Sustainability Paying for Itself: International Biogas and UK Home-Grown Energy

by Martin Wright

In a small farm on the hills above Nairobi, a slender woman in a flower-patterned headscarf is gently, politely shattering myths. Standing among the fruit trees on her shamba (smallholding), Mary Waringa Nguku dispels two of the most common clichés trotted out about the developing world. First, that people in Africa and elsewhere are too busy worrying about day-to-day life to share the West’s obsession with forest loss or climate change. “We cannot trust the weather any more”, she tells me. “It doesn’t rain like it used to, and the rivers are drying out. We do not always have the water we need…The forests are less, so we are going short of wood and it is more expensive. That is why, when I saw the biogas at my brother’s farm, and he told me how much money he was saving, I really wanted to give it a try.”

That last remark gives the lie to the second myth: that sustainable solutions always cost more than unsustainable ones. Mary is among over 200 customers of Skylink Innovators, a local Kenyan company which is installing biogas energy plants in the nation’s schools and even two of its prisons. The plants use a mixture of cow dung and human waste to produce cooking fuel via a process of anaerobic digestion (AD). It’s a well-established technology which tackles several problems at once: it provides clean fuel in place of smoky firewood for cooking; it helps to reduce pressure on dwindling forests and cuts out the greenhouse emissions from burning wood; and it saves people money. Once the biogas plant is in place, there’s no need for firewood. Many farmers save at least as much again on chemical fertiliser, too, as the nutrient-rich residue from the digester does the job just as well. Most plants pay for themselves in a couple of years. All of which makes it a sound business prospect for the likes of Skylink’s founder, Samwel Kinoti. “My father was a pioneer of biogas on his farm, so I grew up with it. I saw the beauty of it, and I knew others would, too.”

It’s this combination of entrepreneurship and environmental good sense which has won Skylink one of the 2010 Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy, presented by David Attenborough at a ceremony in London. The Ashden Awards celebrate local sustainable energy success stories in both developing countries and the UK. In doing so, they echo and amplify Mary Waringa’s mythbusting, turning the pursuit of sustainability from something worthy into pure common sense.


The beauty of biogas is appreciated in Vietnam too – on an impressive scale. Here, Dutch development agency SNV is collaborating with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on a scheme to install 168,000 biogas digesters by 2012. Based on a hugely successful SNV program in Nepal, the project works with hundreds of masons across the country, training them to become self-employed biogas engineers. Anyone who’s eaten in a Vietnamese restaurant will know that pork plays a prime part in the country’s cuisine. It’s also at the heart of its biogas success: for thousands of pig farmers across the country, a biogas digester doesn’t just mean abundant cooking fuel in place of wood, coal or LPG. It’s also the perfect solution to the age-old problem of pig muck. Instead of (literally) shoveling the shit on an almost daily basis – which is just as unpleasant a task as it sounds – they simply sluice it down a hole in the pigsty and into the digester, where, by the miracle that is AD, it’s transformed into cooking gas.

“It’s so much quicker to cook meals now”, farmer Nguyen Van Vach told me, “and you don’t get smoke in your eyes the whole time… It’s a lot less smelly indoors and out – so I’m more popular with my neighbors!” As in Kenya, multiple benefits abound. “Before, we used to have to get rid of all the slurry, so we put it in the fishpond,” Nguyen explains. “But sometimes there was too much, the water turned black and the fish died. There’s no such problem with the purified residue from the biogas. On the contrary, it actually boosts production. Now the water stays clear and we’re selling around one-third more fish.”

A modest subsidy has helped the program take off, but increasingly the trained masons are simply selling directly to householders, who are eager to reap the benefits of biogas and unwilling to join the program’s waiting list: proof that, with the right technology, sustainability can pay for itself. Further evidence for that comes from Delhi, where solar start-up d.light has scored dramatic successes with its simple solar lanterns – over 220,000 sold worldwide in little over two years, almost all without any subsidy. Such rapid growth from a standing start belies another common charge leveled at sustainable energy: that it will struggle to reach scale. In Nicaragua, Ashden-winner TECNOSOL has sold everything from solar home systems, water heaters and pumps to solar fridges (vital for storing vaccines in areas without mains electricity), benefiting over a quarter of a million people. And in the far south of Brazil, the CRELUZ power co-operative has harnessed local rivers to provide clean, affordable electricity to over 80,000 of its members and their families.

In Uganda, by contrast, green energy is in its infancy. But it’s poised to grow fast, thanks to the efforts of another of this year’s Ashden winners, the Rural Energy Foundation. It’s aiming to kickstart a robust commercial market for solar power across the large swathes of countryside beyond the reach of reliable mains electricity. This means training local shopkeepers as expert solar vendors, helping them access and, in some cases, offer credit, and generally raising awareness of solar’s potential. As well as using familiar techniques like radio and newspaper ads, REF staff also adopt a more direct approach: standing on a corner in a busy marketplace with a portable power system, demonstrating solar’s potential to light a lamp, recharge a mobile – or even power a haircut or a shave.

In a ‘developed’ country such as the UK, of course, an electric shave is hardly novel. But as concerns over energy security and a looming ‘generation gap’ kick in, so the search for home-grown power is taking on a new urgency. It’s a quest taken to heart by the fiercely independent islanders on Eigg, off the west coast of Scotland. Having bought out a feudal landowner back in 1997, they’ve taken steps to green every aspect of island life – culminating in the installation of their own renewable grid. Powered by a 100kW hydro turbine, a small wind farm and a solar PV array, it meets 90% of the island’s electricity needs. Home-grown energy is a winning theme in Suffolk, too, where the council is helping local schools switch from oil- to wood-fired boilers – with fuel sourced from the county’s own woodlands. It’s knocked a quarter off the schools’ heating budgets – and cut their carbon emissions by 90%. Two other schools – Okehampton College in Devon and St Columb Minor in Cornwall – won Ashden Awards for making dramatic savings in energy use and carbon emissions while inspiring the wider community to take action, too. Meanwhile, over in Northern Ireland, a local family plumbing and heating business, Willis Energy Systems, has been rewarded for its ‘Solasyphon’: a device which allows householders to retrofit a solar water heater, without going to the hassle and expense of installing a big new water tank.

Saving money as well as carbon is key to the success of Northwards Housing, which has given ‘whole house’ energy efficiency makeovers to 70% of north Manchester’s housing stock. “The house used to be an absolute nightmare, it was so cold”, recalls tenant Susan Savill. ”I even considered renting privately, but I’m glad I didn’t now, as it’s so good. Now we can just have the heating on for a couple of hours instead of all day long.” And, echoing Mary Waringa, she adds: “It’s definitely reduced the bills.”


Martin Wright is Editor in Chief, Green Futures.

This piece originally appeared in Green Futures. Green Futures is published by Forum for the Future, one of the leading magazines on environmental solutions and sustainable futures. Its aim is to demonstrate that a sustainable future is both practical and desirable – and can be profitable, too.

The Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy is a Forum for the Future partner.

Buddhist Chaplains Love the Gulf

from The Jizo Chronicles by Maia Duerr

Here’s the latest update from Penny Alsop, who I’ve mentioned and quoted several times before in The Jizo Chronicles.

Penny has initiated the “Chaplains Love the Gulf “ project and is coordinating a trip in August so that “the people and environmental region of the Gulf can receive the benefit of compassionate presence of a contingent of chaplaincy students.”  Penny took a scouting trip to Grand Isle, LA, this month to begin that work. This is her report.

_________________________________________

More Love

by Penny Alsop

This past weekend I set out for Grand Isle, LA to begin our project, to research some details and to see for myself how my beloved Gulf coast and the people of Louisiana are faring since oil has taken over their lives in this most despicable way.  Lives have been turned upside down, every which way and even those who are making good money like the three fellows I met from Texas who work twelve hours per day, in twenty minute intervals, in hazmat suits in the sweltering Louisiana sun to wash the oil off of boom, would much prefer to be at home with their families.

The fellow that I spoke to on Dauphin Island, AL, a supervisor for BP, said seeing the oil in the form of tar balls on that island is breaking his heart. He hoped it would move on somewhere else, pausing as he seemed to realize that if that were the case, someone else’s heart would be breaking, right along with his. Later that evening my waitress said that business was slower than usual and that there were no tourists at all on the island “since the oil”, but because there were so many workers there instead, she was still making fairly good money. When the workers leave, as she’s heard they soon will, it’s going to be different story entirely.

In Grand Isle, there are hundreds of people working to clean up this mess. And the National Guard. And humvees parked at brightly painted beach front houses. And backhoes and front end loaders just feet from the shoreline. Huge pieces of rough plywood, hand painted in tall black letters announce in no uncertain terms that the beach is closed. The local sheriff enforces this by parking himself next to the sign.

To cross the plastic orange construction fencing is a felony. Electric blue kiddie pools filled with chemicals meant to decontaminate boots exposed to oil I’m told, sit unsecured in front of the same fence. Dark clouds of ’something’ float in the salt water and huge swaths of black stuff has seeped into the sand. All visible only from a distance or from the one pier open in the state park. Small bands of workers scoop up three shovel fulls of blackened sand into plastic bags and toss them aside to be picked up and stacked in the plastic bag mountains at the staging area where huge white tents shelter hundreds of folding metal chairs.

My innkeeper tells me that she hasn’t been to the beach “since the oil”. She can’t bear to look. She’s more worried about the dispersant that is being sprayed each night. She wants to live a long life. She has grandbabies. Doreen greeted me with a tired, wary smile in a marina motel laundry room. No, she didn’t have any rooms available at the moment, maybe later in the month. Business is okay since lodging is at a premium but other people are losing their jobs.

The marina is silent. No boats coming in or going out except to handle boom. The port is closed. Tears fill her eyes when she says that she’s afraid of losing her job. “Thank you, baby” she says, as I hug her neck.
They man who is responsible for drilling the relief well, the one that will be used to plug the blown out well permanently, has a perfect record. He’s never missed a target, this mechanical engineer. He’s working with bore-hole uncertainty as he guides the drill. Bore-hole uncertainty means that one really doesn’t know for certain where the drill or the target is at any given time.

Wherever one may think that the drill is, is a momentary knowing. It can be displaced by unmapped and unanticipated obstructions, at any second. Reading the signals right in front of one’s face, in real-time and being able to choose the most appropriate path in response to the conditions at hand, is what’s called for. If one goes into this effort thinking that one knows what all the variables are, sure of one’s self, one is very likely to fail to hit the target.

No one wants this. No one would have chosen to have crude oil wash up on the beaches or engulf sea turtles, pelicans, shrimp and people’s lives. But here we are with no clearly identified enemy or single cause for this catastrophe. Instead there is layer upon layer of complexity; interwoven need and desire. It’s impossible to sort out where one starts and another leaves off. What is blindingly apparent is that this is an opportunity to look deep into each other’s eyes and proclaim as loudly or as quietly as the situation calls for, that I will not give up. I will not leave you to fend for yourself. I will not turn away. I will look to see what is needed and I will give that very thing.

For those of us who love the Gulf, this is our chance to love it and all her near and far inhabitants, all the more.

3 Smart Girlz is coordinating the deployment of a group of students from Upaya’s chaplaincy program to Louisiana the week of August 19 – 26th. They will be with some of the people hardest hit by the Deepwater Horizon disaster, bearing witness, serving in compassionate ways and with their presence. If you would like to participate, please contact penny (at) 3smartgirlz.com. If you would like to make a contribution to help offset the expenses of this trip, we gratefully welcome your partnership! You may send a check to 3 Smart Girlz, LLC, 400 Capital Circle SE, Suite 18154, Tallahassee, Fl 32301 or use the Paypal button here. Partner contributions are used 100% directly on expenses incurred by the chaplains.

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Rough weather curtails some Gulf cleanup work

By TOM BREEN (AP)

NEW ORLEANS — Cleanup crews across the Gulf of Mexico surveyed damage done by last week's hurricane while contending Sunday with choppy seas that idled many of the boats dedicated to keeping oil from hitting vulnerable beaches and marshes.

Offshore skimming vessels were able to operate in Louisiana waters, but not off the coasts of Alabama, Mississippi and Florida, officials said.

"We've got our guys out there and they're docked and ready, but safety is a huge concern for us, especially with the smaller vessels," said Courtnee Ferguson, a spokeswoman for the Joint Information Command in Mobile, Ala.

The offshore skimming in those states has essentially been curtailed for nearly a week, thanks to weather generated earlier by Hurricane Alex, even though it was never closer than 500 miles or so to the spill.

On Sunday, huge barges used to collect oil from skimming vessels were parked at the mouth of Mobile Bay, waiting for conditions to subside as waves rose to about 5 feet high miles offshore.

The current spate of bad weather is likely to last well into next week, according to the National Weather Service.

"This should remain fairly persistent through the next few days, and maybe get a little worse," meteorologist Mike Efferson said.

On the shore, beach cleanup crews were making progress on new oil that washed up thanks to the high tides generated by last week's bad weather.

In Grand Isle, about 800 people were removing tar balls and liquid oil from seven miles of beach, Coast Guard Cmdr. Randal Ogrydziak said.

"In a day or two, you wouldn't be able to tell the oil was even there," he said.

By Wednesday, Ogrydziak said they should have a machine on the beach that washes sand where the oil washed ashore.

Crews have also been working to put containment boom thrown around by the storms back into place, he said.

Along the Louisiana coast, skimmers that were able to operate included the giant converted oil tanker known as A Whale.

Taiwanese shipping firm TMT, which owns the vessel, calls it the world's largest oil skimmer. Sunday was the second day of testing the ship's abilities for U.S. Coast Guard and BP officials who will make a decision about whether to put it — and its purported capacity to suck up 21 million gallons of oil-tainted water per day — to work in the Gulf.

But even the giant vessel is having trouble with the weather, TMT spokesman Bob Grantham said in an e-mail Sunday.

"As was the case yesterday, the sea state, with waves at times in excess of ten feet, is not permitting optimal testing conditions," he said.

The vessel's crew is hoping for calmer conditions, so they can test its skimming ability with a containment boom system designed to direct greater amounts of oily water to the ship's intake vents.

A decision on whether the ship can be used to help scour the crude from the Gulf will be made in a few days, Grantham said.

So far, weather has not slowed drilling on two relief wells that could be the best hope of finally plugging what has become the worst oil leak in Gulf history. BP officials have said they're running slightly ahead of schedule on the drilling, but expect weather or other delays.

Early to mid-August is still the timeframe for the completion of the drilling.

Associated Press Writer Jay Reeves in Dauphin Island, Ala. contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Will BP disaster spark move to a new Gulf economy?

Will BP disaster spark move to a new Gulf economy?

Nigeria’s Agony Dwarfs the Gulf Oil Spill

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Lose Weight with Sex and Laughter!

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Sarah Palin Blames Environmentalists For Gulf Oil Disaster

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President Carter’s Energy Speech (April 18,1977)

Image via Wikipedia

President Carter’s Energy Speech (April 18,1977)

Rats, Humans and Strokes

From: Andy Soos, ENN
Published January 15, 2010 11:37 AM

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A stroke (sometimes called an acute cerebrovascular attack) is the rapidly developing loss of brain function(s) due to a disturbance or loss in the blood supply to the brain. As a result, the affected area of the brain is unable to function, leading to inability to move one or more limbs on one side of the body, inability to understand or formulate speech, or inability to see one side of the visual field.

Two new studies by University of California (UC) Irvine biologists have found that a protein naturally occurring in humans restores motor function in rats after a stroke. Administered directly to the brain, the protein restores 99 percent of lost movement; if it's given through the nose, 70 percent of lost movement is regained. Untreated rats improve by only 30 percent.

"No drugs exist that will help a stroke after a few days. If you have a stroke, you don't have many treatment options," said James Fallon, psychiatry & human behavior professor and senior coauthor of the studies. "Now we have evidence there may be therapies that can repair damage to a significant degree long after the stroke. It's a completely unexpected and remarkable finding, and it's worth trying in humans."

A stroke is typically treated with a clot buster drug and is usually combined with supportive care (speech and language therapy, physiotherapy and occupational therapy. Secondary prevention with antiplatelet drugs (aspirin and often dipyridamole), blood pressure control, and statins may also be used.

The UC studies, carried out by postdoctoral researcher Magda Guerra-Crespo, chronicle the success of a small protein called transforming growth factor alpha, which plays critical tissue-forming and developmental roles in humans from just after conception through birth and into old age.

"TGF alpha has been studied for two decades in other organ systems but never before has been shown to reverse the symptoms of a stroke." Guerra-Crespo said. No lasting side effects were observed in the conducted studies.

In an earlier study scientists sought to learn whether TGF alpha administered directly to the brain could help rats with a stroke induced loss of limb function, typically on one side, as is seen in humans.

When put inside a cylinder, healthy rats will jump up with both front legs, but stroke impaired rats will use just one leg, favoring the injured side. When given a choice of directions to walk, impaired rats will move toward their good side which is an easily observed symptom.

One month after the study began rats suffered an induced stroke; some rats were then injected with TGF alpha. Within a month, they had regained their motor function. Rats that did not receive treatment improved just 30 percent.

Scientists examined the rats' brains and found that TGF alpha was stimulating neuron growth. First, it prompted adult stem cells in the brain to divide, creating more cells. Those cells then turned into brain cells and moved to the injured part of the brain, replacing neurons lost to the stroke. These new neurons, the scientists believe, helped restore motor function.

In the newest study, appearing online January 11 in the Journal of Stroke & Cerebrovascular Diseases, scientists placed TGF alpha in the rats' noses, simulating a nasal spray. They used a slightly different chemical version of the protein to render it more stable on its journey to the brain. After a month, the injured rats had regained 70 percent of their function, indicating that the intranasal method works well.

TGF Alpha promises the potential for improved post stroke treatment and recovery. Whether the TGF Alpha will work as well in humans is to be determined.

For further information please go to: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/22648

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Magnitude 7.0 Earthquake Hits Haiti

From: Haroon Siddique, Guardian UK and USGS
Published January 13, 2010 06:56 AM

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The earthquake that has hit Haiti, raising fears that thousands have been killed, is the latest in a long line of natural disasters to befall a country ill equipped to deal with such events.

Hurricanes and flooding are perennial concerns for the poorest country in the western hemisphere, which has time and again been dependent on foreign aid in emergencies.

In 1963 hurricane Flora, the sixth deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history, devastated the island. The US weather bureau estimated the death toll at 5,000 and the cost of damage to property and crops at between $125m and $180m.

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The country was struck by two disasters in 2004. In May heavy rains caused flooding that killed more than 2,000 people. Four months later mudslides and flooding caused by hurricane Jeanne, the 12th deadliest Atlantic hurricane, killed more than 3,000 people, mostly in the town of Gonaives.

Tragedy struck again in 2008 when four storms — tropical storm Fay, hurricane Gustav, hurricane Hanna and hurricane Ike — dumped heavy rains on the country. Around 1,000 people died and 800,000 were left homeless. The number of people affected by the storms was put at 800,000 — almost 10% of the population — with the damage estimated at $1bn.

The January 12, 2010, Haiti earthquake occurred in the boundary region separating the Caribbean plate and the North America plate. This plate boundary is dominated by left-lateral strike slip motion and compression, and accommodates about 20 mm/y slip, with the Caribbean plate moving eastward with respect to the North America plate.

Haiti occupies the western part of the island of Hispaniola, one of the Greater Antilles islands, situated between Puerto Rico and Cuba. At the longitude of the January 12 earthquake, motion between the Caribbean and North American plates is partitioned between two major east-west trending, strike-slip fault systems -- the Septentrional fault system in northern Haiti and the Enriquillo-Plaintain Garden fault system in southern Haiti.

The location and focal mechanism of the earthquake are consistent with the event having occurred as left-lateral strike slip faulting on the Enriquillo-Plaintain Garden fault system. This fault system accommodates about 7 mm/y, nearly half the overall motion between the Caribbean plate and North America plate.

The Enriquillo-Plaintain Garden fault system has not produced a major earthquake in recent decades. The EPGFZ is the likely source of historical large earthquakes in 1860, 1770, 1761, 1751, 1684, 1673, and 1618, though none of these has been confirmed in the field as associated with this fault.

For more information: Guardian UK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/13/haiti-earthquake-history-disasters

USGS: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2010rja6.php#maps

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Top 10 Tech Tools for Sustainable Eating

Image via Wikipedia

posted by Megan, selected from Planet Green Jan 10, 2010 2:07 pm

filed under: Conscious Consumer, Diet & Nutrition, Food & Recipes, General Health, Green 101, On The Go, 100 mile challenge, notakeout, online sustainable eating tools

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By Jaymi Heimbuch, Planet Green

Going green in the kitchen can be one of the biggest ways to reduce your impact on the planet. Luckily, in our tech-savvy world, we have access to some great online and electronic tools that help us eat more eco-friendly without adding any hassle to our daily lives. Here are ten resources that will help you make your kitchen an earth-friendly and incredibly appetizing place to hang out.

Favorite Online Resources

1. NoTakeOut
NoTakeOut is a great website for super easy meal planning, shopping, and cooking. It makes cooking at home so easy that take-out seems like an unhealthy hassle. You can subscribe to have a recipe sent to you daily. The ingredient lists are short, the instructions clear, and there are lots of options for going organic and vegetarian.

2. Organic A-Z Videos
Delving into one ingredient per alphabet letter, you’ll learn all about a staple organic ingredient - and what to do with it - in each video. Check out one short clip online per day and learn about how easy it is to incorporate organic food into your diet.

3. 50 Ways to Eat Green
This article is chock full of tips for eating more healthfully and sustainably. And when the list starts out with “Eat More Chocolate,” we’re all eyes and ears! It’s an online article you’ll want to bookmark and reference as you go green in the kitchen.

4. 100 Mile Challenge
Okay, so this one isn’t so easy. In fact, it’s tough, but it’s one of the most impactful things you can do to make your diet more planet-friendly. And there is indeed online help. Planet Green has a 100 Mile Challenge site that can lend support if you decide to become a locavore and stick within a 100 mile radius for all your food purchases.

5. Green Fork Blog
We love this blog for all the helpful advice it lends on how to green your eating. Green Fork highlights leaders in the green food industry and offer eco-conscious tips. It’s hosted by the Eat Well Guide, a handy online database of small-scale farms, restaurants, and other green food outlets throughout the U.S., which is another must-know online resource for sustainable eating.

6. The Daily Plate
Counting calories isn’t just for trimming your waistline. It’s also an important part of lightening your environmental footprint. Eating less means literally consuming fewer resources. Use The Daily Plate to find out what calorie intake you should have to maintain a healthy weight, then track your caloric intake each day to make sure you’re being as healthy as possible for both you and the planet.

Favorite Phone Apps

These five iPhone apps are great options for easy ways to green up your food consumption. If you don’t have an iPhone, there is likely a version of these apps for other smart phone devices like Blackberries and Android phones.

7. Harvest
Harvest provides tips and techniques for choosing the best produce in a store or market, from how to test a watermelon for ripeness, to how to store garlic for optimum freshness. Makes buying fresh foods easier so you can skip packaged meals. This app runs $2.99.

8. Locavore
Also priced at $2.99, Locavore helps you eat local food when it’s in season. Find out what foods are in season while you’re at the market, so you know that you’re buying as responsibly as possible. We’d love it to also feature a farmers’ market finder, since these markets usually carry in-season produce.

9. Foodle
This app is a shopping list that remembers what you like best and helps you locate items nearby. It provides vegetarian and vegan friendly food suggestions to add to your list. It’s on the expensive side at $4.99, but if it saves you trips to the store, and guides you towards a vegetarian or vegan option whenever possible, then it’ll make up for the price in your reduced carbon footprint.

10. Seafood Guide
Finding sustainable seafood is a really big deal for ensuring our oceans stay healthy. But it can also mean standing in a store freezer section or butcher counter hemming and hawwing about which is the best choice for both you and the planet. Instead, quickly pick sustainably caught fish in restaurants and markets with this app from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It tells you which fish are safe, which are good alternatives, and which to avoid buying or eating. Grab this app for a mere $0.99.

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McDonald's To Fund Cow Methane Study--Can We Trust the Results or Ourselves?

by:

Nancy Roberts

The UK Guardian reports that McDonald's is funding a three-year study of cows on 350 British farms to look for ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. The methane emitted from cows and other livestock is a significant factor in global warming, according to multiple studies, and the British government has asked industry to see what can be done to mitigate the problem. The study will be conducted by an independent consulting entity, the E-CO2 project. Over three years researchers will regularly measure greenhouse gas emissions on the farms and specialists will advise on ways to reduce the methane levels.

How far would McDonald's to toward envisioning the kind of radical change in its offerings that might make a real difference? It is tempting to roll one's eyes and view McDonald's as the corporate devil, and I have certainly done my share of dismissive shrugs. However, any progress in understanding cause and effect of greenhouse gas emissions is useful. McDonald's is doing (part of) its job in funding the project, but it is really up to all of us "non experts" to ask the tougher questions:

Can You Bite the Hand That Funds You?
Can those performing a study funded by a multinational corporation be trusted to come up with results that might displease the people with the purse strings? Is it asking too much of business not to expect a "return" for their investment in green or environmental research and good citizenship? While I do not impugn the morals of the researchers, it is only human not to bite the hand that feeds you.

Who Is Blowing Smoke?
By examining the symptoms (methane emissions) are we avoiding the tougher questions around what is causing the emissions? Cows (and indeed, humans) emit methane in the process of digestion; but variations of diet and the sheer number of animals, driven by demand for dairy and beef, has made livestock, by some estimates, the cause of 18% of global warming. Rather than accepting the methane and trying to mitigate it, are there ways to cut down on the number of cows?

What's Normal?
When did eating meat two or three times a day become normal? In many cultures today, meat is an occasional luxury. In the U.S., per capita meat consumption has risen from 125 pounds in 1950 to 201 pounds per person per year in 2007, in a period where we have seen increases in obesity, heart disease and other illnesses of poor nutrition. And the western diet is being adopted by more people globally, increasing the demand for meat. What chance do we have to instill a cultural change, a shift away from a norm of eating four pounds of meat a week per person?

The food journalist Michael Pollan is an inspiration when it comes to fortifying oneself against the advertising industry and the corporate titans of processed food. His book In Defense of Food contains the simplest rules of all, and sometimes the hardest to follow, as he promotes mindful eating of food prepared from fresh products, mostly vegetables and fruits. His mantra--Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.--is a challenge to all that McDonald's currently stands for. It is simple, to the point, and a challenge to all of us to eat consciously to improve our health and to mitigate global warming and global inequity. And if enough of us change how we eat, McDonald's will follow our lead.

Read more: food, meat, environment, global warming

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How Cold Is It?

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It is very cold in most of the US this winter. It brings to mind is it so cold that you can freeze to death as well as what happened to global warming? Cooling as well as warming trends have happened before and will happen again. Back in the 1970's for example winters turned significantly colder for awhile.

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Meteorologists are quick to point out that reliable U.S. weather data goes back only to the late 1800s, so it's normal for records of various types to be broken every year, somewhere, when dealing with such a relatively brief data set. Any given day or year may set set a record. For global warming it is the long term trend that is important.

When cold air hits your body, blood will move away from your skin, fingers and toes and towards the inner core. This process is called vasoconstriction, and it helps limit the amount of heat you lose to the environment. The opposite effect is called vascodilation where blood goes to the skin and heat is lost to the cold air (though you feel warm). This is what happens when one drinks too much alcohol.

Shivering also occurs when you get cold. Major shivering also occurs when your body core temperature drops very low. This is called hypothermia. This normally will not happen excedt under severe and prolonged exposure.

If you're wet and cold, your body loses heat up to 25 times faster. So being in wet clothing may cause more damage than just being in cold weather. Even sweat may do this.

The wind will also cool a person. In summer it a a cool refreshing breeze. In winter it is called wind chill.

Normal core body temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (F). Mild hypothermia sets in at about 95 degrees F. Below 70 degrees F, you are said to have profound hypothermia and death can occur. A person in hypothermia may be unconscious and may appear dopey or intoxicated.

The record for the lowest body temperature at which an adult has been known to survive is 56.7 degrees F, which occurred after the person was submersed in cold, icy water, according to Castellani of the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine.

Frostbite, an injury caused by freezing, is more common in everyday scenarios. This is because fingers and toes are more easily isolated from the body higher temperatures.Since frostbite is brought on by freezing, you can't get frostbite if the air temperature is above 32 degrees F. "It takes a wind chill temperature of around minus 15 degrees [F] where you start to see an increase in the incident of frostbite," Castellani said.

For further information go to: http://www.livescience.com/health/100107-freeze-to-death.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+livescience%2Fhealthscitech+%28LiveScience.com+Health+SciTech%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Protect America's Wild Horses

Image via Wikipedia

Protect America's Wild Horses
Target: U.S. Senate
Sponsored by: Care2.com

Federal land throughout the American West is home to thousands of healthy wild horses. Yet as herds continue to grow, Bureau of Land Management officials continue to trap hundreds of wild horses – condemning many of them to live the rest of their lives in holding pens.

Recently, the U.S. House overwhelmingly passed the Restoring Our American Mustangs (ROAM) Act -- a bill working to protect wild horses. The ROAM Act would step up fertility control measures, encourage more adoptions and provide as much as 19 million additional acres for the wild animals to roam.

81-Year-Old Fasts at the W.Va. Capitol to Abolish Mountaintop Removal

photograph (c) antrim caskey 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: 304 854 7372
Email: news@climategroundzero.org

CHARLESTON, W.Va.–Roland Micklem, 81, will begin a fast at the West Virginia State Capitol on Monday, Nov. 30. It will continue for an indeterminate period of time, and Micklem has neither set demands nor preconditions for its termination.

Micklem spent half a century as a naturalist, teacher and environmental writer. The loss of biodiversity caused by mountaintop removal is a focus of his activism.

“The loss of so many once common and beloved species has been traumatic and depressing, depressing to an extent that has resulted in a loss of enthusiasm for a field of study that had stoked my fires in bygone years,” Micklem writes in an open letter, explaining his motives for the fast, published on Climate Ground Zero’s web site.

Micklem organized and led over 30 people on the 25-mile Senior Citizen’s March to End Mountaintop Removal, which began at the state capitol on Oct. 8 and ended at the gates of Mammoth Coal in eastern Kanawha County on Oct. 12. This march followed Micklem’s participation in two acts of nonviolent civil resistance–the June 23 rally at Marsh Fork Elementary School and a blockade of the entrance to Massey Energy’s regional headquarters in Boone County on Sept. 9. At the Marsh Fork Rally, he was arrested alongside distinguished NASA climate scientist James Hansen, actress Darryl Hannah, Goldman Prize Winner Judy Bonds and dozens of concerned citizens.

His fast begins one week before a coalition of West Virginians and allies converge at the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to demand enforcement of the Clean Water Act and an end to blasting on Coal River Mountain.

“This is a prolonged act of mourning, not only for the mountains, but for all of God’s Creation–plants, animals, nature–that has been callously exploited and abused to satisfy the selfish wants of a single species,” stated Micklem, a devout Christian.

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AMERICAN WIND ENERGY ASSOCIATION (AWEA) NOTES WIND INDUSTRY HIGHLIGHTS OF 2009

AMERICAN WIND ENERGY ASSOCIATION (AWEA)
NOTES WIND INDUSTRY HIGHLIGHTS OF 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Reflecting on a year that opened with high expectations for renewable energy policies from the new Obama Administration and was buffeted by financial and economic storms, AWEA today identified the wind industry’s top accomplishments and developments in 2009.

"Wind power is a symbol of hope in our economy and supports thousands of jobs, but U.S. wind turbine manufacturing is lagging at the very time that the global clean energy race is heating up," said AWEA CEO Denise Bode. "One of the most urgent measures that our government can enact is a national Renewable Electricity Standard, which will unleash in the U.S. a wave of manufacturing investment that will otherwise go overseas. Many companies are eager to enter or ramp up their activities in this sector, as this year’s highlights show, but all need to see a long-term commitment with hard targets to renewable energy in order to be able to invest."

The top accomplishments and developments include:

* American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 Funds a Lifeline: The ARRA included several provisions to spur development of wind and other renewable energy industries along with the Treasury Grant Program, which by year end had supplied over $1.5 billion in crucial capital. Since the early July announcement to implement the stimulus bill, at least 37 different wind projects, using large and small turbines, have been recipients of the grant program, powering the equivalent of 800,000 homes and providing a lifeline for the industry and sustaining wind power as a bright spot in the economy.

* … But Manufacturing Still Lags: Wind turbine manufacturing, however, has fallen behind 2008 levels in both announcements and in production activity. While this is bad news, the good news is that a solution is readily available: A strong national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) will create the market certainty that manufacturers need in order to invest, enabling the U.S. to become a wind turbine manufacturing powerhouse creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.

* Strong Support for a National Renewable Electricity Standard (RES): An RES is included in the House version of climate legislation passed this spring and in pending Senate energy legislation. The wind industry, backed by popular support, continues to advocate for swift passage of a strong RES. A poll released by AWEA in May showed that over 75% of Americans, including 71% of independents and 62% of Republicans, support an RES requiring that 25% of the nation’s electricity be generated from renewable energy by 2025.

* COP15: AWEA sent a delegation to the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP15) in Copenhagen this month. AWEA’s participation at the conference is another indication of America’s reengagement in the international climate change process and of the key role that wind power plays today in the transition to a clean energy economy.

* National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Study Shows Conventional Power Costs Plenty: The NAS calculated that fossil fuels cost the U.S. $120 billion a year, including $62 billion from coal plants, in damages to human health. The figures do not include damages from climate change, harm to ecosystems, or effects of some air pollutants such as mercury. The NAS study is a reminder of the high hidden cost that energy-related pollution inflicts on our society and of the environmental and economic imperative of using renewable energy.

* Avoiding Carbon: The electricity produced by the entire fleet of wind turbines installed in the U.S. through 2009 will avoid emitting over 57 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, based on the conventional mix of fuels used for electricity generation. That is equivalent to taking over 9.5 million cars off the road.

* Improving Environmental Health: The electricity produced by the entire fleet of wind turbines installed in the U.S. through 2009 will, based on the conventional mix of fuels used for electricity generation, avoid annually:

o 200,000 additional metric tons of acid-rain causing sulfur dioxide which would otherwise have to be abated to achieve the national Acid Rain Program goals;
o 80,000 additional metric tons of smog-causing nitrous oxide which would otherwise have been emitted.

* Saving Water: The electricity from the entire fleet of turbines installed through 2009 will conserve over 20 billion gallons of water annually, which would otherwise be withdrawn for steam or cooling in conventional power plants. Wind power makes it possible to meet our energy needs without further polluting or diminishing valuable water resources.

* R&D Funding Up: President Obama signed an $80 million appropriation for the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Wind Program. The funding, which was part of the energy and water appropriations bill, is a $25 million increase from last year and $5 million above the President’s budget request. It also includes an additional $22.8 million in funding for wind-specific projects across the country. According to International Energy Agency numbers, the $80 million allocation is the highest funding level, adjusted for inflation, since 1981.

* 20% by 2030 Report Card: "B" AWEA issued its first annual progress report card on the roadmap as outlined in the DOE 2008 “20% Wind by 2030” Report. The U.S. received a solid “B” for its 2008 progress toward reaching 20% of electricity supply from wind energy by 2030, but could be “at the high-water mark” for wind without a strong and immediate national policy commitment to renewable energy. Prepared by an in-house team of experts, some of whom worked on the DOE report, the report card examines progress in four key areas--Technology Development, Manufacturing, Siting, and Transmission & Integration.

* States Continue to Pass Laws to Support Renewable Energy: Kansas became the 29th state to adopt a renewable electricity standard (while simultaneously announcing a major new Siemens turbine production facility), Rhode Island and Delaware moved forward with provisions to facilitate offshore wind projects, Wisconsin adopted statewide siting reform to facilitate approvals for wind projects--and, despite a very tough fiscal climate for state governments, states from Illinois to Texas to Washington moved forward with significant tax changes critical to the economics of wind projects in their states

* Green Power Superhighway White Paper and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Filings Move Transmission Agenda:Inadequate transmission capacity remains a significant barrier to renewable energy development in the U.S. Nearly 300,000 MW of wind capacity is held up in the pipeline due to transmission limitations. Underscoring that fact,AWEA and the Solar Energy Industries Association issued a white paper titled “Green Power Superhighways: Building a Path to America’s Clean Energy Future,” detailing current inadequacies of the U.S. electric transmission infrastructure and offering policy solutions to address them. AWEA has also filed with the FERC on the key issue of transmission cost allocation, calling on FERC to broadly spread costs of transmission to all beneficiaries.

* Progress on Siting: AWEA welcomed a U.S. government Memorandum of Understanding to improve coordination among nine federal agencies and minimize delays in the permit approval process on federal lands. Additionally, the wind industry continued cooperative research studies on bats and other species to ensure the best science is available for decision-making.

* Property Values Study:A study released in December by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory concluded that proximity to wind energy facilities does not have a pervasive or widespread adverse effect on the property values of nearby homes.

* Sound Panel Report: A multidisciplinary panel concluded that the sounds generated by wind turbines are not harmful to human health. Comprised of medical doctors, audiologists, and acoustical professionals from the U.S., Canada, Denmark, and the United Kingdom, and convened by AWEA and the Canadian Wind Energy Association, the panel undertook extensive review and analysis of the body of peer-reviewed literature on the topic.

* A Thousand Businesses Join AWEA: In another sign of the continued development and expansion of the wind industry, AWEA experienced significant growth in 2009. The association gained over 1,000 new business members—the largest increase ever for the association in a single year. Many of these new members are companies entering or seeking to enter the wind turbine supply chain.

* WINDPOWER Conference & Exhibition is Nation’s Fastest Growing Show. Tradeshow Week this year named AWEA’s WINDPOWER Conference & Exhibition the fastest-growing trade show in the country. WINDPOWER 2009, in Chicago, hosted over 1,200 exhibiting companies and 23,000 attendees, up from 770 exhibitors and 13,000 attendees in 2008.

* Momentum Towards First U.S. Offshore Wind Farm Accelerates: The announcement of the Minerals Management Service guidelines for the siting of offshore renewable energy projects, the issuance of requests for proposals in Lakes Erie and Ontario and of power purchase agreements in the mid-Atlantic, the establishment by the U.S. Interior Department of a mid-Atlantic renewable energy office, and the participation of two Governors and record attendance at AWEA’s offshore workshop this fall are clear signs that offshore wind power is on its way to become a reality in the U.S. AWEA’s annual workshop will grow into a North American Offshore Wind Power Conference & Exposition as it moves next year to Atlantic City (http://www.offshorewindexpo.org/).

* Small Wind Systems for Homes and Businesses: The U.S. government expanded the critical federal Investment Tax Credit for small wind systems to provide an 8-year, uncapped 30% tax credit for small wind systems. AWEA expects to finalize a small turbine safety and performance standard by year’s end, and held its first Small & Community Wind Conference and Exposition to showcase these burgeoning sectors of the industry. The U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency incorporated small wind systems into their popular Energy Star consumer certification program. This is the first time Energy Star has addressed electricity-generating technology.