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.

Chesapeake Pauses Fracking in Watershed

There are arcane battles aplenty in the environmental world, where the average citizen can only hope that one expert is more believable than another.  Hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale in the New York City watershed also pits clean water against the national hunger for new sources of energy. 

The practice of "fracking" -- fracturing deep rock with pressure and chemicals, including benzene, in order to capture natural gas -- has gained national prominence as environmentalists ramp up the call for more regulation by state and federal governments, and more transparency by the industry about the practices and chemicals it uses.  Fracking has been implicated in a range of environmental impacts, including groundwater and well contamination and the poisoning of cattle, due to improper or uncontrollable use of chemicals. 

But one industry trade organization, Energy In Depth, has devoted web pages to proving that fracking has always been effectively regulated on a state by state basis, and to fighting federal regulation.  The industry won an exemption under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, and decries additional attempts to hinder exploration and production through regulation.  See this shale blog.

Here in New York, Chesapeake Energy has just withdrawn its proposal to "frack" the Marcellus Shale, a stretch of rock that underlays the New York City Watershed in Sullivan County and runs to Tenessee, after stinging rebukes from environmental organizations that the health and integrity of the watershed would be threatened.  Riverkeeper, which has been tracking and reporting on the issue since 2004, hailed the victory as an indication that even Chesapeake Energy has determined the proposal is environmentally unsound.  In an editorial two weeks ago, The New York Times had called for a ban on fracking in the city's watershed.

But has Chesapeake Energy withdrawn? 

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 101

In 1972, Congress Promised Clean Water In Our Lifetime

Who Declares a Water Crisis?

Copyright 2009, John Cronin

It was said often, at a recent conference on New York State Water Resources, held at Pace University, that  comprehensive protection and management of New York's waters would finally come when a crisis forced the issue.  The daylong event was sponsored by Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies, Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries, and the Center for Environmental Legal Studies at Pace Law School.

During the last afternoon panel, an audience member asked, "Who is in charge of declaring a crisis?"  No one had a satisfactory answer.  And when the question was turned on the audience -- "Who here is willing to declare a crisis?" -- there was a scant show of hands, even after a full day of talks about grim predictions and policy shortfalls in health, supply, infrastructure, ecological management and environmental protection. 

The path to a crisis is a  greater mystery than a crisis that has already been proclaimed.  Hindsight is like that.  Drought, decaying infrastructure, declining fish populations, and shortages in future water supply are slow-motion crises.  Their eventual, official recognition, usually comes in the form of a declaration of emergency or, worse, a court order.  It is spurred by some formula of public opinion, media attention, dire circumstances and government findings -- a long process that nonetheless leaves policymakers playing a panicky game of catch-up.

But the conference proceedings begged a question familiar to all those who deal in national security and preparedness -- aren't we already in a crisis if we are unprepared for an impending emergency?  The OED tells us that a crisis is "a time of intense difficulty or danger."  The word finds its origins in the Greek keinein, which means to separate or decide, and which  is also the source of the word "critic," or kritikos -- able to make judgments.  Noah's crisis, for example, came when he was charged with building an ark and gathering his passengers  . . .  before the flood arrived. 

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