Category: Energy/Environment

Number of Monarch Butterflies Triples

(p. 11) MEXICO CITY — After years of being ravaged by severe weather and shrinking habitats, the monarch butterflies hibernating in the Mexican mountains rebounded last year, kindling cautious hope that one of the insect world’s most captivating migrations may yet survive.
The World Wildlife Fund said at a news conference here on Friday [February 26, 2016] that the orange-and-black butterflies, which fly more than 2,500 miles each year from Canada and the United States to a cluster of mountain forests in Mexico, covered about 10 acres this winter, an area more than three times as large as the space they covered last year.

For the full story, see:
VICTORIA BURNETT. “Monarch Migration Rebounds, Easing Some Fears.” The New York Times, First Section (Sun., FEB. 28, 2016): 11.
(Note: bracketed date added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date FEB. 27, 2016, and has the title “Monarch Butterfly Migration Rebounds, Easing Some Fears.”)

Bacteria Can Break Down Plastic

(p. A11) Bacteria can gobble up oil spills, radioactive waste and, now, plastic. Researchers in Japan said they have discovered a species of microbe that eats PET, the polymer widely used in food containers, bottles and synthetic fibers.
Some scientists have said the bacteria could help break down otherwise non-biodegradable debris in landfills or recycling plants.
“We now have a chance to biologically degrade the widespread plastic PET,” said Uwe Bornscheuer, a biochemist at Greifswald University in Germany. “That is, of course, a major achievement.”
. . .
At a recycling plant, Dr. Yoshida and his team collected 250 samples of PET debris and discovered a host of different microbes living among the trash.
The researchers screened the microbes to identify those that appeared to dine on PET, and subsequent biochemical testing showed that a single, new species, Ideonella sakaiensis, was responsible for decomposing the polymer.
Adhered to a low-grade PET film, the bacteria used two enzymes to break down the plastic into two environmentally benign substances, which served as their main source of food.

For the full story, see:
KAT LONG. “Japan Researchers Discover Plastic-Eating Bacteria.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., March 11, 2016): A11.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date March 10, 2016, and has the title “New Species of Bacteria Eats Plastic.”)

Coastlines Have Always Been Changing Features of Geography

(p. 4) The coastlines might seem like permanent features of geography. But over the past few million years, massive ice sheets expanded and receded, and seas rose and fell by hundreds of feet. Then, around 12,000 years ago, the most recent of many glacial ages ended, and seas eventually rose by 400 feet.
This is roughly where we are today.

For the full commentary, see:
PETER BRANNEN. “OPINION; Lessons From Underwater Miami.” The New York Times (Sun., APRIL 24, 2016): 4.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date APRIL 23, 2016.)

Global Warming Is Producing More Pleasant Weather in United States

(p. 9) CHRISTMAS in New York was lovely this year — especially for those who prefer to spend the day working on their tans. It was the city’s warmest ever, with temperatures peaking at 66 degrees.
Record-breaking temperatures are occurring with alarming frequency in the United States, but Americans are reacting with a collective shrug. In a poll taken in January, after the country’s warmest December on record, the Pew Research Center found that climate change ranked close to last on a list of the public’s policy priorities. Why?
In a paper published on Wednesday [April 20, 2016] in the journal Nature, we provide one possible explanation: For a vast majority of Americans, the weather is simply becoming more pleasant. Over the past four decades, winter temperatures have risen substantially throughout the United States, but summers have not become markedly more uncomfortable.
Of course, people’s preferences about weather vary widely. Some want a snowfall every winter, while others would rather wear sandals year-round. So we sought to develop a measure of the average American’s weather preferences. To do this, we made use of research by economists who study local population growth in the United States. They have found that Americans have been moving to places with warm winters and cool, less humid summers. We made the inference (not true in every case, but reasonable to assume in general) that Americans prefer such conditions.
Then we evaluated the changes in weather conditions that Americans have experienced over the past four decades (i.e., roughly since climate change emerged as an issue in the public sphere). Climatologists customarily report weather changes averaged over the land surface — an approach that counts changes in sparse Montana just as heavily as shifts in populous California. But because we were interested in the typical American’s exposure to weather, we took a different tack, calculating changes over time on a county-by-county basis, weighted by population.
Our findings are striking: 80 percent of Americans now find themselves living in counties where the weather is more pleasant than it was four decades ago.

For the full commentary, see:
PATRICK J. EGAN and MEGAN MULLIN. “Gray Matter; Global Warming Feels Quite Pleasant.” The New York Times (Sun., APRIL 24, 2016): 9.
(Note: bracketed date added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date APRIL 21, 2016.)

The Nature article mentioned above, is:
Egan, Patrick J., and Megan Mullin. “Recent Improvement and Projected Worsening of Weather in the United States.” Nature 532, no. 7599 (April 21, 2016): 357-60.

Arctic Sea Ice Rebuilds “a Significant Amount”

(p. A9) Using new satellite data, researchers at University College London reported in Nature Geoscience on Monday [July 20, 2015] that the total volume of sea ice in the Northern Hemisphere was well above average in the autumn of 2013, traditionally the end of the annual melt season, after an unusually cool summer when temperatures dropped to levels not seen since the 1990s.
“We now know it can recover by a significant amount if the melting season is cut short,” said the study’s lead author Rachel Tilling, a researcher who studies satellite observations of the Arctic. “The sea ice might be a little more resilient than we thought.”

For the full story, see:
ROBERT LEE HOTZ. “Arctic Ice Is Able to Rebuild, Study Says.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., July 21, 2015): A9.
(Note: bracketed date added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date July 20, 2015, and has the title “Sea Ice Might Be More Resilient Than Thought.”)

Which Moment of Flux Do the Environmentalists Want to Preserve?

At the APEE meetings in early April, I heard a lecture by Shawn Regan in which he praised a book by Daniel Botkin. The point that Regan was making was that a key difficult issue in environmentalism is to decide, when you want to preserve and protect the environment, which moment of the environment’s constantly changing flux, do you want to preserve? With, or without, us, the natural state of the environment is constant change, not stasis.

A recent book by Botkin that makes this point, is:
Botkin, Daniel B. The Moon in the Nautilus Shell: Discordant Harmonies Reconsidered. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Environmentally Insensitive Explorers Club Mammoth Meal Was a Joke

(p. A11) The story of the 1951 annual Explorers Club dinner is famous, at least among explorers, paleontologists and connoisseurs of exotic cuisine. In brief, mammoth was served.
A club member and journalist reported on the menu shortly afterward in The Christian Science Monitor, and club members have been talking about it ever since.
“At my first dinner, when I was a new member, they told me about it,” said Jack Horner, a dinosaur paleontologist at Montana State University and an inspiration for the character of the paleontologist in the original “Jurassic Park” book. “And they were talking about having another.”
Sadly, as with so many great stories, this one was too good to be true, as a group of Yale researchers reported Wednesday in the journal PLOS One.
. . .
They assumed the flesh was thousands of years old, which meant that testing for DNA was more complicated than testing a more recent bit of flesh. “Also,” she said, “the meat was cooked.”
. . .
In the end, after multiple tests, the team determined that the meat was neither mammoth nor sloth, nor ancient, nor even a mammal. Turtle soup had also been on the menu that night, before sea turtles were in such trouble, and the bit of flesh that the scientists tested turned out to be green sea turtle, Chelonia mydas.
It seems that Mr. Dodge had been having a bit of fun, and that he was the only one in on the joke.

For the full story, see:
JAMES GORMAN. “The Explorers Club Once Served Mammoth at a Meal. Or Did It?” The New York Times (Tues., FEB. 4, 2016): A11.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date FEB. 3, 2016.)

The academic article that documents what the Explorers ate, is:
Glass, Jessica R., Matt Davis, Timothy J. Walsh, Eric J. Sargis, and Adalgisa Caccone. “Was Frozen Mammoth or Giant Ground Sloth Served for Dinner at the Explorers Club?” PLoS ONE 11, no. 2 (2016): e0146825.

Indian Government Scientists Fight Global Warming by Reducing Cow Belches

(p. A10) Let no one say that India isn’t doing its bit to fight global climate change: Government scientists are working hard to reduce carbon emissions by making cows less flatulent.
Consider the numbers: India is home to more than 280 million cows, and 200 million more ruminant animals like sheep, goats, yaks and buffalo. According to an analysis of satellite data from the country’s space program, all those digestive tracts send 13 million tons of methane into the atmosphere every year — and pound for pound, methane traps 25 times as much heat as carbon dioxide does.
. . .
Scientists at the Cow Research Institute in Mathura, around 100 miles south of New Delhi, are tinkering with cattle feed, seeking a formula that will create less gas for the cows to belch out. (That is how most of it is released, by the way; scientists say much less comes from farting.)
But a team of researchers in the southern state of Kerala is working on a long-term answer.
. . .
. . . dwarf animals, which are about one-quarter the weight of crossbred cows, produce only one-seventh as much manure and one-tenth as much methane.

For the full story, see:
ELLEN BARRY. “What in the World; Cows: India’s Reply to Global Warming.” The New York Times (Thurs., MAY 5, 2016): A10.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date MAY 3, 2016, and has the title “What in the World; India’s Answer to Global Warming; Cows That Belch Less.”)

Marine Life Flourishes at California Oil Rigs

(p. D1) EUREKA OIL PLATFORM OFF CALIFORNIA COAST — Eight miles off the coast of Long Beach, Calif., the oil rig Eureka, which has stood here for 40 years, is a study in contrasts. From a distance, it looks like just another offshore platform, an artifact of the modern industrial landscape.
But beneath the waves, the Eureka and other rigs like it in the area are home to a vast and thriving community of sea life that some scientists say is one of the richest marine ecosystems on the planet.
“They are more productive than coral reefs, more productive than estuaries,” said Milton Love, a professor of marine biology at the University of California Santa Barbara. “It just turns out by chance that platforms have a lot of animals that are growing really quickly.”
Dr. Love, who has published research on marine life at offshore drilling sites, said the location of these rigs — in marine-protected areas in a cold current that swoops down from British Columbia — have made them perfect habitats for fish and other sea life.
Scientists and divers have been aware of the abundant life here for years, but a 2014 paper that Dr. Love co-wrote, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, confirmed what many experts had already suspected: that most of the life was actually created at the rig rather than having come from other parts of the ocean and settled around the massive concrete pylons.
“For some of these major economic species like the rockfishes, there’s no question that there are more of them out in Southern California waters because the platform is there,” Dr. Love said.
. . .
(p. D4) “I think it’s time for us to step outside the box and think creatively about the resources we have,” said Amber Jackson, an oceanographer and conservation biologist who co-founded Blue Latitudes with Emily Callahan, a marine scientist. “To lose these ecosystems just because they are on an oil platform structure, I feel, is shortsighted.”
. . .
But over the last decade or so, divers and scientists have discovered that the rigs harbor an unexpected bounty of life. Just beneath the surface at the Eureka rig, sea lions prowl in the crystal clear waters; half a dozen species of rockfish and bright orange Garibaldi swim in the swift currents; and florid carpets of invertebrates and crustaceans cling to the rig’s pylons.
“It’s the most amazing diving that I’ve ever done,” said Ashleigh Palinkas, a San Diego-based conservation biologist who came out to dive the rigs last October. “It’s like an oasis. The structure itself is really impressive. It gives you a sense of total weightlessness.”
Over the last few years, word has spread about the pleasures of diving the rigs. In 2014, Ms. Jackson and Ms. Callahan started advocating to allow oil companies to keep large sections of many of the rigs in place after they are no longer functioning.

For the full story, see:
ERIK OLSEN. “Oil Rigs Gushing with Life.” The New York Times (Tues., MARCH 8, 2016): D1 & D4.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date MARCH 7, 2016, and has the title “Marine Life Thrives in Unlikely Place: Offshore Oil Rigs.”)

Dr. Love’s academic research on the flourishing of sea life at oil rigs, is:
Claisse, Jeremy T., Daniel J. Pondella, Milton Love, Laurel A. Zahn, Chelsea M. Williams, Jonathan P. Williams, and Ann S. Bull. “Oil Platforms Off California Are among the Most Productive Marine Fish Habitats Globally.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 43 (Oct. 28, 2014): 15462-67.

Former Goldman Sachs Banker Predicts “Green Bubble”

(p. R5) Sustainable investing and clean energy are hot topics, but one Danish financier is warning that people might be getting carried away.
Per Wimmer, a former Goldman Sachs banker and the founder of Wimmer Financial LLP, a London-based corporate-advisory firm specializing in natural resources, foresees a “green bubble” that could have similar consequences to the dot-com and housing bubbles.
. . .
WSJ: What are the main issues behind the so-called bubble you see forming in green energy?
MR. WIMMER: Very simply put, for green energy to be truly sustainable, it must be commercially sustainable. The reality today is that when it comes to politicians allocating subsidies, it seems like they are being allocated almost religiously across the board. As long as there is a green element, then [politicians believe] it is fine and deserves funding from tax dollars. I argue that is a little unsophisticated.
We have got to look at supporting and subsidizing the technologies that stand a chance at becoming commercially independent from subsidies within a reasonable time period–about seven to 10 years.
. . .
WSJ: In your book “The Green Bubble,” you highlight infrastructure problems involved in large-scale green-energy projects in the U.S. Tell us about those.
MR. WIMMER: There are a number of challenges that green energy faces, and one [involves] infrastructure, meaning that if you were to target, say, 20% green energy including wind farms in the U.S., you would have to build an awful lot of transmission grid, which is quite expensive.
Somebody is going to have to pay for it–the taxpayer, perhaps?

For the full interview, see:
TANZEEL AKHTAR. “Renewable Energy Is a ‘Bubble,’ Says Financier.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., Jan. 11, 2016): R5.
(Note: bold and italics, in original; ellipses, added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Jan. 12 [sic], 2016,)

The book mentioned in the interview, is:
Wimmer, Per. The Green Bubble: Our Future Energy Needs and Why Alternative Energy Is Not the Answer. London, UK: Lid Publishing, 2015.