The BP Deepwater Horizon calamity of 2010 is different from all previous eco-disasters, not just in terms of the environmental damage done and the loss of eleven lives, but in the fundamental way that nature has been pitted against herself.
In a “normal” disaster, such as the Exxon Valdez incident in Prince William Sound, Alaska, in 1989, eleven million gallons of oil were spilled. In 2002, twenty million gallons were lost after the sinking of the oil tanker Prestige, off the coast of Galicia, Spain.
Despite the devastating effect that these two events and others have had on delicate eco-systems, as well as the local economies, they pale in comparison to the staggeringly destructive genie that was uncorked by the Deepwater Horizon incident. The difference is that with all previous events, with the possible exception of the Ixtoc rig disaster in 1979, a comprehensible amount of oil was spilled. This is not the case with the current BP deluge, which could involve volumes that are orders of magnitude greater.
Deepwater Horizon has unleashed earth’s primordial forces against each other. These two great fluidic magisteria, the ocean and the vast subterranean gulf oil reservoir, were never meant to come in contact with each other. It took tens of millions of years to form the oil that is spilling out, since it is the product of ancient, dead plants and animals. The deep, man-made hole connecting the two reservoirs, can be compared to a rift in the space-time continuum, assuring the mutual destruction of both universes.
Oil is highly toxic and kills nearly all life that it comes into contact with. Compounding the problem, is the fact that oil and water don’t mix due to their differing valencies (the way that their electrons are held by the nucleus). These properties guarantee long term, devastating pollution and the destruction of eco-systems. The people, fauna and flora of Prince William Sound and Galicia, still have many decades of man-induced misery to look forward to.
As a fluid mechanician, a former oil rig worker and an environmentalist, I’m totally horrified by this catastrophe. My heart goes out to the folks living around the gulf. The management of BP need to do better. But remember, they are not monsters. Oil extraction is inherently, a very messy and dangerous business. BP employs eighty thousand people while supplying an energy-hungry world with its most needed commodity. BP also earned $27 billion last year.
Surely, given the scale of this calamity and the enormous profits involved, we can and must learn to do better. This means employing all available resources to stop the spill, cleaning up the mess, raising our safety requirements, and ensuring that such a plague, of biblical proportions never occurs again.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Stunning Eco-Unfriendliness of New Breed of Printers
Stunning Eco-Unfriendliness of New Breed of Printers
My printer gave up the ghost last week. No matter what fixes I tried, no matter how much web advice I took, there was no reviving it. For some arcane reason, my printer cartridges were stuck, even though I could manually move them. Anyway, I figured the four years that I got out of the printer was not too bad, by today’s standards. Little did I imagine.
So off I trundled to Staples in search of a new printer. Actually, I was in the market to replace my four in one, printer, fax, copier & scanner. I was at least delighted by the wireless feature, which meant that not only could our main computer access the printer, but all our laptops could also, without the need for a printer cable. I was less delighted to hear from the man wearing the “Expert” badge that the current expected lifespan of the printer was a mere six months.
The reason for this short life span was as simple as it was devious. The printer manufacturers make their money not on the printers, but on the ink cartridges. New printers take new cartridges numbers, not the previous models’ cartridges. So when the printer dies, so does the usefulness of their now obsolete cartridges. Therefore, the consumer will have to buy new ones, even though on average, they will only have been half used up.
The bottom line is that all the plastic that went into the printer will be dumped back into the environment. Even if it is recycled, that takes energy. Chances are this process is powered by, you guessed it, fossil based fuels. This is the same basic stuff from which petroleum based products, such as the plastic in your printer originate. To add insult to injury, the now obsolete printer ink and their cartridge vessels will also be dumped into the environment, gumming things up for perhaps hundreds of years.
There are two very negative effects resulting from using all this petroleum for plastic – taking it out and putting it back. The Energy Watch Group (EWG) 2007 report shows total world Proved (P95) plus Probable (P50) reserves to be between 854 and 1,255 Gb (30 to 40 years of supply if demand growth were to stop immediately). So let’s use one trillion barrels as a round number. This corresponds roughly to the amount that we’ve already used since oil was first discovered as a major energy source at the end of the 19th century. Guess what. This resource is not renewable. It took millions of years of animals and plants dying and sinking into the ground to produce.
Basically, we’re running out. This is not over-hyped eco-fanaticism, just simple mathematics. As previously mentioned, the disposal side is not pretty either. Some of the surplus plastic winds up in the ocean.In fact, there is a region known as the great Pacific Ocean garbage patch, about twice the size of Texas, where much of the world’s plastic winds up. Eventually, the plastic breaks down and is eaten by the fish. Next, the now toxic fish are eaten by humans, creating an extremely unhealthy and eco-disastrous situation.
E.O. Wilson is a Biology Professor at Harvard, and one of the world’s most respected naturists. He’s also one of my personal favorites, having written the landmark book “Sociobiology”, in the 1970s. In his more recent work “Consilience”, Wilson predicted that the world would run out of resources sometime in the late 21st century. Historians will note that the British scholar Thomas Malthus, writing in the early 19th century predicted similar results, which according to Malthus, should have happened a long time ago. The difference is that Wilson’s models are much more refined (excuse the pun) and reflect a broad consensus within the scientific community.
So the bottom line is that the printer manufacturers should change the way they do business. Make the printers last longer and help to protect the health and future of the planet.
My printer gave up the ghost last week. No matter what fixes I tried, no matter how much web advice I took, there was no reviving it. For some arcane reason, my printer cartridges were stuck, even though I could manually move them. Anyway, I figured the four years that I got out of the printer was not too bad, by today’s standards. Little did I imagine.
So off I trundled to Staples in search of a new printer. Actually, I was in the market to replace my four in one, printer, fax, copier & scanner. I was at least delighted by the wireless feature, which meant that not only could our main computer access the printer, but all our laptops could also, without the need for a printer cable. I was less delighted to hear from the man wearing the “Expert” badge that the current expected lifespan of the printer was a mere six months.
The reason for this short life span was as simple as it was devious. The printer manufacturers make their money not on the printers, but on the ink cartridges. New printers take new cartridges numbers, not the previous models’ cartridges. So when the printer dies, so does the usefulness of their now obsolete cartridges. Therefore, the consumer will have to buy new ones, even though on average, they will only have been half used up.
The bottom line is that all the plastic that went into the printer will be dumped back into the environment. Even if it is recycled, that takes energy. Chances are this process is powered by, you guessed it, fossil based fuels. This is the same basic stuff from which petroleum based products, such as the plastic in your printer originate. To add insult to injury, the now obsolete printer ink and their cartridge vessels will also be dumped into the environment, gumming things up for perhaps hundreds of years.
There are two very negative effects resulting from using all this petroleum for plastic – taking it out and putting it back. The Energy Watch Group (EWG) 2007 report shows total world Proved (P95) plus Probable (P50) reserves to be between 854 and 1,255 Gb (30 to 40 years of supply if demand growth were to stop immediately). So let’s use one trillion barrels as a round number. This corresponds roughly to the amount that we’ve already used since oil was first discovered as a major energy source at the end of the 19th century. Guess what. This resource is not renewable. It took millions of years of animals and plants dying and sinking into the ground to produce.
Basically, we’re running out. This is not over-hyped eco-fanaticism, just simple mathematics. As previously mentioned, the disposal side is not pretty either. Some of the surplus plastic winds up in the ocean.In fact, there is a region known as the great Pacific Ocean garbage patch, about twice the size of Texas, where much of the world’s plastic winds up. Eventually, the plastic breaks down and is eaten by the fish. Next, the now toxic fish are eaten by humans, creating an extremely unhealthy and eco-disastrous situation.
E.O. Wilson is a Biology Professor at Harvard, and one of the world’s most respected naturists. He’s also one of my personal favorites, having written the landmark book “Sociobiology”, in the 1970s. In his more recent work “Consilience”, Wilson predicted that the world would run out of resources sometime in the late 21st century. Historians will note that the British scholar Thomas Malthus, writing in the early 19th century predicted similar results, which according to Malthus, should have happened a long time ago. The difference is that Wilson’s models are much more refined (excuse the pun) and reflect a broad consensus within the scientific community.
So the bottom line is that the printer manufacturers should change the way they do business. Make the printers last longer and help to protect the health and future of the planet.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Philonatura - future topics - nature, ecology, science
Dear Friend
Welcome to my blog, philonatura, meaning love of nature. I hope to share with you my deep-seated respect for nature, natural philosophy (science), humanity and my own work area of expertise which includes formulating with natural ingredients for natural products. I also look forward to your comments from which I no doubt will learn a great deal. My topics reflect those areas that I have found so meaningful, but are almost always neglected in schools and are rarely properly addressed in other venues. The themes usually fall into one of four broad categories:
1) Ecology
2) Sociobiology – The biological origin of how living things think and act
3) Arcane, but essential science, mathematics and history
4) The Meaning of Life
Some of my topics include:
- Hidden meanings of PI, e, The Golden Ratio
- Global Warming – Fact or Fiction?
- Are men really attracted to their mothers or just Freud?
- Dimensional Similitude – The most stunning scientific phenomenon that you’ve never heard of
- Can an atheist really be ethical?
- Nature vs. Nurture – Who is the Winner?
- Postpartum Depression – Why it’s a natural, evolutionary phenomenon, not an illness and how to deal with it
- The inherent conflict between in-laws
- Do scientific explanations, e.g. understanding how a rainbow is formed, destroy our appreciation of underlying beauty?
- Pre-industrial society; was it really a paradise?
- Is beauty only skin-deep? Is there one ideal and does it vary between cultures?
- What’s the fundamental difference between a conservative and a liberal?
Enjoy
Daniel Rudy
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Why do we love Nature? - The Straight Dope
Have you ever wondered why we love the great outdoors? Why do we think natural ingredients are usually better. There is a simple and logical answer.
Simply look at what we Humans are, and where we came from. We evolved in the savannas of Africa. From there, we spread out to the four corners of the world. Africa is not a jungle, nor is it a desert. That may be why we like our landscaped yards to have some trees, water etc., but in a Goldilocks way, not too much and not too little. In other words, our preferred surroundings are in tune with our more recent evolutionary forward burst, which occurred in Africa.
That's also why we trust natural ingredients more than synthetic ones. While this natural, first order approach is reasonable, it is not the complete answer. It's also where almost all so-called natural ingredients people get lost.
Remember, our natural surroundings were far from perfect. Think about not having vaccines for our children, no anesthetics for having a tooth pulled, dangerous predators lurking around every corner and limited food sources. Modern technology has brought us many advantages and largely eliminated these awful experiences, at least in the developed world. But, we must also never forget our roots.
So the bottom line is that the optimal strategy is to both respect what we get from nature via our genes, and to also respect the more comfortable surroundings that technology has brought us. If a synthetic ingredient in a product, be it a shampoo or a cake has been found to be safe in reasonable quantities, under reasonable circumstances, then we should not automatically shun it.
Nor should we forget that natural is often the best route.
Simply look at what we Humans are, and where we came from. We evolved in the savannas of Africa. From there, we spread out to the four corners of the world. Africa is not a jungle, nor is it a desert. That may be why we like our landscaped yards to have some trees, water etc., but in a Goldilocks way, not too much and not too little. In other words, our preferred surroundings are in tune with our more recent evolutionary forward burst, which occurred in Africa.
That's also why we trust natural ingredients more than synthetic ones. While this natural, first order approach is reasonable, it is not the complete answer. It's also where almost all so-called natural ingredients people get lost.
Remember, our natural surroundings were far from perfect. Think about not having vaccines for our children, no anesthetics for having a tooth pulled, dangerous predators lurking around every corner and limited food sources. Modern technology has brought us many advantages and largely eliminated these awful experiences, at least in the developed world. But, we must also never forget our roots.
So the bottom line is that the optimal strategy is to both respect what we get from nature via our genes, and to also respect the more comfortable surroundings that technology has brought us. If a synthetic ingredient in a product, be it a shampoo or a cake has been found to be safe in reasonable quantities, under reasonable circumstances, then we should not automatically shun it.
Nor should we forget that natural is often the best route.
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