Ed Ring

What is this EcoWorld thing all about, anyway? Earlier this year, EcoWorld’s posts suddenly attracted a commenter who must have pasted a few dozen comments onto various stories within a week or two. Some of these comments were duplicates of previous comments, or had duplicate passages, and while the general thrust of the comments were well worth posting, it was getting to be a lot of work to read and edit the flow. Most websites have automatic blocks for this sort of thing, but we like most of what we get, including most of this. These many comments - all written in all-caps by the admitted hunt and peck typist - were very insightful and they looped into religion and civilization issues - and the writer was trying to tackle it all. That is a tall order.  But this commenter’s digressions into the other great issues of humanity was a reminder - there is a person behind every editor. ...

The previous post, Radical Environmentalism, was not something to be lightly posted.  Yes we may rant and rave on the internet, and blogs are spontaneous and raw, but EcoWorld is more than a blog.  Since 1995, EcoWorld has been a global editorial brand, presenting news, analysis, commentary, features, information resources, on anything and everything green to a worldwide audience.  If we're going to rant, we'd better have given it some thought. Green is suddenly the big rage.   Back in 1995 environmentalism as a media genre, if you will, was in decline, and it stayed pretty much under the radar until about a year or two ago.  All of a sudden it's the biggest thing going.  And as a result it's a lot like the internet boom, a burgeoning, exploding, brand new sector where there are new entrants filled with passion and little else.   EcoWorld went online in 1995 partly because we wanted to...

In the April 23, 2007 issue of Business Week, a magazine one might reasonably hope to have a balanced perspective on environmental issues, an article has appeared entitled "Climate Wars: Episode Two," by John Carey. Beneath the title, the teaser line reads as follows: "With the skeptics almost silenced, businesses are fighting over how to cut carbon emissions." Silenced? Does anyone in America remember the first amendment? Does anyone in America still remember that skepticism is one of the foundations of science? What if the skeptics are right? Our concerns with global warming alarm are well documented: Climate models don't adequately take into account the role of changes in land use nor the role of water vapor; they don't allow for balancing mechanisms in the earth's climate; they emphasize industrial CO2 emissions at the expense of countless other factors. One good volcanic eruption and all of a...

In previous posts we've expressed concern - to put it mildly - over the role emerging biofuel markets are having in accelerating tropical deforestation. In our posts "Deforestation and Global Warming," "Biofueled Ethanol," "Reforest the Tropics," "IPCC 2007 & Deforestation," "Is Biofuel Carbon Neutral?," "Biofueled Global Warming," and many others, we make the case that tropical deforestation is the most significant cause of desertification and droughts on earth, it is a major cause of extreme weather, and, along with other changes in land use, may actually have as much or more to do with global warming than industrial CO2 emissions. Now we have a story in the St. Louis Post, dated April 15, 2007, entitled "Ethanol Plants Come With Hidden Costs: Water," which surveys the impact ethanol refineries may have on fresh water supplies. Here's an excerpt: "The ethanol industry says it takes about 3 gallons of water on average to produce a gallon of ethanol and that recycling and other water-saving innovations will reduce that amount. Sometimes that consumption is...

A new study from from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Dept. of Global Ecology at Stanford University, entitled "Combined climate and carbon-cycle effects of large-scale deforestation" has just been released, and it raises far more questions than it answers. The fundamental conclusion of the report is that deforestation at higher latitudes actually causes global cooling, and deforestation in the tropics causes global warming. This is because replacing forests with grasslands is assumed to increase the reflectivity of the land - forests are darker than grasslands - which the researchers assert succeeds in having a cooling effect in the northern latitudes. In the tropics, however, where forests cause cloud formation, tropical deforestation is said to have a warming effect since clouds are more reflective than grasslands. The most interesting statement in the entire report, one that anyone concerned with global warming should ponder...

Much of the water in Southern California comes from the north, and to get into the Los Angeles basin must be pumped over the Tehachapi Mountains.  This is the biggest water lift in the world, about 2,000 feet (ref. NRDC).  When looking at alternatives to transporting huge quantities of water that might be better left where it is, desalinization is not getting sufficient attention.  It turns out that 2,000 feet of lift is about the point where the energy necessary to desalinate seawater is actually slightly less than the energy required to pump water over a 2,000 foot mountain. In our features "India's Water Future" as well as "Arctic to Aral," we have reported on the energy requirements to pump water.  Using the same formulas, it turns out that the energy required to lift a cubic kilometer of water 2,000 feet is 248 megawatt-years. What if that water were desalinated in plants located on the Pacific Coast...

Within the United States, biofuel crops will provide a welcome supplement to petroleum-based fuels, but comprehensive and enforced biofuel certification in the tropics is urgently needed. According to a report in Tierramérica posted on March 26, 2007, entitled "Brazil Intends to Dominate Ethanol Market," Brazil intends to "increase its current production of 17,300 million liters a year by a factor of 12, without sacrificing forests, protected areas or food cultivation." Would someone please explain how Brazil is going to increase their biofuel production twelve times, without massive additional deforestation? What if tropical reforestation didn't just help wildlife, but also reduced droughts and extreme...

Environmentalism today is generating more interest in the world than at any time since the 1970's, but environmentalism today is very different from the modern movement that began on Earth Day nearly 36 years ago. When comparing the environmental movement today to environmentalism back then, two things are evident: First, important goals have been accomplished in the last thirty years. Our air and water are cleaner, wilderness and wildlife have been preserved in great abundance, land development has become a far more thoughtful process, pollution from all sources is drastically reduced, and impressive gains in energy conservation and energy efficiency have occurred.  Overall, environmentalism has been a huge success. The second thing to recognize about environmentalism now as compared to then is that today environmentalism is an institution. It is taught in our schools, it is a...

There is a network of tree nurseries and over-sustainable forestry operations that are reforesting vast swaths of Central America.  It is a huge success story.  One example of this profitable process is Finca Leola, with reforesting operations in the northern highlands of Costa Rica. The tropical highlands of Costa Rica Finca Leola's principle of business is simple and powerful in its regenerative impact - that by underharvesting a newly planted forest of cash timber, the overall forest mass increases faster, allowing larger underharvests.  Perpetual and growing profit. Such an alternative economic model is all the more important in this day of allowing anything - including...

If the Tesla Roadster is being powered with 6,831 laptop batteries, the Chevy "Volt" may end up running on Black & Decker power tool batteries.  That's not quite accurate, but in both cases, a lithium ion battery with a proven track record in other consumer applications is finding its way into the next generation of electric cars. Ed Benarcik VP Pack & Systems Business A123 Systems Only a couple of months ago, on January 5th, 2007, two days before General Motor's historic announcement that they intend to produce a series hybrid (or "E-Flex") electric car, GM announced their choices for suppliers for the advanced battery systems these cars would use.  One of...