SOCIAL STUDIES - A DAILY MISCELLANY OF INFORMATION BY MICHAEL KESTERTON

SOCIAL STUDIES - A DAILY MISCELLANY OF INFORMATION BY MICHAEL KESTERTON

The Globe and Mail

Wednesday May 21, 2008

GREEN DAMAGE

The destruction of plants and animals is costing the world more than $3-trillion (U.S.) a year, or 6 per cent of its overall gross national product, according to a study by the European Union and German environment ministry. The research, titled The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, was presented this week at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in Bonn, Germany.

Ideally, a person with a bad allergy to insect stings would never drink or eat outdoors - period, says Dr. David Golden, associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University. Food and drink attract stinging insects, so picnics and garbage cans are off-limits, and people allergic to insect stings absolutely should not drink out of cans or through straws - anything they can't see inside of.

HOW TO LIVE LONG

Some animals are known to have life spans of more than a century, including Galapagos tortoises (150 years and possibly more), the rough-eye rockfish (up to 205 years), the bowhead whale (211 years) and the ocean quahog clam (225 years). These animals all share one trait common to long-lived animals - they can stay out of the way of predators - says Steven Austad, an animal longevity expert at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. The whale is too big to have many enemies, the tortoise and clam have hard shells, and the rockfish lives deep in the ocean where there is less competition.

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

THOSE DARN SCREENS

Computer vision syndrome. With more than 143 million Americans working on a computer each day, some are blaming screen time for dry, irritated eyes, Rebecca Goldstein writes in the Houston Chronicle. "Eye strain from staring at a computer screen for long hours is caused by the way your eyes and brain react to the characters - or pixels - on the screen," she writes. "Letters on a printed page have well-defined edges, but those same letters on a computer screen do not. Eye muscles continually adjust to [bring] words on the screen into focus, causing fatigue."

Television dust. Virtually every American tested has bodily traces of a chemical flame retardant that may be unhealthy, Scott Streater writes in the Fort Worth (Tex.) Star-Telegram. The dust that coats TV sets may explain why, according to a small study of household dust by researchers at Boston University's School of Public Health. Flame retardants have been used for decades in TV sets, computer-wire insulation, mattress stuffing, carpet padding and many other common household products. Until now, no one has been able to say how they get into household dust and from what products.

MICROBOREDOM

"What if you gave a concert and the crowd refused to watch?" Thor Christensen asks in The Dallas Morning News. "It's not as far-fetched as it seems. As more and more concertgoers fiddle with cellphone cameras and fidget with BlackBerrys, some people say mobile technology is ruining the concert experience. ... At concerts, microboredom [moments of wandering attention that can be filled by mobile gadgets] usually means fans snapping dozens of photos of the band, the crowd and the stage lights. The ultimate disconnect comes when they take pictures of the pictures on the video screen."

TRAIN TO BE A CHEAPSKATE

Some tips from Jeff Yeager, author of The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map to True Riches:

Start with a "fiscal fast." Try to go for one week without spending any money. It'll help you get reacquainted with what's in your cupboards and fridge.

Conduct a "what was I thinking" audit. Inspect your credit card records and cancelled cheques, and ask yourself, "If I had to do it over again, would I buy that?"

Pinch dollars, not pennies. Regardless of what financial televangelists tell you, it's not scrimping on the $4 cup of coffee that will secure your future. Being wise about the size of the home you buy or whether you really need a new car is what matters.

Buy foods that cost less than a dollar a pound year round. It so happens that the healthiest foods in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Pyramid - whole grains, fruits and vegetables - are the cheapest, while the foods that should be the smallest part of your diet are the most expensive.

BARGAIN TIME FOR THE RICH

"For the class of rich who make more than $1-million [U.S.] a year and have several times that in the bank, the time is right for indulgence," The Boston Globe reports. "Falling interest rates have made luxury goods cheaper to buy, and the items, which tend to be considered investments because they retain their value, are proving attractive alternatives to the volatile stock market. There is also the foreclosure factor: A growing number of high-end boats, cars and homes have been foreclosed upon by banks and can be had for cut-rate prices."

THOUGHTS DU JOUR

"Money always implies the promise of magic, but the effect is much magnified when, as now, people have lost faith in everything else."

- Lewis Lapham

"How will living each day for the rest of your life in debt make you happier?"

- Jeff Yeager, self-professed cheapskate

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080521.FASS21/TPStory/?query=un+environment

General Environmental News

Biodiesel pirates steal used cooking oil
'Like a war zone,' says one victim as even alternative fuel prices soar
The Associated Press

MSNBC

SAN FRANCISCO - A few years ago, drums of used french fry grease were only of interest to a small network of underground biofuel brewers, who would use the slimy oil to power their souped-up antique Mercedes.

Now, restaurants from Berkeley, Calif., to Sedgwick, Kan., are reporting thefts of old cooking oil worth thousands of dollars by rustlers who are refining it into barrels of biofuel in backyard stills.

"It's like a war zone going on right now over grease," said David Levenson, who owns a grease hauling business in San Francisco's Mission District. "We're seeing more and more people stealing grease because it lets them stay away from the pump, but it's hurting our bottom line."

Levenson, who converted the engine in his '83 Mercedes to run on straight canola oil, has built up contracts to collect the liquid leftovers from 400 restaurants in the last two years.

Last week when his pump truck arrived at Thee Parkside, a dive bar known for its chili-cheese fries, his driver found someone had already helped himself to their barrel of yellow oil.

Grease is transformed into fuel through a chemical process called transesterification, which removes glycerine and adds methanol to the oil, leaving a thinner product that can power a diesel engine. Biodiesel can also be blended with petroleum diesel, and blends of the alternative fuel are now sold at 1,400 gas stations across the country.

But as the price of diesel shoots up, so, too, does the value of grease.

Those kinds of numbers have encouraged biofuel enthusiasts to plunder restaurants' greasy waste, and have even spurred the City of San Francisco to get into the grease-trap cleaning business.

"Restaurants and staff are no longer looking at this material as trash, they're looking at is as something that's about to go into city vehicles," said Karri Ving, who runs the city's new waste cooking oil collection program. "Unless you lock down every trash can, thefts are going to happen."

Drivers for Blue Sky Bio-Fuels, a grease hauler that also manufactures biodiesel for San Francisco's municipal program, often find the 300-gallon dumpster they store outside the Oakland Coliseum nearly dry, despite the dozens of concessions stands that regularly dump their oil there. Losses at that one site alone have cost the company $3,700 in foregone oil revenues in the last year, said Wesley Caddell, the Oakland firm's business developer.

In Kansas, Healy Biodiesel reports thousands of dollars in losses from used cooking oil heists from restaurants near Sedgwick, about 20 miles north of Wichita.

Seattle police on lookout
Standard Biodiesel in Seattle recently started working with police to try to catch the fly-by-night home-brewers who are pilfering up to 30,000 gallons of the oil they collect from restaurants every month.

Company officials say oil rustlers typically siphon their supplies into drums of their own, which they take to backyard gins to be brewed for personal use.

As more customers seek alternatives to petroleum-based fuels, biodiesel production has grown from the grassroots to become a multimillion dollar industry. A combination of government subsidies, tax incentives and high oil prices have increased demand for ethanol and biodiesel, which can also be made from animal fat.

The National Biodiesel Board reports that U.S. production of biodiesel reached 500 million gallons last year, up from just 75 million gallons in 2005.

To manufacture the renewable fuel legally, biodiesel producers must register with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Biodiesel consumers must also pay the government taxes to help with road upkeep.

So far, members of the National Biodiesel Board haven't reported feedstock thefts, but that doesn't mean they aren't happening on a small scale, said Amber Thurlo Pearson, a spokeswoman for the industry's national trade association.

"We are of course opposed to the alleged selfish, personal-use theft of feedstock that could otherwise go to make product to benefit the U.S.," Pearson said.

San Francisco started its program, SFGreaseCycle, to cut down on the millions it spends each year to dislodge fats, oils and grease clogging the sewers, Ving said. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission eventually hopes to power its fleet of buses, fire trucks and emergency vehicles with biodiesel made from local restaurants' old oil, she said.

Currently, drivers collect about 15,000 gallons of fat and oil each month from 350 restaurants, including Enrico's, a mainstay in the Italian-themed North Beach neighborhood.

When the program started six months ago, the city picked up the old oil for free, and sold it to select licensed biofuel makers for 30 cents a gallon. Now that restaurants are supplying them with cleaner waste oil, they can get up to $1.25 a gallon, Ving said.

Those numbers — and the city's sudden move into the market — have convinced Levenson he needs to invest in padlocks to safeguard his precious grease and the barrels that hold it. Several of those have disappeared, too.

"When you're hauling grease for free, you want to make sure there's something there to pick up. Otherwise, with these prices, it's not worth your while," he said. "That said, if I wasn't doing this company, I would probably be doing the same thing as everybody else, just going to restaurants and filling up directly."

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24729484/

MSNBC

WASHINGTON - The head of the Environmental Protection Agency came under sharp attack at a House hearing Tuesday, with Democratic lawmakers accusing him of repeatedly caving in to White House pressure on environmental issues such as global warming and a recently enacted health standard for smog.

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson rejected the characterization and said that while he frequently discusses EPA matters with the White House, the decisions are his.

But Johnson, appearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for nearly three hours, repeatedly refused to discuss conversations he had with the White House, nor provide a number of documents that have been subpoenaed by the committee concerning the smog standard and his refusal to allow California to proceed with rules to cut greenhouse gases.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the committee chairman, said depositions provided by senior EPA staff members suggest that Johnson had been overruled or heavily influenced by the White House on recent EPA decisions on the smog standard, its rejected of a waiver for California on global warming regulations, and the EPA ongoing deliberations on whether to regulate carbon dioxide.

Waxman calls him a 'figurehead'
"You have essentially become a figurehead," Waxman told Johnson. "... In each case, you backed down."

He said in each of the EPA cases "the pattern is the same. The president apparently insisted in his judgment and overrode the unanimous recommendations of EPA scientific and legal experts," said Waxman. "You reversed yourself after having candid conversations with the White House."

Johnson, a 27-year career EPA scientist himself before being elevated to head the agency, repeatedly insisted that he was the final decision maker on the issues cited by Waxman, although acknowledging frequent discussions with the White House on those and other matters.

But Waxman's committee can only guess on the details of those conversations and communications.

Johnson declined repeated requests by Democrats on the panel to provide any details about conversations he had with the White House, refusing at one point to even acknowledge whether he did or did not discuss the smog, California waiver or carbon dioxide rulemaking with the president.

"I don't think it's appropriate for me to discuss the conversations," said Johnson.

He had sided with the EPA staff and the agency's science advisory board that preferred a "seasonal" standard to determine smog air minimums as they apply to protect vegetation, forests, farmland and wildlife, suggesting such an approach was better than using the one designed for protecting human health.

White House staff disagreed and just hours before the standard was announced last March, President Bush weighed in on the side of the staff, and Johnson relented, according to documents and depositions cited by Waxman's committee. The president's involvement in the smog standard has previously been made public.

Johnson insisted that the level of protection was "essentially equivalent" — a position disputed by a number of scientists including the EPA science advisory board for ozone, as smog technically is called.

Dr. Rogene Henderson, chair of the EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, said she was perplexed by the White House position that Johnson eventually accepted. "Willful ignorance triumphed over sound science," she told the committee as she sat near Johnson at the witness table.

Republicans tried to come to Johnson's defense.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said that White House involvement in EPA activities was nothing new and happened in the Clinton administration. Furthermore, said Issa, such involvement "is allowed" under the law.

Waxman, citing depositions by EPA staff members, said that Johnson also reversed himself on the California waiver issue, once being in support, but then denying it.

"I don't think that's a fair characterization," said Johnson. He said he had considered a wide range of actions, but then last December decided against granting the waiver. He said it was his decision.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24735297/

Giant kangaroo gives clues on climate
It and other mock ice caps around world are photographed from space
MSNBC

Tuesday May. 20, 2008

CANBERRA, Australia - Scientists hope a giant cardboard image of a white kangaroo, photographed from space on Tuesday, will help them better understand how the earth reflects sunlight and give them new clues about global warming's impact on ice caps.

Similar images of mock ice caps are being photographed from space at sites in the United States, France, Belgium, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Israel, Wales and Singapore as part of the experiment, involving 20 science centers and the U.S. space agency NASA. The experiment runs through May 24.

Measuring 105 feet in length, the kangaroo image was placed in the southern city of Melbourne, and was photographed by satellite to measure the Albedo effect, or the amount of sunlight reflected by the earth.

"The sun's rays come in and they either get reflected or they get absorbed," Professor Patricia Vickers-Rich, from Melbourne's Monash University, told Reuters.

"If the sun rays get absorbed, then things heat up. If they get reflected, things either stay the same or things cool off and you can have a glaciation."

Professor Vickers-Rich said melting ice caps mean less sunlight would be reflected, which could lead to more sunlight being absorbed and an increase in global temperatures.

"Ice is like our big kangaroo. The ice reflects the light, so it gets rid of a lot of the heat that comes in," she said.

Images collected during the experiment will be compared with similar images from a year earlier to help measure changes in the Albedo effect.

The other participating institutions are: Science Museum of Virginia, Richmond, Va.; Longwood University, Farmville, Va.; Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences, Peoria, Ill.; Technopolis, Mechelen, Belgium; Henri Bergson High School, Paris, France; Heureka, Vantaa, Finland; MadaTech, Haifa, Israel; Singapore Science Center, Singapore; Techniquest, Cardiff, Wales; Boonshoft Museum of Discovery, Dayton, Ohio; Norwegian Museum of Science & Technology, Oslo, Norway; Questacon, Canberra, Australia; Teknikens Hus, Lulea, Sweden; New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, Albuquerque, N.M.; National Museum of Science and Technology, Stockholm, Sweden; Museo Tridentino di Scienze Naturali, Trento, Italy; Discovery Science and Outdoor Center, Ocala, Fla.

In the United States, these centers are organizing photo shoots in the days to come:

· May 20: Boonshoft Museum (Ohio);

· May 22: New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science;

· May 24: Discovery Science and Outdoor Center (Fla.).

Additional information about the project is online at http://www.astc.org/iglo/.

Reuters contributed to this report.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24725416/