This week the first US
city has banned natural gas hook ups in new buildings. They are taking an official stand on a power
once thought as clean…It is clean, when the alternative is coal fired…When the
alternative is nuclear or water generated, natural gas can now be known as that
new frontier for protecting the environment, that next problem child to deal
with. Gas plants are still being built
in some places, true, but is meant to fill the gap beyond baseload power, when
all the air conditioners are on but the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t
blowing. Gas plants that generate power
are quick to respond to changing conditions and until more research is done to
outfit the power grid with methods of storing power, it is a necessary
evil. This ban is meant for natural gas
hook ups in homes and businesses and the possible leaks that widespread
distribution can sometimes bring. But
how is our timing here? – Can we create new infrastructure fast enough to allow
for clean power to take over from fossil fuels?
This week as well, there was a plea made to the
United Nations to adopt a fifth Geneva Convention to protect the
Environment. Geneva Conventions were
established to ensure standards of humanitarian treatment during times of
conflict and war. The Geneva Conventions
have remained largely unchanged for the past 70 years, seeking to protect
wounded and sick soldiers in the field and at sea, prisoners of war and
civilians during times of conflict. A
letter from a group of well-known zoologists and environmental researchers was
released yesterday, calling the UN to include environmental protection as a
Fifth Geneva Convention, asking for more accountability for the often
devastating consequences of war on the natural environment. This will be something to watch this month as
the UN holds its Climate Change Summit in September.
The UN is also holding an open call for environmental nerds
like me to help solve climate change in a very techie way. Reboot
the Earth is bringing young computer programmers and scientists together to
help solve the world’s climate problems with technology. The nerd in me is intrigued and would love to
be there in person to see the technology and ideas, but the environmentalist in
me LOVES this idea. I’m of the opinion
that we need tons of new ideas and technology to help dig us out of this mess,
people are so unwilling to move backwards away from modern convenience, that we
have to make technology work for us instead.
The other thing that’s been going on for the last couple of
months, are a couple of countries have been sending large shipping containers
of junk back to the countries that made it…But not exactly. China had been excepting plastic waste
imports from other countries for a long time…Something that many people living in
developed nations have either not known about, or not cared. We live in fantasy land for the most part
where we imagine that the plastic water bottle you throw in your blue box
actually gets recycled into your next plastic water bottle. Turns out much of this waste is just shipped
to other countries to deal with, but China had had enough. No real surprise. Unfortunately however, this lead to numerous “recycling
facilities” from countries like Malaysia and the Philippians to turn a profit
by accepting this junk into countries that are ill equipped to deal with it. Reports of burnt polyester just scratch the
surface of what is being done with it.
These importers are being called traitors and the governments are
sending this junk back to the countries that it came from on their dime. Changes have been made to the Basel Convention to allow for better practices
when shipping mixed plastics to other countries. The question remains whether the 3,000 metric
tons will find space at the doorsteps of the factories that produced the products
so that they can be accountable for their choice of packaging.
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