Science – Page 96 – a sibilant intake of breath

Google’s commitment to renewables

Google.org – the philanthropic arm of the internet search giant – is seeking to use the cognitive and financial resources of its parent to improve the world. Google has promised to eventually fund the organization using 1% of its equity, profit, and employee time. The real question is whether they will prove able to leverage their particular advantages and achieve outcomes of real significance. There is much reason to hope that they will.

From an environmental perspective, the awkwardly named “RE<C” initiative is the most exciting. The goal is to “develop electricity from renewable energy sources that is cheaper than electricity produced from coal… producing one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity – enough to power a city the size of San Francisco – in years, not decades.” This is certainly an ambitious undertaking. One reason for that is because the true price of coal is not being paid: all the environmental pollution associated with coal mining and burning is being left off the balance sheet, at least in America. If Google can produce renewable technologies that outperform coal economically even in the absence of carbon pricing, it will start to look feasible to begin dismantling the global fossil fuel economy.

It is probably fair to say that meeting this goal would be a more significant contribution to human welfare than everything Google has done so far. Here’s hoping all those brains and dollars come together brilliantly. Of course, as much as we might hope for such a technological rescue, it’s not something to bet on. Even in the absence of breakthrough technologies in renewables, the path to a low-carbon future is pretty well marked out: carbon pricing, regulation in demand inelastic sectors, energy conservation, and massive deployment of existing low-carbon technology.

Earth Flotilla

The 1997 and 1998 LIFEboat Flotillas were exceptional undertakings that I was privileged to participate in. Organized by Leadership Initiative for Earth, each centred around a week-long sailing experience in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia, intended to help make young people more aware of environmental issues and better connected with those similarly interested.

In March of this year, a smaller but similar expedition is taking place, organized by the World Wildlife Fund, in cooperation with some of the people involved in the original flotillas. Applicants must be residents of British Columbia between 13 and 17. They must be interested in environmental issues and willing to put in the time required.

As someone lucky enough to do something similar in the past, I recommend the opportunity wholeheartedly. If any readers of this blog match the description – or know people who do – application information is online.

[Update: 11 February 2008] I am pleased to report that Tristan’s brother will be participating in the Earth Flotilla, and because his family found out about it from this site, no less.

Radiation types and units

Types of radiation

Radiation is categorized in several different ways. One is on the basis of energy levels: ionizing radiation is sufficiently energetic that it can cause an atom or molecule to be stripped of an electron, turning it into an ion. This depends on the energy level of the individual particles or waves and has nothing to do with the total number of them. Non-ionizing radiation is simply that which doesn’t have enough energy to liberate an electron.

Another way to classify radiation is in terms of whether it is electromagnetic (consisting of photons) or particle radiation. There are three types of particle radiation: alpha decay, based on the emission of two protons and neutrons bound together in a helium nucleus, beta decay, wherein the particle emitted is an electron, and neutron radiation, where atoms release neutrons. Alpha particles are not generally very dangerous, because they are unable to penetrate much of substance. Even a few centimetres of air can have a strong protective effect. That said, ingestion can still be highly dangerous. The Polonium-210 that killed Alexander Litvinenko is an alpha emitter. Beta particles can usually be shielded from using a few milimetres of lead. Neutron radiation is unusual insofar as it is capable of producing radioactivity in the atoms it encounters. Shielding consists of a large mass of hydrogen rich materials.

Electromagnetic radiation with sufficient energy to be ionizing cosists of x-rays and gamma rays. Both consist of high-energy photons (those with short wavelengths), with gamma rays having shorter wavelengths than x-rays (10^(-12)m rather than 10^(-10)m). Shielding, especially for gamma rays, must be dense and fairly extensive.

Measuring radiation

Radiation is also measured in a variety of ways: important ones being Roentgens, rads, rems (Roentgen equivalent in man), Curies, Becquerels, and Sieverts.

Becquerels are a unit of radioactive decay based only on the number of decays per second. A Curie is equal to 3.7 x 10^10 Becquerels, and is approximately equivalent to the activity of 1 gram of Radium isotope. These units reflect the number of emissions only – not their physical or biological effects.

A Roentgen is a measure of ionizing radiation based on the ratio between charge and unit mass. Rads are a largely obselete unit of radiation dose, equal to 100 ergs of energy being absorbed by one gram of matter. Rems are the product of the number of Roentgens absorbed, multiplied by the biological efficiency of the radiation. Rems are also considered highly dated as a measure of radiation. 450 rems is an approximate lethal dose (LD50), for those who do not receive prompt treatment.

Sieverts are the recommended replacemend, “found by multiplying the absorbed dose, in grays, by a dimensionless “quality factor” Q, dependent upon radiation type, and by another dimensionless factor N, dependent on all other pertinent factors.” The LD50 for ionizing radiation is about 5 grays or about 3-5 Sieverts. If the biological efficiency used to calculate rems equals one, one Sievert is 100 rems.

Water and nuclear power

Once the heat generated by nuclear fission has finished spinning the turbines in nuclear power plants, it must somehow be dissipated into the wider environment. Almost invariably, this is done using large amounts of water drawn from nearby rivers and lakes. Now, for plants located in drought-struck regions such as the southeast United States, possible water scarcity threatens to shut down plants, forcing the costly purchase of energy from other jurisdictions.

The Associated Press estimates that 24 of America’s 104 nuclear reactors are located in areas currently experiencing severe drought. On reactor outside Raleigh, North Carolina will need to be shut down if water levels in the lake fall by another 3 1/2 feet. In total, nuclear power provides about 10% of the American supply of electricity. All but two American nuclear plants are cooled using water from lakes and rivers. Some plants evaporate large amounts of water from cooling towers, while others are designed to return the warmed water to the body that originally provided it. Immersing collection pipes at lower levels risks being costly, as well as increasing problems from sediment intake into the cooling system.

All this demonstrates the degree to which many forms of low-carbon energy generation are themselves vulnerable to climate change. Concern about water being a limiting factor in energy production is already acute in Australia. Dams face risks from both drought and the loss of snowpack in mountain ranges (leading to too much water at some times of year and not enough at others). Even wind turbines may be vulnerable to changes in dominant patterns of air circulation. Designing future infrastructure with possible climate changes in mind is essential, if we are not to find ourselves with a lot of expensive hardware rendered useless by changed conditions.

You must do the heaviest / So many shall do none

When it comes to reducing personal environmental impact in any sphere (pollution, climate change, resource depletion, etc), there comes a point where each individual says: “That is too great a sacrifice.” Some people would refuse to give up incandescent bulbs; some, eating meat; some, driving their cars; some, flying in jets. The question arises of what to do when there is a fundamental conflict between an ethical requirement and a person’s will. In the modern world, this applies perhaps most harshly to air travel.

We know that very substantial emissions are associated with flying. We also know that substantial emissions will definitely cause human suffering and death in the future. One flight emits significantly more than a single person can sustainably emit in a year. Every year emissions are above sustainable levels, the concentration of greenhouse gases rises; each year in which that happens, the mean energy absorbed by the planet increases. At some point in the future, it is inevitable that this process would cause massive harm to human beings and non-human living things. It is also plausible that positive feedbacks could create abrupt or runaway climate change, either of which could cause human extinction or the end of humanity as a species with civilization. In the face of that, it is difficult to say that flying isn’t morally wrong.

At the same time, it is impossible for most people to say it is. Partly, this is because of a failure of imagination. They cannot imagine a world where people don’t fly. Mostly, though, it is reflective of the powerful kind of denial that lets people continue to live as they do, even when convincing evidence of the wrongness of their behaviour is revealed. Rationalizations are myriad: (a) Why should I stop when others will just continue? (b) There has to be a balance between acting ethically and getting what I want. Neither of these has any ethical strength in the face of a known and significant wrong. At the same time, it is implausible that people will abandon their self-deception or that external forces will constrain their behaviour effectively. If that is true, our future really isn’t in our hands. We are slaves to fate, in terms of what technological innovation might bring and in terms of how sensitive the climate really is to greenhouse gasses.

Good information on space militarization

This briefing on the militarization of space is very interesting. It is especially good insofar as it describes the special situation of the United States in relation to space and warfare, the consequences of the recent Chinese test of an anti-satellite missile, and some of the practicalities involved in tracking space debris and keeping satellites away from it.

A partial defence of carbon offsets

Everybody compares carbon offsets with the indulgences of the medieval Catholic Church. Indeed, a good number of people seem to treat the comparison as the decisive point against them. Offsets allow one person to ‘sin’ by flying or driving a big car, then pay for it by having someone else reduce emissions by a similar amount. While there is certainly potential for abuse, the real issue here is about the intuitive sense of fairness people possess.

Obviously, if someone buys an offset that produces no real reduction in emissions, they have been bilked and the climate has suffered. There are plenty of cases of dubious offsets, including all those based around planting trees. Furthermore, it is necessary not only for the sale of the offset to lead to reduced emissions: it must lead to a reduction of emissions equivalent to the face value of the offset and, crucially, these must consist entirely of reductions that would not otherwise occur. The perfect offset is something like this: (a) a farm releases large amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas (b) in the normal run of things, the farm would have no incentive to stop doing so (c) the sale of offsets changes the economics of the situation, making it most economically efficient to capture the methane, perhaps using it to generate electricity (d) this produces a quantity of real and verifiable reductions that can be sold at the marginal cost of capturing the methane.

In this situation, the argument of ineffectiveness does not apply. What we are left with is the offence against fairness – allowing one person to ‘take more than their share.’ While there is intuitive force behind this position, I don’t think it is very convincing. While it would be better to both moderate one’s consumption and help others to do so, it does seem less objectionable to emit and purchase credible offsets than to emit and simply ignore the consequences of your actions. The critical difference between offsets and indulgences is that offsets (when used properly) actually have a mitigating effect on total greenhouse gas emissions; indulgences never did anything at all, except raise money for those selling them and the ire of those opposed.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma

Michael Pollan‘s superb book tells the stories of four meals and the processes through which they came to exist. At one extreme is a meal of McDonald’s cheeseburgers, eaten in a moving car; at the other, a cooked wild boar he hunted, accompanied by things grown or gathered. Pollan also considers two types of pastoral food systems: one on a mass scale intended to serve the consumer market for organic foods and a truly pastoral farm centred around grass feeding, healthy animal interactions, and sustainability. His descriptions of the four, and comparisons between them, provide lots of interesting new information, and fodder for political and ethical consideration.

Among these, the industrial food chain and the grass-fed pastoral are the most interesting. Each is a demonstration of human ingenuity, with the former representing the sheer efficiency that can be achieved through aggressive specialization and disregard for animal welfare and environmental effects and the latter demonstrating how people, animals, and plants can interact in a much more ethical and sustainable way, albeit only on a relatively small scale. The account of Polyface Farm – the small-scale pastoral operation run by Joel Salatin – is genuinely touching at times, as well as startling in contrast to the industrial cattle feeding and killing operations Pollan describes. While the book heaps praise on the operation, it also recognizes the limitations inherent: we cannot live in cities like New York and get our food from such establishments, nor can the big stores most people shop at manage to deal with thousands of such small suppliers. Unless you are willing to go back to a pre-urban phase for humanity, the industrial organic chain may be the best that is possible.

Pollan’s book is packed with fascinating information on everything from the chemistry of producing processed foods from corn to some unusual theories he learned from mushroom gatherers. Regardless of your present position on food, reading it will make you better informed and leave you with a lot to contemplate.

Arguably, the book is at its weakest when it comes to ethics. Pollan rightly heaps criticism on factory farms, but seems to pre-judge the overall rightness of eating meat. Some of his arguments against vegetarianism and veganism – such as that more animals are killed in fields growing vegetables than in slaughterhouses – are simply silly. No sensible system of ethics considers it equivalent to kill a grasshopper and to kill a pig. I also think that he places too much emphasis on the relevance of whether an animal anticipates death or not. I don’t see how the inability of animals to “see is coming” makes their deaths qualitatively different from those of human beings.

That said, his arguments are generally coherent and certainly bear consideration. He never explicitly spells out the wrongness of eating industrial meat, though it is clear that his implicit argument is based around the conditions under which the animals live, rather than the fact of killing them. This is a sensible position and he is right to contrast Polyface farm with industrial farms on the basis of how they allow or do not allow animals to express their “characteristic forms of life.” Rather than press his argument to a conclusion, he abandons his consideration in a bout of fantasy: talking about how much better the treatment and slaughter of animals would be if farms and slaughterhouses had glass walls.

I highly recommend this book to almost everyone. Modern life is very effective at concealing the nature and origin of what we are eating. This book helps to pull back the veil to some extent. It is also a reflection of the ever-increasing politicization of food. What you choose to eat is an important signal of your ethical and political views, to be judged accordingly by others. Whatever position you end up taking, it will be better informed and illustrated if you take the time to consider Pollan’s thoughts and experiences.

For my part, the book has convinced me that I should strictly limit or abandon the consumption of eggs. His description of egg operations is especially chilling and supports his assertion that: “What you see when you look is the cruelty – and the blindness to cruelty – required to produce eggs that can be sold for seventy-nine cents a dozen.” Other resolutions stemming from reading this book include to try eating more types of mushrooms, improve my cooking generally, and remember that under no circumstances should one accept an invitation to collect abalone in California.

Costly cod

If you want evidence of serious overfishing, look no further than Billingsgate Fish Market in London. Apparently, the price of a kilogram of cod has increased from £6 (C$11.87) four years ago to £30 (C$59.36) today. This is despite how fish is being brought in from ever-father away, concealing the degree to which local waters have been depleted.

Since 2000, cod has been considered an endangered species by the World Wide Fund for Nature. According to one of their reports, the global cod catch has fallen by 70% during the past thirty years and the fish could be commercially extinct as soon as 2020. The WWF report claims that:

[T]he world’s cod fisheries are disappearing fast, with a global catch that has declined from 3.1 million tonnes in 1970 to 950,000 tonnes in 2000. In the North American cod fishery, the catch has declined by 90 per cent since the early 1980s, while in European waters, the catch of the North Sea cod is now just 25 per cent of what it was 15 years ago.

This is consistent with the study in Science by Worm et al. that projected “the global collapse of all taxa currently fished by the mid–21st century.”

E. Coli and the acid rumen

This blog has previously considered the relationship between antibiotic resistant bacteria and factory farming. Recently, I learned about another way in which industrial meat production is breeding microbes that kill humans all the more efficiently. This one has to do with the acidity of our stomachs, one of the ways in which our bodies protect themselves from microorganisms living in the food we eat.

A cow living on a diet of grass has a rumen with a neutral pH. The rumen is the ‘first stomach’ of grass eating animals. Inside, bacteria help to ferment undigestible grass into material the cow’s body can process. Along with these digestive bacteria, many other kinds are present. One sort – Escherichia coli – kills humans by releasing toxins that destroy the kidneys. ‘Normal’ E. Coli, of the sort found in cows since the 1980s, cannot tolerate an acidic environment. As such, our stomachs are pretty good at killing it and thus keeping it from killing us.

A cow in a factory farm does not eat grass. The corn it eats creates an acidic environment in the rumen. This makes the cows ill, while also helping to breed E. Coli that can survive passage through acidic human stomachs. Now, about 40% of feedlot cows have E. Coli in their rumens. Feeding them grass or hay for a few days before slaughtering reduces the number of E. Coli in the animal’s digestive tract by about 80%, but factory farms do not do this. Instead, they try to prevent E. Coli outbreaks through irradiation.

Just another way in which industrial meat farming perverts nature and threatens human health.

[Update: 22 January 2010] Apparently, new research has called this hypothesis about diet and e. coli into question: “different set of findings emerged to indicate that this particular strain did not, in fact, behave like other strains of E. coli found in cattle guts. Most importantly (in terms of consumer safety), scientists showed in a half-dozen studies that grass-fed cows do become colonized with E. coli O157:H7 at rates nearly the same as grain-fed cattle. An Australian study actually found a higher prevalence of O157:H7 in the feces of grass-fed rather than grain-fed cows. The effect postulated (and widely publicized) in the 1998 Science report—that grain-fed, acidic intestines induced the colonization of acid-resistant E. coli—did not apply to the very strain of bacteria that was triggering all the recalls.”