New Info on Diet

Monday's NYT included this article with some strongly-worded claims about the health effects of red meat. Based on a study of 500,000 Americans, "men and women who consumed the most red and processed meat were likely to die sooner." "Over the course of a decade, the deaths of one million men and perhaps half a million women could be prevented just by eating less red and processed meats." "In place of red meat, nonvegetarians might consider poultry and fish...Likewise, those who ate the most fruits and vegetables also tended to live longer." (Looks like there's another reason pork isn't high on the dietary wish list these days!) Now, the resource angle: “In the United States,” Dr. Popkin wrote, “livestock production accounts for 55 percent of the erosion process, 37 percent of pesticides applied, 50 percent of antibiotics consumed, and a third of total discharge of nitrogen and phosphorus to surface water.” In addition, eating fish reduces rates of colon cancer while eating red meat increases rates of prostate cancer. Low fat diets sharply reduce the incidence of ovarian cancer as well. Food for thought!

Trayless Tuesdays sweeping the nation

In today's NYT: I heard about Towson's "Trayless Tuesday" this year and resolved to avoid going to Newell on Tuesdays, but I had no idea that Towson was just part of a nationwide trend to get rid of trays. Washing trays uses lots of water, which I guess is why the trays are always warm and damp when I come into the dining hall. Still, do we need to ban them? I almost always eat everything on my tray, and that's usually a couple of plates of food and 2-3 drinks. You mean I'm actually going to have to stand up and walk back to the line?! No wonder the article says that the faculty are the most stridently opposed! :) Seriously, I understand the urge to resist, but this is just the kind of incremental change we need. We need to conserve our resources, and that means altering our lifestyles. That's almost never fun or easy, but it's not worth getting that worked up over.

Picture of the day

Power grid map

Very interesting little application on NPR's website: it shows the electric grid for the US, including power generation and transmission. For Maryland, 56% of our energy comes from coal, 28% from nuclear power, 7% oil, 4% gas, 3% hydro, and a bit of biomass and "other." There are a bunch of big nuclear reactors in the area, but no one state seems completely dependent on them. Illinois gets almost half its power from nuclear energy. Fun gadget!

Superfund damages

The article On the Gowanus Canal, Superfund Stigma is about the Gowanus Canal in New York that has been contaminated for over a century. The Canal is in a highly industrial area and has been polluted with pesticides, heavy metals, and carcinogens.
The Environmental Protection Agency wants to put the canal on the national priorities list of its superfund program, however, the state of New York isn’t in complete agreement on this. There’s a fear that being placed on the superfund list will deter new development. Currently there are two housing projects scheduled for the area, providing 1,200 housing units and costing about $500 million. Housing developers are already threatening to pull out because they claim “to market residential units at a superfund site is virtually impossible.” There is some truth in that statement because it has been shown that property values decline after being deemed a superfund site. Although, it has also been shown that property values go back up after clean up and sometimes to even higher levels. Residents also have mixed feelings on the project, they of course do not want the value of their homes declining, but they would also like to clean up the health hazard in their backyard.
I think the state should allow the EPA to place the Gowanus Canal on the superfund list because even though property values would drop, they would go back up again. Also, the canal is considered a health hazard and the health of the residents that live there is more important than housing development. All in all I think it is a good idea, and hopefully the EPA wins their battle against the state.
--Samantha Richmond

“Fake Trees” Revolutionize CO2 Collection

Recently a company named Global Research Technologies has created “fake trees” that remove CO2 from the atmosphere. These “fake trees” are actually CO2 scrubbing towers filled with various materials that absorb CO2 from the air. These towers are filled with an environmentally friendly resin that when dry absorbs CO2 out of the air. After the resin is completely saturated in CO2, which takes about an hour, water is added to the resin which causes it to release the CO2; this CO2 is then captured and stored. Drying the resin allows it to absorb more CO2, this process of drying and adding water can be repeated indefinitely. Over 24 hours it is estimated that a scrubbing tower containing 32,800 feet of resin would harvest around one ton of CO2 per day. When the tower is put into production in 2 years it's projected that it will cost $150 to capture each ton of CO2, but it is estimated that when the technology becomes more efficient it could cost as little as $20 per ton. The CO2 that is stored also has a lot of potential buyers; the primary buyer would be oil and natural gas companies that pump CO2 underground to force oil to come to the surface. Another idea for these scrubbing towers is to use them in a CO2 cap and trade system. Companies that produce massive amounts of CO2 could potentially pay another company like GRT to build these stations to get rid of CO2.
I think these “fake trees” are a great idea as long as they are economical. I am not positive just how cost effective the scrubbing towers would be if they cost $150 per ton of CO2 removed, but if the price comes down then I would be all for it. We all have borne witness to the effects of global warming and need to do whatever we can to try and at least slow down the damage that is being done. And as of right now these scrubbing towers seem like a step in the right direction.
--Justin Meeks

Skeptical Environmentalist speaks

Bjorn Lomborg, author of a 2001 book called the Skeptical Environmentalist, is fond of controversy, and his article in the New York Times today is no exception. He bashes the Kyoto treaty, noting rightly that the non-binding document doesn't seem to have inspired much actual change, but that further, even if it were adopted it wouldn't make much of a difference. He claims that technology is the answer- I have no idea where his estimates come from, but he says that clean energy will have a much larger economic impact than will cutting emissions. I imagine that he means investing in research leads to jobs, where cutting emissions leads to reduced output, but is green tech alone going to save the day? Coupled with a strong program improving energy efficiency it would certainly help, but he sees a little more salvation there than I do. I guess I'm a little skeptical of this guy!