license to pollute

Ships are quickly become one of the dominant sources of pollution on the planet. And one that is expected to keep growing dramatically over the next decade. Already in 2003, it was estimated that large ships generated 30% of the global nitrogen emissions and 16% of the world's sulphur emissions from all petroleum sources. One environmental group estimated that the average 16 or so container ships that are in port at Long Beach, CA, generate the equivalent smog producing emissions as one million cars, each and every day. They claim cancer rates are up in Long Beach and other major port cities.

Ships are a very efficient and extremely low cost way to transport goods. But that is only one part of the equation. The part we don't pay for, i.e. the damage to the ecosystem, is very significant and there are several components. The public and the media usually focus on disasters and oil spills, but much more damage is done by ships in good working order.

Large ships use a very dirty form of diesel known as bunker fuel. Bunker fuel made up the recent oil spill in the San Francisco Bay. As the WSJ reported recently, the oil refiners are only too happy to unload their dirty residues to shipping companies. Bunker oil is a collection of residues left over from refining. It is thick as asphalt and needs to be heated and processed to be burned. When burned it spews out tons of toxic chemicals.

Shipping companies easily get away with this. They are not required to meet the same strict air pollution standards that govern land vehicles. Ships ply international waters, a part of the planet not owned by any one nation. That makes any attempt at regulating pollution -and enforcing it- very difficult. There is always one country or another that refuses to sign agreements. Additionally shipping companies can and do register their ships in countries with lax standards. And although port cities can dictate and enforce some rules, they often give in to international pressures.

In addition to commercial shipping, one should not underestimate the cruise ships. Cruising has become a major industry and the numbers and sizes of ships increases every year. CLIA, the Cruise Lines International Association calls the cruise industry "the most exciting vacation category in the US and Canada. Its average rate of growth has been far greater than any other category." The annual growth rate from 1980 to 2004 was 8.2%. Cruising is a favorite pass time that is very attractive to an aging population. The ships are like floating cities that generate massive quantities of wastewater, solid waste, garbage and air pollution.

In one week, your typical cruise ship generates 210,000 gallons of sewage ("black water"), 1 million gallons of "gray" water (shower, sink, dishwashing, laundry), 37,000 gallons of oily bilge water, and more than eight tons of solid waste. Much of it ends up in the ocean. And quite a bit of it close to delicate reef systems.

Ballast water is key source of pollution. Large container ships and oil tankers pump sea water into their hulls after unloading. The water is there to stabilize and balance the ship. When the ship is loaded anew, the water is discharged along with all the residues in the hull. The residues are not just limited to oil and chemicals. Ships also carry invasive organisms such as jellyfish, algae, and other pests. These can destroy local fisheries. Jellyfish are especially harmful as recent incidents show. Jellyfish destroyed a large offshore aquaculture facility in the UK a couple of weeks ago. The WSJ reported this week that jellyfish are overwhelming many of Japan's fisheries.

But ships also transport organisms another way. Their submerged wetted surfaces provide an anchor for many species. This has a triple negative effect. Fouling species get a free ride and an ability to colonize new territory. The attached organisms slow down the ship and cause it to burn more oil. The additional drag can be quite significant as any recreational boater knows. In addition, anti-fouling paints and treatments are used that contain copper and other toxic chemicals. While some of the more toxic paints are banned locally in California and other states, international shipping again escapes regulations.

When ships disappear behind the horizon we often forget about their existence. And when we buy cheap goods imported from Asia and other developing nations, we often forget that we are living on credit. One day, the bill will come due. In a form that may not be so pleasant.

mental gymnastics

The brain is an active problem solving device. It works by creating models of the world and running internal simulations. Non-technical folks often call these "what if" scenarios. But simulation is not limited to such explicit exercises. It is a continuous and ever present condition. If you doubt the reality of this statement, consider the everyday act of telling jokes. When listening to a joke, the audience immediately starts simulating the situation being depicted. To get the joke one not only has to follow along, but is imperative that one jumps ahead and simulates- "imagines"- potential outcomes. Because the punch line of the joke is achieved by suddenly switching direction leading to an unexpected and "funny" outcome. In some cases the same can be achieved by relying on double entendres or other language tricks that lead to incorrect models that collapse, thereby creating a funny situation.

Because the brain is constantly active while the subject is alive, it will go ahead and create problems to solve when none exist. If you carefully observe human behavior you will notice that much time is spent creating problems that can later be solved. This is not just limited to story telling, sudoku, and cross word puzzles. Humans actively create problems for themselves that they then try to solve. Politicians often achieve great status by first creating problems and then attempting to solve them. In some cases the problem may take the form of another human or super human entity.

The process is well illustrated in the Italian movie Desert of the Tartars. In it, a group of soldiers are despatched to a remote outpost at the edge of the desert. Faced with nothing to do, no enemies, no threats, and no possibility of threats, the soldiers quickly go on to create a formidable and evasive enemy.

To do so they rely on another innate ability. The ability to fill out incomplete information. This too is a characteristic of brains and a very useful one that confers great survival benefits. It too is exploited in entertainment, most often in suspense and horror movies. Here we see transient blurry images or hear vague sounds that are incomplete, meaning it is hard to identify the source. However, given the context we quickly interpret these images and see or hear dangerous animals, killers, aliens, or other monsters.

All of it is driven along by our tendency to link events together even if no such link exists in the outside world. It is called spurious associations and humans are experts at this. Much of the work in science is to debunk these misleading connections. It is to take a step back and double check our internal simulations with reality. Reality-checks are grossly underutilized and as a result of this tendency, we spend much of our time solving non-existing problems. But let's go back to the story.

We associate the sounds and the images and complete a picture of the threat. And once that process is finalized we endow the threat with human characteristics, i.e. we start perceiving it as a person or a human-like entity. The entity then has to be humored, appeased, destroyed, or otherwise controlled. To do so, we often perform actions that have little or no consequence. But we insist on rigidly adhering to these lest the world order be upset and dire repercussions ensue.

And so the soldiers, having created an invisible enemy based on vague sightings of dust flying around, and spurious night time sounds, now have a goal in life. They start preparing and training to face their enemy. They conduct raids to find and confront the enemy. And any spurious scrap or mark they see on these raids only serves to reinforce the idea of an enemy that is elusive, but ready to attack.

A somewhat similar tack is followed in Picnic at Hanging Rock and in the more recent movie, The Blair Witch Project.

Because humans are social animals, these types of misinterpretations quickly create a following. Especially when the person who is the source of the misunderstanding is a good story teller or an otherwise charismatic individual. Often the followers need even less evidence to become believers. Many are eager to find additional "proof" to shed their newcomer status and become insiders. They will quickly copy the rituals needed to control "the entity." Social acceptance and peer pressure play an important role here. Once a critical mass is reached, those individuals who question the beliefs will be excluded from group benefits and ostracized. They may be physically expelled from the community in some situations.

It will now become dangerous to challenge the basic premises. Anyone trying to go against the current will nudged into the right direction. If that should fail, sanctions will become increasingly harsh and violent. Humans will not shy away from killing those who threaten their world view. Or deny them access to vital supplies. Or attempt to eradicate them altogether. These tendencies will be greatly exaggerated when resources are limited or ecological disaster is near.

dirty highway

It is somewhat ironic that two of Al Gore's favorite issues are so antithetical. On the one hand there is global warming, certainly a hot issue right now. And on the other hand, something that is quickly becoming a major source of pollution and greenhouse gases, the information super-highway.

Forbes highlighted the issue as early as 1999, when it ran a story entitled, dig more coal, the PCs are coming. In it author Peter Huber made some sobering predictions as to energy consumption by personal computers and networking equipment. His analysis was not well received by the industry. And industry giants like Intel helped by the Department of Energy (DOE) quickly went on the offensive attacking Huber's numbers.

The industry also took another straightforward tack. One that was easy and appeased many. It touted efficiency. And not surprisingly for a technology under development, efficiency was increasing with leaps and bounds. More and more computing power became available for the same amount of energy consumption. But therein lies a big problem. First and foremost, it is doubtful that the extra computer power was really needed. Given that almost 20% of computer and network use is in emailing, one wonders why the extra speed is so essential.

The average CPU of today spends 95-99% of its time waiting for input. While humans slowly type letters, the CPU idly sits around for millions of cycles. Only a very small percentage of computer consumers fully utilize their cycles most of the time. And what do these guys do? You guessed it, they play games. They are the energy hogs, but in all fairness, at least they see the benefit of their consumption. The others just plain waste it.

The software industry, and most notably Microsoft - since MS have a virtual monopoly- is a very active accomplice in all this. By continually adding on "features" they drive demand for more and faster hardware. The flagship Word application has so many features it would hardly fit on a PC that is more than 5 years old. The application is so overloaded that less than 1%of users  have ever tried all its features. For the average user, Word has made little practical improvement since 1995, when Windows was first launched.

And just how dirty is the information superhighway? The average desktop PC uses somewhere between 150-250W. A 250W PC uses 1kWh every four hours. If you leave it on all the time as many do, it uses the equivalent of one barrel of oil every 90 days. When using oil to generate electricity it puts out 9 lbs of CO2 every day, for a total of 1.6 tons per year. That is the clean scenario. Most of the electricity in the US is generated from coal, a much dirtier fuel.

A UK study found that 40% of UK adults use a computer at work. 18% of those are never switched off. Another 13% are often, but not always left on. The waste is estimated at 1.5 billion kWh per year. That is just from idle time, i.e. when the computer is left on but the user is not there. Given the true "duty cycle" of the machine, the real numbers for waste are more than twice as high.

Fifteen "average" PC's equal one car in pollution. But that is not all. It roughly takes as much energy to produce a PC as the machine consumes in one year. And its true life-expectancy is only 2-3 years. Then it most likely ends up in China, India or Kenya, where its components are "recycled" or better released in the environment. These components are most toxic, yet they freely flow into Guiyu's rivers and the China sea. Guiyu, where the water is too toxic for humans to drink.

Estimates are that the internet, that is the collection of all PC's, servers, data storage units, switches, routers, etc. uses 350 billion kWh per year in the US alone. That is nearly 10% of the US energy budget. When Forbes estimated 8% for PC's alone, the industry revolted as mentioned before. Their estimate for PC's was more like 1%. Lest you think that is good, remember that the US Department of Defense currently uses "only" 2% of all US energy. And that powers their jets, aircraft carriers, battle ships, etc.

But the industry's numbers do not include peripherals, servers, routers, and data storage. They also omit the cooling needed for servers, which adds more than 100% to the cost. Or the energy needed to produce a machine that lasts less than 3 years. If you do add these in, the real numbers are closer to 10%. For the world the number is close to 5% of the total energy budget of the planet.

What you can do is very simple. Turn your computer off when you don't use it. Don't bother with the screensaver because it does nothing at all. Even sleep or hibernation modes in most models consume vast amounts of energy. The rule is simple: turn it off. Also turn off your cable modem and wireless transmitters. Rebooting all this equipment takes less than 2 minutes. And contrary to popular myths, it does not take extra energy to get things started.

Turning stuff off all the time is only a minor inconvenience. However, it will save you more than $500 a year in energy per PC. And tons of CO2. 

As an added benefit, it will make you far less vulnerable to viruses, trojan horses and other security attacks. It will make it far more difficult to steal your information or hijack your machine. As a method it is far better than any firewall, or other software protection. And it is free.

troubled waters

Seventy percent of our planet is covered in water. For all practical purposes, the oceans are our infinite reservoir. A reservoir that stays steady no matter how much we take out or put in. By all measures we as individuals are puny and insignificant in comparison. If you really believe humans are too inconsequential to do major global damage to ecosystems look no further than the oceans. Because if there is anything on this planet that should not show signs of human meddling it is those oceans.

Reality, unfortunately is quite different. Our effect on the oceans and the creatures living there is more than apparent. And if you don't think that is troubling you are in denial.

Take the world's fisheries. Almost half of all fish and shellfish stocks known to us are fully exploited and close to or at maximal sustainable limits. That means that if we fish more these stocks will collapse. 25% of fish stocks are already past that point. More than half of those are overexploited and in decline while approximately 10% are depleted. Of those 10% a few are undergoing a long recovery that is estimated to take decades and the success of which depends on legal protections and enforcement. 

So far recovery efforts have had mixed results. Some species have recovered faster than we expected, while others like haddock, cod and redfish remain critical despite long campaigns and elaborate efforts.

Only 25% of fish and shellfish stocks remain underexploited and present any opportunity for growth. Many of these are small coastal fish and shellfish considered of inferior quality. Fishery production from wild catches has leveled off at around 100 million tonnes per year. That is up from 45 million in 1970.  

The total values you find vary a bit depending on whether one includes non-food items such a fishmeal or not. You may see total numbers ranging from 98 million to as high as 110 million tonnes. Another source of variability is Chinese data. China is the largest fish producer and recently Chinese numbers have been called into question. Especially since Chinese trends seem to go counter those of all other countries. Most suspect China is inflating its numbers. But even a bit of fudging cannot hide the fact that we are close to the limit.

According to the FAO, the year 2000 was the highest capture year at 94.8 million tons of food-quality fish. Since then, numbers have leveled off or even decreased. 95 million tonnes by the way is the number needed to keep our current fish consumption level at the 2007 population values. Fish is an important source of protein and much of the world depends on fish for adequate nutrition. Overall, seafood contributes 15% of all protein. Decreasing our fish consumption will lead to inevitable starvation and malnutrition.

Projected population growth alone is expected to totally deplete wild catches by sometime between 2030 and 2050 at present levels of consumption. That is how close we are to our limits.

One should not infer from this that the oceans will be empty by 2050 as some do. This type of sensationalist press is common and makes conservation efforts look bad. Because it is very likely that there will be fish in the oceans in 2050. It is only if conditions do not change that this would happen. Conditions always change.

The point of this projection is not to spread doom and gloom. It is only to illustrate how enormous our impact on the planet has become. And that means global disasters are ever more likely. Especially if we keep going the way we are going now. We are so close that if we just stay where we are, population growth alone could do us in before the end of the century.

a politically correct manhattan project

The Department of Energy, big oil, and Silicon Valley venture capitalists are banding together with public universities in a bid to save the world. Given the scope of funding and the lofty goal what better name could be given than a new Manhattan Project? It should be noted that earlier on DOE thought the genome project would be its new Manhattan Project. That one was going to save us by curing all illnesses. 

Unfortunately for DOE it only lasted until NIH and Congress took it away from them. And what has become of curing all illnesses you ask? Well, we are working on it. For now, let's just say that the genome's impact on drug development has been rather puny and insignificant. But like the genome project there is no doubt that someone is going to make a lot of money on this new new Manhattan project. And some already are. 

If you haven't caught on yet, don't despair. Soon enough you will be inundated with the latest fad, called biofuels. Not the corny alcohol variety that has MidWest farmers and politicians all excited. Not even the more ambitious but far less feasible cellulosic alcohol flavor that the President is so keen on. No, nothing short of growing real gasoline to feed our ever expanding appetite. To put it in ExxonMobil terms:"as our economy grows, Americans are demanding more gasoline." To do what exactly is not really clear. Maybe it can keep all those foreclosed properties warm?

The whole biofuel rage is totally misplaced. Its main impact on global warming may be that it will make food so expensive that fewer people will be able to afford to drive around much. It will also do very little for our energy independence. Because there are two sides to our energy demand. One is to ensure that we have enough oil to power our increasingly unrealistic life-style. But the other, equally if not more important one is to make sure nobody else does. You don't think so?

Suppose the US suddenly stopped importing oil. Would the oil producing countries and companies just fold? You bet. They would sell their oil to the highest bidder. And plentiful cheap oil would easily propel another nation into superpower status. But don't worry, it won't ever happen because we cannot afford to let it happen. And if it slipped by us, well there is always the long awaited world war 3.

But let's go back to the more realistic global warming scenario for a second. Although it presents a real threat with potentially disastrous outcomes, it is but one symptom of a much bigger problem: overpopulation. Overpopulation is real but it is to some extent relative because it depends on life-style. However, if we just elevated China to our current standard of living we would be in serious jeopardy. That is how close we are to "the edge."

Given our desire to live large we are quickly approaching the dreaded "limits to growth." If that sounds like the much maligned Club of Rome to you, you are right. But before you burst out in uncontrollable laughter, remember he who laughs last. The way things are going, the predictions of the infamous Club of Rome will likely come true. To be continued, as they say in Hollywood.

keep the old stuff

Here is a handy tip for the holidays. One that will save you money and help the environment. It is quite simple really and its main effect is indirect. Keep the old stuff in your garage, attic, basement or storage rooms. Don't throw it out, don't recycle it, and do not give it to charity. Just keep it there.

Have you ever wished you kept something that you just threw out, because you need it now? Well that is one benefit. Re-using old stuff is better than recycling it. But even that old TV that you will never use again has its use just sitting there. For one, it won't end up in Guiyu, China, the waste capital of the world. It won't release its toxic lead and other chemicals into the environment. That is one good thing. But more even more importantly, it takes up space. That is the key part.

One thing we all learn about houses is that we tend to fill them to the top. No matter how big your house is, you will fill it up sooner or later. I call it relativity and the fear of a vacuum (see previous posts). This is a natural tendency and very hard to fight. Everyone succumbs to it, and although some people pack in more stuff than others, nearly everyone packs in a lot. Nearly everyone over-consumes for this simple reason.

If you keep the old stuff around there won't be room for new items. That will keep you from shopping for new stuff. It will save you money and it will help the environment. And it is easy. Often the best way to do something is to make it so you are forced to do it. If your house is full there isn't more room for new items. Now you can focus your energies on other matters. Like getting in shape.

A great way to be healthy, save money, and help the ecosystem.

relativity and the mating dance

So you thought the size of your paycheck makes you happy? Wrong. Brain imagers now have definite proof of what we all knew to be true: what makes you happy is that you earn more than your peers. The study was published in Science magazine.

What is clearly shown is that the relative size of your pay compared to others is what matters. And that makes a great deal of sense. The money has little or no absolute value. There are only so many things you can buy that truly benefit you or that you can truly enjoy. No matter how rich you are, you can only sit in one chair at once.

But you can buy unlimited numbers of chairs to show off. You can engage in the never ending arms race to outdo your neighbors and friends with ever more and bigger gadgets. And in doing so you can imagine yourself ranking higher than them. And that should make you more desirable to the opposite sex, or at least so your brain is wired to respond.

There are various ranking systems that people employ. Being extraordinarily gifted in one area or another is usually a ticket to success. Although there are no guarantees, people with exceptional athletic and other skills have a high probability of getting there. But this method is limited to those lucky enough to have such skills. And the fall-off from the top is incredibly steep. 

Acquiring cool stuff is often seen as a method accessible to all. Although this method too requires special skills for great success, there are more winners here. The fall-off is not nearly as steep. And this is one method strongly encouraged in our society. We built what is in essence a big and complex Ponzi scheme although few recognize it as such. One reason may be that the ones who are left to hold the empty promises are usually living in another (poor) country. But that is another story.

While essentially adaptive, this ranking game has a huge unfortunate consequence. Millions are trapped into its addictive web, endlessly pressing levers for a brief moment of joy. And while they can't or won't ever stop, few of them seem really happy doing what they are doing. 

I am sure you have seen the pictures of long lines of people standing out in the cold waiting for the stores to open early on Black Friday. And the resulting pushing and shoving to get in the door. But what is inside that is really so attractive to them ? The chance to outdo the others and score a useless big bargain. And the unconscious gratification signal deep in their brains that results from thinking they moved up another notch. Pressing the lever one more time.

the day after

With Thanksgiving out of the way, it is time to think about burning some calories before the next big eating binge. And what better way to do so than to go shopping? This is black Friday start of the retail season. Or maybe you prefer a trip to the gym to work off those extra calories? Given that the average American over-eats by about 2,000 calories on Thanksgiving Day, there is plenty of burning to do. And no shortage of good intentions it seems.

The US leads the world in the number of "health clubs." According to the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA), the US health industry had $17.6 billion in revenues in 2006. That compares to just over $10 billion in Western Europe, where the population is at least 1/3 higher than in the US. As of January 0f 2007, there were an estimated 29,357 clubs and 43.7 million health club members in the country. 

Just over half the members belong to commercial clubs. The next biggest category is the YMCA and YWCA memberships at 19%. 2/3 of the members are in the 18-54 age category, nearly equally divided between 18-34 and 35-54. Women make up 57%. Half of the membership has incomes over $75,000 a year, and 1/3 make over $100,000.

Gyms it seems are a great place to socialize. And socializing is what most people do when they get there. When it comes to calories however, gyms don't do so well. You'd be better of walking or jogging there. Burning calories requires prolonged and steady exercise and that is the type of exercise gyms are particularly unsuited for. Even though the places are stacked with treadmills, stairsteppers, stationary bicycles, ellipticals, rowing machines, and other aerobics equipment, few if any, use them correctly. And don't expect any help from the club either.

In order to satisfy everyone, clubs limit aerobic exercise equipment use to 30 minutes or less. Given that it takes about 15 to 25 minutes to become fully aerobic, hardly anyone can get to a workout within the time limit. But no sweat, experience has shown that most people give up after a mere 20 minutes of watching TV while jogging or walking. And sweat is the right word. Most people would dread to sweat hard in public.

Most gyms keep up a cozy temperature. You would not want anyone to catch a cold now would you? And that is why most restrict the use of fans too. But it is hardly possible to get a good workout on a stationary machine without adequate cooling. And that would mean a frigid sub-60 degree room with plenty of fans moving air around. And a decent size puddle of sweat under each machine. Yuk, where is the fun in that?

In the end this may not be so bad. Because research has shown that stationary exercise puts a lot of (heat) stress on one's system. Some have even argued that indoor exercise may not be all that good for you. Keep that in mind when you walk on the treadmill. Oh, and don't forget a coke and a snack on the way out. You can always go on a diet later.

mating dance

Like so many other animals, humans spend an inordinate amount of time and resources in mating displays. We may shake our heads at peacocks and wonder why a bird would jeopardize its survival by growing an unwieldy tail just to impress its mate, but we should take a look in the proverbial mirror.

Any teenager will tell you that there is nothing better than a set of wheels to impress the opposite sex. Preferably a very unwieldy but shiny and aggressive-looking set of wheels. And like a peacock's tail, the more inept the better. Because the handicap is an essential part of the attraction, think high heels and walking.

The mating dance car is a mockery of the real thing. A racing car that is no good to race, an off-road vehicle that can't go off-road. A truck that can barely haul more than a passenger car. And all of it loaded with unnecessary bulk and trim.

Unfortunately, this tendency to acquire impractical but somehow impressive pieces of moving metal is not limited to teens alone. Middle aged males especially suffer from a great need to participate in this quest. And lest the members of the opposite sex start shaking their heads at such infantile behavior, they should realize that they play a very important role in it. They make it work.

The whole debate about fuel efficiency is here in a nutshell. And everyone knows it, although few will say it out loud. We can build fuel efficient and practical cars. We don't even have to build them, they are out there. But who would want them? And I am not talking about high tech hybrids, which are really just a way to make efficiency palatable to the mating dance. I am talking about small cars, with practical designs, that are easy to drive, easy to park, and easy to use. But easy is the problem here. Easy is not sexy. Despite the high mileage.

You can already hear the rationale and justifications mounting. But what about safety you say? Aren't bigger cars safer? Well, there is little doubt that if you drove an Abrams battle tank around, few could cause you any harm. But that is missing the point. Because soon enough all your neighbors would have their tank too. Escalation is a poor way to solve problems. But it is quite popular nonetheless.

The roads would be safer if vehicles were smaller and lighter. If everyone rode a bicycle, few would die in crashes. Especially teens. Because teens are really into the mating dance, which by the way also includes reckless behavior and excess consumption. We are no different from other animals here. The mating dance is inherently a dangerous game. Call it selection.

And because we are no different, we too face the threat of extinction.

toxic technology

This holiday season Americans and Europeans are in the process of replacing old CRT's with newer LCD monitors and plasma screens. Earlier in the subprime bubble, many replaced kitchen appliances with newer models. The average cell phone, PDA, and Pentium-class PC lasts 2-3 years. 

What happens next is the truly scary part. Less than 10% of electronic gadgets are recycled. Some can be found on the side of the road as we all know. These fortunately tend to end up in legitimate recycling facilities. Most are put in household waste or otherwise "cleanly" discarded. Their fate is not so clear but over 90% ultimately end up in toxic dumps with no environmental standards. The comforting thought is that these dumps are located elsewhere.

Welcome to Guiyu, China, capital of toxic waste. Here a crowd estimated at between 100,000 and 150,000 labors 16 hours at a wage of $1.50 per day to recover what can be recovered from old electronics and appliances. They do so by melting circuit boards, smashing screens, dumping electronics in acid, and other not-so-environmentally friendly methods. All of it in the open. The place is so polluted that fresh drinking water needs to be shipped in daily. The streams running out of Guiyu are dangerous to most life forms. Millions of tons of toxic e-waste gets shipped here every year.

China is the final resting place for up to 70% of the world's e-waste. The rest goes to Delhi and Bangalore in India, and Kenya. China itself dumps up to one million tons in its own backyard every year. Estimates are as high as 5 million TV sets, 4 million refrigerators, 5 million washing machines, 10 million mobile phones and 5 million PC's coming from China alone. 

This e-waste is a veritable who's who of toxic materials. Monitors contain up to 7% of their weight in lead. Refrigerators and air conditioners contain freon and other toxic fluorocarbons. Fluorescent tubes contain mercury vapor. Add to that fluorine, barium, chromium, cobalt, etc. All of it escapes into the air or flows freely through the streets and the people of Guiyu.

Of course there are laws in place. Switzerland was the first country to start e-waste recycling in 1991. The EU quickly followed suit and established e-waste regulations in the mid 1990's. An international treaty was signed in Basel in 1998. Not surprisingly, US did not sign the convention. Other legislation is stalled in Congress.

US efforts did not get underway until 2004 when California added a fee for recycling electronics. At first that fee was a mere token, but subsequent changes were made to bring it more in line with reality. Even so, the e-waste keeps growing and disappearing to exotic places.

According to the Associated Press, laws have little meaning in Guiyu. There are plenty of loopholes to accept imports. A $100 note taped to inside of a container is powerful incentive. The EPA estimates that exporting e-waste is 10 times cheaper than disposing of it properly. Such margins are a call to arms for free traders.

Think Guiyu when you buy another PC or another cell phone. And remember that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is trying to save lives in the third world while Microsoft is making sure your old PC goes obsolete before long.

holiday shopping

This holiday season do something patriotic: buy American. Not goods from China sold by companies with headquarters in America, but goods made locally by American workers. This won't just keep jobs here and help the economy, it will also avoid pollution and greenhouse gases due to shipping. And if you apply it to food and drink, it will ensure better quality, fresher goods, that are less likely to be covered in pesticides. Healthy food guidelines are very simple . Always avoid things that are produced outside a 100 mile radius from where you live.

And here is another good guideline: the bulkier and the heavier the item, the more good it will do everyone to buy local. The same applies to in reverse to complexity. A cellphone made in Asia is not as bad as wine shipped from Australia. While you could argue that such thinking will lead to keeping low tech jobs and losing valuable high technology, that is not necessarily the case. High tech devices are often designed in Silicon Valley and manufactured abroad. The high tech part is in the design.

And while we are on the topic of shipping. Avoid shipping yourself, especially by air. That too will not just benefit our ecosystem, it will save you a lot of headache, anger, and bouts of hypertension.

chinese medicine

We all know that there is no such thing as a free lunch but that hasn't kept us from trying to eat one. And the fact is that some people eat free while all others pay. The trick they use is quite simple. It is called credit. But it is a type of credit where no bill comes due. At least not to them or in their life-time. It is a trick as old as Chinese medicine.

Today's WSJ has an article about tainted ginger originating in China and sold in California. Given how much food California grows, you would wonder why we import basic items such as ginger and garlic.  The US imports 68.7 million pounds of unground ginger per year. 53.8 million pounds travels 8,000 miles from China to get here.  And the reason why is simple. Ginger from China can be had for $7 per 30 pound box. And it can be sold for $2-3 per pound in the store. Good deal? Ginger from Brazil, the second leading source costs as much as $35 per box.

And the same applies to garlic. If you live in California, you may be forgiven to think that garlic comes from Gilroy. But think again. The US is a net importer of garlic. And China is the primary source.

One reason Chinese goods are so cheap is that Chinese workers aren't paid as well. That is the part the Chinese suffer for. They have a lower standard of living and we take advantage of it. The second part is that the Chinese are not subject to the same strict regulations and inspections that apply here. And here is where things get a bit tricky.

Everyone is always up in arms about government regulation. Demonizing regulations and the government is a favorite US pass-time. We conveniently forget that we elect the government, and that we put regulations in place to protect ourselves and our children. We do not want cheap toxic pesticides on our food, lead paint on our toys, or unsafe devices. We want inspections and guarantees. We want to sue for damages when someone gets hurt. And we expect multi-million dollar payments for pain and suffering. All that adds to price of things produced here. And like all good capitalists we really want someone else to pay for it. We effectively put locals out of business and go shop elsewhere.

The third part of the China bill is shipping. Importing basic stuff such as ginger, garlic, children's toys, and gadgets burns tons of oil. But we still "gain" because the oil is cheap too. It is cheap as nobody pays for the pollution part. Or the inevitable oil spills that mess up our coastlines. These are separate issues after all. Or are they?

Next time you volunteer your valuable time to clean up coastlines think about that. If you paid a few extra dollars for your goodies, you could save yourself a ton of time. And the environment a ton of hardship.

false modesty

There are those who believe we are too puny to matter on this planet. They are usually the ones who only display this type of modesty when it comes to arguments about pollution or global warming. When it comes to showing of their cars, boats, mansions, and other toys, they are not nearly so modest. In essence what they want is to be left alone in their mecca of over-consumption. 

Consider this. The US has 442 million acres of cropland according to the USDA. Of that, about 77% or 340 million acres is used for crops. That works out to about 1.13 acres per person. Using traditional farming methods, it is estimated that 1.2 acres is needed to feed a person for one year. This is a rough estimate of course and depends on location, climate, whether the person is a vegetarian or a meat eater, and what you define as "traditional farming." Modern farming does a lot better, unless you figure in all the hidden costs.

Those costs include depleting aquifers, fertilizer and pesticide runoffs, petroleum products used, gas, etc. Some have estimated we put in about 10 calories for every calorie of food we grow. But apart from water it seems we can at least keep doing this for a while longer.

Crop yields have jumped dramatically since the so-called green revolution of the 50's. Estimates are that yields jumped by an order of magnitude after world war II due to the increased use of fertilizer, pesticides, and irrigation. That, by the way was what people meant when they said the "green revolution." It turned the country green.

In 2002, an irrigated acre of land yielded 4,260 pounds (1,932 kgs) of wheat on average. Barley yields are comparable, while oats yield half as much and corn about twice as much. A rough estimate says that one acre of wheat could feed 4-5 adults for a year if they were lean vegetarians. If they were lean meat eaters only about 1 person per year could be supported for every acre.

Not surprisingly, the US is the world's biggest food exporter. According to some estimates the income derived from food exports is close to $40 billion per year. However, if the population keeps growing at present levels, the US will cease to be a food exporter by 2025 or there about. All the land will be needed to feed the people living here. By 2050, food shortages will start affecting the population at large.

The point is not to paint a doomsday scenario. Clearly there are many ways to avoid disaster. And quite frankly it won't affect everyone. Already more than 10% of the US population or 35 million do not have "food safety" (i.e. they go hungry), and we are still exporting food to other countries. Call it the free market.

The point is that we are incredibly close to disaster. And given the enormous lag times in the system, we could cross a boundary and not notice it until it is too late. So much for modesty and laissez faire.

antisocial

Only the little people pay taxes, Leona Helmsley once said. And it seems many of her superrich "friends" agree. According to the Wall Street Journal, the superrich of Palm Beach exploit each and every angle and loophole to keep their estates green in the middle of a drought. Even if it means ripping out perfectly good lawns and replacing them with new plantings. You guessed it, new plantings are exempt.

And we are not talking a few gallons here and there. Mr. Schar, executive chairman of homebuilder NVR for example, is one of those mentioned. He guzzled 15.4 million -yes millions !- gallons of water over the past twelve months. All of that to keep his 6 acre estate in pristine condition. Mr. Clark, of Netscape fame got by with only 3.4 million gallons for his 7 acres. I guess he deserves a prize for conservation and stewardship.  

Put top honors go to Mr. Peltz, an investor and fast food magnate. He cut back from 24 million gallons to 20 million gallons for his 13.8 acre Montsorrel estate. No doubt he was scared off by the $100 fines the city levies for guzzlers and cheaters. The estate is aptly named by the way. It means mountain of sorrow. Like many of his fellows, Mr. Peltz does not even live at his water guzzling mountain of sorrow. He resides in New York. 

One good thing about being superrich is that one can always escape. When the city runs dry, or gets flooded by the rising seas, one can always pack up and move on, leaving behind one's legacy of making a difference. And these guys surely make a difference. Like the warlords of Easter Island, they are leaving behind huge statues amidst a depleted environment.

What is truly unfortunate however, is that with global warming and global pollution all will eventually run out of places to escape to. Maybe that is why the administration wants to go back to the moon?

eating your seed corn

Slowly but surely the tourism industry is destroying its own future. Already it contributes 5% of global carbon emissions. And that is just to move people to their destinations. It doesn't include the driving they will do once there, and the boating and helicoptering. 

Aviation produces 610 megatons of carbon per year, more than the world's fourth largest economy. At current growth rates that is expected to rise to 777 megatons by 2010 and over 1,200 megatons by 2025. But it isn't just the scale of the gas emissions. According to some experts air travel dumps greenhouse gases high in the atmosphere where their destructive potential is greatest.

Every advance made in fuel efficiency -and there have been many-, is quickly lost to ever increasing numbers of travelers. And what are their favorite destinations ? Low-lying tropical islands and fragile ecosystems that are expected to be the first victims of global warming. And while rich nations in the Western world can afford to shore up coastal defenses and postpone the inevitable, tourism targets poor countries with few resources. These countries are among the least developed on the planet, and tourism is their primary source of hard currency. But that won't matter much once their beloved homelands sink below the rising sea levels.

Rich governments have every reason to promote aviation. And promote it they do. Washington just announced it will take measures to make sure travelers can get to their flights this holiday season. And the reason is quite simple. Aviation underlies our global status and secures our access to oil and other vital resources. Aircraft manufacturers are defense contractors first and foremost.  Their dabbling in the aviation sector helps pay for the war machines we all depend on to support our lavish and ever more unrealistic "active" life-style.

fine distinctions

Human sensory systems are amazingly powerful at detecting differences. Many studies have show our senses operate near the limit of what is physically possible.  The "just noticeable difference" for many parameters is incredibly small. Overall, the performance of our senses is superb and much better than would be expected from the inherently noisy components that make up our bodies.

For complex stimuli our performance is often so good that it is hard or near impossible to match with sophisticated instruments and computing devices. When so-called pattern recognition is involved, humans beat every system that is out there today. One could say biology is exquisitely sensitive.

Yet there is something humans are not very good at, and that is absolute measurements. Some will call these "objective" measurements. It is rather easy even for untrained individuals to tell you which of two objects is heavier, or which of two sounds is louder, or whether two foods taste the same, or two perfumes smell alike. But it is very hard even for well trained individuals to tell you how heavy something is, how bright the light is, how loud the sound is, or what the pitch is.

One reason for this discrepancy is adaptation. Much like everything else, our sensory systems adapt to stimuli. Even though we can detect a few molecules that foul up a room full of air, if we stay in a smelly room for a short time we don't notice the offending smell anymore. If the first sunlight is too bright in the morning, soon we move around comfortably in light that is a few orders of magnitude brighter. If background noise stays constant, we tune it out. And if we suddenly go somewhere quiet, the absence of noise may create a strange "loudness" sensation.

Thresholds also adjust with internal states. When we are hungry the smell of food will be stronger and we are more likely to see the food items in a complex scene. If we are dehydrated, salty items will taste better. Studies have shown that messenger molecules released in our blood stream affect not just the threshold of our senses but also the interpretation of the stimuli. If one takes morphine painful stimuli will no longer be painful. If no help is forthcoming pain may become intolerable.

Adaptation is but one part of the process. The other part is context dependent understanding. Humans interpret stimuli in the context they are in. They set expectations and match new experiences to these expectations. If you eat from a big plate you will eat more. If you drink from a big cup you will drink more. And you will judge how much you ate or drank by what is left over. And if others are around you will unconsciously compare your performance to theirs.

There is evidence for imprinting or at the very least for very strong associative memories. Things that remind you of your childhood will often taste or smell better. Drinking water tests have revealed that individuals like water with additives that remind them of their childhood, even if such additives taste horrible to others. And to some extent, even if those additives are harmful. If a certain food makes us ill, the smell of it will cause nausea, sometimes for months to come.

All this shows why humans are very poor at objective judgments. And that is why you should be very suspicious of the "great experts." Experts in food, wine, and fine sound systems. Experts in anything that has to do with luxury life-style items. Every time such great experts are subjected to blinded tests, they fail miserably. While they may be able to detect differences, they cannot tell which is which. And that is exactly what we expect. Because the great experts are human too.

tolerance and addiction

When you use a drug you may find that over time you need to increase the dose to get the same effect. The phenomenon is called tolerance. It happens because your body metabolizes the drug faster or builds more receptors for it or both. You adjust to the ever present chemical. The presence can lead to compensatory changes everywhere so that you both need the drug to stay healthy and show physical symptoms when your blood levels drop. This is called (physical) dependence. Concurrently, you may also experience intense craving and loss of control and be in a state called addiction. Most everyone agrees that this is not desirable.

When you get a new gadget like a car, a cell phone or a blackberry, your use will increase over time to the point where you can no longer live without it. Much like your body making lots of minor adaptations to an ever present chemical, you are adjusting your lifestyle in subtle ways to an ever present gadget. Instead of making firm appointments for example, and waiting five minutes until the other party arrives, you are likely to call many times beforehand to double-check and "stay up to date."  You are equally likely to reach for that phone as soon as you reach your destination and call the others "to see what is keeping them." 

You may also experience a craving to reach for that phone and play with it to "check your messages," or take your car and cruise around. You probably feel like you have enhanced flexibility and are empowered but the reality is that you lost control.

Adaptation is a universal biological law and it has clear survival benefits. But like anything else there are drawbacks and tolerance, dependency, and even addiction are some of them. Once these set in, you are likely to rationalize your behavior in any way possible so as to avoid confronting the truth. You are better off now, you are more popular and more desirable, your life is easier, you are in control.

If a drunk or a junkie on the street told you this you would laugh. But hold on, the phone is ringing. Time to hop in your oversized car and rescue the world!

paper tiger on the lawn

According to the EPA, over the last 35 years Americans have nearly doubled their solid waste output from 2.7 pounds per person per day to 4.5 pounds per person per day. In 2005, US residents, businesses, and institutions produced more than 245 million tons of garbage. And better than 1/3 of it is paper. 

But not all the news is bad. Americans have also increased their recycling rates from 6.4% to 30%. Recycling grew every year until the early 90's, when it leveled off at around 30%. Today up to 50% of the paper and paperboard is recycled. That means "only" 41 million tons of paper goes into landfills every year. That is "merely" 49 million average 90 ft. trees. 

Garbage production has also leveled off on a per capita basis since 1990. Unfortunately there are ever increasing numbers of people and so the absolute amount keeps going up. Population growth since 1990 is responsible for at least 30 million extra tons of garbage.

And to stick with paper for a while longer. The average reader of a metropolitan newspaper uses three trees per year. Up to 200 million fresh trees per year go into reading material for the US and UK combined. That is a forested area the size of Delaware each and every year.

The next biggest category of solid waste is yard clippings; 13.1% of garbage to be precise. There is your favorite lawn again. It is hard to shake the feeling that the green lawn is the worst environmental disaster in the country. It depletes our water resources, uses up fertilizer and pesticides at a rate equivalent to food crops, causes more oil spills than the Exxon Valdez every year, and is responsible for 30 million tons of solid waste that is carted away.

Next time you pick up your newspaper from your front lawn, think about that.

bloated

No matter how rich you are you can only sit in one sofa at a time. You can only read one book at a time, and you can only watch one movie at a time. You can build houses all over the planet and stuff them to the gills with art work, furniture, and other fine items, but you can only be in one room at a time. You can heat and cool, illuminate and ventilate, but it will do you little good unless the light shines on you and the fan blows your hair. 

You can collect cars, boats, airplanes, and helicopters, but you can only drive one car, sail one boat, or fly one plane at any given moment. You can having enough swimming pools for a pod of blue whales but you can only swim in one at a time. You can collect so many toys you won't have enough hours in your life time to try them all at least once.

You can drink fancy waters from exotic bottles but tap water is likely of better quality. You can sip expensive wines from rare vintages, but distinguished experts may not be able to tell them apart from a $10 supermarket bottle in a blind tasting. You can drive your Ferrari but chances are your average speed won't exceed 30 mph. And the revving engine is likely to damage your hearing.

It should come as no surprise then, if your only friend in life is poor dog. Or a very rich dog for that matter.

But rejoice, there is one thing where you do excel. You are leaving a huge footprint of destruction. A scar on the planet that will be there for generations to come. A scar that you won't be able to offset by setting up foundations to help the poor and the needy or prevent and cure illnesses on continents far away. If you'd really wanted to save humanity or solve problems why not look around you? How about that $40 million mansion and all its useless gadgets?

Why not shed some excess weight? Losing weight is a much needed prescription for the world today.

as clean as coal

Many people think nothing is cleaner than electricity. Some yearn for electric cars, while others forgo gas-driven tools for electric ones. There is less noise, no emissions, and nothing but clean useful energy. Or is there?

The US produces 25% of all electricity worldwide. It is followed by China and Russia. All three countries are similar in that the majority of their electricity is generated from coal. It is cheap according to economists, who never factor in the cost of pollution. Coal as a source of electricity is predicted to increase its share in the coming decade. That is mostly because China builds about one power plant a month, most of them driven by coal. By 2020 coal will  play a more prominent role than it already does, while renewables will be less important.

49.7% of US electricity comes from coal. Only 19.3% is nuclear energy and 6.7% is hydro-electric. "Other sources," such as solar, windmills, and waste recycling make up 2.9%. In contrast, France generates 78.1% of its electricity from nuclear power, and only 3.9% from coal.

Whatever you may think about nuclear power, consider the following. Coal contains minute amounts of radioactive material and burning it in very large quantities releases these radioactive substances into the air. Radioactive contamination from burning coal is higher than that of a nuclear power station, where radioactive materials are tightly controlled and stored rather than released into the air we all breathe.

And just how much coal do we burn? In the first half of 2007, US power generation burned 603,228,000 tons of coal, up 1.7% from the first half of 2006. 40% of that power or 139,300 kWh per month went to residential customers. A slightly lower amount of 127,504 went to commercial users. Industry consumed only 85,300 kWh.

Because coal releases carbon that was stored in the earth millions of years ago, it is a major contributor to CO2, a greenhouse gas. And that is probably the "cleanest" part of coal. Coal also contains heavy metals such as mercury, arsenic, and others. Burning coal vaporizes all these elements and releases them into the atmosphere. You may be worried about lead paint on your children's toys, but do you worry about leaving the lights on and releasing mercury?

It is often said that individuals can do little to affect global warming. These numbers show that this is blatantly false. Consumers have control over more than half the electricity produced in the country. 40% is in their homes and another 35% in the businesses where they work. What will it take to teach people to turn off their lights?

Consumers also indirectly control what happens in the world. Most of China's output is cheap consumer products that US consumers eagerly snap up to save a few dollars here and there. These products are a double whammy for the environment. Not only are they driving countries like China to build new and dirty power plants, they also have to shipped half way across the globe, adding even more pollution.

You could use the money you save from turning off your lights to buy locally produced goods. That way you would do the environment a favor twice over. Think about it this holiday season.

chemistry

In 1960 the US used 7,464 tons of fertilizer, 37% of it nitrogen, 34% phosphate, and 29% potash. By 1970 the total had more than doubled to 16,068 tons, and the nitrogen component had risen to 46%. By 1980, the total stood at 23,083 with 49% nitrogen, 24% phosphate and 27% potash. Since the 1980's use has been more or less steady at slightly over 21,000 tons, but the nitrogen component has gone up to as high as 57%, with the rest equally divided between phosphate and potash.

Fertilizer uses are heavily concentrated in states draining into the Mississippi watershed. Other high use areas include the Eastern seaboard, Florida, California's central valley and Eastern Washington state.

In 1995, about 4.5 billion pounds of chemicals were used as pesticides in the US every year. Half of that is chlorine and chlorine products used to treat water. A quarter are conventional pesticides, petroleum and sulfur. The majority of these are used in agriculture to produce food and fiber. That amounts to nearly 1 billion pounds. Another one billion pounds is in herbicides.

Pesticide uses have leveled off too, especially in agriculture. But in-home uses are skyrocketing and in-home uses are quickly making up for any losses. Surveys estimate that home owners use as much fertilizer and pesticide per acre for lawn care as agriculture does to grow food. 

Excess fertilizer and pesticide run off into rivers and streams and end up in the oceans. There the fertilizer can powerfully boost algae and micro-organism growth. These critters can grow so quickly that they choke off oxygen supplies and kill fish and shellfish. Algae blooms also produce toxins that find their way to people.

Pesticides accumulate in filter feeders that are eaten by fish and so these end up in the food supply as well.

Think about that when you look at your green lawn.

miles to go before I sleep

It is no secret that people drive a lot in this country. It is a big country after all and the best way to get around is to drive and fly. In 1994, Americans drove enough miles in personal vehicles for 70 million (yes million) trips to the moon and back. And in 2007, they have already exceeded that distance in the first 7 months alone. All at an average speed below 30 mph. In 250+ hp cars with equally impressive amounts of torque. But there is some good news.

According to the EPA, the hydrocarbon emissions per vehicle decreased by about 15 grams per mile between 1960 and 2000. It is projected that by 2015, the hydrocarbon emissions per vehicle per mile will be less than 1 gram. How is that for good news? You can clearly see that improved technology is the way solve problems. Or is it?

The catch is that during the same period, vehicle miles traveled rose by approximately 1,600 billion miles. And by 2015, EPA estimates the vehicle miles traveled will increase to about 3,400 billion miles. Also, given the increased efficiency, people are now driving bigger and heavier vehicles. Why not take advantage of our gains you say? The increased weight and bulk alone have already nullified our fuel efficiency gains and then some.

And isn't the solution to pollution issues such as global warming in new technology? Haven't we solved all our problems in the past that way? And doesn't new technology mean new ways of making money. And more jobs for the economy? The green economy can provide lots of new sources of green. Especially when it is as easy as slapping a new label onto things. And the labeling artists are indeed having a ball with things such as green, solar, hybrid, etc.

Unfortunately more consumption is not the way out this current mess. We are here today because of excess consumption. Excess that is ever increasing because there are ever more of us consuming more per person. And every little efficiency gain means more cash is available for more consumption.

The EPA states that one of the best ways to reduce air pollution is to drive less. But where is the fun in that? Another helpful suggestion is to use public transportation, or bicycle to work. Or buy a smaller car. Clearly the EPA does not get it.

Furthermore the EPA suggests that you stop using engine driven tools in your backyard. You know those fun snow blowers, lawn mowers, leaf-blowers, chain saws, and other "power" tools. Spend a weekend afternoon in suburbia to enjoy the sounds of lawn mowers, leaf-blowers and chain saws. And it is not just inefficient engines used excessively.

According to the EPA, the amount of gasoline spilled trying to fill these devices is a significant source of air, ground, and water pollution. And spilling we do. A recent report found that Americans spill 17 million gallons of fuel each year while refilling their gas-powered lawn and garden equipment. That is a spill larger than the Exxon Valdez each and every year.

Here is an exercise tip for you. One that will save you money and help the environment. Why don't you bicycle to work and mow your lawn with an old fashioned lawn mower. One that you push yourself. Or better still, get rid of the lawn. It will save water too.

moving water

Water is a precious resource. Although our planet is covered in 70% water, only 2.5% of it is fresh water. Of the fresh water, most of it is frozen in ice caps -at least for now- or deep underground and less than 1% of it is truly accessible. Already a substantial number of people do not have access to clean fresh water and suffer the consequences.

Daily water consumption varies greatly around the globe and not surprisingly, North America tops the crowd with an average use of nearly 1,900 cubic meters (or 1,900,000 liters, 513,000 gallons) per person. Europeans use "only" 60% as much water and Asia's use is half that of Europe. Africa is at the bottom using a mere 245 cubic meters (245,000 liters or 63,700 gallons) per person.

Much of North America's water use goes to watering lawns, the largest irrigated crop in the country, flushing toilets, and taking showers. An equally important part goes into agricultural irrigation. The latter is often used to grow thirsty crops in deserts or near desert regions. Although much of the water use is non-consumptive, in the sense that water is returned to the surface, the water is nonetheless no longer very useful due to contamination and pollution.

Water flow is heavily controlled. The US has over 75,000 dams and very few rivers remain that flow unimpeded. While such dams produce power and control floods, they often have a devastating impact on fisheries. Entire local economies have disappeared when dams were built. To say nothing of the continual maintenance problems. Most dams do not produce energy and are a substantial number are nothing but a burden. 

Dams maybe problematic but at least they generate electricity. A lot of water flow takes energy instead of producing it. California uses the equivalent output of several nuclear reactors to pump water into the Los Angeles Basin where residents freely sprinkle it onto their lawns and their cars, oblivious to the fact that they live in a near desert.

The ever growing populations in the SouthWest are putting enormous stresses on the water delivery system. And the insistence of locals on lush gardens only makes matters worse. The populations of Arizona have increased ten fold in the last fifty years. A quarter of the houses in Nevada have been built since 1995. The growth of Las Vegas in the last decades has been staggering. Meanwhile the water in Lake Mead is dropping and will soon be below the city's intake pipes.

But the irony of water does not stop there. Nowhere are things more crazy than in the trade in bottled water. Driven by irrational fears of tap water and a huge cool and hip factor, companies are making millions shipping inferior quality product around the globe. 

Shipping water is the fastest growing and least regulated industry in the world. In the 1970's the annual volume was 300 million gallons. By 1980 it more than doubled to 630 million and by the 1990's the volume was up to two billion gallons per year. But that was just the beginning. By 2000, 8 billion gallons or 24 billion liters of water was bottled -over 90% in non-reusable plastic- shipped -at great expense and producing tons of carbon dioxide, and sold.

The amount of energy spent on packaging and shipping water is staggering. Water is a very heavy substance. Packaging it in little non-reusable plastic containers and shrink-wrapping those onto pallets adds additional contamination. The amount of pollution and greenhouse gases generated by the water trade is second to none. And that isn't even counting the equally enormous amounts of sweetened water, also known as soda or soft drinks, that is shipped daily. 

Given how unnecessary it is, and given that 1/3 of the 103 brands of bottled water studied recently contained high levels of chemical and bacterial contamination, one can only wonder why people do this. To say nothing of the fact that at least one quarter of the bottled water is nothing but someone else's tap water.

Think before you drink. It is good for you, and the environment.

credit card economy

For many centuries we humans have taken things from the earth. And this has led to great advances in our well being, our life expectancy, and our standard of living. These benefits are so large and we have gotten so used to them that we tend to forget two important things.

One is that we are mining resources. That means we are taking out non-renewable resources. Some of these resources have been here since the birth of the planet. Most of these are in large supply, although they may be hard to get to. Think of metal ores, minerals, and other similar items. They are of lesser concern now and we are unlikely to run out anytime soon. 

But others were built up thousands or even millions of years ago. Think of coal, oil and gas. And yet others were built more recently, such as water stored in aquifers. In almost all cases, these "reservoirs" took extremely long periods of time to establish. And while some are theoretically renewable, the rate of renewal is painstakingly slow. Yet we are depleting these items in a matter of a few generations. And the process is accelerating at a near exponential level. As populations grow so do demands.

The second problem is that our mining and our uses create byproducts, also known as pollutants. Pollutants affect all mining, including ore and mineral mining. So while we may not run out of ore, extracting it may become problematic. Pollution is linked to resource availability. They are two sides of one coin.

And while we tend to pay for the mining processes, we never or almost never pay for the pollution part. Even though there have been some recent efforts to rectify this situation, their impact is rather minimal and the vast majority of pollution is unpaid for. Paying for pollution is unpopular even with those who advocate letting market forces take care of everything. But pollution is part of the true cost of items. The true cost of oil is not just in discovery, pumping, refining, distributing, and profit. That is what we pay for today. It is also in air pollution, asthma, lower yields, climate effects, etc. That part we borrow.

Pollution has never been a major problem because our planet is so large compared to us. We could always act as if we had an infinite dump. There are those who think we are still in this phase. They say, how could be cause global warming, we are so small? But how do termites destroy a house?

It is no longer the case. While we are still a ways off from filling up our dump to capacity, the impact of pollution is already very real. And so is the impact of running out of resources, especially water. As the population grows these matters can only get worse. More people means more mining and more pollution. More people also means fewer empty backyards to dump our byproducts in.

Pollution -the current favorite subclass is greenhouse gases causing warming- is a reality and one that is growing rather rapidly. It can manifest itself as a lack of resources.  Pollution has a bad effect on the so-called renewable resources, or things that we grow. Nearly everything that grows is affected by pollution, be it chemical pollution of water and air, warming trends, etc.

Our stewardship or lack thereof resembles the current subprime crisis. Credit was extended to all, and especially those who would never be able to pay it back. We took all that credit and we took it eagerly, never thinking of it as borrowed goods. We took it and spent it. We paid for new cars, new kitchens, new everything. But soon the time will come to pay the piper. Only this crisis will be a bit bigger and farther reaching.

Restraint is unpopular yet it is a good cure. It does not just postpone events as some may think. It may actually prevent them from happening. If you can reduce the load to a point where the system can handle it you can be OK. But if you cross the threshold disaster can happen before you know it.

pressure cooker

A five year study by the US Dept. of Veterans Affairs and reported to the American Heart Association found a seasonal effect on blood pressure. The most likely hypothesis is that an active "summer" lifestyle is key. There is also a correlation with weight gain as it is known that people tend to gain weight in winter and lose it in summer. 

Other researchers think the hypertension link may be with salt intake. More salt means more water -and would mean more weight- and for many people higher fluid volume means higher pressure. It is unclear why people would eat more salty food in winter but salt losses due to sweat are much higher in summer. And the more active you are the more you sweat.

Hypertension is estimated at over 50 million cases in the US, about a third of which are undiagnosed. That is one out five to six people. While that may seem high, the number pales in comparison with the number of overweight people. 60% of adults in the US are overweight according to the CDC, and up to a quarter are obese. These data are a few years old and given the strong up trend, todays numbers may be even higher.

Being overweight is strongly linked to diabetes and the number of new diabetes cases has tripled since 1980. The incidence is now 1.44 million per year for a total of nearly 16 million cases. In 1980 the incidence was below 500,000 and the total at 5.6 million.

All of these diseases are strongly linked to life-style. The NIH further estimates that up a third of cancer cases are linked to life-style as well. And life-style means driving around all the time and sitting on the couch watching TV while munching on chips and drinking soda. And while you are watching those shows all your life-style choices are constantly reinforced by a barrage of advertising. Much of that advertising is done by car companies.

A recent study found that teens are less likely to drink if it is explained to them that companies are trying to manipulate them into drinking by suggestive advertising. Some schools are now teaching programs deconstructing ads that appear clearly aimed at teens. Whether that is true or not, the key lesson here is that people do not like to be manipulated.  Unless they are unaware of it of course.

Alcohol ads feature iPods, Play Stations, jewelry, hip clothing and other items teens can identify with. If you agree with this premise, and most parents apparently do, take a look at car ads. Take a look at the imagery used to sell oversized cars and ask yourself if you are being manipulated. Compare the rugged outdoor feel of an SUV ad with the famous Marlboro man ad. Both are trying to sell you items that you don't need and that are bad for your health.

Don't fault your teen for giving in to peer pressure, or think about suing alcohol companies for attempting to manipulate their minds. Look in your driveway before you cast the first stone. 

 

lifestyle change

A BBC poll of 22,182 people in 21 countries reported that most are ready for "green sacrifices." It wasn't quite clear what sacrifices people had in mind other than higher energy taxes. Worldwide, 50% are in favor of higher energy taxes, with the Chinese being the most enthusiastic. In the US the percentage is well below 50 which means nothing much is going to happen anytime soon. 

But apparently, when people are told the higher tax will go towards new technologies, more are willing to participate. Four out of five polled were prepared to "change their lifestyle," even in the US and China, the two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases. Given how hard it is for people to change their lifestyle, I kind of wonder what kind of follow thru we can expect. It seems more likely people were trying to please the pollster. Maybe they do feel guilty. But many people feel guilty being overweight too. But that does not mean they will do anything about it.

Here are some examples of rather painless adjustments one could implement: turn off your lights when you don't need them. I have already remarked that many houses are lit up like christmas trees at night, but you'd be surprised how many leave their porch lights on during the day as well. Another major winner is not to heat or cool the entire house, but only those rooms that are in use. Given how oversized houses are that should be pretty easy to do. If only one can make sure there are no obvious air leaks. According to other recent surveys, people will eagerly install new insulation but ignore obvious air leaks. It is just more fun to buy new things than to fix obvious flaws.

And thirdly, you could stop driving your car and cut back on flying. This one I am sure is a winner. Given that the average mileage of the top 5 bestselling cars in the use is just under 18 mpg, we could make some real differences here. But surely you think buying a new Lexus hybrid would be a better idea. It certainly sounds good, but even according to the Wall Street Journal, the new Lexus is not a green car. It costs nearly $100K and saves a mere 2 mpg under the best conditions. But hey, you can look cool and feel good too. How is that for a change in lifestyle?

None of the effective changes requires you to spend any money and maybe that is a problem. It is not sexy. Instead you will save money, which hopefully you won't spend flying to some exotic destination as that would completely nullify all the carbon savings and then some. You could invest the money in planting some trees for example. Or buy a new bicycle.

Given how easy these "changes" are and given the fact that you will save quite a bit of money following them, I would be interested to see how many would implement these. My guess is very few. So much for enthusiastic support of "lifestyle changes." Like all those New Year's resolutions I guess.

fear and loathing

Fear, according to psychology texts is a primary emotion, elicited by tangible and realistic danger. The emotion connected to more vague, ill-defined and less tangible dangers is called anxiety. According to the dictionary, anxiety is "a feeling of worry, nervousness, unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome." In popular parlance fear and anxiety are often used interchangeably.

Fear is an important driver of human behavior. It takes precedence over joy and feelings of well-being. It is also, according to recent studies, recognized quicker and responded to earlier. A study at Vanderbilt University showed that individuals react more quickly to a fearful facial expression than to faces displaying emotions such as joy and happiness. People also react with more intensity to fear. The study was published in the journal "Emotion."

Fear is one of the main reasons behind the decision to move to suburbia. The suburbs are perceived to be safer. That is true as far as robbery and aggravated assault are concerned. You are more likely to walk into a robber in the city. It is more unlikely in suburbia simply because there are few places to walk and fewer people to walk into. Direct physical threat is often cited as a reason to move to "a better neighborhood."

Murder is the crime most feared, but murder is really rare and makes up a small percentage of violent crime even in such crime ridden cities as Washington DC. Random murder is even more rare and random or serial killers are actually more likely to fit the profile of a socially adequate, intelligent and stable father figure -nearly all are male-. Not surprisingly, such types usually live in the suburbs.

But the more visceral murder is drive-by shooting or gang violence. This type of activity is inner city and it is often confined to very specific areas of larger cities. Although random shooting may affect bystanders, these are usually residents of a particular neighborhood. Few people living in such neighborhoods ever end up in the suburbs.

The news media play a big role in driving anxiety and fear of violence. Because the media focus on "newsworthy" items that grab attention, newscasts offer a very statistically biased view of the world. By repeating images and video over and over they create the illusion of something much bigger in scale and much more dramatic in scope than it really is. And by just focusing on newsworthy items they create the impression of high frequency even for very rare events.

Here is another example of people making the right decisions and producing the wrong outcome. The bias is further reinforced when received by individuals sitting alone in their oversized living rooms with little or no personal communication. These individuals have nobody to talk to who can put things in perspective for them. They are like frightened rabbits hiding in a hole and only meeting other frightened rabbits.

Fear and anxiety become even more exaggerated when it comes to one's offspring. The desire for a "good school" is another often cited driver for moving to suburbia. Many who lived in cities all their lives and who enjoyed city life will move when they are about to have children. And the desire for "good schools" is driven by fear on several levels. One is the fear for direct violence and harm to the child, either at school or on the way to school. Many parents will tell you they drive their kids to school because they are afraid something may happen when the kids walk to school. They never mention that those kids may get fat in being driven everywhere. Obesity is not an imminent threat.

Even though these parents walked to school as kids, they will tell you things are different now. The world is less safe. This perception is due to a distortion introduced by the news media and reinforced by some who stand to gain from it. There are no real data to back it up and what data there are usually show the opposite trend. But whatever these people may think, they have few options living where they do. Walking to school is simply not so easy anymore. Suburbs have few side-walks, and streets are filled with military style vehicles. Hummer anyone?

A more indirect fear is the fear of a poor education. The fear that the child will be left behind and not have a chance at an ivy league future. This fear has led to numerous silly changes. Parents think their child has to learn high school grade material in kindergarten. Some proudly display their three year olds reading novels or playing concertos. Again there is a profound lack of common sense, and nobody to talk to to put things into perspective. While it is possible to train a three year old to perform, there is little or no evidence that this carries over into adulthood.

Although the news media play an important role in all this, they aren't the only ones to blame. There are also the legions of those standing to gain from all this fear. The ones advertising gated communities, bigger and "safer" cars, more expensive private schools, additional tutoring, etc. Many in business and politics thrive on fear. There is nothing like it to get people to open their wallets and sign away their rights. 

As Franklin D. Roosevelt said, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

optimization

There is little doubt that todays suburbs are an environmental disaster. Just about everything is wrong with suburbs, and the main culprit is size. Suburbia is oversized. And that includes not just the houses, the lawns, and the cars, but increasingly also the humans living there. People living in suburbia are much more likely to be overweight than city dwellers. They spend more time in sitting in traffic, cause more air pollution, and are less likely to hang out with others.

To work out they drive to the gym. To listen to music they need a car stereo. To find one another they need a cell phone. And to have a friend they need therapy or a coach. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, more and more people need a family coach to help them deal with their everyday life. And to find stuff in their big house no doubt.

But where did all this go so wrong when those same humans arrived in suburbia with the best of intentions? And by making nothing but the right decisions? Unfortunately, as any mathematician can tell you, making locally optimal decisions does not guarantee a globally optimal path.

Why did houses get so big, and lawns so vast? That too is the result of people making the right decisions. Builders need to build and as land gets scarce they have to move out and away from the city. That means more driving and more time spent in traffic. To make things attractive they build bigger houses. Bigger houses have more immediate appeal. Human adults remain very childlike in their fascination with size. Witness all the junk email you get.

Another factor has to do with rising land prices. When prices go up, one is forced to build bigger dwellings to break even. That is why on each subsequent round of building, the houses get bigger. They get so big they take up more and more of the lot.

But bigger houses mean more raw materials and more stuff to fill them up. As you probably know, no matter how big or small your house is, you will fill it to capacity. If you move from an apartment to a house, at first the house may appear enormous but pretty soon you will have trouble finding an empty spot to put your new toys. And with every subsequent "upgrade" the process will start anew. Most of the stuff you don't need and in any case you never use it. One can only sit in one chair at a time. But it is comforting to have a full space.

Bigger houses also need more heating, more cooling, more electricity, and more water. And to keep property values steady, inhabitants will often form a home owners association. And the home owners association will make the right decisions too. And these decisions will mean more lawns, more water, and more energy use. They want you to keep a lawn so you get one. After all green is attractive, even in the desert.

You need to keep your grass green so you water. You need to keep it trimmed so you mow it. In fall you need to remove the leaves and so you get a blower. You can't hang your laundry so you get a dryer. You can't walk anywhere so everyone needs a car. You can't park in the street so you need a three car garage. The list goes on and each and every item causes you to use more resources and more energy. Not that you want to really, but what can you do?

Each and every decision on that list is "sensible." All aim to maintain the status and high property values that were created by the large houses that were needed by the builder to stay in business. And now you are stuck with a big house that is too far away from anywhere so you can't walk. The house is so big so you can't find your family. You need to install an intercom system. Maybe you need an elevator to get around?

Nobody ever needs to interact anymore. Everyone has their own iPod, their own TV, their own bathroom, and their own fridge. There is nothing to do, nobody to talk to -as they are all on the phone or at the very least listening to their iPod. If you need to talk, call your therapist. You can't walk because there is no place to walk to, and you hate to drive more since you are already spending half of your life in the car as is. The lawn is all taken care of using immigrant labor -you would not want to do without a gardener right? 

You can drive your kids around to their many activities. Remember when children just used to roam the neighborhood? But that is no longer acceptable. And dangerous too? So you drive. After all this you have made it to taxi driver. And just so nobody confuses you with a mere driver, you need a big car. A car that means business. A car that is romantic and reminds you of all the things you wanted. An off-road vehicle.

And why do you get a big car? Because car builders need to build bigger cars. They can no longer compete with the Japanese in the sedan class. They can make more money stuffing leather in a truck and sell it as an SUV. A perfectly sensible decision really. And those little itty bitty cars are hard to get into now that you supersized yourself. Oh but to have a big car with a mean looking grille !

horror vacui

Nature abhors a vacuum said Aristotle. The reality is that nature may not care so much, but people certainly do. And when there are big spaces to fill, more people appear. In 1950, the US had 150 inhabitants. By 1970 there were over 200 million. In the early 90's we crossed 250 million, and somewhere earlier this year 300 million. There are twice as many people in the country now than in 1950. Even so, compared to China and India, the numbers are tiny. But US inhabitants are richer and their impact is far larger.

We have a strong desire to fill the space around us with objects. One very common object is a house. In 1950, there were roughly 46 million homes. Today there are 116 million. More than a quarter of Nevada's home were built in the last 10 years. We are in runaway mode when it comes to building. Maybe the subprime crisis will put a stop to it.

Not only do we have more houses, these houses are getting bigger too. According to the National Association of Home Builders, the average square footage of an American house has been rising from 983 sq ft. in 1950 to over 2,350 sq ft. today. Assuming 116 million units, that means almost 10,000 sq miles of land is in houses. That is an area almost the size of Haiti.

And with a nice house comes a nice lawn. The current estimate is that more surface area in the US is devoted to lawns than to any other irrigated plant. Lawns cover more than three times the acres of irrigated corn. According to Dr. Milesi at NASA, there are nearly 50,000 sq. miles of lawn in the US. There are enough lawns in the US to cover Nicaragua or Greece. 

Lawn distribution in the US can be seen on the NASA earth observatory web site. There you can see that people sport lawns irrespective of where they live. Some of the driest areas in the country have as many lawns as Florida.

Water is a very precious resource in the US. The continent is rather dry. And those lawns, if irrigated properly require 200 gallons of fresh water per person per day, according to Dr. Milesi. But many people use more water than that. Better safe than sorry. Irrigation is the leading water use in the country at 134 billion gallons per day. 

To put things in perspective, Americans flush 6.8 billion gallons of water down their toilets. The estimated average daily household water use is 350 gallons according to the American Water Works Association.

And water is not the only resource we consume. To fill the vacuum, we drive all over it. In 1972, 80% of households had one car. Today 88% have at least one. The average is two. In 1960, there were nearly 62 thousand passenger cars. In 2002, we had 136 thousand. Those cars traveled 587 million miles in 1960 for an average of 9.5 thousand miles per vehicle. In 2002, the average is 12.2 thousand miles per vehicle per year, for a total of 1.7 billion miles. That is more than 3,500 trips to the moon and back.

We all know that cars are more efficient now, with the average mpg going from 14.3 in 1960 to 22.1 today. Nonetheless fuel consumption almost doubled from 41 billion gallons to 75 billion. The total amount of fuel used by all vehicles rose from 58 billion to 168 billion gallons according to the US Dept. of Transportation. The California Energy Commission puts the average fuel use per person per year at 464 gallons in 2004. That adds up to 139 billion gallons.

Whatever our fear of vacuum may be, we are certainly working hard to cover it. And in doing so we are emptying our fuel and water supplies faster than anyone can imagine.

the theory of relativity explained

When it comes to sizes the human brain works in bizarre ways. We judge the size of things by their context. Surely, you have noticed that the full moon looks bigger near the horizon than high up in the night sky? And the same goes for everything else. And that includes such "autonomic" functions as eating. Who would think we judge how much we eat by the size of our plate? And how full we are by the amount that is left over? But that is exactly what happens.

You may have heard of Professor Wansink and his book, "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think. One of the better parts is the experiment of the never empty soup bowl. Dr. Wansink and his co-workers rigged soup bowls so they would continuously refill without the subject noticing. And then they fed people soup. Those with refilling bowls just kept eating and eating. After 20 minutes, many were still eating even though some had already downed a quart of soup.

But it gets even better. When they asked subjects how much soup they ate, both those with normal bowls and those with never empty bowls, gave the same estimate. All underestimated their intake but those with refilling bowls were off by more than half.

Now think about the following. The average dinner plate today is 11 to 12 inches across. A few decades ago, it was 7 to 9 inches. But today's foods look the same on those big plates. Because portion sizes have gone up too.

According to the National Institutes of Health, the average bagel is now a 6 inch diameter monster containing 350 calories. Twenty years ago, a bagel was 3 inches in diameter, and held barely 140 calories. A cheeseburger back then had 333 calories, but the "same" cheeseburger today, holds 590 calories. Muffins that used to weigh 1.5 ounces now weigh over 4 ounces and they contain more than 500 calories a piece. And chocolate chip cookies have gone from 1.5 inches in diameter to over 3.5 inches, for a gain of 225 calories. A child's serving in a restaurant today is similar to a regular (adult) portion 20 years ago.

Last year's USDA's report "Let's Eat Out" says US consumers get 33% of their daily calories from restaurant food, up from 18% in the 1970's. Three quarters of Americans usually eat out at least once a week, and 10% eat out every day. 

The calorie value of restaurant food has gone up commensurately. A decade or two ago, it was shocking to find dishes containing over 1,000 calories and such findings made the national news. These days many sit-down family restaurants, such as Ruby Tuesdays, The Cheesecake Factory, TGI Friday's and others serve entrees that contain over 2,000 calories a piece. Not that people really notice. But they do care.

Almost 20% of those surveyed preferred sit-down restaurants over fast food places for having "healthier, lower calorie food." But the opposite is true. Sit down restaurants have food higher in fat, sodium and cholesterol than your average fast food joint. Ruby Tuesday's cheeseburger contains 1,103 calories and 78g of fat compared to a double quarter pounder with cheese at the golden arches, for a mere 730 calories and "only" 40 g of fat. Panera Bread Grilled Chicken Caesar has 560 calories, 9 g of fat and 1.3 g of sodium. That is nearly identical to a Big Mac at 560 calories, 10 g of fat and 1.0 g of sodium.

And don't think the professionals do any better. A NYU study of 203 dieticians found that they underestimated calories by 37% and fat by 49%. When it came to the tuna-salad sandwich, the pros estimated it at 375 calories, but the actual value was closer to 720.

As some of the junk mail in my mailbox would have you believe, size indeed does count. But it mostly counts relative to the background it is placed against.