The machine that makes oil from plastic garbage

When I saw this I was really surprised, because I was convinced that plastics can only be recycled… physically, but not transform them back into oil(which can be again refined for gasoline, kerosene and so on).

I like this idea, think about implementing it on a large scale… Not only we could reduce the pollution, but it would be a great economical success-new work places- and plastic materials would begin to be viewed as environmentally friendly products!

Here’s the video:

Scientists solutions to global warming

After I’ve talked about it, and show some ways of participating at the reduction of it, it’s now time to show you some crazy ideas about saving the earth from different scientists.

Mirrors in space

Scientists have recently come up with a very crazy idea: shooting mirrors into space. But that is a big thing to do, and you don’t need to be a scientist to work out the approximate numbers: trillions of mirrors would be needed. The trillions of mirrors would have to be fired one million miles above the earth using a huge cannon with a barrel of 0.6 miles across. It would stop the global warming process for centuries: enough time for humanity to evolve to the space-era. The production of these mirrors would amount to 20 million tons of material used.

The price of this is also enourmous: $350 trillion. Although impractical and possibly never going to be approved(well, probably in the next centuries or so ), it shows how much creativity scientists have to serious problems.

Iron in the Sea

As I already discussed in a previous article about the phytoplankton, another solution to get

more green blooms is dumping dissolved iron into the sea because it works as a fertilizer. The problem with this is that the possible side-effects are unpredictable and could be dangerous to the environment.

But it’s a much more practical and economical way to deal with the warming of the atmosphere.

Spraying water into the sky

Earth has it’s natural ways of reflecting the solar light and we can help it do better.Clouds, because they’re white, reflect a lot of solar heat. After all, isn’t cooler outside in cloudy days?

They hope they can achieve this by spraying a lot of sea water into the sky with the help of about 1500 boats that will spray 50 cubic meters of water per second.

Doing nothing crazy

A lot of scientists will surely disagree with the above methods. They look impractical, exceed the limitations of humanity and are rather dangerous.

We can do a little analogy here with the Occam’s razor(it’s a “law” that states  that the simplest theory is usually the correct one). In our case, I consider the most natural, cost-effective and practical ways of combating global warming the most possible and effective ones.

There are quite a lot of them if we think. You just have to search google for “green guides” and this sort of stuff. Scientists help us here too by researching hydrogen powered vehicles. We can make ourselves less dependent on fossil fuels by actually using the energy from the sun directly.

That’s right! Using fossil fuels is just using the sun’s energy indirectly. Think about it! Fossil fuels were formed in millions of years by dead plants and animals. Were did they come from? Well, plants took the energy directly from the sun, herbivores ate those plants, and carnivores ate herbivores… it’s a chain that is directly related to the energy from the sun. If you meditate a little about this subject imagine yourself observing the humanity from the skies you’ll come to the conclusion that what we do is just plain ridiculous.

Solar panels can generate both electricity and heat from the sun. Of course, in sunny days, but they are still effective combined with other green means of producing energy.

Wind turbines aren’t new to the scene. They’ve been used for centuries as flour mills. Now they are used to produce electricity there were the winds allow this. But you know, hehe, winds exist because of the temperature differences. And who does that? The sun….

Hydroelectric dams use falling water to produce massive amounts of electricity. They’re actually used at a very big scale being so efficient. So where’s the water coming from? You’ve learned about the water cycle in the nature at school. What is the motor that keeps this cycle running? You know, when water evaporates.. Aha ! The sun…

You should also know that in the 3rd world, poor people who live in hotter places use the energy from the sun to cook! For details about this, search for SOLAR COOKER on google. It’s very easy to build one yourself.

In conclusion to all this global warming story, what I have to say is that we need to be responsible. Earth was designed with a nature that intelligently controls the climate and keeps things running smoothly. We, people, just came in with our heavy industries and began disturbing the equilibrium.

We have to learn to have a natural lifestyle, to integrate ourselves into the nature, to be a part of it. That way, problems will stop and life here on Earth will make everyone smile.

Why we should avoid global warming?

Global warming is something every one of us heard of- it’s such a popular subject that we learn of it at school. But unfortunately a lot of us ignore it, it’s just a part of general knowledge that remains in an inactive state in our brains. It is actually a problem we should all be aware of.

Just like the fear of death, we should fear the disturbance of the sensible equilibrium on our home planet. Think about this: we are a small point in the Universe, a place that is more than special, a place that hosts life. There is not planet we know of that could resemble Terra. Of course, scientists often compare planets like Mars(which is entirely a desert now) which may have hosted life in the past, or Titan(largest moon of Saturn) which resembles Earth in its youth(it actually has a denser atmosphere than Earth). Furthermore, the shortest distance to a star that could host a system similar to ours is Alpha Centauri which is 4,3 light-years away from us. Chances are anyway low that we could find life there. So you can think yourself that we have to treat our planet with love and respect.

This wasn’t a major problem in the past because Earth could look out for itself. Now, as we are reaching the terrible number of almost 7 billion human lives, we start to influence the Earth’s atmosphere, which is all that we have to protect us from the dangers and temperature fluctuations of outer space. We should start showing love and protection for our still hospitable planet.

Global warming effects are bad. It’s not only bad for the extreme heat we have to endure during summer droughts or heat waves that blast entire continents, it’s the spark for a huge chain reaction. Here’s a summary of what can happen, based on temperature changes:

Graph by Markus Koljonen

As you can see, as the temperature change grows, bad things start to happen. Some things are very sensible to the increase of the temperature, like the Ecosystems and weather conditions. There is also a critical point where changes are irreversible and the planet can end up like Mars- a planet of sand.

You can’t ignore this. It directly affects YOU. People die because these changes. Even more sad is that animals and plants die- they don’t have the required intelligence to self-protect against this type of danger. Pollution must end as fast as possible. This isn’t a process that happens at a geological scale anymore. In the matter of a human lifetime from now, if things continue like this, we’ll be able to make “Earth then and now” articles, with “then” meaning our period of time. It’s a fast degradation process that doesn’t forgive. It can be stopped until it’s not too late, and reversed.

My search for informations about this have revealed a top 10 of the worst effects of global warming:

10. Rising Sea Level

Sea levels could be more than 20 feet (6 meters) higher in 2100 than they are today.Such levels would submerge many of Indonesia’s tropical islands and flood low-lying areas such as Miami, New York City’s Lower Manhattan and Bangladesh.

9. Shrinking Glaciers

In the span of a century, glaciers in Montana’s Glacier National Park have deteriorated from 150 to just 35

8. Heat Waves

The deadly heat wave that swept across Europe in 2003, killing an estimated 35,000 people, could be the harbinger of an intense heat trend that scientists began tracking in the early 1900s. Extreme heat waves are happening two to four times more often now, steadily rising over the last 50 to 100 years, and are projected to be 100 times more likely over the next 40 years.

7. Storms and Floods

A hurricane seen from space

Warm waters give hurricanes their strength, and scientists are correlating the increase in ocean and atmospheric temperatures to the rate of violent storms. During the last few years, both the United Statesand Britain have experienced extreme storms and flooding, costing lives and billions of dollars in damages. Between 1905 and 2005 the frequency of hurricanes has been on a steady ascent. From 1905 to 1930, there were an average of 3.5 hurricanes per year; 5.1 between 1931 and 1994; and 8.4 between 1995 and 2005.

6. Drought

As the climate warms, experts estimate drought conditions may increase by at least 66 percent. Today, India, Pakistan and sub-Saharan Africa already experience droughts, and experts predict precipitation could continue to dwindle in the coming decades. Estimates paint a dire picture. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests that by 2020, 75 to 250 million Africans may experience water shortages, and the continent’s agricultural output will decrease by 50 percent.

5. Disease

Warmer temperatures along with associated floods and droughts are encouraging worldwide health threats by creating an environment where mosquitoes, ticks, mice and other disease-carrying creatures thrive. TheWorld Health Organization (WHO) reports that outbreaks of new or resurgent diseases are on the rise and in more disparate countries than ever before, including tropical illnesses in once cold climates — such as mosquitoes infecting Canadians with West Nile virus. While more than 150,000 people die from climate change-related sickness each year, everything from heat-related heart and respiratory problems to malaria are on the rise.

4. Economic Consequences

It is obvious that these dramatic effects come along with huge economy drops.  Food shortage will have a big impact on economy.

3. Conflicts and War

Declining amounts of quality food, water and land may be leading to an increase in global security threats, conflict and war.

2. Loss of Biodiversity

Species loss and endangerment is rising along with global temperatures. As many as 30 percent of plant and animal species alive today risk extinction by 2050 if average temperatures rise more than 2 to 11.5 degrees F (1.1 to 6.4 degrees C) .

1. Destruction of Ecosystems

Evidence shows effects of climate change on physical and biological systems, which means no part of the world is spared from the impact of changes to land, water and life. Scientists are already observing the bleaching and death of coral reefs due to warming ocean waters, as well as the migration of vulnerable plants and animals to alternate geographic ranges due to rising air and water temperatures and melting ice sheets.

Info from http://science.howstuffworks.com/

In a future articles I will talk about methods of stopping this process and how you can participate to reduce this climate change.

The Phytoplankton Experiment: A climate saver

A couple of days ago I remembered a show I saw on Discovery or National Geographic. I think it was a year ago…( I just remember things sometimes out of boredom, not that I do something that requires me to remember things…)

Anyway, it was about an interesting experiment related to the phytoplankton.Before you ask what this is, I’m going to quote from wikipedia:

Phytoplankton are the autotrophic component of the plankton community. The name comes from the Greek words φυτον (phyton), meaning “plant“, and πλαγκτος (planktos), meaning “wanderer” or “drifter”.^[1] Most phytoplankton are too small to be individually seen with the unaided eye. However, when present in high enough numbers, they may appear as a green discoloration of the water due to the presence of chlorophyll within their cells (although the actual color may vary with the species of phytoplankton present due to varying levels of chlorophyll or the presence of accessory pigments such as phycobiliproteins,xanthophylls, etc.).

In simple English, that means they are a very small type of plants. So small you can’t see them! But they are very numerous. In fact, they are actually called “the invisible forest” because they are responsible for producing half of the atmospheric oxygen! They live in the oceans and seas, at the surface of them(because they need light to survive). In the Earth’s youth, cyanobacteria(a component of the phytoplankton) was responsible for the massive amounts of oxygen released in the atmosphere.

They are also extremely important for capturing that bad gas that affects us and helps the climate getting hotter- CO2. Like all plants, they breath CO2 and through photosynthesis they release oxygen. But again, like all plants, they die. Well, when they die, they still have in their bodies a small amount of CO2 that isn’t processed anymore, it’s trapped in the cell that will sink to the bottom. Being so numerous this process is actually happening at a gigantic scale. This CO2 doesn’t resurface for about 1000 years. It’s like a massive ecological pump.  No wonder they attracted scientists attention!

Even though they can practically live anywhere on the surface of oceans and seas, they’re much more effective when coming in packs, simply named “blooms” because of the greenish color they make when seen from above. But this occurs only near shores or places where deep underwater currents bring nutriments to the surface. After all, they have to be feed with something!

Phytoplankton bloom

Knowing this, scientists wondered whether it is possible or not to move those nutriments up to the surface through artificial ways that won’t affect the ecosystem. The answer was yes(I’m actually telling you the experiment I saw at TV now).

The Experiment

They thought about a simple mechanism, so simple in fact that it makes you wonder why they didn’t think about this in the past… The thing they used was a very long tube that stays in a vertical position. It has a valve at the bottom. But how it works ? Well that is simple: wave energy. When the tube is brought up by a wave, the force of gravity pushes the water down and the pressure created closes the valve. When the tube descends, water is forced out of the tube, spreading nutriments at the surface of the ocean. This creates a negative pressure that helps absorb more water with nutriments from the bottom. The cycle repeats.

They left these mechanisms in the ocean for some time, and then came back. The proof was there: an entire mini-ecosystem was created.

This is what happened: phytoplankton population started to grow in the presence of light and nutriments. This attracted very small animals that live by feeding on the phytoplankton. Fish that eat these small animals began to multiply. Even bigger fish that … ok, you get the ideea. So not only they are good for producing oxygen, trapping CO2, but they are also the base for a thriving ecosystem !

The whole idea?

The whole idea is about informing you and spreading the message! There are other means of reducing the pollution than just planting trees. Don’t get me wrong: we should plant as many trees as we can, because we consume a lot of wood anyway. But planting trees is a long-term solution to the pollution reduction. If we can place enough “pumps” like these in strategic locations, they will start working in a matter of days. I also read some time ago about other methods of increasing phytoplankton population like dumping dissolved iron in the water. But in some cases it just doesn’t work- it disrupts the chemical balance. The pump solution is a much more natural way of solving this.

We can hope for a better future as science evolves!

Coming soon

Last Thursday( and the days before Thursday) I helped organizing the Fashion\Style\Karaoke( S-Star) Competition at my school, and also made photographs and filmed. Now it remains to compose this footage and photos to a presentable video.

That’s what I’m working on now. I’ll post it on my blog too when it’ll be finished.

Meanwhile, I hope I’ll be able to go for a walk in the nature, the weather starts to be more beautiful everyday here. If weather will be favorable, I’ll go with some friends in the forest after some snowdrops

A snowdrop