Illinois First to Ban Polluting Face Wash

Facewash is one of those beauty products we just can't live without, and who can resist the pleasant scraping sensation of a facial scrub? Unfortunately, however, unless you are buying a scrub with an all natural scrubbing agent (like crushed appricot pit) that will decompose over time, chances are that your scrub is full of plastic microbeads. What are those? Literally tiny pieces of plastic. That's it. 

 

"Microbeads", Credit

So while plastic is not inherently bad for the skin in such small exposures (as far as I know), it turns out that washing all those tiny plastic particles down the drain and out into the closest lake or sea is extremely bad for the environment. Why? Plastic in our seas is a huge issue. The bigger, colorful pieces look like fish or other food that sea birds, turtles, and fish normally eat. These animals will fill up on plastic and actually starve to death. Smaller pieces of plastic are another issue, as it takes 500-1,000 years to degrade, they simply become this goopy plastic solution that floats on top of the ocean and attracts more debris, which creates ocean gyres. Similar disasters can occur in lakes too.

For this reason, Illinois is out to stop micro-plastic bead pollution. This summer, Governer Pat Quinn and other lawmakers voted to ban soaps, scrubs, washes, or toothpastes with the plastic beads. This ban will help to alleviate and eliminate plastic pollution in the Great Lakes.

Those are the amounts of plastic you put down the drain per bottle of wash, Credit

Like the plastic water bottle ban in San Francisco, this ban will gradually be put in place and only taking full effect by 2018. Some companies such as Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, and L'Oreal are already phasing out microbeads by themselves to beat the ban. 

New Research Could End the GMO Debate

[Note: Just for fun, I have included some of the most ridiculous shock-tactic anti-GMO pictures that the internet can provide.]

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are exactly what they sound like; any living organism that is genetically modified, aka, has undergone a procedure at some point in its life cycle to produce a result desired by humans. We have made salt-tolerant tomatoes,  water-conserving cotton, and fish that glow in the dark.

Yes, really. They are called GloFish, Credit

Genetically modifying plants, animals, fungi, and bacteria may seem suspiciously like playing God, and it is no wonder that the GMO debate continues to rage as one of the more controversial ethical, health, and environmental issues.

I mean, honestly. 1 2

Having taken university courses on this topic, I feel that I can unbiasedly and simply summarize both sides of the argument.

PRO-GMO: The geneticists behind GMO crops are problem solvers. They see overly-salted ag land and decide to make a crop that can withstand excess salt. They see that children in third-world countries are going blind from mal-nutrition, so they create Golden Rice high in Vitamin A.These are the do-gooders and dreamers who want to use technology to solve the world's problems, oftentimes by making more or new types of crops available.
Of course, there are also fortune 500 companies like Monsanto that appear to be in GMO technology only for the bottom line of exponentially maximizing profits. I say this because stories abound of small, independent farmers around the world getting caught up in buying their seed and the vicious GMO treadmills that result: Because the seed is genetically engineered, it is the intellectual property of Monsanto, and so farmers cannot "save seed" for next year, even though they bought and grew the seed themselves. When Monsanto suspects that farmers are saving seed, or even that wind pollination has brought their intellectual property into a neighboring farmer's fields, they can go to that field, take samples, and then sue the farmer into poverty (even if he had no idea that GMO genes where fertilizing his crops). So, is Monsanto working to spread the wonders of increased yield and pest resistance? Or are they destroying small, honest ag in favor of creating agribusinesses and factory farms that they essentially own?

My personal favorite. Credit

ANTI-GMO: These people are not just the dreadlocked, organic-loving, "free spirits" you might be imagining, but also the concerned parents, the health-food addicts, and the environmental activists. These people often protest outside supermarket chains, demanding local, organic, and sustainable options, not "franken-food".

There are actually human genes in rice. Credit

They are suspicious of genetic engineering, especially of what unknown effects it may have on the human body once digested. GMOs have only really been around since the 80's, and GMO crops didn't dominate our food choices until the late 1990's.  Since we have really only been exposed to GM foods for around 15 years, anti-GMOs think it is hard to say what their impacts of daily, long-term exposure might actually be. Anti-GMO's don't believe there is enough research to prove that GMOs are not harmful, and if they have learned anything from past environmental catastrophies (like the widespread use of DDT, CFCs, and other chemicals) is that everything must be considered guilty until proven innocent.
While perhaps touted as Luddites by the pro-GMO do-gooders, anti-GMOs simply see that organic food is what our ancestors ate, and believe that it is what we should be eating too: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But are they actually selfishly keeping back a technology that could help to end world hunger and bring about more jobs?

Plus, look how un-original their propaganda is. 1 2 3

Do I seem biased? I don't mean to be. In fact, this week I'm reporting on an article published by Forbes entitled The Debate About GMO Safety Is Over, Thanks to a New Trillion-Meal Study. Is the debate really over? The controversial nature of GMOs is solved? GREAT! I'll tell all the organic-grazers they can shut up and sit down. But before I do, let's review the article.

Author Jon Entine begins by mocking anti-GMO websites for their fear-tactics and potentially faulty science. He says that, while these sites quote research, they very seldom link to the studies. According to Entine, over 2k studies have been conducted that show how biotech and GMOs do not harm humans or livestock. In fact, GMO foods may just be better somehow. While the occasional outlier will show harm done to test animals, the majority show how safe GMO is.

Entine harps on anti-GMOs like Jeffrey Smith for using anecdotal evidence on his personal website in his dismissal of GMO crops. However, Smith also includes twenty-eight other citations from peer-reviewed papers, mostly from European Journals where science isn't stiffed by capitalism.

Credit

Earlier, I admitted to being biased. Isn't is possible that, in working for Forbes and the fact that Monsanto is a Fortune 500 company, Entine is more than a little biased himself?


Entine goes on to say that since livestock consumer almost all of the GMO crops produced, wouldn't farmers notice if large numbers of their animals were sick or dying? What Entine doesn't realize is that, yes, American farmers and ranchers have noticed how sick their animals are, from GMO feed, poor living conditions, close confinement, or other factors. This is why 80% of antibiotics are used on our food, and not on us. Our food is ill, yet is kept alive by cocktails of antibiotics and hormones. The misuse of antibiotics in this way is no secret, and anti-biotic resistance has become a huge concern because of it.

But I digress. The main point of Entine's article is a newly published study in the Journal of Animal Science by Alison Van Eenennaam of UCD have compiled a meta-analysis of studies done from the present to before 1996. The study consists of over 29 years of studies on animal health and productivity from before and after the time that GMOs rose to dominance. According to Entine, they discovered that:

"GM feed is safe and nutritionally equivalent to non-GMO feed. There was no indication of any unusual trends in the health of animals since 1996 when GMO crops were first harvested. Considering the size of the dataset, it can reasonably be said that the debate over the impact of GE feed on animal health is closed: there is zero extraordinary impact."


Entine also shares a link to the Federation of Animal Science Societies and their list of GMO feeding studies.
All of these show that GMO feed is safe. 

This breadth of literature put forward by Entine is impressive. If this research is correctly done and unbiased then we should surely take it into account. However, we must not be blinded by this seemingly long study. Twenty-nine years may be long for a single human lifetime, but it is not compared to the length of human existence. While we may not worry about the harmfulness of GMOs for humans in this generation or even the next, we must think of the generations that will follow after our grandchildren for the rest of time. We should strive to think about the consequences of any major action to the seventh generation and beyond, as was originally done by Native Americans.

Let's for a moment imagine that GMOs are no worse for you than their organic counterparts. In this case, I would still argue that they are hazardous to the small farmer and to our agricultural heritage, both of which could (and will) be destroyed by big agribusiness. Studies show that GM corn and and will interbreed with heirloom varieties and destroy that unique and valuable diversity (from which new GMO crops are reliant on) possibly forever. And there is still the issue of pesticides and herbicides, most of which runoff to impact communities down-stream or involve the farmer in costly treadmills of resistance where more and more is needed to ensure maximum yield. When a crop, like Round-Up Ready, is genetically engineered to be sold hand-in-hand with a poison like Round-Up that will be sprayed over the field, there is no way to say that the crop is truly safe. Perhaps more frightening are Bt crops that don't need pesticide, because they have their own pesticide built right in.

With so many factors at play and with the game continually developing and changing, it is nearly impossible to come up with a yes or no answer to the question of "are GMOs good? bad? safe? evil? etc". It seems to me that there are good and bad studies on both sides of the debate.

I wholeheartedly disagree with Entine in that the GMO debate is over, and I ask you, which combination of factors lead you to whichever shade of grey you agree with? What is you opinion on GMOs?

How Sustainable Cities Save the Earth

The global population is booming. The US Census Bureau has estimated that global population will reach 9 billion before 2050. With so many people on a planet almost stretched to its limits, it is more important than ever to prepare and plan for a sustainable future. This nifty infographic lays down some cold, hard fact on how sustainable cities might save our future.

Credit: [www.citytowninfo.com]

Cheap Solar Gives Utilities Companies a Run for their Money

I feel like I've been blogging a lot about solar recently, disproportionately so over other forms of renewable energy. But maybe that's just because solar is really taking off in the here and now, and I've just got to share all the exciting articles I find on it!

This new article, Solar Power is growing so fast that older energy companies are trying to stop it, is from Vox.com by Brad Plumer. Despite the overly-dramatic headline, his message reads true: solar is soon going to be a highly competitive form of energy, so much so that it could really threaten typical gas and oil utility companies. In fact, Plumer states that solar popularity dramatically increases, utility profits may decrease as much as 41%.

While solar still contributes only a miniscule portion of America's power, companies like SolarCity are making it easier than ever to install pannels with their no-downpayment policy. Big upfront costs used to scare the average consumer away, but paying monthly increments make solar so affordable that it becomes a viable option for everyone. Even now, every four minutes a new solar setup is installed  in America. 

Of course, to save their own skins, utility companies are trying to retract or downgrade solar subsidies. Other groups are proposing monthly fees for residents with solar--some upwards of $50! But the pro-solar stance is strong and backed by groups like TUSK (Tell Utilities Solar Won't Be Killed) and, surprisingly, an offshoot of the Tea Party that focuses on environmental issues.

Who will win out? Will solar be able to surge ahead, undisturbed by this political whiplash? Read the full article here and stay tuned for more updates!

The Aral Sea: A Story of Despair and Redemption

As unfortunate as it is true, the media is full of stories of how prominent environmental features have been squandered due to the greed of modern day society. Take, for instance, the state of rivers in dense urban areas. China's Yangtze, Han, and Jianhe Rivers are but a few examples of how poor waste management, chemical runoff, and disregard for natural resources can leave water sources polluted, poisonous, and colored in a very unnatural palette. 

Pollution of Biblical proportions in the Jianhe, Credit

However, not every tale of environmental woe ends so disturbingly; some even seem to have a happy(-ish) ending. The case is such for a body of water that sits on the boarder of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, a once mighty sea called the Aral.

The Aral Sea was once the the fourth largest landlocked body of water in the world at 26,000 square miles. It was a mecca of fishing and hosted over 20 towns and villages whose people prospered in their trade. However, in the early1960's the Soviet Union diverted water from its main influx--the Amu Darya--to support the irrigation of water-heavy agriculture in the famously arid surrounding steppes.

By the 1980's, the sea had such a reduced influx of fresh water that it retreated from its banks and dried up significantly, to the point where a once great body of water  has become three distinct bodies, one of which is threatening to dry completely this year. As evaporation continued the sea become so saline that the fishery collapsed, and with it disappeared 24 species of endemic fish.

The Aral Sea in 1989 (left) and 2008, Credit

When the fishery vanished, so did the livelihoods of thousands of fishermen, cannery workers, and railroad workers. The Aral shrank to about half its size by 1985, and with it shrank the populations that once lined its shores. Those that decided to stay behind on the now arid plains found themselves without food or work in a land turned severe without the Aral there to buffer temperatures. Pesticides left in the soil from Soviet Agricultural runoff caused cancer and respiratory disease, and without fish, protein deficiency ran rampant and infant mortality increased.

Fishing vessels left in the sand, Credit

After Kazakhstan became independent in 1991, efforts to restore the Aral began. A dam was constructed to isolate the Southern basin from the North Sea, with the hopes that the trickle coming in from the Syr Darya would restore the North Aral. And slowly, it did. By 2005, a permanent eight-mile dam was constructed in its place, and this raised the North Aral by about 13 feet more, which lowered the levels of salinity and allowed fish to repopulate. In only about eight months, the North Aral grew by 20%. Native plants and birds returned as well, a good omen for any restoration.

Some fishing operations have resumed in the north, though on a much smaller scale than in the 1960s. The canneries are reopening and once-residents are returning to begin a new. However, while the North Aral has been somewhat of a success story, the same cannot be said for the South Aral. Much and more has been lost, and perhaps will never fill again.

While progress may be slow, it is clearly there. Locals hope that with help from the Kazakh government, World Bank, and expert scientists, the Aral may one day refill and flourish beyond any past prosperity.

Adapted from [Aral Sea Recovery?]

SF to Ban the Bottle

In March of this year, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously decided to ban disposable plastic water bottles on city property. Gradually, the sale and distribution of plastic bottles 21oz or less will be phased out for the entire city of SF. This ban is set to begin elimiating all plastic bottles for SF public property this month, if Mayor Ed Lee signs the bill. 

San Francisco plans to ban plastic water bottles, starting in October 2014. Credit

SF has always been a national leader in banning environmentally harmful products and practices. SF is aiming for the goal of being a zero-waste city by 2020, and this ordinance puts them one step closer to their goal. The bay-area city already banned plastic shopping bags in 2007, and cities around the state--like Santa Barbara--have followed suit.

While this bottle-ban may be novel on the west coast, several towns, universities, and national parks across the country and on the east coast have already institued such bans. The town of Concord, Massachusetts set their ban in early 2013, banning bottle water in 34oz or less. Why SF opted to allow for the bigger bottles to stay is a mystery, unless they intend to allow those big bottles for a time until a new vote vetoes them as well.

 

However, some stipulations to stop the ordinance from banning all plastic bottles from SF forever. The petro-based bottles will still be sold at the San Francisco International Airport and atsome athletic events. Further, street vendors and the Gay Pride Parade will be able to sell it until 2018.

 

Despite these allowances, the American Beverage Association is angered by the news. They named the ordinance "a misguided attempt by city supervisors to decrease waste in a city of avid recyclers."

The Next Step in Solar

Photovoltaic Solar may be the posterchild of renewable energy, yet it has always had its share of drawbacks. For one, it is an inconsistent source of energy (what do you do on a cloudy day or at night?) and one whose total generating capacity is still insufficient to meet large-scale demand.  These drawbacks and expense are due to technological shortcomings associated with solar being a relatively young technology. It's energy and cost efficiency will only improve with time, especially as more countries invest in it and more research is done.

A PV Solar array, Credit

William Flanagan, CEO of VARTA Microbattery, writes on what he believes will bring solar one step closer to becoming an ideal power source: battery storage. He notes that solar has grown by 418%, gaining 9,731 MW of generating capacity, in the last four years in the US. Yet, even with these investments in solar, only 1.13% of energy generated in the US is solar. Flanagan remains hopeful that, as the technology for solar continues to develop, so too will more consumers opt for sun-power.

Flanagan's solution to the intermittent nature of solar is simple: find a way to store it during the times without sunlight. The answer? Batteries. While solar and battery combinations have not become a major focus for various reasons, combining the two has been proven to work for remote, off-the-grid customers.

Batteries combined with PV arrays may allow for energy savings, efficiency, and independence, Credit

Flanagan writes that developments in solar have not been deeply explored as of yet because we Americans still have faith in traditional fossil-fuels and their ability to give us continuous, inexpensive energy. However, coal plants are slowly being decommissioned and not being replaced due to clean air requirements. Subsequently, energy is costing more and customers are concerned about intermittentcy should another climate change-caused super storm roll around. Consumers want energy that is affordable, constant, and increasingly green, and so grid operators cross the country are working to promote energy efficiency and solar storage. Battery technology and chemistry is advancing as well, and it seems that "storage is an energy technology whose time has come — particularly when combined with solar systems".

While Flanagan proposes a very logical argument for solar development, his article makes me question the overall impact of a combined PV and battery system. While in theory both the solar panel and the lithium battery can be recycled to create a closed loop production cycle, this may not be the practice. We can hope that as solar grows more common, the panel manufacturers and independent waste companies will develop ways to recycle and reuse the entire panel. Yet, as it stands now, it seems that solar is currently in a linear production pattern and that recycling is not prevalent.

Combining un-recyclable arrays with lithium batteries and implementing it throughout America may be a recipe for disaster because of the economic nature of lithium. This metal is itself non-renewable, yet once the lithium reaches the end of its product lifecycle, it most certainly will not be recycled. Although lithium is 100% recyclable, "recycled lithium is as much as five times the cost of lithium produced from the least costly brine based process."  To compound this lack of recycling, 70% of deposits sit below the undisturbed forests and lush mountains of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, which ensures environmental degradation for years to come.

While renewables like solar are often heralded as the salvation from the evils of fossil fuels, we must think critically about their reality. Surely solar's lack of GHG emissions makes them more innocent that fossil fuels in the long run, yet I will not call solar saintly until it boasts a highly efficient, closed-loop production system. Sometimes energy choices feel like picking the lesser of two evils; which one would you chose?