Category Archives: Recent Research

Nor’easters bring rain, snow, and (surprise) energy!

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Windmills in a row on cloudy weather, wide shot, denmark

Offshore wind turbines in Denmark

If renewable energy sources are going to power the 21st century, what will we do when the wind doesn’t blow or when the sun doesn’t shine? The proposed solution is usually energy storage. But research from Stanford University shows that offshore wind production and electricity demand match more closely than anticipated. Most exciting, the study concludes that Massachusetts is the best location on the East Coast for offshore wind turbines.

Massachusetts has ambitious goals for renewable energy. The state made a historic commitment to offshore wind in its 2016 energy bill, which promises to bring clean energy and jobs to Massachusetts. But after the Cape Wind Project’s recent abandonment, it is still not clear that the future of wind in Massachusetts is a sure thing.

One of the most pressing challenges for renewable energy is the mismatch between energy production and electricity demand. Because there is virtually no storage for electricity, this is a challenge for scaling up renewable energy. Surprising and exciting, the Stanford study found that the peak electricity demand matched the peak offshore wind energy production for almost all seasons in Massachusetts.

Usually peak demand for electricity occurs in the late afternoon when people get home from work, turn on their lights and begin to cook dinner. Right now fossil fuel power plants ramp up to meet that demand. But offshore wind production matches the increased demand, the Stanford study found. It modeled offshore wind production and compared it to East Coast electricity usage. This counters energy experts who have assumed only fossil fuels can meet peak demand.

The study also reveals that the most challenging season for offshore wind nationwide is summertime. There is less wind when demand peaks, when electricity is needed to power air conditioners in the summer heat. This is less of a concern for Massachusetts because wind remains pretty high and the state has less cooling demand than the more southern states.

Why is offshore wind right for Massachusetts? The best states for offshore wind have two key characteristics: densely populated and coastal. This is because wind energy can serve a large population with less investment in transmission infrastructure. Massachusetts definitely has these characteristics. The study also found that Massachusetts has the best wind resource on the East Coast with its frequent and high-speed winds, averaging 19mph.

Bostonians dread nor’easters, but these storms hit the sweet spot for offshore wind generation. Unlike hurricanes, the wind speeds are not too much for offshore wind turbines. Rather, their prevalence is why Massachusetts has the best wind resource. Our nor’easters come in handy when generating wind energy.

Installing turbines on an ocean shelf has important advantages: turbines can easily be installed due to shallow waters further offshore which also that have stronger winds to generate more energy. So the extended shallow ocean bank, called George Banks, off the coast of Cape Cod is ideal for siting wind turbines. The Stanford model agrees.

Massachusetts has the potential to be the West Virginia of wind energy. The Stanford study considered factors like ocean depths, wind availability, and the risk of hurricanes when they modeled the potential for offshore wind energy on the East Coast. Massachusetts meets all of these requirements.

How effective wind energy will be depends on future technological advances. The Stanford study predicts that existing technology would meet about a third of East Coast electricity demand. But if advanced technologies, like floating turbines, are commercialized, the study predicts offshore wind could meet nearly all of East Coast energy demands. Since the East Coast depends on coal and natural gas for electricity generation, this would be great progress in diversifying and greening up the energy grid. Nationwide, fossil fuels generate over 60% of electricity while wind generates only 5%. With future technologies, offshore wind has the potential to change these percentages drastically.

Offshore wind alone cannot meet all energy needs. Rather, a diverse clean energy portfolio is needed to provide clean energy and jobs and combat climate change. And this diverse clean energy portfolio for Massachusetts starts now, just offshore.

 

“Ha-Tuna Matata”: How Tuna Could Relieve our Energy Worries

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Responsible for a whopping 39 percent of US carbon emissions, buildings are silent contributors to climate change.

Surprisingly, researchers think the solution to these emissions lies in the ocean.

A new study funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of the Spanish Government found that the tuna’s metabolism could serve as a model for how the layout of modern buildings can disperse human body heat in more efficient ways, decreasing fossil fuel use. The “tuna model” is an example of biomimicry, the design of systems and materials based on examples found in nature.

Conducted by researchers and architects as part of the Redesign of the Integration of Building Energy from Metabolisms of Animals (RIMA), the study modeled the annual heat generation, heat loss, and total energy use of two different floor plans within the same building—the Gamesa Headquarters in Pamplona, Spain – in three different climates. Simulations found that the rearrangement of office building floor plans in favor of the tuna model can save 16-39% of building’s annual energy demand. That’s huge.

Why does the tuna model reduce energy demand? Some species of tuna can regulate their interior temperature so efficiently that their bodies can be warmer than the water around them — often by 10 degrees Celsius. It is unusual for fish to be so warm because their heat usually escapes through the gills before the rest of the body can be warmed.

The anatomy of a tuna. The dark muscle encircles the spine. Credit: http://www.fao.org/fishery/topic/16082/en

The anatomy of a tuna. The dark muscle encircles the spine.
Credit: http://www.fao.org/fishery/topic/16082/en

However, a tuna avoids this heat loss through a process know as “countercurrent heat exchange”. The tuna’s heat is generated within dark muscle, a long strip of red muscle that runs along both sides of the spinal column.

This muscle has a complex vascular system where blood flows in arteries and veins that are in close proximity and are parallel to each other. The heat generated by the muscle warms the blood, and its excess heat is transferred to the cooler blood returning to the muscle before the warmer blood reaches the gills. Thus, this process allows heat to be efficiently transferred and retained within the tuna’s body rather than be lost to the exterior environment.

Illustration of countercurrent heat exchange process. Credit: http://0-link.springer.com.luna.wellesley.edu/article/10.1007%2Fs12273-016-0273-8#enumeration

Illustration of countercurrent heat exchange process.
Credit: RIMA study

How can this help us design more efficient buildings? In the study, enclosed spaces like offices or meeting rooms functioned as a building’s “dark muscle”; the more people that are in a room, the more heat is generated. That heat, especially when combined with heat given off by lighting fixtures and building machinery, can add up. Tapping into the natural heat generation of the human body decreases the building’s demand for external heat (often generated by fossil fuels) and the building’s total energy footprint.

What the tuna teaches us is that the key to maximizing body heat retention in buildings lies with the placement of these enclosed spaces.

In most office buildings, private offices and meeting rooms are located along the perimeter of a floor, near the windows. This layout, while desirable for its office views, is energetically problematic because the valuable body heat generated within them is likely to escape through the window before it can heat other areas of the floor – just like heat escapes through a fish’s gills.

The two floor plans modeled in the simulation. The tuna model (a) features closed office spaces placed together in the central ring, and the average office layout (b) features decentralized office spaces. Credit: http://0-link.springer.com.luna.wellesley.edu/article/10.1007%2Fs12273-016-0273-8#enumeration

The two floor plans modeled in the simulation. The tuna model (a) features closed office spaces placed together in the central ring, and the average office layout (b) features decentralized office spaces.
Credit: RIMA study

In the tuna model, however, the office spaces and meeting rooms are placed in a centralized ring around the interior core of elevators, just like tuna’s muscle wraps around its spine. Placing the offices in close proximity to each encourages a countercurrent heat exchange to take place. As expected, the tuna model resulted in more efficient use of the building’s internal heat, while the decentralized office layout exhibited greater demand for heat and total energy.

Using the metabolism of the tuna as a model for the energy systems of buildings has major implications for the way humans think about and interact with their built environment. While sustainable construction materials like living concrete and biomimetic building exteriors are important steps down the path towards a greener and cleaner city, they do not incorporate human services into the equation. With the tuna as our guide, perhaps we can swim against the tide of climate change and design cityscapes with both humans and nature in mind.

The Untold Story of the Clean Air Act

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An image of mountain top removal in Appalachia. Photo by Mario Tama

Environmentalists have described the Clean Air Act as a “genuine American success story.” No other law has done more to generally improve human health than the amendments passed in 1990, which limited harmful pollutants that can cause heart disease, bronchitis, asthma and other respiratory sicknesses. While these widespread public health improvements are clear, in Appalachia the Clean Air Act has a mixed legacy. Surprisingly, some Appalachian communities are dying at an earlier age due to unforeseen consequences of the 1990 amendments. The Clean Air Act is benefiting the many at the expense of the few.

A recent study brings this untold story of the Clean Air Act to light. It shows that mortality rates are increasing in coal-mining communities in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. All of these states saw an increase in mountain top removal coal mining after the introduction of the 1990 amendments, which promoted the use of clean low-sulfur coal to curb acid rain. Sulfur dioxide is released into the atmosphere when coal burns and transforms stored sulfur into a gas. Once in the atmosphere, sulfur dioxide reacts with nitrogen oxide and water to form acid rain. Acid rain has many ecological effects, but its greatest impact is on water systems and forests.

Coal companies responded to the Clean Air Act amendments by seeking low-sulfur coal in the mountainous Central Appalachian Region of the United States. Coal companies access this coal with a method called mountaintop removal, which is a more efficient method of coal mining that uses fewer workers and accesses more coal than conventional mining. Despite these advantages, mountain top removal is highly damaging to local environments—it pollutes tap water and exposes nearby families and neighborhoods to toxic dust.

Makayla Urias holds contaminated water samples taken from her home, which is surrounded by mountaintop removal coal mining. Cathie Bird

Makayla Urias holds contaminated water samples taken from her home, which is surrounded by mountaintop removal coal mining. Cathie Bird

While the sweeping changes of the Clean Air Act improved health outcomes for many people, we cannot forget the people who have borne the costs of mountain top removal mining in Appalachia. Makayla Urias—an 8-year-old girl from Pike County, Kentucky (pictured on the right)— is one child among many living in Appalachia whose home is threatened by mountain top removal and may not have the chance to live a full life.

Researchers from the School of Public Health at Indiana University examined the relationship between mortality rates, mountaintop removal mining, and the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments in Appalachian communities in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. Researchers surveyed the mortality rates between 1968 and 2014 using publicly available data, comparing respiratory mortality due to mountaintop removal by comparing mountain top removal counties to non-mountain top removal counties. The team also considered adult smoking rates, obesity rates, child poverty rates, and per capita supply of primary care physicians when examining mortality rates to ensure that these factors did not account for mortality rates measured in mountaintop removal communities.

Figure 1: Mortality rates from 1968 to 2014, with a divergence between counties with mountain top removal (MTR) and counties with out in years following the Clean Air Act (CAA) amendments.

Figure 1: Mortality rates from 1968 to 2014, with a divergence between counties with mountain top removal (MTR) and counties with out in years following the Clean Air Act (CAA) amendments.

The comparison revealed that mortality rates between the two groups diverged after the Clean Air Act amendments in 1990, as presented in Figure 1. This is surprising because mortality rates decreased elsewhere in the United States due to improvements in medical care. Advancements in medicine are offset in Appalachian communities by the adverse health effects of mountain top removal. The study concludes that increased mortality comes from respiratory diseases related to mountain top removal, such as bronchitis and emphysema.

The untold story of mountain top removal in Appalachian communities after the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments should serve as a cautionary tale to politicians working to address climate change. The narrow scope of the Clean Air Act amendments promoted a dangerous form of coal extraction rather than incentives to encourage development of cleaner energies. When addressing climate change, environmental policies in the United States focus primarily on limiting carbon dioxide emissions. These kinds of broad policies overlook the local exposure to poisonous toxins associated with the production and extraction of fossil fuels—as demonstrated by the communities in Appalachia.

While issues of environmental justice mostly focus on the environmental concerns that poor communities of color face, the framework of environmental justice should serve as a platform for all vulnerable and marginalized communities. Although coal-mining towns in Appalachia are largely white, both the failure of policy to protect these communities and the lack of public concern towards local air pollution demands our attention. The future lives of Makayla Urias and other children in Appalachia depend on it.

The Untold Story of Climate Change and Inuit Women

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In the Canadian Arctic climate change can be added to the list of culprits melting away traditional activities just like its melting the ice caps.

The region is already challenged by high suicide rates, food insecurity and housing shortages. Climate change acts as a ‘threat multiplier’ making the people of the region increasing vulnerable to the sociocultural issues there.

Elder Josephine Ugataq smiling while showing some of the items she sews using traditional methods. photo credit: Peter Power

Elder Josephine Ugataq smiling while showing some of the items she sews using traditional methods. photo credit: Peter Power

A new groundbreaking study explores how climate change is affecting the lives of Inuit women in Iqaluit, Nunavut specifically. Most research into the gendered effects of climate change has focused on Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, and the research on the effects of climate change on the people of the Arctic have focused on male dominated activities such as hunting, trapping and fishing. So this new study by Montreal and Ontario researchers is unique. What is the most effected aspect of the women’s lives? Key traditional activities such as berry picking and sewing.

women-on-the-porch-arctic

The environment around Iqaluit is changing rapidly.  Temperatures and moisture changes during winter impact the fruiting and flowering cycles in the region. This has resulted in the berries that used to grow abundantly around the town becoming harder to find and lower in quality. The warmer temperatures have also brought increasingly dangerous ice conditions and higher costs to hunt so the number of good quality pelts for sewing has decreased significantly.

Emotionally the changes have taken a toll.  Last year [the berry harvest] was depressing”, reported one of the women interviewed. Not being able to cultivate in their children the fond memories they have of the land or being able to harvest and eat the berries they crave makes them feel disconnected from their identity.

Sewing traditional parkas, gloves and boots promotes a strong sense of cultural pride and social connection and is even celebrated as a way of healing trauma. One middle-aged homeowner spoke of sewing as “just like meditation”.  To lose the practice is simply not an option.

So women resort to a more expensive option: purchasing skins from southern furriers or suppliers. A once relatively affordable activity that provided clothing for the family and extra income is now much more expensive. The story is similar with berry picking. Instead of carrying their children along to the local berry patch, women need to go further and further away from town to find berries. Some even turn to taking expensive boat rides across the bay to where changing temperatures haven’t effect berry harvests as dramatically. canoes-on-the-ice

In a region where 7 out of 10 preschoolers live in homes with not enough food to eat, the loss of an easy food source, and the impact of losing berry harvests is not to be underestimated.

With so many other pressures pushing against the culture and well-being of the Inuit communities in Nunavut, it seems most unfair that climate change is intensifying challenges. The study reveals just how personal climate change already is. It’s changing the landscape, habitats and climate of our great Canadian north. Will we let it take away our health, wellbeing and, rich cultures too?

The Climate Change that Gets Drowned Out

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Sea turtle gliding through the water

Shivani Kuckreja

____________________________________

As soon as my feet slipped off the mossy rocks and into the cold water, I could feel the contagious energy of dozens of small sea turtles bouncing off of my legs and hips and circling around me as we all shared a spot under Hawaii’s afternoon sun. With every oncoming wave, I caught a glimpse of hundreds of shells just under the surface of the water. There were greens and greys and hints of blue; small heads and large heads bobbing under the water while the waves crashed around us. As I swam alongside the turtles, it struck me that these creatures may not be around for much longer. Almost 8,000 miles away, at Paris’ COP21 Climate Change Summit, the fate of sea turtles is being sealed.

Beginning on Monday, November 30th, over 150 world leaders and 4,000 delegates joined in Paris to discuss the solutions to global climate change and the future of our planet. “Never have the stakes been so high,” French President Francois Hollande declared.

Most associate climate change with the atmosphere and land. Few, however, truly grasp the threats that climate change poses to our oceans and their inhabitants. Since 1800, our oceans have absorbed one-third of the carbon dioxide produced by humans and one-half of fossil fuel-related carbon dioxide emissions. That is why Paris’ COP21 Climate Change Summit comes at an important point in our understanding of climate change and its implications. As climate change continues, oceanic carbon dioxide rates will continue to increase, making our oceans more acidic and less habitable for aquatic-based wildlife.

The leaders at the Summit, however, do realize that climate change affects more than just our atmosphere and our land, and they are concerned about the impacts of climate change on our oceans. On December 4th, they convened to outline and achieve four major objectives related to climate and our oceans:

 

  1. Highlight major climate and oceanic issues and their implications for humans and ecosystems
  2. Develop far-reaching solutions related to the problems we are facing in our oceans
  3. Share these solutions globally
  4. Collaborate to develop a five-year strategic plan to guide climate-related and ocean-related policy and action

Since the mid-1750s, oceans have become 30% more acidic. Between 1980 and 2015, our world’s oceanic carbon dioxide has risen from about 300 units of partial pressure to 400 units of partial pressure, increasing acidity by 0.10 pH units. Although a 0.10 change in acidity may seem small, this change that has occurred in just 35 years used to take up to 10,000 years to occur. In the coming years, we expect increases in oceanic acidity to occur faster than ever before.

By 2100, oceans are expected to increase in acidity by 0.30 pH units. Such a dramatic increase would drastically alter the composition of aquatic life. Coral reefs are expected to fall apart at such high acidity, leaving many ocean inhabitants, such as fish and sea turtles, without homes and sources of food. Furthermore, many creatures will not be able to breathe in such acidic waters. With more carbon dioxide in our waters, carbonate ions—those used to create the shells of clams, crabs, and lobsters, among other creatures—will decrease, leaving shelled species vulnerable to predators, and disrupting oceanic ecosystems as a result.

With these types of changes expected, oceanic ecosystems will be altered beyond repair. That is why it is important now, more than ever before, that our world leaders agree to address climate change and the suffering of aquatic inhabitants, from the coral reefs on the ocean’s floor to the sea turtles grazing the water’s surface. While each country has limited resources and unique needs, all of those present at the Summit must agree on the importance of decreasing our global dependence on fossil fuels. By forging agreements that cut back on fossil fuels, COP21 leaders can help decrease the rate of ocean acidification, and can help save the sea turtles that glide through our oceans without a voice.

The Fight to Survive: Sea Turtles in Costa Rica and Beyond

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Tera with turtle

Courtesy of Tera

Courtesy of Tera

Courtesy of Tera

 

By Shivani Kuckreja

 COSTA RICA– Sitting in the midst of the sprawling Las Baulas National Park, Tera Corinne Dornfeld begins to detail the many plights of sea turtles. As her turtle tattoo may suggest, Tera has devoted the past decade of her life to studying the decline of sea turtle populations. Now, from her small, dimly-lit room in the middle of Costa Rica, she shares her findings and explains why she is hopeful for the future of the species.

Just last year, it was estimated that 17%-22% of marine life caught annually by fishermen is discarded. In Costa Rica, alone, 15,000 sea turtles are killed annually by shrimpers. While the statistics seem bleak, Tera has faith that turtle excluder devices, or TEDs, can help decrease the number of turtles killed as by-catch. Rather than have fishermen unintentionally catch and suffocate sea turtles in their shrimp trawls, TEDs include areas in which sea turtles can escape the trawling nets. Citing the work of Sally Murphy, Dornfeld explains that the clunky TEDs are being remodeled to better suit thus to better appeal to the preferences of fishermen.

She also sees TEDs as an opportunity for the local Costan Rican communities to get involved. By encouraging local fishermen to join the discussion and voice their concerns and input, TEDs can be better designed for the average Costa Rican fisherman hoping to catch fish and shrimp—not turtles.

Not all sea turtle struggles can be solved by TEDs, however. It is sad to think that “after a long day of dodging fishing nets and nesting threats, leatherback turtles are still in danger when they are doing the most basic acts of all—looking for food”, Dornfeld states in despair. Drawing from her primary focus on leatherback turtles, she explains that the turtle’s only source of food is jellyfish, which is why it is so important that global communities—and, more locally, Costa Rican residents—address the littering of plastic bags, which leatherback turtles often mistake for jellyfish.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/134334001358096177/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/134334001358096177/

Acknowledging the impracticality and complexity of banning plastic bags, Dornfeld explains that the culture of Costa Rica is such that plastic bags are necessary, as trash and septic services in her area require all residents to dispose of trash in plastic bags. Maintaining hope, however, she sees an opportunity to ban the use of straws in restaurants around Costa Rica. Straws can get lodged in the noses of sea turtles, interfering with their breathing. After witnessing the pain inflicted on a sea turtle when a team tries to remove a straw from a turtle’s nose, Dornfeld is motivated to join forces with local Costan Rican communities to pick that battle in the coming months.

In addition to the threats that sea turtles face from plastics, Dornfeld also anticipates significant impacts on sea turtle populations as a result of climate change. The sex of sea turtles depends entirely on the temperature of the sand on which the eggs are laid. Within the next century, temperatures are expected to rise between 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit and 10 degrees Fahrenheit, and warmer temperatures yield female sea turtles. Being a tropical area, Costa Rica is especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. By 2050, the country’s temperatures are expected to increase by 2 degrees Celsius; by 2100, 4 degrees Celsius.

In the short-term, the number of female sea turtles are expected to rise significantly, eventually leading to a drop in overall sea turtle populations due to the absence of male sea turtles. In extreme cases of increased temperatures or decreased rain, such as what may occur in Costa Rica, many sea turtles could die.

Costa Ricans were estimated to emit only 7 million metric tons of CO2 in 2012, in comparison to the 36 gigatonnes of global emissions in 2012, but it is Costa Rican communities that will experience the severity of climate change. For the sake of under-resourced areas like Costa Rica, that have low carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions yet bear a large burden of the affects of CO2 emissions, it is imperative that countries around the world, especially developed countries, work to decrease their climate change-causing emissions, as the responsibility should not fall exclusively upon Costa Rica and similar countries.

Decreases in global CO2 emissions are imperative because Costa Rica’s economy depends heavily on tourism. Since the early 2000s, travel and ecotourism in Costa Rica has decreased, originally contributing 6.5% of Costa Rica’s GDP but declining to 4.5% of Costa Rica’s GDP by 2014. At the same time, the leatherback sea turtle population within Costa Rica has declined by over 90% since 1980, and will only further decline as climate change continues to impact our planet.

While sea turtle populations are facing incredible setbacks today, Dornfeld remains encouraged by the fact that sea turtles are an umbrella species for conservation: “When you protect sea turtles, you are protecting all other plants and animals in and around the ocean.” For starters, green sea turtles’ grazing helps maintain sea grass beds, which serve as breeding grounds for many sea creatures including fish and crustaceans. Furthermore, the unhatched sea turtles along the nesting habitat provide nutrients to dune vegetation, and stronger dune vegetation helps protect the beach from erosion.

Focusing her efforts on the powers of small-scale sea turtle conservation projects, Dornfeld looks forward to working with local communities to help ensure that sea turtles get back up on their flippers. She is also interested in learning more about how women can take time away from performing the traditional duties of a housewife to become involved in these small-scale projects. “What is possible to achieve through social science?” she asks, time and again throughout our conversation. “What needs to happen for people to drop everything and help the sea turtles?”

 

 

Dear Plastic Bag Users

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Date: October 31, 2015

Subject: Floating Plastics and Dying Turtles

Recipients: Concerned Coastal Citizens

http://radicalmycology.com/2012/07/03/fungi-the-plastics-problem/

http://radicalmycology.com/2012/07/03/fungi-the-plastics-problem/

http://ecotoad.org/category/ocean/

http://ecotoad.org/category/ocean/

Dear Plastic Bag Users,

With the number of plastic bags found in the ocean, you could travel to the moon over one thousand times. 10% of plastics produced end up in the ocean; over 13 million tons of plastic are dumped into our waters annually. As a consequence, 1 in every 2 sea turtles has eaten plastic. Some, like leatherback turtles, mistake plastic for jellyfish, their primary food source. Consuming plastics can block the intestines of sea turtles and eventually lead to death. In addition to ingesting plastic, turtles often become deformed after getting caught in plastic can holders and bottles, and can suffocate from being trapped in plastic debris. Only one in one thousand sea turtles survive to adulthood today, in a large part due to plastic debris in our oceans.

Thankfully, you can help! By decreasing your use of plastics and working to reduce the amount of plastic entering our waters, you can save hundreds of thousands of sea turtles. Beginning with the most practical acts and progressing to more complex ones, below are some ways in which you can help:

  • Coastal cleanups and proper disposal

Be sure to dispose of your trash appropriately. That small cup that you leave on the beach will break down in the water, making it easily digestible for sea turtles and other sea creatures. That plastic bag that you were using to throw away your cherry stems will look exactly like a jellyfish to a hungry leatherback turtle, who will realize the difference when it is too late. Those plastic can holders will envelope a baby sea turtle, growing with it and deforming it as time progresses. Trash from sewage drains is also emptied into our oceans and contributes to the creation of man-made garbage patches, which you can read more about here. America is one of the top 20 sources of plastic marine debris. Let’s change this.

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/blogs/sea-trash-spiraling-out-of-control-study-finds

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/blogs/sea-trash-spiraling-out-of-control-study-finds

  • Opt for reusable bags and containers rather than plastic bags.

Instead of double-bagging your milk and orange juice, bring your own reusable bag to the supermarket. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the average American family uses 1,500 plastic bags a year. Think about all of the Ziploc bags you use for packing lunches, and all of the plastic bags you use as storage during transport, and as trash bags. Everything adds up. Do your part in helping keep our oceans clean and our sea turtles safe by opting for reusable bags rather than plastic bags. As an added bonus, reusable bags are also sturdier and more durable, and many contain insulation to keep foods hot or cold. To learn more about why switching out plastic bags for reusable bags is a good idea, check out this Huffington Post article.

http://www.notcot.com/tag/reusable+bag

http://www.notcot.com/tag/reusable+bag

http://www.amazon.com/EasyLunchboxes-3-Compartment-Bento-Containers-Classic/dp/B004S129AQ

http://www.amazon.com/EasyLunchboxes-3-Compartment-Bento-Containers-Classic/dp/B004S129AQ

  •  Support local banning or taxing of plastic bags. 

In many states, plastic bags are taxed or banned. The Hawaiian islands of Kaua’i and Maui have banned all non-compostable plastic bags. Vermont is currently looking to ban plastic bags and its petition needs less than 200 signatures to gather the support of 1,000 people. Similarly, New York City also has a petition in place to ban the use of plastic bags in stores throughout the city. I encourage you to learn more about your state’s efforts to reduce the number of plastic bags its residents use. You may come across a petition you did not know was being circulated. If there are no petitions or proposals in place, write your own!

  • Donate to causes that are helping keep plastics out of waters for sea turtles

Donating to The Sea Turtle Conversancy and See Turtles, among other programs, is a great way to contribute to the wellbeing of sea turtle populations. Even a $5 donation can go a long way towards ensuring that sea turtles prosper in the future. 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/04/140414-ocean-garbage-patch-plastic-pacific-debris/

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/04/140414-ocean-garbage-patch-plastic-pacific-debris/

  • Spread the word!

 It is so easy to ignore what happens to plastic bags once they are out of your hands. Please let people around you know that each bag lives a long life, often in oceans surrounding hungry sea turtles and other marine mammals. You can make a difference and, together, we can create long-term change.

Progressing from simple actions to more challenging ones, these actions illustrate a number of ways in which you can make a difference in the lives of sea turtles. Without change, the amount of plastic in our oceans may double within the next ten years. Play a role in helping keep our oceans clean. Take a moment to consider those that live out of sight. There is a world underwater that we feel quite distant from, but, with your help, we can bridge the gap between our differences and create a home for everyone on the one planet that we all share.

Sincerely,

Shivani Kuckreja, a fellow concerned coastal citizen

 

http://www.seaturtlecamp.com/costarica/

http://www.seaturtlecamp.com/costarica/

James Spotila’s Window Into the Untold Stories of Sea Turtles

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A cover of Spotila's book

By Shivani Kuckreja

Over the course of the last few decades, sea turtle populations have been decreasing rapidly. Between 1990 and 2010, the number of loggerhead turtle nests on Florida’s beaches decreased by 50%. Furthermore, in Indonesia’s Bird’s Head Peninsula, the number of leatherback turtle nests decreased by 78% between 1984 and 2011. Today, it is thought that one out of every one thousand sea turtles progresses to adulthood. Around the world, these creatures are seen less and less often, due to human interference, climate change, and commercial overfishing. But James R. Spotila is aiming to reverse this trend.

A graduate of the University of Dayton, Ohio, Spotila currently holds the L. Drew Betz Chair Professor of Environmental Science Drexel University and leads Drexel’s Center for Biodiversity and Conservation. With over one hundred articles published in leading biology, ecology, and physiology journals, Spotila’s knowledge of sea turtles around the world is broad and deep. In 2004, he authored award-winning book Sea Turtles: A Complete Guide to Their Biology, Behavior, and Conservation. Seven years later, Spotila published a second book, titled Saving Sea Turtles: Extraordinary Stories from the Battle against Extinction.

With Spotila’s background grounded in the extensive knowledge of sea turtles and with his choice of book title, I expected Spotila’s Saving Sea Turtles: Extraordinary Stories from the Battle against Extinction to provide an engaging focus on a few detailed narratives of certain species of sea turtles.

In contrast to my expectations, Spotila provides a breadth of stories that offer glimpses into the lives of sea turtles without developing narratives fully enough to spark my empathy. While the topics of the narratives flow from one to the next, the narratives themselves seem to cut off to give way to a peek into a related topic far too soon. Within two pages, a narrative on turtle eggs and Viagra cuts off to lead way to an introduction to sea turtle nesting habits. Similarly, passages about the juvenile years of a sea turtle in the middle of the ocean are quickly followed by a new section of the book detailing the species’ eating habits. Especially with a book so broadly about sea turtles, (rather than focusing on one or two types of sea turtles), I felt as if I was still processing the very general information laid out in one narrative as I was being urged to move onto the next. While narratives can be powerful tools used to foster empathy and engage audiences, Spotila’s focus on a breadth of narratives rather than the depth of them leads to more overcharged passages than it does to clarity, and detracts from the self-reflection that should take place among readers when interacting with someone else’s stories.

In fact, what Spotila describes as a book that “contains facts and stories that will provide information and hope so that people today will…keep the dream alive of oceans full of sea turtles…” (x) seems to align more with a metanalysis of journal articles than it does with other books. Each narrative contains heavily condensed details of long-term studies conducted around the world throughout many different time periods. Over the course of the book, Spotila refers to studies on O2 and CO2 conducted in Florida and Costa Rica in the 1990s and 2000s, books on sea turtle juveniles written in the 1960s, and research on shrimp trawling in the 1970s, to name a few cited studies. Tackling such a wide range of topics during varying time periods, Spotila continues to struggle to weave engaging narratives throughout the book. Though I found the studies cited new and interesting, particularly those relating to the migration patterns of sea turtles, these studies overshadow the larger implications and complexities of the causes of and solutions to the sea turtle decline.

Overall, I felt Spotila could have better focused his time on suggesting solutions to ameliorate the decline of sea turtles worldwide. The last two pages of the book captured my attention the most and left me asking for more information, but the journey to those concluding pages felt as long as the average leatherback sea turtle migration.

Within the last two pages, Spotila hastily synthesized the complex relationships between the groups of people that rely on sea turtles to make a living, and gave readers some suggestions as to how we can play our part “in this unfinished play” (205). As a reader, this is the part I cared most about. Unfortunately, the conclusion of the book left me with more questions than answers, and while one may find this a positive reaction- a drive to learn more- I found it frustrating.

How can we address the growth of the human population without further declining the sea turtle population? In which ways can we change social norms to better protect sea turtles? Which economic tools (i.e. tax, subsidies) could the government use to help ensure that there is less illegal activity surrounding turtle egg poaching? How can we address the fact that “the developers have the will to develop, the commercial fisheries have the will to take all they can, and the poachers have the will to harvest all the eggs they can carry”? (204).

While I was hoping to finish Spotila’s book feeling motivated and driven to save sea turtles, I am left trying to deduce the endings of unfinished stories in order to better understand how I can help sea turtles survive and thrive in the future.

It’s Not Easy Being Green: Managing Eutrophication in Lake Erie

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Arial view of green swirls of algae choking Lake Erie. Photocredit: NASA, Jesse Allen, and Robert Simon.

Algae from fertilizer runoff chokes Lake Erie. Photocredit: NASA, Jesse Allen, and Robert Simon

In 2011 Lake Erie turned green. A massive algae bloom covered the water, blocking sunlight, starving aquatic plants, and producing liver toxins, which posed a threat to human health. A similar event in 2014 deprived 500,000 Toledo, Ohio residents of drinking water for three days. Lifeguards have reportedly gotten sick from exposure to the water, and some people are starting to wonder if lake’s paint-like green goop will hurt the local tourism industry and are asking visitors to plan their vacations around the location of the algae blooms. All signs point to the algae blooms getting worse over time. The cause was the phosphorus in the artificial fertilizer used in conventional agriculture.

Phosphorus is element number fifteen on the periodic table, and nowhere near the first thing on most peoples’ minds. We all depend on phosphorus, because phosphorus is part of DNA. Usually, phosphorus recycles naturally in a biological system as plants take up phosphorus from the soil, animals eat the plants, and then excrete the phosphorus back into the soil. Most of the phosphorus available in a natural system comes from another living things, and phosphorus-rich rocks slowly wear down, adding back whatever phosphorus might be lost. However, human phosphorus mining has made unprecedented amounts of phosphorus available to biological systems, and those systems often can’t keep up. Since WWII, fertilizer use has increased drastically in an attempt to keep up with population growth. This new reliance on artificial fertilizers changed the face of agriculture, and led to some unexpected problems. When too much phosphorus accumulates in a pond, lake, or other large body of water, it sets off a process called eutrophication. During eutrophication, algae use the excess phosphorus to grow rapidly, which causes the algae to take up resources like oxygen more quickly than they otherwise would. In extreme examples, the algae can take up so much oxygen that fish can no longer live in the pond or lake.

So, what to do about it? The strategy will depend on the history of the specific catchment: the land area that drains into a given body of water. Many past attempts at managing catchments have not been as successful as managers had hoped. A summary paper written by people from a number of institutions including the Lancaster Environment Center and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology tried to make sense of global phosphorus management by placing catchments into three categories. Their hope was that these categories would help managers close the gap between phosphorus need and phosphorus availability, so that excess phosphorus won’t run off. The first category describes equilibrium, with inputs and outputs being roughly the same. This group requires no management. The second type of catchment has higher inputs than outputs, and accumulates phosphorus. The amount of phosphorus in these cases can outstrip the local plant-life’s ability to absorb it. Managers of this type of catchment should focus on avoiding increased inputs of phosphorus. The final type loses phosphorus over time, since outputs are greater than inputs. According to the article, managers of these catchments should focus on limiting phosphorus loss, and promoting a cycle, instead of increasing the phosphorus inputs.

Intervention details would of course depend on the specific location, and a number of factors contribute to Lake Erie’s phosphorus load. For example, while low-tillage farming, while usually a good idea, may contribute to the problem when combined with high phosphorus inputs. In high-tillage farming, farmers work the fertilizer into the soil, while in low-tillage farming, farmers apply fertilizer to the surface where it can easily run off. The low tillage farming was an environmental policy put in place to help avoid erosion. While this policy would usually conserve soil resources, the huge phosphorus inputs undermine the purpose of the technique. Whether this policy can remain in place without destroying the lake is still uncertain. Climate change speeds the problem, since warm temperatures promote increased algae growth, and changes in the patterns of spring rains wash more phosphorus into the lake. In addition, after phosphorus gets into a lake, it can be hard to reverse the damage, even if no more phosphorus is added, since biological processes take over and the same phosphorus gets cycled over and over again in the lake ecosystem.

Lake Erie has a long way to recover, and as climate change washes the surrounding farmland with ever-larger spring storms and sweeps ever-larger loads of phosphorus into the lake, algae blooms may only get worse, and the people and animals that depend on Lake Erie will only suffer more in the future if a solution isn’t found. And since agricultural runoff is the primary source of phosphorus draining into the lake, this question is firmly tied to the amount and kinds of food the farmers can grow and what techniques and materials they use in the process. Can the residents of the Lake Erie catchment produce the right amount of food without poisoning the lake? The answer may be that they’ll have to.