Planting Trees…and the Super Bowl Friday, Feb 2 2007

 

 Mangrove Trees. (AP Photo)

Who knew that the NFL was concerned about global warming? I didn’t – I always thought the main concerns of the NFL were their football games. Apparently the National Football League is planting about 3,000 red mangrove trees as well as other trees that are native to Florida in an effort to combat global warming. They began planting these trees in August and they intend to finish in May.

The NFL believes that planting all these trees around Miami make the games “carbon neutral” in that the carbon dioxide emitted at the Super Bowl events will eventually be taken up by all these trees.

This made me think of that worksheet we did a few weeks ago comparing and contrasting planting trees and raising fuel efficiency standards. I remembered that a typical tree can absorb 13 pounds of CO2 per year. So if the NFL does plant 3,000 trees around Miami:

3,000 trees(13 lbs. CO2/yr) = 39,000 lbs of CO2 absorbed in Miami after one year.

Converted to tons: 39,000 lbs./2,000 lbs. = 19.5 tons of CO2 absorbed in Miami after one year.

The Super Bowl is expected by the U.S. Oak Ridge National Laboratory to emit, including power, fuel, and more than 1,200 vehicles, about 500 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere on Sunday. Now let’s compare these two numbers: 500 tons emitted, but only 19.5 tons of it will be absorbed by these trees after one year.

19.5 tons/500 tons (100%) = 3.9%

Only 3.9% of the CO2 emitted on Sunday will be taken up by these 3,000 trees after one year. That is a very small percentage.

Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University, said, “It’s probably a nice thing to do, but planting trees is not a quantitative solution to the real problem.”  After that calculation, I’m going to have to agree with Caldeira. What the NFL is doing is a good gesture, but it really isn’t going to help much in the big picture. Like we determined on the worksheet, we are much better off raising fuel efficiency standards in order to reduce CO2 emissions rather than planting trees.

One last thing…GO BEARS!

 Picture Credits: http://accuweatherbak.ap.org/apdbs/Intl_Photos/views/micro/31958/31958938.jpg

 http://accuweatherbak.ap.org/apdbs/Intl_Photos/views/micro/30924/30924497.jpg

Source: http://enn.com/today.html?id=12137

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Hunting More Bison and Elk? Friday, Feb 2 2007

A plan has been released that will cut in half the number of bison in the National Elk Refuge in Wyoming. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials say that this is necessary because of overgrazing. (Overgrazing occurs when plants are exposed to grazing for a long period of time without enough recovery time. Land becomes infertile and soil becomes eroded.) The elk population in Wyoming will also be reduced from 6,700 to 5,000 by hunting.

Bison have not really been hunted in this refuge because they, as the symbol of the American West, are what attract so many tourists.

 Picture Credit: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/American_bison_k5680-1.jpg/800px-American_bison_k5680-1.jpg

 The driving force behind the hunting of these bison is that they can’t be sustained by the wildlife refuge. But animal rights activists are placing the blame on federal and state wildlife agencies, pointing out that they create the problem by feeding the wildlife.

“You can’t continue to artificially inflate the numbers of bison and then say, ‘We have to shoot them,”‘ says Jonathan Loworn, lawyer for the Fund for Animals and vice president for the U.S. Humane Society. I would have to agree with Loworn. If the federal and state agencies are in fact feeding the bison, elk, etc., then they should not be able to say that they plan to kill them off simply because they are overgrazing. If they are the ones helping to sustain the bison population in the refuge, then they need to take responsibility for that. If they wish to lower the population, then they should provide less food for them.

Another statement, by National Elk Refuge Manager Barry Reiswig, says “We’ve had a tug-of-war for years between those who want more buffalo and those who want less; they’ll just have to come to some sort of understanding.”

I have always enjoyed seeing bison when I’ve gone out to the West, and I do tend to think of the bison/buffalo as the primary symbol for that area. I know I would want them to stick around. Hopefully the hunting, if it does occur, does not get out of hand.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overgrazing

http://enn.com/today.html?id=12146

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Going “Carbon Neutral?” Friday, Feb 2 2007

 

As students, we rarely think that the things we learn at school apply to real life. We sit through calculus, for example, and constantly think to ourselves, “Ugh…when am I ever going to need this in life?” Lucky for us APES students, though, that the things we learn actually do apply to our lives. I’ve been looking at news articles online and it seems like some of the most recent ones entail carbon dioxide emissions, global warming, etc. Naturally these are going to catch our attention because we have a fresh knowledge of these issues. Thus, we are aware of the urgency of these environmental issues.

Scientists are getting ready to communicate the urgency of these issues through the planning of a report on global warming to be given in Paris, France. An objective of the report is the plan to make life “carbon neutral,” as in greatly reducing carbon dioxide emissions of everyday life so as to slow down the rate of global warming.

Some companies have suggested calculating the amounts of CO2 that are given off by certain activities and also how much money ought to be contributed in the efforts of reducing emissions.

Jutta Kill of SinksWatch, which is an environmental group that monitors these CO2 reduction projects, says that “the carbon neutral trend tries to make money from tapping into consumers’ guilt. It’s worse than doing nothing…those who are in a role-model function like Al Gore do not do the movement for effective action on climate change a favor by promoting carbon offsets.”

Perhaps there is some truth to this statement, because I agree with it in that I don’t think the way to make people emit less CO2 is to make them feel guilty about how much they are contributing to global warming. On the other hand, I think it is important to have people like Al Gore (An Inconvenient Truth) getting the message out to people that urgent action needs to be taken to prevent further global warming. Political figures like him are sometimes needed in order to convince people that this issue is a reality.

This trend is becoming so great that the New Oxford American Dictionary claimed that “carbon neutral” would be its word of the year for 2006.

To show just how much of an impact our CO2 emissions have, consider the following:

• 9 tons of carbon dioxide are emitted over the course of a wedding bash and honeymoon trip for 150 people (this accounts for travel, heating, etc.). Now, say a couple has a larger wedding, with 200 people. Setting up a proportion, 9 tons CO2/150 people = x tons CO2/200 people, x = 12 tons of CO2 emitted. That is 3 extra tons of CO2 emitted just for an addition of 50 people to the wedding.
• It is also estimated that the meeting being held in Paris this week to give a report on this issue of global warming will emit about 1100 tons of CO2 for the 500 people meeting from around the world. Let’s see the difference it would make to add another hundred people to the conference: 1100 tons CO2/500 people = x tons CO2/600 people, x = 1320 tons CO2. 1320 – 1100 = 220 extra tons of CO2.

We can see, based on these calculations, how much difference a small number of people can make in CO2 emissions. It can go either way, though. People can make a harmful difference if they don’t take action to limit their CO2 emissions, or they can make a positive difference by taking action to reduce their emissions.

Source: http://enn.com/today.html?id=12145

CO2 icon: Me

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Fashionable AND Environmentally Friendly? No way! Friday, Feb 2 2007

We girls can’t deny it. We are into the latest trends in fashion these days, whether we realize it or not. But depending on the fabrics from which our clothes are made, we could be wearing clothing items that are not helping the environment. Imagine this: you buy and wear clothing items that actually help the environment. How can this be so? It seems that the Brazilians have discovered it: sporting clothing made of polyester fibers from recycled plastic bottles or of organic cotton that was grown without pesticides. The idea sounds weird at first, but think about how much cleaner the environment would be if a good number of people switched to eco-friendly clothes! There would not be as much trash (like plastic bottles) lying around in the streets, and our bodies of water would not be as full of garbage that people indifferently throw into them.

So, what’s going on in Latin America this month? The biggest fashion event of the entire year, that’s what! This means that local designers are coming to show off their hip new gowns made of recycled materials, which are also called e-fabrics.

Recycled bottles are also helping to produce materials that serve as filling for clothing items such as ties and lapels.

Another advantage is that many poor Brazilian families are earning income by going around and collecting these recyclable materials.

 Picture Credit: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Recycle001.svg/636px-Recycle001.svg.png

Gloria Kalil, one of Brazil’s top fashion consultants, says, “From now on, the industry will have to consider the environment. Otherwise, who’s going to buy things that are damaging for the planet?”

In response to Kalil’s question, I don’t think many people would intentionally buy clothes that are damaging to the planet. They simply are not aware that they could be buying clothes and improving the quality of the environment by donning clothing items made from recycled materials. It’s something to seriously consider…maybe one day the U.S. will follow suit after Brazil and implement eco-friendly clothes.

It is true that organic cotton that is used to produce eco-friendly clothes is more expensive than regular cotton, but regular cotton is harmful to the environment because it needs large amounts of pesticides that kill birds and insects, as well as pollute local rivers.

Producers of eco-friendly clothing guess that it will take some years for people to pick up on this new trend in clothes – they do cost more than regular clothes, but the question that people will be asking themselves will be, “Do I care enough about the future of the environment to pay a little more for my clothes?”

Sources: http://enn.com/today.html?id=12126

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycling

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