1. Help shift Central Subway funds to transform citywide public transit - Tuesday March 30, 11 am
2. Whales, whales, whales (3 items)
3. And whale habitat - a sea of plastics
4. Creeks, dunes and watershed: a short history of San Francisco's waterscape, Tuesday March 30
5. Mel Baker obituary and tribute
6. Weed killer creates Mr Moms/honey bee Colony Collapse Disorder research
7. High-Speed Rail - Technical Working Group meeting April 12
8. The practice of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking", to extract natural gas
9. Sighting of the (unfortunately now rare) Wrentit in the city
10. Feedback
11. Fake products get Energy Star approval
12. Sex education starts in the first grade in The Netherlands
13. Rhododendron show and sale April 10, 11
14. Scientific American potpourri
15. Tribute to Nancy Pelosi
16. Googled: The End of the World as We Know It
17. Mickey Spillane - most popular fiction writer ever
1. The March 30 Transportation Authority Board Meeting will be voting on the Funding Plan for the Central Subway. This continues Final Design, although $252 million of Local and State Funding still needs to be secured.
TA Board Meeting: TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 11:00 a.m., City Hall.Rm. 250.
Feel free to write (my email letter is below) and express your own concerns. Regards, Howard W.
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TO: Honorable Members, Transportation Authority Board and Citizens Advisory Committee
RE: SHIFT CENTRAL SUBWAY FUNDS TO TRANSFORM CITYWIDE PUBLIC TRANSIT (SFCTA March 30, 2010 Agenda Items for Central Subway Funding)
ATTACHED: DRAWING OF CENTRAL SUBWAY
Even in the best economic times, bad transit projects drain funds from beneficial projects, which help more riders often at much lower costs. But political forces are daunting, with political deals, strong public relations campaigns, pressure from powerful special interest groups and the self-interests of city agencies for staff funding. Unfortunately, citywide Muni riders have the least influence.
In early March, the Save Muni Summit, with 120 attendees representing 60 neighborhood/ transit advocacy groups began a dialogue for innovative Muni ideas. Opinions vary widely, but multi-year budget deficits have created a paradigm shift---TO SAVE MUNI NOW. It will take some bravery, but the Transportation Authority can take an aggressive look at expenditures and funding---TO HELP MUNI NOW. One major source of funding is the shifting of funds from the Central Subway---redirected not only to maintain existing transit services but to begin strengthening Muni citywide.
Even if more Local, State and Federal funds become available, funds are much more needed to fix and transform the existing Muni System.
If operating budgets fall or stagnate, Muni drivers/ employees lose wages, benefits and wage increases---even as funds are diverted to the short 1.7 mile Central Subway.
All current and new funding should fix the existing system and add transit benefits citywide.
Howard Wong, AIA, SaveMuni.com
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2. The following three items all regard whales, so I clump them together
hi, jake,
Ive been writing for two web news services -- the daily climate and environmental health news. Here's a link to a story on gray whales and arctic climate change that came out this week. Hope the readers of your excellent newsletter would be interested. regards, jane kay
Thanks, Jane. Good to hear from you again. I see the photos were by Jared Blumenfeld.
yes, jared blumenfeld, is a great fotog. he was there on the trip with his spouse and two children. don't know if you recall but in 2000, the then hearst-owned san francisco examiner ran my magazine story on the victorious fight to save san ignacio lagoon from a salt works plant backed by mitsubishi and the mexican government. the win was the result of a massive boycott in california and beyond against mitsubishi. jared, who was then with international fund for animal
welfare, took the shot used on the cover of bobby kennedy jr. touching a whale. this san ignacio visit over march 2 was a 10th anniversary return to the lagoon, the people and the gray whales. i timed my research for the arctic climate story to coincide with that trip.
thanks for your interest, jake. you're the best voice around.
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There is currently a proposal to the International Whaling Commission to allow the resumption of whaling. In particular the proposal, supported by the Obama Administration, is to allow the killing of up to 140 Grays per year, this in spite of the fact that the California Gray Whales are in trouble. For the fourth year in a row, their numbers appear to be way down. This year the counts in San Ignacio Lagoon and Magdalena Bay were very low with almost no cow/calf pairs. NMFS, as a result of pressure, is in the process of completing a population count of the grays which we believe will prove the species is in trouble. However, NMFS will not release that data prior to the meeting of the IWC. We are planning a series of demonstrations to oppose this and to ask that Jane Lubchenco, head of NOAA, instruct the US delegation to seek a moratorium on any killing of Gray Whales until current population figures are known. We are planning demonstrations these for April 20th, just prior to Earth Day, hopefully in every coastal county in the State. April 20th will be the “SAVE THE WHALES (AGAIN) DAY”. I am looking for someone in San Mateo to take the lead on putting a demonstration together. The Gray Whale Coalition will be helping with the PR and I will work with whomever is willing to do this to get email lists to people to get the word out and to line up speakers for the event. The lead person in each county would need to find a location and work with me to help get attendance and speakers to the demonstration. If you care about the whales and can help me please let me know ASAP. We don’t have much time to put something like this together but with your help I think we can save the whales. Contact: lwan22350@aol.com
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The carbon footprint of industrial whaling
Science News 27 March 2010
PORTLAND, Ore. — During the 20th century, industrial whaling activities depleted a storehouse of carbon equivalent to the forests of New England, a new study suggests.
Whales, a group of mammals that includes the largest animals ever to live, are huge repositories of carbon. Individual whales pack on carbon as they grow, typically increasing in weight between 1 and 3 percent each year. In addition to their great heft — a blue whale can weigh around 90 metric tons — whales can store carbon in biomass for well over a century. “In marine ecosystems, whales are like forests,” said Andrew J. Pershing, a biological oceanographer at the University of Maine in Orono. He presented his research February 25 at the American Geophysical Union’s Ocean Sciences meeting.
Industrial whaling — the use of large engine-driven ships to efficiently harvest whales — commenced in earnest around 1900, Pershing noted. That year, he estimates, the oceans held about 110 million metric tons of whales.
Over the course of the 20th century, whaling transferred more than 105 million tons of carbon from living whales into the atmosphere — an amount that equates to about 385 million metric tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide.
Those emissions are small potatoes compared to the approximately 7 billion tons of CO2 emitted by human activities each year. “Whaling did not cause global warming,” Pershing said.
Nevertheless, Pershing noted, the carbon footprint of last century’s industrial whaling is equivalent to that produced by driving 128,000 Hummers for 100 years, or by burning 130,000 square kilometers of temperate forest — an area equivalent to all the forests in New England.
Industrial whaling — the use of large engine-driven ships to efficiently harvest whales — commenced in earnest around 1900, Pershing noted. That year, he estimates, the oceans held about 110 million metric tons of whales.
Over the course of the 20th century, whaling transferred more than 105 million tons of carbon from living whales into the atmosphere — an amount that equates to about 385 million metric tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide.
Those emissions are small potatoes compared to the approximately 7 billion tons of CO2 emitted by human activities each year. “Whaling did not cause global warming,” Pershing said.
Nevertheless, Pershing noted, the carbon footprint of last century’s industrial whaling is equivalent to that produced by driving 128,000 Hummers for 100 years, or by burning 130,000 square kilometers of temperate forest — an area equivalent to all the forests in New England.
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3.
Sea of plastics
Patches of tiny polymer fragments more common and deeper than previously recognized
PORTLAND, Ore. — Recent studies show that the oceans may hold more “garbage patches” of fine plastic flotsam than scientists realized and that the fragments extend well below the sea surface.
Most of these items are the size of fingernail clippings or smaller. They are the wave-shattered remnants of items such as rubbish, abandoned fishing gear and floats from fishing nets and scientific instruments. These plastic bits are especially common in a region of the Pacific Ocean southwest of California that is sometimes called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Recent cruises reveal that there’s more garbage in this patch than often meets the eye, oceanographer Giora Proskurowski of the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, Mass., reported February 24 at the American Geophysical Union’s Ocean Sciences meeting.
Scientists often tow fine mesh nets behind their boats to conduct a census of floating debris, Proskurowski said. But if researchers tow their nets just at the surface, especially on windy days, they’re likely finding only a fraction of the debris that’s actually present.
On a calm day, debris floats to the ocean’s surface and is readily collected there. But when winds roil the seas, the team’s data show, wave action could briefly send items that are barely buoyant, such as tiny bits of plastic, down as much as 20 meters below the surface. Even during a light breeze, when the ocean’s surface is only dotted with whitecaps, plastic bits can temporarily be deep-sixed, Proskurowski noted.
For example, during one tow — which the researchers conducted when wind speeds were just under 28 kilometers per hour (about 17 miles per hour) — a net towed along the surface caught 431 bits of plastic, while one towed simultaneously at a depth of five meters trapped 240. In similar circumstances, the researchers estimate, the waters between one and 10 meters deep hold as much plastic as the top meter of ocean does.
He and his colleagues collected their data on six cruises through the northwestern portions of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch between June 2004 and July 2009. The researchers estimate that part of that region — a whopping 3.5-million-square-kilometer swath about twice the size of Alaska — contains more than 20,000 bits of floating plastic per square kilometer.
Large swaths of the western North Atlantic also hold prodigious amounts of plastic debris, Kara Lavender Law, who also is an oceanographer at the Sea Education Association, reported at the meeting. On research cruises between the Gulf of Maine and the Caribbean from 1986 through 2008, researchers conducted more than 6,100 surface tows that collected more than 64,000 pieces of plastic, she said.
As in the Pacific, the vast majority of the plastic bits scooped from the North Atlantic were tiny: Analyses of a sample containing about 750 fragments showed that most of these barely buoyant bits were less than a centimeter across and weighed less than 0.15 grams.
About 83 percent of the pieces were collected between the latitudes of 22°N (approximately the latitude of central Cuba), and 38°N (Philadelphia). In general, the highest concentrations of floating plastic occurred in the portion of that area where surface currents converged and flowed at less than two centimeters per second. That area roughly corresponds with the Sargasso Sea, a seaweed-choked region notorious for becalming sailing ships.
Computer simulations reveal that oceanic garbage patches may be more common than even scientists generally recognize, said Nikolai Maximenko, an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii in Manoa. The pattern of ocean currents, chronicled by the movements of scientific instruments set to drift in the world’s oceans, show several large areas in the world’s oceans where currents are slack and garbage could accumulate. “Some of these areas are like a black hole,” he noted at the meeting. “Once things are trapped there, they never escape.”
Two areas particularly suited to trap flotsam are near South America, one west of central Chile and the other stretching from Argentina across the Atlantic nearly to South Africa. But few if any oceanographic cruises have trolled for plastic debris in these two regions — or collected much other data, for that matter. One probable reason, Maximenko noted, is that scientists and fishermen have largely avoided these regions because they aren’t biologically productive.
Most of these items are the size of fingernail clippings or smaller. They are the wave-shattered remnants of items such as rubbish, abandoned fishing gear and floats from fishing nets and scientific instruments. These plastic bits are especially common in a region of the Pacific Ocean southwest of California that is sometimes called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Recent cruises reveal that there’s more garbage in this patch than often meets the eye, oceanographer Giora Proskurowski of the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, Mass., reported February 24 at the American Geophysical Union’s Ocean Sciences meeting.
Scientists often tow fine mesh nets behind their boats to conduct a census of floating debris, Proskurowski said. But if researchers tow their nets just at the surface, especially on windy days, they’re likely finding only a fraction of the debris that’s actually present.
On a calm day, debris floats to the ocean’s surface and is readily collected there. But when winds roil the seas, the team’s data show, wave action could briefly send items that are barely buoyant, such as tiny bits of plastic, down as much as 20 meters below the surface. Even during a light breeze, when the ocean’s surface is only dotted with whitecaps, plastic bits can temporarily be deep-sixed, Proskurowski noted.
For example, during one tow — which the researchers conducted when wind speeds were just under 28 kilometers per hour (about 17 miles per hour) — a net towed along the surface caught 431 bits of plastic, while one towed simultaneously at a depth of five meters trapped 240. In similar circumstances, the researchers estimate, the waters between one and 10 meters deep hold as much plastic as the top meter of ocean does.
He and his colleagues collected their data on six cruises through the northwestern portions of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch between June 2004 and July 2009. The researchers estimate that part of that region — a whopping 3.5-million-square-kilometer swath about twice the size of Alaska — contains more than 20,000 bits of floating plastic per square kilometer.
Large swaths of the western North Atlantic also hold prodigious amounts of plastic debris, Kara Lavender Law, who also is an oceanographer at the Sea Education Association, reported at the meeting. On research cruises between the Gulf of Maine and the Caribbean from 1986 through 2008, researchers conducted more than 6,100 surface tows that collected more than 64,000 pieces of plastic, she said.
As in the Pacific, the vast majority of the plastic bits scooped from the North Atlantic were tiny: Analyses of a sample containing about 750 fragments showed that most of these barely buoyant bits were less than a centimeter across and weighed less than 0.15 grams.
About 83 percent of the pieces were collected between the latitudes of 22°N (approximately the latitude of central Cuba), and 38°N (Philadelphia). In general, the highest concentrations of floating plastic occurred in the portion of that area where surface currents converged and flowed at less than two centimeters per second. That area roughly corresponds with the Sargasso Sea, a seaweed-choked region notorious for becalming sailing ships.
Computer simulations reveal that oceanic garbage patches may be more common than even scientists generally recognize, said Nikolai Maximenko, an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii in Manoa. The pattern of ocean currents, chronicled by the movements of scientific instruments set to drift in the world’s oceans, show several large areas in the world’s oceans where currents are slack and garbage could accumulate. “Some of these areas are like a black hole,” he noted at the meeting. “Once things are trapped there, they never escape.”
Two areas particularly suited to trap flotsam are near South America, one west of central Chile and the other stretching from Argentina across the Atlantic nearly to South Africa. But few if any oceanographic cruises have trolled for plastic debris in these two regions — or collected much other data, for that matter. One probable reason, Maximenko noted, is that scientists and fishermen have largely avoided these regions because they aren’t biologically productive.
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4.
SPUR LUNCHTIME FORUM
TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 2010 12:30PM
Creeks, dunes and watersheds: A short history of San Francisco’s waterscape
Urban development has changed the waterscape of San Francisco more dramatically than anywhere else in the state, from a natural creek- and dune-scape to today's modern sewersheds. Christopher Richard of the Oakland Museum will take us on guided photo tour, with historical maps and photographs, uncovering the unique features of San Francisco's primeval waterscape and how the city used and abused the many creeks and lakes as it grew. Richard’s presentation will feature the remaining free-running creeks in San Francisco, which you can visit.
| 654 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94105-4015 |
| Free to members $5 for non-members Okay to bring lunch |
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5. Some readers of this newsletter knew Mel Baker. His obituary appeared in yesterday's (28/3/10) San Francisco Chronicle:
The following sentence from it was a signal trait in his character:
"He especially enjoyed working with young people, encouraging and helping them find themselves and their place in an often alien and difficult world. He always judged for himself and did not readily accept another's evaluation of a person or situation." I respected that independent judgment, even though it sometimes caused me frustration when I wanted to get his participation in a project or convince him of a point of view. He knew who he was and when I ran up against that surety I learned to stop pressing him.
I owe an important part of my education to him. He was my supervisor in Strybing Arboretum and from our conversations I gradually found my views on some things shift. For example, in my naivete I assumed that because discrimination on the basis of race was illegal that that took care of it. Self-pity was absent in Mel and he never complained about injustice. However, picking up little glints of information I began to discern on-the-job obstacles he had to contend with that white people didn't--and it was going on right under my nose. I began to get a glimpse of what the world looked like to black people. Blatant discrimination, even in politically correct San Francisco. I began to pay more attention to what was going on around me.
Later, as he became DPW Assistant Superintendent of the Bureau of Street Cleaning/Urban Forestry, I learned about aspects of city government that gave me insight into the stories I would read about in newspapers. After he retired, I tried, unsuccessfully, to get him active in a volunteer capacity. He demurred. He knew too much about the perdurability of some problems to spend his declining years banging his head against the wall. Reading about his rich family life in the obituary, I now agree that that is where his time should go.
From Ruth Gravanis:
I was deepy saddened to learn of Mel Baker’s passing. As the executive director at Friends of the Urban Forest (in its early years--around 1981--JS) for a couple of years while Mel was with the Bureau of Urban Forestry, I don’t know that I could have survived without his help. Several times he went beyond the call of duty to “save the day” when the soil delivery was late or we didn’t have enough tree stakes or someone broke a gas pipe with a shovel. And he always was ready with encouragement, sage advice and moral support.
I feel privileged to have known this true civil servant and friend. Mel’s generosity, calm demeanor, reassuring words and warm smile will not be forgotten.
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6.
Frogs: Weed killer creates real Mr. Moms
Hormonal tinkering may explain a host of adverse changes
Two studies have fingered a potential contributor to the widespread decline of amphibians: water contaminated with atrazine, a weed killer used widely on corn, cotton, and turf. In the lab, atrazine fully feminized some male frogs...10% of these males transformed into functional "females" that encouraged the advances of healthy males, and in two cases were found to have produced eggs that hatched into viable young.
(Excerpted from short article in Science News 27 March 2010
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Honey bee Colony Collapse Disorder research: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0009754#abstract0
This is a technical article, but you can read the summary.
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7.
High-Speed Rail - Technical Working Group (TWG) Meeting
Monday, April 12, 2010, 9am - 11am
Burlingame Public Library - Lane Room
480 Primrose Road
Burlingame, CA 94010
Please join us for a briefing on the Preliminary Alternatives Analysis for the San Francisco to San Jose Section of the California High Speed Train Project. RSVP to the following email address by April 9th: prp@caltrain.com
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8.
More frackin' problems
From Ian Wilson:
Dear Jake, I know that (like many of us) you are somewhat skeptical of the concept of "clean energy", but anyway here's an analysis of "clean energy" investments in 2009. The BBC news item is based on the Pew report.
"Globally, clean energy investments have increased 230 percent since 2005."
"More than 250 gigawatts of renewable energy generating capacity have been installed around the world, producing six percent of global energy."
In a similar vein, there was a disturbing story on the PBS show NOW on Friday night about the practice of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking", to extract natural gas in the US. Natural gas has been touted as an intermediate step towards clean energy, but it seems that, like every other fossil fuel, its extraction causes enormous environmental and health problems:
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9. From Dan Murphy:
I wanted to share this e-mail with you because it provides a record for Wrentit at Laguna Honda. It's really an ideal spot for them, but as much as anyone has tried, we've never heard one there before. This is pretty significant because the only other spots we know they occur in SF are above Baker Beach, Twin Peaks and on Candlestick Hill. They were at Lake Merced as recently as the 90s. This adds considerable significance to the coastal scrub at Laguna Honda because Wrentit is a species that is unlikely to move far from it's point of origin. It suggests the remote possibility that if a habitat corridor is ever established between this and other local sites some of these isolated populations may link-up . It might also provide an opportunity for a researcher to band or even radio tag our local Wrentits to see if these remnant populations are truly isolated or if they might move around more than anyone suspects. Now there's a research project the PUC might consider providing some support for.
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10. Feedback
Arnold Levine:
Hi Jake, Saw your # 6 item about Plastiki and the pacific garbage patch. I interviewed Capt. Charles Moore, the discoverer of the patch last month on my radio show for nearly 2 hours. It's on my website www.tommysholidaycamp.com in the interviews section. Keep up the great work!
Arnold: Is there any way to short-circuit that chatty emcee? I never got to the interview; I don't have the patience.
Yes, definitely skip the loquacious host...just click further on the bar that shows the time, it should move on.
Claire Bell-Fuller:
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11. Fake products get Energy Star approval
A new report from the Government Accountability Office says that getting Energy Star approval can be as easy as printing off a sticker. The GAO set up four fake companies and submitted applications for 20 products for Energy Star certification. One was a gas-powered alarm clock the size of a small generator. Another one was a room cleaner, which they sent a photograph of a feather duster adhered to a space heater.
NPR's Marketplace, 26/3/10
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12. In The Netherlands, sex education starts in the First Grade: http://www.rnw.nl/english/video/sex-education-starts-first-grade
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13.
Rhododendron Show and Sale - free admission
April 10 and 11, 10 am - 4 pm
Lakeside Park Garden Center, at Lake Merritt
666 Bellevue Ave, Oakland
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14. Scientific American
OBSERVATIONS: Policymakers take aim at new recycling frontier: Solid waste, retailers and packaging
In order to make sure we don't run out of resources as Earth's population peaks, the next garbage frontier is an "upstream" focus on solid waste management and getting industries to take more responsibility for collecting the trash that results from consumption of their products
60-SECOND EARTH: Does Solar Power Need a Revolution?
Some argue that major technical breakthroughs are needed to make electricity from sunshine cheap. Are they right?
SOLAR AT HOME: Focus your mind: The rise of concentrated solar power
The basic idea, which goes back to the 1970s, is to use fewer solar cells and shine more light on each one
SCIENCE TALK PODCAST: Are We Pushing the Earth's Environmental Tipping Points?
Jon Foley, director of the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment, talks with podcast host Steve Mirsky about his article in the April issue of Scientific American, "Boundaries for a Healthy Planet"
Related Blog: Is Earth past the tipping point?
Related Video: Big question: Is Earth past the tipping point?
NATURE: Soils emitting more carbon dioxide
Trend could exacerbate global warming
CLIMATEWIRE: Can a Chemist Deliver Distributed Energy from a Water Bottle?
M.I.T. chemist Dan Nocera hopes to launch a distributed energy revolution via sunlight, water and a cheap catalyst
NEWS: Has Global Warming Slowed?
Global warming has neither stopped nor slowed in the past decade, according to a draft analysis of temperature data by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
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15. Nancy Pelosi
Mark Shields on the Lehrer New Hour after the health care bill was enacted (not exact quote): Nancy Pelosi has become the most powerful woman in world history.
Shields' sparring partner, David Brooks of the New York Times, admitted her skill. He ridiculed the Democrats for choosing her as their leader five years ago because she was a flaming liberal and the country was conservative. How times change, and Brooks' opinions certainly have, too.
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16. Googled: The End of the World as We Know It, by Ken Auletta
...In Googled, Auletta identifies one crucial characteristic of Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the company's founders. They don't ask for permission: they do the thing they want to do, and rely on the fact that people will understand the point of it afterwards. This goes right back to the earliest days of Google. Search engines don't actually search the internet itself: if they did, the net would grind to a halt under the effect of all the searches being made. What Google does instead is make a copy of the entire internet - everything they can get access to - store it on their own servers, and then index it. It is this index that Google searches. In addition, the company keeps a copy of every search made, which in turn speeds up subsequent searches. The computer power involved is huge. Google won't reveal the figures, so all we know is that it involves millions of bog-standard PCs cabled together.
Note the key fact: the basic move in Google's rise to dominance was copying stuff without asking. Don't ask for permission, and rely on the fact that people will love the results when they see them.
This model has stood the company in very good stead, but it plainly involves an attitude in which innocence and arrogance are emulsified together. Auletta is very good on this: the complete sincerity of the Googlers' good intentions, blended with their oblivious indifference to other perspectives.
Google is often written about as a ra-ra success story, but Googled is a surprisingly downbeat book. Auletta looks at the company in its pomp, and sees problems and threats everywhere....The company's activities in China, and its public agonising about them, made them look as if they put profits above ethics, but wanted to be admired for feeling uncomfortable about the fact.
At the same time, the violation of copyright involved in Google's programme to digitise books has caused a bitter backlash. That was an example of the no-permission policy going badly wrong, because as Brin told Auletta, if they had asked authors and publishers, "we might not have done the project".
..."Following Google's business model, would he expect authors to generate their income by selling advertising in their books? If there was no advance from a publisher, who would pay to cover the writer's travel expenses? (I made 13 week-long round trips to Google [in California] from New York, rented a car, stayed at hotels, and paid for dinner interviews most nights.) With no publisher, who would edit the book, and how would they get paid? Who would pay lawyers to vet it? Who would hire people to market the book so that all those potential online readers could discover it? The usually voluble Brin grew quiet, ready to change the subject."
Excerpt from review by John Lanchester in Observer
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