Composting plastic: Sustainability and Climate Change (2)
Composting plastic: Sustainability and Climate Change (2)
It has been a challenge in the realm of WU’s climate change blogger. Sick computer, and on Tuesday I was giving a talk at the Climate Program Office when the great D.C. Earthquake came. It was a webinar, and, within a minute, savvy scientists were reporting, “5.9, Mineral, Virginia.” The earthquake, which I had successfully identified in my talk, eliminating both “train” and “terrorist attack,” led to a natural separation of those who went to doorways in the interior of the building and those who went to the large picture window and said, “cool, all the buildings are shaking.” This was followed by building evacuation, and a typical D.C. response of gridlock and people walking away from wherever they were, with perhaps, the assumption that wherever they were walking to was safer. Considering all of the fallen stones and bricks, it is quite fortunate that people were not seriously injured.
This was, of course, followed by the march of Hurricane Irene up the coast, which leads to a certain type of hurricane-anticipation hysteria. I believe that the Weather Channel and CNN amplified this hysteria with exaggerated and unwarranted statements of the lack of historical precedents for such a storm. There is perhaps an over reporting of people on beaches in a spot light saying, “It is only going to get worse.” Is this the way to get people to take these storms seriously? Anyway, the storm came ashore near my old stomping grounds on the Neuse River where I hear there were nearly 8 foot surges. This was at the end of the funnel, and it is the funneling of water up the creeks that make for the greatest flooding. It will be another billion dollar storm.
Still … I have started this blog three times and my sick computer has destroyed it. I want to get back to sustainability, composting, and those plastic cups.
Let me start by saying that I recycle. I will toss plastic cups in my luggage to take them to a place that will recycle, say, number 6 plastics. My father had me separating metals and pulling nails from miles of lumber in the 1960s for reuse. That said, I have been confused by corn-plastic, compostable plastic cups. If you take one of these cups and put it in your compost heap, well, it doesn’t compost. If you think about plastics and plastic making, then you’re not really sure what it might compost into. So you call and ask about this, and they say they were designed for commercial composting facilities, which operate at high temperature in carefully controlled environments. Then you find out that your municipality does not do such composting, so you are left with a cup that can’t be recycled, will not be composted, and to a naïve person like me seems like garbage. It’s garbage, when it could have been a recyclable number 1 plastic cup. This opens up all sorts of opportunities for greenwashing and the pursuit of irritating, good-intentioned, ineffective environmental policies and practices.
Irritating: I have been on the edge of a couple of zero-waste events in the last couple of years. One of the places where cities and counties exercise zero-waste policies is street festivals and county fairs. These are often places where there are traveling vendors, and a mix of activities that range from demolition derbies to face painting to costumed goats and prized cattle. There is eating of odd food. The point, there are a lot of people that are perhaps, not of the zero-waste jurisdiction or culture. One source of tension is those plastic cups. Let’s say they cost a little more, but let’s assume that if the event is in a place that supports zero-waste events, then people will pay a little more for their lemonade. The requirement to use compostable cups has some practical issues. They might not fit lemonade making equipment; they don’t stand up to heat; they require special stocking. They challenge some people’s view that the market price should determine what they choose. And, given where I started above, that they don’t seem so compostable, they challenge sensibilities. That list looks a lot like the range of responses to addressing the climate-change problem.
Sustainability: Sustainability is about a lot more than climate change. It is about landfills and soil management and energy use and all of those resources that we need to support ourselves. So in that sense, climate change, or let’s be precise, the emission of carbon dioxide, is a subset of sustainability. There are a lot of things that can be done in the spirit of sustainability that don’t address the emissions of carbon dioxide. For example, if you focus on energy security, some would argue that coal would address our needs long enough to get by, and hence would argue that coal is part of a sustainable energy policy – same with tar sands. Both coal and tar sands contribute to more and more carbon dioxide emissions; hence, they are in the long run agents that will lead to, for example, several meters of sea level rise. There are many initiatives in the efforts to promote sustainability, that don’t obviously help climate change. (Think about the locally grown apple kept in refrigeration for 8 months versus the apple from Australia that is not stored as long. Think about the electric car that charges up from the coal power plant.)
Composting: I’ve composted for years – let me restate that, I have composted vegetative matter for years. As a kid we did not call it composting, but we piled up mountains of leaves inside of a large fenced area and then used it gardening. It makes sense to a gardener, but it also makes sense to someone whose father was the mayor of a town and challenged with what to do with a lot of leaves and not really wanting to promote backyard bonfires on dry October days. So composting leaves and garden waste makes intuitive sense, but what about prescribed policies on composting of food waste and yard waste and, maybe, scraps of lumber? Again, if you are a city then you want to control the amount of garbage you have to deal with. Garbage is expensive – buying land, transporting it, burying it – so you start to think about what might composting do for my garbage problem. There are several ways that that leads to plastic, because plastic has infiltrated everything we do, and it lasts practically forever. Also, it comes from oil. In some sense, plastic is a lot like carbon dioxide. Perhaps thinking about plastics and waste plastic is a good way to think about carbon dioxide waste, because we can see plastic waste everywhere. But I digress.
This is a blog about climate, so let’s bring the composting and climate together. It is easy to make the casual argument that composting in your backyard is good for climate change. Or, at least, it might be. One of the climate benefits of composting in your backyard comes from not trucking the stuff away. So if you buy a gas-powered chipper or shredder, you’re likely to do away with that benefit. I’ve had a number of student projects looking at composting and climate change, especially composting food from cafeterias, and the answer is complicated. One of the big factors in the composting equation is transportation. If you have to ship the stuff many miles out of town, it’s not likely composting will help climate change. But if you can keep it nearby, have a good commercial-scale facility, and can start with a clean stream of compostable material it can help a lot. It helps a whole lot when you realize that if buried in a landfill, it usually makes methane. (To imagine how complex this gets, sometimes it is better to dump the waste in the sewer and let the sewage experts deal with it, and often, the best thing to do is to burn it for fuel. So it is not an easy calculation and decision.)
So back to those plastic cups. I try to be a responsible blogger so I did a little research. I hope I did enough research to not make a fool of myself. I put some links to articles down at the end of blog. I want to line up some conclusions, but, first, the observation that most of the work investigating plastics in waste streams that I found was coming from Northern Europe, China, and Africa. OK some conclusions. I was right that some of those plastic cups don’t break down in home composting. Home composting is simply not active enough to break down those cups. At best they become some sort of plastic sand. But other plastics and compressed papers break down pretty well even at home. In commercial composting, where there is a lot of stirring and a lot of biodegrading going on, they breakdown pretty well, and they don’t do anything bad to the compost. And at street festivals and fairs, if there are compostable cups, then when people throw away all of their eating stuff in the same garbage, which people are prone to do, then the compostable cups (and forks and plates) clean up the stream for the much larger mass of food waste. Therefore at big events, cafeterias, and restaurants, the compostable cups can have a large impact on waste management – but it does require an easy and visible and clearly marked place to put compostable garbage.
Above I said that zero-waste and compostable cups can challenge one’s sensibility. The effort I have gone through here is more effort than the average person is going to exert to worry about their garbage. I am sure that some of the people I know who find the zero-waste policy, perhaps, silly, would find that it makes sense when you think about the stream of compostable material made possible by compostable cups. But as often presented, in the absence of information, in the spirit of prescriptive policy that is “good” in some sense, it serves to discredit the whole culture of sustainability. It poses “good” and suggests that what others are doing is “bad.” And inevitably here in the good ol’ USA of 2011, it becomes a matter of politics, of culture.
But this is a blog on climate change. What about the compostable cups and climate change? So if the impact of the compostable cup on climate change is measured by its carbon footprint, then the difference between the compostable cup and old-fashioned plastic cup is hard to determine. If a locality is set up with a good commercial-grade composting facility that is not far away, then the impacts can be substantial. In one of my students’ projects, composting food waste from University of Michigan cafeterias was the equivalent of removing 100 cars from the road. In this situation, the compostable cup cleans up the compost stream and allows the food to be composted. But, in any case, what is best for the climate is to use metal utensils and washable plates, and to wash the dishes. And if a business or town hands out compostable cups WITHOUT a composting plan and facility, they mess up their recycling program as the cups get mixed into the recycling stream.
It’s never easy. I am often asked what individuals can do about climate change. It is “be efficient,” use compact fluorescents, composting and recycling can be good, insulate, insulate, insulate. Sometimes I say quit being an eco-tourist. In the end though, assuming we consume as we view our prerogative to consume, we must de-carbonize our energy. We must quit making so much of our stuff to be disposed. All of the little steps are important; they might raise our awareness; they might make us feel better about our consumption; they buy us a little time – maybe, but they cannot solve that big problem of burning coal, oil, and natural gas to supply our wealth. As long as we are not thinking about our energy use and our energy waste, we are not really addressing the zero-waste and sustainability issues of climate change.
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Razza et al., Compostable Cutlery …
Song et al., Biodegradable and compostable plastics …
Hopewell et al., Plastics recycling …
Mohee and Unmar, Determining biodegradability …
Rockstrom et al., A safe operating space for humanity
Reader Comments
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Some small tips: roughen the clothes line with some steel wool or sandpaper. The added friction helps to keep items from bunching up when trying to use clothes pins to keep the item in horizontal tension. Attach a few fishing wieghts to clothes pins (the clip kind) and clip them to the bottom of shirts to let them dry with tension. Between horizontal and vertical tension, a lot of stuff doesn't need ironing. I sometimes (depending on the item) let clothes dry on the hanger. This makes it much quicker to put away.
No solutions for athletic socks in the winter. I usually end up putting them on the pellet stove for the final treatment.
For now.
The mafia dump untreated waste and yet Naples is unsurprizingly low in cancer rates. Link (ok this is for dogs but it was the first link i found, many others.)
I doubt you piss on the upstream side of your house. Better leave it for others.
I recycle anything I can, not because of some meaningless government directive, but because it makes sense, (Yankee Frugal), on the other hand I'll be damned if I go Amish on laundry! (30 below in winter will take a week to thaw out.)
Link
You may wish to take enough to actually read the article to which you linked. Oh, what the heck; lemme do it for you:
"...the long-term trend of rising sea levels will continue."
"The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gave what it called a conservative estimate in 2007 that the ocean could rise between 7 and 23 inches by 2100. Recent research suggests it could rise by as much as 2.5 to 6.5 feet during this period."
"In the past two decades global sea levels increased at a rate of roughly 0.12 inches a year, compared to 0.07 inches from 1961 to 2003, according to satellite data."
The article's biggest mistake, of course, was printing the lie by denialist/Big Energy shill/anti-scientist clown Patrick J. Michaels. I guess that's that false "balance" that causes journalists to give the Flat Earthers equal time. Oh, well; you can't win them all...
I wouldn't do it in -30 either. suprizingly, clotheslines work in winter for light clothes. But they don't work for socks, sweaters, etc..
I wouldn't do it for the government either. i might do it as a community norm though.
Oh is that Pat "It is doubtful that Irene will even cough up eight bodies" Michaels?
http://news.yahoo.com/real-hurricane-irene-rename d-hurricane-hype-021402485.html
Forecasters have blamed the cool spell on a blast of icy weather from the Antarctic. Clear skies have also kept the temperatures down, allowing warm daytime air to rise at night.
Sydney residents have been warned to brace for more cold weather until the weekend, when temperatures are forecast to rise slightly.
Despite climate change, 2010 has been predicted to be one of the coldest years on record globally. In the northern hemisphere, Britain recorded the coldest January in 23 years and America recorded the coldest start to the year in 25 years.
Another view of Irene:
Perfect Storm of Hype: Politicians, the media and the Hurricane Irene apocalypse that never was
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyharnden/100 102355/perfect-storm-of-hype-politicians-the-media -and-the-hurricane-irene-apocalypse-that-never-was /
Interesting. I especially like this part: "Despite climate change, 2010 has been predicted to be one of the coldest years on record globally. " That tells me two things: 1) You've recycled an article from last year in an attempt to prove cooling, and 2) 2010 was the hottest year on record, so the person who wrote the article you quoted is a liar or an idiot or perhaps a little of both.
So far as your incongruent statement about Irene being overhyped, I'd remind you that the storm has killed dozens. That's more than Andrew, more than Ivan, more than Hugo--more, in fact, than any storm since 1980 save for Katrina, Floyd, and Allison. On top of that, total losses (insured and uninsured) will likely come in around $14 billion--and that's more than Rita, Frances, Jeanne, Gustav, Isabel, and on and on and on. Unless the only storms that "count" are those that cause Katrina-level deaths and damage, Irene was most definitely not "overhyped".
Re: drying clothes in winter, I found two really huge old folding wood drying racks. Each one holds almost a full load of laundry and in the winter, the drying clothes add humidity to the air.
Best wishes to all.
The embittered Spencer starts his rant with this out and out lie: "There have been no weather events observed to date – including Hurricane Irene — which can be reasonably claimed to be outside the realm of natural climate variability." And it's downhill from there.
Oh, so if the statement "There have been no weather events observed to date – including Hurricane Irene — which can be reasonably claimed to be outside the realm of natural climate variability." is a lie, then you would have proof it is a lie. Go ahead and show us your proof if you can.
We all know that Al Gore's movie was loaded with inaccuracies or should I say lies. Who is the denier? It looks to me that you are.
It's amazing that you post a short rant, no question about that, and claim an article loaded with facts is a rant, when your statement has not one fact in it, just opinion. Really, very pathetic.
Again with the Al Gore stuff? For him to have become such a boogeyman to the denialist community, he must have really upset the fossil fuel folks. It's incredible, really...
Big Al is one of my heros. Even if he is wrong about a few facts, even if he heats his 400 room house in the winter by burning environmental studies with all the windows open, he tried to do something for mankind. Even if he got rich doing it, he started with a desire to sovle a problem and did more about it than just about anyone.
But regardless of Al being good or bad, the fact is that he is right. Pick a few details apart and post them in the effort to convince the weakminded, but the big picture remains that the world is being made less and less habitable for mankind.
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I really want a composter as well. It'll have to wait until next spring though.
Good on ya, mate. Hoe it all works out for you.
Plenty of good ideas out there, too. And you won't end up spending money on something plastic made overseas.
I only report, it would be the authors view, not mine.
Neanderthals looked much like modern humans only shorter, more heavily built and much stronger, particularly in the arms and hands.
Their skulls show that they had no chin and their foreheads sloped backwards.
The brain case was lower but longer housing a slightly larger brain than that of modern humans.
As almost exclusively carnivorous, both male and female Neanderthals hunted.
29 August 2011 Last updated at 22:10 ET
Neanderthal survival story revealed in Jersey caves
By Becky Evans Digging For Britain
New investigations at an iconic cave site on the Channel Island of Jersey have led archaeologists to believe the Neanderthals have been widely under-estimated.
Neanderthals survived in Europe through a number of ice ages and died out only about 30,000 years ago.
The site at La Cotte de St Brelade reveals a near-continuous use of the cave site spanning over a quarter of a million years, suggesting a considerable success story in adapting to a changing climate and landscape, prior to the arrival of Homo Sapiens.
The La Cotte ravine has revealed the most prolific collection of early Neanderthal technology in North West Europe, including over 250,000 stone tools. These include stones with sharpened edges, that could be used to cut or chop, known as hand axes.
"Archaeologists have developed new ways of looking at stone tools since La Cotte de St Brelade was excavated in the 1970s," says Dr Beccy Scott from the British Museum and the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project.
"We have been using these techniques to look at how Neanderthals were making and using the tools they left at La Cotte."
The huge amounts of carefully manufactured tools show just how technologically skilled early Neanderthal groups were.
"The artefacts from the site don't just tell us about what people were doing at the site itself, but throughout the landscapes that are now underneath the channel," continues Dr Scott.
"Neanderthals were travelling to Jersey already equipped with good quality flint tools, then reworking them, very, very carefully so as not to waste anything. They were extremely good at recycling."
La Cotte's collapsed cave system contains intact ice age sediments spanning a quarter of a million years, revealing a detailed sequence of Neanderthal occupation and occasional abandonment, against a background of changing climate.
"The site is the most exceptional long term record of Neanderthal behaviour in North West Europe," says Dr Matt Pope from the Institute of Archaeology at University College London.
"At La Cotte we get to see far more than a glimpse of their behaviour, we get to see generation upon generation of Neanderthals returning to the same place under lots of different environmental conditions."
Jersey at this time was linked to mainland Europe and La Cotte would have been a sheltered cave, allowing occupation.
Neanderthals abandoned the site during the coldest, glacial phases, when much of Britain was frozen.
Understanding how they reacted to the onset of these cold periods will allow archaeologists a greater insight into the limits of Neanderthal tolerances.
Link
August 30, 2011
Even through there are signs of spring about, winter is not quite over yet.
“The cold front which sweeps across the South Island during Thursday is expected to bring a short but sharp return to wintry weather with it,” commented MetService Weather Ambassador, Bob McDavitt. “Some snow is likely to near sea level over Southland and Otago during Thursday, and at least moderate falls to low levels are expected in Canterbury and on the Kaikoura Coast overnight Thursday. During Friday, snow may fall to around 300-500 metres over the south of the North Island.
McDavitt pointed out that, although this cold outbreak is unlikely to be as severe as mid-August’s, it is occurring further into the lambing season. “The snow is more likely to be wet than dry, and this, combined with the wind-chill, is stressful to new-born livestock.”
MetService is forecasting clearing conditions for the weekend, along with some frosty mornings.
Snow on roads is likely to disrupt transport. Some South Island alpine passes in the South Island are likely to be affected on Thursday, while on Friday some of the higher North Island roads might be briefly affected. Stay up to date with the latest severe weather information at metservice. com, or for mobiles, at m.metservice.com.
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I only wish we had the time they had. Lucky for them they had hundreds if not thousands of years to adapt to a slowly changing climate cycle.
Unofrtunatly, our change is a spike of unknown magnitude rather than a upward swing in an gently oscillating cycle.
If will have to wait because I don't have time and I have to ask the people we rent from. Since they are not molto happy about my pumpkins taking over their flower beds, the compost can wait.
When stone weapons went out of fashion, did we go back to sticks?
Reading all of this is more like a horror story than it's inspiring. It's like watching a science fiction movie that depicts a future where everybody is a farmer and plowing the field and nobody is in spaceships, there're no rayguns, there're no flying cars, there're no robots to do the hard labor for us, life is just a bi*** but everyone pushes forward anyway because that's the way things are.
That's the heart of the matter. We feel threatened by this worrying about climate change. Life already seems hard. Economy already seems in disarray. The AGW crowd wants to make it even harder. Seems too much to ask to a lot of us. It also seems like a ploy to subvert (socialism, environmentalists, etc).
I am being a bit facetious though. Still, sometimes I wonder if pushing ahead (status quo) might actually produce better results than this zero-waste and sustainability trend. What if the answer to this problem is only 10 years away? But maybe I'm being too optimistic. They told us that fusion power was not far away, oh, 50 years ago! So maybe we cannot depend on the innovative spirit of the free market or on blind optimism, but then, i'm not sure what's best for us. I find it very hard to trust someone who says we should go backwards by being farmers again or putting up wind farms or rejecting modern convenience in favor of a minimalist lifestyle. Well, I'm not comparing Mr. Rick's post or sustainability to a minimalist lifestyle, but the similarities between the two seem clear to my humble, stupid self.
Maybe some of us are born with this blind optimism in the free market and some aren't. I actually think I have a faith in it. But I know faith is not what scientists want to hear.
Having said that, I think a bottom-up sustainability movement is fine. I just don't want it enforced with an iron fist from above. Should be grass roots. Let the people decide, they represent the country best.
ditto
Now the planet can be made to cool if we want it to.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/30/bill-nye-is -the-anti-science-guy-when-it-comes-to-global-warm ing-and-hurricanes/
The video speaks for itself and to the nature of what we see today. Ya think?
Here's what I think. We are very close to a new record melt since 1979! What say you?
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1979 "The Satellite Era" is what I say
If everything was done fairly, I don't have a problem with grass roots. I hang dry my clothes because it is faster and easier - usually. I have a dryer, fyi, and I use it occasionally: wrinkle free shirts, socks in winter, etc.. I also remember hanging clothes with my parents when I was a child. Almost everyone here in Italy does it and few people complain. It's like having a bidet or wine for lunch everyday, it's natural once you get used to it and is hardly a bother. (Also, I know from having just been on vacation, the reverse: getting used to America again, is also hard and inefficient in other ways).
I have a garden because it is fun (for me), I like vegetables that are vine ripened (they taste a LOT better) and I have the space. I am merely pointing out (so far at least) that you shouldn't recoil in horror, since these decisions were enjoyable/time saving for me. i actually recoil in horror from the plastic-ness of much of what you call convenience.
On the other hand, though I recycle with curbside stuff, I have no idea if it is actually more environmentally sound or not. I suspect so but I won't lie and say I am certain. However, I find recycling a pain in the ass.
But it is a tradeoff. I remember back in the 70s when there was no conservation, etc and people threw bottles out cars, McDonalds had styrofoam containers (and ashtrays), etc. and it was making Indians cry. so paint a picture of 'horror' but who wants to live in an environment full of waste? To you go to a polluted beach for vacation? Probably not, you probably go to a nice clean beach, cleaned every day either by machine or labor.
On that note, i agree with what you said about finding solutions: if machinery/technology can solve the problem, I see no need to do more than is necessary in terms of law. For example, if the garbage sorting technology finally catches up and is able to seperate waste streams, why should humans have to seperate their waste?
Personally, I find there is a nice emotional benefit in being elegant and not wasting resources. I hate eating with people who leave half their food on the plate. It is not a matter of price, it is just repugnant to me. However, I am sure that people who are truly poor would have similar criticisms of my behavior in other aspects of my life. So, I maintain that an awareness of not wasting is nice for me - but like you, I don't take it to extremes.
The problem is what happens when the waste is too much? There is a level of average personal consumption that is destructive to the environment. We can argue about that level but it is undeniable that it is there.
Would you want no restrictions on anything? I doubt it. You want clean water (government oversight), clean soil (government oversight), food standards (government oversight), etc.. Everyone I know that personally wants the government out of industry is hypocritical. I maintain the only fair result is that everyone/everycompany has zero emmissions. You probably complain that this isn't possible. Maybe, but the alternative is a future full of junk and global warming.
ok, time to ramble on....
They know they missed it. Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami say when it comes to the strength of Hurricane Irene as it approached North Carolina, they know they were off. Way off.
“At least in the guidance we were looking at there was no indication of anything that would cause the storm to weaken. So, we thought we would have a Category 3 at landfall,” said Bill Read, the director of the Hurricane Center. Irene came in at a Category 1, the weakest. Read said there’s good reason they were so far off.
The science of forecasting how strong or weak a storm will become is simply not very good. With Irene, forecasters say they weren’t even as good as their five-year average.
“Every storm comes up with a surprise,” Read said. “In this case it was one where it went downhill. Charlie a few years ago is one that went uphill. Neither case did we see that coming, and that’s my measure of the fact that we have a long way to go.”
Link
The Interglacial period that began around 130,000 years ago is called the "Eemian." It appears to have begun with rapid global warming (of uncertain duration) that took the earth out of an extreme glacial phase, into conditions that are warmer than today. Regional temperatures were sometimes 1 to 2 degrees higher than that of the Holocene interglacial (the one we are still in). There are indications that there was climate instability during the Eemian, however they are controversial. In addition, there is less evidence that the temperature changes were globally synchronous, so in terms of global temperature change, conditions during the Eemian, may not have been much different from today.
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I totally agree with your point. If only we were as slow or as shallow as the Eemian slope, we would be ok.
I wish there was some way to show the horizontal scale better, the way you posted it, it looks like there has already been a steep area. I think it is probably confusing to the denialist crowd that are lite on math.
Humorous note on the label of hte scale: imagine if that really were 140,000 years of BP. Out temperature would be like that in a frying pan!
I will readily agree to the fact that there are many unknowns concerning the processes involved in the heating and cooling processes that Earth goes through. What I do not so easily agree on is to dismiss what we do know simply because we do not know everything. Some prefer to work with the unknowns and this is good. We need to expand our knowledge base. I prefer to work with what we do know. Once some of the unknowns can be solved and become "known", we can easily add this to what we know already. Will this change what we do know already in any significant way? Maybe, and maybe not. We need to work with what we do know while trying to solve what we do not know. Adjustments, if any are needed, can be made as we become more aware and expand our knowledge base. I encourage everyone to work on the basis of what we do know. Waiting for the time that we know everything, concerning climate change, is somewhat of a fool's pursuit. Why would anyone believe that we could possibly know everything and why would anyone believe that we should take no actions until we do know everything? We work with what we know while we try to discover what we do not know. .... Is this too simplistic for us to understand?
I throw zero waste, trash free parties. Though it's an extra load or two of dishes the satisfaction of not putting any thing in the trash is worth it. It saves me money too..not buying all that plastic, though I usually spend it on a better quality, organic, local food. Instead of just feeding the guests crap.
Many times what one seems a waste of time...this being sustainable, is really an investment of a 3 fold betterment of health & overall savings...which leads to a higher quality of free time.
A month ago I made another leap in the change to sustainable eating. We are only consuming local, grass raised or organic meats. Sounds expensive huh? You'd be surprised how many roosters are free on craigslist. OMG butcher my own? (no~ actually the man of the house does). Well you wouldn't want me to employ some illegal to do it right? Cause that is what most Americans are doing. Butchering near free food allows me to afford the rest (which tastes like heaven). When an ingredient from China killed my cat, it opened my eyes to how fast another country could kill the majority of us. It made me look at where my food came from & what it went through. I saw what the AG industry has done in the last 20years to give us cheap food. Food isn't coming from farms that look like the ones on the box it's sold in. I don't want my corn sprayed with round up, my beef fed with that corn, covered in feces or butchered by some illegal. Why is this generation of 50 somethings looking decrepit & on handfuls of pills? This is another area where sustainable pays back in money & quality of life..
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Probably the ones who are pretending that the people at CERN are saying that CO2 doesn't trap infrared radiation in the atmosphere.
Yeah, I saw that. According to the host, Fox News viewers are "confused" by science basics even when they're expressed in very elementary terms by the ex-host of a children's TV show. Not that that's a shock, of course...
The denialosphere is twisting the heck out of the CLOUD study trying to make it into something it's not. In a nutshell, the CERN study absolutely does not show that cosmic rays have been behind one iota of the current rapid warming. In fact, it may show that cosmic rays play even less of a role than thought. More on that later. For now, read this to have the study's results explained in straightforward, no-spin language.
They'll still be available to buy in the shops until stocks run out, but it'll be illegal to make 60W incandescent bulbs in Europe or to import them. I've never used 60W bulbs much, anyway, so I won't be rushing out to stock up before the shops run out. I've always used 100W bulbs and stocked up on these last year before they were phased out, although they disappeared from the supermarket shelves sooner than I expected and I had to resort to buying 4 packs from pound shops. As you'd expect, these 25p bulbs don't last long.
Energy saving measures are necessary to cut down on the burning of fossil fuels, which causes global warming, but this is a step too far. It would be okay if the light from the more energy efficient fluorescent bulbs was no different, but it is. VERY different. The light has a 'cold creepiness' about it which gives a totally different atmosphere to a room and makes me feel as if I'm awaiting interrogation in a cell in some dystopian Orwellian novel.
Colours are not the same and food looks less appetising. I'm pretty sure the ban won't last long when people start having to replace their incandescents with fluorescents and realise just how crappy the new ones are. A ban in New Zealand has already been reversed. Meanwhile, we'll probably be able to buy 25p pound shop incandescent bulbs on the black market for a pound down the pub and think we're getting a real bargain.
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Well, I agree that I have preferred incandescent to fluorescent myself, most of my experience being the long tubes commonly used in most businesses, and will likely put off using the new fluorescent replacements personally as long as I can. However, I will admit that, at least with the tubes, a lot depends on the specific color you use.
Some time I ago, I noticed that a store I was overseeing was using a slightly different type of fluorescent bulb that was, to me, far less harsh looking than the standard fluorescent bulbs. They seemed to give off a sort of tan light as opposed to the bright bluish-white that I usually saw. (Looking this up quickly...I think these were the ones that are referred to as "warm-white" as opposed to "cool-white".) I also note, just from my quick search, that other types exist, including
someone called"sunlight" and "natural light""daylight". I have no experience withthoseother types, but wonder if they aren't more aesthetically pleasing than the cool-white variety. I totally agree that the "cool-white" versions cast a very 'artificial' look on everything that leaves you longing for the outside light, or even darkness for that matter.I have seen very few of the new compact replacements though, so I'm not sure if they are equally as harsh as the tubes, or if they are available in all the same color types.
As an aside, I had a friend tell me that after changing the bulbs in his home over to the new style, he could no longer use his solar-powered checkbook calculator under his lights at home. A minor issue to be sure, and if true, I suppose is related to the lower energy output of the bulbs.
Edited: I was going from memory, never a good thing with my memory, when listing the other types of fluorescents and I think I mis-remembered the names so I looked them back up and corrected them. "Daylight" was one of the other types I saw. There appears to be other types as well.
But the small ones that fit into the light sockets formerly used for incandescents are totally different. They give off a bluish, depressing light which alters colours and I'm quite sure the decision to ban incandescents in Europe will be overturned by popular demand, as it was in New Zealand.
Gosh. I haven't really had much first-hand experience with the small fluorescents, but if they are worse than the "cool-white" fluorescent tubes I'm definitely not going to like them. I seem to recall that in every apartment I had that the kitchen usually had a fluorescent tube that had a pleasing light as well. I wonder if they were the "warm-white' variety. It's been so long and I really didn't pay much attention to such things then, so I have no idea really.
Posted by wwadmin on Tue, 30/08/2011 - 16:46
Filed in:
National News
UPDATED 8:38am -- Thursday is the first official day of Spring in New Zealand but Winter is going to remind us it's not quite finished with us yet.
WeatherWatch.co.nz is again predicting snow to low levels - but unlike previous snow storms over the past several weeks this one is going to be short and sharp and snow is less likely to settle in our main centres.
Sleet is predicted in from Invercargill to Dunedin, then up to Christchurch and into Wellington, but snow is now not looking so likely, with temperatures probably too high for snow.
"I think we'll see more of a rain and snow mix for Christchurch on Thursday evening, it's possible snow flakes may fall again overnight in the city but it's looking less likely".
Mr Green says snow will be more likely above a couple of hundred metres which will affect inland parts of Canterbury towards the hills.
Around Dunedin and Invercargill precipitation levels aren't likely to be as high, which again reduces the risk of snow.
WeatherWatch.co.nz believes most main centres won't see any snow, but says residents still need to keep up with the latest forecasts as snow systems have a habit of being tricky to forecast.
The North Island will feel the cold too, with the southerly change hitting the capital late on Thursday.
Head weather analyst Philip Duncan says it will be cold in the wind for Wellington on Thursday night and Friday - but that snow wasn't expected in the city. "For snow lovers you'll have to head for the hills to find any white stuff" he said. "We are predicting sleet possibly for a time in Wellington and perhaps a few snow flakes above 200 metres, but it's not likely to settle and will most likely fall in the very early hours of Friday when people are sleeping".
He says State Highway 2 over the Rimutaka Ranges may be affected by snow at the summit overnight Thursday and the Desert Road was facing a similar forecast on Friday morning.
"While it will be cold for many places on Friday it won't be as bad as the snow storm earlier this month. The air from this blast is coming from midway over the Southern Ocean and not off the South Pole" says Mr Duncan.
For skiers the news is great - with more snow for most ski fields on Thursday and Friday and then sunny weather moving in for the weekend.
However Farmers are being told be prepared for the cold change - which thankfully will die out by Saturday.
Frosty conditions are then predicted and vine growers are also being advised to prepare for potential frosts.
- WeatherWatch.co.nz
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From: The Advertiser
August 31, 2008 11:30PM
ADELAIDE has recorded its coldest August in more than 35 years.
The city had an average temperature of 14.8C for the last month of winter.
That compared with a usual average of 16.6C for August.
Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Allan Beattie said the previous record for a cold August was in 1970 when the average temperature was 14.4C.
But the coldest August was in 1951 when the average temperature was 14.1C.
Adelaide's winter this year also had a below-average temperature of 15.5C, compared with the usual average of 16C.
Last month was also wetter than usual for August. Adelaide received 85mm of rain compared with an average of 66.5mm, the wettest August since 2005.
However, winter as a whole received average rainfall of 222mm of rain.
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
Adelaide's coldest maximum temperature this winter was 11.1C on July 7, Mr Beattie said, while the coldest minimum temperature was 0.7C on July 28.
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ditto...great attitude
this.
Second giant ice island set to break off Greenland glacier
Astonished scientist says he was 'completely unprepared for the gob-smacking scale of the breakup, which rendered me speechless' New photographs taken of a vast glacier in northern Greenland have revealed the astonishing rate of its breakup, with one scientist saying he was rendered "speechless."
In August 2010, part of the Petermann Glacier about four times the size of Manhattan island broke off , prompting a hearing in Congress.
And researcher Jason Box of Ohio State University said another section, about twice the size of Manhattan, was now close to doing the same, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
In 2009, scientists installed GPS masts on the glacier to track its movement.
Image: The Petermann Glacier on July 24, 2001.
Alun Hubbard / Aberystwyth University, Wales, U
Taken nearly two years after the picture above was taken, this photo shows the extent of the ice loss. The channel is about ten miles wide.
But when they returned in July this year, they found the ice had been melting so quickly %u2014 at an unexpected 16-and-a-half feet in two years %u2014 that some of the masts stuck into the glacier were no longer in position.
Alun Hubbard, of the Centre for Glaciology at Aberystwyth University, U.K., said in a statement issued by the Byrd Polar Research Center that scientists were still trying to work out how fast the glacier was moving and the effect on the ice sheet feeding the glacier.
But he said he was taken aback by the difference between 2009 and 2011 when he visited the glacier in late July.
"Although I knew what to expect in terms of ice loss from satellite imagery, I was still completely unprepared for the gob-smacking scale of the break-up, which rendered me speechless," he said in the statement.
The Petermann Glacier seen in August, 2009. The cliffs on the left are about 3,000 feet high, about the same height as three Eiffel Towers or more than two Willis Towers.
Taken nearly two years after the picture above was taken, this photo shows the extent of the ice loss. The channel is about ten miles wide.
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Yup, Skyepony rocks. Does what I want to do better than I can.
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