Planetary Ruin

If you’ve ever been on a road trip, you’ve probably seen this sight at a rest stop: one, or many big rig trucks, just…idling. Not going anywhere. What is this, like a computer on “sleep,” ready to go? No. The answer may surprise you. At least in the US, truck drivers are required to rest 10 hours for every 11 driven. A reasonable thing, but this often necessitates them sleeping in their cabins. And that requires power for the heating or cooling, and other comforts of “home” on the road. Power that comes from a running truck.

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On days when there is a lot of dust and other large-particle pollutants in the air, slightly more elderly people go to hospital emergency rooms with heart problems, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

There was also an increase in hospital visits by elderly patients complaining of respiratory illnesses when “coarse,” or large, particle pollution was plentiful, although the rise was not significant, the researchers said.

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An article in the San Jose Mercury News tells us that it takes a gallon of oil just to make a toner cartridge.

That wouldn’t be so bad if we didn’t discard 8 empty cartridges a second in the U.S. And if it didn’t take 450 years for one to decompose.

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A toxic gas present in air pollution and tobacco smoke plays a significant role in triggering tuberculosis infection, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

The UAB study focused on carbon monoxide (CO), a colorless, odorless gas present in tobacco smoke, and vehicle and manufacturing plant emissions. Also, CO is produced naturally in brushfires and volcanic gas.

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Every month when I see the magazine Seed in my mailbox I can’t wait to sit down and read it. This month I found a DVD inside the magazine with the oil company Shell’s short movie, Clearing the Air on it. My attention peaked, and I watched the movie.

Clearing the Air is a fictional account of the development of gas to liquid (GTL) or liquid natural gas (LNG). The
California Energy Commission defines LNG as “fuels that can be produced from natural gas, coal, and biomass using a Fischer-Tropsch chemical reaction process.” However, in the movie LNG is used to refer to converting natural gas into liquid for fuel.

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Every month when I see the magazine Seed in my mailbox I can’t wait to sit down and read it. This month I found a DVD inside the magazine with the oil company Shell’s short movie, Clearing the Air on it. My attention peaked, and I watched the movie.

Clearing the Air is a fictional account of the development of gas to liquid (GTL) or liquid natural gas (LNG). The
California Energy Commission defines LNG as “fuels that can be produced from natural gas, coal, and biomass using a Fischer-Tropsch chemical reaction process.” However, in the movie LNG is used to refer to converting natural gas into liquid for fuel.

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New research shows increased temperatures and carbon dioxide levels are a threat to the Australian national icon, the koala.

Professor Ian Hume, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, and his students from the University of Sydney have been researching the effects of CO2 increases and temperature rises on eucalypts.

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A new company hopes drivers will kick the oil habit by brewing ethanol at home that won’t spike food prices.

E-Fuel Corp unveiled on Thursday the “MicroFueler” touting it as the world’s first machine that allows homeowners to make their own ethanol and pump the brew directly into their cars.

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HIGH gasoline prices could lead to a dramatic saving in US greenhouse-gas emissions. That’s the conclusion of economists in the US, who suggest high fuel prices are turning consumers off SUVs and onto smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles.

What’s more, car owners are predicted to cut back on driving in order to save money. Together, these changes in consumer behaviour could make an important dent in the US contribution to global warming, reducing annual carbon dioxide emissions by tens of millions of tonnes per year. The impact will be dramatic, says Chris Knittel, an economist at the University of California, Davis, who was involved in one of the studies.

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This summer’s Beijing Olympics will be “basically” carbon neutral thanks to a series of energy saving measures such as the use of solar power and an afforestation program, a senior official said on Thursday.

Technology Minister Wan Gang said that the event was expected to generate 1.18 million tonnes of carbon, in part because so many athletes and spectators were traveling long distances.

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