We talk casually about nuking our lunches until the remains of a bird or cat are found in a microwave oven. However small the amount, until the lingering radiation from the 2011 meltdown of three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima plant in Japan was measured on the West Coast of the United States in 2015, proponents lauded energy from nuclear power plants as clean compared to that from fossil fuels.
Ever since the first atomic bombs killed over 100,000 almost instantly and another 90,000 to 140,000 from radiation in Japan seventy years ago, world leaders have both worked to eliminate death and destruction from atomic and hydrogen bombs and worked to acquire these weapons. While it is tempting to walk away from exasperating talks with an Iran or North Korea, the need to stave off a nuclear attack or Chernobyl-type accident demands persistence at the negotiating table.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, signed by Iran, five permanent members of the UN's Security Council, and Germany on July 14, 2015, aims to prevent Iran from enriching uranium at Natanz and from developing a bomb at its nuclear facility at Qom. The unanimous UN Security Council approval of sanctions on Kim Jong-un's North Korea on March 2, 2016 were designed to cut off financing for Pyongyang's nuclear and missile program. Yet "artificial seismic waves" detected at North Korea's Punggye-ri atomic test site caused a 5.0 magnitude earthquake on September 9, 2016. , Despite past cyber attacks that have caused North Korea's missile launch software to fail, in March, 2017, the country successfully launched four missiles that threatened Japan and claimed it had the west coast of the United States in its sights. In July, 2017, North Korea launched a long-range missile that made good on its claim. In addition to increasing the range of its weapon-carrying missiles, North Korea is working on mobile and submarine launchers that make it more difficult to detect pending missile tests/attacks.
It might be wise to monitor travel from Iran to North Korea and back to make sure Iran is not using North Korea as a proxy to get around its agreement to discontinue its nuclear program. After all, Iran financed the transfer of North Korean nuclear technology to al-Kibar, Syria, where an Israeli air strike attacked Syria's nuclear reactor in September, 2007.
At the website nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap, students can select target cities and see the widespread effect, in terms of casualties and radioactive fallout, of various atomic and nuclear weapons.
In an article in the Novembver, 2015 issue of the alumni magazine of American University in Washington, DC, Koko Kondo, an atomic bomb survivor known as a hibakusha in Japanese, described the human suffering caused by the first mid-air detonation of an atomic bomb. With nine nuclear states (USA, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Russia, North Korea, Israel) and the forty countries that have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and have the capability to develop nuclear weapons, Kondo knows how important it is to abolish all nuclear weapons.
When President Obama came to Hiroshina on May 27, 2016, he laid a wreath at the Peace Memorial and said, "the voices of hibakusha will no longer be with us to bear witness....But memory...fuels our moral imagination. It allows us to change."
Kondo's memory of the August, 1945 attack starts with seeing a blueish-white flash and the collapse of a building on top of her. There were fires everywhere. People were staggering around holding fists full of charred skin, and their hair was standing straight up. The eyeballs of those looking at the sky when the bomb detonated melted.
Speaking at the memorial service in Hiroshima's Peace Park on August 6, 2015, the mayor urged, "People of the world...contemplate the nuclear problem as your own."
Monday, January 18, 2016
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Maps Provide a Quick Study of the World
You may have heard about all that it takes to make Nutella. Well, the tenth map in the collection of 40 that the Washington Post published on its website (washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/01/13/40-more-maps-that-explain-the-world/) provides a map that brings all the information together. We can easily see that Nutella needs natural resources, such as sugar, cocoa, nuts, from four continents; manufacturing facilities in eight countries;and a global distribution network. That's just a beginning of how much can be learned quickly from the Washington Post's maps.
Maps also are the subject of the earlier posts, "You Are Here" and "Map Gazing."
Maps also are the subject of the earlier posts, "You Are Here" and "Map Gazing."
Saturday, January 9, 2016
Invest in Water?
At the end of the movie, The Big Short, there was an item about Michael Burry. He was one of the investors who cashed in on the collapse of the housing market built on a shaky foundation of subprime mortgages that was doomed to fail. Supposedly, Burry now only invests in water,
Could Burry be noticing that progress in some economic sectors is having a negative impact on water resources? When the French company, Perrier, began exporting mineral water in green glass bottles, it seemed like a hard sell. Now, the hard sell is convincing those who drink bottled water at the world rate of 30 litres per person per year that their consumption is bad for the planet. There is the fuel cost of transporting bottles from one country to another that already has its own safe, unpolluted water supply. Plastic bottles pollute the land in dumps. Insufficient recycling limits how much recycled content is used in bottled water, although efforts have been made to produce bottles out of organic sugarcane waste and to reduce the weight of plastic and glass bottles.
Data from NASA's space observations show groundwater from 13 of the world's 37 major basins is being depleted faster than it can be restored. Not only the amount of water used by agriculture and business is a concern; water quality and contamination needs to be addressed as well.
Alternatives to fossil fuel have increased the use of water to produce crops made into bioethanol. That adds to the nearly 70% of the world's accessible freshwater already used by agriculture. Moreover, dams used to produce hydroelectricity create reservoirs that cause the evaporation of water that farmers and others traditionally relied on downstream. Alternative energy sources, such as wind, do not require water.
Water also is under pressure from factories that dump heavy metals and chemicals from recycled electronics into local lakes and rivers. The winner of the Stockholm Junior Water Prize, 18-year-old Perry Alagappan, does have one remedy that filters 99% of heavy metals out of water through graphene nanotubes that can be cleaned with vinegar and reused. The tubes can be fitted to the taps on sinks at home and in industry. To maximize availability of his invention, Alagappan will not patent his idea.
Water keeps the equipment that processes data cool. Data centers that have used water-intensive cooling methods to improve energy efficiency now are looking at ways to use recycled rather than potable water in their cooling systems. Also, there is an effort to consider locating data centers in climates, such as Sweden's, where outside air can cool facilities all year.
While fertilizers increase crop yield, they also cause nitrogen and phosphorous runoff that enables aquatic plants to deplete oxygen and create water dead zones where fish cannot survive. Palestinian farmers are attempting to deal with water shortages by building a wastewater treatment plant to provide water for agricultural use. But even with a major use of electricity, existing technology can only remove 10% to 30% of nitrogen and phosphorus from wastewater. Where 90% of sewage in developing countries is discharged without any treatment, research on algal projects that rely on sunlight to grow algae that can break down nitrogen and phosphates in wastewater and produce sludge for biofuel have promise for agricultural areas, where sun is abundant in Africa, South America, and Asia.
Fracking, which blasts oil and gas out of shale rock, is viewed as a way to help the United States and other countries become energy independent. As the earlier post, "The Lure of Shale Oil Independence," points out, however, the fracking process is suspected of contaminating water.
These are just some of the water projects that Burry could be eyeing for investment. By going to kiva.org, you already can invest $25 in a water project that will help a household in India, Vietnam, Cambodia, or Indonesia install a toilet and improve sanitary conditions.
(Water is also the subject of earlier posts, "A Healthy Environment," "Personal Response to the World's Problems," and "Good Works Multiply Fast.")
Could Burry be noticing that progress in some economic sectors is having a negative impact on water resources? When the French company, Perrier, began exporting mineral water in green glass bottles, it seemed like a hard sell. Now, the hard sell is convincing those who drink bottled water at the world rate of 30 litres per person per year that their consumption is bad for the planet. There is the fuel cost of transporting bottles from one country to another that already has its own safe, unpolluted water supply. Plastic bottles pollute the land in dumps. Insufficient recycling limits how much recycled content is used in bottled water, although efforts have been made to produce bottles out of organic sugarcane waste and to reduce the weight of plastic and glass bottles.
Data from NASA's space observations show groundwater from 13 of the world's 37 major basins is being depleted faster than it can be restored. Not only the amount of water used by agriculture and business is a concern; water quality and contamination needs to be addressed as well.
Alternatives to fossil fuel have increased the use of water to produce crops made into bioethanol. That adds to the nearly 70% of the world's accessible freshwater already used by agriculture. Moreover, dams used to produce hydroelectricity create reservoirs that cause the evaporation of water that farmers and others traditionally relied on downstream. Alternative energy sources, such as wind, do not require water.
Water also is under pressure from factories that dump heavy metals and chemicals from recycled electronics into local lakes and rivers. The winner of the Stockholm Junior Water Prize, 18-year-old Perry Alagappan, does have one remedy that filters 99% of heavy metals out of water through graphene nanotubes that can be cleaned with vinegar and reused. The tubes can be fitted to the taps on sinks at home and in industry. To maximize availability of his invention, Alagappan will not patent his idea.
Water keeps the equipment that processes data cool. Data centers that have used water-intensive cooling methods to improve energy efficiency now are looking at ways to use recycled rather than potable water in their cooling systems. Also, there is an effort to consider locating data centers in climates, such as Sweden's, where outside air can cool facilities all year.
While fertilizers increase crop yield, they also cause nitrogen and phosphorous runoff that enables aquatic plants to deplete oxygen and create water dead zones where fish cannot survive. Palestinian farmers are attempting to deal with water shortages by building a wastewater treatment plant to provide water for agricultural use. But even with a major use of electricity, existing technology can only remove 10% to 30% of nitrogen and phosphorus from wastewater. Where 90% of sewage in developing countries is discharged without any treatment, research on algal projects that rely on sunlight to grow algae that can break down nitrogen and phosphates in wastewater and produce sludge for biofuel have promise for agricultural areas, where sun is abundant in Africa, South America, and Asia.
Fracking, which blasts oil and gas out of shale rock, is viewed as a way to help the United States and other countries become energy independent. As the earlier post, "The Lure of Shale Oil Independence," points out, however, the fracking process is suspected of contaminating water.
These are just some of the water projects that Burry could be eyeing for investment. By going to kiva.org, you already can invest $25 in a water project that will help a household in India, Vietnam, Cambodia, or Indonesia install a toilet and improve sanitary conditions.
(Water is also the subject of earlier posts, "A Healthy Environment," "Personal Response to the World's Problems," and "Good Works Multiply Fast.")
Wednesday, January 6, 2016
How Can Girls and Boys Discover Their Worth?
I was in the elevator with a girl of 4 or 5 years old who asked her mother, "Why is that there?" She was referring to a little board book, about 4" x 4", that I could barely see in the folds of her younger sister's stroller. (Her mother said she forgot to put the book away before they left.)
This incident reminded me how we all have different strengths and talents. What can help a child in any country, who speaks any language, learn what she or he can contribute to the world probably better than anyone else? Consider the kindergarten teacher who helped her students learn numbers and addition by asking each child to draw a number and either draw or find pictures that made a combination of objects that equaled that number. When the number pictures were hung on the wall in numerical order, the children sat on the floor and talked about what they saw. While one student observed two red scissors and three blue scissors had been used to illustrate the number five, another said the handles of four of the scissors pointed left and the handle of the other scissors pointed right. These keen observers (and future mathematicians) had discovered five could be the sum of 2 + 3 or 4 + 1. Parents can see if their children are keen observers who can add up the number of items that go into a salad, their lunch bags, or a grocery basket at the market.
Teachers discover keen observers (and students with writing talent), when they ask their classes to write mini-memoirs about significant moments in their pasts. Directing young people to focus on the influences on their lives is a technique that can lead to valuable insights about their personal interests and their future career options.
(An earlier blog post, "Resolve to Help Kids Observe Their World," suggests some of the observations future scientists might make.)
This incident reminded me how we all have different strengths and talents. What can help a child in any country, who speaks any language, learn what she or he can contribute to the world probably better than anyone else? Consider the kindergarten teacher who helped her students learn numbers and addition by asking each child to draw a number and either draw or find pictures that made a combination of objects that equaled that number. When the number pictures were hung on the wall in numerical order, the children sat on the floor and talked about what they saw. While one student observed two red scissors and three blue scissors had been used to illustrate the number five, another said the handles of four of the scissors pointed left and the handle of the other scissors pointed right. These keen observers (and future mathematicians) had discovered five could be the sum of 2 + 3 or 4 + 1. Parents can see if their children are keen observers who can add up the number of items that go into a salad, their lunch bags, or a grocery basket at the market.
Teachers discover keen observers (and students with writing talent), when they ask their classes to write mini-memoirs about significant moments in their pasts. Directing young people to focus on the influences on their lives is a technique that can lead to valuable insights about their personal interests and their future career options.
(An earlier blog post, "Resolve to Help Kids Observe Their World," suggests some of the observations future scientists might make.)
Sunday, January 3, 2016
Chocolate Tasting Party and More
Controversy about the taste of $10 chocolate bars produced by Rick and Michael Mast in the Bronx, USA, suggests kids throughout the globe might enjoy their own chance to sample the world's chocolate.
Mast's chocolates claim to be made from paste of melted chocolate from Valrhona, a company chef Alberic Guironnet founded in France in 1922. The Mast bars come in three flavors: dark, almond, and goat's milk.
Other expensive chocolates, often found at airport newspaper shops, are Scharffen Berger Extra Dark and Green & Black's Dark.
Less expensive chocolates can be found in a bag of Nestle's morsels used to make chocolate chip cookies, Hershey's bars, and Mars bars.
Serrv (serrv.org/chocolate), a fair trade nonprofit organization, provides a wide variety (dark, dark with mint, dark with raspberries, milk chocolate with hazelnuts, etc.) of Kosher-certified, 3 and a half oz. $3 bars. Serrv bars use cocoa produced by the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative in Ghana, Africa, which strives to increase the earnings of cocoa farmers and to run programs designed to bolster the confidence of women cocoa farmers.
While sampling a piece or two of chocolate candy or building replicas of the Leaning Tower of
Pisa or Great Wall of China out of chocolate (like those shown in the February, 2016 issue of National Geographic Kids), there are a few things about chocolate to consider. Chocolate was a popular food of the Maya people who lived in what is now Mexico and Central America over a thousand years ago. The Mast brothers say they learned small-batch chocolate making by studying methods used by Mayans.
Fast forward to 2015. Ghana and the Cote d' Ivoire account for at least half of the world's cocoa that goes into chocolate. Much of the rest comes from Brazil, Nigeria, and Cameroon. In Africa cocoa bean farmers are not being replaced by younger farmers, because the income they earn keeps them below the $2 a day global poverty level. Ghana's cocoa farmers can earn as little as 84 cents a day; in the Ivory Coast, earnings may be 50 cents a day. A video produced in mid-2014 showed how excited cocoa farmers in the Ivory Coast were when, for the first time in their lives, they tried chocolate made from the beans they grew and harvested.
The 2015 Cocoa Barometer report (cocoabarometer.org) issued by non-governmental organizations describes how the concentration of 80% of the cocoa-to-chocolate retail chain in a few companies provides no incentive to raise cocoa farmer incomes, to end child labor, to increase crop diversification, to improve infrastructure, or to provide market information for farmers.
(Chocolate also is the subject of the earlier post, "Chocolate's Sweet Deals.")
Mast's chocolates claim to be made from paste of melted chocolate from Valrhona, a company chef Alberic Guironnet founded in France in 1922. The Mast bars come in three flavors: dark, almond, and goat's milk.
Other expensive chocolates, often found at airport newspaper shops, are Scharffen Berger Extra Dark and Green & Black's Dark.
Less expensive chocolates can be found in a bag of Nestle's morsels used to make chocolate chip cookies, Hershey's bars, and Mars bars.
Serrv (serrv.org/chocolate), a fair trade nonprofit organization, provides a wide variety (dark, dark with mint, dark with raspberries, milk chocolate with hazelnuts, etc.) of Kosher-certified, 3 and a half oz. $3 bars. Serrv bars use cocoa produced by the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative in Ghana, Africa, which strives to increase the earnings of cocoa farmers and to run programs designed to bolster the confidence of women cocoa farmers.
While sampling a piece or two of chocolate candy or building replicas of the Leaning Tower of
Pisa or Great Wall of China out of chocolate (like those shown in the February, 2016 issue of National Geographic Kids), there are a few things about chocolate to consider. Chocolate was a popular food of the Maya people who lived in what is now Mexico and Central America over a thousand years ago. The Mast brothers say they learned small-batch chocolate making by studying methods used by Mayans.
Fast forward to 2015. Ghana and the Cote d' Ivoire account for at least half of the world's cocoa that goes into chocolate. Much of the rest comes from Brazil, Nigeria, and Cameroon. In Africa cocoa bean farmers are not being replaced by younger farmers, because the income they earn keeps them below the $2 a day global poverty level. Ghana's cocoa farmers can earn as little as 84 cents a day; in the Ivory Coast, earnings may be 50 cents a day. A video produced in mid-2014 showed how excited cocoa farmers in the Ivory Coast were when, for the first time in their lives, they tried chocolate made from the beans they grew and harvested.
The 2015 Cocoa Barometer report (cocoabarometer.org) issued by non-governmental organizations describes how the concentration of 80% of the cocoa-to-chocolate retail chain in a few companies provides no incentive to raise cocoa farmer incomes, to end child labor, to increase crop diversification, to improve infrastructure, or to provide market information for farmers.
(Chocolate also is the subject of the earlier post, "Chocolate's Sweet Deals.")
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