Archive for February, 2009

Just because you want your home to look good doesn’t mean you have to subject yourself to toxic fumes, as is commonly thought. However, you may have to look hard to find a company that offers a reasonably priced paint and varnishes that don’t off-gas toxic chemicals to contaminate your indoor environment. By some estimates, indoor air in North America is, on average, three to five times as polluted as the nearby outdoor environment.

Some of the more common contaminants found in paint and other household remodeling supplies include the wide range of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are known to break down into powerfully toxic by-products such as formaldehyde. Harmful VOCs are found in a shocking array of home and office furnishings, common household chemicals and carpets. It is likely that these and other similar chemicals are responsible for many instances of the “sick building syndrome” that can plague especially sensitive individuals.
- 1 -

China’s big cities have some of the highest concentrations of air pollution in the world. Most of the time quickly developing industries are a great benefit to a country; however there are also great negative consequences to this quick development. The increase in industrial development in China has led to the rapid use of natural resources as well as large amounts of pollution. Water pollution and air pollution in China are very big concerns for the people and the government. Two of the top ten most polluted cities in the entire world are located in China. Air pollution in China is also responsible for some 750,000 deaths that come prematurely. With numbers like this, China has been at work to develop a plan to reduce the air pollution. Although this problem is not something that can be solved overnight, so it will require a long term plan for pollution reduction. China did upgrade their State Environmental Protection Administration to a much higher level showing their concern for fixing the pollution, with a focus on air pollution. For many years leading up to the 2008 Olympics the city of Beijing was working double hard to reduce pollution in the city. This was in an effort to be at their best for hosting the Olympics. The Chinese government is extremely concerned with reducing the pollution throughout China, and has been since the early 21st Century.

Respiratory disease and even heart disease, caused by air pollution in China, is a leading cause of death there. Of a study of 338 cities for the quality of air, two thirds of them were polluted either moderately or severely. This is a huge number of cities negatively affected by air pollution in China. Due to the large number of cities with severe air pollution China has very strict environmental laws; however it is very difficult to enforce them. When the government declares a no automobile day for as many as 100 cities, on main roads, the declaration is ignored by most people. Cities in China suffer from many terrible forms of air pollution including smog. Smog is a type of pollution where cool air near the earth is trapped under warmer air and prevents the pollution from being dispersed like normal. This effect is called temperature inversion. When you get temperature inversion in the warm summer months then the result is severe smog. China is still trying to help prevent and lessen air pollution throughout the country. The more people who get educated on how to help with air pollution, the better the chances of reducing air pollution in China.

Air quality improvements are important to everyone in the year of 2008 and beyond. With the advancement of science and industry, we are both polluting the atmosphere at a higher rate than ever before along with advancing our technologies for limiting the pollution in which we add to the atmosphere.

We are doing everything we can to advance our ability for air quality improvements on all fronts. Our environments health is of the highest of priorities to aid in our quality of life. This includes but is not limited to all of the following: our drinking water, the land on which we grow our fresh produce, the air of which we breathe, our climate and atmospheric conditions. The oil and natural gas industries have taken on the responsibility of finding new and better ways to provide their fuel products without hurting the environment in any way.

The workers of the oil and natural gas industries give us the products and the fuel that help to power the economy we live in. Factories, businesses and the vehicles used to transport products to the end user are powered by the oil and natural gas industries which both directly and indirectly create millions of jobs around the globe. Because of control methods for air quality improvements have been created through science and technology the oil and natural industries are exhibiting better care for the environment as their industries upgrade and develop into the future.

Air quality improvements are becoming more evident across the United States of America every day according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Combustion is the main source for powering our vehicles, generation of electricity, factories and the large power equipment we use around our homes daily. Combustion is a major contributor of smog, soot and smoke, which have all reduced in significant levels since the passing of the Clean Air Act of 1970. Air emissions from all of the contributing sources such as residential use, transportation, power plants and manufacturing have reduced by 29 percent since 1970.

The oil and natural gas industries are leaders in air quality improvements. Think about all of the cars, trucks, buses and motorcycles you see in a day taking Americans and the products they use to and from the places, they want and need to go! There are 70 million more drivers today than there were in 1970 when the Clean Air Act of 1970 was passed. These 70 million more drivers drive an average of 143 percent more miles every year than in 1970. Even with this great increase of drivers and miles driven every year there has been a 41 percent drop in vehicle emissions to aid in air quality improvements.

Pollution is found not only in the natural environment, but also in your own home and work, regardless of where you live or what you do for a living. But how does one gage their own personal exposure to these pollutants and toxins?

The only way to quantify your exposure to known toxins is to have a wide-spectrum blood test done. This has been done for people who suffer cases of acute exposure as well as by journalists investigating the pervasiveness of chemical exposure. However, these tests are very expensive – more than $10,000 in 2005 dollars as reported by National Geographic.

What such tests don’t tell you is how these chemical interact together in your body, since no one actually knows. You can, however, get a general idea of the sources of contamination by taking stock of all the places where you encounter pollution, including:

* air pollution
* water pollution
* soil pollution
* food residues
* bio-accumulated toxins
* fragrances, additives and other chemical additives
* industrial waste
* pharmaceutical drugs
- 1 -

In most areas, but especially in the southern climates, air conditioning is a definite must. Not only is it essential for general comfort, but in the very southern states it is also a health benefit as temperatures reach into the hundred plus degrees during the long summer months. Air conditioning in these areas is a key factor in resale values of properties and many residences without central air conditioning will be devalued on the market, regardless of the size, condition or architecture of the house.

There are two basic types of air conditioning, central air, which means that the cold air is blown through the house from a central cooling unit, typically located outside of the house. There are options within central air conditioning systems including conventional systems, also known as forced air and high velocity air cooling systems. There is some difference in price between these two systems but both are designed to effectively maintain a reasonable temperature in the house. These systems work on thermostats, just like the furnace does in the winter. Air conditioning systems of this type may be coupled with humidity control systems that work to adjust the amount of moisture in the air during the hot summer months. In dry climates additional humidity may be added to the cooled air and in humid climates dehumidifiers are used in conjunction with air conditioning systems to ensure a comfortable room temperature and humidity level. Although either forced air or high velocity air cooling systems are the most expensive to install and maintain, they also add the most value to your home or residence.

Another option for cooling your home is to use window units. These are small, semi-portable systems that are installed in the bottom section of a window and draw air through the system cooling the temperature and blowing it into the room. The condensation is drained outside from the back of the unit as is the heat vented out of the room. These small window type air conditioning units are effective for small rooms but typically are not powerful enough to maintain a consistent temperature in a larger room or throughout more than one room. For older homes or homes that currently don’t have the ductwork and space needed to install a conventional or whole house air conditioner, these window units may be all that is required. Since they are not a permanent fixture in the house they may or may not be included in the sale, however they also don’t add any value to the house.

Fertilizer: common sense would indicate that it’s the last thing anyone has to worry about when considering how to farm effectively in order to avoid environmental pollution. Fertilizer is designed to grow plants, after all, to grow them more quickly, healthily, and effectively: and aren’t plants what all of these environmentalist types are clamoring for more of? But recent soil profiling of environmental pollution in some less-developed parts of the world shows the truth. In fact, according to profiling of environmental pollution, the overuse of fertilizer can be more deadly to the environment than any toxic waste spill.

Chemical fertilizers are obviously the worst offenders, since they frequently come equipped with pesticides designed to help prevent crop loss due to insects and other troublesome infestations. But even if you’re not using pesticides, fertilizers can cause serious problems to fields and by extension to the environment at large. Many fertilizers, for example, only fill the soil with the nutrients designed to make plants grow the fastest and with the highest rate of crop yield–as a rule, nitrogen compounds. Over time, however, high crop yields start to deplete the soil of other chemicals that plants need to grow. Ideally, fertilizers should replenish those chemicals, and there are several organic fertilizers designed to do just that. In many cases, however, too much fertilizer is applied, making the plants grow too quickly and too thickly–and not allowing the soil to keep up with their growth. Profiling of environmental pollution shows that the soil in these cases becomes slowly unable to generate the nutrients responsible for allowing plants to grow.

In addition, no fertilizer is one hundred percent efficient–meaning that plants never use all of the chemicals in any fertilizer when growing. There’s always some degree of waste that remains in the soil, inert, contributing nothing–except to the growing stock of pollutants and waste in the environment. Countries like Pakistan–projected to become one of the world’s biggest fertilizer users in the coming years–are starting to use fertilizer to the extent that plants can only make use of about 50% of the chemicals implanted in the soil. Thus the country faces the possibility of massive fertilizer waste deposits, the kind of thing that only shows up in profiling of environmental pollution in the soul–but the kind of thing that can quickly leave a field barren for the future.

What’s the solution? For one, a greater use of organic fertilizers. These aren’t perfect and they can sometimes be more expensive to produce and apply, but they can help to prolong the life of the soil while still permitting adequate plant growth for a growing economy. For another, the knowledge that more fertilizer doesn’t necessarily equal a better crop yield–or a better environmental balance. You don’t need to perform any sophisticated profiling of environmental pollution to realize that in all things, there’s a right measure–and we need to find it, even for something as benign as chemicals intended to help the earth grow a little bit greener.

There was once a time when political assassinations were carried out with botanical poisons. However, many, if not most, of the poisons that were once successfully used are now well known to science and detectable in a postmortem examination. Taking a page out of the James Bond play book, some of the most high profile assassinations (and assassination attempts) have utilized the most toxic chemicals on Earth including dioxins and radioactive isotopes.

Most famous, perhaps, was the attack on the Ukrainian presidential hopeful in 2004. In this instance, it is theorized that dioxins were placed in a bowl of soup. Though he survived the attack, the once handsome man lives in constant pain with wrecked skin and a poor prognosis.

Even more troubling perhaps is the case of a Russian spy who was apparently murdered while in London in 2006 with radioactive isotopes. While no one has even been implicated in either of these attempts, the ability of anyone to use these pollutants aggressively is worrying, to say the least.
- 1 -

The following is a simple look at the emissions control system of your personal automobile, which is something many don’t understand.

First, let’s talk about why there is a need to control the emissions output of vehicles with gasoline or diesel powered engines. Nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide are byproducts of fuels refined from petroleum burned to power the engine of a car. When these gasses are released into the atmosphere of the earth, they have very damaging and irreversible effects. The harmful gasses entering the atmosphere are not all created from the burning action of petroleum-based fossil fuels; hydrocarbons are a harmful gas emitted by the vaporization of the fuel stored in the fuel tank and from the crankcase.

In 1977, the U.S. government passed the clean air act setting limits to how much of each pollutant was allowed to be released by a car. Automobile manufacturers responded by adding pollution control devices to cars as standard equipment. In 1981, the first of a new generation of self-adjusting engines controlled by computers called feedback fuel control systems was introduced to the market place. Oxygen sensors were installed in the exhaust system to measure the fuel content being expelled with the exhaust gasses. The computer would then adjust the fuel to air mixture to help compensate for the unused fuel loss.

With the progressive maturity of the emissions control system computers used in automobiles, they began to be used to adjust the ignition spark timing “on the fly” as well as the other emissions control system equipment.

The emissions control system of your car consists of no less than five different standard equipments parts controlling five different emissions contributing factors. These five standard emissions control equipment parts are: catalytic converter, PCV valve, EGR valve, evaporative controls and air injection. The catalytic converter may be the single most important part of the emissions control system.
The catalytic converter is part of the exhaust system installed before the muffler.

Inside of the catalytic converter are pellets or a honeycomb chamber made of platinum or palladium. The platinum or palladium acts as catalyst, speeding up the chemical process of the hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide being oxidized and converted into carbon dioxide and H2O (water). When this process takes place, heat is produced. The more pollutants in the exhaust, the more heat produced. Excessive amounts of heat with cause the catalytic converter to destroy itself. Because lead will coat the platinum or palladium, rendering its efficiency to an almost useless level, all fuels in the USA are now unleaded.

The city of Toronto is like many cities. It has businesses, industry, gas-powered vehicles, and it has air pollution. Like many areas around the world they are trying to minimize this damaging reality but they are taking further action to keep their residents informed. They have developed an air quality rating system.

Indexing Air Quality?

We think if we go outside and we do not see any obvious signs of air pollution, like smoke, then the air is fine. However, it is the toxins that you cannot see that cause problems and certain days those toxins may be worse. Environment Canada developed this system and is a part of the daily weather forecast so the general public knows what they may be up against that day and plans their day accordingly.

The rating is expressed on a scale from one to ten plus and the lower the rating the better the air quality is for that day. In addition to the rating, there is a message given as to whether certain individuals, healthy or otherwise, should alter their activity level.

Who Should Pay Attention?

There are some individuals out there who are textbook healthy who believe that the air quality would not affect them. However, these are the same individuals who go outside and engage in some form of physical exercise to maintain their health and are being exposed to high levels of toxins, which counteract what they are trying to achieve. Everyone should pay attention to the air quality index and take action accordingly.

Prevention Is An Ounce Of Medicine

The air quality index provides information that is vital to preventing potential health risks. There are many health issues that can be prevented or assisted by limiting the exposure to air pollution. These include:

• Lung disorders – Air pollution constricts your airways making it harder to breath, so disorders like asthma, general allergies, and throat irritations may be effected.
• Chronic diseases – Diabetes, bronchitis, and emphysema are irritated by air pollutants.
• Heart – Decreased air flow increases blood vessel constriction which paves the way to increased heart attacks, blood pressure, and other forms of heart failure.

What Does It Measure?

Toronto has this rating system and it measures the air quality, but the question arises - what does it exactly measure in the air? Toronto’s system measures three things that affect the air quality and causes air pollution:

• Ground-level Ozone – This is formed by chemical reactions in the atmosphere and is both colorless and odorless. It is a major element in smog during hot weather.
• Nitrogen Dioxide – It is caused by power plants that rely on fossil fuels and the emissions of motor vehicle usage. It is a reddish gas that has a pungent smell.
• Particulate Matter – These are tiny airborne particles that are expelled directly by vehicles, forest fires, and industrial facilities. These can be formed indirectly as a result of reactions among other pollutants.

There are groups statistically that are more affected by air pollution than others. Children, elderly, and those with preexisting health concerns need to heed the warnings with great attention. However, everyone who is exposed will have a reaction whether immediate or not. Toronto has taken a very important step in this rising concern of air pollution. Toronto is getting the word out to their residents so that they may help take the matter into their own hands.

The ocean ecosystem is where there is more salt water than fresh water involved in the balance of the landscape. Other aquatic ecosystems are fresh water lakes, rivers and estuaries. The ocean ecosystem specifically identifies life forms found in the ocean environment.

Ocean ecosystem topography extends beyond the tidal zones. It can include coral reefs and deep sea where salt water is predominant. The life forms that live in the ocean ecosystem have adapted to life in a salt water environment.

From the Arctic to the Antarctic the ocean ecosystem offers a diverse choice of issues for life forms and plant life to deal with. Ocean ecosystems may have similar conditions as other aquatic ecosystems underlying criteria for classification, but their levels of salt water will effect the life forms able to exist in the symbiotic relationships needed between ocean ecosystem and sustainable life.

In the ocean ecosystem the food chain begins with the largest predatory mammals and fish and will continue down through the strata of life forms to the smallest poly and coral life. In studies of ocean ecosystem, the predatory nature of some forms of life will mark the food chain of the particular area. Seals, whales and dolphins exist in the ocean ecosystem. They make the top of the food chain with fish such as sharks and large predators like turtles and sting rays.

The food chain in the ocean ecosystem consists of smaller fish and crustaceans. It is the way that these creatures exist among the plant life and coral formations that make up the unique relationships in the ocean ecosystem. Without plant life or plankton the larger species could not exist. Without the tides, the currents and the sand bars or rock reefs the plants could not exist. Without the movement of schools of fish, jelly fish, rays, eels and turtles, the levels of life would not remain in balance.

When looking at the ocean ecosystem it is important to understand the changes that have taken place over the last hundred years. The impact of human activity on the ocean ecosystem may not at first be discernable, but study would give an idea of how man has changed the balance of life in any aquatic ecosystem. Not only through the act of fishing, does human activity impact on the ocean ecosystem, but activities such as fertilization of crops can effect the delicate balance in the marine environment. Toxins washing into the tidal zones, plastics floating through a marine ecosystem, long lines, waste material and oil spills can damage a fragile ocean ecosystem.

Taking care of the ocean ecosystem, whether it is in tropical waters or in the Arctic or Antarctic oceans will mean the survival of thousands of individual species. No ocean ecosystem can exist without being impacted by what happens in other parts of the globe. The ocean ecosystem is vital to the health of all life forms that pass through it.