Solutions to Environment Threats - Nitrogen Cycle

Robert Howarth, professor of ecology and environment biology, Cornell university.

Human activity has greatly altered the flow of nitrogen across the globe. The single largest contributor is fertilizer use. But the burning of fossil fuels actually dominates the problem in some regions, such as northeastern US. The solution in that case is to conserve energy and use it more efficiently. Hybrid vehicles are another excellent fix; their nitrogen emissions are significantly less than the traditional vehicles because their engines turn off when the vehicle is stopped. (Emissions from the conventional vehicles actually rise when the engine is idling.) Nitrogen emissions from U.S. power plants could be greatly reduced, too, if plants that predate the Clean Air Act and its amendments were required to comply; these plants pollute far out of proportion to the amount of electricity they produce.

In agriculture, many farmers could less fertilizer, and the reductions in crop yields would be small or nonexistent. Runoff from corn fields is particularly avoidable because corn’s roots penetrate only the top few inches of soil and assimilate nutrients for only two months of the year. In addition, nitrogen losses can be reduced by 30 percent or more if farmers plant winter crops, such as rye or wheat, which can help the soil hold nitrogen. These corps also increase carbon sequestration in soils, mitigating climate change. Better yet to grow perennial plants such as grasses rather than corn; nitrogen losses are many times lower.

Nitrogen pollution from concentrated animals feeding operations (CAFOs) is a huge problem. As recently as the 1970s, most animals were fed local corps, and animals’ wastes were returned to the fields as fertilizer. Today most U.S. animals are fed crops growing hundreds of miles away, making it “uneconomical” to return the manure. The solution? Require CAFO owners to treat their wastes, just as municipalities must do with the human wastes. Further, if we ate less meat, less waste would be generated and less synthetic fertilizer would be needed to grow animal feed. Eating meat from animals that are range-fed on perennial grasses would be idea.

The explosives growth in the production in the production of ethanol as a biofuel is greatly aggravating nitrogen pollution. Several studies have suggested that if mandated U.S. ethanol targets are met, the amount of nitrogen flowing down the Mississippi River and fueling the Gulf of Mexico dead zone may increase by 30 to 40 percent. The best alternative would be to forgo the production of ethanol from corn. If the country wants to rely on biofuels, it should instead grow grasses and trees and burn these to co-generate heat and electricity; nitrogen pollution and greenhouse gas emission would be much lower.

Solutions to Environmental Threats – Biodiversity Loss

Gretchen C. Daily, professor of environmental science, Stanford University.

It is time to confront the hard with that traditional approaches to conversion, takes alone, are doomed to fail. Nature reserves are too small, too few, too isolated and too subject to change to support more than a tiny fraction of Earth’s biodiversity. The challenge is to make conversion attractive – from economic and cultural perspectives. We cannot go on treating nature like an all-you-can-eat buffet.

We depend on nature for food security, clean water, climate stability, seafood, timber, and other biological and physical services. To maintain these benefits, we need not just remote reserves but places everywhere – more like “ecosystem service stations”.

A few pioneers are integrating conservation and human development. The Costa Rican government is paying landowners for ecosystem services from tropical forests, including carbon offsets, hydropower construction, biodiversity conservation and scenic beauty. China is investing $ 100 billion in “ecocompensation”, including innovative policy and finance mechanisms that reward conservation and restoration. The country is also creating “ecosystem function conservation areas” that make up 18 percent of its land area. Colombia and South Africa have made dramatic policy changes, too.

Three advantages would help the rest of the world scale such models of success. One: new science and tools to value and account for natural capital, in biophysical, economic and other terms. For example, the Natural Capital Project has developed inVEST software that integrates valuation of ecosystem services with trade-offs, which governments and corporations can use in planning land and resource use and infrastructure development. Two: compelling demonstrations of such tools in resource policy. Three: cooperation among governments, development organisations and communities to help nations build more durable economies which also maintaining critical ecosystems services.

Cataclysmic pole shift hypothesis

The cataclysmic pole shift hypothesis is the conjecture that the axis of rotation of a planet has undergone relatively rapid shifts in location, creating calamities such as massive floods and large scale tectonic events.This type of event would occur if the physical poles had been or would be suddenly shifted with respect to the underlying surface over a geologically short time frame.

Among the scientific community, the evidence shows that no rapid shifts in the pole have occurred during the last 200 million years. True polar wander is known to occur, but only at rates of 1° per million years or less. The last rapid shift in the poles may have occurred 800 million years ago, when the supercontinent Rodinia still existed. This hypothesis is almost always discussed in the context of Earth, but other bodies in the Solar System may have experienced axial reorientation during their existences.

A pole shift is sometimes confused with a pole reversal, in which the magnetic poles switch places, so that north becomes south and vice-versa. From studying the magnetism of ancient rocks, scientists have learned that pole reversals have occurred at irregular intervals throughout the Earth's history, on average about once every 300,000 years. The last was about 780,000 years ago. According to University of California professor Gary Glatzmaier, who has modeled the phenomenon with a supercomputer, pole reversals are the result of the movement of molten iron in the Earth's outer core, which can cause twists in the planet's magnetic field. Pole reversals take place over thousands of years, during which time magnetic poles can show up in strange places — the magnetic north pole, for example, might suddenly show up on the island of Tahiti in the Pacific. Recently, some have pointed to magnetic field disturbances an area known as the South Atlantic Anomaly as a possible sign of an upcoming pole reversal — which conceivably could even occur in 2012, to the likely delight of apocalyptic believers — though scientists warn that it is not likely. If a pole reversal did happen, according to Stanford University geophysicist Norm Sleep, it might cause some strange phenomena. Auroras would be visible at the equator instead of the poles, compasses would cease to be reliable, and radio transmissions would be adversely effected. Cosmic rays might pierce the Earth's atmosphere more easily. Overall, though, life would still go on.

A physical pole shift, in contrast, would be triggered by uneven weight distribution in the Earth's interior or somewhere upon its surface, such as the formation of a giant volcano far from the equator. In theory, the force of the Earth's rotation would pull the heavy object away from the axis around which the planet spins. If that weight became sufficiently imbalanced, the Earth would tilt and rotate itself until the weight was redistributed near the equator. In the process, entire continents might shift from the tropics to the Arctic, at a rate far faster than the continents normally drift due to plate tectonics.

The potentially catastrophic effects of a planetary weight imbalance was contemplated as far back as 1842 by French mathematician Joseph Adhémar, who believed that erosion of the polar ice cap could cause the ice to suddenly collapse into the ocean, shifting the Earth's center of gravity and causing a massive tsunami that would wreak widespread carnage. In the 1870s, scientists developed the theory that periodic pole shifts due to the rise of new continents were the cause of ice ages. Astronomer and mathematician George Darwin — whose father, Charles, developed the evolutionary theory of natural selection — ultimately disproved that explanation by calculating that a land mass one-quarter the size of the Northern Hemisphere would have to rise 10,000 feet out of the sea — the height of the Tibetan plateau, the highest spot on Earth — just to move the pole by one-and-half degrees.

Semprius, Siemens enter agreement for solar technology development

Semprius and Siemens Industry have entered into a joint development agreement to co-develop plug-and-play demonstration systems based on Semprius’ solar module arrays and Siemens’ automation and control components. The systems will be installed at test sites around the world, including major utilities, commercial sites, international test locations and government facilities.

Siemens will integrate its components with Semprius PV module arrays, and together the companies will implement the test systems to validate performance of the combined technologies.

“Our PV module arrays will make the generation of solar power economically viable in clear, sunny climates found in many parts of the world,” said Joe Carr, Semprius president and CEO. “We are excited about teaming with Siemens to demonstrate the value of this technology.”

“Competitive project deployment cost for CPV will be the key for the success of this technology. Combining Siemens’ advanced automation and control equipment with Semprius Module Arrays has the potential to deliver electricity at grid level prices to both industrial and utility scale customers,” said Peter Krause, business segment manager at Siemens.