Green Options

From the comment streams and emails I’ve been getting about recent posts, it is clear that many people believe things that are not actually true about the environmental profile of organic fertilizers.  I don’t mean to minimize the challenge we face when it comes to fertilizers, particularly nitrogen fertilizers.  They take energy to make, have the potential to generate the potent greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide, and can lead to the pollution of ground and surface waters.  With a “rap-sheet” like that I understand why people are concerned, but there is a catch - without fertilizers we don’t eat much.

Still, there is a widespread belief that “Organic” fertilizers are the solution.  I’ve already blogged about why organic fertilizers are dramatically worse from a greenhouse gas point of view.  Today I want to talk about the water pollution issues and why “Organic” fertilizers are actually a much worse problem from that perspective as well.

Why Nitrogen Fertilizers Can Pollute

The reason that ALL nitrogen fertilizers (synthetic and Organic) are a water pollution threat is that they at some point convert to the nitrate ion (NO3-).  That particular form of nitrogen is very water soluble so the nitrate can move down into ground water or sideways into surface water.  The “Dead Zone” or “Hypoxia zone” in the Gulf of Mexico is driven in some large part by nitrate coming from farms.   There are ways to manage this issue, but first I need to talk about the fundemental challenge of crop fertilization.

I know people need to keep their jobs–but this is certainly a case of misdirected hostility…

An ecologist and an engineer at Michigan State University are working together to create robot fish that can better monitor various factors in aquatic environments.

Combining the brilliance of nature with some top-notch engineering, these two scientists are on to something and getting the funding for it.

The researchers are breaking ground with this and looking to raise water monitoring to another level.

Groningen would be number one on this list if we were looking at percentage of residents who bicycle for transportation purposes. About 57% of travel in Groningen is by bicycle!

The city has been named the world’s best bicycle city a couple of times (1993 and 2006). It is a university city which is part of the reason why it has so many people bicycling, but it has done amazing things to make the city more bicycle friendly as well. The bicycle facilities you can see on the following pages will probably blow your mind away.

Without pavement and parking lots we would still be traveling cross-country in Conestoga wagons on 6-inch deep ruts and be breathing lungfulls of dust every time a vehicle drove by at the Kwik-E-Mart. Needless to say, pavement is one of the many things that makes modern life possible.

But, like everything else in our modern life, the more advanced we get in our ability to collect and analyze data, the more we realize that the good stuff always seems to have its awful consequences too. It’s the same story with pavement.

Sigourney Weaver narrates “Acid Test“, an illuminating and terrifying NRDC documentary that explains how quickly our planet’s oceans are acidifying due to all of the carbon dioxide that we are pumping into our air. This pollution is causing rapid changes in our oceans’ chemistry that will completely disrupt all life on the planet as we know it on a scale that has not been seen for tens of millions of years.

Although images of giant coal-fired smokestacks and automobile tailpipes characterize greenhouse gas scenarios, a new report proposes a different way of thinking about it – product policy.  Products and packaging contribute 44% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and reduction plans are more likely to succeed if extended producer responsibility (EPR) is made a cornerstone of commerce and environmental policy, the report says.

Lyngbya wollei, south shore Maumee Bay in Ohio, September 23, 2009.

Lake Erie, declared dead by the news media in the 1960s because of widespread, repulsive algae blooms, is once again marred, this time by both old and new causes. Some scientists and lake advocates worry that the unsightly algae is a warning of a lake once again in decline.

Tom Bridgeman, a lake scientist with the University of Toledo’s Lake Erie Center, said, “I’ve never seen the water as green as it was this year — and it’s not showing any signs of dying off yet. This is a growing problem.” Increased phosphorus runoff from farms and city streets, coupled with the feeding and excretion habits of non-native mussels introduced through ballast water, is believed to be associated with the resurgent blooms.

The western end of the lake has suffered from a surge in microsystis algae this summer. Bridgeman hypothesizes that in addition to phosphorus, underwater sediment shifts are culpable.

Ganga, the holiest of holy rivers in the Indian sub-continent is also one of the most polluted rivers in the region. Last year, after much lobbying, Ganga was declared the National River of India owing to its religious as well as environmental significance. However, just that could never have been enough for cleaning a river on which millions of Rupees have already been spent.

Now, the Union Environment Minister of India Mr. Jairam Ramesh, who had previously unveiled the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA), has put the NBRBA on a “mission mode” to clean the river by 2020. And his indicator for success is not clear blue waters but the return of the Gangetic dolphins that were once sighted in the river in plenty!

Cruise ships lead the pack amongst the world’s top polluters in the transportation industry. If you’re a green-minded person who’s been dreaming of a tropical cruise this winter, but don’t want to lend your support to an industry that is a major polluter, you can reconsider because even cruise lines are trying to go green and do their part to reducing the world’s carbon emissions and overall waste pollution.

Most of us would consider a trip to a state or national park to be a chance to get away from the pollution that plagues our cities. But it’s seldom easy to escape the effects of urban and industrial air pollution. Now, with a new art project called ECLIPSE, the web viewer or park visitor can see real time air quality data “imposed” on the otherwise scenic landscapes of our state and national parks.