by David Burn | Feb 11, 2007 | The Environment
Ted Turner went into the heart of darkness last week to deliver a message of hope, or a stern lecture, depending upon one’s allegiances and point-of-view.
Speaking before the Houston World Affairs Council (in an appearance funded by BP and Marathon Oil Corp.), Turner said, “What we need is a moratorium on all new coal plants, on all new carbon-producing energy power technologies, and work on replacing them with renewable alternatives.”
Turner also called for urgent action to address global climate change, which he referred to as the “single greatest challenge that humanity has ever faced.”
“The biggest danger is we won’t do enough soon enough,” he said.
“The days of fossil fuels as a fuel are over,” he told a packed ballroom over lunch at the Hotel Intercontinental. “It’s just a matter of how soon everybody recognizes it.”
If people aren’t motivated by helping the Earth, they should be drawn by the financial opportunities in clean energy, Turner said.
“The greatest fortunes in the history of the world will be made in this new energy business,” said Turner, who estimates his net worth at more than $1 billion. According to the Atlanta Constitution-Journal, Turner owns one-third of Dome-Tech Solar, the largest solar installer in the eastern United States, and together they are creating DT Solar, a renewable energy company.
In related news, billionaire philanthropist Richard Branson last week pledged $25 million dollars to the first person or group who can come up with a technology to remove one billion tons of green house gases from the atmosphere per year for ten years.
by David Burn | Nov 22, 2006 | Lowcountry, The Environment
The Island Packet reports today on the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s bust of a charity dove hunt at Turkey Hill in Jasper County.
A Ridgeland dove hunt for charity turned into a federal raid Saturday when about 40 hunters who each donated $100 to participate were detained and questioned by agents suspicious that the area had been illegally baited to attract the birds.
Camouflage-clad agents with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department who were hidden “like snipers” surrounded the area and stopped the event.
About six or seven federal agents held the hunters on the property for about two hours and interviewed each for details, including their names and addresses, occupations and places of work, Social Security numbers and shotgun serial numbers. The hunters were shown aerial photos of themselves taken that day and asked to confirm they were pictured.
“It was really demoralizing,” said Mike Healy, who lives in Bluffton and went on the hunt with his sons. “It was expensive to go on this hunt; most of the people were wealthy and were” angry.
Why this story grabbed my attention is hard to say. I guess I didn’t know doves had such serious backup.
by David Burn | Nov 5, 2006 | The Environment
CBS News looks at a study led by Boris Worm, PhD, of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The apocalypse has a new date: 2048.
That’s when the world’s oceans will be empty of fish, predicts an international team of ecologists and economists. The cause: the disappearance of species due to overfishing, pollution, habitat loss, and climate change.
“This isn’t predicted to happen. This is happening now,” study researcher Nicola Beaumont, PhD, of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, U.K., says in a news release.
“It’s not too late. We can turn this around,” Worm says. “But less than 1% of the global ocean is effectively protected right now.”
by David Burn | Oct 22, 2006 | Art, The Environment
Jon Armstrong and his wife Heather recently journeyed 100 miles northwest from their Salt Lake City home to Golden Spike National Historic Site in Box Elder County, Utah. Their destination was Spiral Jerry, a 1,500-foot coil of rocks placed there by Robert Smithson in 1970.
Smithson built the spiral out of black basalt rocks taken from the shore and arranged them to a height just above the surface of the water so people could walk on the earthwork as if on a pier. The sculpture can appear white today (as it does in the photo above) due to salt encrustation.
Smithson was one of a number of artists in the 1960s and early 70s who chose to build site-specific pieces outdoors in the West, far from the commercialism of art galleries. I first took an interest in this art form after discovering the work of Andy Goldsworthy, a contemporary British artist.
by David Burn | Oct 15, 2006 | The Environment
Today’s New York Times looks at an effort in the Russian Far East to conserve Pacific salmon habitat and promote a sustainable fisheries industry.
Kamchatka caviar harvest
The government of Kamchatka seeks to protect nine entire rivers and more than six million acres. The protected watersheds would exceed the scale of many renowned preserved areas in the United States. Together they would be more than four times the size of the Everglades, nearly triple that of Yellowstone National Park and slightly larger than the Adirondack Park, which is often referred to as the largest protected area in the lower United States.
The government’s position has surprised even the scientists and conservationists who have lobbied to protect habitat from the development pressures of post-Soviet Russia. They support the initiative unequivocally. Yet, even if the rivers are protected, some conservation advocates warn, the fish runs could remain at risk if locals ignore the new rules. Estimates of the region’s salmon fisheries’ annual value range to $600 million, and poaching is rampant today.
by David Burn | Sep 2, 2006 | Lowcountry, The Environment
Beaufort Gazette reports on moves being made to secure a new community hiking and biking trail.
The State Ports Authority plans to “railbank” the 26 miles of defunct tracks that run between Port Royal and Yemassee, preventing Port Royal residents from claiming the land and enabling Beaufort County to turn the railway into a walking and biking trail.
photo by Bob Sofaly
The Ports Authority shut down the rail line in November 2003 as a prelude to the state-mandated closing of the Port of Port Royal. If the rail line was abandoned, much of the land would revert to the owners of properties next to the rail line, according to a charter granted by the S.C. General Assembly in 1857.
Under provisions adopted by Congress in 1983, however, an owner can transfer its out-of-service railroad to another agency for use as a trail until the railroad might again be needed for rail service. “Such interim use shall not be treated … as an abandonment …,” the statute states.
The provision has withstood numerous legal challenges, according to the nonprofit Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, and has been applied to about 4,400 miles of rail lines in more than 30 states.
In other local news, AgriTech International plans to build a $5 million shrimp processing faciltity in Williamsburg County, a move that offers hope to an ailing shrimp industry. According to the article, a flood of cheaper farm-rasied imports has pushed down the price of America’s most-consumed shellfish in recent years, and rising fuel and equipment costs are keeping local trawlers tied to the docks instead of in the Atlantic casting nets.
by David Burn | Aug 25, 2006 | The Environment
As any student of nature can affirm, nothing is stable. Atoms, meaning, one’s odds.
According to this BBC story, the solar sytem is not stable.
About 2,500 scientists meeting in Prague said Pluto failed to dominate its orbit around the Sun in the same way as the other planets.
The International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) decision means textbooks will now have to describe a Solar System with just eight major planetary bodies.
Pluto, which was discovered in 1930 by the American Clyde Tombaugh, will be referred to as a “dwarf planet”.
There is a recognition that the demotion is likely to upset the public, who have become accustomed to a particular view of the Solar System.
by David Burn | Aug 6, 2006 | Lowcountry, The Environment
Bluffton icon, Betty Felix by Harmony Motter of The Island Packet
Bluffton just invested $635,000 in a new 8-acre recycling and dump site on Simmonsville Road, upgrading Ms. Felix’s work environment considerably in the process.
In 2005, 5,637.96 tons of plastic No. 1 and No. 2; aluminum and steel cans; clear, brown and green glass; newspaper; cardboard, magazines and mixed paper were recycled via Beaufort County programs alone. The County has twelve reclamation sites.
An average of 1,200 to 1,500 cars pull into the Simmonsville Road center on a daily basis.
by David Burn | Jul 26, 2006 | The Environment
Boston has always been a thinking person’s city. So it’s no surprise that innovative green products would surface there.
According to The Boston Globe, the city has placed 50 self-compacting, solar-powered trashcans known as The Big Belly in key locations thoughout Boston. They don’t spill. They smell less. And, they hold some 150 gallons of trash, about five times more than a standard city receptacle. There are now more than 200 of the bins worldwide, including in Vail, CO; Vancouver; Cincinnati; Queens, N.Y.; Needham; Newton; and Worcester.
In related news, Texas, a state known for its energy production, not the environmental values of its citizens, seeks to combine the two and become known for both in the process. According to USA Today, the Lone Star state is now the nation’s top producer of wind energy, bypassing California for the first time. Currently, wind makes up about 1% of the nation’s electricity.
by David Burn | Jun 23, 2006 | Lowcountry, The Environment
Dean Schmelter, who owns several chemical processing businesses throughout the Southeast, was speaking to his mechanic at Black Forest Imports in Mount Pleasant last summer. He was complaining about the high cost of fuel. The mechanic, being of sound mind, said, “You’re a chemist. Do something about it.” He did. And now, the Lowcountry is about to benefit from this man’s ingenuity.
According to The Charleston Post and Courier:
The Lowcountry’s first biodiesel plant will be built in an unused warehouse on the former Navy base, creating a local source of nontoxic, low-cost fuel that can be used in nearly any diesel engine and marking a further advance in what’s been a largely backyard industry in South Carolina.
While one biodiesel plant already is being operated in the Upstate by Carolina Biofuels, the North Charleston plant will be unique in that it will use waste vegetable oil from hundreds of area restaurants to eventually fill the tanks of school buses, automobiles, trucks and even shrimp boats.
Rudolph Diesel, founder of the diesel engine, originally created his spark plug-free motor so that farmers could power their tractors with oil from plants they grew. Nearly any diesel engine built today will run on straight vegetable oil, but the fuel system must be modified to heat the oil so it flows smoothly. This process is unnecessary with biodiesel.
