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Images that will make you think twice about throwing away your trash

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Images that will make you think twice about throwing away your trash

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The human impact on this planet has been huge in a relatively short period of time. These pictures are not about data, but about better picturing this impact through visual examples. While viewing these, keep in mind that our current extinction rate is 1000x the background level and that wild animal populations have shrunk an average of 52% in 40 years.

1. A surfer riding through debris

Plastic has permeated our oceans, with over 270 million metric tons of in the ocean there is potentially more plastic than fish in the oceans right now. This becomes even more believable when we consider that up to 85% of fisheries are being overexploited.

2. Deforestation in British Columbia, Canada

Deforestation is a major problem, and we now have only half as many forests as we did in 1950. We are simultaneously putting out vastly more carbon into the atmosphere while depleting the planet's capacity to absorb it.

3. Animal agriculture

Animal agriculture, as a whole, requires tremendous amounts of resources and is a leader in environmental degradation, responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions (more than all transportation combined). Clearing land for animal agriculture, and the food it requires, accounts for 91% of amazon deforestation.

4. Kowloon City in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is still one of the most densely populated cities on Earth with 6,650 people per square kilometer. When Kowloon City still stood, it housed 33,000 people in a single city block.

5. Mexico City, urban sprawl

Mexico City is also one of the most populated cities in the world, and its expansion has wiped out natural ecosystems for many kilometers. Together, this has led to very bad air quality, a continuing concern for Mexican health authorities.

6. Port au Prince, Haiti

7. Crop "desert" in China, no room for nature

Huge swaths of China, and indeed many developed and developing countries, is covered in fields containing only one kind of plant. Where fields and forests once stood, now stands neat rows of single species, far more sensitive to environmental fluctuations than a diverse ecosystem.

8. Deforestation in Brazil

9. Plastic moves up the food chain

In both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems: plastic moves up. The tiny and not so tiny pieces are eaten by animals which are themselves then eaten: it moves up the food chain. With all the microplastics in our oceans and water: do we really think this isn't reaching us?

10. Cheap fossil energy won't last forever, and it certainly wasn't free

11. The Yangtze River turning red

Whether due to microorganisms or industrial pollution: this is certainly a bad sign for the ecosystem. There is reason to believe that when enough small ecosystems collapse, the global biosphere will become destabilized and mass extinction will intensify.

12. Alberta Tar Sands, where there was once a boreal forest

The tar sands are one of the most dirty sources of oil, and the extraction of this oil has polluted both the water and the land locally in Alberta. The fact that this project was OK'd by any environmental regulator is shocking, but this becomes less shocking when you realize that Alberta literally sold their regulator posts to the oil industry.

13. The Deepwater Horizon crisis

Approximately 5 million barrels of oil (almost a million cubic meters) spilled into the ocean. In response to this disaster, BP sprayed Corexit (which is so poisonous that the US government demanded they stop) onto the oil to get it to disappear from sight. Millions of barrels of oil still lay on the bottom of the Gulf, rendering hundreds to thousands of square miles devoid of life. Meanwhile, BP got off with a slap on the wrist and a connected high-ranking Halliburton manager who destroyed evidence was fined only $1,000.

14. What was once a forest in Oregon is now a wasteland

See previous points about deforestation, also keep in mind that the prices demanded for exploitation of Federal/public lands is pennies on the dollar for the ecological costs and profit the companies make. They demand so little that the Navajo were able to sue them for exploiting their lands and not returning even close to market price.

15. Oil filters in Seattle, 2003

16. Junkyard full of metal scraps

17. Mountain of phone chargers

18. Sea of cellphones

Our lust and desire for smartphones, and next-generation technologies of all kinds, are fueling conflict and loss of life the Congo.

19. Clearcutting in Finland

20. Fish die-off at Redondo Beach, California

With our population already at 7 billion people and overconsumption rising at a terrifying rate, this is something serious that many people have a hard time picturing. The truth is shocking, and when I look at these photos I can only imagine all the heart-wrenching images of environmental destruction that go unseen by most humans, the scenes which lay unvisited in the mountains or in the hearts of what were once forests.

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20 images that show the human impact on the planet

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The human impact on this planet has been huge in a relatively short period of time. These pictures are not about data, but about better picturing this impact through visual examples. While viewing these, keep in mind that our current extinction rate is 1000x the background level and that wild animal populations have shrunk an average of 52% in 40 years.

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Article

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MSU

A new generation of see-through solar cell technology could soon be used to harvest the massive energy potential of building and car windows, cell phones as well as other objects with a transparent surface.

Scientists at Michigan State University detailed in a paper in the journal Nature Energy how highly transparent solar applications could "nearly meet U.S. electricity demand" and drastically reduce reliance upon fossil fuels.

"We will see commercial products become available over the next few years," Richard Lunt, an associate professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at MSU, tells Newsweek. "We are just beginning to hit performance metrics that make sense to scale up."

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Lunt and his MSU colleagues have previously pioneered solar technology that collects energy from invisible wavelengths of light so that it doesn't disrupt the view when placed over a window.

The system uses materials to pick up ultraviolet and near infrared wavelengths, which are guided to the edge of the surface they are on for it to be converted into electricity by thin strips of photovoltaic solar cells.

Ultra-thin, transparent solar panels could potentially be retrofitted onto skyscrapers and smartphones, meaning windows and screens would not need to be replaced in order to generate electricity from buildings or electronic devices.

Compared to traditional solar cells, the transparent technology still has some catching up to do. Rooftop solar panels typically have an efficiency of between 15 and 18 percent, whereas the see-through solar cells record efficiencies of around 5 percent. However, Lunt says he expects to see a three-fold improvement in efficiency of the transparent solar cells.

"While adoption of conventional photovoltaics on rooftops and in solar farms has grown rapidly in the last decade, there is still plenty of opportunity for expansion," the Nature Energy paper states.

"See-through solar technologies with partial light transmission developed over the past 30 years have initiated methods of integration not possible with conventional modules."

The untapped electricity potential of this energy source, the researchers note, is vast. An estimated 5 billion to 7 billion square meters of glass surface in the United States could be used to meet 40 percent of the country's energy demand, or "close to 100 percent" if energy storage is improved.

"That is what we are working towards," Lunt says. "Traditional solar applications have been actively researched for over five decades, yet we have only been working on these highly transparent solar cells for about five years.

"Ultimately, this technology offers a promising route to inexpensive, widespread solar adoption on small and large surfaces that were previously inaccessible."

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New solar windows could meet "nearly all" of U.S. electricity demand

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A new generation of see-through solar cell technology could soon be used to harvest the massive energy potential of building and car windows, cell phones as well as other objects with a transparent surface. Scientists at Michigan State University detailed in a paper in the journal Nature Energy how highly transparent solar applications could "nearly meet U.S.

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Transforming Human Poop Into Eco-Friendly Fertilizer

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Everyone poops. But who wants to actually deal with it? Ecologist Sasha Kramer literally works with poop and thinks about it every day. She is helping to transform human waste into fertile organic compost for agricultural use in Haiti.

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Article: Man Made Reservoirs are Impacting the Atmosphere

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Article: Man Made Reservoirs are Impacting the Atmosphere

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New study shows reservoirs are actually a major source of carbon emissions

smithsonian.com

For years, clean energy advocates have pointed towards hydroelectricity as an important alternative to gas, coal and nuclear power plants. But a new study suggests that the dams and reservoirs commonly associated with this clean energy source are actually pumping a significant amount of carbon emission into the air, Maddie Stone reports for Gizmodo.

Curbing carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases has been a major goal for countries around the world as governments work together to limit the rising global temperatures. As emissions continue to rise, scientists have searched for the sources of these gasses, but significant gaps still remain in tracking their origins.

The new study could fill in some of these gaps. Researchers analyzed more than 200 past studies and found that the reservoirs attached to hydroelectric dams around the world could actually be among the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases due to pockets of methane bubbling beneath the surface.

"We synthesized all known estimates from reservoirs globally, for hydropower and other functions, like flood control and irrigation," Bridget Deemer, a researcher at Washington State University (WSU) tells Chris Mooney for the Washington Post. "And we found that the estimates of methane emissions per area of reservoir are about 25 percent higher than previously thought, which we think is significant given the global boom in dam construction, which is currently underway."

Scientists have long known that methane is a major problem when it comes to global warming, but this is the first time man-made reservoirs have been identified as a significant source. When reservoirs are created for storing water or producing hydroelectric energy, they also create the perfect environment for carbon dioxide- and methane-producing microbes to snack on decomposing natural materials at the bottom of these artificial lakes. At the same time, the rivers that feed these reservoirs also bring in plenty of new microbe chow. These gases then bubble up to the reservoir's surface and enter the atmosphere, Mary Beth Griggs reports for Popular Science.

According to Deemer's study, which will be published next week in the journal BioScience, reservoirs around the world are responsible for releasing about a gigaton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. That's 1.3 percent of all greenhouse gases that humans produce annually and more than all of Canada's cars, factories and power plants emit every year, according a university press release.

"We're trying to provide policymakers and the public with a more complete picture of the consequences of damming a river," John Harrison, another study author and WSU researcher, tells Mooney.

As world leaders continue to negotiate towards a new climate agreement, it's important to take this unexpected greenhouse gas source into consideration.

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Whoops-Dams and Reservoirs Release Tons of Greenhouse Gases

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smithsonian.com For years, clean energy advocates have pointed towards hydroelectricity as an important alternative to gas, coal and nuclear power plants. But a new study suggests that the dams and reservoirs commonly associated with this clean energy source are actually pumping a significant amount of carbon emission into the air, Maddie Stone reports for Gizmodo .

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April 5, 2011---Scientists are experimenting with "green" microbes in the lab that could someday be used to gobble up oil spills along coastlines without damaging the environment.

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Experts predict an increasing threat of space junk that will fall to Earth.

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How we can keep plastics out of our ocean

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How we can keep plastics out of our ocean

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How We Can Keep Plastics Out of Our Ocean

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Plastic pollution poses one of the biggest known threats to the ocean, influencing all ecosystems from beautiful coral reefs to abyssal trenches, eventually accumulating in our own food.

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People are seeing change all over the world. Arctic sea ice is melting earlier and forming later. Glaciers are disappearing. Heat waves, storms and floods are becoming more extreme. Insects are emerging sooner and flowers are blooming earlier. In some places, birds are laying eggs before they're expected and bears have stopped hibernating.

So what's going on? Our planet is getting warmer, and even a small increase in temperature can change our climate. And when our climate changes, we're all affected.

A Natural Greenhouse

Earth is the only planet we know of that can support life. The reason Earth is different than the rest relies on a number of factors. We get just the right amount of energy from the sun (if we were any closer, we would burn up; if we were any further, we'd freeze). Our atmosphere is a layer of gases surrounding the Earth that absorbs ultra violet radiation and prevents temperatures from rising too high or getting too cold. The greenhouse effect is the process that causes the surface of the Earth to be warmer than it would be if we had no atmosphere. Without these three factors, most like on Earth couldn't exist.

The Greenhouse Effect

Natural Cycles

Several natural cycles of the Earth keep it and its atmosphere in perfect balance. Carbon is essential to life and the carbon cycle keeps it moving throughout all Earth's systems. Water is one of the most important things to our survival, and the water cycle keeps it moving around and around our Earth and atmosphere - even through our bodies.

Weather Versus Climate

Weather is what's happening with the atmosphere that surrounds us. It's not the same as climate, which refers to the pattern of weather we expect to see in a particular place. The weather is always driven by the sun's energy, whether it's warm outside or snowing due to the circulation of warm air to cold places and cold air to warm places by the atmosphere. This, combined with the movement of the oceans and the amount of moisture in the air creates everything from perfect sunny days to terror-filled tornadoes.

Even though the weather changes frequently, the climate of a particular place should always be about the same. In Alaska, for example, there shouldn't be any tropical-like weather. In California, it shouldn't snow too much in the winter.

The fact is, while the Earth's climate has changed many times over millions of years (ice ages, for example, happen naturally every 100,000 years or so), it really shouldn't be changing much during any one person's lifetime. We're still recovering from the last ice age, which is said to have wiped out the dinosaurs. While temperatures do rise gradually over time after an ice age, today our planet's surface temperatures seem to be rising faster now than they were 100 years ago. And this is what has many people worried.

Balancing Act

Our planet is always changing and its systems are constantly working together to keep a kind of balance. All forms of life, including humans, depend on this balance for their existence.

All living things are connected to each other in ecosystems by food chains and food webs. Plants get energy from the sun. Herbivores (species that don't eat meat) get energy by eating plants. Carnivores (that eat meat) get energy by eating herbivores. This is how energy flows through all ecosystems - starting from the sun.

When any one part of an ecosystem chain breaks, the survival of the entire system, along with every living thing that depends on it for survival, hangs in the balance. For example, if someone decides to spray a poisonous pesticide on plants to keep bugs from eating them, then lizards may accidentally ingest that poison when they eat the plants and cats may be poisoned, too, when they catch and eat the lizards. With no cats around, the rat population could explode - and rats carry diseases that are even more dangerous for humans.

Another example is when a volcano erupts. If the eruption is very big, it could do a lot of damage besides killing thousands of people. A volcanic eruption spreads huge amounts of ash and gases into the atmosphere and around the globe, which could cause temperatures worldwide to fall. And when temperatures change dramatically like this, it affects crop patterns and could lead to massive food shortages.

Temperature Rising

Whether you believe in global warming or not, the fact is that the 11 hottest years recorded in the last 100 years have all happened after 1995. The world is definitely getting warmer.

When the world's temperatures get warmer, a few things happen. The water cycle speeds up, causing more rain, droughts, wildfires and extreme heat waves. There will be more greenhouse gases in the air, as the atmosphere reaches capacity of how many gases it can absorb. Arctic ice will melt sooner and faster and won't be as thick or expensive when it reforms. The oceans will warm and cause sea levels to rise more quickly, which can cause flooding on land and water contamination. Glacier ice will melt.

Greenhouse Gases

These gases help keep the world from being too hot or too cold. But the amounts of some greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are increasing, making our planet warmer. Greenhouse gases include water vapor (mostly natural source), carbon dioxide (mostly human source), methane (mostly human source) and nitrous oxide (mostly human source).

Far North & South

The most global warming has been seen in the Earth's coldest places, like the Arctic, Antarctica, Alaska and parts of Canada, Scandinavia and Russia.

Arctic temperatures are rising twice as fast as anywhere else on Earth. There has been a huge amount of ice loss in the last 20-30 years. While some is natural, global warming seems to be the main culprit. Ice shelves that have been around for tens of thousands of years have collapsed due to lower temperatures, which causes sea levels to rise. Permafrost has started to melt, which results in forests and even towns and cities to crumble as the ground beneath them thaws.

Because the far north and south have very fragile ecosystems, when one part of the chain breaks the effects can be seen almost immediately. As the ice disappears, so are tiny sea creatures called krill are dying - and so are the many fish, birds and whales that eat them. Polar bears spend most of their time on sea ice hunting seals and other sea animals. As the ice melts, the bears' hunting season is shortened and female bears, with lowered body weights, can't seem to produce cubs. Warmer summers also mean certain pests' life cycles are longer than before. For example, the spruce bark beetle, which is only supposed to live for one summer, is now surviving for two. This tiny bug destroys an unimaginable number of trees in Arctic forests - and now it can do it two years in a row instead of just one.

Polar Bear on floating ice

The World Ocean

Most of the Earth's surface is covered by a single ocean. All forms of life - even those that don't actually live in the ocean itself - depend on it for survival. For example, our ocean helps control the Earth's temperature with its currents, by constantly keeping cold and warm water moving. Ocean water dissolves lots of substances, including carbon dioxide gas. All ocean creatures and even sea birds depend on microscopic plankton - tiny plants that take in carbon dioxide to grow - for food and survival.

But when the ocean warms (which it has been), it can't dissolve as much carbon dioxide, plankton can't survive and the currents change (which greatly affects the weather and other things on dry land). Also, the sea level rises, so certain islands that are currently above water may actually disappear in the next 100 years.

The effects of global warming on things that live in the ocean are massive. We already talked about plankton, but what about other species? Coral reefs - home to many ecosystems and living creatures - can die as water temperatures rise. Sea turtles depend on beaches to lay their eggs, but many beaches are disappearing thanks to rising sea levels. Whales, who depend on krill who depend on plankton, die. Fish stocks fall, translating into food shortages for humans.

Where is global warming going?

We All Live On Land

What changes are we seeing on land as a result of global warming? We're seeing longer periods of drought, more wildfires, growing deserts (which can't support farming), glacier melt and deforestation. In fact, every second a chunk of forest the size of a football field is cut down or burned somewhere in the world.

In terms of living things, the effects of global warming are causing huge changes and disruptions. Plants and insects are moving upward (north) and causing distress to the natural, original ecosystems of those areas. Birds are also moving further north and some are even laying their eggs earlier, which can be a problem when it's out of sync with insect hatchings (since birds are insects' main predators). The winter of 2006 was so warm that mountain bears in Spain decided not to hibernate (sleep for the winter).

And what about us humans? How does and will global warming affect us, our lives and our survival as a species? First off, all human needs fresh water to survive. But changing rainfall patterns and melting glaciers will cause severe droughts, during which crops will fail, causing huge food shortages. We can also expect more heat waves. In 2003, Europe experienced such an extreme spell of hot weather that more than 20,000 people died as a direct result of the heat. Also, mass extinction of many other species we depend on for survival will mean big trouble for humanity.

Our Energy Use

There is no doubt that it's our own fault the world's temperature is rising and global warming is happening. We depend too much on fossil fuels that release deadly amounts carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We need to start considering alternative sources of energy quickly, like nuclear, solar and wind. We cut down trees, which use carbon dioxide in their natural life cycles, so less of the poisonous gas can be absorbed naturally.

Humans are high energy consumers. Every day, we each exhale 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of carbon dioxide into the air. We keep ourselves warm in cold places by burning huge amounts of fuel. We use tons of energy pumping, cleaning, heating and then disposing of water. The food we eat is a huge source of greenhouse gases: fossil fuels used in fertilizers and farm machinery, food processing, transportation, packing and cooking. Construction requires all kinds of building materials that can only be made with massive amounts of energy. Our major sources of transportation are huge consumers of energy - ships, jets and cars. Electricity isn't captured magically - it takes the burning of massive amounts of fossil fuel to convert energy into electrical current. And all the "things" in your life - clothes, cell phones, toothbrushes, etc. - are made using energy... and so are the packages all these things come in.

You CAN Help!

The problem seems so big, it may be hard for you to imagine that anything you do can really help at all. But it will. Here are some changes you can make in your life to help prevent global warming:

Plant trees

Start a seed bank (keep the seeds of many varieties of plants stored away safely)

Switch every light in your house to an energy-saving bulb

Reduce, reuse, recycle

Wear a sweater instead of turning up the heat in your house

Wear lighter clothing when it's hot instead of turning on a fan

Turn lights, computers and all your chargers off and unplug them when they're not in use

Only do full loads of laundry

Take shorter showers

Skip the car ride and use your bike, or walk or take the bus

Don't buy bottled water; drink tap water, and filter it if you like

Eat lower on the food chain (less meat) and eat fewer processed foods

Knowledge is power. Change can only happen if all of us read about, listen to and discuss what's happening in the world today.

Planet Power

If scientists are right, each one of us is at least a little bit responsible for global warming. So each of us has to decide what we're going to do about it, and what kind of world we want to live in.

Our planet has been around for almost 5 billion years. It's gone through so many changes during that time - global warming may be the Earth's next big change.

No matter what changes lie ahead, our planet isn't going anywhere. And neither are we. But what we do now could have a big effect on what our lives could be like in the near future. This is our planet - let's make sure in the future it stays as wonderful a place to live in as it is now.

Related Stories:

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People are seeing change all over the world. Arctic sea ice is melting earlier and forming later. Glaciers are disappearing. Heat waves, storms and floods are becoming more extreme. Insects are emerging sooner and flowers are blooming earlier. In some places, birds are laying eggs before they're expected and bears have stopped hibernating.

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There is the same amount of water on Earth today as there was when the dinosaurs roamed. And just less than one percent of the planet's water is available to meet the daily drinking water, sanitation and food needs of nearly 7 billion people and millions of other species.