The internet is ruining the environment?

All my music, email, pictures, blog posts, etc. are stored in "the cloud" these days, and before I read the article below, I never really thought much about it. Turns out that "the cloud" is a giant blight on the environment.

Power, Pollution and the Internet

Most data centers [aka the physical homes of "the cloud"], by design, consume vast amounts of energy in an incongruously wasteful manner...Online companies typically run their facilities at maximum capacity around the clock, whatever the demand. As a result, data centers can waste 90 percent or more of the electricity they pull off the grid...To guard against a power failure, they further rely on banks of generators that emit diesel exhaust. The pollution from data centers has increasingly been cited by the authorities for violating clean air regulations, documents show. In Silicon Valley, many data centers appear on the state government’s Toxic Air Contaminant Inventory, a roster of the area’s top stationary diesel polluters. Worldwide, the digital warehouses use about 30 billion watts of electricity, roughly equivalent to the output of 30 nuclear power plants, [and]...data centers in the United States account for one-quarter to one-third of that load, the estimates show.

Energy efficiency varies widely from company to company. But at the request of The Times, the consulting firm McKinsey & Company analyzed energy use by data centers and found that, on average, they were using only 6 percent to 12 percent of the electricity powering their servers to perform computations. The rest was essentially used to keep servers idling and ready in case of a surge in activity that could slow or crash their operations.

Even running electricity at full throttle has not been enough to satisfy the industry. In addition to generators, most large data centers contain banks of huge, spinning flywheels or thousands of lead-acid batteries — many of them similar to automobile batteries — to power the computers in case of a grid failure as brief as a few hundredths of a second, an interruption that could crash the servers. 

So like, the more I blog, the more we all die? That's...not good at all. Sorry about that, folks!

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Day 4: complete. It's Friday. Yay.

Not dead, just restin'

Hello, friends and strangers. It was recently brought to my attention that I haven't been doomsday prophesying very much at all this year. Rest assured I haven't stopped reading about horrible things; I've just stopped writing about them. Things are busy, you know. I got promoted at work, my car got covered in tar, and to get it off I had to coat the entire thing with peanut butter and then rinse it off (which took even longer than you might expect), I've joined a bunch of "sports" leagues, as well as a wine tasting club, and now I'm thinking about moving, or maybe even buying a place. But those are all excuses and distractions from the real meat of this post, which is supposed to be a bunch of links to articles that recently caught my attention.

As I'm sure the world is clamoring for more of my overreactions to things that I read, I won't make any further ado.

1. The bees are still dying in droves. It might be due to pesticides. You should worry because we need the bees to pollinate our food!

Annual bee losses of 5 percent to 10 percent once were the norm for beekeepers. But after colony collapse disorder surfaced around 2005, the losses approached one-third of all bees, despite beekeepers’ best efforts to ensure their health.Nor is the impact limited to beekeepers. The Agriculture Department says a quarter of the American diet, from apples to cherries to watermelons to onions, depends on pollination by honeybees. Fewer bees means smaller harvests and higher food prices.

Related: Beekeepers are suing the EPA over insecticides.

A year after groups formally petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), four beekeepers and five environmental and consumer groups filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court against the agency for its failure to protect pollinators from dangerous pesticides.  The coalition, represented by attorneys for the Center for Food Safety (CFS), seeks suspension of the registrations of insecticides that have repeatedly been identified as highly toxic to honey bees, clear causes of major bee kills and significant contributors to the devastating ongoing mortality of bees known as colony collapse disorder (CCD).  The suit challenges EPA’s ongoing handling of the pesticides as well as the agency’s practice of “conditional registration” and labeling deficiencies.

2. Speaking of modern farming ruining everything, toxic algae bloomed like crazy all over Lake Erie in 2011 because the lake was overloaded with phosphorous and other nutrients from fertilizer and other agricultural runoff. Apparently, we can expect similar events in the future if farming practices aren't changed.

In 2011, Lake Erie experienced the largest algae bloom in its recorded history. At its peak in October, the mat of green scum on the lake’s surface was nearly four inches thick and covered an area of almost 2,000 square miles. That’s three times larger than any other bloom in the lake, ever. Plus it was toxic. Now research shows that such an event may become increasingly common.

3. A vial containing a virus that can cause hemorrhagic fever has gone missing from a research facility in Galveston. Let me repeat that: a vial containing a virus that can cause hemorrhagic fever has gone missing from a research facility in Galveston. Oh hey, where'd I put that hemorrhagic fever? I hope it's not at the bottom of my purse with my car keys.

4. Oh man, did you know that Visine, if swallowed, acts as a neurotoxin?

Used as directed, [eyedrops] may indeed give you that clear-eyed look but that’s mostly due to the constriction of blood vessels in the eye. Internally they also induce vasoconstriction (as Toxnet calls it).  The resulting symptoms...include rapid heart beat, nausea, blurred vision, drowsiness, convulsions. The Toxnet entry, based partly on cases of children who  swallowed a bottle of eyedrops or nosedrops left carelessly on a table or counter,  notes that “drowsiness and mild coma” often alternate with periods of thrashing and hyperactivity.

Remind me to keep eyedrops out of the reach of anyone who might be mad at me.

5. "Just because shit is depressing or horrible, doesn’t mean you can’t laugh about it with blood in your mouth." Natalie Dee is awesome.

6. Cow pee spreads antibiotic resistance through the soil. Chew on that. Or don't.

7. Venice flooded like crazy late last year. Is this a portent for the world to come? Survey (of me only) says yes.

8. No more letting Timmy chew on the dirt! Seems like lead is getting into kids' blood, from the soil.

While homeowners have learned over the years how to better manage old, peeling lead paint, the lead that was in gasoline was deposited on the ground and is still scattered throughout soils in many postindustrial U.S. cities. Kids still play in that dirt, and little kids may even eat it on occasion.

In a February paper published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, McElmurry and a team of economists and urban health specialists argue that the seasonal fluctuation of children's blood lead levels seen in industrial cities like Detroit indicate that kids are exposed to lead from contaminated soil that turns into airborne dust in the summertime.

Boston was mentioned in the article, so I'm especially alarmed at this one. I'm glad I don't have a kid...I'd be terrified about him or her breathing the air during summer!

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It's Friday, yay.

755 out of 500!

Have you guys seen the news out of Beijing lately? No? That's probably because it got trapped in the crazy smog that is shrouding the city. Over the course of January, Beijing (along with its environs) has been repeatedly shrouded in a giant cloud of smog, which has degraded the air quality to a startling extent. A few weeks ago, the U.S. Embassy recorded an Air Quality Index of 755, on a scale of 0 to 500, where 500 is Hella Bad (my words), and above 500 is not even defined. The EPA calls any AQI above 301 "hazardous," as in "don't go outside; breathing is bad for you out there." According to The Atlantic, things got even more off-the-charts bad later in the month:

At the height of recent pollution, Beijing authorities said readings for PM2.5 -- particles small enough deeply to penetrate the lungs -- hit 993 micrograms per cubic metre, almost 40 times the World Health Organization's safe limit.

At least 19 days in January featured hazardous air, and on January 29, thick smog covered almost one seventh of China. This, as you can imagine, caused major traffic chaos on highways and severe disruptions in air traffic. The smog got so bad that the Chinese media actually started reporting on it, an occurrence that itself was so newsworthy that the New York Times wrote a whole article about it. Hospital admissions for respiratory conditions have spiked dramatically.

The Atlantic published a series of startling photographs today of the smog, some of which show the same exact area of Beijing on a normal day and a smoggy day. My jaw dropped when I saw some of the pictures. No wonder The Atlantic called the series "China's Toxic Sky".

Captions mine

And I thought driving in LA was bad...

This plane ACTUALLY TOOK OFF

Perhaps not surprisingly, air purifiers in Beijing are apparently going for about $2000 a pop. That's communism for you!

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Want to know where in the world the worst air pollution in the world is? This slightly out-of-date chart from NASA should help. Hint: It's China.

In which I reveal that the idea for this blog was stolen from my 14-year-old self

While shelving some books on my bookshelf this morning I (re)discovered my 9th grade current events journal from the fall of 1995, and I immediately abandoned my tidying task to peruse the little time capsule. Reading through the current events I chose to chronicle, I (re)realized that the journal is basically a paper version of this blog.* Take, for example, the following entry from 10/26/95:**

Each of the entries in this journal end with a paragraph about how the story affects me, which was clearly part of the assignment. I often interpreted this part of the assignment as "this affects me because it could happen to me and I could die."

It's like I set the stage for this blog 17 years ago! It's nice to know I still have a teenage enthusiasm for the world.

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*I had had these epiphanies for the first time last December, when I discovered for the first time that I had this journal in my apartment. I read aloud many of my favorite entries to Jessie and Evan, who were visiting me at the time, and we all agreed my 14-year-old self was pretty much a direct predecessor of my current self, but also a cheeky little bastard. That last part didn't stick with me over time. Ahem. Right?
**Sorry about the somewhat low quality of the pictures. I took them with my new cellphone (!I am finally free from my old crappy phone!) under sub-optimal lighting conditions.

Well, I think i know what my next bedtime reading will be...

I think I'm a little too excited to read the latest Global Risks report from the World Economic Forum.

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P.S. Isn't this neat?:

Click to enlarge.

Friday! Links and random thoughts

1. Oh hai, Germany. I'm in ur food killin ur peeple.  E. ColiLOL. (Oh god, and I just ate raw cucumbers, raw tomatoes, and raw lettuces yesterday. I hope they weren't secretly imported from Europe!)

2.  For the record, this all-natural deodorant from Tom's of Maine DOES NOT WORK.  I really gave it a go, but I'm back to the poisonous kind for now...it's just so blissfully effective.

3. Why help the environment? Polluting is so cheap!

4. DYSTOPIA HERE WE COME.

And finally, the piece de resistance:

5. Everything you ever wanted to know about accidentally setting someone covered in gas on fire. Short of the story: you can't do it. Long of the story: Some scientists did an experiment proving it. From the abstract:

Thirty nine (39) ignition attempts that involved exposing lit commercial cigarettes, hand-rolled cigarettes and cannabis resin joints to petrol vapour were undertaken; ignition was not achieved in any of the scenarios. In addition, a single attempt to ignite petrol vapour emanating from a pool of liquid fuel was effected with a smouldering piece of cannabis resin; no ignition occurred.

And there's a visual aid!

Happy Friday.

More dangers of air pollution...

Evidently, living closer to more roads (and hence being exposed to more car exhaust and other related pollutants) is associated with higher levels of pre-term birth. Isn't that just swell!*

Me and my only slightly pre-term nephew, who I met for the first time yesterday!

*Caveat: The actual conclusion from the article is as follows: "This effect may be due to the chemical toxins in traffic pollutants, or because of disturbed sleep due to traffic noise."

I wonder if women in Los Angeles give birth earlier, on average, than women living in less polluted areas of the country?

Some things to think about this Friday

• One man's opinions on the evils of Facebook. And another's.
  
• An interesting perspective on the "debate" over good (read: organic, non-pesticidey) food. This makes me mad - why is there any kind of "debate" about whether we should be poisoning people or not? Related.
  
• At least half of Americans breathe dangerously polluted air.  Guess who's been living in one of the most polluted areas for the past five years? This girl. I've already talked about air pollution here and here, but if you want to know more awful things about it, click here!
  
• 10 billion people on earth by the end of the century? That can't end well...
  
• Chernobyl is still emitting radiation. But it's not all bad news--biodiversity has increased tremendously in the Chernobyl area ever since they bulldozed everything and moved people out.  Except oh, deformities.
• This cat is as loud as a vacuum cleaner!
• Last but not least, have we passed peak oil? A neat perspective:

And you thought traffic was simply annoying

Remember when I posted a study suggesting that breathing might kill you?  Well, it turns out it might also (or alternately) give you brain damage.  Breathing in traffic, that is.

A study recently published in the journal Environmental Health and reported on in Time and the Los Angeles Times has discovered that freeway air pollution can cause brain damage in mice.

(Ain't that just swell, says the girl living in the city of a million freeways.)

In the study in question, researchers at USC exposed mouse-brain cells in test tubes and live mice to air laced with nanoparticles akin to those resulting from "burning fossil fuels and bits of car parts and weathered pavements" (to quote Time). These nanoparticles are truly nano, perhaps one-thousandth the width of a human hair. You can't see them, and more jarringly, your car can't filter them out of the air you're breathing. After only 10 weeks and 150 hours, "Both the in vitro brain cells and the neurons in the live mice showed similar problems, including signs of inflammation associated with Alzheimer's disease and damage to cells associated with learning and memory" (quoting Time again).

One of the major concerns coming out of this research is for the development of  children living and attending school near highways.  For not only could young people's brain functioning be altered by the nanoparticles constantly found in the air they breathe, but freeway pollution may be in part responsible for autism, and lung development could be stunted by breathing pollution as well.  And that's just what I found out by clicking on USC press releases. Imagine what researchers at other schools are discovering about the dangers of breathing!

What's to be done?  To quote the team that looked at the mouse brains, "That's a huge unknown."

I suppose not living in Los Angeles, Phoenex or Bakersfield would be a good start. Also, stay away from China.

And if you live near a freeway, think about moving! 

(Or I suppose you could look into these attractive partial solutions offered by Amazon.com.)

We're all Gonna Die presents: The Top 10 Environmental Disasters of All Time, brought to you by TIME

Someone at Time Inc. apparently really likes making top ten lists. (Side note: how do I get that job?) Happily (by which I mean horrifically), one that I stumbled upon yesterday seems ideal fodder for this blog, so I shall re-post it here as filler while I work on my next book recommendation.

Without further ado, let's explore the TOP 10 ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTERS....as of May 2010.*  (Okay, a little more ado...I do want to clarify, because Time does not, that these are the top 10 man-made disasters. So of course we should be extra terrified.)

1. Chernobyl: 1986 explosion of a nuclear power plant in Ukraine "that sent massive amounts of radiation into the atmosphere, reportedly more than the fallout from Hiroshima and Nagasaki." (Side note: A recent episode of This American Life has some strikingly sad stories about the fallout from Chernobyl. (Pun intended?))
2. Bhopal: 1984 accident at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India that resulted in 45 tons of poisonous methyl isocyanate escaping from the facility, killing 15,000 and affecting more than half a million people.
   
3. Kuwaiti Oil Fires: In 1991, Saddam Hussein sent men to blow up Kuwaiti oil wells, and approximately 600 were set ablaze.  The resulting fires, "literally towering infernos," burned for seven months. Writes Time, "The Gulf was awash in poisonous smoke, soot and ash. Black rain fell. Lakes of oil were created."
   
4. Love Canal: In the 1940's and 1950's, a company near Niagara Falls, NY buried 1,000 tons of toxic industrial waste under the town of Love Canal. Subsequently, a town was unwittingly built on top of the waste dump, and "over the years, the waste began to bubble up into backyards and cellars." By 1978, the problem was so bad that hundreds of families had to sell their homes to the government and evacuate the area.
5. The Exxon Valdez: In 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground Alaska's Prince William Sound, spilling 10.8 million gallons of oil into the water.  This disaster taught schoolchildren (like me at the time) that dish detergent could clean oil off animals. Also, oil spills are bad.
6. Tokaimura Nuclear Plant: 1999 nuclear accident in a facility northeast of Tokyo, Japan, which was the result of workers improperly mixing a uranium solution. I suspect that the newer Japanese nuclear explosion might top this one, but we may never know since Time has already made its "Top 10 environmental disasters" list.
7. The Aral Sea: In the 1960's, the Soviet Union ill-advisedly started piping water out of the Aral Sea. By 2010, the Aral had shrunk 90%, and, writes Time, "what was once a vibrant, fish-stocked lake is now a massive desert that produces salt and sandstorms that kill plant life and have negative effects on human and animal health for hundreds of miles around. Scores of large boats sit tilted in the sand — a tableau both sad and surreal." I hate to say it, but this kind of reminds me of what Easter Island did to itself...
8. Seveso Dioxin Cloud: 1976 explosion at an Italian chemical plant that released a giant cloud of dioxin that settled on the town of Seveso.  Writes Time, "First, animals began to die...One farmer saw his cat keel over, and when he went to pick up the body, the tail fell off. When authorities dug the cat up for examination two days later, said the farmer, all that was left was its skull." Today, there are giant underground tanks that "hold the remains of hundreds of slaughtered animals."
9. Minamata Disease: This is the one that terrifies me the most, possibly because of the coverage of the disease in The Cove, and partly because I think we are all contaminated with Mercury these days. Minamata Disease is the result of "industrial poisoning of Minamata Bay by the Chisso Corp.....As a result of wastewater pollution by the plastic manufacturer, large amounts of mercury and other heavy metals found their way into the fish and shellfish that comprised a large part of the local diet. Thousands of residents have slowly suffered over the decades and died from the disease." Mercury is BAD NEWS, people. Bad. News.
   
10. Three Mile Island: 1979 partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor near near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I think this one made Time's list only because it happened in America. To quote the listmaker, "The ironic thing is that while it has become known as one of America's worst nuclear accidents, nothing much really happened. No one died, and the facility itself is still going strong." Time, may I suggest you replace this with something more dire?

If you think this list of the top 10 environmental disasters is in the wrong order, Time invites you to create your own list of horrible tragedies. Fun for the whole family!

The Aral "Sea"

 *Full disclosure: I'm pretty sure Time magazine just picked ten (mostly) horrific disasters to talk about; there's certainly no guarantee that more horrible things haven't happened.

Breathing might kill you

Scientists in Belgium recently published a study connecting air pollution to heart attacks.

From a Reuters article on the study:

Sex, anger, marijuana use and chest or respiratory infections and can...trigger heart attacks to different extents...but air pollution, particularly in heavy traffic, is the major culprit.

I guess I'll try to hold my breath next time I'm on the 405.