Brown cloud near Pune, India

The legendary glaciers of the Himalayan and Hindu Kush mountain ranges have been losing volume at an increasing rate over the past twenty to thirty years. And over this same time period, much data has piled up confirming the role of increased CO2 emissions in global warming trends. Given this, it would be “natural” to assume that CO2-induced warming was also to blame for the glacial melting. But it turns out that much stronger evidence points to the impact of “brown cloud” events.

There have been other extensive brown cloud events elsewhere, such as in Central and Eastern China (which first made headlines back in 2005). They can be several miles wide / long, and extend hundreds of meters or more high. The clouds would be more aptly described as massive, moving blankets of thick haze (similar to smog). They typically last anywhere from a few days to a week before they dissipate. The clouds are indeed lethal to some (asthmatics, elderly, young children, those with bad hearts) and have also been known to suffocate livestock.

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Power plants play a huge role in emitting pollutants that make up the ozone. This pollution browns and blackens our horizons. We call it smog. Smog has been linked to premature deaths, thousands of emergency room visits, and tens of thousands of asthma attacks each year. Pollution in the ozone is particularly dangerous to small children and the elderly, who are often warned to stay indoors on days with poor air quality due to pollutants.

Not only are the pollutants spewed out by power plants bad for our health, but they contain greenhouse gases that have been linked with climate change; thus they are killing the world as we know it as well.

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It’s “not supposed to do that,” but it is: salt has revealed a previously undiscovered talent for stretching.  The startling revelation was made by researchers from Sandia National Laboratories and the University of Pittsburgh, using a powerful Interfacial Force Microscope.  The discovery of stretchable properties in salt could lead to the development of more efficient desalination technology, and it could also provide more insight into the potential for alternative fuels to contribute to smog formation.

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Picture: Smog in Los Angeles, Courtsey: Nathan via Flickr.com under creative commons license.

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Picture: Delhi Smog in January 2009

As I revisited the problem more recently, I was both shocked and saddened to see a decline so visibly and so quickly. Examining Delhi’s data, in January this year, I found an increase in vehicular pollution. I was not expecting this to happen in face of the phenomenal and difficult measures that Delhi had undertaken: like relocation of industries out of residential areas (something that had come about as a result of the developmental dream for Delhi in the 1950s) and conversion of the entire fleet of Delhi Transportation Corporation (DTC) buses into Compressed Natural gas or CNG (resulting in the largest CNG-operated public transportation in the world).

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Ever wonder just how much smog you’re bathing in every day? A new pollution radar developed by Surrey Satellite Technology, the University of Leicester, and EADS Astrium might be able to show you.

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[Creative Commons photo by Tobias Pro User]

Pollution from motor vehicles is responsible for 72% of nitrogen oxides and 52% of reactive hydrocarbons (principal components of smog). Cars and trucks are not the only culprits - road construction causes greenhouse gas emissions both during and after the work is done. A Sightline Institute analysis (pdf) found that building 10 miles of new four-lane highway construction is the equivalent of putting 46,700 Hummers on the road, once you account for factors like materials, maintenance, congestion, and new traffic.

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Beijing will ban some 353,800 vehicles with high emissions from anywhere within the fifth ring road, which circles the city center at a radius of 10-15 km. One in ten cars and trucks in Beijing will be subject to the ban. But, say city officials, those vehicles account for 50 percent of the city’s notoriously bad auto pollution.

The vehicles on the banned list are those that do not meet the Euro I emissions standards set in Europe in the early 90’s. According to Ren Lihong of the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Science, these cars are a big part of Beijing’s pollution problem.

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In Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles, Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly provide a well-documented, highly engaging, and widely relevant account of southern California’s battle with “the beast,” as the authors lovingly refer to smog. Placed firmly in the tradition of good old muckraking journalism, Smogtown covers over sixty years of pollution making and pollution fighting in Los Angeles.

Jacobs, an experienced journalist and author, and Kelly, also a writer and former spokesman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District, dig deep in their quest of tracking the beast. From that fateful day of July 8, 1943, that it first rolled into Los Angeles and up to the present, smog has managed to define life in southern California in many respects. Simultaneously, the beast’s reign of terror and humanity’s response to it parallel our entire civilization’s relationship with the planet.

Despite its clear intention of making a case for environmental awareness and action, Smogtown is not your typical “green’s” diatribe against big business and weak government. No, Jacobs and Kelly are much smarter–and fairer–than that in this book.

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A Harvard group concluded that 1.6 percent of annual deaths in Mexico are from that hazy fog, coming to a total of 7,600 shorter lives total in the years 2002-2005.

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According to SustainLane who just released their 2008 Sustainable City rankings, city traits that are already set in stone like geography and layout play a huge role. Take the greenest cities in America: Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago and New York. Four out of the five them are situated on the coast and were built before suburbia existed.

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NOBODY NoSE WheRE theY CamE from.

BUT THEY’RE HERE, HAND-PICKED TO SAVE the WORLD.

BEFORE BEDTIME.

BeCauSE EVERY NOW and AGAIN,

MOTHER NATURE NEEDS SOMEONE

TO PICK-IT FOR THE PLANET

The BUGZ don’t condone nose picking…destruction of the forests or any other anti-social habits.

I absolutely love the illustrations in these books and the fact that the destruction of the forest is considered anti-social behavior (would someone please tell the Bush administration?); however, the resolutions in the stories don’t really work with the environmental problems they are trying to solve. The end page of each book is filled with “facterias” that I wish were more part of the plot of each environmental adventure. 

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“The survey’s core result is that people care about their communities and express the desire to see government action taken toward local and national issues,” said David Konisky, who conducted the survey.

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As the date for the 2008 Games rapidly approaches, Beijing struggles to improve air quality for the “green games.” By closing factories, limiting vehicle use, and halting all construction projects, Chinese authorities are trying to make last-minute improvements that rely on wide-spread compliance. Athletic performance, health, and China’s reputation could suffer if the smog doesn’t clear.

China has implemented a variety of emergency measures to tame the haze, which will have a significant impact on all levels of society. Personal vehicle use is limited from July 20 to September 20. Drivers in Beijing can only drive on alternating days and high emissions vehicles are banned completely. Meanwhile, mass transit is being expanded and work hours staggered to help ease transportation woes.

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There have been serious concerns about air quality in the Chinese capital of Beijing ever since it was awarded the Olympic Games in 2001. Since then, the Chinese government has spent an estimated $15 billion dollars to address the air pollution problem in Beijing. The cash has been spent on shutting down factories, unleashing cloud seeders to encourage rain, and now, on paying people to not drive their cars.

Beginning today in Beijing, cars with license plates that end in an odd number are banned from the roads every other day, alternating with cars that have even-numbered plates. It is estimated that there are about 3.5 million vehicles on the roads in Beijing and the ban will reduce the numbers of cars on the road by about one million per day. Drivers will be compensated by not having to pay road and vehicle taxes for three months.

Beijing officials claim to have significantly improved air quality, with just over two-thirds of the days last year meeting national health guidelines, up from only 20% a decade earlier. But some question the validity of the data. An article in the Wall St. Journal suggests that pollution standards may have been loosened, air-quality-monitoring stations moved and data possibly manipulated with to show better results.

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PHOTO CAPTION: An evacuated family driven from their San Diego home by the 2007 wildfires. Photo: Michael Raphael/FEMA

Do you have children?

Because they are still developing physically, breathe faster than adults and rely on adults for care, children are more vulnerable. Watch out for:

• Heat waves. Infants and children up to four years old are particularly sensitive to heat and also rely on a care-giver to keep them adequately hydrated.
• Smog and soot pollution. Because their lungs are still developing, children can suffer irreversible lung damage as adults from breathing unhealthy air when young.
• Food- and waterborne diseases. Small children and children living in poverty are at higher risk for falling ill from diseases that climate change will likely exacerbate.
• Stress, anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder after disastrous extreme weather events.

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  ]]> http://sustainablog.org/2008/04/09/environmental-defense-fund-health-dangers-from-a-warming-planet-are-you-at-risk/feed/ http://redgreenandblue.org/2008/03/19/thank-you-bush-for-weakening-smog-limits/ http://redgreenandblue.org/2008/03/19/thank-you-bush-for-weakening-smog-limits/#comments Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:31:32 +0000 Jennifer Lance http://redgreenandblue.org/2008/03/19/thank-you-bush-for-weakening-smog-limits/ Will we survive George W. Bush’s presidency? Not if you think clean air is necessary for your life and the life of the planet. Last week, Bush overruled the EPA’s efforts to set lower smog-forming ozone limits. Bush actually ordered the agency to increase the limit!

  According to the Grist, “the EPA set both the ‘public health’ standard (how much ozone is permitted in one place at one time) and the ‘public welfare’ standard (consideration of the long-term effect of ozone) at the same level.” Before Bush’s command, the EPA had planned to make the “public welfare” standard more stringent, though not as low as their scientists were recommending. Bush’s orders sent the agency scrambling to avoid conflict with past EPA statements on the harmful effects of ozone.

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  ]]> http://redgreenandblue.org/2008/03/19/thank-you-bush-for-weakening-smog-limits/feed/ http://sustainablog.org/2007/12/27/environmental-defense-global-warming-science-ten-top-stories-of-2007/ http://sustainablog.org/2007/12/27/environmental-defense-global-warming-science-ten-top-stories-of-2007/#comments Thu, 27 Dec 2007 22:14:01 +0000 edfblog http://sustainablog.org/2007/12/27/environmental-defense-global-warming-science-ten-top-stories-of-2007/ This post is by Lisa Moore, Ph.D., a scientist in the Climate and Air program at Environmental Defense.

  All year long we’ve been monitoring developments in climate science, and posting about the important new developments. I thought now would be a good time to look back over 2007 and summarize what we’ve learned.

  Here are ten noteworthy science stories we covered in 2007:

  1. The Sun is (really, really) not responsible for global warming. This paper wasn’t breaking news, just an extremely thorough review of the science showing why the sun can’t be blamed for global warming. The folks over at RealClimate said it best: “That’s a coffin with so many nails in it already that the hard part is finding a place to hammer in a new one.”

  2. American Southwest climate is becoming drier. Global warming has caused a long-term shift in rain patterns. An author of the study said, “You can’t call it a drought anymore, because it’s going over to a drier climate. No one says the Sahara is in drought.”

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  ]]> http://sustainablog.org/2007/12/27/environmental-defense-global-warming-science-ten-top-stories-of-2007/feed/ http://claytonbodiecornell.greenoptions.com/2007/02/07/ethanol-could-face-hazy-future/ http://claytonbodiecornell.greenoptions.com/2007/02/07/ethanol-could-face-hazy-future/#comments Wed, 07 Feb 2007 17:25:04 +0000 Clayton B. Cornell http://claytonbodiecornell.greenoptions.com/2007/02/07/ethanol-could-face-hazy-future/ The new national focus on biofuels seems to have glossed-over a fundamental principle of the universe: when something burns, smoke happens. This goes for any combustible fuel, be it gasoline, diesel, propane, wood, coal, biomass, biodiesel, ethanol or anything else, and just so happens to be one of the greatest drawbacks of the internal combustion engine; a great idea, but not so great when millions of people start using it in a small area. Most alternative fuel emissions fair better than regular gasoline or diesel, but concerns have been raised that ethanol, the most heavily subsidized and nationally celebrated biofuel (at least officially), may not be as clean as we would like:

  WASHINGTON — Federal scientists want to tighten smog standards, a step that would allow tens of millions of Americans to breathe easier. The plan also would run head-on into President Bush's hopes of weaning Americans from gasoline by using more smog-producing ethanol. Environmental Protection Agency scientists on Wednesday will say that tougher standards "would provide greater health protection for sensitive groups, including asthmatic children and other people with lung disease, healthy children and older adults — especially those active outdoors, and outdoor workers."

  The emissions profiles of both ethanol and biodiesel have previously been questioned due to their potential to increase smog-forming nitrogen oxides (combustion products that can react with oxygen to form smog), although B20 biodiesel blends have recently been vindicated. President Bush in his State of the Union speech advocated reducing gas consumption by 20 percent over 10 years, a transition that would heavily rely on ethanol fuel blends.

  Ethanol, a focus of Bush's gasoline-reduction plan, helps cut carbon monoxide in winter but can raise smog levels in summer, air pollution experts say. Ethanol releases more nitrogen oxides, a key element of smog, and evaporates more easily than gasoline, adding other air pollutants.
  EPA documents show that more ethanol use could raise smog levels about 1 percent, mainly in parts of the Midwest that don't use cleaner-burning reformulated gasoline.

  This could be cause for concern, since ethanol is such a major player in the biofuel arena. But would a massive shift to using ethanol fuel blends significantly increase air pollution? The EPA officially does not think so, noting "a possibility of a very small increase" in smog formation. Industry advocates claim additional refinement will solve part of the problem, although others aren't so sure:

  As long as refiners spend enough to offset the volatility in ethanol that leads to smog, there's no problem, said ethanol lobbyist Bob Dinneen of the Renewable Fuels Association.

  "A lot of concerns that have been out there are unfounded," he said. "It's not an air quality issue, it's an economic issue for refiners."

  Stanford University atmospheric scientist Mark Jacobson said that would add 200 deaths a year to the 4,700 now blamed on smog. "It's a significant concern," said Jacobson, who believes the worst effects would be around Los Angeles and along the Boston-New York-Washington corridor.

  According to the same news release, 160 million people in the U.S. already live in areas with illegal levels of smog.

  That's more than 1/2 our total population.

  Any increase of smog-forming emissions in highly populated areas is clearly undesirable (for a visual, just look at Salt Lake City in the wintertime). There may also be more to the equation than just what comes out of the tailpipe. An oft-quoted study from the University of Minnesota stated that when the total life cycle emissions of growing and processing corn are taken into account, corn-based ethanol incurs "greater environmental and human health impacts because of increased release of five air pollutants and nitrate, nitrite, and pesticides" when compared to regular gasoline.

  Whether or not tighter smog standards will actually conflict with increased ethanol use remains to be seen.

  In the mean time, we may be better off supporting public transportation and just plain driving less. A fuel is still a fuel, even by another name…

   

  Stay tuned for more information on the emissions profiles of various alternative fuels.

  Check out the Green Life Guide for more information on biodiesel and ethanol.

  • ENN: EPA Plan to Tighten Smog Standards Collides with Bush Goal to Cut Gas Use
  • University of Minnesota Study: Environmental, economic, and energetic costs and benefits of biodiesel and ethanol biofuels.

   

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