H.E.A.L's Environmental issues

H.E.A.L’s Limb 2

Environment

By environment we mean the natural environment which allows all living things to perpetuate. I stress, ‘natural’ and ‘all’. Nature has its own way of doing things and it needs all the organisms that exist to do its things. Nature has its own rules and we cannot change these. There is some room for tolerance and adaptation but if we stretch the rules beyond their limits problems will arise.

Nature’s way

The natural environment has kept changing over millions of years. Indeed change and subsequent re-adaptation is a part of life. But change is the overall observation. The small ‘details’ should not change substantially. The amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the air, for example, remains more or less constant. Nature uses recycling as means to prevent drastic changes in those details. Nutrients, for example, are recycled. When a living thing dies it decomposes and becomes nutrients (fertilizers or minerals) in the soil which plants can use to grow. In fact any biogenic material (anything formed in a living thing) can be degraded by bacteria. They are said to be biodegradable.
Just leave a pile of grass clippings (biodegradable material) in your garden and in a few days, dig your fingers into the pile. You will be surprised how hot it is. It is already decomposing to release the nutrients. Why is it hot then? Well, good bacteria are using the grass as food and are using oxygen to break down the food to release energy. Like us, they need energy to live. Some of the energy is released as heat.
Decomposition is a natural process and we can use the above and a few more tricks to make compost. It depends on what starting material we use. Certain materials and unsuitable condition for decomposition may favor bad bacteria and cause odor. This is called pollution. Pollution may be a source of disease.

Composting

Concerning pollution, we will try to explain how and why more effort needs to be made to segregate our rubbish nationally and how it can be done. Non-biogenic material like plastic would be recycled Note that plastic is made from fossil fuel products and more should be done to minimize its use. Biogenic material including wood waste from paper industries and other sources could be turned into compost. H.E.A.L will explain the biology of composting and also give practical clues on how to make compost.

Go Green

The five-R’s principle will be nailed into everybody’s mind: Recycle, Re-use, Reduce, Repair and Re-think. The expression ‘Go Green’ must be understood by everybody and emphasis will be laid on why it has to be done. Protocols on environmental issues are difficult to implement without winning approval from the public. But it has to be from an informed public and it is actually easier, as with many other issues, to win full support of the public if the latter is well informed. So, the ‘Education’ side of the issue will not be neglected.

Trees

In order to be alive or to sustain life, food and oxygen are vital. Trees play a role in providing these directly or indirectly. Trees (plants in general) need two raw materials from the environment:

CO2 (carbon dioxide) in air and water from the soil.

Plants literally convert CO2 into food. However, they need a source of energy. The wonder is that they can directly capture the sun’s energy. In making our food, plants release oxygen for us to breathe.
Plants therefore are the first (primary) producers of food. Herbivorous animals eat plants and indirectly obtain sun’s energy but less of it than plants. Carnivorous animals eat the herbivores and obtain sun’s energy from them but less than what herbivore get from plants. So, plants are eaten by an herbivore and the latter is eaten by a carnivore. This is called a food chain. Energy flows from the sun along this food chain. Humans also form part of the food chain. We eat vegetables and meats to get the energy (sun’s energy) from them.

Global warming

So plants use CO2 and give us food and oxygen. What if we do not have enough plants around? We would have less food and oxygen. But CO2 in air will accumulate. Living things breathe out CO2 and burning (fires, cooking) use oxygen and produce more CO2. It is the accumulation of CO2 that is causing global warming. The accumulation is caused mainly by burning fuel and cutting down trees.
Incidentally, nature made fossil fuel using mainly trees. This is because trees represent biogenic material that contains energy (sun’s energy), the so-called ‘Biomass’. When we burn fuel, we get the energy (Bio-energy) back, which we use for cooking, for driving our machines and vehicles. That is good but burning or combustion releases CO2!

Informed public

H.E.A.L will use the above as the basis to explain in future blogs the following issues to the non-biologist public;

• Nutrition and why vegetables give more energy than meats.
• How Biomass sunk underground millions of years ago turned into fossil fuel
• Why fossil fuel is non-renewable
• How carbon dioxide and some other gases produce the vital ‘greenhouse effect’
• What is enhanced greenhouse effect and global warming?
• Why should we reduce the use of fossil fuel?

Energy

We need to reduce the use of fossil fuel for two main reasons;

• We are using up the world reserves and oil experts arguably claim that we only have enough for another forty years or so.
• The burning of fossil fuel releases carbon dioxide and this is contributing to the observed raise in temperature of the globe and the UN claims we have only eight years to save the world.

Bio-energy and Bio-fuels

Nature made fuel from biomass (biogenic material; especially trees). The question is: Can we, humans, do the same? Fortunately, yes! And that is our answer to reducing the use of fossil fuel. Biomass can be fermented (a biological process) to form bio-ethanol (as opposed to ethanol made from petrol products by a chemical reaction). Examples of biomass are, wood and wood waste, crops (e.g. Maize, sugar cane, beet-root), garbage.

Bio-ethanol as transport fuel

Bagass from sugar cane is already being used in some countries to make bio-ethanol. This ethanol can be used not only to make electricity but also to use as fuel for vehicles. The latter use is not a new one. Indeed, Henry Ford called ethanol, ‘The fuel of the future’. His early Model T automobile ran on ethanol! Many states in America insist on using E10 (90% petrol, 10% ethanol) in vehicles. Most vehicles can use E10 without any engine modification. Using higher percentages of alcohol would require some engine modification but the automotive industry welcome these and many manufacturers are already producing cars that can use up to E100 (100% alcohol).
The two main producers of ethanol are the US and Brazil. Brazil started using E5 in 1931 and slowly increased to E 25 in 2010. In fact a minimum of E22 is compulsory in Brazil (E10 is compulsory in the US). New Flexible-fuel vehicles exist now that can use varying amounts of fuel (up to 85% ethanol) from many manufacturers.
Another transport bio-fuel that will probably gain popularity is bio-diesel. Any vegetable animal fat oil can easily be converted into bio-diesel. In America, many people are making their own bio-diesel at home. The process is indeed quite simple. We could explore our sources of oil; corn, sunflower, soybean and even waste oil from restaurants and hotels to assess their use as raw material for bio-diesel.

The energy race

There are arguments both for and against the use of bio-fuels in the energy competition, considering that solar energy is more efficient both for producing heat and for making electricity. H.E.A.L will expose both sides of the issue and show why the arguments against are not valid, especially in the Mauritian context. Based on estimates in the 2006 World Energy Outlook of the International Energy Agency (IEA), it is clear that bio-energy is becoming more popular. This is not surprising as it costs much less. One strong environmental aspect is that bio-fuels burn more smoothly than petrol and release less CO2. Furthermore, the plants that are used to make bio-fuels have consumed CO2 during their growth. Scientists are exploring the use of other biogenic material including cellulosic (tree parts and grass) products which would be broken down by biologically engineered bacteria, algae and fungi. The use of algae is interesting because it will not make use of land that could be used for food crops.

Gas emission and pollution

Pollution is not simply eyesore. Biogenic material can rot and cause multiplication of ‘bad’ bacteria which flying insects could bring to our food and affect our health. Furthermore, rotting garbage releases CO2 and another gas called methane; both greenhouses gases. Now, an interesting fact is that methane can be used to make electricity. I mentioned segregation of garbage above. Biogenic garbage and indeed compost can be used to produce methane using a biological process called anaerobic digestion (breaking down in the absence of oxygen). This gas can be used to make electricity.

Pollution and toxic substances

Biogenic material is biodegradable and therefore, if not recycled by man, will be recycled by nature. Man-made material like plastic should be collected for recycling. Going green goes beyond that. There are many chemicals that we use to control microbes. Many of these are hazardous chemicals that harm the environment. In particular, we should avoid chlorine and phosphate-based detergents. Apart from epidemic situations, we could use a variety of substances that we already have in our kitchen and that we actually use in our food (vinegar, lemon, sodium bicarbonate). They are much cheaper and safer. We also need to explain why plain soap is better than disinfectants for household purposes.

POPs and other chemicals

POPs are Persistent Organic Pollutants that can affect the environment and bio-accumulate along food chains. The UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) Stockholm Convention has identified 12 POPs that are used in many countries. They have a long life in the environment and can travel long distances through the air, water and migratory organisms. It is believed that they can affect human beings in numerous ways as follows:

• Cancers
• Reduced reproductive capacity
• Endometriosis (a disease of the uterus)
• Affected nerves and reduced learning capacity in children
• Increased incidence of diabetes
• Weakened immune system

POPs and many other toxic chemicals are thus a serious threat that needs urgent attention and their use in Mauritius needs to be investigated. The Pop and a lot of other toxic chemicals are therefore a serious threatens and urgent attention is required. They affect everything that is on their path. Their final destination could be the sea. The sea would transport them to faraway land where they would cause other damages. Let's not forget how DDT has affected the eagles in America and then crossed the ocean to end up in Antarctica where they affected penguins. This was caused by bio-accumulation through the food chains in the sea. POP has the potential to do the same. But it is not all. They would also affect marine life and we should think of the coral reefs.

Coral Reefs

Coral reefs are among the most amazing of ecosystems on our planet. Together with green algae the reefs represent the rain forests of the sea. Like rain forests, they absorb CO2, release oxygen and make food. They have a great bio-diversity with thousands of species that are unique to reefs. Reefs also have living coral polyps growing. Pollution including toxic Industries dumping hazardous waste (toxic chemicals and heavy metals), human sewage, agricultural runoff, exhaust from boats, oil spill, sand and poor fishing practices all are affecting coral reefs around the world. Global warming also harms coral reefs. Global warming causes sea water to evaporate and this leaves the coral above the water. The coral polyps cannot breathe above the water and therefore die. When they die, there is no coral formation because it is polyps that build the coral. Food chains in the reef are affected. Everything dies after that.

More than a quarter of the earth’s coral reefs have already been destroyed. Coral reefs take millions of years to form. Many countries are blessed with coral reef protection. If we destroy them we will suffer severe consequences. Knowledge that they are being destroyed is not enough. We need to understand, as with all the other issues, why we need the knowledge. But there is one thing that we all understand. It is the reefs that give the beautiful lagoons we have in many places in the world and that we have learnt to appreciate.