Category: Climate Change

Great Article from Vox

3/20/2020

Another great article from Vox media that highlights the disparity of energy use between the top 10% of income earners and everyone else. Really open your eyes just how much privilege certain economic classes get in our society and what that privilege costs the rest of us.

Enjoy

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/3/20/21184814/climate-change-energy-income-inequality

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Bike Vs Cars- Commuting to Work

4/14/2019

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So I have a serious question for you.
Have you ever considered riding a bicycle to work?
For most of you if you have a car the answer is no why would I bike when I have a car. Well there are lots of good reasons to ride a bike for you daily commute and in this post I will go over my three favorite ones.

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Europe Renewable Energy Policy- Green Living Library Perspective

3/24/2019

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https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/3/4/18216045/renewable-energy-wood-pellets-biomass

I am going to try something a little different here at the Green Living Library. In the past I have focused on providing articles that provided practical information and how to’s on many different aspects of living a green life. I will continue to do that but every now and then when the mood strikes me I will pluck an article from the internet and analyze it from my perspective. I will tell you what I think of the article where I agree and disagree with what the author is proposing.

Please read the article at the link above before diving into my thoughts on the subject

Here it goes…

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Why you need trees around your house

3/3/2019

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Assuming you are not the most unobservant person that has ever existed you are most likely aware of the trees that surround you every day you live your life. There are trees in the yards, lining the streets, in the parks, and everywhere you look you will most likely see a tree. You have also most likely seen some of the havoc that trees can cause in communities like,

Lifted sidewalks
Damaged home and cars from falling limbs
Leaf and twig litter
Generally messiness

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Biochar- What Is It?

2/23/2019

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Biochar- charcoal with a fancy title

Yep that it all biochar is basically charcoal made from all natural material no petroleum chemicals needed.
What makes it so interesting,amazing and newfangled....

Well it’s certainly interesting and amazing it is not however newfangled in any sense of word. There has been biochar for as long as there were organic materials to burn (couple billions years or so). But what makes it interesting is when you combine the properties of biochar with soil some interesting things begin to happen.

Before we dive into that… a little history lesson.

Long ago in the deep dangerous jungles of the Amazon….

No really…Stay with me

For hundreds to thousands of years there was a flourishing urban civilization found all throughout the Amazon rainforest. Early European explorers circa 15th to 16th century did report meeting people and seeing large urban centers as they hacked their way across the continent. But by the time the colonial period came about these people and their cities had disappeared.

What Happened…..?

At the time they just thought those early explorers were either lying or had been made crazy the jungle heat and diseases they suffered from. It wasn’t until the 1990’s using satellite imagery that we were able to spot networks of earthworks, canals and other obvious signs of large coordinated groups of people in area for a long time thought to be largely uninhibited.
One of the reasons this area was thought to be mostly empty was the fact that the soil was actually very poor and it was difficult to produce the large quantities of food needed to sustain lots of people. So how do you get large widely distributed signs of human civilization in an area that to your knowledge couldn’t support that many people?

Biochar

Yep biochar the humble charcoal a.k.a burned stuff

They found upon investigation of these site areas of soil that were strikingly different from the surrounding soil. The image you can see on the right is what I am talking about. The biochared soil known as Terra Preta locally is much darker in color and much more nutrient rich. This is because the biochar does two things that improve soil quality.

Biochar is a stable long lasting source of carbon which is used by plants to build internal structures that allow them to grow. It also acts a nutrient sink and any nutrients that are added to the soil via compost or manure is captured and held for use by plants to grow. Then when the plants die and decompose the nutrients are recaptured for use the next plant.

What this adds up to is that the Native peoples of the Amazon rainforest basically supercharged their soils and it allowed them to grow food in enough abundance to power a large and vibrant civilization.

Pretty good for burnt pieces of wood…

What is really amazing about this is how long lasting it is. The terra preta soils are hundreds to thousands of years old and they are still functioning exactly how they did when they were created. The ramifications of this to modern agriculture and climate change mitigation are astounding when you think about it.

Depending on what method you use you can get up to a 50% conversion rate of feedstock to biochar. If that char is then incorporated in the soil you have essentially locked up the carbon contained in the char for the next couple of thousand years. What this means is that if this was done on a large enough scale it could mitigate the effects of climate change by removing CO2 from the atmosphere and depositing it in a stable form in the soil.

Wow…..

Moral of the story

If you haven’t figured it out by now biochar is amazing material that deserves much more attention than it gets. It is another tool that we can use to improve food production, reduce pollution, and maybe just maybe save ourselves a whole lot of pain in the future.

For more information like this check out other article here on the Green Living Library.

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Interesting Study by Yale University

3/11/2017

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So as I was perusing the internet reading up on a variety of topics i came across the following study and informational map done by Yale University. It is all about the the perceived perceptions of what the American people believe is happening concerning climate change. It also covers how average folks feel about some of the commonly floated ideas for addressing the climate change issues like,

Regulating CO2.
Setting CO2 limits on power plants.

According to this study 70% of people surveyed agreed that climate change is happening but only 53% of those same people believe that it is human caused. This is despite the overwhelming evidence that we are indeed responsible. Now we don't yet know what the full impacts of climate change will be but what we do know is that civilization as we know it has grown up under climate that has been stable for essentially the last 10,000 years. Now we are undergoing a period of rapid change that seems to be coming with more extreme storms, longer droughts and more unpredictability in general.

Whether you believe humans are the cause of climate change or not is fast becoming a moot point. We will have to deal with it sooner or later. I just hope that when the time comes we will be able to deal with it and not collapse under the weight of our own folly and arrogance.

Yale Climate Opinion Map

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Great Article from Vox

Bike Vs Cars- Commuting to Work

Europe Renewable Energy Policy- Green Living Library Perspective

Why you need trees around your house

Biochar- What Is It?

Interesting Study by Yale University

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