The European Environmental Bureau's Musical Evaluation of Rio +20

I've been doing quite a bit of reading lately about various international sustainability plans.  The reading is fascinating, but can be a bit dry.  Every once in a while, one runs into something rather remarkable among all of the policy literature.  So, today, I give you a musical review by the European Environmental Bureau of the Rio + 20 conference.  If you are not sure what Rio +20 is all about, click here.

New material for Co2 capture discovered

Getting CO2 out of the air before it enters the atmosphere from processes such as coal burning presents a huge issue for climate change. It is also an impurity in energy sources such as natural gas.

Workers at University of California, San Diego, University of South Florida and King Adbullah University of Science and Technology have discovered that hexafluorosilicate may be used as a very efficient way of capturing CO2.

A recent article in Nature describes their finding. One of the most exciting aspects of using this material for CO2 capture is that it works well in the presence of water vapor, which others materials used for this function have not been able to do. [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v495/n7439/full/nature11893.html - Nugent et al., Nature 495: 80-84 , March 7, 2013, doi: 10.1038/nature11893]

USF Graduate Student Stephen Burd under the direction of Professor Michael Zaworotko did initial testing of the material, which led to the formation of the international group.

See this news bit:
http://www.domain-b.com/technology/materials/20130508_new_material.html

Environmental Imagery in The Great Gatsby

I gave a lecture a few months ago that brought together some elements of literature and art in the development of the environmental movement.  I am always drawn to bring out The Great Gatsby when I speak of the history of the environmental movement in the United States.  In many ways, The Great Gatsby did to romanticism in American literature what Daisy Buchanan did to Myrtle Wilson in the book.  Thus, Gatsby, to me, serves as a distinct cultural line between Muir and Leopold.

But Gatsby delivers some interesting environmental images that are key to my viewpoint.  There are two symbolic environmental images.  One of course is the ash heap between Long Island and New York City.  This area was portrayed quite nicely in Baz Luhrmann’s new film adaptation of the classic American book.

The ash heap was a real place, now Citi Field where the Mets play in Queens.  It was a dumping ground for the coal ash and other waste from New York City.  Any of us who drive from Long Island into New York have driven by the area, just as Gatsby would have back in the 1920’s.  Now, of course, we take the expressway instead of the roadway.  Robert Moses removed the landfill to create space for the 1964 World’s Fair and the ash heaps are no more.

But the presence of the ash heap in the 1920’s book symbolizes the cost of excesses of the times.  The fact that that Tom Buchanan, representing the old moneyed elite, finds disposable love with a decadent earthy woman within the shadows of the heap foreshadows the loss of beauty within our own natural world as a result of overdevelopment.  The death of Myrtle is the death of nature.

But thankfully, we have resurrected the smoking ash heaps of the past through the reconstruction of wetlands and construction of parks.  We have reshaped nature so that it is a genderless construction of modernity that would be lost to past symbolic realism.

The other important natural image of the book is the blinking green light on Daisy’s dock across from Gatsby’s mansion.  To some, the green light represents Gatsby’s dream of the past with Daisy.  But to me, it has always meant Gatsby’s dream of a simpler world—a world without the burden of excess, a world without decadence, a world of truth that he could share with Daisy.   While he wants Daisy in that world, it is quite evident by the end of the book that while he has hope of the future, Daisy is unworthy of his dream.

Thus the green light represents the hope that all of us have in the value of others and our dreams for the future.  The green light is elusive—seen, but not held.  Visible, but not understood.  Thus the green light takes the place of nature in providing a sense of the unknown—it is technological nature romanticism.  Instead of being inspired by nature to gain the romantic, Gatsby is inspired by electricity.  For the first time in American literature, a romantic symbol, one typically found in nature, becomes technologic—a blinking electric light.  Nature is not needed to elevate the soul.

I live in the land of Gatsby.  After work, when I go out for a run from my modest neighborhood adjacent to one that is not, I find myself pulled to the moonshadows of Gatsby’s mansions because of the broad running space and lack of traffic.  I suppose I race against time among the ghosts with my little LED headlamp.  When I get home, tired but fulfilled, I try to find the green light across Manhasset Bay.  Some evenings it is there.  Some evenings it is not.

Karst and Tourism in China

I was poking around Youtube and ran across this interesting travelogue about Yangshuo, China, a major karst region.  The region is a major tourist destination and the site of lots of beautiful landscape.

I'm in the midst of grading and it was a nice distraction from reading papers and exams.

Ag Gag Bill Chokes in Tennessee

A highly controversial agricultural bill, dubbed an "Ag Gag bill" was recently vetoed by Tennessee Haslam.  It would have banned some filming of animal cruelty at farms and agricultural processing sites and would have required journalists to disclose the sources of information about animal cruelty.  The details can be seen in this article. 

Click for photo credit.

Governor

There have been a number of high profile hidden camera accounts of animal cruelty in recent years.  The meat industry, as well as horse racing interests, are concerned about their portrayal in the media. 

Lawmakers in 10 states, with heavy backing of the agricultural industry, introduced whistleblower bills that would have criminalized things like taking photos on factory farms.  The Humane Society has been fighting the effort to develop Ag Gag bills.  You can read about their work here.

Most of us are divorced from where our meat comes from.  We blithely eat our meat without thinking of the life that produced it.  We waste tremendous amounts of it and throw away huge amounts of meat every day.  We have turned meat into a packaged and processed product that comes from a factory, and not from a creature.  It is for these reasons we are not allowed to see inside of the slaughterhouses.

Personally, I think it would be a wonderful thing if we all experienced butchering animals or had access to seeing it done.  We would probably have a more thoughtful relationship to our food sources.

I think if I were advising the meat business on this issue, I would urge them to put web cams into their butchering floors and make them accessible to the public.  Very few would turn in for obvious reasons, but we would have access to the reality of our meat production. 

As much as we have tried to develop humane sources of butchering meat, we are still killing a creature for food.  Can't we expect that process to be done in an open, honest way?  The meat industry's advocacy for the Ag Gag bills hurts their overall reputation and taints their products.  What do they have to hide?

Introducing New Associate Editor of On the Brink, Fred Shelley

As many of my readers know, I am growing the number of contributors to On the Brink.  Today, I am absolutely delighted to introduce new Associate Editor, Dr. Fred Shelley.  Dr. Shelley is a very well regarded Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability at the University of Oklahoma.

Dr. Shelley and I have known each other for years and his Facebook posts on maps and geography are among some of the highlights of my week.  I am sure you will enjoy Dr. Shelley's take on sustainability, higher education, and the environment.  Dr. Shelley brings a breadth of experience to the blog.  He is the author of dozens of articles and books on a wide range of topics including political geography, electoral geography, and cultural geography.  He is one of the leading experts on the field of geography in higher education.  In addition, he brings a breadth of knowledge and experience on the Great Plains.

Welcome aboard!

400

Yesterday according to Scripps Institute of Oceanography we reached 400 ppm of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, a level not experienced on our planet for millions of years.  Just think about that.  Then think about all of the climate change deniers who are in part responsible for the global inaction on greenhouse gas pollution.  I think there will be a special place in Hell for those who willfully lied and deceived the public about climate change science.

Concentration of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.  Click for credit.

When I was a young boy, I remember writing a poem for some class about pollution (yes, I was into it even then).  It was a long poem, but I only remember 4 lines:

Pollution pollution
What a revolution
People will die
Because of the sky

It is quite a juvenile quatrain, but I always think of it when I hear news of serious air pollution.

For those of you interested in the history of deceit and denial about pollution issues, I very much recommend Deceit and Denial:  The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution by Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner.  It's an excellent account of how organizations intentionally deceive the public about pollution issues.  The book details several case studies, but focuses largely on lead pollution and pollution associated with oil refineries in the American South.

There is no doubt that there has been deceit and denial around global climate change and concomitant air pollution.