Sunday, February 27, 2011

What the Frack?

Dear Pennsylvania,

I love you. Please stop poisoning yourself to heat your house! I have to urge anyone living in Pennsylvania to take the time to read this article (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html) about natural gas wells in PA. It is terrifying.

In case you absolutely refuse to read the whole article, I have pasted some excerpts below. I promise that these excerpts are not wildly out of context. Instead they give you an idea of the gist of the article.

In case you have been living under a rock in Pennsylvania that is not made of shale, here is a general description of the fracking process:

The [natural] gas has always been there, of course, trapped deep underground in countless tiny bubbles, like frozen spills of seltzer water between thin layers of shale rock. But drilling companies have only in recent years developed techniques to unlock the enormous reserves, thought to be enough to supply the country with gas for heating buildings, generating electricity and powering vehicles for up to a hundred years.
...
But the relatively new drilling method — known as high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking — carries significant environmental risks. It involves injecting huge amounts of water, mixed with sand and chemicals, at high pressures to break up rock formations and release the gas.
 This leads to the problem:
With hydrofracking, a well can produce over a million gallons of wastewater that is often laced with highly corrosive salts, carcinogens like benzene and radioactive elements like radium, all of which can occur naturally thousands of feet underground. Other carcinogenic materials can be added to the wastewater by the chemicals used in the hydrofracking itself.
...
The radioactivity in the wastewater is not necessarily dangerous to people who are near it. It can be blocked by thin barriers, including skin, so exposure is generally harmless.

Rather, E.P.A. and industry researchers say, the bigger danger of radioactive wastewater is its potential to contaminate drinking water or enter the food chain through fish or farming. Once radium enters a person’s body, by eating, drinking or breathing, it can cause cancer and other health problems, many federal studies show.
...

Under federal law, testing for radioactivity in drinking water is required only at drinking-water plants. But federal and state regulators have given nearly all drinking-water intake facilities in Pennsylvania permission to test only once every six or nine years.

 Last, but not least... in fact very importantly:

In December, the Republican governor-elect, Tom Corbett, who during his campaign took more gas industry contributions than all his competitors combined, said he would reopen state land to new drilling, reversing a decision made by his predecessor, Edward G. Rendell. The change clears the way for as many as 10,000 wells on public land, up from about 25 active wells today.
 ...
“I will direct the Department of Environmental Protection to serve as a partner with Pennsylvania businesses, communities and local governments,” Mr. Corbett says on his Web site. “It should return to its core mission protecting the environment based on sound science.”

Please excuse my rant, but...

While I have nothing personally against Mr. Corbett, serving as a "partner with Pennsylvania businesses" needs to have its limits! Otherwise, all of the other Pennsylvania businesses, communities and local governments are going to end up losing out! If you are relying on sound science you are going to need data. If you are refusing to collect or look at data, don't call it science! It is simply ignoring the problem.

I have spent a lot of time studying climate change and sustainability, which are massive, global, all-encompassing environmental issues. It is often tough to figure out a solution (and in some cases a cause). In these fields I have shown patience with people that do not quite understand or refuse to believe it.

However, in the case of fracking, I refuse to show such restraint. The whole thing is too straightforward. You are literally pumping chemicals into the groundwater! Then you are taking what comes back out (even more toxic and radioactive chemicals) and sending it through a filtration system (that is un-/under-tested for such chemicals) before dumping these chemicals into our rivers! The cause is obvious, the solution should be, too!

Pennsylvania, please help yourselves by drawing attention to this issue that is affecting every major river basin in our land-locked state!

Thank you,
Sean Diamond

Please note that all excerpts are from the recent New York Times article:

Regulation Lax as Gas Wells’ Tainted Water Hits Rivers
By IAN URBINA
Published: February 26, 2011
 

Monday, February 14, 2011

What's the worst that could happen?

Hello Readers,

I found this video a few years back, but I lost track of it for a while. Recently, someone posted it in an online discussion about climate change, and I figured I would post it before I lost it again. It is an extremely simplified version of the argument for action on climate change. However, if you understand the underlying need in the US for energy independence on top of the need to address climate change, I believe that this argument for action will hold much more weight.



In case you have trouble viewing the embedded video above, you can find the video at the original link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ.

Enjoy,

Sean Diamond

Friday, February 11, 2011

Dickinson College ORGANIC Farm

Hello Readers,

The farm run by my alma mater, Dickinson College, is now certified as USDA organic (see the original article). This certification verifies that the farm 'adheres to an approved approach of agricultural food production that involves building and enhancing the soil naturally, environmental protection and avoidance of toxic or synthetic substances such as pesticides'. The farm is run by college employees and staffed by many student volunteers and interns.

For several years the college has been growing food for the college's dining services and supporting a CSA for members of the college community including students, alumni, and employees. Additionally, the farm recently announced that the farm will now be raising cattle to be served as grass-fed beef at the college dining hall; however, official certification will not be sought for the livestock.

What is your alma mater doing to improve the sustainability of their dining services menu?

~Sean

Saturday, February 5, 2011

US DOE Solar R&D Funding

Hello Reader,

I was privileged enough to attend President Obama's speech about Clean Energy Innovation at Penn State on Thursday this week. Please enjoy:




Also, in case you missed it. The DOE announced a well funded initiative to help the cost of installed solar PV reach parody with traditional grid energy sources by the end of the decade.

EERE News: DOE Pursues SunShot Initiative to Achieve Cost Competitive Solar Energy by 2020

Thursday, February 3, 2011

National Academy of Sciences Climate Change Letter

Hello Readers,


I recently became aware that the U.S. National Academy of Sciences wrote a letter to Congress to clarify the state of scientific understanding of Climate Change. This cannot be any clearer. Please send it to your Senators and Representative to urge them to read it.


Enjoy,


Sean


---------------------------------------


To the Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate:


The Importance of Science in Addressing Climate Change


As you begin your deliberations in the new 112th Congress, we urge you to take a fresh look at climate change. Climate change is not just an environmental threat but, as we describe below, also poses challenges to the U.S. economy, national security and public health.


Some view climate change as a futuristic abstraction. Others are unsure about the science, or uncertain about the policy responses. We want to assure you that the science is strong and that there is nothing abstract about the risks facing our Nation.


Our coastal areas are now facing increasing dangers from rising sea levels and storm surges; the southwest and southeast are increasingly vulnerable to drought; other regions will need to prepare for massive flooding from the extreme storms of the sort being experienced with increasing frequency. These and other consequences of climate change all require that we plan and prepare. Our military recognizes that the consequences of climate change have direct security implications for the country that will only become more acute with time, and it has begun the sort of planning required across the board.


The health of Americans is also at risk. The U.S. Climate Impacts Report, commissioned by the George W. Bush administration, states: "Climate change poses unique challenges to human health. Unlike health threats caused by a particular toxin or disease pathogen, there are many ways that climate change can lead to potentially harmful health effects. There are direct health impacts from heat waves and severe storms, ailments caused or exacerbated by air pollution and airborne allergens, and many climate-sensitive infectious diseases."


As with the fiscal deficit, the changing climate is the kind of daunting problem that we, as a nation, would like to wish away. However, as with our growing debt, the longer we wait to address climate change, the worse it gets. Heat-trapping carbon dioxide is building up in the atmosphere because burning coal, oil, and natural gas produces far more carbon dioxide than is absorbed by oceans and forests. No scientist disagrees with that. Our carbon debt increases each year, just as our national debt increases each year that spending exceeds revenue. And our carbon debt is even longer-lasting; carbon dioxide molecules can last hundreds of years in the atmosphere.


The Science of Climate Change:


It is not our role as scientists to determine how to deal with problems like climate change. That is a policy matter and rightly must be left to our elected leaders in discussion with all Americans. But, as scientists, we have an obligation to evaluate, report, and explain the science behind climate change.


The debate about climate change has become increasingly ideological and partisan. But climate change is not the product of a belief system or ideology. Instead, it is based on scientific fact, and no amount of argument, coercion, or debate among talking heads in the media can alter the physics of climate change.


Political philosophy has a legitimate role in policy debates, but not in the underlying climate science. There are no Democratic or Republican carbon dioxide molecules; they are all invisible and they all trap heat.


The fruits of the scientific process are worthy of your trust. This was perhaps best summed up in recent testimony before Congress by Dr. Peter Gleick, co-founder and director of the Pacific Institute and member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.    He testified that the scientific process "is inherently adversarial - scientists build reputations and gain recognition not only for supporting conventional wisdom, but even more so for demonstrating that the scientific consensus is wrong and that there is a better explanation. That's what Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin, and Einstein did.


But no one who argues against the science of climate change has ever provided an alternative scientific theory that adequately satisfies the observable evidence or conforms to our understanding of physics, chemistry, and climate dynamics."


National Academy of Sciences


What we know today about human-induced climate change is the result of painstaking research and analysis, some of it going back more than a century. Major international scientific organizations in disciplines ranging from geophysics to geology, atmospheric sciences to biology, and physics to human health - as well as every one of the leading national scientific academies worldwide - have concluded that human activity is changing the climate.


This is not a "belief." Instead, it is an objective evaluation of the scientific evidence.


The U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) was created by Abraham Lincoln and chartered by Congress in 1863 for the express purpose of obtaining objective expert advice on a range of complex scientific and technological issues. Its international reputation for integrity is unparalleled. This spring, at the request of Congress, the NAS issued a series of comprehensive reports on climate change that were unambiguous.


The NAS stated, "Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities . . . and in many cases is already affecting a broad range of human and natural systems." This conclusion comes as no surprise to the overwhelming majority of working climate scientists.


Climate Change Deniers


Climate change deniers cloak themselves in scientific language, selectively critiquing aspects of mainstream climate science. Sometimes they present alternative hypotheses as an explanation of a particular point, as if the body of evidence were a house of cards standing or falling on one detail; but the edifice of climate science instead rests on a concrete foundation.   As an open letter from 255 NAS members noted in the May 2010 Science magazine, no research results have produced any evidence that challenges the overall scientific understanding of what is happening to our planet's climate and why.


The assertions of climate deniers therefore should not be given scientific weight equal to the comprehensive, peer-reviewed research presented by the vast majority of climate scientists.
The determination of policy sits with you, the elected representatives of the people. But we urge you, as our elected representatives, to base your policy decisions on sound science, not sound bites. Congress needs to understand that scientists have concluded, based on a systematic review of all of the evidence, that climate change caused by human activities raises serious risks to our national and economic security and our health both here and around the world. It's time for Congress to move on to the policy debate.


How Can We Move Forward?


Congress should, we believe, hold hearings to understand climate science and what it says about the likely costs and benefits of action and inaction. It should not hold hearings to attempt to intimidate scientists or to substitute ideological judgments for scientific ones. We urge our elected leaders to work together to focus the nation on what the science is telling us, particularly with respect to impacts now occurring around the country. 


Already, there is far more carbon in the air than at any time in human history, with more being generated every day. Climate change is underway and the severity of the risks we face is compounded by delay.


We look to you, our representatives, to address the challenge of climate change, and lead the national response. We and our colleagues are prepared to assist you as you work to develop a rational and practical national policy to address this important issue.


Thank you for your attention.


Sincerely,


John Abraham, University of St. Thomas
Barry Bickmore, Brigham Young University
Gretchen Daily,* Stanford University
G. Brent Dalrymple,* Oregon State University
Andrew Dessler, Texas A&M University
Peter Gleick,* Pacific Institute
John Kutzbach,* University of Wisconsin-Madison
Syukuro Manabe,* Princeton University
Michael Mann, Penn State University
Pamela Matson,* Stanford University
Harold Mooney,* Stanford University
Michael Oppenheimer, Princeton University
Ben Santer, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Richard Somerville, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Kevin Trenberth, National Center for Atmospheric Research
Warren Washington, National Center for Atmospheric Research
Gary Yohe, Wesleyan University
George Woodwell,* The Woods Hole Research Center




* Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences


All affiliations for identification purposes only and do not indicate institutional endorsements.
Coordinated by the Project on Climate Science
www.ProjectOnClimateScience.org
Contact: Abbey Watson, 202-207-3660, Awatson@prismpublicaffairs.com
Richard Ades, 202-207-3665, Rades@Prismpublicaffairs.com