Environmental Pollution Effects on Humans, Other Animals & Plants

General Environmental Pollution Effects

Miguel A. Santos notes that a very important aspect of the effect of pollution is its dose (or concentration) required to cause environmental damage. (10)
He defines pollution response as “the change in the effect of a pollutant in response to a change in its concentration”. (11)
In this respect, he identifies 3 different types of response evoked by the environment to different pollution concentrations: (12)

• Linear effect
• Greater-than-linear effect
• Threshold effect

In the linear effect, environmental damage increases linearly with pollution concentrations. In other words, “ the total damage or risk is directly proportional to the accumulated exposure”. (13)
This effect occurs with radioactive substances as well as mercury, lead, cadmium and asbestos.
In the greater-than-linear effect, environmental damage increases with an increase in pollution concentrations but at a decreasing rate. This means that, as pollution concentrations continue to increase the environmental damage will continue to decrease. (14)
This is the case with thermal pollution.
In the threshold effect, pollution produces no effect until a certain threshold in pollution concentrations is achieved. In other words, “so long as a given threshold is not exceeded, the damage from pollution would be completely repaired as quickly as it is produced”. (15)
This effect is found with biodegradable pollutants.
It is also important to mention synergistic effects of pollutants on the environment. While interacting with each other, pollutants can produce greater impacts than when acting individually. (16)
A good example of that is a synergy between asbestos exposure and smoking in causing lung cancer. (17)

There is no doubt that excessive levels of pollution are causing a lot of damage to human & animal health, plants & trees (including tropical rainforests) as well as the wider environment.
All types of environmental pollution – air, water and soil pollution – have an impact on the living environment.
The effects in living organisms may range from mild discomfort to serious diseases such as cancer to physical deformities (for example, extra or missing limbs in frogs).
Experts admit that environmental pollution effects are quite often underestimated and that more research is needed to understand the connections between pollution and its effects on all life forms.

Environmental Pollution Effects on Humans

We know that pollution causes not only physical disabilities but also psychological and behavioral disorders in people.
We are discussing the effects of air pollution and specific air pollutants in more detail in the Air Pollutants article.
The following effects of environmental pollution on humans have been reported:

Air Pollution in Philippines
Photo: Jim D Stitch

Air pollution (18, 19)

• Reduced lung functioning
• Irritation of eyes, nose, mouth and throat
• Asthma attacks
• Respiratory symptoms such as coughing and wheezing
• Increased respiratory disease such as bronchitis
• Reduced energy levels
• Headaches and dizziness
• Disruption of endocrine, reproductive and immune systems
• Neurobehavioral disorders
• Cardiovascular problems
• Cancer
• Premature death

We discuss air pollution effects in more detail here.

Water pollution (20)
Waterborne diseases caused by polluted drinking water:

• Typhoid
• Amoebiasis
• Giardiasis
• Ascariasis
• Hookworm

Waterborne diseases caused by polluted beach water:

• Rashes, ear ache, pink eye
• Respiratory infections
• Hepatitis, encephalitis, gastroenteritis, diarrhoea, vomiting, and stomach aches

Conditions related to water polluted by chemicals (such as pesticides, hydrocarbons, persistent organic pollutants, heavy metals etc):

• Cancer, incl. prostate cancer and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
• Hormonal problems that can disrupt reproductive and developmental processes
• Damage to the nervous system
• Liver and kidney damage
• Damage to the DNA
• Exposure to mercury (heavy metal):
  
  • In the womb: may cause neurological problems including slower reflexes, learning deficits, delayed or incomplete mental development, autism and brain damage
  • In adults: Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, and even death

Other notes:

• Water pollution may also result from interactions between water and contaminated soil, as well as from deposition of air contaminants (such as acid rain)
• Damage to people may be caused by fish foods coming from polluted water (a well known example is high mercury levels in fish)
• Damage to people may be caused by vegetable crops grown / washed with polluted water (author’s own conclusion)

Soil contamination (21)

• Causes cancers including leukaemia
• Lead in soil is especially hazardous for young children causing developmental damage to the brain
• Mercury can increase the risk of kidney damage; cyclodienes can lead to liver toxicity
• Causes neuromuscular blockage as well as depression of the central nervous system
• Also causes headaches, nausea, fatigue, eye irritation and skin rash

Other notes:

• Contact with contaminated soil may be direct (from using parks, schools etc) or indirect (by inhaling soil contaminants which have vaporized)
• Soil contamination may also result from secondary contamination of water supplies and from deposition of air contaminants (for example, via acid rain)
• Contamination of crops grown in polluted soil brings up problems with food security
• Since it is closely linked to water pollution, many effects of soil contamination appear to be similar to the ones caused by water contamination

An Extreme Oil Pollution Case

Pollution of pristine Ecuador rainforest by Texaco / Chevron oil corporation represents perhaps one of the most outrageous cases of oil pollution ever.
Some levels of pollutants left by the company on its sites of oil exploration have been calculated to exceed the US safety standards by as much as 1,000 times, causing such side effects as children born with fused fingers and deformed eyes, high cancer rates, etc.
For more details, check out the Oil Pollution of Ecuador Rainforest article.
Source : http://www.tropical-rainforest-animals.com/

Sources of Environmental Pollution

Fossil Fuel Sources of Environmental Pollution

Fossil Fuel Pollution
Photo: Rachel Scopes

In modern industrialized societies, fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal) transcended virtually all imaginable barriers and firmly established themselves in our everyday lives.
Not only do we use fossil fuels for our obvious everyday needs (such as filling a car), as well as in the power-generating industry, they (specifically oil) are also present in such products as all sorts of plastics, solvents, detergents, asphalt, lubricating oils, a wide range of chemicals for industrial use, etc. (8)
Combustion of fossil fuels produces extremely high levels of air pollution and is widely recognized as one of the most important “target” areas for reduction and control of environmental pollution.
Fossil fuels also contribute to soil contamination and water pollution. For example, when oil is transported from the point of its production to further destinations by pipelines, an oil leak from the pipeline may occur and pollute soil and subsequently groundwater. When oil is transported by tankers by ocean, an oil spill may occur and pollute ocean water.
Of course, there are other natural resources whose exploitation is a cause of serious pollution; for example, the use of uranium for nuclear power generation produces extremely dangerous waste that would take thousands of years to neutralize.
But there is no reasonable doubt that fossil fuels are among the most serious sources of environmental pollution.
Power-generating plants and transport are probably the biggest sources of fossil fuel pollution.
Common sources of fossil fuel pollution are: (9)

Industry:

• Power-generating plants
• Petroleum refineries
• Petrochemical plants
• Production and distribution of fossil fuels
• Other manufacturing facilities

Transport:

• Road transport (motor vehicles)
• Shipping industry
• Aircraft

Fossil fuel combustion is also a major source of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and perhaps the most important cause of global warming. Learn more about the causes and effects of global warming here.

Other (Non-Fossil Fuel) Sources of Environmental Pollution

Among other pollution sources, agriculture (livestock farming) is worth mentioning as the largest generator of ammonia emissions resulting in air pollution. Chemicals such as pesticides and fertilizers are also widely used in agriculture, which may lead water pollution and soil contamination as well.
Trading activities may be another source of pollution.
For example, it’s been recently noted that packaging of products sold in supermarkets and other retail outlets is far too excessive and generates large quantities of solid waste that ends up either in landfills or municipal incinerators leading to soil contamination and air pollution.
Residential sector is another significant source of pollution generating solid municipal waste that may end up in landfills or incinerators leading to soil contamination and air pollution.

We discuss air pollution causes in more detail here.
Source : http://www.tropical-rainforest-animals.com

Introduction to Environmental Pollution

Although pollution had been known to exist for a very long time (at least since people started using fire thousands of years ago), it had seen the growth of truly global proportions only since the onset of the industrial revolution during the 19th century.

Environmental Pollution
England, 19th Century
Courtesy: Wikimedia.org

The industrial revolution brought with it technological progress such as discovery of oil and its virtually universal use throughout different industries.
Technological progress facilitated by super efficiency of capitalist business practices (division of labour – cheaper production costs – overproduction – overconsumption – overpollution) had probably become one of the main causes of serious deterioration of natural resources.
At the same time, of course, development of natural sciences led to the better understanding of negative effects produced by pollution on the environment.
Environmental pollution is a problem both in developed and developing countries. Factors such as population growth and urbanization invariably place greater demands on the planet and stretch the use of natural resources to the maximum.
It has been argued that the carrying capacity of Earth is significantly smaller than the demands placed on it by large numbers of human populations. And overuse of natural resources often results in nature’s degradation.

It’s interesting to note that natural resources had been stored virtually untouched in the Earth for millions of years.
But since the start of the industrial revolution vast amounts of these resources had been exploited within a period of just a couple of hundred of years at unimaginable rates, with all the waste from this exploitation going straight in to the environment (air, water, land) and seriously damaging its natural processes.

Source  : http://www.tropical-rainforest-animals.com/

Air Pollution

Air pollution, both indoor and outdoor, is a significant cause of health problems worldwide. Urban and rural outdoor environments contain infections, allergens, irritants and chemical toxins that can reduce the quality of life and cause disease. Inhaled air pollution is directed at the the nose, throat and lungs. The exposed airway allows hazardous pollutants to enter the body and all tissues are ultimately exposed.
Air pollution was first noticed as problem of city dwellers, poisoning themselves, but more recently, air pollution is acknowledged as a problem of global significance. The tolerance for environmental destruction is ancient and human history is littered with civilizations that failed because humans exploited natural resources and spoiled their own nest. Humans adapt easily to deteriorating conditions and will persist in following daily routines even when air pollution is severe, traffic is congested, water and food supplies are at risk, and social order is unstable.
Fine-particulate air pollution is known to contribute to cardiovascular and lung disease, increasing the risk of heart attacks and a heart-related death. Researchers at Brigham Young University and Harvard School of Public Health compared changes in air pollution from 1980 to 2000 with residents’ life expectancies, They concluded that a reduction in air pollutants in 51 U.S. cities between 1980 and 2000 added an average of five months to life expectancy. Residents in cities that made the most significant improvements in air quality, such as Pittsburgh, PA,  lived almost 10 months longer. For every microgram per cubic meter decrease in fine-particulate air pollution, life expectancies rose by more than seven months.
Airborne chemicals contaminate food and water. Airborne chemicals contaminate food and water sources. Airborne chemicals are ingested; they collect in the nose and throat and are swallowed, often in mucus that attempts to protect exposed surfaces. Airborne chemicals entering the digestive system include well-known toxins such as pesticides, organophosphate, PCBs, dioxin, arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury. In addition occupational exposures to airborne pathogens can be intense and can cause cancer.
While ambient air pollution is a major concern, indoor air can be more polluted than outdoor air. Building materials and furnishings are a source of volatile chemicals. A decrease in indoor air quality is the result of reduced ventilation and efficient construction practices, sealing homes, stores and office buildings from the outdoor environment
Smoking tobacco remains a personal method of producing air pollution that remains popular worldwide, despite overwhelming evidence that tobacco smoke produces a long list of disabling and fatal diseases. It is estimated that 30% of all fatal cancers could be prevented if tobacco smoking were eliminated from the list of air pollutants.
The really sad part of our current predicament is that all the right ideas for creating a healthy environment  have been around for decades and have been clearly articulated in many forms by a host of intelligent people. The right ideas involve unselfish and compassionate behavior. The right ideas involve long-term planning, conservation and deep commitment to preserving the natural world. Without a healthy natural environment, there will be few or no healthy humans.
Our big environmental problems are built from many small, personal decisions - little mistakes that add up over time. If there is a solution, it will emerge from the collective value of millions of better decisions made by individuals all over the globe. The environmental action plan is to think globally and act locally - it does make sense.

Recent environmental disasters

 
Environmental disasters that occurred after January 2000

November 2006 - At least 23 people are killed in a mine in the south of Poland, consequential to a methane explosion. Only three people survive the mining accident.

November 2006 - At least eight people are killed by a series of tornadoes in North-Carolina, USA. Considerable damage is done, and authorities fear the death toll will increase further.

October 2006 - The Greek Isle of Crete is subject to storms. Parts of the isle are flooded and dozens of tourists are evacuated. A number of houses flood and water is pumped out by firemen. Aerial traffic is complicated.

October 2006 - An earthquake of 6,6 on the Richter schale hits Hawaii, causing emergency measures to be taken. The location is relatively sparsely populated, therefore damages are limited. Honolulu experiences power outage, and 3000 people are evacuated from two beach hotels.

October 2006 - Typhoon Xangsane kills at least 16 people in Japan, and in China another person is killed. Earlier, the typhoon caused the death of 76 people in the Phillipines.

September 2006 - Explosion in a mine in southeast Ukraine kills at least 13 people, and injures 36 people. The explosion is caused by a leak in a carbon-gastank.

September 2006 - Explosion in a Mittal Steel mine in Kazachstan kills 18 people. The cause remains unknown, and 40 people are declared missing.

September 2006 – Human rights organisation Christian Aid announces that the continuing drought might cause a famine in Afghanistan that may kill millions of people.

September 2006 – A fire in a waste treatment plant in Maastricht, The Netherlands, causes smoke and smell nuisance.

September 2006 – Illegally deposited waste from oil tanker Probo Koala causes and environmental disaster at Ivory Coast. Seven people die from intoxication, and another 40,000 people fall ill. Oil residues contain toxic substances, such as hydrogen sulphide (H2S). Eight people responsible for the disaster are arrested, and environmental and transport ministers are replaced, followed by a major clean-up operation.

July 2006 – Bombing of an electricity plant during the Lebanon war causes a leakage of 25,000 tons of crude oil from the Lebanese coast to the Mediterranean Sea.

June 2006 – Typhoon Ewiniar hits China, Korea and the Japanese islands and kills at least 40 people. An enormous amount of people needs to be evacuated, and many homes are destroyed by storms and floods caused by heavy rains.

February 2006 - In Bosnia-Herzegovina 18 tons of boiling hot oil pollute the River Neretva in the south. The oil comes from a transformator of a power plant in Jablanica.

January 2006 - Six tons of diesel oil leak into the Yellow River in the province of Henan, China from a power plant and spreads towards the Bohai Sea. Fortunately, not much damage is done to local shrimp fishery, because shrimps are only present in sediments during winter.

January 2006 – Food crisis in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Djibouti, caused by extreme drought and civil war, results in a famine that victimizes 11 million Africans. In Kenya, at least 30 people die of hunger.

December 2005 - Chinese authorities dump iron and aluminum into the Bei River in the province of Guangdong. It is carried out as a measure to prevent further spreading of cadmium pollution caused earlier that month.

December 2005 - A Slovakian oil tanker containing 42 tons of crude oil catches fire and sinks near Bulgaria in the Danube River. The accident causes a kilometre-wide oil slick, and measures are taken to prevent further oil spills.

November 2005 – A Series of explosions in a petrochemical plant in China pollutes the River Songhua, and leaves the city of Harbin without water for days. In total, the benzene spill kills 5 people, injures another few dozen people, and results in the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents in the area.

October 2005 - A fire in the east wing of the prison complex in Schiphol, The Netherlands, kills 11 people. The Safety Counsel states that fire damage could have been prevented if government services would have followed fire safety regulation. Fire tests indicate that a cigarette fag caused the fire.

October 2005 – Hurricane Wilma hits parts of Mexico and Cuba, results in mudflows, kills 62 people and causes over 20 million dollars damage.

October 2005 – Earthquake in Kashmir, Pakistan kills over 80,000 people, and leaves over 3.3 million homeless. Most people die during landslides caused by the quake. Reconstruction is difficult, and a year later not all structures are repaired. An estimated 66,000 people still do not have a home, and about 40,000 of them stay in refugee camps.

September 2005 - Manure pollutes the River Linde in The Netherlands, between Wolvega and De Blesse. Fish deaths are numerous, and surrounding cities experience smell nuisance. It is suspected that a farmer in Noordwolde spilled manure a few weeks earlier, because of some problems with a liquid manure injection.

September 2005 – Typhoon Longwang kills 96 people at the Japanese coast; en gradually diminishes to a tropical storm.

September 2005 – Hurricane Rita strikes Louisiana, kills seven people directly, and causes many more casualties during evacuations and from indirect consequences (fires, car crashes, illness, poisoning). Eventually, the official death toll is set on 120.

August 2005 - Hurricane Katrina causes devastation in the American cities of New Orleans and Louisiana; beaches erode, more than 1,600 people die, and survivors plunder stores and use violence against each other and against authorities.

July 2005 – Typhoon Haitang strikes Taiwan and China. Heavy squalls and rains cause 13 casualties, and at least 18 people are severely wounded.

July 2005 – Large parts of Bombay, India are flooded, causing more than 1,000 casualties.

June 2005 – Severe monsoon rains in Gujarat, India cause floods, resulting in 123 deaths, and about 250,000 evacuees.

March 2005 – An earthquake near Fukuoka, Japan hurts 70 people severely, and causes light wounds on more than 1,000 people. The many after shocks result in the evacuation of a large number of people.

2005 – Extreme droughts result in failed maize harvest, followed by famine in Malawi, Southeast Africa.

December 2004 - Tanker Selendang Ayu from Malaysia strands near the coast of Alaska, breaks in two, and leaks about 500,000 litres of oil into the ocean.

December 2004 – Indian Ocean earthquake causes tsunami and subsequently kills almost a quarter of a million people (see environmental disasters).

October 2004 – Earthquake in Chuetsu, Japan leaves 3,000 people injured, and many more lose their homes.

March 2004 – Tank car containing bromine tilts near Ekeren, causing a bromine cloud to form and leaking 6000 litres of bromine to the sewers, subsequently flowing into the River Schelde. About 3,000 people are evacuated, and a major clean-up operation starts.

October 2003 – Large fire in the south of California (US) causes 14 casualties. Nearly 3,000 square kilometres of forest is burned, along with more than 3,500 houses.

October 2003 – A fire in San Bernardino Mountains in California (US) kills 6 people, and destroys nearly 1,000 homes. Nearly 400 square kilometre forest is lost.

August 2003 – Extreme heat wave in Europe results in more than 2,000 casualties. On some locations temperatures exceed 40oC.

June 2003 – Iraqi civilians steal a number of uranium containers from a nuclear power plant, and rinse them out in rivers. The barrels are applied to store milk, tomatoes and drinking water. Selling the barrels makes it extremely hard to trace any (see environmental effects of warfare).

June 2003 – Fire destroys nearly 350 square kilometres of land in Santa Catalina Mountains in Arizona (US). Approximately 340 homes are destroyed, and total costs are about 24 million dollar.

December 2002 – Oil tanker Tricolor collides with another ship near the coast of France. During the clean-up operation multiple accidents cause oil spills (see environmental disasters).

November 2002 - Left-wing rebels from Colombia detonated 123 pipelines by means of dynamite. The amount of oil leaking from the pipes is three times that leaking from the oil tanker Exxon Valdez in 1989 (see environmental disasters).

November 2002 – Storms cause some problems for tanker Prestige, resulting in cracking of the tanker, and a 170,000 litre oil spill that flows in the direction of Belgium and The Netherlands.

August 2002 - Chlorine gas is emitted from the Spolana chemical plant in Czechia, near Prague. The direct cause appears to be flooding of the River Elbe, causing water damage that results in leaking storage tanks.

August 2002 - Forest fires, exhaust fumes, industrial discharge and coal and manure burning cause a three kilometre thick blanket of brown smoke over India, Myanmar, South-China, large parts of Southeast-Asia and the Pacific. Smog contains mostly soot, sulphur dioxide and greenhouse gases, and causes floods and crop failure, among other effects.

June 2002 – Major forest fire near Denver, Colorado (US) results in the evacuation of more than 5,000 people. The fire starts as a small campfire and rapidly spreads over more than 200 square kilometres because of extreme drought. More than 40 million dollars of damage repair is required.

June 2002 – Fire in Arizona burns more than 2,000 square kilometres of forest, and more than 30,000 people are evacuated.

October 2001 - Cyanide spill from a ruptures dam pollutes the Asuman River in the west of Ghana. Thousands of cubic metres of water containing cyanide and heavy metals causes many fish, brabs and birds to die, and drinking water in nearby cities is polluted.

September 2001 – Explosion at a nitrogen fertilizer plant in Toulouse, France, causes a big crater to form, and thirty people are killed instantly. More than 10,000 people get hurt, and 40,000 people are left homeless. The plant is completely destroyed.

September 2001 – Terrorist attacks of the World Trade Centre in the US cause about 3,000 casualties, among which are many fire fighters. The event causes an environmental disaster, as an atmospheric plume forms over lower Manhattan (see environmental effects of warfare).

March 2001 - The largest oil platform in the world, the P-36 of Brazilian oil society Petrobras, threatens to tilt over. One leg cracks and the platform moved 35 degress forward. A series of explosions kills two people, and another eight are missing. Measures are taken to keep the hulk from tilting over completely.

Januari 2001 - Oil tanker Jessica strands near the Galapagos Isles, about 1000 kilometres west of Equador. An estimated 800 tons of oil leaks into the sea, and many seaguls and other sea birds die.

May 2000 – Fireworks container explodes in Enschede, The Netherlands, kills 23 people, and injures 950 more people.

May 2000 – Hard winds and extreme drought cause a major fire in New Mexico (US) from what started as a small controlled fire. More than 190 square kilometres of forest fully burned, and more than 400 families lost their homes in the flames.

January 2000 – About 100,000 m3 water with hydrogen cyanide flows from the River Tisza to the Danube River, after a leak in a settling basin in Baia Mare (see environmental disasters).


Bronnen

- BBC news
- Encyclopaedia Brittannica
- Nu.nl
- NRC Handelsblad
- Wikipedia

Read more: http://www.lenntech.com/recent-environmental-disasters.htm#ixzz1Bcz2GKx8

Environmental problems caused by human interference in matter cycles
In the past decades humans have been the cause of extensive environmental pollution. Pollution is not a one-sided term; all kinds of matter has been applied by humans, resulting in a disturbance in natural processes. Disturbances of natural processes are clearly shown, when you take a look at human interference in matter cycles. This has caused various environmental problems, which are important issues today.
I) Hydrological cycle
H2O


There are three ways in which humans cause environmental problems by interfering with the hydrological cycle. Firstly, we remove large quantities of freshwater from rivers, lakes and groundwater supplies. In areas where great amounts of people use the water from groundwater supplies, groundwater may be fully depleted. This effect is enhanced by vegetation removal to create new farmland or underground mines, or to build roads. Secondly, because of vegetation removal, rainwater washes away and it no longer infiltrates, so that the groundwater supplies are not restored. In many cases groundwater supplies will than be filled up with salt water from rivers and lakes. When groundwater is salinated the entire area is influenced. Other effects also occur because of vegetation removal; the risk of flooding is enhanced, and soil erosion and land sliding increase. Finally, people change the quality of water, by adding nutrients and contaminants. This causes the ecological processes that usually purify the water to be disturbed.

Back to the hydrological cycle

II) Nitrogen cycle
N


Humans cause environmental problems, by interfering with the nitrogen cycle in several ways.
During fuel combustion various compounds are released, among which nitrogen oxides (NOx). Nitrogen oxides react with oxygen in air, so that nitrous oxide gas (N2O) is formed. Nitrous oxide is a greenhouse gas, which enhances the earth's temperature when it is present in the atmosphere too extensively. It can also react with ozone in the atmosphere, so that the ozone layer is broken down. The ozone layer is a kind of shell around the earth that consists entirely of ozone. This layer protects the earth and all its life from damaging UV-radiation. When the ozone layer is broken down, humans and animals can experience serious sunburns and skin cancer.
Nitrogen dioxide may also react with hydrogen in the atmosphere, to form nitric acid (HNO3). Nitric acid causes acid deposition, which can damage trees and marine ecosystems, due to increases in the pH of soil and water.
Humans are also responsible for shortages of nitrogen on certain locations. The shortages consist when humans remove nitrogen, to create fertilizers to apply on farmland. As a result, farmland becomes too rich in nutrients and other areas will suffer nitrogen shortages. Vegetation in these areas depletes.
When people want to create new farmland they often burn parts of forests, because the ground underneath these forests is very fertile. While the wood is burned more nitrogen dioxide escapes into air and nutrients are removed from the ground.

Back to the nitrogen cycle

III) Phosphorus cycle
P


Humans also cause environmental problems by interfering with the phosphorus cycle. We remove phosphates on certain locations, to apply it on farmland as fertilizers. On these locations the phosphate supply is moving, causing phosphate levels of surrounding land-soils and groundwater to become too high.
On farmland where phosphates are applied as fertilizers, plants do not absorb all phosphate. The phosphates end up in water and stream towards lakes and reservoirs, where they cause a phenomenon called eutrophication. Eutrophication means that the water is so rich in nutrients that it causes certain water plants, such as green algae, to grow extensively. As a result the oxygen supply in the water depletes, causing fish and other oxygen-dependent organisms to die and bacteria that are not oxygen dependent (anaerobic) to take over.
When people practise extensive wood chopping in forest areas, such as the tropical rain forest, phosphate supplies deplete, because most of the phosphate can be found in the ground under the trees in such areas. When the trees are removed the rain washes phosphates away, causing the ground to become unproductive.
Phosphate supplies are restored very slowly, because most phosphate in soils and water comes from weathering rocks and oceanic sediments.

Back to the phosphorus cycle

IV) Sulphur cycle
S

Today, humans are responsible for the consistence of 90% of the sulphur salts that are found on earth. These salts mainly are mainly formed during industrial processes, such as coal combustion processes, petroleum refining processes and melting processes. Sulphur compounds, such as sulphuric acid, sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulphide can cause acid deposition on water and soil. This phenomenon causes the pH of water and soil to fall, which can influence life in the soil and water and disturb natural processes.

Back to the sulphur cycle

V) Carbon cycle
C

Humans cause environmental problems by influencing the carbon cycle in two ways.
Firstly, the removal of forests has caused depletion in plants and trees that absorb carbon dioxide. Humans cause great carbon emissions to the atmosphere, which take place during industrial processes, such as coal and oil combustion. These processes serve the generation of energy. As a result of these effects the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have greatly increased. Between 1870 and 1990 the carbon dioxide emissions to air have increased 25%. The carbon dioxide levels in air are now so high, that the uptake by plants and oceans is not fast enough.
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. This means that increasing carbon dioxide levels in air support the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is a term that is used for climate change on earth, caused by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can cause the earth to warm up. This will in time cause all kinds of negative effects, such as melting of ice from the Arctic causing floods on other continents.
Secondly, during the industrial revolution humans have used fossil fuels extensively for energy generation, as has been mentioned before. Because fossil fuels consist of dead organic matter it takes a very long time to restore the supplies. Because humans have been burning fossil fuels extensively over the past decades fossil fuel supplies are in danger of being exhausted.


Back to the carbon cycle Back to the matter cycles overview page
To the introduction of freshwater pollution

Acid deposition

Acid deposition is a general name for a number of phenomena, namely acid rain, acid fog and acid mist. This means it can imply both wet and dry (gaseous) precipitation. Acid deposition is a rather well known environmental problem, for example acid fog killed several thousand people in London in 1952.

Acid deposition is concerned with long-range rather than local effects. Pollutants are mixed in the atmosphere and therefore usually cannot be attributed to any local source. Pollutants are generally more dispersed and of lower concentrations than local ground level pollutants.
Acid deposition typically has a pH below 4, but this may be as low as 1.5 under seriously acidic conditions. It primarily consists of two types of compounds, namely sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) and nitric acid (HNO₃).

Sulphuric acid is formed by conversion of sulphur dioxide emitted from power stations, melting processes, home fires, car exhausts and other sources. It contributes about 70% to the overall acidity of deposition.
Reaction mechanism: SO₃ + H₂O -> H₂SO₄

Nitric acid is formed from nitrogen oxide (NO_x) emissions from fossil fuel combustion. It contributes about 30% to the overall acidity of deposition.
Reaction mechanism: NO₂ + OH^- -> HNO₃

Acid rain has various environmental and health effects, for example:
- Chocking plant leave pores (forest loss)
- Corroding stone and brick walls of buildings and monuments
- Corroding paper and rubber objects
- Altering soil chemistry (soil acidification, loss of plant nutrients)
- Altering the chemical balance of lakes and streams
- Disrupting fish gill operation (fish deaths)
- Deteriorating human breathing disorder (asthma, bronchitis, lung oedema)

When people die of acid deposition it is usually caused by access mucous production in the bronchi, leading to chocking from a lack of oxygen, or a heart attack.

Acid deposition in various countries

Acid deposition is a transboundary environmental problem. This basically means that emissions in one country may affect forests and structures in a neighbouring country. Therefore, international agreements were made, such as the Sulphur emissions Reduction Protocol (1979) and the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (1983).

Some examples of countries that experience(d) acid deposition, either from their own sources or from transboundary air pollution:
- Britain: smog episodes around London, particularly in 1952
- Germany: acid mists in central Germany and the Black Forest area, acid cold smog from Poland and former Czechoslovakia in 1985
- Greece: intense industrialization in the Athens area causes deterioration of ancient monuments such as the Parthenon by acid deposition
- Italy: damage to Venice structures from acid deposition
- Scandinavia: 15% of acid rain caused by Great-Britain
- Scotland: episodes of black acid snow in the Cairngorm mountains in 1984
- The Netherlands: corrosion of bells of the Utrecht Dom tower since 1951
- United States: acid rains disrupts forest ecosystems and pollutes surface waters, industrial fossil fuel combustion processes are adapted to prevent sulphur dioxide emissions

Sources

Graham and Trotman, 1983, Acid rain – A review of the phenomenon in the EEC & Europe, Environmental Resources Ltd

Pearce, 1987, Acid rain, what is it and what is it doing to us?, Richard Clay Ltd

http://bqs.usgs.gov/acidrain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_deposition

7 Environmental Problems That Are Worse Than We Thought

With as much attention as the environment has been getting lately, you’d think that we’d be further along in our fight to preserve the world’s species, resources and the beautiful diversity of nature. Unfortunately, things aren’t nearly that rosy. In fact, many of the environmental problems that have received the most public attention are even worse than we thought – from destruction in the rain forest to melting glaciers in the Arctic. We’ve got a lot of work to do.
7. Mammal Extinction

Image via National Wildlife Federation
One in four mammals is threatened with extinction. That’s 25%, a huge number that will totally change the ecology of every corner of the earth. We could see thousands of species die out in our lifetime, and the rate of habitat loss and hunting in crucial areas like Southeast Asia, Central Africa and Central and South America is growing so rapidly, these animals barely have a chance.
If you think the extinction of an animal like the beautiful Iberian Lynx is no big deal, and wouldn’t have that much of an effect on the planet, think again. Not only would we be losing – mostly due to our own disregard for our surroundings – so much of the awe-inspiring diversity of nature, mass extinctions like this would cause a serious imbalance in the world’s food chain. When a predator disappears, the prey will multiply. When prey dies out, the predator will see its ranks decrease as well. Many people fail to realize just how interconnected all species on this planet really are.
6. The Ocean Dead Zones

Image via NASA
In oceans around the world, there are eerie areas that are devoid of nearly all life. These ‘dead zones’ are characterized by a lack of oxygen, and they’re caused by excess nitrogen from farm fertilizers, emissions from vehicles and factories, and sewage. The number of dead zones has been growing fast – since the 1960’s, the number of dead zones has doubled every 10 years. They range in size from under a square mile to 45,000 square miles, and the most infamous one of all is in the Gulf of Mexico, a product of toxic sludge that flows down the Mississippi from farms in the Midwest. These ‘hypoxic’ zones now cover an area roughly the size of Oregon.
Spanish researches recently found that many species die off at oxygen levels well above the current definition of ‘uninhabitable’, suggesting that the extent of dead zones in coastal areas that support fishing is much worse than previously thought. Robert Diaz, a Virginia Institute of Marine Science biologist, said “Everything is pointing towards a more desperate situation in all aquatic systems, freshwater and marine. That’s pretty clear. People should be worried, all over the world.”
As if that weren’t bad enough, global warming will likely aggravate the problem. A rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will change rainfall patterns, which could create an increase in runoff from rivers into the seas in many areas.
5. Collapsing Fish Stock

Image via Pew Environment Group
Millions of people across the world depend upon fish as a major staple in their diet. As such, commercial fishermen have been pulling such a huge quantity of fish from the oceans that we’re heading toward a global collapse of all species currently fished – possibly as soon as the year 2048. Like large-scale mammal extinction, the collapse of fish species would have a major impact on the world’s ecosystems.
It’s not too late – yet – if overfishing and other threats to fish populations are reduced as soon as possible. Marine systems are still biologically diverse, but catastrophic loss of fish species is close at hand. 29 percent of species have been fished so heavily or have been so affected by pollution that they’re down to 10 percent of their previous population levels. If we continue the way we are fishing today, there will be a 100 percent collapse by mid-century, so we’ve got to turn this around fast.
4. Destruction of the Rain Forest

Image via Encyclopedia Britannica
‘Saving the rain forest’ has been at the forefront of the environmental movement for decades, yet here we are facing huge losses in the Amazon all the same. You might have thought that, with all the attention the rain forest has gotten, it wouldn’t need so much saving anymore – but unfortunately, global warming and deforestation mean that half of the Amazon rain forest will likely be destroyed or severely damaged by 2030.
The World Wildlife Fund concluded this summer that agriculture, drought, fire, logging and livestock ranching will cause major damage to 55 percent of the Amazon rain forest in the next 22 years. Another 4 percent will see damage due to reduced rainfall, courtesy of global warming. These factors will destroy up to 80 percent of the rain forest’s wildlife. Losing 60 percent of the rain forest would accelerate global warming and affect rainfall in places as far away as India. Massive destruction to the rain forest would have a domino effect on the rest of the world.
The WWF says that the ‘point of no return’, from which recovery will be impossible, is only 15 to 25 years away.
3. Polar Sea Ice Loss

Image via National Snow and Ice Data Center
Polar sea ice is melting at an unprecedented rate, and it’s not showing any signs of slowing down. It’s perhaps the most dramatic, startling visual evidence of global warming, and it’s got scientists rushing to figure out just how big of an effect the melting is going to have on the rest of the world.
British researchers said last week that the thickness of sea ice in the Arctic decreased dramatically last winter for the first time since records began in the early 1990s. The research showed a significant loss in thickness on the northern ice cap after the record loss of ice during the summer of 2007.
Scientific American warns that “human fingerprints have been detected” on both the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Antarctica had previously appeared to be the only continent on the planet where humanity’s impact on climate change hadn’t been observed. The collapse of the Larsen B and Wilkins ice shelves in the Antarctic Peninsula shows just how fast the region is warming.
2. CO2 Levels in the Atmosphere

Image via Visible Earth
The aforementioned polar sea ice loss is yet another sinister sign of carbon dioxide levels building up in the atmosphere – the main force behind global warming. Greenhouse gas emissions caused by our modern way of life – vehicles, power plants, factories, giant livestock farms – will bring devastating climate change within decades if they stay at today’s levels.
Average temperatures could increase by as much as 12 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century if emissions continue to rise, a figure that would easily make the world virtually uninhabitable for humans. A global temperature rise of just 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit would cause a catastrophic domino effect, bringing weather extremes that would result in food and water shortages and destructive floods.
The most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change represents “the final nail in the coffin” of climate change denial, representing the most authoritative picture to date that global warming is caused by human activity. According to the panel, we must make a swift and significant switch to clean, efficient and renewable energy technologies in order to prevent the worst-case scenario.
1. Population Explosion

Image via Wikimedia Commons
Whether we like to admit it or not, our very own rapidly multiplying presence on this planet is the biggest environmental problem there is, and it’s getting bigger by the minute. We voraciously consume resources, pollute the air and water, tear down natural habitats, introduce species into areas where they don’t belong and destroy ecosystems to the point of causing millions of species to become endangered and, all too often, go extinct.
It took nearly all of human history – from the first days of man on earth until the early 1800’s – to reach a global population of 1 billion. In just 200 years, we’ve managed to reach 6.5 billion. That means the population has grown more since 1950 than in the previous four million years. We’re adding roughly 74 million people to the planet every year, a scary figure that will probably continue to increase. All of those mouths will need to be fed. All of those bodies will need clean water and a place to sleep. All of the new communities created to house those people will continue to encroach upon the natural world.
All seven environmental problems detailed above are very serious, and we’ve got to start treating them that way. We may not have easy solutions, but the fact is, we simply can’t continue living our lives as if everything is peachy. These problems aren’t going to magically solve themselves. We should have begun acting generations ago, but we can’t go back in time, and that means we have to step up our efforts. If we want to keep this planet a healthy place for humans to live – for our grandchildren to enjoy – it’s time to buckle down and do everything in our power to reverse the damage we’ve done.

“Mining” Groundwater in India Reaches New Lows

Water-intensive onions are grown as a cash crop.

Photograph by Lynsey Addario, National Geographic

Mason Inman

for National Geographic News

This story is part of a special National Geographic News series on global water issues.

Nearly a third of India is suffering from chronic water shortages, and making up for it with "the world's largest groundwater mining operation," according to experts.

A band of land stretching across northern India, at the foot of the Himalayan Mountains, is one of the most heavily populated and intensely irrigated regions in the world. The area is chronically short of water. But the region still has a limited supply of it in underground aquifers, according to water resources expert Shama Perveen of Columbia University.

According to a new study by Perveen and her colleagues, Upmanu Lall and Naresh Devineni, some parts of India are using groundwater three times faster than it’s being replenished.

The team's new analysis draws on a 100-year record of daily rainfall in India, reflecting how much water has been available in various parts of the country as its residents endured both droughts and floods.

By estimating water needs over dry spells and across decades, and comparing the estimate with actual rainfall, they found that many areas have been falling chronically short for many years.

The findings, presented this month at an American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, fit with the results from gravity-sensing satellites that have detected the loss of groundwater across the heavily irrigated areas of northern India—with the extraction of water at about 11 billion cubic yards (9 billion cubic meters) of water per year over the past decade. (Read: “NASA Satellites Track Vanishing Groundwater.”)

Local Water Management

Local planners told the researchers they were aware there was a problem with water shortages and stress on the groundwater supply, she said, but they weren't aware of the depth of the problem, Perveen added.

When presented with the results of the study, she said, the officials were "amazed."

The researchers found that some regions receive enough rainfall to supply their needs, as long as they build more reservoirs, ponds, and tanks to store water when supplies are plentiful.

Much of the yearly rain comes during intense monsoon downpours, so storage is needed to help get through the long dry periods of the year.

By analyzing the historical data, day by day, the researchers showed that water stress exists even where the average annual rainfall is apparently enough to cover the average water use.

But the majority of the country’s key food-growing areas would need far more water storage to be able to stop depleting the groundwater, Perveen said.

Water Storing Solutions

A more sustainable solution is to use small ponds, dams, and other ways of storing water locally, a new study suggests.

For about half of the country, their analysis suggests, if people used small-scale "rainwater harvesting"—capturing rain and storing it in tanks and ponds—they would have much of the water they needed, assuming they continued to grow the same types of crops.

(Related: “Lessons From the Field—Rainwater Harvesting in India.”)

By providing detailed information on small areas of the country, the analysis could help policy makers decide how much additional water storage they need to avoid depleting groundwater further, Perveen said.

"India's [water] storage infrastructure is very dismal compared to other countries," she said, because reservoirs there store only about 325 cubic yards (250 cubic meters) per person, compared with 6,500 cubic yards (5,000 cubic meters) per person in China, or 7,800 cubic yards (6,000 cubic meters) in the United States.

"This study points out that India needs to invest in more water storage infrastructure—whether large or small," Perveen said.

(Related: “How to Stem a Global Food Crisis? Store More Water.”)

Crop Insurance

In other parts of India, though, rainwater harvesting alone won't be enough to avoid depleting groundwater further, the study suggests.

So the team is studying how farmers could shift the crops they grow to ones that require less water.

To make a living from agriculture, farmers will have to shift away from water-intensive crops such as rice, sugarcane, and cotton. Or they will have to drastically change their ways of growing these crops to make farming more water-efficient, Perveen said.

"This [kind of] work needs to happen more," said Edward Moran, a water resources expert with the U.S. Geological Survey in Columbia, Missouri.

"The general public needs to be better informed" about looming water shortages, he said, because in many places around the world "we're really not addressing the problem."

Gulf Oil Spill Surprise: Methane Almost Gone

Jars of plankton taken from near the Gulf oil spill show how the water's oxygen—and thus sea life—decreased with time, a sign of increased bacteria.

Photograph by David Liittschwager, National Geographic

Brian Handwerk

for National Geographic News

After months of speculation about what will happen to the Gulf oil spill, it turns out Mother Nature has rolled up her sleeves and dispatched with a lot of the gas released along with it—in just four months.
Surprisingly, practically all of the methane that accompanied nearly five million barrels of oil leaked into the northern Gulf of Mexico (map) has been devoured by giant bacterial blooms, a new study says. Methane, the main component of natural gas, is typically found with oil.
(Read more about how nature is fighting back against the oil spill.)
The Deepwater Horizon oil rig burned and sank last April, and the damaged wellhead on the seafloor below was permanently capped in July.
"We thought it would probably be something on the order of a year or so until the methane disappeared," said study leader David Valentine, a microbial geochemist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "Instead we found that by mid-September it was completely gone."
Deep, water-dissolved methane was the single most abundant hydrocarbon released during the spill, making up about 20 percent of the flow from the wellhead, Valentine and his team estimated.
However, the discovery doesn't mean that the oil itself is gone. The team found oil nearly everywhere in the deep water—suggesting that oil-water mixing was widespread, and that some ingredients of the oil haven't completely degraded.
(See "Why the Gulf Oil Spill Isn't Going Away.")
Ocean vs. Oil
The Gulf spill's methane release may rival the amount of methane regularly released via deep-ocean hydrothermal vents, oil seeps, and the breakdown of methane-rich gas hydrates in ocean sediments.
(Read more about the Gulf of Mexico's natural seeps.)
Scientists are keeping a close eye on all of Earth's methane sources. That's because warming ocean temperatures are thought to make some parts of the ocean's geology less stable. This could trigger the release of huge amounts of the gas into the ocean and potentially the atmosphere, where it may contribute to global warming.
"The global ocean seafloor contains the largest reservoir of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and there is evidence that releases of methane from this reservoir have modulated climate in the history of the planet," said study co-author John Kessler, a chemical oceanographer at Texas A&M University.
"Without these bacteria, methane could be released to the atmosphere—and if the release is large enough, it could influence global temperatures."
(Related: "Methane-Munching Microbes Take a Bite Out of Warming.")
But the oil spill—essentially an unprecedented and accidental experiment—offers a piece of good news: The bacterial rapid-response system might be able to significantly curb the effects of even massive natural methane emissions.
"What we found is that for a deep-ocean methane release, the ocean has a capacity to deal with that in pretty rapid order," study leader Valentine said.
Low-Profile Bacterial Bloom
The team studied bacteria concentrations in deep, oil-fouled Gulf of Mexico waters during the spill event and again after the wellhead was sealed.
They found a larger-than-expected presence of methane-eating bacteria, as well as low oxygen levels. Lower oxygen suggests microbial activity because the organisms breathe the gas while they devour methane.
Methane-eating bacteria—discovered only about a decade ago—are distinct from their oil-degrading relatives, which themselves went to work on other oil ingredients.
The newly discovered bacterial bloom isn't as visibly obvious as the vibrantly colored algal blooms often seen in shallower waters, Valentine noted.
"I suspect you wouldn't notice much to look at it, but there was a big change in what happened to the biological community," according to Valentine, whose study was published online January 6 in the journal Science Express.
Bacteria No Guarantee Against Oil
Antje Boetius, a microbiologist at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, was impressed with the study.
"We have worked at huge natural methane seeps before, and never found a situation like this with a huge propagation of bacteria in which the methane goes away so quickly—something special [such as warm temperatures] in that event really induced the bacteria to grow tremendously," she said.
But Boetius stresses, as do the study's authors, that caution is needed before assuming these findings can be applied in other places where oil spills may occur.
(See "Exxon Valdez Anniversary: 20 Years Later, Oil Remains.")
"What we've learned from oil spills in general is that the speed with which nature heals itself is very different for different accidents for a number of reasons, including water temperatures," she said.
For example, "bacteria are slowed in colder waters, and the Gulf is a rather warm place compared to locations like the polar regions—which are exactly where we'd expect global warming to have the largest impacts on huge amounts of buried methane.
"Can we deduce from these data where we have an unexpected explosion of bacteria that the same could happen in other very sensitive areas which are much colder? That’s the big question."
Gulf Bacteria Primed For Next Spill?
Now that the spill's methane is mostly cleaned up, the fate of methane-munching bacteria is another intriguing question the team will be watching closely.
"We expect that the [high amount of bacteria] will gradually dissipate, but we don’t really know how the population relaxes back to a baseline level," Valentine said.
Indeed he believes the baseline may be forever changed—and Gulf bacteria could become even more efficient in dealing with future oil spills.
(Also see "3 Future Oil-Spill Fighters: Sponges, Superbugs, and Herders.")
"Sometimes where there is petroleum contamination and a bacterial response, the environment harbors a memory of it. ... It maintains a kind of priming, so that if you contaminate it again, it will react more quickly than it would in a pristine environment."

In China’s Icy North, Outfitting Buildings to Save Energy

Harbin, in China's northeast, plays up its "Ice City" reputation with its annual Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival, where ice sculptures were on display January 4. But in its real buildings, officials are making renovations that they predict will increase energy efficiency by 50 percent.

Photograph by David Gray, Reuters

Te-Ping Chen in Harbin, China

For National Geographic News

Published January 7, 2011

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

Jin-Xing Ma's apartment has a new hat, and a five-layered coat. Standing in her living room, her trim frame ensconced in a purple sweater, Ma is effusive about her home's new wardrobe.

Here in the China’s northeast, where winter temperatures plummet to -40ºF (-42º C), cities are getting serious about giving old, drafty buildings a face-lift. Last year, Harbin (map) spent $1.1 million to retrofit 21 million square feet (2 million square meters) of residential buildings—adding five new layers of wall insulation, as well as better windows and roofing that tenants like Ma affectionately describe as the building's new "winter clothes."

“Before, the temperature in this room was 12 degrees [Celsius, or 53ºF]. Now it’s 18 degrees [Celsius, or 64ºF],” said Ma, 76, surveying the apartment with pleasure. For Ma, who runs a small Chinese medicine shop with her husband out of their front room, the change has meant fewer chilly days for both herself and her customers.

The Challenge to Keep Warm

Beijing’s snarled traffic and the smokestacks smoldering over the Pearl River Delta may be the most iconic images of China’s environmental woes.

(Related: “On China’s Roads (And Rails), a Move Toward Greener Transit”)

But these days, policymakers are increasingly turning their attention to the buildings of China’s industrial northeast, as well. This is the country’s frigid rust belt, where cold fronts roll in directly from Siberia’s frozen tundra to the north, and residences need to be heated six months out of the year.

After all, in the developed world, fully 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions come from heating, cooling, and powering buildings. Already in China, nearly 30 percent of the country’s energy is absorbed by its building sector—a figure that has tripled within three decades, and growing.

(Related: “The Carbon Bathtub”)

In 2006, as part of the country’s most recent five-year plan, China pledged to reduce overall energy intensity by 20 percent. It’s an ambitious goal, one that local officials were scrambling to meet by the end of 2010—shuttering factories and even briefly powering down hospitals in a last-ditch scramble to reach their quotas.

But if China does hit its 20 percent target, it won’t be thanks to improvements to the building sector, said Mark Levine, head of the China Energy Group at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “Efforts in this area have been terrible,” said Levine. National subsidies, he noted, have been too slim to inspire much effort at the municipal level, where cities have typically used the funds to install meters instead of embarking on more costly retrofits.

But there have been a few notable exceptions, including Harbin, the largest city and capital of Heilongjiang province, with a population of nearly 10 million, a place often known as “Ice City.” Officials in Harbin project that the retrofitting drive of 2010 will increase energy efficiency in affected areas by 50 percent. Other cities also have embarked on efforts to make buildings more energy efficient, like Qingdao (map) in the eastern Shandong province and Lanzhou (map), capital of Gansu province in the northwest. And across China, there has been one improvement that officials are quick to note: compliance with existing building codes has increased to at least 98 percent, according to government figure.

Still, such progress might not “necessarily result in energy savings, because living standards are increasing as well,” said Ping Yowargana, Beijing-based energy analyst with Azure International. China is adding new buildings at a clip of 22 billion new square feet (2 billion new square meters) a year—which means more concrete being poured, more steel being manufactured, and additional mass consumption of energy. At the same time, residents these days expect more air conditioning, lighting, and heat than ever before. Accordingly, even a building at code today can still use energy in excess of its leaky, poorly insulated predecessors.

Then there’s the fact that China’s heating sector is riddled with inefficiencies, including pricing systems that create no incentive to conserve. For example, Ma pays a flat sum of 200 renminbi ($30) per year to supply her heat—a fee charged according to the size of her residence, not her energy use. Which is why Ma won’t be turning down the thermostat anytime soon.

“It’s warm and cozy inside now,” she said. “The government takes good care of us.”

A Need for Deeper Change

Heating price reform—already under way in certain regions—and better funding for retrofitting efforts will likely be a priority in the next five-year plan, said Levine. What’s less clear, he said, is whether China’s central planners can effectively push the country beyond the heavy, energy-intensive industry that’s propelled it forward. “They have to make structural change in the economy,” he said. “And so far, that hasn’t happened.”

Back in Harbin, some residents continue to eye retrofitting programs with suspicion. Although the effort was government-financed, a number of Ma’s neighbors complain bitterly that the construction was slapdash, and that the material won’t weather the years well. Meanwhile in Shanghai, after a blaze took 58 lives in a building undergoing renovations, sparking local furor, all other retrofitting projects were temporarily halted.

“Right now, the government wants to complete goals faster, Chinese-style. There are big targets,” said Ruidong Jin, building energy efficiency expert with the Natural Resources Defense Council. China’s national energy efficiency goals are ambitious, he says, and municipalities just focus on keeping pace.

“There’s not much time to talk to people and make them understand,” said Jin. “Local governments have to keep moving, faster.”

(Related: “Missing the Chance for Big Energy Savings”

Te-Ping Chen is a writer based in Sichuan, China.

(See photos of China, including the Harbin Ice Festival, submitted to National Geographic by users like you.)

Pictures: Mount Etna Erupts Overnight

 

Etna Aflame

Photograph by Antonio Parrinello, Reuters

<>Streams of lava light up Mount Etna during a two-hour eruption on Tuesday night—the peak of the Italianvolcano's fiery week (Mount Etna map).


Towering nearly 11,000 feet (3,350 meters) over the island of Sicily, Europe's tallest and most active volcano began trembling Tuesday afternoon, seismologists told the OurAmazingPlanet news site. Wednesday and Thursday saw flames and ash flung hundreds of yards into the sky, closing down area airports.

 

 

 

Scientists Make Dozens of Storms in the Abu Dhabi Desert?

Camels and trucks travel on a main desert road in Abu Dhabi while rain descends in the background.

Photograph by James Davis Photography, Alamy

Brian Handwerk

for National Geographic News

Published January 18, 2011

This story is part of a special National Geographic News series on global water issues.
In arid lands, the ability to create freshwater out of thin air would be priceless.

Now a Swiss company, Meteo Systems, is poised to earn a pretty penny in Abu Dhabi with a controversial weather modification system said to be responsible for dozens of rain showers in the desert last summer.

The claim is difficult to verify but certainly has raised a storm of skepticism among many leading weather modification experts.

“As far as I’m concerned I don’t believe these claims,” said Roelof Bruintjes, who heads the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s international weather modification programs. “There’s no scientific basis for this; the physics doesn’t support it.”

(Related: “Planes Create Weird Clouds—And Snow, Rain Fall Out.”)

While typical weather modification efforts—which began in the mid-20th century and continue in nations from the United States to China—make use of natural clouds and attempt to “seed” them to produce precipitation, Meteo Systems purports to create the clouds themselves.

Their system uses arrays of 33-foot (10-meter) electric towers that produce negatively charged ions, according to the company. These ions bind with tiny solid and liquid particles, supercharging the particles’ ability to form clouds and precipitation.

Joseph Golden, a weather modification expert who once chaired the now-defunct Atmospheric Modification Program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), also has serious doubts that the technique could work.

“This method is inherently incapable of producing clouds out of thin air,” Golden said.

(Related: “China’s Rain-Free Olympics Plan Met With Skepticism.”)

A Long History of Ionization

The Technical University of Munich’s Peter Wilderer, winner of the 2003 Stockholm Water Prize, said people have been attempting ionization techniques for decades.

"The ionization technology was first mentioned in 1890 by [Nikola] Tesla. In 1946 General Electric executed some field trials under the leadership of [Bernard] Vonnegut [brother of novelist Kurt Vonnegut]. Later the technology was used for military purposes in the former Soviet Union."

Wilder added that reviews of radar images suggested to him that ionization could possibly have some effect, under proper meteorological conditions. Despite press reports to the contrary, he has never personally witnessed any rainfall events produced by Meteo Systems.

Show Me the Data

NOAA’s Golden is interested in hearing much more from the scientists trying to make it rain in the desert.

“I put out a challenge to any of those that are involved in this project and making these claims. Show me the data,” he said.

There may be little chance of such transparency in the near-term, however, as Meteo Systems is closely guarding the secrets of the potentially valuable technology the company has dubbed “WEATHERTEC.”

Meteo Systems did not respond to calls and emails from National Geographic News.

The directors of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, who have been erroneously linked to the project via media reports, released a statement expressing “distress” that the scientific organization had been associated in any way with the work of Meteo Systems. They added that rainstorms were part of unusual weather patterns in the Middle East last summer.

“Our institute has no connection whatsoever to this work, nor have we been privy to the underlying evidence that the company is using to support its claims,” the statement said.

“We also note that many people have a financial stake in seeing these claims being credibly reported by the media, and that to the extent rain showers in the region were unusual this summer, they accompanied rather unusual weather patterns over the broader region, which certainly had nothing to do with the very localized experiments in Abu Dhabi. One only needs to be reminded of the terrible flooding over neighboring Pakistan.”

Playing God

NCAR’s Bruintjes noted that the UN-based World Meteorological Organization’s expert team on weather modification research met in Abu Dhabi in March 2010, and issued a report on the state of the science that cautioned against just this type of technology.

“The energy involved in weather systems is so large that it is impossible to create cloud systems that rain,” the WMO report read. “Weather modification technologies that claim to achieve such large-scale or dramatic effects do not have sound scientific basis (e.g. hail cannons, ionization methods) and should be treated with suspicion.”

Golden said people who are simply desperate to fool Mother Nature often pay for modification techniques that are unproven at best, including the hail cannons mentioned in the WMO report. “Farmers invest thousands of dollars in those cannons to suppress hail even though the scientific evidence is that they don’t work,” he said.

Bruintjes put his point bluntly: “The rotation of the Earth, the energy of the sun, and moisture from the oceans cause these things. None of us can change that, and it’s actually good that none of us can change that because we’d likely make a mess of it.”

Kenya Steps Ahead Into Solar Future

Photo courtesy of World Bank, IFC and Lighting Africa

 

For Africa’s poorest families, lighting is often the most expensive item in their budget, typically accounting for 10–15 percent of total household income. The energy poor in Africa spend about US$17 billion a year on fuel-based lighting sources.  To put the full energy sector in perspective, independent estimates place worldwide spending on fuel-based lighting in developing countries at $38 billion.
Beyond household use, commercial use of fuel-based lighting can have even more acute economic impacts. Fishermen on Lake Victoria in Kenya, for example, often spend half their income for the kerosene they use to fish at night. Yet, while consuming a large share of scarce income, fuel-based lighting provides little in return. Fuel-based lamps, such as kerosene lamps, are costly, inefficient, and provide poor lighting. The smoke they emit causes respiratory and eye problems, while the flames from kerosene lamps are responsible for thousands of severe burns among children every year, along with untold numbers of devastating house fires.
But many African countries are making strides to put fuel-based power behind them. Kenya, for example, as I discuss in an article this week posted on InterPVNet, has one of the largest and most dynamic per capita solar PV markets among developing countries, with over 300,000 households having installed solar PV systems since the mid-1980s. Since 2000, annual sales for these systems have regularly topped 15 percent, and they account for roughly 75 percent of all solar equipment sales in the country.  In addition, exciting and rapid developments in off-grid lighting with highly efficient long-lasting light emitting diodes (LED) lamps are also changing the set of options in formerly neglected markets.
The rapid spread of this off-grid green energy solution in a low-income country is all the more remarkable as it is propelled by unsubsidized market demand. With Kenya’s electricity grid largely dependent on expensive hydropower, only 5.2 percent of rural households use electricity, and most of these are relatively well-to-do.
Solar is a comparatively low-cost alternative, especially for families whose poverty puts grid-based electricity out of reach. Manufacturers and importers have noted the business opportunity and are coming up with products that they say will fill the gap. They are focusing on affordability, the green agenda, and renewability of power sources.
With Kenya’s government having set 2017 as a deadline for the country to make significant advances in green in power generation, the stage is set for the solar PV sector to deliver household systems to a national market that is intended to be able to absorb a million of them a year, according to the International Finance Corporation. An education campaign has also been launched to encourage people living in rural Kenya to adopt solar lighting.
Dubbed “Zonga Mble na Solar” (Stay ahead with solar), the campaign targets 13.5 million people, both households and small businesses, in rural Kenya. It shows how by switching from fuel- based lighting to modern, solar lighting rural people can improve their health, increase their savings—households typically spend about 10% of their income on kerosene— and benefit from better lighting and more productive time in their homes, schools and businesses.
“The main argument for people to switch from kerosene lamps to solar light is an improvement in their children’s health and education: the solar portable lights emit no fumes, and provide better illumination for studying. Longer producing hours for businesses is another winning argument,” says Nana Asamoah Manu, Country Officer for Lighting Africa, which is supporting the campaign.
The campaign, which runs to end of 2011, is staging road shows in market towns, to generate consumers’ interests in the solar portable lights that passed Lighting Africa quality tests. The road shows are attracting crowds of 300-500 people every evening, and are packed with product demonstrations, fun quiz, dance shows and a chance to try the solar lights. “People are enthusiastic,” says Nana, “but the major obstacle is the relatively high upfront cost of solar lights. Many families can afford to spend 20 to 50 shillings a day on kerosene, but are struggling to find 2000 shillings for a solar lamp.”
Lighting Africa, a joint IFC and World Bank program, is working with microfinance institutions to secure loans for rural households and businesses willing to buy solar lamps. The program is also exploring light rental schemes as another option. The program is implemented in partnership with the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP), among others.
Daniel Kammen’s posts appear here and on the Development in a Changing Climate blog at the World Bank, where he is chief technical specialist for renewable energy and energy efficiency. He is an adviser to National Geographic’s Great Energy Challenge initiative.

 

Tough Road to Getting LED Lights on the Streets

Ann Arbor, Michigan has been a leader in converting streetlights to LEDs, but the city has had to work out some kinks along the way.

Photograph by Tom Drew

By Josie Garthwaite

For National Geographic News

Published January 20, 2011

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

Power plants may not spring to mind during an evening stroll on a well-lit block, or when an overhead lamp burnout darkens a treacherous bend in the road. But power plants indeed provide much of the world's nightly abundance of electric light, usually by burning fossil fuel and adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere along with the glow. And cash-strapped cities foot the bill.

According to the Clinton Climate Initiative, street lighting accounts for a staggering 159 terawatt hours of electricity use worldwide each year. That's more than the annual output of three dozen 500-megawatt power plants. And although street lighting accounts for less than one percent of all electricity use in the United States (it's about 1.3 percent in the European Union), this comes at a hefty cost for cities. In some areas, street lights command upwards of 60 percent of municipal electricity spending.

So in tough economic times, municipalities have begun to pull the plug on inefficient lamps in favor of long-lasting, highly efficient light-emitting diode (LED) technology. In the United States, many of these projects have been supported by economic stimulus block grants for energy efficiency and conservation projects.

(Related: "On Edison Bulb’s Anniversary, a Lighting Breakthrough.")

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, LEDs could help communities save more than $750 million per year in energy costs, while also offering benefits like more uniform light distribution. Around the world, LEDs are lighting streets from Torraca, Italy, to Toronto, Canada, and from Tianjin, China, to Sydney, Australia. Yet, in the big picture, the Clinton Climate Initiative report notes "negligible" adoption of new lighting technologies by cities. When cities do seek to cut energy costs by converting old streetlights—many of which are non-metered and owned by the local utility—they often encounter a rocky road ahead.

Not Just Screwing in a New Light Bulb

LED streetlights cost more up front than incumbent high-pressure sodium, mercury vapor, and metal halide lights. Partly because the technology is changing quickly, long-term performance in real-world installations is also unproven. "There are a lot of unknowns in terms of maintenance," said Ed Henderson, who runs a system of 200,000 streetlights in southeast Michigan as manager of community lighting for utility DTE Energy.

Whereas replacing a traditional streetlight in DTE’s network is typically as simple as unscrewing a dead bulb and screwing in a new one, said Henderson, LEDs can come in a variety of packages, and they're changing all the time. "Like cell phones and flat screen TVs, there's an obsolescence factor," he said. "When we put an asset up there, we want it to be up there a long, long time." The more "one-off" or specialty installations, the more difficult maintenance becomes for a utility managing streetlights on a large scale, he said.

Yet reduced costs for energy and, crucially, maintenance over the working life of LED streetlights (as long as 10 years for some models) mean they can "pay for themselves" in seven years or less, depending on factors like wattage, electricity rates, and labor costs. "As long as the warranty is longer than the payback," said Andrew Brix, energy programs manager for Ann Arbor, Michigan (map), which expects a four- to five-year payback on LED streetlights with a seven-year warranty, "I'm happy."

Ann Arbor has worked to iron out the kinks of LED streetlight installations over the past few years. Back in 2007, the city drew national attention with plans to become the first U.S. city to convert all of its downtown streetlights to LED technology. Replacing 120-watt bulbs with 56-watt LEDs that were expected to last a decade instead of only two years, the project was projected to shrink the city's public lighting energy use by half, cut maintenance costs by about $85,000 per year and save another $15,000 in annual electricity costs, according to Ann Arbor’s estimates at the time.

Two years later, however, DTE was still billing Ann Arbor at the old rates—as though the LED streetlights were using as much energy as their less efficient predecessors. Since the lights weren't (and aren't) metered, charges were based on estimates, which in turn were based on the older technology.

Similar issues halted an LED streetlight project in nearby Jackson, Michigan, last year. Having determined that installing LED lights will not cut electricity bills until the local utility, Consumers Energy, develops a new rate, City Engineer Jon Dowling said Jackson has for the time being dropped plans to pursue the technology.

In Washington, D.C., by contrast, where a $1 million grant from the economic stimulus program, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will support installation of LEDs for more than 1,000 streetlights this year, the District's streetlight utility bills are based on the bulb's wattage. So according to John Lisle, spokesperson for the District Department of Transportation, D.C.'s selection of a 73-watt LED light to replace a 150-watt high-pressure sodium light, for example, will cut both energy use and costs by about 50 percent.

Low-Wattage Sticker Shock for Power Companies

Further complicating matters for ambitious LED streetlight supporters is the fact that many streetlights in U.S. cities (5,000 of Ann Arbor's 7,000 lamps, for example), are owned by the local utility, while the municipality pays for the electricity and operating costs. Because most utilities bring in money based on the amount of energy they sell, changing over to more efficient lamps would therefore reduce the utility's revenue.

This is where a policy known among energy and efficiency wonks as "decoupling" comes into play. In California and at least 12 other U.S. states, regulations have decoupled utility profits from electricity sales, creating a mechanism for utilities to make up for some of the revenue they would lose as electricity sales decline, and in some cases offering incentives for efficiency programs. California utility Pacific Gas & Electric offers rebates for LED installations and has established rates for different lamp types, a move that trade publication LEDs Magazine hailed in 2009 as "an example for utilities across North America."

(Related from National Geographic: "The 21st Century Grid")

In Michigan, the state utility regulator ultimately directed all Michigan utilities to put together a rate for LEDs. Today DTE Energy charges Ann Arbor rates based on the LED streetlights' expected energy use, under a larger category for experimental lighting technology. The utility credited the city for the lower energy use retroactive to the installation, and today Brix says the city has saved about $200,000 as a result of the downtown streetlight installation, combined with the first few months of additional LED streetlight projects throughout the city. "Getting billed properly for city-owned streetlights is important, but only accounts for one-fifth of the savings," said Brix. The rest comes from reduced maintenance costs.

Out of 7,000 streetlight fixtures citywide, Ann Arbor has about 1,400 LEDs, saving an estimated 350,000 kilowatt-hours per year—about equivalent to the amount of electricity used by 50 average Ann Arbor homes, according to Brix. Out of the 200,000 streetlights that DTE owns and operates throughout southeastern Michigan, about 1,000 use LEDs, said Henderson, noting a goal to bring that up to 4,000-8,000 (2-4 percent).

Back in 2007, the city approached DTE and said, "Hey, we want to do LEDs," Brix recalls. The utility "came back and said they needed to get their own hands-on experience with what was, at the time, still a pretty new technology," he said. "What has changed since then is that the industry is maturing and we have more standards and specifications we can rely on now, so that going forward we won't have to do those tests."

Much larger LED streetlight installations are in the works. San Francisco, California, for example, issued a request for proposals late last year to replace 18,500 high-pressure sodium "cobra-head" streetlights owned and maintained by the city and county. Looking to go beyond the basic benefits of greater efficiency and longer life, San Francisco envisions a wireless monitoring and control system being integrated into dimmable LED luminaires.

Henderson sees the capability for controls and dimming as an exciting part of the future of LED streetlights. Regarding late night and early morning dimming, he said, "Other parts of the world do that for energy savings," offering Paris as an example. "If people can get comfortable with that," electricity needs could be further reduced, and the LEDs would last even longer, he said.

For now, Ann Arbor still spends about $1.5 million annually on streetlights. Brix considers it "a big ask" to propose a new technology for utility-owned streetlights that would save the city money. "They need to be comfortable with it," he said. By the end of 2011, Brix said Ann Arbor expects to double its streetlight energy savings by installing 500 LED fixtures as replacements for high-wattage streetlights. And with a goal to bring streetlight costs below $1 million per year, said Brix, "we're just going to keep plugging away, putting in LEDs as soon as we've got the funding."