Archive for category Environment
Earth Hour on canspice.org
Posted by Brad in Environment on 26 March 2010
Tomorrow at 8:30pm PDT, canspice.org will be going black to support Earth Hour. If you have a WordPress blog I suggest (nay, urge!) you download and install the Earth Hour plugin. Two minutes is all it takes!
And don’t forget to turn your lights off at 8:30pm local time tomorrow!
After Dark in the Park: “Dark Sacred Nights”
Posted by Brad in Astronomy, Biology, Environment, Hawaii on 17 August 2009
After Dark in the Park is a lecture series put on at Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park. Starting at 7pm, the free (with suggested $1 donation, and park entrance fees apply) series are on topics important and interesting to people living and working in Hawaii. The ADiP for August 18, 2009 is titled “Dark Sacred Nights”:
For countless millennia, migrating birds, nesting sea turtles and pollinating insects lived in daily cycles of daylight followed by natural dark. Nowadays, thousands of birds and other wildlife perish every year when artificial lights at night disrupt their normal foraging, reproductive, and migratory behaviors. Light pollution wastes electricity, diminishes natural resources and impairs our views of stars and other nighttime wonders. Happily, we can restore dark nights without sacrificing our safety or security. Park ranger Dean Gallagher shares information about cutting edge technology to minimize light pollution with Wildlife Lighting and Dark Sky Friendly Lighting. Learn how we can share the dark night sky with wildlife around us and protect our natural heritage of “Dark Sacred Nights”.
Sunday Kahili Ginger Eradication
Posted by Brad in Environment, Hawaii on 18 January 2009
The back half of our back yard is inundated with kahili ginger that we’re trying to get rid of. Today being the first nice weekend day in about two months, I tackled cleaning some of it out again.
One of the problems with kahili ginger is it grows like stink. If you don’t dig out the rhizomes (the root balls), shoots start popping up within a week, and get get to half a meter high in no time flat. Unfortunately the rhizomes are big, up to a meter across, and they’re tough, requiring a pickaxe or a mattock to remove them.
This extreme growth makes it the ideal invasive species. The wide leaves block sun from reaching the ground, making it very difficult for slow-growing native species to get a start. Their rhizomes spread, leaving no soil for seeds to germinate in. We even have some ginger growing in a fork in an ohia tree — if we left it to grow the rhizome would probably grow heavy enough to rob the tree of nutrients and bring it down.
Today I cut down shoots. Rumour has it if you keep cutting them down, eventually the rhizomes will die off, making them slightly easier to remove. I’m not entirely sure how true this is, but given it’s been a couple of months since I last cut them down, I had a nice spread of ginger to trim back.
Here are the fruits of my labours:
Ginger shoots in the back of our car.
The back of our little car (Kia Rio5 hatchback) was completely filled, and this was only a small portion of the ginger in our back yard. I’m being limited by the amount I can haul to the green waste dump, which is unfortunately about 20 miles away in Keaau. We could compost it, but the stalks don’t break down very quickly, so I’d rather take it to green waste and let them mulch it down.
Clean coal?
Posted by Brad in Environment on 23 December 2008
There is no such thing as clean coal. You can scrub all of the CO2 out of the emissions all you want, but you’ll still be left with coal ash, be it fly ash from the emissions or bottom ash from the furnace. You need to do something with this ash, and although it can be used in road paving or cement, it’s often just piled up and stored somewhere. And it’s not just ash — it’s actually more radioactive than nuclear waste and has high levels of arsenic, amongst other toxic chemicals.
Here’s what happens when a retaining wall breaks and coal ash pollutes a river:
This is video from yesterday. That grey sludge poured into tributaries of the Tennessee River. You can read more about it at knoxvillebiz and tennessean.com.
Next time you hear an advert about clean coal, or someone tries to tell you that clean coal technology is a good replacement for burning oil, remember this post.
A Basic Sunday Job
Posted by Brad in Chemistry, Environment, Hawaii on 14 December 2008
Living up in Volcano, away from civilization, we rely on catchment for our water. In our back yard is what looks like a pool with a cover on it. That’s our catchment tank, which is hooked up to the gutters on our roof. Rain comes off our roof and ends up in our catchment tank, where it’s then pumped into our house. We have three sediment filters and a UV filter to make the water safe to use.
Since we live in Volcano, the rain is acidic. Sulfur dioxide from Kilauea mixes with water in the air to give the rainwater a slight tinge of sulfuric acid. This means that the water coming into our house is slightly acidic. When that reacts with the copper pipes, we get copper sulfate, and it turns our bathtub blue.
Which brings me to today’s basic job. To counteract the acidity in the water I periodically add some baking soda to the tank. Today was three boxes mixed with hot water, dumped right into the catchment tank. See what I mean by basic?
Vog in Hawaii
Posted by Brad in Environment, Hawaii on 08 December 2008
Probably unique to Hawaii, at least unique within the United States, is vog. Similar to smog, vog is formed by a combination of sulphur dioxide from Kilauea, oxygen, and water vapour. With the increase in gas output vog has made its presence felt more often recently. Living in Volcano, we notice vog all the time. Most of the time it affects communities such as Glenwood or Mountain View more than us, as the vog blows either over us or to the north of us, then descends onto these communities. Driving through it is like driving through a thick fog, but you get the bonus of sulphuric gas to make your throat hurt.
A good demonstration of how vog affects Hawaii comes from the MODIS instrument on two satellites in orbit around the earth. Their December 7, 2008 image of the day shows the bulk of Hawaii covered by clouds and vog. Clouds are obvious. Vog is the thick haze spreading to the north-west from the southern-most Big Island.
Clicking through to the high-res image shows two sources of heat on the Big Island, denoted by red boxes. The southern-most heat source is the Kilauea ocean entry near Kalapana. The northern heat source is a brushfire — you can even see the smoke plume drifting off to the west.
You can also clearly see evidence for the tropical inversion layer that makes Mauna Kea an excellent site for astronomy. The inversion layer keeps clouds and moisture below roughly 10,000 feet, and the summits of Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa, and Haleakala on Maui are well above this elevation. You can clearly see all three poking above the clouds.
[Thanks to Andrew for the original link to the MODIS page]
Kilauea Volcano Emergency Information
Posted by Brad in Environment, Hawaii on 17 April 2008
For friends and family (and my benefit so I don’t have to go to the horrible Volcano Community Association website again), here are some useful links for keeping tabs on what’s happening with Kilauea, specifically surrounding its recent increase in SO2 output.
The USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory maintains a close watch on Kilauea. Its daily update is a wealth of information. They have one webcam on Halema’uma’u and another on Pu’u O’o.
The National Park Service maintains real-time SO2 monitoring. For reference, we live in the cluster of roads between the ‘Kilauea Visitor Center’ and the KVC’s SO2 reading labels.
The National Weather Service provides both a five-day forecast and an hourly forecast table for our area. We live to the ENE of Halema’uma’u, so winds from the WSW are of particular concern. Calm or non-existent winds are also troublesome, as the SO2 doesn’t clear out from our neighbourhood.
And finally, the County of Hawaii Civil Defense Agency issues statements, advisories, and warnings in its Civil Defense Message when conditions warrant. If they mention any subdivisions, watch for Mauna Loa Estates, the one we live in.
[tags]hawaii, volcano, kilauea, sulphur dioxide, national weather service, hawaiian volcano observatory, national park service, civil defense, halemaumau[/tags]
Way to miss the point.
Posted by Brad in Environment, Hawaii on 15 April 2008
KTA, one of our local supermarkets, put out an advertising flyer for Earth Day. What eco-friendly foods did they highlight on their front page? Local produce? Organic milk? Seventh Generation soap?
Nope.
Frozen prawns. Bleached white rice. Bleached paper towels. Apples from the mainland. Canned fruit drinks. Tortilla chips. And Dutch beer.
Only one local product, and that’s flavoured sugar water shipped in aluminum cans that have a 60% chance of ending up being recycled in Hawaii. Zero organic products. The products that could be unbleached weren’t. And the majority of them have to be shipped from the mainland.
Way to completely miss the point of Earth Day, KTA.
[tags]hawaii, kta, earth day[/tags]
Will Kilauea blow its top?
Posted by Brad in Environment, Hawaii on 27 March 2008
A few weeks ago, the Halema’uma’u Crater started spewing out sulfur dioxide, eventually putting out gas at a rate ten times higher than normal. This caused the National Park Service to first close outlooks around Halema’uma’u, then to close the part of Chain Of Craters Road crossed by the gas plume.
Then, on March 19, the gas plume got stopped up, and the resulting pressure increase lead to an explosion, spreading rocks and debris across a 75-acre area.
Five days after that, the white gas plume changed to a gritty grey colour caused by ash and dust. Hawaii Volcano Observatory staff reported incandescence and found Pele’s hair, Pele’s tears, and spatter in the overlook area, which indicates that molten lava erupted from the vent.
This is the first time that lava has erupted at Halema’uma’u since 1982. It’s a small amount of lava, but it’s a good sign that activity is present at the summit of Kilauea instead of just near the Pu’u O’o caldera.
USGS press releases:
New gas vent in Halema‘uma‘u crater doubles sulfur dioxide emission rates
Explosive eruption in Halema`uma`u Crater, Kilauea Volcano, is first since 1924
Halema`uma`u gas plume becomes ash-laden
[tags]volcano, hawaii, kilauea, explosion, sulfur dioxide, halemaumau[/tags]
Steve Dale: Dangerous to the environment
Posted by Brad in Environment on 04 November 2007
In the November 2-4 2007 edition of USA Weekend, Steve Dale answered some questions from pet owners. One of them was from a ferret owner who recently moved to California, only to find out that ferrets are banned there. Dale’s response was as follows:
I think it’s crazy, too. Some are worried that ferrets, over time, would get outdoors and form wild colonies, like cats who get outside sometimes do. Then, to survive, the former pet ferrets would become savage and indulge in meals of endangered waterfowl. However, domestic ferrets who get lost typically starve to death. And the overwhelming majority of pet ferrets are purchased spayed or neutered, so it’s impossible for any who might live long enough to be able to find a partner and procreate.Hawaii and California are the only states that ban ferrets. Yet no state currently has a problem with marauding colonies of feral ferrets.
I think the law banning ferrets is ridiculous, and I once proposed a solution to guarantee that any ferrets who get out won’t cause a problem: Mandate spaying/neutering (as I said before, they are usually altered anyway), rabies vaccines and microchipping (so that animal control will know who the careless owners are who repeatedly misplace their pet ferrets).
This kind of advice might work on the mainland, but it doesn’t work in Hawaii. Let’s pick apart his argument:
Dale says “domestic ferrets who get lost typically starve to death.” This means that there are some domestic ferrets who don’t starve to death.
Dale says “the overwhelming majority of pet ferrets are purchased spayed or neutered.” This means that there are some pet ferrets that aren’t spayed or neutered.
Dale then says that because of these two things “it’s impossible for any who might live long enough to be able to find a partner and procreate.” This is completely wrong. You can’t get “impossible” from two very possible things.
Dale states that “Hawaii and California are the only states that ban ferrets.” True. What he doesn’t say is why they’ve banned ferrets. Hawaii has banned them because they may be carriers of the rabies virus. Hawaii is rabies-free and we’d like to keep it that way. Further, Hawaii’s ecosystem is fragile, and given ferrets’ carnivorous diet of small prey such as birds and mice, the accidental introduction of ferrets into that ecosystem could prove to be costly to the endangered bird populations here.
So Steve Dale, when you say that the ban on ferrets is “crazy”, I think you need to think about it a little bit first. Do a little research before you write. Your careless column may only serve to weaken the efforts put forth by our state to keep our islands rabies-free and to keep invasive species off our islands.
[tags]steve dale, usa weekend, ferrets, invasive species, hawaii[/tags]
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