A Race Against Time to Save Oiled Penguins

Responders to a shipwreck and oil spill off a remote South Atlantic archipelago are in a "race against time" to save thousands of endangered penguins that have been coated in crude, local officials said Thursday.

Hundreds of oiled-soaked rockhopper penguins have been recovered from Nightingale Island, part of the Tristan da Cunha archipelago, where a large freighter ran aground last week, spilling roughly 1,600 tons of heavy fuel oil into the surrounding waters, Sean Burns, the islands' administrator, said in a statement.

The birds have been collected and transferred to the archipelago's main island, but rehabilitation efforts have been hampered by a lack of cleaning supplies and equipment, Mr. Burns said. Only one response ship has arrived on the scene from South Africa, and the departure of a second, better-equipped ship has not yet been confirmed.

Tristan da Cunha, a British territory, is one of the most isolated archipelagos in the world and the journey by sea takes between four to six days. The islands have no airport.

"A crucial next step is to confirm a second vessel to depart from Cape Town in the next few days with all the necessary equipment and supplies to clean up the birds, keep them healthy and hopefully return them to the ocean," Mr. Burns said.

"It will be a race against time," he said.

John Cooper, an information officer for a conservation group monitoring the situation, said the captured penguins could not be fed until a shipment of frozen fish arrived on the second response vessel.

Andrew Gurr, governor of St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, said·in a statement that the Tristan government "is committed to ensuring that the ship's owners will meet the full cost of any clean-up, damage or subsequent losses arising from the situation."

A wildlife expert on the scene suggested this week that as many as 20,000 rockhopper penguins across several islands may have been affected by oil, but those numbers remain a preliminary estimate and have not been confirmed. Island officials and a wildlife organization participating in the clean-up did not respond to a request for comment on the situation.

Other species have also been oiled, including giant petrels and fur seal pups, though the penguins seem to be the primary victims of the spill.

The rockhopper penguin is listed as endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and roughly 40 percent of the known population is found on the Tristan da Cunha archipelago.

The heavy oil slick previously observed to be surrounding Nightingale Island appears to have significantly dissipated, potentially lowering the risk for extensive further oiling of wildlife, observers said. Most of the oil within the wrecked vessel, the MS Oliva, also appears to have already have entered the sea.

Globules of crude and patches of diesel continue to be observed floating on the water and on the islands' beaches, however, and responders are working to keep penguins and other wildlife from entering the water.

Andrew Evans, a correspondent with National Geographic, captured the devastation in a story, video and photographs posted online.

"Ecological disaster is not the story I wanted to send from this place, but it's the one that is happening here right now," Mr. Evans wrote.

"It was a painful and disturbing scene," he said. "My only consolation is that the people of Tristan take their birds very seriously and the entire island is contributing to the rescue efforts."

25 Mar, 2011

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Source: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/~

Now, Starter Homes Boast Solar Arrays

KB Home A model home offered by a builder in Eastvale, Calif.

Among the standard features offered for new homes at Manzanita at Paseo del Sol, a KB Home development in a desert suburb southeast of Los Angeles, are nine-foot ceilings, six-panel doors and a 1.4-kilowatt solar array.

While KB Home has offered rooftop photovoltaic panels as an option for some time, the home builder now will make solar arrays from SunPower standard equipment on more than 800 homes in 10 communities being built in Southern California.

"This is a game changer for our industry and a powerful way for us to compete in the marketplace, especially with resale homes," Craig LeMessurier, KB Home's director of corporate communications, said in an e-mail. While pricey solar panels are often found on the roofs of high-end houses, it's notable that KB Home is installing the arrays on homes with base selling prices that range from $250,000 to $360,000. In California, that's starter home territory.

KB Home estimates that the standard 1.4-kilowatt solar array will supply about 30 percent of the electricity for an 1,800-foot to 2,000-foot square home. Of course, that all depends on how much a homeowner runs their air conditioning, for instance.

Rooftop solar can be a hedge against California's high and rising electricity rates. And given the intense sunshine and air-conditioning demands in desert areas where KB Home is building its latest developments, such arrays will generate more electricity than they could in, say, San Francisco. Homeowners will also qualify for a 30 percent federal tax credit as well as state incentives.

For those who want to offset more of their electricity use, KB Home is offering an optional 3.2-kilowatt, 14-panel array. (Which would come in handy if you buy an electric car.) Under California's net metering law, homeowners and businesses can zero-out their electricity bills by feeding enough solar-generated electricity into the grid to offset their power consumption.

"Our Energy Star-qualified homes are already among the most energy-efficient available today," Mr. LeMessurier said, referring to the federal program to rate energy efficient buildings and appliances. "This raises the bar even higher, and makes our homes even more affordable."

24 Mar, 2011

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Source: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/~

A Park, an Oyster Farm and Science

Heidi Schumann for The New York Times The Drakes Bay Oyster Company operation in a corner of Point Reyes National Seashore.

The question at the core of the seven-year-old feud in California's Marin County is whether an oyster farm at Point Reyes National Seashore should be allowed to continue operations after 2012. The controversy, centering on the management of an area designated as potential wilderness, remains unresolved. Both sides are putting forth their best arguments for a continuing environmental impact review.

Challenges arose to the National Park Service science that will inform that review. Was the scientific analysis of the oyster farm's environmental impact marred by sloppiness, selective bias and a failure to grapple with extensive evidence showing little impact from oyster boats? If it was, how big a deal was it?

A report released late Tuesday by the Interior Department solicitor's office answered "yes" to the first question, and to the second, "Not a very big deal." A lawyer for that office, Gavin Frost, concluded that the park service did "mishandle" things, but not intentionally.

His analysis was based on the premise that a willful intent to deceive is a prerequisite to a finding of scientific misconduct. The bottom line was: no intent, no scientific misconduct. But mistakes were made, he said

But there was so much more to the report.

The 35 pages offer a fascinating look at science being conducted and evidence being ignored in a charged political environment. It lays out how a scientist arranged to have nearly 300,000 photographic images taken once a minute by stationary cameras positioned to capture the comings and goings of oyster boats and harbor seals during pupping season — and then neglected to thoroughly examine, analyze, use or publicize the results.

In the report, the worldviews of two dominant antagonists — neither named, but each easily identifiable by the descriptions of their well-publicized earlier activities — come alive through the dry, lawyerly prose.

One is Corey Goodman, a scientist and businessman who was first invited to review park science relating to the oyster farm four years ago. He found it lacking, and since then has become Marin County's Inspector Javert, relentlessly hunting evidence of scientific misconduct and urging government officials, from the top of the Interior Department to Senator Dianne Feinstein to the office of the White House science adviser, to crack down. His complaints are referred to in the report as "rancorous submissions," and as cited by Mr. Frost, his calls of "false science" seem at times to be almost reflexive. He comes across as the avenging angel of the pro-oyster-farm faction.

The other protagonists are the park scientists, particularly Sarah Allen, who for four years has been at the forefront of the park's research and writings examining how Drakes Bay Oyster Farm may put the natural ecosystems in Drakes Estero at risk. Several of her earlier statements, about the harm to life on the seabed from oyster feces and harm to eelgrass, have been withdrawn under pressure from Dr. Goodman. At the top of her scientific agenda now is research on the farm's potential harm to harbor seals. She is held in high esteem by many in the pro-wilderness camp.

Mr. Frost is sympathetic to her explanations of the actions that are under scrutiny, but the sum total of his observations is hardly flattering. He portrays her as holding fast to the notion that oyster boats have a negative impact on the seals, despite contradictory evidence.

He referred at one point to her "subjective belief" that the oyster farm's operations "either disturb harbor seals" or dissuade them from returning to their accustomed sandbars. "Disinclined to test the reasonableness of that belief," the report continued, she "did not carefully and thoroughly analyze the new scientific material" — that is, the photographic record which she herself initiated.

As Mr. Frost's report noted, discussions with park scientists "reveal a collective but troubling mindset" that Dr. Allen "enjoyed the unrestricted freedom to research harbor seals at upper Drakes Estero in any manner she deemed fit, without the corresponding need to share any data generated, so long as the research was not closely evaluated" and was considered inferior.

The photographs were not shared with scientists and others investigating the impacts of the oyster farm on the area.

Mr. Frost, noting elsewhere that individual photographs were readily produced by the scientists as evidence in ancillary disputes, wrote that "as a direct consequence" of Dr. Allen's "failure to process data completely and speedily, potentially powerful evidence remains unknown."

"This misconduct arose from incomplete and biased evaluation and from blurring the line between exploration and advocacy through research," he wrote.

"Someone in the chain of command should have recognized the errors, sounded the alarm and demanded disclosure of all research" data that contradicted park claims about seal disturbances, he says elsewhere.

Mr. Frost sits in judgment of both of the leading characters in his initial summary statement: "Thorough analysis of the facts confirms" that park employees "erred, but not to the degree set forth" by Mr. Goodman, it says. The mistakes arose from the failure of some park employees "to modify their intuitive, but statistically and scientifically unproven belief" that the oyster operations disturb seals, he wrote.

The report is the fourth in three years to touch on the quality of science at the park.

Addendum: some from the pro-wilderness camp, like Neal Desai of the National Parks Conservation Association, see the controversy over the photographs as a "scientific misconduct straw man." An environmental impact review of the current oyster farming operation deals directly with the concerns about commercial operations in an area slated for wilderness designation.

24 Mar, 2011

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Source: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/~

Federal Lands in Wyoming Opened to Coal Mining

Associated Press Gov. Matt Mead of Wyoming, left, and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar at a news conference on Tuesday.

Federal land in Wyoming holding roughly 750 million tons of coal will be leased to mining companies, the Interior Department announced. The leases will generate $13.4 billion to $21.3 billion, with roughly half of the proceeds going to the State of Wyoming, according to federal estimates.

The leases cover 7,400 acres in Wyoming's coal-rich Powder River Basin, the nation's top coal-producing region. The tracts are the "first of more than a dozen" coal leases in the region that are to be auctioned off in the next three years, the Interior Department said.

"Coal is a critical component of America's comprehensive energy portfolio as well as Wyoming's economy," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said at a news conference on Tuesday in Wyoming. "It's important that we continue to encourage safe production of this important resource."

Mr. Salazar was joined by Matt Mead, the state's Republican governor, who applauded the decision to authorize the sales.

"We need the energy," Governor Mead said. "We need the jobs that come with energy. We need the electricity."

Environmental groups sharply criticized the lease sales, saying that the Interior Department had failed to calculate the impact of coal mining on climate change and water and air quality.

"Rather than look ahead to our energy future, Secretary Salazar seems content to keep looking in the rear-view mirror, keeping this country dangerously dependent on dirty energy," said Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy director for WildEarth Guardians, an advocacy group.

The leases will only further cement Wyoming's position as the country's energy powerhouse. More than 416 million tons of coal were shipped from the Powder River Basin in 2009, equal to roughly 40 percent of the nation's annual coal consumption of one billion tons.

Some 70 to 80 trains — each averaging 130 cars in length — leave the region loaded with coal every day, according to the Wyoming Mining Association.

But while coal mining produces significant revenue for the state, its direct employment impact is less pronounced. The coal industry employs about 7,000 workers in Wyoming, less than 3 percent of the state's total work force, according to the Wyoming Department of Employment.

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Source: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/ ~

On Our Radar: Climate Questions Follow 2012 Presidential Contender

A video created by a Democratic state legislator in Minnesota captures Tim Pawlenty, the former Republican governor and a 2012 presidential candidate, repeatedly calling for a cap-and-trade program for carbon dioxide emissions to fight climate change. The video was aired during a hearing on a Republican bill to lift restrictions on coal-fired power plants. Mr. Pawlenty now describes his past support for cap-and-trade as "stupid." [MinnPost]

Protesters in Australia rally against a proposed carbon tax that would price emissions at $20 to $30 per ton. The measure, which would go into effect in 2015, has also been vigorously opposed by industry. "Now, I understand there is always going to be a variety of views in the community," Prime Minister Julia Gillard says in response. "We'll see that on display today but pricing carbon is the right thing for our nation's future and that is why I am determined to do it." [BBC]

A Houston-based firm takes responsibility for an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that spread a large sheen across miles of water previously polluted by the Deepwater Horizon blowout last year. [The Times-Picayune]
Firefighters battle a blaze in a remote area on Hawaii's Big Island that was sparked by lava flows from the eruption of the island's Kilauea volcano. The fire has burned about 2,000 acres of national park land so far. [Reuters]

Greening the Team: Will Fans Follow Suit?

Associated Press Martin Tull, executive director of the Green Sports Alliance, spoke Monday about the group's goals.

With the current political climate in Washington tending toward the anti-environmental (especially among Republicans in the House of Representatives), some campaigners are seeking new venues for rallying public support.

Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the National Resource Defense Council, an environmental advocacy organization, has decided that sports might be the most effective arena for taking the conservation message straight to the public. He has been working with professional teams on ways of greening their behavior and letting their fans know about it.

On Monday, a collection of sports teams and venue operators that had already been working with the council on reducing their energy and water usage with tools like low-pressure flush toilets and solar panels announced the creation of the nonprofit Green Sports Alliance to promote the cause. The alliance comes with the full-throated endorsement of the commissioners of Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Hockey League, the National Basketball Association, the Women™ National Basketball Association and Major League Soccer.

The idea for the alliance sprang from a collaboration that began in 2009 between Mr. Hershkowitz and the Microsoft billionaire Paul G. Allen, who owns the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trail Blazers and is co-owner of the Seattle Sounders FC soccer team. The notion was to help those teams go green by measuring their waste and their water and power usage and adopting strategies to cut back.

Mr. Hershkowitz suggests that the American public is generally more passionate and involved in sports than in politics. The commitment by these six professional teams, from six different leagues, to enhance their environmental profile in a meaningful and public way marks a watershed in the history of professional sports, he said.

Senate Ally Defends Obama on Gas Prices

Jeff Bingaman

In recent weeks, President Obama’s foes in Congress and industry have sought to pin the blame for rising gasoline prices — now averaging above $3.50 a gallon — on his administration’s energy policies.

Associated Press Senator Jeff Bingaman

Specifically, his adversaries charge that the administration’s move to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, combined with the slow pace of permitting for deep-sea drilling in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, are responsible for Americans’ pain at the pump.

“At gas stations all across America, millions of our citizens are now feeling the impact of this administration’s policies,” James W. Noe, an oil industry lobbyist, said at a hearing organized by the Republican-led House Energy and Power Subcommittee on Thursday.

“The solution is to immediately resume domestic oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico,” Mr. Noe said.

But even while he was under attack in the House, allies in the Senate rose to the president’s defense. Most notably, Senator Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, used a lengthy floor speech to rebut the claims.

Mr. Bingaman, chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources committee, noted that at a hearing earlier in the week, a panel of energy experts collectively dismissed the charges that either climate policy or the pace of offshore oil permitting were driving gas price higher.

“None of these experts highlighted the administration’s permitting process in the Gulf of Mexico as being a significant factor in world oil markets,” he said.

“Second, any anticipated Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gas emissions at refineries was not included in any of the presentations as a driver behind the current increased in prices,” Mr. Bingaman added.

The crucial driver behind the price rise, he said, is the instability of world oil markets in the face 0of uprisings across the Middle East, particularly in Libya, where a popular revolt has effectively curtailed oil exports.

“When political unrest threatens major choke points in the world oil transit routes, world oil prices react, as they have,” he said. “When a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries stops exporting oil, which has virtually occurred in the case of Libya, world oil markets react.”

“When there are fears that a nearby neighbor and close ally of Saudi Arabia, home to the world’s largest spare oil production capacity, might begin a series of political upheavals in the Persian Gulf region, world oil markets react as well,” Mr. Bingaman continued.

He closed by arguing that only reducing the country’s overall dependence on foreign oil would result in long-term relief at the pump.

“First, we need to enable further expansion of our renewable fuel industry, which is currently facing infrastructure and financing constraints,” he said. “Second, we need to move forward the timeline for market penetration of electric vehicles. Finally, we need to make sure we use natural gas vehicles in as many applications as make sense based on that technology.”

Soy vs. Paraffin Candles - The Great Debate

Author: Stephanie Davies

You may have heard stories recently about the benefits of soy wax, or about how paraffin wax is unhealthy or not good for you. In this article we will examine the myths and rumors and give the straight facts on both soy and paraffin wax candles and allow you to see what the truth and fuss is all about.

Before we start, it is important for you to know what the actual difference is between soy and paraffin waxes, and to see how each are produced. Let\'s start with paraffin wax, the most common wax to create candles with today. If you purchase a candle that isn\'t marked as soy, beeswax, or any other special blend of wax, chances are that you have purchased a candle that is made from a paraffin blend of wax. 

Paraffin wax is a heavy hydrocarbon that comes from crude oil. Paraffin waxes are produced by refining or separating the waxes out of crude mineral oils. Obtained from the ground, crude oil is a compositionally varied product, consisting of a mixture of hydrocarbons. Another name for crude oil is fossil fuel. Crude oil is transported to refineries where it is refined into finished products by complex processes. One of the many products derived from refining is lubricating oil. It is from the lube oil refining process that petroleum waxes are derived. There are three general categories of petroleum wax that are obtained from lube oil refining. They include paraffin, microcrystalline and petrolatum. Paraffin waxes are derived from the light lubricating oil distillates. Paraffin waxes contain predominantly straight-chain hydrocarbons with an average chain length of 20 to 30 carbon atoms.

Soy wax, on the other hand is made from vegetable matter. Soy wax is a vegetable wax made from the oil of soybeans. After harvesting, the beans are cleaned, cracked, de-hulled, and rolled into flakes. The oil is then extracted from the flakes and hydrogenated. The hydrogenation process converts some of the fatty acids in the oil from unsaturated to saturated. This process dramatically alters the melting point of the oil, making it a solid at room temperature. The leftover bean husks are commonly used as animal feed. The U.S. grows the vast majority of the world\'s soybeans, primarily in Illinois, Iowa, and Indiana.

So now that you know how both soy and paraffin candles are made, let\'s take a look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of both types.

There are a lot of myths surrounding soy candles. Most of these are designed to sell soy candles better, and have very little truth in them. A great example is the great 'no soot' myth. Sites that sell soy candles love to say that there is absolutely no soot produced with a soy candle. However, there is no truth and all hype to that claim. Absolutely, positively, and most importantly, scientifically, all organic compounds when burned will emit some carbon (soot) due to incomplete combustion. Sooting is primarily a factor of wick length and disturbance of the flame\'s steady teardrop shape. There is no such thing as a soot-free candle. Further, while soy wax is all-natural and will not produce the thick black soot that you see on some paraffin containers, it does produce soot. An important fact to remember is that not all soot is black. Soot can be a 'white soot' that cannot be seen with the naked eye. Soy wax will produce little black soot - unless the candle is improperly wicked, made, or burnt, but it may produce white soot. 

But before you get scared of soot, let me tell you, that soot is in fact not harmful to you. Candle soot is composed primarily of elemental carbon particles, and is similar to the soot given off by kitchen toasters and cooking oils. These everyday household sources of soot are not considered a health concern, and are chemically different from the soot formed by the burning of diesel fuel, coal, gasoline, etc. So the myth of 'soot free soy candles' is not only inaccurate, but simply an effort by some companies to scare the general public into buying their candles.

With that being said, there are some benefits to purchasing soy wax candles. While petroleum based paraffin wax is a limited resource, soy wax is a renewable resource that is limited only by how many soybeans we can grow. It is also beneficial to farmers who sell soybean crops, as well as lasting almost twice as long as paraffin wax. 

However, soy wax is naturally a 'soft' wax. While container candles, tealights, and small tarts may be made entirely of soy, it is extremely difficult to make good pillar candles and votives out of 100pure soy wax. Additives are used to make them better, but in most cases, paraffin wax is still a much better solution for those types of candles. In my own company, Mystickal Incense & More, we use a blend of 50soy wax and 50paraffin wax for our free-standing candles.

In the end, both paraffin wax and soy wax are both good choices for candle wax. Neither is more 'environmentally friendly' than the other, as there has never been scientific evidence that paraffin wax is harmful to your health in any way at all. It is a personal choice of which type you prefer to use, and both types hold scent and dye just as well. The only benefit that there is in all reality, is that container candles using soy wax do burn longer. And it does benefit the farmers of the Mid-western United States. However, most other claims regarding soy wax are false and/or misleading.