This week in seminar we discussed the government actions to fix Brownfields. In 2009, the EPA office of Brownfields and Land Revitalization created an Action Plan. This empowered community revitalization and sustainable development of contaminated properties and provided technical assistance for clean- up and re-use of contaminated property. This would maximize economical, ecological, and social uses and protects human health and environment. It also creates green jobs and uses stake holder outreach. This I feel like may be somewhat difficult. This entire plan relies on everyday citizens to try and protect their land. Getting people interested and willing to help is a much harder job than it may seem. It is a good goal but whether or not it is plausible is a different story.
We also discussed the Ecological History of New Bedford. EPA thought that it was better to study problems in their natural environment. We discussed how New Bedford’s watershed went through many stages such as agricultural, whaling, textile, and post-textiles, over the course of a few hundred years. Each of these stages affected the environment and the watershed. This case study had a very important impact on future studies and understandings about pollution. It showed that pollution occurs over time and that decisions 400 years ago affect the environment today. People today often continue polluting saying that the earth will eventually fix itself. Obviously this is not true. New Bedford shows that even the littlest damage hundreds of years ago affects us and that we must be carful of our actions.
Later in the week we discussed the Greenhouse Effect, climate change, and the effect of global warming on New York City. The United States emits billions of tons of carbon dioxide every year causing more air pollution, slowly raising global temperatures. It seems insane to me that the carbon dioxide released in the air is thirty percent more today than it was during the Industrial Revolution. When I think of the Industrial Revolution I think of constant smoke being emitted from factories, terrible sewage, and a complete lack of awareness of the pollution being created. What could we possibly be doing today that is worse than such a contaminated time period?
We know that Global Warming is affecting our city. The Mayor’s Advisory Panel on Climate Change released some alarming facts in 2009 proving this concept. The annual temperature is suppose to increase by three degrees in just over five years and the sea levels will rise by over two inches. There will be more blackouts, rainstorms, and floods over the next decade as well.
I know the world will most likely not end in 2012, but the predictions of the future seem a bit grim. The icecaps are melting, the temperature is rising, and the air pollution is getting worse. If this is the world we live in now, I am scared about what it will be like 100 years from now. I am sure that the residents of New Bedford did not think that a bridge would hurt their watershed, but it did. What actions are we doing that could be causing harm and we are completely unaware? We have the facts now it is our time to change the predictions.

Seong Im Hong

October 10, 2012

Weekly Journal 5

            First off— a correction to the calculations I did regarding Exxon Mobil’s fines. $11.2 million was 0.28% of the $40 billion profit. When I calculated that I would lose $0.16 from my scholarships, I accounted for all income rather than just profit. Given that I have about $200 left over every month, I would lose $0.06 rather than $0.16 each month if I were fined similarly to how Exxon was fined. Similarly, when I proposed that Exxon’s fines be $11.2 billion rather than $11.2 million, I said that the loss is analogous to loss of $160 per month for my incomes. I also did a faulty calculation here, since I accounted for all income rather than profit ($200). Hence, I would actually lose $60 a month given how much I save every month. It’s not as nearly impressive as losing $160 per month, but it’s still $60 a month. So I’d have to eat ramen noodles every other day during the weekdays rather than every day. (Also, Professor, you can definitely use these figures for the future.) Sorry.

Now—back to talking about how the classes made me smarter.

I don’t think I truly realized how big and important the ocean is.

Well, yes, knew that ocean was a heat sink and had a great diversity and a source of delicious food, but knowing that it’s simply impossible to try to affect the acidity of the ocean by adding some strong base in there due to its sheer size made me do a double-take and realize, woah, the ocean is pretty big. It’s a bit funny how we don’t think much of the ocean, because it’s uninhabitable for humans and not many exciting things go on there. But it still plays a vital role in the earth’s equilibrium.

(This actually reminded me of other flaws in perception that we have. For example, I had to look at a map of comparative size of Africa to other countries to realize how big it was as a continent. Because we don’t think about Africa too often, we diminish its size in our minds. It’s probably eurocentrism at play, considering how Europe looks so big in maps when, in reality, it’s pretty tiny, especially compared to Africa. I suppose anthrocentricism worked the same way with regards to the oceans.)

Another thing I thought about with regards to global warming is blackouts and brownouts. I remember how impossible it was to sleep during this summer when I stayed in the dorms (where there were no air conditioners) and I can’t imagine blackouts happening regularly. But we run into a dilemma of cost v. risk. Individuals have desire to sleep soundly during hot summer nights, and air conditioners make the room cooler as well as less damp, which fans aren’t able to do. Therefore, though fans aren’t nearly as energy consuming as air conditioners, they’re not nearly as used as much. But who will use fans on hot 100’F night when they can easily say, “well, someone else would use a fan,” or, “the power plant can handle it”?

What can we do to cut down on energy costs? Should we go by the way of regulations and make sure all air conditioners have a certain upper limit on the energy they use? Should we have an automatic timer that lets people use air conditioners for, say, 4 hours at a time? Is it an invasion of privacy? It seems a bit Big Brother, but people can’t be very well expected to get up in the middle of the night to turn off or down their air conditioner. (I am assuming that by the middle of the night, the room will be sufficiently chilled enough to be comfortable in with good insulation from the heat outside.) One of the biggest discourses we have as a country is on choices. We are supposed to be land of the free, but there are certain freedoms that are actively restricted, such as acts that restrict others’ rights as people. I suppose the only way to perhaps clamp down on the energy spending is to either convince people that turning off the air conditioners are a good idea (which everyone knows, just doesn’t follow) or to turn it off for them. I don’t really know what to think about this, but my pessimism bleeds into my thoughts. I wouldn’t trust people to turn off their air conditioners—heck, I wouldn’t trust myself to turn off my air conditioner at night. And additional features such as timers will probably cost money to put in. I bet that anyone would rather buy a less green air conditioner if that means it’s cheaper. I guess it really comes down to whether we see the relatively distant threat of energy crisis as a threat immediate enough to act on.

Last week in class, we tackled the subject of global warming and the greenhouse effect.  So far, this lesson covers the most well known subject regarding the current environmental issues.  At this part of the overall arc of the class, the greenhouse effect is the most often publicized and most commonly discussed issue of the last five years, at least in my experience.  As a result of the widespread public knowledge and constant awareness messages in the media I had entered class with the impression that I knew almost all there was to know about the important issues regarding CO2 emissions and the climate changes.  Luckily, this was not the case.  While I cannot say that I feel as enlightened as usual writing this response, I do feel that I have gained a sense of wider clarity on the topic.  Firstly, I had never heard quite a clearly informative and concise chemical explanation of the chain reaction caused in the atmosphere that melts the ice caps.  Ben’s “Ben/Eric/Dan” experiment broke down the reaction well enough to change my incorrect previous assumption.  Without having formally studied or researched the effects of CO2 in our atmosphere, I had thought that the reason for the melting ice was less direct than Ben would have me believe.  In understanding the problem at an atomic level, I was able to visualize a much more clear and comprehensive picture of the reaction.  While listening to his response, I visualized the air as an exaggerated, cartoonish, almost grid of atoms.  The best way I can describe it is that it looks like a honeycomb, with each hexagon as an atom, with the carbon atom essentially playing dominos with the honeycomb down the ice from the atmosphere.

As for the emissions, I found it interesting that the emissions in the USA surpass Europe’s by a billion tons a year, and that China’s emissions were not nearly proportional relative to population.  With the idea that America produces a shameful amount of CO2 for three hundred million people, it had me wondering if there is a correlation between the time since development of a country and the awareness of emissions and the cuts and policies instituted by governments.  By this I mean that, is it possible that Europe’s relatively low emissions are due to the arc of the countries’ advancements?  After a country has gone from undeveloped, to developed, does it shift its focus from constant advancement and expansion to maintaining the population that it has plateaued with?  In the case of Europe, no other Western areas have been developed previously, and now whole cities in places like Germany are becoming “green” cities.  This would make sense with the USA because it seems that we are at the top of the arc, waiting for changes to be made to sustain our living.  Even with China, as it is currently going through a developmental revolution, it would make sense in this scenario that it would have the highest emissions by far.  Finally, I felt the most new information was the absorption of CO2 in the ocean, and the effects on the food chain, as well as humans, it has.

While environmental damage has greatly been increasing in recent years, it is also disheartening to realize that we have been causing harm to this planet for many years in our past as well. The New Bedford study is a great example of how environmental damage has been done in the past and how this combined with pollution of today can prove even more disastrous for our planet. Global warming is just another example of how pollution does not go away over the years but continues to build and damage the earth.

The New Bedford case study showed that negative impacts on an area in Massachusetts. The focus of this study is on a watershed-an area that encompasses a cycle of water movement. They broke the history of the area into different historical period and examined damage done to the area during that period. For example, during the textile period dyes were released into the river polluting it. During the post-textile period electronic parts manufactures moved to this region and polluted PCBs into the river in the process of making capacitors. Even something as seemingly harmless as building a bridge had effects on the environment. The bridge caused sediment to build up on one side, which rendered this side useless as a port. The most recent period represents the time since this region became environmentally aware. This area has since become a part of the superfund program. Attempts have been made to try and clean up the area, however some of the damage cannot be fixed.

From this study we learn that when considering environmental damages, we need to look to the past as well as the present. We can also see how we need to calculate the possible consequences of how our actions can affect the future, as the affects done to the New Bedford area in the past are still being felt by the people living there. I was surprised to learn that the bridge caused such changes to the sediment depositing patterns and that this situation currently seems irreversible. We should keep these ideas in mind when considering global warming. Global warming is caused by the expulsion of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This prevents energy in the form of heat to be rereleased into space and instead is reflected back to the earth. Although carbon dioxide may not seem like the most harmful of toxins, it can cause serious damage. The rates of temperature increase are growing faster than originally predicted. We also have to consider how much carbon dioxide has already been released into the atmosphere. We have been burning large amounts of fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution.

It is a shame that we haven’t began to understand harm we are causing to our environment sooner. If we had realized this earlier then our world would be in a better state today. We also need to remember this so we that leave the world in at least a livable state for future generations.

Reva McAulay

10.10.12

MHC 200 Weekly Writeup #5

Learning about the process of global warming was very useful, because generally people discuss the causes and effects of global warming without explaining how it works or the evidence for it.  Then if they do explain it, they give an overly simplified description of the process—for instance saying Carbon Dioxide reflects heat back towards Earth when it really absorbs and transfers heat.

It’s comforting to know the United States is no longer the biggest emitter of Carbon Dioxide.  Only not really, because at least we can do something about the United States.  I’m not sure if there is anybody outside China who can do anything about China’s Carbon Dioxide emissions, and if there is its not random Americans.  But at least its not entirely our fault.  Unfortunately the biggest problems are all things no normal person has control over.  The government and industry have to fix their own stuff but waiting for other people to do something is grating even if they actually do it.

As someone who hates hot weather, knowing temperatures could rise 7 degrees during my lifetime is terrifying, in the most literal sense of the word.  Now, 7 degrees is not enough to kill people (only old people and babies…) but it still freaks me out because it reminds me of that Twilight Zone episode where the Earth moves closer to the sun and the incredible heat causes lots of people to die and water to run out.  Obviously 7 degrees (probably) won’t cause that, but the idea still gives me that terrifying image of endless oppressing heat.

The main thing I took away from the New Bedford case study was that some really bad things can come out of people with the best of intentions, or, okay, average intentions, who just don’t know something.  People really did think the river would clean itself within a few miles, its not like today when most people know that they are doing things that are bad for the environment but choose to do them anyway.  But the result is exactly the same, unfortunately.  Building a new bridge is something most people, smart people, today including myself would never imagine could have such a serious effect on a river. Which is scary because its impossible for everyone to know everything, and there are still things about the environment that nobody knows.  The smaller capacity of the Southern Ocean is something nobody knew, not even the scientists who study this stuff.  Its impossible to prepare for the future and its impossible to prevent making any mistakes, but at this point I think our knowledge and understanding of the world is enough to decide to stop polluting everything.

During my last floor meeting at Brookdale the RA brought up the issue of our kitchen’s hygiene. It is terrible. The last time I made coffee the counter was littered with rice, the sink was a brown pool, and the surface of the heating coil bubbled with some white frothy unknown substance that, when burned, smelled like the smoke emissions from firecrackers. During the meeting everyone nodded his or her head in agreement. Yes, it is disgusting. Yes, anyone who uses the kitchen should clean it up. Yes, if we see something dirty, wipe it down. Then the RA asked who is going to clean it up. Someone said whoever was cooking in there last is responsible. The person who used it last piped in saying that it was dirty before she even started cooking in there. In the end, They did not move. Everyone agreed that it was dirty; no one agreed to clean it; and the kitchen is like that to this day.

This is how we treat environmental responsibility. Recall the infamous illustration of the “Boss Tweed Ring,” where all the guilty men are in a circle and pointing to the man on their right. In this illustration, who is guilty? The New Bedford case study shows us how the current status of an environment is the result of years and years of pollutants and not the result of one accident. One company did not cause the change in New Bedford’s watershed, but a multitude of people and jobs did. Who is responsible? The answer to this question is simple: Everyone.

But who will act? Many of the companies in New Bedford have changed hands, left the city, or gone out of business. Is it right to punish a company today for unknown crimes it did yesterday? If it is not, then what is the alternative? There is, however, an even more important question. While it may be easy to place the blame on an individual, how will we shift the paradigm of correct behavior? If it took years of incorrect practice to pollute the environment it will take years of correct practice to stabilize it. People will be looking for a quick fix solution to a larger problem.

For example, during last week’s lecture we spoke about the carbon dioxide absorption into the ocean. Many of the solutions proposed a way to fix the change in acidity of the ocean. But what then? If there are still high levels of carbon dioxide in the air, the same problem will arise again and again and again. The solution to this is come up with a long-lasting sustainable change in way we use the earth’s resources.

What is sad about my anecdote is that the kitchen was cleaned up, but not by any of the residents. Every other morning a cleaning lady comes in to wipe down all the surfaces and makes the kitchen look like it was newly installed the night before. This is sad because the Earth has no equivalent. The solution for cleaning the kitchen is the same for cleaning the Earth. If we can change the way we use the kitchen everyday and take immediate responsibility of the mess we create, sustainable change can occur.

After exploring the actions of specific companies and institutions, we’re moving on to the environment itself. The state of a given locale is determined not just by the willingness of nearby companies to shirk the law, but also by the human population, their choice of occupation, the location of their homes, and everything they make. Everything affects the environment in some way, and when those influences are spread over hundreds of years, their effects can be much more significant than we might otherwise expect.

That’s what the New Bedford case study showed us. By beginning the study with the founding of the settlement and chronicling each change that has occurred since then, the study gives a fuller, more complete understanding of the human impact on a particular environment. The study has enormous worth as a lesson on future planning and development. When building a new bridge, we now must consider the change in river currents. In New Bedford, this change in currents essentially destroyed the fishing economy of the east bank of the harbor, and permanently altered patterns of settlement and development over the next three centuries. The location of the city of New Bedford on the west side of the harbor is a direct result of this choice.

I find this historical approach to be fascinating in the implications it has for planners. Every choice will most likely have unforeseen consequences down the road, particularly as populations boom and systems that were once adequate stop being able to handle environmental strain. It is clear the human waste created by the population of New Bedford soon overwhelmed the natural mixing processes of the watershed, but I have to wonder what would have changed had the residents taken advantage of the local wetlands, rather than filling them in. Would the wetlands have been able to cope with and effectively treat a reasonable amount of waste, or would the influx of such new compounds make them unsustainable?

In the next session we moved from water pollution to air pollution, and moved out even further into the grander scheme of things. It is indisputable that climate change is occurring, and incomprehensible that it is not anthropogenic. This issue is the most difficult of all to regulate, because no one owns the air. While water pollution and overfishing affect the grander world, the short term problems created are localized. CO₂ production has little in the way of short term or localized effects, but its long term, global effects are enormous.  Coastal cities will need to build expensive walls or dams to stay above water, and some areas may need to evacuate entirely. I read earlier that the island nation of Kiribati is already making plans to relocate its entire population to due to rising sea levels.

Many people have predicted political crises ahead, and I’m inclined to agree. Although the sea will get larger and deeper, oceanic acidification due to CO₂ absorption will still probably decrease fishing yields. And droughts across Africa and Asia will make fresh water extremely valuable. What are we to do when the rivers that irrigate the crops of China and India stop being fed by the Himalayan glaciers? And through all of this, the world’s oil reserves continue to be depleted.

I have a friend who comes up with all sorts of doomsday scenarios, like China invading Russia to take control of their oil. Sometimes his ideas don’t seem that far fetched, but I’m a bit more optimistic than that. I expect the ingenuity of our species will carry us through these the times ahead, but it’s not going to be easy. Working on the solutions to climate change would be a significant step forward, at least.

It’s interesting how powerful denial can be. You can acknowledge reality with your senses, take part in it, understand what’s going on, and still refuse to believe that it’s true. “I can’t believe it,” people say when a disaster strikes, because they have assumed conditions under which such a thing—fully likely in reality—could never happen. But choosing not to believe something doesn’t eliminate it as a possibility, or shake its truth. And people otherwise thinking rationally often trip themselves by denying the possibility of there being any variables which they don’t yet know of or understand.

This is what happened with the Southern Ocean. Humanity’s leading intellectuals and authorities on the matter assumed that they knew the rate at which an ocean—as a massive, circulating body of water—can absorb carbon dioxide. They underestimated the complexity of nature. They overestimated their own understanding of the situation and failed to ask themselves critical questions or search for data that could have brought the truth to their eyes sooner. They grew comfortable living in denial of the fact that, in the great scheme of nature that runs the cycles of life and physical phenomenon on this planet, they may have been something that they’d missed.

It’s not just scientists. All people do it. They assume that they know things and deny the possibility that they don’t, which is why they often let danger walk right up to them before they acknowledge the need to do anything. Even then they might deny the need for action—figuring that it’s somebody else’s job, someone else’s responsibility. So people assume that they’re safe from hazardous waste, and deny the fact that their safety, in the present climate, is not a given—that, unfortunately, violations of dumping regulations happen and are frighteningly likely to happen somewhere that comes into contact with their supply of food, water or air. And then they do nothing to push the violators to clean up, refusing—following the companies’ lead—to admit that nothing is being done.

People also have a hard time believing things that they can see firsthand—for example, that they can make a difference. Who can deny that a plastic bottle recycled is one less on its way to the landfill, or worse, to the ocean? Who would argue that turning off the lights you don’t need keeps energy from being wasted? People can, and people would, and people do. They think things like, “It doesn’t matter.” “It’s not a big deal.” “I’m too small to have any significant impact, so there’s no reason to feel guilty for not trying harder.”

In other words, people lie to themselves. They tell themselves that they see the whole truth and deny the possibility that they’re missing something or that they’re wrong. And, in doing so, they let the responsibility fall out of their hands. They lull themselves into a sense of security. They refuse to do anything to stop the disasters that creep up on them because they refuse, in the first place, to acknowledge their existence—which, in their minds, frees them from any duty to do anything.