John Cronin

A Blue Planet

Why Do We Think Green Instead of Blue?

I am puzzled why green became the official color of the environmental movement.  I suppose it is a little late for concern now, the practice dates back to at least the first Earth Day (April 22, 1970). 

"Green is the color of life," one environmental friend explained.  That of course is true if photosynthesis is your game.  But is that what we mean when we say, "think green" or "green future" or "green economy?"  Photosynthesis in the workplace!  Think springtime in the Northeast!

We live on a decidedly blue planet. 


 
If an exploring extraterrestrial civilization passes by here in its own version of the Half Moon (perhaps hopelessly lost, like the original), it will suspect there is life on our little smudge in space in part because we look blue, and from a very great distance. (See Pale Blue Dot below).  Last March, NASA launched its Kepler mission to search for life on Earth-size planets.  It is hoping to find evidence of water, the first indication that life might exist in other solar systems. 

Think blue.  You can't go wrong planning your future around restoring the most abundant stuff on the planet. Try it on, at least.  It's a lovely color, a great fashion statement.  Trust me, it's you -- or about 3/4 you. 

Besides, the chlorophyll won't mind.  Without water, it's nothing.

The Improving Hudson?

Copyright 2009, John Cronin

I was recently contacted by a reporter writing a story about "How the Hudson has improved." 

"What is your premise?" I asked.

"That the Hudson was once called an open sewer and now it is an environmental success story."

I know well the terms "open sewer" and "environmental success story" when applied to the Hudson River.  I spent years helping to make them popular.  Many years.  So many years that by 2009 those phrases have become worn and dated.   The Hudson may no longer be an open sewer,  but neither is it the river most of us thought it would be. 

I have been involved in Hudson River issues since I was 23.  I am 59.  In good conscience I can no longer boast of the river's comeback to a 30 year-old, or a 20 year-old, or my 14 year-old son.  After all, what has happened in their lifetime?

There is no evidence of which I am aware that the Hudson has improved in the last decade.  Indeed, there is every reason to believe that the river is in decline, despite official and unofficial attempts to manage its restoration and protection.  Major fish species, such as American shad, Atlantic sturgeon, and smelt, have been in trouble for over a decade.  Twenty years ago, they were not.  The Hudson's once proud commercial fishery is just about over.  There is more human population and therefore more pollutants being discharged into the river, directly and indirectly.  Invasive species are more prevalent. 

Clean Water Act: The President, through the Secretary of State, Shall Take Action . . .

Copyright 2009, John Cronin

Photo by Sara Holz, Peace Corps

Section 101 of the Clean Water Act contains the statute's far-reaching, but failed, goals, including the elimination of the discharge of pollutants domestically, and America's foreign policy on water.  A text version of the section follows:

Of Lunar and Human Impacts

If we can crash a machine on the moon . . .

Copyright 2009, John Cronin

Occasionally, the juxtaposition of two disparate events renders both in high relief.  Such is the case with today's announcement by NASA that it set off explosions on the moon's surface in search of water, and the story of drought and human devastation coming out of Africa.

Relief agencies estimate that up to 23 million people in the Horn of Africa now face a mortal threat from thirst and starvation.

This morning, NASA  intentionally crash-landed its LCROSS Centaur rocket and Sheperding Spacecraft on the lunar surface, sending up six-mile dust clouds that are being analyzed for the presence of water.  NASA describes LCROSS as a "fast-track, low-cost" mission of $79 million.  

Let's stipulate that an unflattering numerical comparison is not the real point here.  But what of human imagination?  What of great endeavors? 

On any given day, 1.2 billion people on the planet are without drinking water, due to drought, pollution, pestilence, water diversions, crumbling infrastucture, and inequitable privatization.  Is solving this crisis not as great a human endeavor as a moonshot?  A super-collider? 

Hottest, Driest, Poorest

We have written here previously about the world water crisis.  The extraordinary dispatch below is by The New York Times East Africa Bureau Chief, Jeffrey Gettlemen, writing from Somalia.  It appeared today on Dot Earth, the Times' environmental and science blog edited by Andy Revkin.  Click directly on the article to read the full piece on Dot Earth.  

Continue Reading "Even the Camels are Dying" >>

The Water It Takes 2: Alternative Energy

A Very Inconvenient Truth

Copyright 2009, John Cronin

Producing energy without causing negative impacts to water has been a thorny environmental issue for decades.  In the 1970s, fish killed by the cooling water intakes of power plants, and heated water from the plants' discharge pipes were icons of American environmental degradation. 

The effects of cooling water use by conventional and nuclear plants are not due to the consumption of water but the cycling of water through the plants and its heated return to the originating water body.  But the impacts of this very large water flow though a power plant's machinery can be devastating.  In a paper for the Harvard Environmental Law Review in 1992, Karl Rabago made a conservative estimate that the number of fish that die in these "once-through" cooling systems nationally is a half-trillion per year, based on government and industry data.

Recent stories on the growing controversy over the proposed use of water by alternative energy developers, reminds us that the laws of physics and thermodynamics don't take a rest just because harnessing the sun is a good idea. 

The Water It Takes . . .

 

Image: IBM Smarter Planet

What Is A Smarter City?

Copyright 2009, John Cronin

At its Smarter Cities Forum, held today and tomorrow here in New York City, IBM is presenting a 21st century, real-time vision of the nation's, and the planet's, urban centers. 

This afternoon, IBM CEO Sam Palmisano hosted conversations with  Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, and NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg before a standing room audience at the Rose Theater at Lincoln Center.  They described a future where everything, moving and immovable, will be instrumented.  Sensors will deliver information in real-time about the operations of urban systems, behavior of the local environment, where people and traffic are located, and where energy is needed.

Electronic health records will provide up-to-the-minute information available to the patient anywhere, and in any medical office, anytime she or he wants them. 

Education programs will emphasize STEM skills (science, technology, engineering, math) and develop an urban workforce to innovate the next generation of smarter cities.

Cities themselves will be living laboratories of instrumentation, increasing efficiency and providing information about every aspect and condition of their services, radically improving  the management, and reducing the costs, of the urban infrastructure. 

To get the ball rolling in NYC, IBM's Palmisano announced a new urban analytics center in Manhattan that will be home to 550 IBM experts.  IBM's most recent Smarter City Forum took place in Berlin last June.  Its next will be in Shanghai in 2010.

During his remarks, Mayor Bloomberg announced an iPhone app for the city's 311 online information system.

Clean Water Update

On Thursday, September 25, John told a standing room crowd at Skidmore College, “The Clean Water Act has failed us, the nation, and the world."   He called on participants at a water policy conference sponsored by Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies and held at Pace School of Law on Wednesday, September 24, "To leap ahead of the federal Clean Water Act and establish independent clean water goals for New York State that will spur innovation and create a water pollution elimination industry that will serve the planet."

See Imagine No Pollution below.  And full news release here. 

Imagine No Pollution

The Future, and the Failed Clean Water Act

Copyright 2009, John Cronin

The Clean Water Act has failed.  It is time for a new law.

There is a mistaken, popular belief that the central purpose of the 1972 Clean Water Act is to bring to justice the bad guys who are polluting the nation’s waters.

The Clean Water Act was written to create a global market place based on American innovation that would end pollution in our lifetime, and “restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the nation’s waters.” 

But a list of the Clean Water Act's failed policies reads like an indictment of the law itself.

The first policy goal on the first page of the Clean Water Act is the elimination of the discharge of pollutants by 1985.

The law also sets a goal of making the nation’s waters fit for sports and recreation, and for fish and wildlife by July 1983.

It calls for management plans to end pollution from runoff, protect watersheds, and enhance water resources, in keeping with the 1983 and 1985 goals.

It requires the cessation of toxic discharges in toxic amounts.

It establishes a sweeping domestic and foreign policy on water designed to protect life and health here and abroad.

Indeed, the enormity of the Clean Water Act’s failure can be measured in lives.  The law directs the Secretary of State to assist other nations in eradicating their water problems to “at least the same extent as the United States does under its laws.”  But since the Clean Water Act was enacted, an estimated 70 - 100 million people, mostly children in the developing world, have died from diseases related to water pollution.  The Pacific Institute estimates that between 36 million and 70 million will die by 2020.