1. Your Name
2. A Title
3. A short personal commentary what you learned from it or what made you curious about it given the week's class content. However, it doesn't have to be about the week's content, only something related to human-environmental interactions.
4. Then put a long line ('-------------------)'.
5. Then cut/paste the article or topic you found.
6. Then a small line '---'.
7. Then, finally, paste the URL (link) of the post.
Post for this week on this thread. I'll set up a new main post each week, and then we will do the same.
[Unable to resist posting this picture, because we talked about aspartame and Donald Rumsfeld.]
9 comments:
Here's an example of what you should do.
Mark Whitaker
"South Korea to hit new heights for solar energy"
Interesting article I bet few Koreans will catch: you will have the largest solar and tidal power plant in the world soon! However, it's still only 10% by 2020. Another issue that this short article doesn't talk about is what solar technology they will be utilizing. Is the actual production process 'green' itself? There are quite a few solar technologies invented only in the past year that are astounding improvements in efficiency that makes solar immediate rivals of coal/natural gas as an energy source. I'll attempt to fit in something about the global politics of Anglo-American oil companies over the 20th century into the course, as well as the repression of electrical cars and other more efficient technologies that came with it. (as noted in Edwin Black's recent book Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Derailed the Alternatives (2006))
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South Korea to hit new heights for solar energy
The town of Shinan in South Korea is to play to host to the world’s largest solar power plant, following government plans to generate 10 per cent of the country’s energy from renewable sources by 2020.
Date:10/05/2007 Author:News
The new plant, which will feature 109,000 solar modules covering an area the size of 80 football fields, will track the sun during the day to enable the generation of up to 20 megawatts of electricity.
The panels will supply between 6,000 and 7,000 households, saving some 20,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year.
The initiative, due to be completed by the end of 2008, will start generating power as work continues on South Korea’s gigantic tidal power plant, strung between four islands west of the capital Seoul.
The tidal plant, which will similarly be the biggest in the world, is slated for completion in 2009 and will generate 812 megawatts of electricity.
The South Korean government agreed to subsidise these programmes as it acknowledged that the country’s emissions of greenhouse gases are rising faster than in most other industrialised nations, due mainly to a burgeoning export economy.
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http://www.theecologist.org/archive_detail.asp?content_id=915
Name : Min Sook Kim (Choi)
Title: Global Warming Puts Twelve U.S. Parks at Risk
My husband and I belong to an alpine club and I believe we have been to a half of these parks. Also I know these parks are very popular vacation or tourist places not only for nature lovers but for everyone. You just can’t stop being amazed by the spectacular mountains, wild lives and glacier sceneries when you are there. You realize how wonderful presents God gave to us. It is depressing and sad to hear they are disappearing slowly. It will be a real shame if human won’t do anything about it. The richest and the most powerful country in the world should work on to save their own parks and be a role model to the other countries in stopping the global warming.
_____________________________________________________________________________
From: Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters
Published July 26, 2006
Global Warming Puts Twelve U.S. Parks at Risk
WASHINGTON — Global warming puts 12 of the most famous U.S. national parks at risk, environmentalists said Tuesday, conjuring up visions of Glacier National Park without glaciers and Yellowstone Park without grizzly bears.
All 12 parks are located in the American West, where temperatures have risen twice as fast as in the rest of the United States over the last 50 years, said Theo Spencer of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"Rising temperatures, drought, wildfires and diminished snowfalls endanger wildlife and threaten hiking, fishing and other recreational activities" in the parks, Spencer said in a telephone news conference. "Imagine Glacier Park without glaciers or Yellowstone without any grizzly bears."
Most climate scientists believe Earth's surface temperature has risen over the last century or more, spurred by human activities that produce greenhouse gases, which trap heat like the glass walls of a greenhouse. Some skeptics doubt that people affect global climate change and say temperature fluctuations have occurred throughout history.
The report released by the council and the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization stressed the connection between global warming and environmental damage at the parks, including the loss of specific wildlife, and called on the U.S. government to cut greenhouse gas emissions significantly in 10 years.
The report blamed global warming for threatening grizzly bears, an iconic species in Yellowstone Park.
BEETLES AND BEARS
The bears feed on whitebark pine seeds, but global warming has encouraged beetles to infest whitebark trees that grow at high altitudes where grizzlies feed; cold weather would normally kill the beetles but this has not occurred in recent years, said Janet Barwick of the council's Wild Bears Project.
This in turn forces the bears to move to lower altitudes to look for food to fatten up for the winter, making them more likely to move into areas where there are people and that leads to an increase in grizzly mortality, Barwick said.
Glaciers and ice caves have melted in North Cascades and Mt. Rainier parks, and mountaintops in Western parks could be snow-free in summer within decades, said Stephen Saunders of the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization. He said all glaciers in Glacier National Park could be gone within 25 years.
The report said the parks at greatest risk are:
- Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico;
- Death Valley National Park, California;
- Glacier National Park, Montana;
- Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Utah and Arizona;
- Golden Gate National Recreation Area, California;
- Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming;
- Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado;
- Mount Rainier National Park, Washington state;
- North Cascades National Park, Washington state;
- Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado;
- Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho;
- Yosemite National Park, California.
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http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/4745
Post by Yulia Khmyz
"Mattel Recalls 800,000 Lead-Tainted Toys"
Personal commentary: It is not the first time I hear scandal news about Chinese toys being found out to be dangerous for health and even lives of children who play with them.
It is really scary. While reading I was thinking about shops all over the world full of Chinese toys which people buy for their children having no idea about the negative effects playing with these toxical, flammable or explosion-dangerous objects can have on their children's health.
The following article tells about the third in a month recall of Chinese-made toys which became an issue after exessive amounts of lead were found in paint. Lead in paint!!! And children having this habit of putting everything in their mouth!!! No more comments.
Read the article below.
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Mattel Recalls 800,000 Lead-Tainted Toys
NEW YORK (AP) -- Mattel Inc.'s reputation took another hit after the world's largest toy maker announced a third major recall of Chinese-made toys in little more than a month because of excessive amounts of lead paint.
The latest action, which involved about 800,000 toys and which was announced late Tuesday, is yet another blow to Mattel. The news, along with other recent recalls of tainted Chinese toys from other toy makers, could also make parents even more nervous about shopping for toys this holiday season.
The latest Mattel recall, whose details were negotiated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, covers 675,000 Barbie accessories sold between October 2006 and August of this year. No Barbie dolls were included in the action.
The recall also included 90,000 units of Mattel's GeoTrax locomotive line and about 8,900 Big Big World 6-in-1 Bongo Band toys, both from the company's Fisher-Price brand. The Big Big World products were sold nationwide from July through August of this year, while the GeoTrax toys were sold from September 2006 through August of this year.
Mattel's last recall, announced on Aug. 14, covered about 19 million toys worldwide. They included Chinese-made toys that either had excessive amounts of lead paint or had small magnets that could easily be swallowed by children.
On Aug. 1, Mattel's Fisher-Price division said it was recalling 1.5 million preschool toys featuring characters such as Dora the Explorer, Big Bird and Elmo because of lead paint. That action included 967,000 toys sold in the United States between May and August.
Robert Eckert, chairman and chief executive of El Segundo, Calif.-based Mattel, warned at a press conference last month that there may be more recalls of tainted toys as the company steps up its investigations into its Chinese factories and increases monitoring of production.
In a statement issued late Tuesday, Eckert said: "As a result of our ongoing investigation, we discovered additional affected products. Consequently, several subcontractors are no longer manufacturing Mattel toys. We apologize again to everyone affected and promise that we will continue to focus on ensuring the safety and quality of our toys."
Mattel added that it has completed its testing program for the majority of its toys and spent more than 50,000 hours investigating its vendors and testing its toys over the past four-week period.
Still, Mattel, which has cultivated an image of tightly controlling production in China, could face an uphill battle convincing consumers about the safety of its products this holiday season. The CPSC is also considering a possible investigation of whether Mattel notified authorities as quickly as it should have in connection with the Aug. 14 recall.
With more than 80 percent of toys sold worldwide made in China, toy sellers are also concerned shoppers will shy away from their products in this year's holiday season.
In June, toy maker RC2 Corp. voluntarily recalled 1.5 million wooden railroad toys and set parts from its Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway product line. The company said the surface paint on certain toys and parts made in China between January 2005 and April 2006 contains lead, affecting 26 components and 23 retailers.
In July, Hasbro Inc. recalled faulty Chinese-made Easy Bake ovens, marking the second time the iconic toy had been recalled this year.
A Chinese quality official said Wednesday that the country is investigating the latest recall.
Wang Xin, an official with the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine, said the agency, which oversees all products made in China, is trying to get details on when the toys were made and the manufacturers involved.
Mattel vowed as recently as last month it would tighten its controls at factories in China. About 65 percent of the company's toys are made in China, and about 50 percent of Mattel's production there is produced in company-owned plants.
The recalled toys in the Barbie accessory line included a Barbie Dream Puppy House, which had lead paint on the dog; a Barbie Dream Kitty Condo playset, which had lead paint on the cat; and a Barbie table and chairs kitchen playset, which had lead paint on the dog and dinner plates.
Mattel said in a statement that the Barbie products affected by the recall were produced by Holder Plastic Company, a Mattel contract vendor, which subcontracted the painting of miniature toy pets and small furniture pieces to Dong Lian Fa and Yip Sing. Both companies used uncertified paint and are no longer producing toys for Mattel, the company said.
Mattel added that its probe revealed that the subcontractors painted the affected toys between March 2007 and August 2007. However, Mattel said it's being cautious in recalling the entire production of the seven toys painted by the subcontractors, and toys made beginning in October 2006 are included within the recall.
Among the three Fisher-Price toys recalled are two GeoTrax toys and a toy from the Big Big World line.
The two GeoTrax toys were made by Apex Manufacturing Company Ltd., one of Mattel's contract vendors, which outsourced paint work to a subcontractor, Boyi Plastic Products Factory. Apex supplied Boyi with certified paint; however, the toys were made with uncertified paint. Boyi is no longer in business, Mattel said.
The GeoTrax toys were manufactured between July 31, 2006, and September 4, 2006; however, the painted parts were stored and incorporated into toy production throughout the year. Mattel said it is recalling toys shipped between August 3, 2006, and July 31 of this year.
Fisher-Price's Big Big World toy was manufactured by Shun On Factory, one of Mattel's contract vendors, which outsourced the molding and painting of one plastic piece. A subcontractor, Jingying Tampo Printing Processing Factory, used uncertified paint on the recalled piece.
For information about Tuesday's recalls, consumers should call Mattel at 888-496-8330 or visit the company's Web site at http://www.service.mattel.com .
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link:http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/22689
1. Woo, Choon-hee
2. "What is a Freegan?"
3. Several months ago, I watched TV program, "W", which is korean program dealing with world problem, world movement, and world issues. In the program, people who live in New York go around the huge city, looking for or hunting up the trash or food dumped by huge market. They are "freegan" which means "free" and "vegan" They are almost vegan and environmentalist, and maintain that they have "strategies for sustainable living beyond capitalism". People produce too much than we need and Freegans show "we can live with the trash and waste dumped by people." People are working too hard and too much to buy products, and then, they throw up because they do not need that much, keep working to buy something useless or unnecessary, and throw up! Like this, the process of capitalism and consumerism keeps going and the earth started to suffocate with trash. We rethink about that process, change consumer's behavior, and start to heal the earth. In my opinion, they tell us one of the most alternative ways to go beyond the consumerism and capitalism.
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What is a Freegan?
Freegans are people who employ alternative strategies for living based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources. Freegans embrace community, generosity, social concern, freedom, cooperation, and sharing in opposition to a society based on materialism, moral apathy, competition, conformity, and greed.
After years of trying to boycott products from egregious corporations responsible for human rights violations, environmental destruction, and animal abuse, many of us found that no matter what we bought we ended up supporting something deplorable. We came to realize that the problem isn't just a few bad corporations but the entire system itself.
Freeganism is a total boycott of an economic system where the profit motive has eclipsed ethical considerations and where massively complex systems of productions ensure that all the products we buy will have detrimental impacts most of which we may never even consider. Thus, instead of avoiding the purchase of products from one bad company only to support another, we avoid buying anything to the greatest degree we are able.
The word freegan is derived from "free" and "vegan". Vegans are people who avoid products from animal sources or products tested on animals in an effort to avoid harming animals. Freegans take this a step further by recognizing that in a complex, industrial, mass-production economy driven by profit, abuses of humans, animals, and the earth abound at all levels of production (from acquisition to raw materials to production to transportation ) and in just about every product we buy. Sweatshop labor, rainforest destruction, global warming, displacement of indigenous communities, air and water pollution, eradication of wildlife on farmland as "pests", the violent overthrow of popularly elected governments to maintain puppet dictators compliant to big business interests, open-pit strip mining, oil drilling in environmentally sensitive areas, union busting, child slavery, and payoffs to repressive regimes are just some of the many impacts of the seemingly innocuous consumer products we consume every day.
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http://freegan.info/
SuJung Kim
"Antarctic Melting May Be Speeding Up, Scientists Say"
Few years ago, I watched the movie, 'Tomorrow'whish is about the climate change. It was very impressive to me and I became have an interest on the climate change. I think the most severe climate problem on earth today is 'Global warming'. In following article, many scientists give a warning of melting glaciers caused by global warming.In my opinion, global warming and its results can be one of the most striking interaction between human activity and the environment. Global warming and this kind of climate change can directly give effects on living things. However, many people do not recognize it seriously. When I read this article, both severe global warming and people's lack of concern made me feel bad.
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Antarctic Melting May Be Speeding Up, Scientists Say
HOBART -- Rising sea levels and melting polar ice-sheets are at upper limits of projections, leaving some human population centres already unable to cope, top world scientists say as they analyse latest satellite data.
A United Nations report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in February projected sea level gains of 18-59 centimetres (7-23 inches) this century from temperature rises of 1.8-4.0 Celsius (3.2-7.8 Farenheit).
"Observations are in the very upper edge of the projections," leading Australian marine scientist John Church told Reuters.
"I feel that we're getting uncomfortably close to threshhold," said Church, of Australia's CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research said.
Past this level, parts of the Antarctic and Greenland would approach a virtually irreversible melting that would produce sea level rises of metres, he said.
There has been no repeat in the Antarctic of the 2002 break-up of part of the Larsen ice shelf that created a 500 billion tonne iceberg as big as Luxembourg.
But the Antarctic Peninsula is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth, and glaciers are in massive retreat.
"There have been doomsday scenarios that west Antarctica could collapse quite quickly. And there's six metres of sea level in west Antarctica," says Tas van Ommen, a glaciologist at the Hobart-based Australian Antarctic Division.
Doomsday has not yet arrived.
But even in east Antarctica, which is insulated from global warming by extreme cold temperatures and high-altitudes, new information shows the height of the Tottenham Glacier near Australia's Casey Base has fallen by 10 metres over 15-16 years.
MELTING POLES
Scientists say massive glacier retreat at Heard Island, 1,000 km (620 miles) north of Antarctica, is an example of how fringe areas of the polar region are melting.
The break-up of ice in Antarctica to create icebergs is also opening pathways for accelerated flows to the sea by glaciers.
Church pointed out that sea levels were 4-6 metres higher more than 100,000 years ago when temperatures were at levels expected to be reached at the end of this century.
Dynamic ice-flows could add 25 percent to IPCC forecasts of sea level rise, van Ommen said.
Australian scientist John Hunter, who has focused on historical sea level information, said that to keep the sea water out, communities would need to begin raising sea walls.
"There's lots of places where you can't do that and where you'll have to put up with actual flooding," he said.
This was already happening in the south of England, where local councils and governments could not afford to protect all areas from sea water erosion as land continued to sink.
About 100 million people around the world live within a metre of the present-day sea level, CSIRO Marine Research senior principal research scientist Steve Rintoul said. "Those 100 million people will need to go somewhere," he said.
Worse, every metre of sea level rise causes an inland recession of around 100 metres (300 feet) and more erosion occurs with every storm.
"You can't just say we'll just put sea walls," Hunter said.
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http://www.enn.com/climate/article/6242
Keep posting if you haven't yet posted!
Deadline extended through Sunday.
The point is to have something before class starts on Monday.
If you still can't post because of some technical issue, we will attempt to isolate problems on Monday in the classroom (where the computer is, in room B161).
In the interim, for those who can't post because of technical problems, email me your blog comment in the correct form.
Thank you.
sekyoung
"U.S. base muck seen up close "
It is not easy to solve this problem for korean governemt i think because of complication of relationship with U.S. However we cannot take this on going pollution problem aside to our future generation. Also i could think about environmental pollution issues that can be commited by any militaries. They have their basements all over the world and are making serious pollution problems.
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PAJU, Gyeonggi ― Lawmakers uncovered the foul stench of pollution as they paid a visit yesterday to three U.S. bases scheduled to be returned to Seoul to assess the degree of environmental damage at the facilities.
Six lawmakers from the National Assembly’s environmental committee, along with environmental experts, toured Camp Edwards in Paju, and two other bases. Showing that decades of use as a military facility has taken a toll, an unbearable odor greeted the party at Camp Edwards as experts drilled holes into the ground to extract samples from underground water sources.
Looking at one sample of murky liquid, Professor Lee Jin-yong from Kangwon National University’s geology department said that the oil level indicated widespread pollution of the soil.
Instead of water, remnants of flammable gasoline were lifted from one underground sample well.
The visit came as the National Assembly is scheduled to hold hearings regarding the cleanup of the bases next week.
Last year, when Washington and Seoul negotiated over the return of the U.S. bases, Washington agreed that it would take certain steps such as cleaning tanks used for the storage of oil before returning the bases to Seoul. It was agreed then that the bases would be subject to a thorough cleanup for six months before the ownership change.
Nevertheless, the three camps in the Paju area visited by lawmakers yesterday all showed signs of environmental degradation in the soil and the water. Experts have estimated that the total cleanup bill for the 59 bases involved could be as high as 400 billion won ($430 million).
The return of the bases is part of a long term plan by Washington and Seoul to reposition U.S. forces away from the heavily fortified border between North and South.
After the bases are cleaned up the central government is planning to consult with provincial governments over future use of the bases.
Estimates for the total cost of relocating U.S. bases to the southern city of Pyeongtaek are as high as 9 trillion won. Seoul has promised to pay about half the cost.
The consortium in charge of the project estimated earlier this month that the relocation would be completed by November 2012. That same year operational control of South Korean troops in the event of war will also be returned to Seoul.
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http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2876823
YingQi Fan
“Algae outbreak sparks water panic”
Well, it was really by accident that I had been in Wuxi on 27th May, only several days before Chinese media began to cast light on the Wuxi water crisis for the first time. That day my father and I dropped into a restaurant at noon and the owner said the water was too smelly to make a lunch for us. At first, we just thought she was joking and insisted on her cooking for us. But finally it turned out to be a big mistake that the steamed egg, 계란찜 in Korean, which should be yellow, was green…. Just imagine how disgusting it was. It was one of the most revolting things I have ever seen.
China has developed greatly in economics for the past few years, but at the cost of the destruction on the environment, which do harm not only to Chinese people themselves but also to people in other countries, just as Yulia Khmyz mentioned in her article “Mattel Recalls 800,000 lead-tainted toys”. I felt really sorry about it and also embarrassed to see such an article about China all over the Foreign Media when I click the button “search”. But I am not ashamed of my country since I have not lost hope. Currently, problems are kept being uncovered and much action has been taken to stop them getting worse. Chinese people will not stand aside and let others deal with the mess for themselves, I believe.
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“Algae outbreak sparks water panic”
Residents in eastern Chinese city of Wuxi rushed to buy bottled water after tap supplies became putrid from algae blanketing a nearby lake, and scientists said the outbreak could last for months
The level of Taihu Lake in Jiangsu province was at its lowest in 50 years and blue-green algae had spread, leaving the water that usually supplied Wuxi undrinkable, Xinhua news agency said on Thursday.
Panicked Wuxi city residents stripped supermarkets clean of bottled water and small shops raised prices, local newspapers reported.
The volatile mix of pollution, thirsty citizens and health worries echoed a panic in late 2005, when millions of residents of Harbin in northeast China had tap water cut off for weeks after a toxic spill in the Songhua River affected drinking water.
Yang Weize, party secretary of Wuxi, a thriving Jiangsu industrial and tourism centre with an urban population of more than 2.3 million, vowed on Wednesday to guarantee safe drinking water "at all costs", Xinhua said.
An unnamed spokesman for the city government told a local newspaper that about one-third of residents still had tap water untainted by algae. Officials have been constantly monitoring the lake and ensuring bottled water is available, he said.
Many of China's lakes and rivers are threatened by run-off from fertilisers, dumped industrial waste and untreated sewage. Algae blooms can burst out in water rich in nutrients from farm and domestic run-off. Xinhua cited experts as saying low water levels this year had encouraged the outbreak.
Taihu Lake is the country's third biggest, covering 2,338 square km, according to the Ministry of Water Resources. Levels of pollution from farm and industry run-off have risen in recent years, the ministry has reported.
A research station that monitors the lake said a few days ago that the algae had been "exploding" for a month.
"The foul water quality is seriously affecting urban residents' work and life," said the report, posted on the website of the Chinese Academy of Sciences station (www.taihu.ac.cn). It blamed unusually warm water and pollution flowing into the lake.
"In coming months, as the water temperature of Taihu Lake continues to rise, if the water level remains where it is now, the scale of the algae bloom will expand and could last four to five months," it said.
Wuxi would try to artificially induce rain to flush the lake, and the provincial government had agreed to divert more water from the Yangtze River, Xinhua said.
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http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-05/31/content_884500.htm
I’ve almost forgot to do the post work>@< for thinking that only one student is responsible for the contribution to the blog weekly. Anyway, no excuse.
Pretty happy to see my post on the blog before the due date. ^^
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