Caroline Smith
October 29, 2008
Prof. Foerstner
Air pollution from oil refineries, mercury in seafood, illegal dumping and, of course, global warming are all topics Chicago Tribune environmental reporter, Michael Hawthorne, knows well. Hawthorne has been with the Chicago Tribune since 2004, before covering the environmental beat with the Columbus Dispatch from 2000
to 2003.
The position is challenging. “Understanding and being able to speak [the scientific] language and connecting the dots can be the most difficult part, but also the most fun,” Hawthorne said. On top of that, there are tons of people trying to set your agenda, he said. “You have to have a good sense of the absurd.”
One might also term it as having a low tolerance for the “BS factor.” Hawthorne has plenty of both. In August 2004, he covered the illegal creation of a landfill near Ford Heights, one of the most impoverished Chicago suburbs. The argument for the 500 foot pile of waste was that it could be turned into a ski slope for the suburb’s residents. Stealthy legislation attempted to exempt the landfill from environmental regulations for its "recreational" potential until Hawthorne exposed it.
With his insight and experience as an environmental journalist, the major problem he projects Chicago as facing in the future is water. There are currently 325,000 households in Chicago that don’t have water meters, which allows for unlimited water use, he said. “We’re limited to how much water we can take by a ruling from the Supreme Court. We could run out of water by mid-century.” In addition, a lot of suburbs draw from aquifers contaminated by radium, he said. The Chicago River is a dilemma all its own. Almost the entire river is untreated sewage. The south fork of the main branch, known as Bubbly Creek, is still a cesspool and a recent EPA test of the river floor showed “fibrous material” from hides from the Union Stock Yards that had been compressed over the years, Hawthorne said.
Hawthorne also cites the city’s transit system as causing serious problems to air quality, even linking it to cancer. “Studies show a high cancer risk close to highways. That risk drops significantly as you move 100 meters away from the area. It makes you wonder how many schools are near the freeway.”
On the brighter side, both issues can also be success stories, he said. “Mass transit is definitely better for the environment and the river no longer causes outbreaks of cholera. When Upton Sinclair wrote ‘The Jungle’ it was a lot worse then,” he said.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
Border wall story
Again, sorry it took a while for me to get this posted.
On the Borderline: The border between Mexico and the US
It's said that the only thing the border wall stops between Mexico and the US is wildlife. Writer Charles Bowden described the southern border as “a great biological unity, with a meat cleaver of laws shredding it and cutting it in half.” The 1,952-mile border slices through many national parks as well as wildlife refuges.
So far, the wall spans 850 miles. The separation barriers were built as part of three Operations to curtail illegal immigration: Operation Gatekeeper in California; Operation Hold-the-Line in Texas; Operation Safeguard in Arizona. The environmental impact coupled with government expenditure (estimates for construction range from $4 billion to $46 billion) and acknowledged inefficiency from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff himself, calls for a closer look at the long- and short-term effects of constructing the barrier.
The separation barriers were built as part of three Operations to curtail illegal immigration: Operation Gatekeeper in California; Operation Hold-the-Line in Texas; Operation Safeguard in Arizona.
Construction of the wall is not subject to any environmental laws thanks to an Act passed in 2005 giving unlimited authority and legal freedom to Chertoff to ensure "expeditious construction of the barriers and roads." The waivers disregard environmental impact assessments (EPAs) and public comments, according to Christine Williamson, chairperson of wildlife and endangered species committee of the Sierra Club. He has so far used this to waive the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act, according to the Texas Sierra Club website.
In Texas, it was estimated that 60-75 percent of the protected lands and refuges in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas would be affected. Several environmental groups claim the wall would block river access, destroy essential vegetation and disrupt migratory patterns of animals, including two endangered species of local wildcats, the ocelot and the jaguarundi. According to Williamson, male ocelots live on the Mexico side and have to swim across the river to breed.
The Rio Grande Valley ranks third in the country in terms of the number of endangered and threatened species, and habitat loss poses one of the area's biggest threats (Texas Sierra Club).
In Arizona, the borderlands region is predominantly comprised of protected federal lands, including Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and Coronado National Forest. The wall has pushed illegal immigration from urban areas to the more remote parts of the border. Border Patrol estimates that 39 species protected or proposed to be protected under the Endangered Species Act are already being affected by the operations.
According to Williamson, the wall only slows an illegal migrant by five minutes. "[The wall] is a speed bump that will destroy the ecosystem," she said. "I've seen [the wall. It's lit up like an alien spaceship at night. It is the worst symbol you can see for a country founded by immigrants."
While the effects of the immigration crisis is increasingly receiving national attention, the ongoing destruction of the borderland environment is largely unknown to the public at large.
On the Borderline: The border between Mexico and the US
It's said that the only thing the border wall stops between Mexico and the US is wildlife. Writer Charles Bowden described the southern border as “a great biological unity, with a meat cleaver of laws shredding it and cutting it in half.” The 1,952-mile border slices through many national parks as well as wildlife refuges.
So far, the wall spans 850 miles. The separation barriers were built as part of three Operations to curtail illegal immigration: Operation Gatekeeper in California; Operation Hold-the-Line in Texas; Operation Safeguard in Arizona. The environmental impact coupled with government expenditure (estimates for construction range from $4 billion to $46 billion) and acknowledged inefficiency from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff himself, calls for a closer look at the long- and short-term effects of constructing the barrier.
The separation barriers were built as part of three Operations to curtail illegal immigration: Operation Gatekeeper in California; Operation Hold-the-Line in Texas; Operation Safeguard in Arizona.
Construction of the wall is not subject to any environmental laws thanks to an Act passed in 2005 giving unlimited authority and legal freedom to Chertoff to ensure "expeditious construction of the barriers and roads." The waivers disregard environmental impact assessments (EPAs) and public comments, according to Christine Williamson, chairperson of wildlife and endangered species committee of the Sierra Club. He has so far used this to waive the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act, according to the Texas Sierra Club website.
In Texas, it was estimated that 60-75 percent of the protected lands and refuges in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas would be affected. Several environmental groups claim the wall would block river access, destroy essential vegetation and disrupt migratory patterns of animals, including two endangered species of local wildcats, the ocelot and the jaguarundi. According to Williamson, male ocelots live on the Mexico side and have to swim across the river to breed.
The Rio Grande Valley ranks third in the country in terms of the number of endangered and threatened species, and habitat loss poses one of the area's biggest threats (Texas Sierra Club).
In Arizona, the borderlands region is predominantly comprised of protected federal lands, including Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and Coronado National Forest. The wall has pushed illegal immigration from urban areas to the more remote parts of the border. Border Patrol estimates that 39 species protected or proposed to be protected under the Endangered Species Act are already being affected by the operations.
According to Williamson, the wall only slows an illegal migrant by five minutes. "[The wall] is a speed bump that will destroy the ecosystem," she said. "I've seen [the wall. It's lit up like an alien spaceship at night. It is the worst symbol you can see for a country founded by immigrants."
While the effects of the immigration crisis is increasingly receiving national attention, the ongoing destruction of the borderland environment is largely unknown to the public at large.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
News brief
News Brief:
Hed: Senior scientist from NASA speaks on mysteries in Arctic ice
Sea ice melting in the Arctic reached another low this year, according to NASA senior scientist Claire Parkinson. “There was concern last year when the ice reached a recorded all time low,” she said. “We thought [the levels] could be unique because of wind fields. But this year levels were low, too.”
Although sea ice levels were not as low as the year before, it is definitely in line with an overall melting trend, Parkinson said. She attributes yearly fluxuation to external weather-related factors such as air circulation patterns and the slow-down of the ocean conveyor belt.
In Antarctica however, ice levels are rising, a fact which many non-global warming believers often point to. “In some cases during history, big time changes happened first in the South polar region and then the North,” she said. “It’s possible to have two hemispheres going in two opposite directions or going in the same direction.” Thirty years ago in fact, sea ice levels were decreasing in Antarctica. But the trend reversed. Parkinson said the same could happen in the Arctic, “although I don’t think it’s conceivable.”
What is certain, though, are the environmental ramifications of the rapid sea ice loss in the Arctic. Ice serves as a radiation deflector, reflecting the sun’s rays back into space, she said. The ocean on the other hand, absorbs radiation. If there is less ice coverage, more UV rays are being absorbed by the ocean warming the earth further. This is what is called a positive feedback, Parkinson said. “[The ocean] positively reinforces the warming caused by the lack of sea ice. Ice is a good insulator. With less ice, you get a lot more water and heat exchanges between earth and the atmosphere.”
Finally, the impact on wildlife and ecosystems are extensive if not immeasurable. “Most people have no idea organisms live in the ice,” Parkinson said. “Some [organisms] spend their entire life cycle in the ice. These organisms are sometimes in turn eaten by organisms that live outside the ice, who are in turn eaten by other animals. It goes all the way up the food chain. Polar bears are impacted big time.”
Hed: Senior scientist from NASA speaks on mysteries in Arctic ice
Sea ice melting in the Arctic reached another low this year, according to NASA senior scientist Claire Parkinson. “There was concern last year when the ice reached a recorded all time low,” she said. “We thought [the levels] could be unique because of wind fields. But this year levels were low, too.”
Although sea ice levels were not as low as the year before, it is definitely in line with an overall melting trend, Parkinson said. She attributes yearly fluxuation to external weather-related factors such as air circulation patterns and the slow-down of the ocean conveyor belt.
In Antarctica however, ice levels are rising, a fact which many non-global warming believers often point to. “In some cases during history, big time changes happened first in the South polar region and then the North,” she said. “It’s possible to have two hemispheres going in two opposite directions or going in the same direction.” Thirty years ago in fact, sea ice levels were decreasing in Antarctica. But the trend reversed. Parkinson said the same could happen in the Arctic, “although I don’t think it’s conceivable.”
What is certain, though, are the environmental ramifications of the rapid sea ice loss in the Arctic. Ice serves as a radiation deflector, reflecting the sun’s rays back into space, she said. The ocean on the other hand, absorbs radiation. If there is less ice coverage, more UV rays are being absorbed by the ocean warming the earth further. This is what is called a positive feedback, Parkinson said. “[The ocean] positively reinforces the warming caused by the lack of sea ice. Ice is a good insulator. With less ice, you get a lot more water and heat exchanges between earth and the atmosphere.”
Finally, the impact on wildlife and ecosystems are extensive if not immeasurable. “Most people have no idea organisms live in the ice,” Parkinson said. “Some [organisms] spend their entire life cycle in the ice. These organisms are sometimes in turn eaten by organisms that live outside the ice, who are in turn eaten by other animals. It goes all the way up the food chain. Polar bears are impacted big time.”
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Book report
Caroline Smith
Book report on Fixing Climate
October 7 2008
Prof. Foerstner
So what do Ice Ages and climate change and global warming have in common? According to scientist Wallace Broecker, "until you understand ice ages [...]--the biggest environmental change our planet has known in the past few million years--you haven't understood climate." "Fixing Climate" was a fast read and in this day and age of esoteric, dense science books, it is a feat to find one both informative and engaging, without losing thorough scientific explanation or becoming too inaccessible. Broecker is the Newberry Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and an expert in geosciences and the Ice Age. The journalistic skills of Robert Kunzig takes us through decades of scientific research to finally arrive at our present day (and some would argue) dire climate and environmental situation. Kunzig is careful to explain many different scientific approaches and discoveries to teach the reader a basic understanding of climate history and change. He is also careful to explain the face behind the science as well and breaks the more academic side of the scientists/researchers with stories of funny individual eccentricities. Thus, while "Fixing Climate" is a comprehensive novel on past climate changes and what they reveal about the current threat to future climate changes, the history of science itself is not necessarily logical and definitely not static, nor are the people who advance it. It's more like a wild beast, much like Broecker's metaphorical climate beast.
Before you get to present day problems of global warming, the reader will become intimately acquainted with glacial jargon (ie moraines, snow lines) and the significance of the past and present existence of glaciers. "The glaciers were like thermometers that revealed the temperature of the past." pg 32 The Last Glacial Maximum, around 17,600 years ago, terminated at an almost unprecedented speed (in geological terms about a thousand years) and scientists from there linked it to carbon dioxide. The scientist Charles David Keeling discovered CO2 and was well mixed around the planet. His contribution to the knowledge of the gradual rise in CO2 due to his Keeling Curve model has helped shape scientific and public consciousness to this day. One of Broecker's many contributions and one of his biggest theories is of an oceanic 'conveyor belt' which constantly transports heat into and salt out of the North Atlantic. He believes a jamming of this conveyor belt caused all of the Ice Ages and is could very well happen again, given Earth's history and human interference. "Broecker estimate[s] that about one-third of the fossil fuel CO2 is being taken up by the ocean. With half staying in the air, according to Keeling's measurements, that [leaves] a sixth being absorbed by plants on land." pg 85 However, as Kunzig points out, the bottom line is that the land nor the ocean will save humans from the effects of our fossil fuel habits.
Like many other science and climate books out there, "Fixing Climate" not surprisingly has an alarmist tone and for good reason. However what sets it apart is that it offers realist solutions. Only recently has the "signal" of man-made climate change begun to emerge from the background "noise" of natural variability. When climate models include only natural effects on climate, they can't reproduce the warming of the past three decades at all. "When Earth gets warmer or colder," Kunzig writes, "it is not just the temperature that changes, and not just the sea level. The whole global water cycle changes too, shifting the distribution of rain--and with it the boundaries between places that are eminently livable for people, and others that are not so." pg 161
Both "Fixing Climate" and the IPCC report described the climate changes that have happened and are happening (ie droughts, sea level rise, as well as stating that stabilizing current CO2 emissions is not enough. The realist approach is that not only will the world NOT stabilize, but will continue at a break neck speed putting MORE CO2 in the air. Realistically, "there are not enough arable lands for biofuels, not enough volcanic spots for geothermal energy, and not enough dammable rivers for hydroelectricity ever to become more than small pieces of the solution to the climate problem." pg 193 So what is mankind to do? Presently scientist Klaus Lackner and the Wright brothers (Allen and Burt) may have a realist answer in the works. The answer is a proto-type CO2 scrubber which in essence, is designed to "scrub" CO2 out of the air. The bigger question then is where to dispose of it all? The ocean? Ultramafic rocks? There is one absolute certainty: "no significant solution to the CO2 problem can emerge until governments worldwide, and especially that of the United States, follow the lead of Norway and of the European Union and impose either an emissions cap or a direct tax on CO2." pg 230 One can only hope current and future administrations as well as businesses and civil society will take note of books like "Fixing Climate" and seriously think about the problem at hand.
Book report on Fixing Climate
October 7 2008
Prof. Foerstner
So what do Ice Ages and climate change and global warming have in common? According to scientist Wallace Broecker, "until you understand ice ages [...]--the biggest environmental change our planet has known in the past few million years--you haven't understood climate." "Fixing Climate" was a fast read and in this day and age of esoteric, dense science books, it is a feat to find one both informative and engaging, without losing thorough scientific explanation or becoming too inaccessible. Broecker is the Newberry Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and an expert in geosciences and the Ice Age. The journalistic skills of Robert Kunzig takes us through decades of scientific research to finally arrive at our present day (and some would argue) dire climate and environmental situation. Kunzig is careful to explain many different scientific approaches and discoveries to teach the reader a basic understanding of climate history and change. He is also careful to explain the face behind the science as well and breaks the more academic side of the scientists/researchers with stories of funny individual eccentricities. Thus, while "Fixing Climate" is a comprehensive novel on past climate changes and what they reveal about the current threat to future climate changes, the history of science itself is not necessarily logical and definitely not static, nor are the people who advance it. It's more like a wild beast, much like Broecker's metaphorical climate beast.
Before you get to present day problems of global warming, the reader will become intimately acquainted with glacial jargon (ie moraines, snow lines) and the significance of the past and present existence of glaciers. "The glaciers were like thermometers that revealed the temperature of the past." pg 32 The Last Glacial Maximum, around 17,600 years ago, terminated at an almost unprecedented speed (in geological terms about a thousand years) and scientists from there linked it to carbon dioxide. The scientist Charles David Keeling discovered CO2 and was well mixed around the planet. His contribution to the knowledge of the gradual rise in CO2 due to his Keeling Curve model has helped shape scientific and public consciousness to this day. One of Broecker's many contributions and one of his biggest theories is of an oceanic 'conveyor belt' which constantly transports heat into and salt out of the North Atlantic. He believes a jamming of this conveyor belt caused all of the Ice Ages and is could very well happen again, given Earth's history and human interference. "Broecker estimate[s] that about one-third of the fossil fuel CO2 is being taken up by the ocean. With half staying in the air, according to Keeling's measurements, that [leaves] a sixth being absorbed by plants on land." pg 85 However, as Kunzig points out, the bottom line is that the land nor the ocean will save humans from the effects of our fossil fuel habits.
Like many other science and climate books out there, "Fixing Climate" not surprisingly has an alarmist tone and for good reason. However what sets it apart is that it offers realist solutions. Only recently has the "signal" of man-made climate change begun to emerge from the background "noise" of natural variability. When climate models include only natural effects on climate, they can't reproduce the warming of the past three decades at all. "When Earth gets warmer or colder," Kunzig writes, "it is not just the temperature that changes, and not just the sea level. The whole global water cycle changes too, shifting the distribution of rain--and with it the boundaries between places that are eminently livable for people, and others that are not so." pg 161
Both "Fixing Climate" and the IPCC report described the climate changes that have happened and are happening (ie droughts, sea level rise, as well as stating that stabilizing current CO2 emissions is not enough. The realist approach is that not only will the world NOT stabilize, but will continue at a break neck speed putting MORE CO2 in the air. Realistically, "there are not enough arable lands for biofuels, not enough volcanic spots for geothermal energy, and not enough dammable rivers for hydroelectricity ever to become more than small pieces of the solution to the climate problem." pg 193 So what is mankind to do? Presently scientist Klaus Lackner and the Wright brothers (Allen and Burt) may have a realist answer in the works. The answer is a proto-type CO2 scrubber which in essence, is designed to "scrub" CO2 out of the air. The bigger question then is where to dispose of it all? The ocean? Ultramafic rocks? There is one absolute certainty: "no significant solution to the CO2 problem can emerge until governments worldwide, and especially that of the United States, follow the lead of Norway and of the European Union and impose either an emissions cap or a direct tax on CO2." pg 230 One can only hope current and future administrations as well as businesses and civil society will take note of books like "Fixing Climate" and seriously think about the problem at hand.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
This is my environmental journalism blog
October 12, 2008
I'm creating this blog so I can post my work and projects to it. Happy reading!
My contact info:
Caroline Smith
Cell phone: 847.404.1387
E-mail: caroline-smith@northwestern.edu
I'm creating this blog so I can post my work and projects to it. Happy reading!
My contact info:
Caroline Smith
Cell phone: 847.404.1387
E-mail: caroline-smith@northwestern.edu
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