The cost of human actions...

Pakistan became a nation about 65 years ago when it was formed by a mutual agreement between India and Pakistan to separate the Hindu and Muslim populations that were part of the Indian nation formed after it left the colonization fostered by England until 1947.

Pakistan covers about the same geographic area as Texas... but has a population of more than 184 million. To manage their needs and their growth in the past 65 years they have executed a massive deforestation...once 46% of Pakistan was forested, today only 6% of this nation is covered by trees. As a result there is almost no natural ground cover to hold the soil and prevent erosion.

When the worst monsoon rains in recorded history came to Pakistan in 2010 they suffered, by far, the worst flooding of all time. Hundreds of thousands of livestock dead, crops washed away, land, homes, and entire towns destroyed. And beyond the loss of property, even town...was the loss of more than 1300 lives, lost to rising waters, mud slides and rapid flash flooding. While the monsoon was a natural event, and would have yielded significant damage, the majority of the devastation occurred due to Human Actions... land cleared for crops, more cleared for the largest livestock herd in the world, rivers diverted for irrigation without concern for the ability to hold to natural banks. There should be no mistaking it, man made this disaster much worse than it would have been if we had worked to maintain a sustainable environment.

The land was stripped by man, not by fire or natural disaster. Understanding that we change the equation is part of the solution for the earth's trauma. We have no choice, what happens in Pakistan impacts us half way around the world, no question, and if we are unwilling to help solve the problems of other nations we will suffer the global changes that arise from human actions...theirs and our own.

We need to help replant the trees in Pakistan, help them understand how to effectively farm their lands, distribute and control their herds, and conserve and manage their water resources so that they can survive high impact climatic events not only today, but decades into the future. Its an imperative.

More Cars Than Ever...

In 1999 there were more than 600 million vehicles operating in the world and we increased production each year by 6 to 10 percent. If these trends continue, that number of cars operating will double by 2030 taking us to over 1.2 Billion vehicles...

Last year China purchased more automobiles than were sold in the US... now that's some consumer power...and India has cheep wheels too! Consider this: in the US we have more than three cars for every four people, 248 million of the world's 964 million... if the Chinese hit that mark in the next 30 years then they will have a Billion cars just for themselves...and at that rate they would have to pave more land in China than they currently have in grain production. And, oh...by the way...they are the number one grain producer.

If cars are among our primary sources of pollution...then we will be looking at a much bigger carbon footprint in the next 50 years than we are currently planning for.

We need to change our technologies... electric cars, LP Gas cars, or some realistic alternative or hybrid...if we are going to reduce the impact of vehicles on carbon emissions.

“What is Sustainability?”

The question seems to be “What is Sustainability?” The quick answer is that Sustainability is actions and commitment to ensure that ‘the actions we take today allow for future generations to have the opportunity for comparable actions tomorrow’.

How can we understand this in realistic contemporary terms? Well, let’s take a look.

We all have computers, a surprise to our previous generations, and they have an impact that we should be considering.

· Our purchasing decisions should address ‘Green Production’ considerations. Things like least amount of cast off contaminants in the process, least amounts of recyclables in the finished product, lowest power profile…resulting in lowest carbon signature…all need to be looked at in a Sustainable analysis.

· In the case of our Computers, like TVs and Microwaves, we leave them plugged in everyday…all day long…and powered up. A Sustainable action would be for us to take steps to turn off the power and save the energy, and the extended carbon footprint. Our action, multiplied by millions of households, has a real impact on our use of energy.

· If we trash our monitor, electing to use a new thin screen monitor, we have contaminants that need to be recovered and recycled to achieve a Sustainable action.

· And if we look closer at our computer we find a wide variety of recyclable parts and elements, from gold, platinum, and copper…to rare earth elements, many of which are environmental hazards that must be managed if we are going to keep a check on our environment and stand up to the Sustainability markers that we should be addressing.

Industrial Sustainability calls for a much broader review. Trash and cast off materials all need to be recycled. Energy needs to be optimized, in process and in product performance. Contaminants, runoff chemicals, bio-hazards, toxins…all need to be considered and reduced, and whenever possible Industrial Sustainability needs to consider Green Chemistry (natural vs. synthetics), reduce or eliminate toxins, design quality and environmental factors into the project, and build to extend system performance and overall life.

Plastic in the Pacific!

Fishers and environmentalists world wide report that human trash, especially plastics, are apparent in all regions of the world's oceans and seas. This depiction of the Pacific Ocean shows the flow that is typical and our heaviest deposits of waste and plastic are afloat in the Pacific Convergence Zone...generally above Hawaii... and the Hawaiian Islands bear proof of this with trash heaped on many of those once pristine beach heads.


The plastic trash recovered accounts for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of fish and aquatic life, as well as birds and reptiles (tortoises). The disaster is based on the human perception that the oceans will clean themselves...and perhaps they will, if we stop now and give them tens of thousands of years to do it.

Here is a collection of what is found covering miles of Hawaiian beaches on all of the islands.

Peak Water II

Peak Water

When we use the term Peak in regard to any resource we are declaring that we have reached our local, national, regional, or international maximum production of that resource. It also marks the point of declining production from that point on. We have declared Peak Oil in the United States already, in fact some specialists suggest that we reached the US Peak Oil point more than a decade ago. And there are indications that we have now reached Peak Oil globally.

Worse than Peak Oil …Peak Water… worse first because we need water to survive, and next because we have alternative energy to replace oil, even if we are not yet ready to do that. For many regions we are at or approaching Peak Water now and our alternatives for fresh water are not as easy to deliver as we would hope. At this point we should note that there is a vast amount of water on the planet, but our sustainably managed water is becoming scarce.

The term Peak Water is a concept intended to help understand growing constraints on the availability, quality, and use of freshwater resources. The clearest definitions of the term were laid out in a 2010 peer-reviewed article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Peter Gleick and Meena Palaniappan. They define peak renewable (surface and renewable groundwater), peak non-renewable (contaminated or non-renewable groundwater), and peak ecological water.

Globally, some nations are undeniably suffering from the impact of peak renewable water, where entire renewable flows are being consumed for human use (residential, industrial, and agricultural), peak non-renewable water, where groundwater aquifers are being over pumped (or contaminated) faster than nature recharges them (this example is most like the peak oil debate), and peak ecological water, where ecological and environmental constraints are overwhelming the economic benefits provided by water use.

According to the UN, more than 100 nations are at some important level of Peak Water today. If present trends continue, 1.8 billion people will be living with absolute water scarcity by 2025, and two thirds of the world population could be subject to water stress. Ultimately, peak water is not about running out of fresh water, but about reaching physical, economic, and environmental limits on meeting human demands for water and the subsequent decline of water availability for our use.

Step one: Conservation and effective water management…locally (that means all of us), nationally, and internationally…or we will see water at the center of conflict in the near future.

Step two: craft an international plan for water conservation, reclamation, and effective global management.

Step three: Make the plan work…and adjust the plan as needed along the way.

PEAK WATER!

The single most important of all resources is water...and the world is running out. We not only use our surface water...ponds, lakes, streams and rivers... but we tap our renewable and non-renewable resources as well. And with population growth at 200,000 a day we have an ever increasing demand for water. A demand that we are unable to satisfy indefinitely.

Perhaps the best example of our situation is Saudi Arabia. After the Oil embargo of the 1980s... not the only one...but a critical one) Saudi Arabia decided to grow their own wheat. After all, they realized that if they cut off oil to the world...the world might cut off wheat to them. So they began a program of growing wheat at home. The source of this water was a complex problem. The Arabian Penninsula does not have a ready supply of surface water, so they had to drill deep below the desert floor for a Fossil Aquifer...a non-renewable water resource from below. Whereas most aquifers are naturally replenished by infiltration of water from precipitation, fossil aquifers get very little, if any recharge.

The extraction of water from such non-replenishing groundwater reserves (known as low safe-yield reserves) at a withdrawal rate that exceeds the natural recharge rate (which is very low or zero for a fossil aquifer) causes the water table to drop, forming a depression in the water levels around the well.

Setting aside the impact of this process to the the whole-Earth system, the Saudis began to irrigate their farms with fossil water and have been growing wheat now for decades...but that is about to end because they have emptied their fossil aquifers...and their 7million tons of wheat will no longer be grown at home.

Instead they have leased land in depressed African regions...and will use those lands to produce food for their nation by using the land and water of Ethiopia and Sudan. Problem solved...not in the least. The water is now free from its entrapment...and no longer available for controlled use by that population.

Pakistan, India and China all have water issues... as does the United States (lesser, but still..) which impact the ability to grow food for the world's reserves, let alone clean water to drink. Water is the key...and we need to wake up to this fact and act now.

One organization helping to raise the issues is Earth Policy Institute (http://www.earth-policy.org/).

Global Distillation

A twist to the pollution scheme.

Recently we have seen a great deal of source information about the devastating pollution found in cities throughout our industrializing world. China, Russia, India, Peru … are all on the list for top polluted areas. China alone is said to have 16 of the top 20 polluted cities.

Knowing this, you would assume that the most contaminated areas would yield the population most burdened by environmental carcinogens…or said another way…those people living in the affected areas would probably carry more of these poisons in their bodies then people of any other region.

But here is the surprise… due to a global cycle of evaporation, depositing, and re-evaporation these pollutants move toward the North and South Poles. It's called Global Distillation, and with its engagement ‘Global Distillation’ effectively causes these apparently pristine regions to be the most polluted by environmental carcinogens…toxic air pollution turning into water and land based carcinogenic poisoning agents…again, the most polluted area anywhere in the world.

The burden of environmental carcinogens is especially high in the Northern latitudes where native populations dedicated to hunting and fishing…anything but heavy industry…wait to be diagnosed as cancer patients somewhere down the line.

What can we do?

Step one is to take local action…your use of pest control sprays (as an example) in the Southeastern United States will evaporate off of your grass and become airborne which through Global Distillation will pollute throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Cut back or eliminate your usage.

Next… contact your Congressional Representatives and your Senators and demand that they support the EPA and increase controls on clearly dangerous chemical agents like Atrazine…a powerful and recognized cancer danger to human life. To date it has been excluded from a re-registration process and future use in the European Union, but we have not acted...and it is still one of the most widely used herbicides in the US and the world.

What you should not want to do is be silent… this problem is ours to solve…our health and the health of our children depends on it.

"Green Skys"

Southwest Airlines

Southwest has a number of green practices and is committed eco-friendly airline partner. Indeed, Southwest has an above average sustainability reporting for the industry and has won several environmental awards since 1995. To reduce its environmental impact, Southwest uses electric ground tools, point-to-point flying, in-flight recycling, paperless tickets (one of the first companies to do so), fuel-saving winglets (save nearly 30 million gallons of jet fuel annually), oil recycling program, noise reduction policies, cross-departmental green teams, and employee ride-share programs. Southwest is one of the few airlines with a LEED certified terminal (Oakland). The airline is also a member of the EPA’s Blue Skyways Collaborative voluntarily committing to reduce its emissions and share technological expertise with other service companies. In 2009, Southwest Airlines introduced the "Green Plane," a test for eco-friendly cabin materials that are recyclable and lighter weight, which can save up to 5 lbs per seat translating into fuel savings and emissions reductions.

There are other airlines that are eco friendly... some that might be cleaner, but none more committed than Southwest, nor with better plans for the future.

Blending Man and Nature

Coal and Oil... sources of pollution and contamination.

Coal and oil, especially fuel oil, diesel and gasoline, are the primary source of our pollution and contamination world wide. The number one user of energy in the world is the United States, however we are being challenged by China and India as these emerging economies...backed by populations of more than 1.3 Billion each... are challenging America's use of fuel resources and are both polluting at an ever increasing rate.

China and India, along with Russia, have the most polluted cities in today's world, and these economic engines are not looking to delay their growth just because of some pollution here or there.

American, however, lacks one of their keys for future success. We do not have a meaningful National Energy Policy ... America, with its short range focus, has failed to understand that we need to harness the resources that we have under our control while we put together the alternative energy tools that we need to create and employ for a truly bright future.

First step: Establish a National Energy Policy.
Next step: put the focus on our American energy Resources...Natural Gas, Oil reserves on land and at sea, Coal...especially clean coal innovations...
Then engage our Universities and Industry to find new sources of energy that produce effectively at a cost efficiency that exceeds expectations.

And at the same time...raise the bar for Water, Air and Land based EPA regulations for limiting pollution and chemical contamination.

Raise the Bar...for success tomorrow.

Do you? Have you?

What Does The Term ‘Organic’ Mean?

You know, when we are reading a menu in our favorite restaurant, or talking to an Organic Farmer, the term Organic means ‘pure’ or naturally grown without forced fertilization and pest killing agents… but when you say Organic to a chemist or research biologist you will find it means nothing of the sort…what it means to them is that the compound you are dealing with is a carbon based compound.

Organic in the chemistry field lends itself to carbon based products that come from Coal or Petroleum… or rather PetroChemicals that are synthetic in nature…man made and not found in nature. And what we are discovering is that these synthetics are not part of the balance of things and many of them…hundreds, and growing every day, in fact are now registered at some level as potential or proven carcinogens…the basis for cancers in animals or man. Seventy five years ago there were very few synthetics around, even fewer in the marketplace…and the cancer rates of most nations were very low. Today, with so many things being made from petroleum based chemistry, there are traces of these substances in almost all of our water and our air…worldwide…and we have no way to determine the impact of the chemistries that these synthetic products make when they further combine together in our surface water, our ground water…our air, our food chain… damn near everywhere you can imagine…and when we look into our own bodies we find traces of them in our soft tissue, in our blood, and in our organs.

These are pollutants, have no doubt, and they are getting worse. Breast cancer was almost unknown 120 years ago. Some say that is because we did not live as long as today…and there may be some validity to that…but not to the point that 25% of all women in developed nations are being exposed to it today…that is only four generations back… that’s amazing. Today we find that more than 40% of us…will be diagnosed with some type of cancer in our lifetimes. In fact it is the second highest cause of death in the United States and the number one cause of death for all of us younger than 85.

So with our misguided definition … we want things to be organic…and we think that will make an important change. Well perhaps it will, but we need to put a greater emphasis today on that Organic Compound definition… and strive for clean air and water, and the reduction of pollutants in our food chain if we want to improve the conditions that have proven scientifically to be causing cancers in humans.

Our first step? Well, our first step is to stop ignoring the indicators. We need to act to reduce pollution, and who knows…if we can reduce the organic compounds that we are putting into our air and water we may be able to get a handle on climate change.

Wouldn’t that be something.