full - By keeping your tank full at all times, you are always carrying around extra weight. Sometimes, you can reduce 50-100 pounds by avoiding a full tank.
6. Comparison Shop - No, don't drive around town looking for the best prices. That wastes gas! Instead use an online guide to the cheapest fuel in your area.
7. Choose Gas Wisely - The cheapest gas may not be your best option for saving money. Conduct some research to determine what the proper grade is for your vehicle.
8. Fuel Up Early - It is believed that when you fuel up your car during the coolest part of the day, this prevents expansion and you will ultimately purchase more gas for your money.
9. Plan Your Route - Be smart in your driving by making a plan to avoid high-traffic, congested areas, as well as areas with a large fluctuation in speed limits.
10. Don't Top Off - By overfilling your gas tank, you may cause gas to spill out, thus losing more money.
11. Tune Up - Routine tune-ups and oil changes may help to prevent major engine and transmission issues that can affect your gas mileage.
12. Change Air Filter - When was the last time you changed out your air filter? This can greatly affect your gas mileage.
13. Check the Tires - Proper tire pressure can help you drive more effectively and save gas by preventing undo strain on your engine.
14. Save Fuel Receipts - By tracking your fuel consumption, you will learn what techniques works best for getting the most gas mileage.
15. Consider a Fuel Economy Monitor - Believe it or not, there are high-tech gadgets available that effectively track your fuel usage. Some people even build their own. Knowledge is power when hypermiling and every little bit helps.

General Driving Tips

These hypermiling tips are useful for any driving situation, regardless of location or weather.

16. Leave Early - In order to prevent both speeding and traffic, you should leave for your trip with plenty of time to spare. If you have normal office hours, try to beat morning traffic by an hour.
17. Drive Steady - Try to keep your car at a consistent speed. Unnecessary acceleration and late braking is both dangerous and fuel inefficient.
18. Pretend You're on a Bike - When you are bicycling, you coast down hills and conserve as much energy as you can while going uphill. Accelerate your car as if you are riding a bicycle.
19. Avoid 4-Wheel Drive - This function, although handy for getting you out of tough jams, uses a lot of gas. Try to avoid using 4-wheel drive as much as possible.
20. Avoid Aggression - Do not drive angry and do not try to keep up with those who are speeding. As a hypermiler, you must adopt a calculating, zen attitude about driving and leave the emotion at home.
21. Do Not "Rev" - Never "rev" your engine if you can help it. This just expends unnecessary gas.
22. Avoid Drive-Thrus - Avoiding these will improve your waistline and your bottom line. Drive-thrus require a lot of idling from your car. Just park and go into the restaurant if you must have fast food.
23. Keep Your Hands and Feet Still - The more you weave in and out of traffic or move your foot back and forth between the accelerator and brake, the more gas you waste.
24. Use Only the Right Foot - You should have learned this in Driver's Ed, but some people use both feet to pedal. This can cause you to hit the brake and accelerator at the same time, wasting gas.
25. Drive Barefoot - While you are technically not supposed to do this, some hypermilers feel it helps them to finely tune their car's braking and accelerating.
26. Ride the Wind - If you can find a good tailwind to plan your trip around, let the wind work to your advantage. Do not, however, tailgate a larger vehicle (also known as "drafting").
27. Keep it Under 40 - Whenever, possible, that is. Driving over 40 miles per hour pits your car against gas-guzzling wind resistance.
28. Turn of the A/C - While this isn't practical in some areas, turning off the air conditioner can save gas. If it is hot outside, try turning it off for only a few minutes at a time.
29. Avoid Rocky Roads - If you find yourself on a rocky road, you may be wasting gas. Seek out the smoothest surface possible to drive on.
30. Use Overdrive - If you have an automatic vehicle, that is.
31. Mind Your Fuel Cap - Many people lose gas from evaporation because their fuel caps are loose or missing.

City Driving

32. Keep Moving - While this isn't always advisable or safe, you should try to keep your car in constant motion while driving around the city. Avoid areas where you know there are lot of stop signs and traffic lights.
33. Pay Attention to Light Changes - You may wish to slow down for a red light ahead of time so that by the time you reach the car behind you, the light turns green and you don't have to stop completely. Do not do this if it holds anyone up behind you, of course.
34. Reduce Idle Time - If you must leave your car idling for several seconds or more, you can put your car in neutral and turn off the engine. This can be a bit dangerous in certain situations, however.

Highway Driving

35. Find a Slow Buddy - Amazingly, driving below or at the speed limit can sometimes get you run over on the highway. Find someone else who is driving as slow as you and get behind his or her car (at a safe distance, of course).
36. Do Not Speed - Not only will this save you money on citations, you will get more miles per gallon at 55 miles per hour than you will at 70 miles per hour.
37. Keep Your Windows Up - This reduces wind resistance and makes your car more aerodynamic.
38. Turn Off Your Lights - Granted, you should only do this when it is safe, but it can save gas on the highway.
39. Close the Sunroof - Yes, the weather might be beautiful, but high gas prices are not. Keep the sunroof closed at high speeds.
40. Set Cruise Control - Although this function can actually waste gas on hills, it is very useful for those of us with a naturally lead foot. If you can't keep yourself under a certain speed and you are on a somewhat flat road, set the cruise control.

Parking

Yes, even the way you park can affect your gas mileage. Below are few easy tips to follow.

41. Park Backwards - In other words, you should park so that you can drive away in the forward position, thus eliminating the need to use the reverse gear.
42. Park in the Shade - Parking in the shade keeps the inside of the car cooler and makes it easier to keep the air conditioning off. In older vehicles, parking in the shade will also reduce gas evaporation.
43. Time Your Departure - Do not start up your engine again until you have the opportunity to pull out and drive. Otherwise, you will idle.
44. Park Far Away - How much gas are you wasting at the mall or grocery store while driving around, searching for the closest spot? Just park the car and walk it -- you know you could use the exercise anyway.
45. Adjust While Parked - Don't wait until you start your engine to put on your seatbelt and adjust the seat and mirrors. This wastes unneeded gas.

Bad Weather

Driving conditions change during bad weather and so must your hypermiling techniques.

46. Avoid Driving in the Snow - Snowy roads are not only dangerous, they cause heavy resistance and will affect your fuel economy.
47. Use Snow Tires Wisely - If bad weather calls for snow tires and you have to travel, be safe and use them. However, be sure to remove them promptly when the weather clears.
48. Remove Ice from Car - Ice is heavy and can accumulate on your car quickly. Knock off any icicles in order to prevent more drag.
49. Don't Warm Up - Most cars today can start and drive in cold weather immediately. Therefore, you should just bundle up and leave rather than idling in the driveway until the car is warm.
50. Postpone Cold Trips - When your engine and tires are cold, they lose fuel efficiency. If you can help it, avoid trips in the cold.

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Fireworks: It's That Time Again!

From Treehugger

It's the time of year where, as regular as the Fourth of July, we point out that "fireworks are often propelled by gunpowder, and the accelerants and heavy metals used for coloration can leave traces in the air and water for days or even weeks after the party is over." and "fireworks heavily contribute to perchlorate contamination of surrounding water bodies. Perchlorate is well-known to pose risks for both human health and wildlife." The EPA studied a lake in Oklahoma last year and found that within 14 housrs of the fireworks display, perchlorate levels were 1000 times higher than background. (Perchlorate inhibits the workings of the thyroid gland).

While LiveScience reports that there is progress in replacing perchlorate with nitrogen compounds and nitrocellulose, there is still the residue from the colouring agents, made from lovely heavy metals like strontium, barium and copper. We asked last year: It is all very pretty, but is it a celebration of the birth of a country or is it an excuse to blow things up?

This deserves a poll, below the fold.

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Bottled Water Boiling Point

From Yahoo News

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A debate over water is boiling over in the United States and elsewhere amid growing environmental concerns about bottled water and questions about safety of tap water.

The US Conference of Mayors in June passed a resolution calling for a phasing out of bottled water by municipalities and promotion of the importance of public water supplies. While largely symbolic, the vote highlighted a growing movement opposing regular use of bottled water because of its plastic waste and energy costs to transport drinking supplies.

Janet Larsen, director of research at the Earth Policy Institute, cites a "backlash against bottled water as more people are realizing what they get out of the bottles is not any better than what they get out of the faucet."

The Pacific Institute, a California think thank on sustainability issues, contends that producing bottles for US water consumption required the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil in 2006, not including the energy for transportation. The group says bottling water for Americans produces more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide and consumes three liters of water for each liter of bottled water produced.

The debate in the US mirrors that taking place worldwide in places such as Paris; Liverpool, England; Florence, Italy; Vancouver, Canada. According to the EPI, the issue making waves among policymakers in locations including Denmark and New South Wales, Australia, among others. The backlash comes even amid surging sales of bottled water in the United States. Some of this is linked to concerns about contamination of public water supplies, although critics of the industry say marketing hype is a greater factor.

Aficionados of Evian from France or Fiji from the South Pacific swear by the taste and health benefits of those waters, but others decry the high cost of energy for a product that may not be any better than local water.

A Natural Resources Defense Council concluded that "most of the tested waters were found to be of high quality (but) some brands were contaminated." The group said bottled waters "are subject to less rigorous testing and purity standards than those which apply to city tap water."

In fact, says the group "about one-fourth of bottled water is actually bottled tap water" while government rules "allow bottlers to call their product 'spring water' even though it may be brought to the surface using a pumped well, and it may be treated with chemicals."

Americans drank about 8.8 billion gallons (33 billion liters) of packaged water in 2007, or 15 percent of their total liquid intake, according to the Beverage Marketing Corp. Per capita bottled US water consumption is up to 29 gallons (109 liters) per year, from 20 gallons in 2002. The US is the largest consumer of bottled water, but on a per capita basis it ranks far behind Italy, the leader which consumes nearly twice as much, and others such as the United Arab Emirates, Mexico and France.

Advocates of bottled water they the industry is being used as a scapegoat. Kevin Keane of the American Beverage Association said the mayors' resolution was "just cynical politics. It's like being against rope until you need a lifeline."

Keane says the bottled water industry is needed for communities hit by floods or other natural disasters and compromised municipal water systems. Bottled water "is convenient and a good tasting beverage, especially in this day when you have fewer water fountains and even when you have them, people are skeptical about using them."

Beyond questions of safety and environment, some activists say the bottled water industry is seizing a public resource. In the northeast state of Maine, a battle is brewing over access to a large aquifer by Poland Spring, a large US bottler owned by Swiss-based Nestle.

"Nestle's water grab is ruining streams, ponds, wells and aquifers," said Judy Grant of the activist group Corporate Accountability.

"Nestle's practices are raising serious questions about who should be allowed to control water, our most essential resource, and to what end."

The mayors, meeting in Miami, approved a resolution proposed by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom along with 17 other large-city mayors to redirect taxpayer dollars from bottled water to other city services. Joe Doss, president and chief executive of the International Bottled Water Association, an industry group based near Washington, said it was "unfortunate this is turning into a tap water versus bottled water debate."

Doss said most people drink both and that in many cases bottled water is a healthy replacement for sweetened or carbonated drinks. The IBWA says the industry uses less than one percent of groundwater supplies and produces only a tiny fraction of greenhouse gases. According to Doss, water bottles represent a tiny fraction of plastic waste that even if not recycled, and that any effort to improve recycling should cover all industries, not just bottled water.

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Arctic Meltdown

New evidence suggests that the Arctic ice cap could disappear in summer within the next five years, leaving environmentalists in despair but oil men delighted.

From Timesonline

When Marika Holland announced the imminent demise of the Arctic ice cap 18 months ago, she was worried.

Her findings, based on predictions from one of the world’s most powerful super-computers, had been double-checked and peer-reviewed – but they still seemed extreme.

“We were suggesting the Arctic ice cap could disappear in a few decades,” said Holland, a senior researcher at America’s National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. “We were confident of our methods but it still felt very dramatic.”

What Holland and her colleagues from the University of Washington and McGill University in Canada had done was analyse the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the Arctic – and predict that its summertime ice cap could vanish by 2040.

The corollary was that in the longer term it could vanish in winter too. Future explorers would have to use boats rather than sleds.

The idea that the Arctic ice might shrink had been around for a long time but the suggestion that it could disappear, and so quickly, caused a storm.

Pretty soon the climate change sceptics were at work. Holland and her colleagues, they pointed out, had based their work on a computer model – and such models were hardly accurate enough to predict more than a few days of weather. How could they make predictions over decades?

Within just a few months, however, Holland’s findings were borne out even more dramatically than anyone could have expected.

Each year scientists use satellites to measure the area of the Arctic ice cap as it grows and shrinks with the seasons. In winter it normally reaches about 5.8m square miles before receding to about 2.7m square miles in summer.

Last summer, however, things suddenly changed. For day after day the sun shone, raising water temperatures by 4.3C above the average. By September the Arctic ice cap had lost an extra 1.1m square miles, equivalent to more than 12 times the area of Britain.

The melting reduced the summer ice cover to just 1.6m square miles, 43% less than in 1979 when accurate satellite observations began. It left so much open sea that the Northwest Passage, the fabled link between Asia and Europe, became navigable.

For Holland and her team the great melt prompted a great rethink. Their predictions seemed to be coming true, but far earlier than expected. Why?

Holland now wonders whether she and her colleagues had been “too conservative” in their published report.

When they looked at their models again, they found the events of 2007 had indeed been predicted. “We had said this melting process was likely to start around 2025 but the models also showed that there could be periods of very rapid ice melt much earlier,” she said. “Some even showed that the summertime ice cap could start to vanish by 2013.

“Now we are wondering if that is what is happening now. If it is, then the summertime ice cap may never recover and by 2013, or sometime soon after, it could be gone.”

If Holland is right, then the destruction of the Arctic ice cap could become the first great global warming disaster. Why is it happening so fast? And how will it affect the rest of the world?

At the heart of the melting in the Arctic is a simple piece of science. Ice is white, so most of the sunlight hitting it is reflected back into space.

When it melts, however, it leaves behind open ocean which, being darker, absorbs light and so gets warmer. This helps to melt yet more ice. It means that beyond a point, the ice cannot recover. The process keeps accelerating until there is no more ice to melt.

Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at Cambridge University, has been watching this process for two decades, making trips under the polar ice cap in a Royal Navy submarine equipped with radar that can measure the thickness of the ice. Over that period the average thickness has fallen by 40%.

Professor Mark Serreze, from the University of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data Centre, who works with Holland, believes that this latest thinning represents a significant change in the destruction of the ice cap. “The key new idea is that as the ice thins it reaches a point where it becomes very vulnerable. It gets so thin that it can get broken up or just melt away very easily. Once that happens it could be very hard for it ever to recover, especially if we get more hot summers. This year is going to be crucial.”

There is some faintly good news. The melting of the Arctic ice cap will not, for example, cause a rise in sea levels – because it is already floating.

In the short term there may even be some economic opportunities. Already the possibility of new shipping routes, as well as access to the wealth of oil and other mineral resources thought to lie under the seabed, has fuelled a flurry of claims and counterclaims from the nations bordering the Arctic.

Russia has been among the most active. Last August it sent a mini-submarine to the seabed to plant a national flag directly on the North Pole. Scientists from Denmark are mapping the seabed around Greenland, a Danish dependency.

Last August, Stephen Harper, the Canadian prime minister, announced plans for an Arctic military training facility and a deep-water port in the Northwest Passage. America has sent armed coastguard cutters to patrol the waters it claims off Alaska.

All are studying the underwater geology to try to increase their claims. Under international law countries have exclusive economic rights to the sea within 200 nautical miles of their coast. If, however, they can prove that the continental shelf extends beyond that limit, the rights can stretch to 350 nautical miles.

Such an extension could be lucrative. The oil and gas fields in the Arctic ice cap are estimated by some geologists to contain very large reserves.

Others have a different dream for a warmed-up Arctic – as a new cradle of civilisation. Trausti Valsson, professor of environmental planning at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik, believes that as rising temperatures make many lower latitudes uninhabitable, so the lands around the Arctic will evolve into “the new Mediterranean”, with towns and cities springing up in Arctic Canada, Alaska and Siberia.

Such a scenario may seem unlikely now but an ice-free Arctic would have many attractions – not least being the Northwest Passage itself, which would immediately cut 5,000 miles from shipping routes between Europe and Asia via the Suez canal and whose development would prompt pressure for new ports along Canada’s northern coast.

However, most climate researchers view such thinking with despair. “It is a great irony,” said Serreze, “that the melting of the ice cap could give us access to yet more fossil fuels that will accelerate climate change even further.

Read more on Timesonline

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