2 More everyday items that are heating up our climate

As I continue my research, i find out more small things that we didn't really pay attention to but are also ruining the atmosphere in a big way.


1. lighters.

A typical lighter releases about 237 milligrams of carbon dioxide per minute. A typical power plant produces 12,200 kilograms of CO2 in the sam period. The only byproducts of burning the butane from our lighters are water and carbon dioxide, so it is not a pollution to the atmosphere, but just think about how often people use lighters, there are still a large amount of greenhouse gas being emitted.

Not to mention the plastic used to make these lighters is really harmful to the environment. so instead of buying disposable ones perhaps it would be a good option to switch to refillable metal ones.

2. Personal Generators 

engineers have found that firing up diesel backup generators in non-emergency situations triggers rising atmospheric ozone concentrations due to additional nitrogen oxide emissions, another contributor to the lower atmospheric o-zone. Scientist are calling for having diesel generators properly sited with state-of-the-art control technologies to lower nitrogen oxide emissions. Because when people experience power shortage, especially during summer, they tend to turn on their personal diesel generators, resulting high temperature, high electricity demand, high electricity prices, and high pollution levels during those periods.

http://phys.org/news/2015-01-relieve-power-grid-worsen-ozone.html

A Tiny Mobile Home by Snowboarder Mike Basich

Tiny houses is a new trend nowadays, it is exciting to see that some people, instead of going for larger and larger house, their aim is to build a home that is small and extremely efficient, they aim for just enough of everything, minimum footprint.

Mike's tiny home feels a little different than others. According to Mike, His dream is to chase after the perfect snow -- the fresh powdery kind. His ultimate goal was to have a home he could take with him anywhere, and that's exactly what he built.

He used mostly recycled materials, like siding from an old building, a stove he already had in storage, and he purchased a sink and windows from the Habitat for Humanity store. The house has a water tank, hot water heater, furnace, fireplace, stove, and even a skylight, but unfortunately no toilet -- Mike prefers to use the great outdoors as his bathroom.

http://www.seeker.com/taking-a-tiny-home-on-the-road-with-snowboarder-mike-basich-1815160479.html

Air pollution in China, how to improve the air quality? (Series 4/4)

First of all, we have to admit that air pollution is a very complicated problem and can not not solved with one solution.

During the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation 2014, the people in Beijing experience the best air quality in years. The locals call it "APEC Blue". Seems incredible how the quality has improved, but how the Beijing government achieve this? They enforced a serious of law including, temperately shut down all the factories near Beijing, limit the amount of vehicles on the road, construction sites stopped operating, and more frequent of road-cleaning,

Although the result is undeniable, it is clearly not a sustainable way to improve air quality. China is a developing country that heavily rely on its industrial production, and just shut down all factories will cripple the nation's economy.


However, there are things that can certainly be done.


China needs to reduce the emission from the source. Use renewable, clean energy sources (such as solar , wind, hydro ). Stop using coal. Fuel Pretreatment ( such as coal desulfurization ), improve combustion technology. Plants can also help purified the air. 

There is also the issue of Chinese steel factory over producing their products, these factories need to be regulated.

Local citizens need to use more pubic transport, if driving is unavoidable, install exhaust treatment device to their cars.

http://en.people.cn/90882/8519889.html

Air pollution in China, what are the causes? (Series 3/4)

The main source of air pollution in China are:


(1) Industrial: Industrial production is an majorsource of air pollution. Electric power plants, industrial facilities released varies types of pollution into the air, including soot, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, organic compounds, halides, carbon compounds.


(2) Stoves and heater: Many people in northern part of China use large amounts of coal to fuel their heater, coal combustion process will release large amounts of dust, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and other harmful substances that will pollute the atmosphere.


(3) Transportation: cars, trains, airplanes, ships are the main form of modern transportation, their exhaust gas from burning coal or oil is also an important source of pollution. Especially in urban area, where cars are in large number and concentrated, the problem of PM 2.5 became extremely serious, because they can be inhaled deep into and accumulate in the respiratory system.

The harmful particles that cars emitted  including: carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons, the first three substances are specifically dangerous.

(4) Forest fire smoke

http://news.discovery.com/earth/china-pollution-how-bad-can-the-air-get-151209.htm

http://berkeleyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/China-Air-Quality-Paper-July-2015.pdf

Air pollution in China, how bad is it? (Series 2/4)

According to the data provided by the Ministry of Environmental Protection , nearly 500 thousand people died from air-pollution related diseases every year. In 2014, 175 days of Beijing's air quality are classified as "polluted",

Tianjin 197 days,

Chengdu, 125 days,

Shenyang,152 days,

Lanzhou, 112 days,

Shijiazhuang, 264 days


Notably cities in the north suffered far worse than southern cites. This is because northern cites have lower average temperature, therefore they burn more coals to keep warm.

China's environmental protection ministry claim that in early 2014 , central and eastern provinces of China has been affected by smog, affecting an area of ​​about 1.43 million square kilometers, about 810,000 square kilometers, 20 cities, experienced heavy smog. The situation is expected to be worsen.

In 2015, Beijing declared its first ever 72-hour pollution red alert, 22 millions people in Beijing are advised to stay indoors if possible due to concerns they’ll be exposed to hazardous levels of microscopic-sized particles that can penetrate deep into the lungs and lead to ailments such as heart attack, stroke, lung cancer and asthma. The observed air pollution is calculated to contribute to 1.6 million deaths/year in China , roughly 17% of all deaths in China.

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/04/10/five-revelations-from-the-u-s-embassys-beijing-pollution-data-dump/

Air pollution in China, what is Smog? (Series 1/4)

One of most obvious thing that people see when it comes to air pollution is the Smog. So what is the

Smog? and what does it made of?




The term "Smog" comes from Fog and Smoke

Smoke refers to is mixture of dust, sulfuric acid, Nitrate,hydrocarbons,

when these particals mix with fog, it will produce Sulfur dioxide, Nitrogen oxides, and other particulate matter(PM)

It is this mixture of Fog and Smoke that makes the sky look like this:

One of the most important stats that decide how serious is the air being polluted is how many PM 2.5 in the air, meaning particulate matters that are less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, these particles are believed to pose the greatest health risks, because they can be inhaled deep into and accumulate in the respiratory system.


PM 10, particulate matters that are less than 10 micrometers in diameter, also known as "coarse" particles, can also be inhaled into and accumulate in the respiratory system, these particles are crushing or grinding operations, and dust from paved or unpaved roads, while PM 2.5,aka "fine" particles, are mainly come from combustion activities such as engines and burning woods and coals.

https://www3.epa.gov/pmdesignations/faq.htm#0

Air pollution in China

Air pollution is a problem for much of the developing world and is believed to kill more people worldwide than AIDS, malaria, breast cancer, or tuberculosis.

Coming from a Chinese background, I am very concerned health and safety of the people in China due to the air pollution problem that occurred in recent years, and it is not just about China and Chinese people, I think this is something that effects all developing countries, especially countries that are becoming more and more industrialized. Since the climate change is here, and we all shared one atmosphere, I would make the argument that the air quality of China, a country where 1.3 billion people live, is a global environmental issue, and it will effect not just China, but the whole world. Therefore, for the following week, I will do a series of study on the air pollution in China.

Why Are We Wasting So Much Food?

Internationally, over 800 million people endure hunger, yet the world wasted at least 1/3 of the food it produce. Even in the richest countries like the US, millions suffered from 'food poverty'. So why are we still wasting so much food?


One of the biggest problem comes from supermarkets,

Large number of perfectly fresh delicious food are discarded before they get in to the supermarket. Producing food requires land,water,fossil fuel and soil, we use precious resource to produce food. Therefore it is a true pity that half of these food are dumped just because they didn't meet  the cosmetic standard of supermarkets. Writer Tristram states that "in a blink an of en eye, we missed the true beautify of these ugly vegg"

Supermarkets also regularly change or cancel order, making tons of food that already produced gets dumped.

Supermarkets created an image of overwhelmingly abundant of food supply to lure people buy more than they need, resulting food waste. Also, over-cautious expiry labels confused customers and make them toss out what is still good to eat. 

Supermarkets and restaurants overproducing to maintain a full menu. They also increased the size of plate, food so that people are eating more than they need, causing food wastes and obesity. One statistics shows that the average calorie in one slides of pizza increased 70% from 1982 to 2002.

http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.nsw.gov.au/