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Water Pollution-Have Another Closer Look

By Raveendran Nambyar

Nutrients can be used to supplement fresh water. If done, water plants show abnormal increase in growth, and this artificial process is eutrophication. Excess nutrients in water will cause damages. The water body will be overwhelmed with organic substances. And the micro-organisms in water are over powered by organic matter, and this causes rapid growth of algae. This contributes more to already present organic wastes in water. The dissolved oxygen is totally depleted from the water. Consequently ‘anaerobic’ organisms take possession of organic wastes and release methane gas and hydrogen sulphide. These gases are harmful to aerobic forms of life. Aerobic forms need oxygen to survive. The water body produces bad odor and causes suffocation. The foul-smell spreads around the entire region, reminding us, citizens, our civic responsibilities. Individuals feel helplessness, but a collective effort can and will produce some results.

Extensive use of chemicals and fertilizers by farmers, especially nitrate and pesticides cause ground water pollution. Unaware of this leaching process, the farmers continue to contribute to our ground water contamination.

Indiscriminate disposal of domestic and industrial sewage add insult to injury. Chemical compounds are in abundance in the industrial waste water. These can easily be identified. And so are toxic wastes and organic pollutants. Food products industries and chemical industries hold a major share in abusing the water body, denying a healthy normal life for the mankind.

Energy and the Environment - Nearly 90% of Global Warming Gas Emissions Are CO2

By Larry Butz

The global community is responding with actions lead by the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to reduce emissions of global warming gases. Nearly 90% of global warming gas emissions are CO2, which are primarily from the use of fossil fuels for energy. The focus on energy will undoubtedly continue to increase. Throughout the world different methods are being used to encourage reduced energy use. Japan has enacted the Energy Conservation Law in 1999. The U.S. has revised ASHRAE Standard 90.1 to raise the minimum COP level for centrifugal chillers from the current value of 5.2 to 6.1 effective in October of this year. A growing number of countries are using environmental costing which includes an estimated cost for resource depletion and environmental deterioration.
Although such fees to discourage pollution were first proposed in 1920 they did not see widespread application until 1990 when Finland implemented the first carbon tax.

At present there are more than 30 countries that have some type of carbon tax in effect.
Environmental accounting (or costing) is a broader term than just a carbon tax on energy. For example, subsidies being provided to energy producing industries are a form of negative tax. Removal of such subsidies has the same effect as a carbon tax, which is to raise the price of energy to the user. Such methods make more energy efficient alternatives more financially attractive.

In the recently released “OECD Environmental Strategy for the First Decade of the 21st Century” the goal is to include “cuts to energy, farm and other subsidies so prices more accurately reflect environmental impacts”. China, the U.K., India, Indonesia and Thailand are countries that have recently eliminated subsidies to parts of their energy industries.

Will environmental costing continue to spread? Environmental costing is an estimated cost for resource depletion and environmental deterioration. One can only guess. It is intuitively attractive to tax something bad, i.e. environmental damage rather than something good such as one’s salary or company’s profits.

As a building owner, facility engineer or factory manager the implications are enormous. Just how much could energy prices change? According to European Research Commission Report released in July of this year “The cost of producing electricity from coal or oil would double if costs such as damage to the environment and health were taken into account”.

Coal subsidies in China have been more than halved since 1984, and nearly 1 million coal-mining jobs have been eliminated over the past five years as a result of far-reaching coal reduction initiatives. In 1999 alone, total coal use in China dropped 4.4%. Petroleum subsidies fell from 55% in 1990 to 2% in 1995. Source: EIA April 2001.

Any significant change in the price of energy can have a major impact on the profitability and value of a building or factory. One can protect their interests by investing in the highest possible efficiency that is economically justifiable.

In the past energy efficiency improvements in the U.S. have had a median payback of only 1.9 years meaning that IRR’s of up to 70% were not being selected. This is now changing. In addition to the economic attractiveness of high efficiency there are environmental gains through reduced emissions of carbon dioxide and other power plant emissions that are harmful to the environment.

Armageddon In More Ways Than One

By Aidan Maconachy

People tend to think of Armageddon in the biblical context. A great war of the end times - cataclysmic and terminal. That scenario is of course a growing possibility with our entry into a second nuclear age. More countries than ever have the bomb, and some have even threatened to use it. The complicated spider’s web of proliferation these days makes the cold war stand-off between the US and Soviet Union seem almost pedestrian by comparison. The threat possibilities now are a lot more difficult to both predict and contain.

Arguably, an even greater threat than nuclear proliferation, is the rapidly deteriorating state of our global environment. Recently the eminent theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking, spoke candidly about his concerns at the University of Cambridge. Hawking referred to the twin dangers of nuclear weapons and climate change, and called on governments to act now, because in his view without concerted and focused action the planet is in grave peril.

A spokesperson for BAS, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, that operates the so-called Doomsday Clock, warned that the environmental threat is as critical as the threat posed by nukes. Over the next two decades the world could be facing “irremediable harm to the habitats upon which human societies depend for survival.”

Our lifestyle is at the root of the problem. Most people focus on the hazard of technologies and transportation but another factor relates to our modern agricultural practices. The huge livestock industry is proving to be a threat to biodiversity - polluting land and water resources and contributing to the greenhouse effect. Recent statistics indicate that livestock is responsible for 18% of gas emissions - higher than transportation which emits some 13.5%.

People often attribute this emission level to the livestock itself, but in fact the emissions are also caused by fertilizer and feed production, manure management methods and the vast tracts of land that have been deforested in order to create pastures. Livestock occupy 26% of the earth’s land surface, and the speed with which deforestation is taking place only adds to growing concerns. For example 70% of the land reclaimed in the Amazon region is now being used for raising livestock.

Developing nations such as China, are also a concern because they are on a technological fast-track. China has one fifth of the world’s population, so private energy consumption is a concern. It is also the world leader in coal production and the use of fossil fuel still plays a major role in its economy.

Despite Kyoto and dire warnings from scientists, politicians have been slow to respond to the growing threat posed by climate change. Are we sleep walking toward catastrophe? Some like Professor James Lovelock, in his book The Revenge of Gaia, argue that it may already be too late.