News & Articles

This article discusses two environmental topics. Both are examples of how we refuse to do even simple, reasonable things to deal with our garbage or take action on environmental problems. 

These stories illustrate our propensity to both believe in scientific solutions – technology will save us – while being woefully ignorant of basic science and unwilling to accept the warnings of scientists.

The myth of green plastics
In recent articles I have discussed the environmental problems with plastics and plastic waste. 
The myth of “green” plastics is more of the same. We want to believe that bio-plastics and biodegradable and compostable plastics will solve the plastic waste problems. “Green” plastics may be better than other types of plastic but they are not a panacea.

For decades, chemists have been researching and developing so called “green” plastics. A British company developed the first practical biodegradable plastic in 1990. Bio-plastics are materials that are derived from renewable biomass rather than petroleum, natural gas or coal. Materials like starch, cellulose, sawdust, wood chips, sugar and plant waste can be used to make polymers (chains of large molecules) that have properties like fossil fuel-derived plastics (which are also polymers).

The term bio-plastic is misleading because it suggests that plastics derived from renewable sources are environmentally friendly. The truth is more complicated. Whether any kind of plastic is degradable or compostable depends on its molecular structure, not on what it was made from. Biodegradable plastics can also be made from fossil fuels.

Bio-plastics have some advantages and are better for the environment than fossil fuel plastics. They are sustainable because they are made from renewable materials. They are generally more biodegradable then other plastics (but the time needed and the degree of  decomposition varies widely). Making bio-plastics from organic waste is environmentally good. 

But all types of plastic are man-made synthetics. Bio-plastics often contain toxic chemicals that don’t  break down. They have to be sorted out to recycle. Many don’t fully decompose and composting bio-plastics often requires controlled conditions in processing facilities that few communities have available. 

The solutions for plastic waste are more social and political than technological. We need to change our habits, thinking and lifestyles. We need to simply reduce our consumption and the amount of waste we produce. We need to stop using single-use plastics, reduce excessive packaging, use returnable and standardized refillable containers and increase recycling of all materials. 

Companies need to stop producing so much plastic and instead use aluminum, glass, paper and cardboard that are technically and economically easier to recycle. We need our political leadership to enact the policies and incentives to make all this happen.  

Blaming Bossy 
According to NASA , carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have increased 39% from 280 to 387 parts per million since 1750. Other sources put the current concentration at 421 PPM – the highest concentration in two million years. Methane concentrations have increased from 715  to 1774 parts per billion in that time period. This is the highest level in 650,000 years. 

These scientific facts correspond to the human-created Industrial Revolution that saw massive increases in the burning of fossil fuels – coal initially and petroleum and natural gas more recently. 
Clearly global climate change is a human-created phenomenon. But we persist in denial and in blaming other irrelevant sources of greenhouse gases – like cow burps and volcanic eruptions – for climate change.
The media frequently repeats these canards – even news sources like PBS who should know better. These misleading stories ignore a basic principle of earth science – the operation of cycles – that is critical to understanding how and why human activity is the cause of climate change. These stories report true facts but misinterpret what they mean for climate change.

Cows and other animals, including humans, do release carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. But this is not causing climate change. Animals, including 8 billion humans, digesting food and belching or farting are part of the current carbon cycle. Climate change is being caused by burning fossil carbon which is adding carbon to the current cycle (more on this below).

In addition to not understanding the difference between current and fossil carbon, the amounts of carbon released naturally by other species is small in comparison to the human impact. Here are a few facts to illustrate how we manipulate and misinterpret the data.
There are an estimated 1.5 billion cows worldwide. A single cow can produce 154–264 pounds of methane per year. Supposedly this is 12-14% of worldwide totals. But herds of millions of grazing animals (ruminants, currently estimated at 75 million from 4,805 species) have been on earth for many thousands of years without causing increases in atmospheric CO2.

Currently we have 8.2 billion people on the planet who exhale three billion tons of carbon dioxide annually. Human activities release 35 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually. Our population has dramatically increased since 1750, but all this breathing (or belching and farting) is part of the current carbon cycle. The carbon we exhale (along with all the other animals) is the same carbon that is “inhaled” from the atmosphere by plants.

This brings us back to the natural cycles of earth science. All materials on earth operate in cycles and are used and recycled in various ways. Carbon circulates through a fast (or current) cycle and a slow (fossil) cycle. Current carbon is constantly recycled through the ecosystem by plants photosynthesizing carbon from the air,  which die and rot,  or are eaten by animals who breath, defecate or rot returning carbon to the air and oceans and the cycle continues.

Fossil carbon is stored in the earth, took millions of years to accumulate and moves to the surface very slowly over millions of years (via volcanoes, erosion, etc.) and returns to the earth when things rot or are buried in sediments. Sequestered fossil carbon doesn’t increase atmospheric carbon significantly. Volcanoes emit between 130 and 380 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year.

In contrast, there are 1.475 billion motor vehicles in the world and about a billion of them are passenger vehicles. A single, typical passenger vehicle emits about 4.6 metric tons of CO2 per year. 
Clearly we, and our burning of fossil fuels, are to blame for increasing green house gases and climate change. Blaming cows or volcanoes for our environmental damage is ludicrous.