The other day...

The other day I drove out to Clearwater Beach on the Gulf of Mexico. It was a beautiful day with a deep blue sky, a scattering of clouds, a nice population of beach goers to share the sand...not too many, just a few... sailboats on the horizon, and a parasail to punctuate the scene.

The water, as is almost always the case with the Gulf, was warmer than I like, almost as warm as the air, so there would be no long swims...though it certainly was calm enough. We wandered out about 100 meters or so to the first sandbar which put the water at about knee depth and sat on the sand.

The sand was firmly packed with that 'wave-like' surface ripple that light tides and surf generate. At first it seemed that there was no life on the bar, and there were very few shells...but as I worked my hand into the sand there came a surprise. There on the surface of the bar I discovered a juvenile queen conch with its ridged shell, beautiful with its peeks and burnished edges...and of course the mollusk peering out in curiosity to see who or what had discovered it. The shell was about 9 inches in length and about 12 in circumference. I kept it out of the water for only a few moments then sat it back down on the floor. Within minutes it was gone, digging into the sand to hide in wait for the evening when it would become an active member of the subsurface community.

We shifted positions and to my surprise discovered many more conch below the sand...dozens in fact and though we chose not to pull them from their holds, we marveled at them just the same. What else might lie below the sand in this unfamiliar habitat?

It is estimated that most of Earth's life is in the seas yet undiscovered. While there are only 250000 species of sea life recorded, we have only examined a fraction of the 80% or our world surface covered by water. Every dive yields a new discovery...plants and animal life at thousands of feet living along side methane vents, thriving on chemosynthesis and copper platelets rather than iron rich systems...fish with natural antifreeze swimming in the 28* water of the Antarctic flow...ten foot long Red-worm and whole new legions of crab swarming below light's reach.

Next time you are at the beach take a look...there is a world beyond the shore...

92% or more of the world's fresh water...

Where can you find more than 92% of the world's fresh water? Go south...as far south as you can and you come across the Antarctic Ice Sheet which is more than a half million years old and holds 92% of the fresh water in a sheet more than 3000 meters thick.

 

 What would happen if it melted? Or better than that, considering that it is melting...with huge sections breaking off and dropping off into the ocean, what will happen when it all melts? Simple really, the seas will rise by as much as 200 feet...and the world will be changed as will mankind. It would not be the first time, every Ice Age has had a subsequent warming cycle...and water marks on coastal mountain sides demonstrate water levels achieved in the past.

As the overall temperature of the planet inches up half a degree at a time we find the Arctic Summer ice receding...with projections that it will all be gone by 2050, making it a seasonal freeze instead of year round.

 

And if all that water were to end up in a warmer ocean, well there goes the fresh water in many of our rivers because they will back-flood with salt water changing the nature of things...and the planet for a long time to come.

Sustainability...So Easy...Right?

Sustainability! Kind of rolls right off your tongue...easy to say, sounds like you should know what it is, aught to be easy, right?

One would think, but I guess the first thing we need to know is what is it...followed closely by where is is. Consider this, sustainability is about everything. Director Anderson out in the City of Portland, Oregon says its simple and its not simple... everything is connected...and everything we do effects us today and it effects the generations to come tomorrow.

Sustainability is about protecting resources like the Colorado River from mining of Uranium in the Grand Canyon, or preventing radioactive dusting of cities, like Denver, that have occurred from mishandling of dangerous materials like that which occurred on September 11, 1957 when a plutonium fire broke out in Building 71 at Rocky Flats and sent a plume of plutonium oxide over most of lower Colorado ...not the only deadly contamination out of Rocky Flats during its 40 years of operation. Those two issues...the first one recently stopped by the EPA and Department of the Interior, and the second a reality that was not made public until the 70s... impacting clean air and clean water.

Or perhaps sustainability is about managing the use of fresh water in Florida's Saint Johns River where fresh water is being pulled out by communities and by companies for a variety of reasons...and at a rate so high that the brackish water at the mouth of the St Johns is now moving upriver to areas that haven't seen salt water incursion for tens of thousands of years... hope the bass like salt on their food chain!

Let's take it all a step closer to home. Sustainability is about recycling...not just the plastic bottles, but the cans and the paper too. And sorting out the food waste that can become compost...better soil for plants to grow, less waste to be dumped and managed somewhere else.

Add to that the reduced carbon footprint that we achieve when we walk to the store, bike to work, take mass transit instead of a single passenger car ride... if 10 million Americans or even more rode bikes to work...like the 10 million Hollanders do...we would save millions of gallons of gas and eliminate tons of suspended carbon.

Its an effort, no doubt about it, but sustainability is important and it will improve our lives and the lives of our future generations the world over...So Easy...maybe not...so Right...you bet.

Pacific Plastic...

Think back to the last time you were on a boat heading out to go fishing. You had a cooler with two bags of ice, several six packs held together with those plastic loops on top, sandwiches wrapped in plastic wrappers, and as usual you were smoking one after the other...assuming you smoke.

Now think about six hours later, seven fish in the catch tub, two six packs down...two more to go, and no cans on deck. Where did they go? Over the side, of course...along with the empty plastic bags and those plastic loops.

Now multiply that by a million times a day worldwide, times 20 years and you start to see what we have been doing ...just one or two of us at a time...to our oceans. Add to that the plastic bottles and the candy wrappers, the lighters...sun screen tubes...fishing line, kids' toys, beach umbrellas... you name it, we've been throwing it into the lakes, rivers, bays, oceans...

There was a time when the oceans were pristine, but that time is gone. Cities all over the world have been dumping tons of waste into the open ocean for years, so have ships, boats from fishing communities, and of course that stuff we threw into the lakes and rivers...well it flowed down to the oceans and out to sea.

As the picture shows, there are beaches the world over that are covered in trash...cause trash...especially plastic trash doesn't break down. It breaks up into smaller and smaller pieces, it gets eaten by sea life and birds, often killing them, and it prevents the micro-life forms of our seas from developing and starting the food chain process that it is central too.

Samples of ocean waters in the Pacific between California and Japan have shown that 80% of the surface is filled with plastic waste, only 20% is plankton and micro-lifeforms that are needed to feed the inhabitants at the start of the life chain.

How much plastic? MILLIONS of tons! No...Millions of millions of tons...covering surface areas in the Pacific that are twice the size of Texas... Oh, its in the Atlantic too...and the Gulf of Mexico, the Indian Ocean, the Antarctic, and the Arctic. Hell, there are even Russian submarines in the White Sea and the Kara Sea...great thought there.

And it doesn't just kill the small fish, or an occasional bird. It catches a great array of sea life in its mass, fouls whales with drifting nets, entangles everything. The oceans are no longer pristine, haven't been for near 100 years, though it took us another six decades to actually acknowledge it. Can we change it... yes, if we are willing to commit to the task. No plastic bags, no cigarette buts, no plastic bottles over the side. You take it to the boat, you bring it home and recycle it. That's a start...small as it seems...but we have to start somewhere.

Where's the XL going?

What is the status of the XL Pipeline? Simple, TransCanada started construction of the Southern Leg of the pipeline this week, having received approval from the Federal Government in July, which leads from Oklahoma to Texas and will initially be used to reduce the congestion of oil reserves in the region, but will be part of the approved international pathway once the State Department approves the entire program.

Will they approve it... the safe bet is yes, after all State approved the last version, it was the President...when challenged by Environmentalists...who delayed approval for " ...more review." This pipeline is a done deal no matter who is in the White House, the politics of jobs and oil is just too powerful to ignore. We know that America wants and needs oil, and that in the short term oil is still a key to energy efficiency, especially on the roads. And while the Obama Administration wants Alternative and Clean Energy (if there is a difference) to move forward, the realist knows that Oil is needed as the primary fuel for our vehicles for the next ten or more years. The real issue with the path of the XL Pipeline is the threat to the underlying aquifers that could be damaged when the pipeline leaks, and not whether or not we are going to build it. 

Let's face it, either it comes to Texas, or it goes to China...those oil reserves are going to be pumped no matter what, so its up to us to determine where it goes, and both Democrats and Republicans want it to 'come home'.

The XL Pipeline is part of our future, so we need to ensure that it is as safe as possible.

The next question I would ask is "Do the Republicans want Alternative and Clean Energy?" That one is also a political beast. The funding for Republicans is slick with oil. The Koch brothers are one example... they are fighting the EPA and are not supporting the use of Clean technologies. Others like Exxon/Mobile are not on board with Alternatives either...unlike BP and Shell who are building Wind and Solar projects, Exxon is still focusing on Oil and Natural Gas...though they are researching Biomass solutions which may prove a solution in their own right. The point here...pre-Obama Administrations tended to be Oil-Babies... and it is looking like Romney/Ryan will be taking the same path if they get the chance.

What do you think... Oil and Gas...Alternatives... or both?

More On Pipeline Leaks!

Embridge Co., the same Canadian company responsible for the 2010 oil leak in Michigan...the same one mentioned a few posts back... has again had a leak, this one in Wisconsin. What was it I said,  "...all Pipelines leak..." or something like that.

“Enbridge is treating this situation as a top priority,” said Richard Adams, vice president of U.S. Operations. “We are bringing all necessary resources to bear. Our immediate focus is on keeping our workers and the public safe as we work to remove the oil and clean up the site.”

This spill was only 1200 barrels... ONLY?... that's more than 50,000 gallons... and there hasn't been an explanation yet as to how or why this leak occurred. Enbridge reportedly had had an oil leak in Alberta, Canada a month ago and in 2010 some of its oil got into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. That report of Some of its oil getting into the Kalamazoo River...that was 200,000 gallons, now that's what I call "Some".

The TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline project, which will move millions of gallons of oil-sands oil from Canada to Texas if and when approved, is a Canadian-American cooperative project but does not use Enbridge as a prime contractor. The XL pipeline is on hold due to "additional screening" of hazards for polluting the Ogallala Aquifer that runs from South Dakota to Texas and is part of the High Plains Aquifer System threatened by the XL. The State Department approved the project, but the White House has delayed it for additional review... possibly due to Environmentalist opposition during an election year. Either way, we should expect the XL to be approved in one form or another...and when it is let's keep in mind..."All Pipelines Leak!"