Boys and Girls??

A recent study out of Denmark has shown that young children are at risk from a wide array of "gender bending" chemicals. These chemicals are found in thousands of items from rubber boots, disposable diapers, food, sunscreen, cosmetics, laundry products, household cleaners, etc. etc.

The official 326 page Danish report shows that this chemical cocktail is driving down sperm counts and "feminizing" boys in the so called 'developed world'. The researchers found that young boys could be at "critical risk" from just a few exposures to high levels from rubber clogs, food or sunscreens. Also implicated are dioxins, PVC, flame retardants and phthalates, which are widely used to soften plastics. A study of umbilical cords from British mothers found that every one tested contained hazardous chemicals.

Normally 106 boys are born for every 100 girls. Now the number of boys is dropping and in some countries more girls are born than boys. In parts of Canada, that are contaminated with higher levels of chemicals, far more girls are born than boys.

Tires, tires, tires!!!

Many of the impacts on our environment from the automobile are never included in the purchase price of a vehicle. This is the way our system works. Huge costs are incurred in many areas and they are never considered. For example gasoline is currently about $1 a liter. The actual cost is over $2 a liter and that price does not include the horrific price that will surely emerge if global heating does what it is forecast to do.

So we need to change the price of things so that we pay the real price and this could only be done by governments. A tax could be applied to make every price more realistic and that tax could be used to pay for the cost of fixing the damage that item caused. Unfortunately governments do not work to protect our environment. On the contrary they actively work to damage the environment and the basic reason for that is that the men, usually men, who run governments are greedy and shortsighted. We will continue to witness less diversity and more environmental degradation until voters choose politicians that demonstrate more wisdom.

Cars, cars, cars!!

Here we have just one car lot, this one for Volkswagen, in the United States. There are an estimated 10,000 cars here but in America there are approximately 500,000,000 vehicles for 330,000,000 people. That works out to more than 1 and 1/2 vehicles for every man woman and child. Imagine a parking lot 50,000 times as big as this one.
America imports about 12,000,000 barrels of oil a DAY to keep these vehicles going. Not so long ago America was the worlds largest oil EXporter.
Ford produced a Lincoln in 1997 that got 7 miles per gallon and all the big car companies including Toyota produce cars and trucks that are much bigger than anyone needs. However building cars is not about what people need it is about what people think they want. If the worlds most credible scientists are right people are soon going to want cars that use no oil.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

A large area in the Pacific ocean has been identified as the 'graveyard' for plastic. When plastic of all kinds is thrown in this ocean some of it eventually drifts to this area and stays there due to the ocean currents. Over time it breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces but this is not the end of the problem. The smaller pieces just affect smaller creatures in negative ways. The UNEP estimates that 90% of all pollution floating in the oceans is plastic.
The second picture shows some of the plastic stopped by a net in the Los Angles river. This net is regularly cleaned out but most rivers do not have a net to catch plastic.
I was on a nice sandy beach in Trinidad not too long ago and the beach itself was invisible. All you could see, and walk on, was discarded plastic.
Some potential health problems for people using plastic have recently come to light so whenever possible avoid buying plastic. Use glass, china, wood, wax paper or ceramics instead.

Worlds dirtiest coastal ecosystem.

The University of California did a study that showed that the Mississippi delta was the worlds most contaminated coastal area. The contamination results from the chemical runoff from thousands of large farms that rely on artificial fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. The pollution from thousand of businesses as well as millions of people who live along this great river is also dumped into the river. This has resulted in the largest "dead zone" in which marine life cannot survive.
Due to these chemicals this coastline is more polluted than the coastlines near the Mekong or the Ganges rivers. In any case the cost of this environmental disaster is greater than the cost of cleaning up the pollution. This fundamental fact regarding pollution is ignored in our society because we do not count the cost of pollution when we create it.

Yemen may be the first.

The first country to run out of water, that is. Yemen has always been a dry country that relied on wells for water. In the Sanaa basin water could once be found at 20 meters. Now a well must be 200 meters deep to find water. In the capital, which is also called Sanaa the authorities expect that the ground water will run out within 10 years. This problem is exacerbated by all the people who are moving into the city because they are running out of water in the country. Yemen also has one of the worlds highest population growth rates, 3.5% per year. Because Yemen is a poor country they can not afford a desalination plant to make fresh water from sea water. If Yemen cuts the amount of water that irrigation provides to crops the country will have to import more food. Yemen has some difficult choices to make in the years ahead.

River runs dry.

The Ewaso Nyiro river in Kenya has run dry. It is the light brown channel in the picture. This is a result of a drought that has gone on for almost a year. The May thu June rains were much less than normal and now the river has been dry for 6 months. Elephants as well as many other animals have died as a result of this drought. 3.8 million people are being fed by various relief efforts. If the rain in November and December also fail the situation here will become much more serious.

Photopollution is everywhere.

Human made night time lighting is usually considered to be very useful. Unfortunately there are many negative effects, particularly for animals but also for people.

Some of those negative effects were first noticed over 150 years ago when birds ran into lighthouses. 20 years ago it was discovered that baby turtles cannot find their way to the ocean if artificial lights confuse them. Birds are also killed by the thousands when they run into tall buildings that leave their lights on all night.

Research has also shown that women who work at night or who do not get enough darkness produce less melatonin and this can contribute to increased breast cancer. If your daytime/nighttime rhythm, which is called your circadian rhythm is disrupted by a lack of dark sleep on a regular basis you are more likely to have insomnia, depression and other problems such as cardiovascular disease.

It has been estimated that needless night time lighting wastes 32 million barrels of oil or 9 million tons of coal in the US each year.

Some towns have reduced this needless lighting and made their towns more desirable in the process. Stowe, Vermont specifies what kind of outdoor lighting may be installed, they do not allow internally lit signage, sodium vapor lights or any lights higher than 16 feet. It has made a real difference and is one of the reasons that Stowe remains such a desirable area.

Needless outdoor lighting is one simple thing that many of us can do to improve our own environment.

Yum, more 'Mucus blobs'!!

These 'mucus blobs' are showing up more often in the eastern Mediterranean sea. Usually along a coast line and in warmer water. Now they even occur during the winter and they are getting bigger, sometimes stretching for over 100 kms.

Just why these blobs form is not really known but it is known that they contain viruses and E coli and can contaminate the beach sand when they dry out. Even large fish can be smothered by the blobs and large blogs can sink thereby smothering the sea floor animals.

Recent studies have shown that the blobs are spreading and have also been found near Australia. Beware of the blob and this time it's real!

A free windmill.

William Kamkwamba desperately needed water to grow food for his family in Malawi. He could not pump or carry it by hand so he built this windmill for free. He had an old school text that showed a windmill and a nearby junk yard where he found pieces of metal he could use. It was difficult for him to build because he didn't even have a drill to make holes but he got it finished and it worked.
Because this was such an unusual project he was selected to go back to school. He had dropped out of school when he was 15 because he parents could not afford the fees. He has since started a club he calls the 'Doers' and he hopes they will be able to do something useful in the future.

1380 kilometers per hour in 1791!!

The optical telegraph was an important but now largely forgotten means of communication. It was invented by the Frenchman Claude Chappe and quickly spread over much of Europe. It consisted of towers 5 to 20 kms apart with a mechanical semaphore system and a telescope. An operator would sit in the tower and simultaneously receive and send visual signals from an adjacent tower.

The first line of towers was built between Paris and Lille during the French revolution, close to the frontline. It was 230 kilometres long and consisted of 15 semaphore operators. The very first message – a military victory over the Austrians – was transmitted in less than half an hour. In less than 50 years time the French built a national infrastructure with more than 530 towers and a total length of almost 5,000 kilometres, see the map picture. Other countires quickly copied the system but they were not usually connected because Europe was a region that was often at war. In a little over 50 years the sytem was finished. The electrical telegraph with morse code was introduced and this proved to be more reliable, cheaper to construct and faster. It is interesting to remember that the optical system worked well without wires or energy. Something that can not be said for the internet.