Category Archives: environment

Fact of the Week: Blue Moons

The term “blue moon” comes from the traditional agricultural naming of the full moons throughout the year.

The 12 full moons we see each year are named according to their relationship with the equinoxes and solstices. The names vary in different regions, but well-known examples are the harvest moon, which is the first full moon after the autumnal equinox, and the hunter’s moon, which is the second full moon after the autumnal equinox. Similarly the Lenten moon, the last full moon of winter, is always in Lent, and the egg moon (or the Easter moon, or paschal moon), which is the first full moon of spring, is always in the week before Easter.

By this system there are usually three full moons between an equinox and a solstice, or vice versa. However, because the lunar cycle is slightly too short for there to always be three full moons in this stretch of time, occasionally there are four full moons. When this happens, to ensure that the full moons continue to be named correctly with respect to the solstices and equinoxes, the third of the four full moons is called a blue moon.

There are seven blue moons in every 19 year period. The last blue moon was on 21 November 2010, and the next will be on 21 August 2013.

[Aidan Copeland in “The Last Word”, New Scientist, 1 October 2011]

Environmental Reform. Gawdelpus.

I’ve been thinking recently about environmental reform and trying to square the circle of how we can achieve it. It is hard, which isn’t surprising. If it were easy someone would surely have gotten a grip of it by now.

I’ve taken all the major pieces that I can see (no doubt others will come up with important things I’ve missed) and tried to put them together in one picture to show how they all inter-relate. It’s a messy mesh. [Click the image for a larger version.]

I’ve written before about the need to reform agriculture; [see, inter alia, here and here]; reduce meat consumption; use good land for arable; and have animals graze only on marginal land as they are designed to do. This would make food production more sustainable and provide enough nutrition for everyone … without massive deforestation. It will also reduce water use. And it would be good for overall health by changing the dietary balance from meat to vegetable calories.

But environmental reform goes much wider than this if we are to return the planet to a sustainable whole.

There is also a need to reduce our dependence on mining and the extraction of minerals, oil etc. These activities provide some very dirty fuels, very dirty processes and destroy large swathes of the environment. And to achieve this we ask the people who work in these industries to do some incredibly dirty, demanding and demeaning jobs which many of us would not do. How can that be moral?

And yet currently we are hungry for more and more and more of these mined and finite resources.

Only recently I realised why the western world is so interested in Afghanistan — for its mineral wealth. As was said some years ago about the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait: would we care if all they grew was carrots and not oil? There are already well developed plans for quarrying and raping large swathes of Afghanistan once the political situation is stabilised — maybe sooner [Scientific American, October 2011].

Clearly we cannot totally abandon mining, quarrying etc. But we need to make major reductions. This implies a significant shift away from our dependence on limited reserves of dirty fossil fuels. And not just because of the CO2 that is poured out by burning them.

In turn this implies two things: a shift in the ways in which we generate power and just as importantly a significant reduction in the amount of power we use. It also implies a shift in the way we power our transport, and the amount of transport we use.

But it seems to me that power generation is itself a large part of the problem. 85% of world power is derived from oil, coal and gas, compared with just 6% for nuclear [Wikipedia, “World Energy Consumption”**].

Sure there are alternatives, but none of them is without problems. For example, growing biofuels uses arable land which should be used for agriculture. So in this scheme that is not a good option. Which leaves essentially wind, water, solar and nuclear. Hmmm…

We know that wind and water cannot provide all the power we need, even at a reduced level of consumption [Wikipedia, “Wind Power”].

And moreover I worry about how sustainable wind, water and solar really are. We build wind generator masts from huge amounts of steel, concrete and other materials which ultimately rely on mining, drilling and energy-hungry refining. Is this actually environmentally sustainable when looked at holistically? Or would it be more sustainable to build wooden wind turbines (they’re called windmills!) from trees grown on marginal non-arable land, and replace them every few years? Trees which will also mop up CO2 and provide habitat as well as wood which is renewable and recyclable.

The suggestion is [Wikipedia, “Environmental Impact of Wind Power”] that the CO2 emissions payback for wind turbines is within a matter of months. But what about the other impacts of producing wind turbines: mining, water consumption, etc.? How do they affect the equation? I don’t know. I rather doubt anyone knows with any certainty. Maybe we need to find out.

Water and solar power must come under the same scrutiny. What are the environmental impacts of the raw materials and power needed to produce the solar panels? Building dams etc. for hydro-electric schemes is unlikely to be much better. And there you have the added cost of flooding large areas (of often good arable land) to make reservoirs.

Which leaves us with nuclear.

Well I have to be honest and say that I view nuclear as probably our least worst option. It is surprisingly clean. Yes, despite disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima. There is WHO research that shows the biggest medical problem form Chernobyl is not the additional cancers caused by radiation exposure; they have been far lower than predicted. No the biggest problem has been the mental health effects of the stress [Jonathan Watts, “Fukushima Disaster: it’s not over yet”, Guardian, 9 September 2011].

And Fukushima seems to be going the same way. There the very old reactors withstood the onslaughts of the earthquake and tsunami amazingly well; better than their design specification. Yes there are problems. And as always the situation appears to have been handled extremely badly, largely because people are frightened of nuclear — because they can’t see it and they’re frightened of cancer — and frightened to tell the truth.

Chernobyl was the result of inadequate reactor design and failures of operating practice. Fukushima was the result of a natural disaster and an inadequate process on an old style reactor which was, frankly, built in the wrong place. Clearly there are lessons to learn in terms of design and operational process.

Modern reactor design and build is already vastly improved on that of 40 years ago. Such modern reactors are many times more resilient to failures. At one major incident every 20-25 years nuclear looks a pretty good option. And incremental improvement, aircraft industry style, should see that reduce even further.

Yet, it too isn’t as good as we would like. We still have to mine the uranium ore. We must decommission the life-expired reactors. And we have the immense problem of the nuclear waste. But what is better: nuclear waste we have to bury for thousands of years or an increasing number of environmentally dirty slag heaps etc. occupying surface land which cannot be reused due to chemical contamination? And of course there is a chance that over time science will find a way of reusing the nuclear waste. No, it isn’t an easy equation to solve!

We also have to reduce the amount of water we use. Recent data show that in the US every person uses 7786 litres of water a day in the products they consume and another 575 litres for direct use. Spain, Australia, Italy and Brazil (in that order) aren’t far behind. Surprisingly (to me) the UK fares somewhat better at 3446 and 149 litres respectively. That’s still not good though [The Times, Eureka Magazine Supplement, 5 October 2011].
< br />Vast amounts of water are used growing meat. For example, it takes 15,000 litres of water to grow 1 kilo of beef. A daily diet of fruits, vegetables and grains requires something over 1,500 litres of water, compared with some 3,400 litres for a daily diet rich in animal protein [Wikipedia, “Water Use”]. It is estimated that worldwide 69% of water use is for agriculture, 22% for industrial process and just 8% is used domestically [Wikipedia, “Water Resources”]. So reforms in industry, mining and agriculture would have huge pay-offs for water use.

I’m certainly not suggesting any of this is easy and I’m as guilty as the next person for the amount I consume. As the diagram shows everything is so inextricably intertwined that there is no one place we can start which will have a dramatic and immediate effect although a change in one area will have knock on effects everywhere else. Everything affects everything else so we have to tackle this holistically, from all angles. That needs governments and us, the people, to all start doing the right things so that over time it all comes together.

That needs political will, personal will and commercial will. And an abandonment of vested interests.

And to achieve that probably needs a maverick visionary somewhere like the top of the UN to grip the problem and drive all governments along a better path, and for governments to have the vision to cascade that down to their people. Left to individual countries and individual people we ain’t going nowhere; we’ll continue along the path of everyone looking after their own interests. United we can succeed; divided we will surely fail.

Gawdelpus.

** I make no apology for referencing Wikipedia throughout this article, especially as most of the articles quoted are themselves well referenced.

It's Been a Busy Week!

There seems to have been a lot going on this week which drew my attention but which I didn’t get to write about here. So here’s a summary (in no particular order) …

First an interesting item on how belief can kill. It’s a curious phenomenon but even so I can’t bring myself to read the book. See The Dark Side of the Placebo Effect: When Intense Belief Kills.

Much more interesting and useful is a long article on the National Geographic site about the workings of Teenage Brains and how this should be seen as a sensible evolutionary trait. It might also help all of us understand and relate with teenagers. It certainly seems to explain quite a lot.

Next an investigative journalism piece about the Fukishima Disaster and especially the long-term effects on the Japanese population. The suggestion is that the effects of stress etc. will be far more significant than the actual radiation doses (I guess excluding the immediately affected workers). For my money the article still doesn’t delve deep enough — but the journo writing it probably couldn’t get access to do so.

Law and Lawyers has written several pieces about the worrying machinations of the Metropolitan Police in attempting to get The Guardian to reveal some of its sources. First they were going to use the Official Secrets Act, then PACE 1984. For now though it seems the dogs of war remain caged.

Also this week Obiterj at Law and Lawyers has pointed out that the Fixed Term Parliaments Act 2011 comes into force. This means the next General Election will be on 7 May 2015 — unless both Houses of Parliament decide otherwise by a two-thirds majority.

Which for a scientist somewhat pales into insignificance beside the apparent result from a team at CERN that they have detected neutrinos doing the impossible and travelling faster than light. But hold on guys, they don’t quite relieve it either and they’re asking the scientific community for help to test their results. Good scientific commentary by Adrian Cho at Wired and Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy.

Finally back to earth. There’s been lots of twittering in the dovecotes about female orgasm, how it relates to evolutionary pressures and to male orgasm. Also some good demonstrations on how to demolish a (supposedly) scientific study. The best of the critiques I’ve seen is from Scicurious. Maybe you girls should just be allowed to enjoy it?

Have an orgasmic weekend!

Fact of the Week


The magnitude 9 earthquake that struck Japan on 11 March was one of the five most powerful shocks recorded; so powerful that it lowered the coastline by a metre and nudged Japan two metres closer to the United States.

[Jonathan Watts, “Fukushima disaster: it’s not over yet”, Guardian, 9 September 2011, online here]

Oceanic Truths

A short but very sharp posting from Sheril Kirshenbaum on Wired today points out what many of us already know …

Oceans are Totally F*cked


So what can we do about it? Well you’ll point out that what I do as an individual isn’t going to make a whole bunch of difference. Which is true if I’m the only one taking action. But if we all make changes then it will help bring pressure to bear where it hurts: big business!

So what do we do? It’s a complex problem and there is no simple answer. However the more of the following as you can do the better:

  1. Reduce your dependence on oil. Walk, don’t take the car. Don’t jet around the world on holiday, especially long haul. Fight against excess, especially plastic, packaging. Buy locally grown produce wherever you can to reduce food miles. You already know all these things make sense. And they all help the oceans.
    The less oil we use, the less is transported around the world in mega-tankers, which run on … yes … oil (often horrible crude bunker oil, at that). And the fewer environmentally damaging oil spills there are. And the less off-shore drilling there is. (Yes, that may mean nuclear power; but that’s an argument for another day.)
  2. Buy only fish which is farmed or sustainably caught and which is as locally produced as possible. We have to stop over-fishing. As well as reducing food miles.
  3. Reduce your garbage output. A vast amount of our garbage gets dumped at sea!
  4. Reduce your wastewater output; and clean up wastewater as much as possible. Yes, that means sewage, amongst other things. As with garbage it is scandalous the amount of dirty/polluted wastewater that gets dumped in the oceans.
  5. We also need to reduce agricultural run-off. That means reducing pesticide, herbicide and fertiliser use, and also preventing animal slurry getting into waterways. Which in turn means more sustainable land management. Going organic isn’t necessarily the whole, or even the right, answer; but it should help.
  6. If you’re an aquarist, don’t keep marine fish which haven’t been captive bred. Catching marine fish from the wild is extremely poorly regulated (unlike the trade in wild-caught freshwater Amazonian fishes). Fishing (for the aquatics trade and for food) does enormous damage to tropical reef environments because of the methods used.
  7. And anything else you can do to improve air quality and reduce climate change will help too. A large part of the problems the oceans face is from acidification, which is caused by pollutants and increased carbon dioxide levels. And if we can slow down climate warming, we’ll likely slow down the rate at which the polar ice caps are receding too.
  8. And finally, support marine nature reserves, conservation areas and scientific efforts to better understand the oceans and their biodiversity.

Notice, however I am not saying be totally organic, don’t eat fish, stop using a car or an aeroplane, and grow all your own food. Yes, it would be great (for the environment anyway) if we could do all these things. But let’s be realistic, it isn’t practical and it won’t happen. But we do have to reduce all the harmful things we do and the more you can do the better.

Some of you won’t think about any of this, and won’t bother with any of it, which morally I find inexcusable. But it’s your karma. Many will already be doing something. But which of us couldn’t do a bit more. It all helps. I at least would like there still to be an inhabitable world for your grandchildren. And I think I have a moral obligation to do something the help ensure there is.

Weekly Interesting Links

OK guys & gals, so here’s another weekly, but doubtless occasional, new series — links to interesting sites I’ve come across during the week but which haven’t made it into a full posting.

An article by my friend Potter-san on the Soul of Okinawan Music. The music of Okinawa (the southern-most tropical islands of Japan) is a fun eclectic mix of their native music and just about anything they can import. Try it! I was surprised how much of it I liked.

Also advance information on the London Okinawa Day 2011 on Saturday 25 June. I’ve never managed to get to this annual event but it sounds like it should be a fun day. Anyone want to get together a party of us?

On a totally different subject, a thought-provoking item Should Young Teens be Prescribed Hormonal Contraception? by Prof. Kate Clancy. All the more powerful because Clancy is American and her stance is totally contrary to the prevailing American ethic of total teenage abstinence.

If you are interested in your family history and have forebears who worked on the railway you might be interested in the Railway Ancestors FHS.

In view of the week’s biggest event (at least here in the UK) history buffs may be interested in Medieval Weddings.

One of the most misunderstood areas of the law as it affects anyone involved in literary or artistic ventures is copyright. Fortunately the British Library describe the duration of UK copyright in one easy flowchart. But I suspect I shall have to continue to explain intellectual property law even to our literary society trustees. 🙁

And finally, here’s a super eco-idea: use cardboard packaging impregnated with seeds to rejuvenate the environment. No sorry you can’t have the idea, it’s already been done by Life Box.

Ancient Awesome

No, not me! Only one of those adjectives applies to me. It is ancient peoples who continue to surprise us by their abilities and their foresight.

A couple of weeks ago I came across this on Good and its progenitor article at The Canadian Press.

As we know, Japan has recently suffered a huge earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Construction codes for major buildings in Japan mean new build is relatively earthquake safe, but older domestic buildings in remote areas don’t have this advantage. Japan is used to earthquakes and the population are well drilled for them.

Japan also should be used to tsunami as they often follow (the right type of) earthquakes. And yet there is no civil planning for tsunami. But once upon a time there was tsunami planning!

Sometimes hidden, more often ignored, there are hundreds of stone tablets along the coast of Japan warning people about tsunami. Many of these tablets are 600 or more years old and carry inscriptions such as

If an earthquake comes, beware of tsunamis

and tellingly

High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants. Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point.

This later is on a tablet (pictured above) in Aneyoshi which this year saved the lives of the village’s inhabitants — all of Aneyoshi’s houses are built on higher ground. As one 12-year-old said:

Everybody here knows about the markers. We studied them in school. When the tsunami came, my mom got me from school and then the whole village climbed to higher ground.

Sadly this was not the case in many other towns and villages along Japan’s NE coast, even where there are ancient warning tablets. After the earthquake many people went back to their homes to get their valuables, including children, only to be caught by the tsunami.

So how is it we forget the wisdom of the ancients? Apparently it takes three generations for memories of disasters to fade. Disaster survivors pass on the memories to their children and grandchildren, but after that the knowledge isn’t maintained. Clearly the ancients knew this and erected warning tablets to remind their descendants. We, of course, ignore them; there hasn’t been such a disaster in living memory, so we think we know better.

Maybe we ought to take more notice of the wisdom of the ancients? Maybe it really is time we started learning practical things from history?

Facts of the Week

This is the first in what will probably be an occasional series highlighting unexpected, unusual or just amazing facts I come across. It is really for curiosity value rather than a resource of those who take part in pub quizzes. Wherever possible I will, as always, provide a source for the information. So here is the first selection of factlets …

Each year, an estimated 10,000 shipping containers fall off container ships at sea.
Between five and six million containers are in transit at any given moment.

[]

The Sendai earthquake shifted the earth’s figure axis by about 17 cm and moved the main island of Japan [Honshu] around 2.4 metres.
[US Geological Survey]

The Sendai earthquake also shortened our day by about 1.8 milliseconds (thousands of a second).
[NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory]

The original Polynesian and South Pacific origin of the word ‘tabu’ actually refers to that which is sacred: the application of a taboo actually designating that which is holy.
[OED]

More Thoughts on Japan

I continue to watch the news coming out of Japan, especially that about the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi neuclear plant.

I’m astounded at the lack of assistance the nuclear plant authorities are getting. They have now been struggling with (and losing) the battle to stabilise their reactors after the tsunami took out their backup cooling system on Friday.

I have to wonder (a) why they didn’t shout for outside back-up much earlier on Friday, (b) where the Japanese military are and (c) what priority is being given to getting grid power restored to the Fukushima plant. Why have the Japanese government not flooded the power plant with regiments of Engineers and Logistics experts. And why haven’t they deployed every available military pumping unit and bowser to the site, to help shift water (if only seawater).

Before anyone says it, I know they’ll need bowsers to deliver water to refugees, but I would have thought the nuclear plant needs to take priority, and their water companies should have bowsers too. Moreover the military will have bowsers which may be usable (for seawater) but not for drinking water. And pumping units are, I would have thought, not going to achieve a lot at present in the disaster area (there’s much else to do without worrying about pumping water away) and in any event, again, I would think the nuclear plant should take priority. Clearly too they would need a secure supply of fuel and other supplies – but that’s what logistics is all about.

Yes, I know the military won’t be skilled at managing and operating a nuclear plant. No-one would expect them to be. But their equipment, logistics skills and manpower should be invaluable. We proved in this country how valuable military logistics skills are during the foot-and-mouth epidemic in 2001, where the military were eventually called in and sorted out the problem very quickly. Good senior officers cut through obstructions and get things done quickly and efficiently; they’re trained to do just this; trained in logistics; and trained to deal with horrors like this in warfare.

Should we be exposing soldiers to such an undoubtedly dangerous environment? It’s a tricky ethical problem. But at times of national emergency such as this I would tend to the view that this is part of the military’s role; and indeed the military would expect such a role. After all we expect soldiers to go into battle, kill people, possibly get killed themselves and be exposed to depleted Uranium shells and worse. And they will have NBC suits; although they are by no means a comfortable environment to work in they’re available.

Would any of this have averted where we are now? We can never know. But it seems to me that it probably should have been given a shot. Maybe it has been and we just haven’t been told. We just don’t know.

All we can do is watch, hope and pray.