Arsenic found in rice

Recently in the news there has been a lot of hoopla about rice containing higher levels than normal of arsenic. When I think about environmental hazards, even hazards in general, I wouldn’t really think of this story as being relevant to that category. But a hazard like this has the potential to be one of the biggest in our future. Over the last several decades we have been using chemicals like pesticides and the like to rid ourselves of the unwanted insects that prey on our crops. The downfall to this, as we are being reminded of with this news report of arsenic being found in rice, is that we could very perceivably kill ourselves with the poison we commercially use. This goes beyond just rice, but in all our foods as well as our water. When it rains, the water collects the various pesticides we use and carries it into the ground water aquifers, or eventually ends up in the ocean. This type of hazard is most likely going to happen in more developed countries that are industrial enough to need commercial amounts of pesticides. But less developed countries than receive foreign aid in the form of food, most commonly rice, are also at risk.

The industrial revolution marks the time in which man started to greatly affect the environment in which we live. Today, it is impossible to get “fresh” water in terms of it having no trace of pollutants in it. The same goes for air we breath and the food we eat, everything is compromised to some degree. With that being said. I’m surprised to see that this is covered as much as it was in the media. Yes, arsenic is deadly to humans (typically in the form of increasing the risk cancer) but so is breathing in ground level ozone. 

Article found at: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-09-19/business/ct-nw-rice-arsenic-20120919_1_inorganic-arsenic-outer-bran-rice

Potential Threats of Nuclear Disasters

Nuclear power has been a great scientific breakthrough that has changed our world, for better and worse. That is to say that there are benefits of nuclear energy plants, but do those benefits outweigh the risks? In a typical case I would say yes, the benefits outweigh the risks. But when we use poor planning and/or lack of research for a given site when deciding where to build these wonderful, but potential life threatening structures, it becomes problematic. A recent study published in the Natural Hazards journal was conducted to assess potentially hazardous areas that will, or already do have nuclear power plants established. The study found that 23 nuclear power plants with 74 reactors have been identified in high risk areas of tsunamis. It's bad enough to have potential tsunami threats, but when these tsunamis are in range to do damage to nuclear reactors this severely raises the hazard level. As an example we can look at the tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011.Japan is one of the most technologically advanced states in the world along with having solid infrastructure. Even with these two qualities japan was still devastated. Imagine now that this tsunami had struck a far less developed country (in terms of infrastructure) with just as many, if not more people living there who also have nuclear energy. The death toll would be far greater than what happened in Japan. The tsunami itself caused billions of dollars in damage but add to that the aftermath of a nuclear reactor meltdown, adding harmful radiation into the water and air, and you got yourself a much larger disaster.
 
There are 64 nuclear power plants currently being constructed worldwide. Of those 64, 27 are found in China, and 19 of those 27, According to this study, are in a “dangerous” area. China has a very large population with heavy concentrations along the coast. Solid infrastructure will help in mitigating the physical damage done by a tsunami, but a nuclear reactor meltdown could potentially do far more damage than a tsunami.

There’s nothing we can do to prevent tsunamis, but what we are in control of is where we decide to build potentially hazardous energy facilities.

 

Picture from: http://totallycoolpix.com/2011/03/japan-earthquake-and-tsunami-nuclear-disaster-looms-large/


http://lesjoyeusesboucanieres.net/tag/fukushima-nuclear-disaster/

 

News Article found at: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120921083202.htm
 

Costa Rica Earthquake

An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.6 shook the country of Costa Rica on September 5th 2012. Only two people were reported dead, which may surprise some people considering the magnitude of this quake. Now a 7.6 is by far not the deadliest earthquake to have ever happened, but when we compare this earthquake with the 7.0 magnitude quake that happened in Haiti in 2010 one thing sticks out to me. The death toll as mentioned for this earthquake was two so far. But in Haiti, the 7.0 magnitude quake killed 50-100,000 people. Why was the Haitian earthquake more devastating than the one in Costa Rica? Costa Rica mitigated the natural disaster quite substantially by having a strong infrastructure to stand up to the shaking earth. There is much to be said about the comparison between these two events. Compare to Haiti, Costa Rica is a more developed country, most notably in infrastructure. This lead to more damage in terms of financial loss in Costa Rica but less loss in terms of lives. In Haiti the opposite occurred, the most severe damage was in terms of loss of lives. This is the trend that we see when looking at most natural disasters compared between more developed countries (MDC's) and less developed countries (LCD's).

Article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/05/costa-rica-earthquake-2012_n_1857743.html

Picture: http://www.examiner.com/article/powerful-quake-reported-costa-rica-tsunami-warning-mexico-to-peru-to-hawaii

Mustang Complex Wildfires Continue

Since this fire began, the Mustang Complex wildfire on the Idaho/Montana border has burned more than 1,106,545 acres in Idaho alone. The cause of the fire was a lightning strike back in late July. The fire has been difficult to fight due to steep terrain and thick smoke (pictured below). The fire has been exacerbated by the plentiful supply of dead and downed lodge pole pine trees found at higher altitudes. Idaho is no stranger to wildfires, having sizeable fires at least every other year. In 2007 the East Zone Complex burned approximately 315,000 acres alone, not including the other fires that occurred that year.

 http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=79021

Artic Fox Migration

Iceland today

200-500 years ago a "little" ice age had occurred which created a bridge of sea ice that connected Iceland with other artic regions, such as Greenland and Russia. This allowed the spreading and increase of the artic fox population. In recent years with rising temperatures, researchers fear that without the sea ice the artic fox population in Iceland will become separated and isolated from the other artic regions. This isolation could cause the foxes in Iceland to differentiate from those in other regions over years of evolution. Scientists at Durham University, UK, found that this has happened before by analyzing DNA from 9th century fossil remains of ancient artic foxes with those of the foxes today.

Arctic fox. (Credit: © visceralimage / Fotolia)

Article at: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120911200522.htm
Iceland Picture from:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=north+atlantic+satelite+image&view=detail&id=AB89AB9EB5558D8793FC0A5AF841641947345195

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