Studying the bat migration mystery
By Alana Power
Wind turbines in Ontario have the potential to kill thousands of bats every spring and fall.
Bat biologist Juliet Nagal is studying the migration patterns of bats along Ontario’s shores so that she can suggest locations for turbines that would be less harmful to the nocturnal creatures.
Nagal, 28, works for EchoTrack Inc., a company that tracks migrating birds and bats using radar which detects height, speed and direction. Microphones allow for species identification. The focus of Nagal’s research is to find out if bats are migrating in the same pattern as birds along Ontario’s shores.
Birds will follow the shoreline, and only cross it when it is totally dark, said Rhonda Millikin, president of EchoTrack.
“We don’t know if the bats are doing the same thing, but that’s one of the questions we want to find out,” she said. If the province allows wind farms off the shores of Lake Erie, EchoTrack’s research will provide insight into how far off the shore they should be, Millikin said.
Depending on the placement, some wind farms can kill thousands of bats in the fall …
Chasing Copenhagen
Chasing Copenhagen
In search of climate consensus before the December 2009 summit
Part I …
By Bill Kovarik
Editor, Appalachian Voice
So this is the speed of light.
We laugh as the solar-powered boat glides silently down the Spree River through the heart of Berlin, Germany. As monumental buildings drift past, our captain, Arno Paulus, points out a series of 64-year-old bullet holes in the stone walls alongside the river.
It’s a sobering moment in the new Berlin, a city where ghosts still flit through the Tiergarten and where hollowed-out churches still draw crowds on the Ku-Damm boulevard.
And it’s because of this past, Paulus says, that Germany has a moral obligation to help change the world. “We can do it,” he says, “but we can’t do it alone.”
And so our journey starts with a photovoltaic boat tour as a kind of tribute to the new Germany, grimly aware of its history but determined to set the example for a remarkable future.
Its all part of the “road to Copenhagen” climate change tour that also includes formal meetings with German officials and informal talks with German scientists.
I’m among seven …
At the Brandenburg Gate
It’s a warm Sunday afternoon in Berlin, at the end of the summer, and the crowds strolling under the Brandenburg Gate seem hopeful but preoccupied. The city has once again caught up with the prosperity it lost in World War I, and the rebuilding and reunification of Berlin after WWII must seems to have gratified the older generation here, many of whom bear dreadful wounds in their eyes.
Just down the street, at the Soviet monument, there is a palpable sense, still, of revenge for the atrocities of war, for the dreadful suffering and the extinctions of millions.
By mistake, we got off the bus in front of a nearly endless field of gray concrete blocks, and we thought it was very startling before we even knew it was a monument to the murdered peoples of Germany, especially the Jews.
So Berlin seems like a sober city, a place of deep reflection on the plight of humankind. And as such, perhaps, it is a good place to go in search of the future — the future of renewable energy, the future of climate …
Overview of Appalachian coal issues
They used to say that coal is Appalachia’s curse and blessing. These days most people don’t count the blessing part.
In fact, one of the greatest environmental and human rights catastrophes in history is underway In the coalfields of Appalachia.
A quick overview of the human and environmental costs of coal would include:
MINING: Modern mining methods leave a sterile and poisoned land behind. A video describing the problem of Mountaintop Removal Mining (MTR) is available on YouTube. A slide show also provides aerial views.
Worker safety is also an issue in mining. Coal companies claim that injury rates are lower for surface / MTR mining than underground, but investigators question that claim.
PRETREATMENT Preparing coal for power plants leads to enormous water pollution and public safety problems. Preparation usually involves large amounts of water which is then stored in coal sludge dams that pose imminent threats to people downstream. Waste water is also injected into ground, poisoning well and making people sick. For …
Climate change and public opinion
One of the first things you’d want to know about climate change is how US public opinion corresponds with public opinion in other countries and with the opinions of scientists.
First, the bad news:
Americans assign a lower priority to climate change than people of any other country, according to a World Public Opinion poll.
Asked how high a priority their government should place on addressing climate change, most want a high priority–on average 7.33 on a 0-10 scale. The highest mean levels are found in Mexico (9.09), China (8.86), Turkey (8.34), and France (8.03). Only three nations had means below 6. The lowest was the United States (4.71).
The good news? Majorities in 15 of 19 nations surveyed think their government should put a higher priority on addressing climate change than it does now. This includes the largest greenhouse gas emitters: China (62% want more action), the US (52%), and Russia (56%). Germany has a 47% rating, but with the middle position (about right), public opinion there is about like the US.
Even the graveyards are under siege …
Just how bad are things in Appalachia?
One of the most bizarre features of the fight over Appalachian coal mining and MTR is the outright theft of graveyards. We’re not talking about tomb raiders who steal FROM the dead. We’re talking about people who steal cemeteries, wholesale, by the drag-line and bucket-load.
Many coal field graveyards have been damaged, and many are no longer accessible, with some to perhaps all graves missing.
Since one acre of ground can contain 10,000 tons of coal, worth $500,000 or more, a cemetery can be a fairly significant piece of ground for a coal company, and not a very significant issue for a bulldozer.
Its possible to use standard underground mining techniques to get the coal from underneath cemeteries, and even though this causes subsidence of the land, at least the land is still there. But this method is slightly more expensive and time consuming, and the coal industry has increasingly used the direct method of simply tearing up the cemetery and throwing it, graves and all, down into the valley fills.
This is illegal, of …
The Rip Van Winkle coal industry
One thing to understand about the American coal industry is that, for many decades, it has stubbornly refused to come out of its feudalistic 19th century mentality.
It has bitterly fought all labor and environmental standards that, inch by inch, have been imposed by Congress.
Now the industry seems to be waking up to its unpopularity, and its interesting to see the reactions. At a recent “Coal Summit” in Bluefield, VA, Bill Raney, president of The West Virginia Coal Association said:
“We seem to be the only country in the world that treats our natural resources like liabilities.”