Category Archives: Environment

Greenhouse Gases Now Count as Maritime Pollution

The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea has ruled the greenhouse gas emissions can count towards damage to our oceans. Small island nations have praised the ruling because they are the most threatened by raising sea levels and the boiling of local waters. The ruling also shows how science can inform policy in a meaningful way because the court clearly understood how oceans absorb our emissions over time and lead to acidification and other problems.

This ruling is merely a step towards better protections of our common waters and it will only mean smoother sailing for future efforts.

What happened today was that the law and science met together in this tribunal, and both won,” said Cheryl Bazard, ambassador to the European Union of the Bahamas, one of nine Caribbean and Pacific island nations that sought the opinion.

Small island nations with scant economic power but acutely vulnerable to climate change have long felt neglected by successive global summits where pledges to cut carbon emissions have fallen far short of the minimum for limiting the worst effects of global warming.
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A similar potential precedent was laid down last month, when the European Court of Human Rights agreed with plaintiffs who argued that Switzerland was violating their human rights by not doing enough to combat climate warming.

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Cool Cities Have Botanical Gardens

If you live near a park you know that even a small amount of nature can cool the local environment, and you know that the bigger the park the more cool it is. In terms of a land-to-cooling-effect ratio certain types of parks are more efficient than others with the clear winner being a botanical garden. A simple playground with some trees can cool the local area by 2.9 degrees, a green roof can cool areas by 4.1 degrees, botanical gardens reduce outdoor temperature by 4.9 degrees! Any natural spaces can cool your neighbourhood so this summer get out there, plant some plants, and make your city a cooler place.

From a pool of more than 27,000 research papers, the researchers selected 202 for meta-analysis based on a number of urban green-blue-grey infrastructure categories – including parks, engineered greening projects, wetlands, green walls, parks and botanical gardens.

Trees and plants, for example, help reduce heat by reducing the amount of direct sunlight reaching the ground, while also releasing moisture into the air. Water bodies cool the surrounding environment via “evapotranspiration, shading, the albedo effect, groundwater recharge and temperature buffering” and could also serve as heatsinks, cooling during daylight hours and offering warming potential at night. Green roofs and walls not only help insulate buildings, but also reduce heat absorption, and vegetation can serve as windbreaks for natural ventilation.

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eBikes are Killing the Oil Industry

This Earth Day it’s good to reflect on one’s own love for the planet Earth. If you want to express your love and appreciation for this ball of rock and air that orbits then Sun then you should ride a bike everyday. If an ordinary bike isn’t your style then you may want to consider an ebike. The future of our built environment will be about two wheels instead of four, and this can’t happen too enough. Thankfully the rise of ebikes is bringing us that future by getting people to ditch their lethal four wheel machines for better two wheeled solutions. Indeed, the oil industry may come to end sooner than projected because ebikes are lowering demand for gasoline!

If taken up, electric micromobility can cut urban emissions. A study of e-scooter riders in the United Kingdom found these trips produced up to 45 percent less carbon dioxide than alternatives.

US researchers estimate that if e-bike trips expanded to 11 percent of all vehicle trips, transport emissions would fall by about 7 percent.

As petrol prices increase and battery prices fall, the cheaper running costs of electric vehicles and even cheaper running costs of electric mopeds, bikes, and scooters will keep eating away at the demand for oil.

Global oil demand is now projected to peak in 2028 at 105.7 million barrels per day—and then begin to fall, according to the International Energy Agency.

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Floating Flowers Clean Pollution in Waterways

Industrial farming, golf courses, and some industries all contribute an incredible amount of nutrient runoff that enters our waterways. This influx of unexpected nutrients can cause algae blooms and otherwise damage the local ecosystem. To combat this damage from runoff a team from the Florida International University created a floating platform that allows flowers to grow while not flooding out their root systems. The flowers they have chosen to grow are ones that are in demand so they can be sold commercially to fund more floating flowers. This is a novel idea that looks promising and they are already looking to expand the project.

We floated 4-by-6-foot (1.2-by-1.8-meter) mats of inexpensive polyethylene foam called Beemats in 620-gallon (2,300-liter) outdoor test tanks that mirrored water conditions of nearby polluted waterways. Into the mats, we transplanted flower seedlings, including zinnias, sunflowers, and giant marigolds. The polluted tank water was rich in nutrients, eliminating the need for any fertilizer. As the seedlings matured into plants over 12 weeks, we tracked the tanks’ improving water quality.

Encouraged by the success of the marigolds in our tanks, we moved our trials to the nearby canals of Coral Gables and Little River. We anchored the floating platforms with 50-pound (22.7-kilogram) weights and also tied them to shore for extra stability. No alterations to the landscape were needed, making the process simple and doable.

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Paris Triples Parking Fees for SUVs

Paris is undergoing a transportation revolution that champions the movement of people over the movement of vehicles and the most recent change was put to the people of the city. Citizens of Paris have voted to triple parking fees for heavy, road destroying, SUVs that take up more space than comparable vehicles. The increase in fees makes sense due to the harm caused by the large machines in urban settings. Hopefully other cities will copy Paris and make road users pay for the share of the road they consume.

City hall has further pointed to safety concerns about taller, heavier SUVs, which it says are “twice as deadly for pedestrians as a standard car” in an accident. The vehicles are also singled out for taking up more public space – whether on the road or while parked – than others. Paris officials say the average car has put on 250 kilograms (550 pounds) since 1990. Hidalgo, whose city will host the 2024 Olympics this summer, rarely misses a chance to boast of the environmental credentials of the town hall and its drive to drastically reduce car use in the center.

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