For the third year in a row, Bakersfield, California ranks as the nation’s second smoggiest city in America. Coming in just behind Los Angeles, Bakersfield is also the second most ozone-polluted cities.

But, that’s not all. Bakersfield has now moved into first place as the city with the most fine particulate pollution. According to an annual American Lung Association (ALA) report, which ranks America’s cities with the unhealthiest air, Bakersfield was third behind Pittsburgh and Los Angeles last year.

The ALA reports that, while America’s air has gotten somewhat better over the last 10 years, many cities still suffer from severe air pollution problems. In fact, despite progress in cutting air pollutants and a booming “green” movement, almost every major metropolitan area is fraught with considerable air pollution.

The ALA rates cities on three primary criteria: ozone, short-term particle spikes and long-term particle averages. Each group of ratings is based on statistics collected from the years 2005 through 2007 at monitoring stations maintained by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Los Angeles, Fresno and Bakersfield, all in California, had the dubious distinction of being on the top 10 list of all three categories.

Air pollution has become a major threat to human health. This is especially evident when you consider that roughly 60 percent of Americans are currently breathing air dirty enough to send people to emergency rooms across the country, to shape how children’s lungs develop and to kill through the development of serious respiratory illnesses.

The ALA’s annual report states that of the 25 cities with the worst ozone pollution problems, 16 recorded higher ozone levels when compared with last year. A dozen of the 25 cities with the worst average particle problems, which include microscopic soot, diesel exhaust, various chemicals, metals and aerosols, experienced a spike in these pollutants.

Another four cities showed no change and, thankfully, nine cities actually showed some improvement. And, of the 25 worst, 13 cities recorded more days of severe spikes in particle pollution than they had last year.

But, what contributes to the pollution problems in these 25 cities with the worst air pollution? Let’s look at Bakersfield.

It has been over a decade since the first reports of the growing air pollution that is still threatening the United State’s most diverse and productive farm counties in California’s Central Valley. The reasons for the advances in air pollution are manifold and include mist from fertilizers and pesticides and dust from tractors that help grow half of our nation’s produce.



Bakersfield photo: A Polluted Sunset by andy castro, via Creative Commons

However, other factors also contribute to the rising air pollution. The meteorological conditions and topography of the region only make matters worse, and they also make the problem very difficult to solve.

Bakersfield is boxed in on three sides by mountains. Inversion layers, which act as a lid on the air and hold the pollution close to the ground, are present in both winter and summer. There is little or no wind to take the pollution elsewhere, so it just sits over the city.

Bakersfield’s Kern County also ranks as the worst county in average annual particulate pollution. However, some efforts to reduce the toxic air pollution have been made.

According to the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, the county has been able to reduce stationary sources of pollution by 80 percent since 1980. This has been accomplished through various measures, including regulations on oil processing and, in 2003, restrictions on wood-fueled fires. Additional farming regulations, which reduce the number of harvesting machines as well as the number of trips made through the fields, have also helped.

Despite these accomplishments, county officials now say they need state and federal assistance in controlling the heavy-duty trucks that pass through on Interstate 5 and Highway 99. These semi-trucks, cut east to west hauling produce from farms to packaging facilities, fall outside the county’s regulatory authority.

To date, air pollution controls have cost Kern County businesses approximately $40 billion. This $40 billion is split between to important plans – one aimed at reducing particulate matter by 2015 and another plan aimed at reducing ozone by 2023.

However, the financial cost of noncompliance with federal pollution standards may be much more. Being out of compliance with federal Environment Protection Agency standards costs Kern County $2 billion in forfeited federal highway funding and puts a dent in its ability to attract more businesses to the area.

There are other intangible costs that are just as important as the strictly financial costs. The ALA emphasizes the poor and deteriorating lung capacities of the young people who are growing up in such dirty, polluted environments. A University of California Fullerton Study estimated the economic cost of not meeting EPA air standards for the southern California region, which includes all of Los Angeles, at $6 billion per year in health-related costs as well as premature deaths.

So, while it does require huge amounts of money to clean up the air, massive amounts of money are already being paid out for the declining health of young people, increased medication usage, and shortened lives. The ALA is working with local governments and promoting partnerships between the county, state and federal authorities, but much more needs to be done.

This year, 12 more California counties received failing grades than did last year in terms of air quality. This reflects, in part, the tighter national ozone standards adopted in 2008. The ALA’s State of the Air 2009 Report also found that six out of every 10 Americans live in areas where pollution levels actually endanger their lives.

This means that despite an ever-growing “green” movement that is sweeping across the United States, the ALA’s report indicates that the air in many American cities became even dirtier since last year’s report.

THE REAL COST

There is now data and research that indicates that ozone is more destructive than originally believed. Because of this, in March 2008, the EPA lowered the standard needed for ozone levels to trigger an unhealthy rating.

Ozone, the gas that forms a major component of smog, is created by tailpipe emissions that are cooked by the sun, heat up and form triple molecules of oxygen. These molecules are much less stable than conventional oxygen and are much more damaging to our respiratory systems.

Respiratory problems are a very natural and scientifically established result of air pollution. Polluting particles in the air can especially cause health problems in children, the elderly and the infirm. Additionally, air pollution can aggravate asthma symptoms and worsen allergies.

However, respiratory problems are not the only health issues that can be brought on or aggravated by breathing polluted air. If the pollution is heavy enough and if a person is chronically exposed to the polluted air, serious health problems, including cancer and heart disease, can result from the toxins constantly breathed in through the air.

Look at Los Angeles, which has a lethal combination of heavy traffic, sunshine and heat. Last year, the city had 195 days where the ozone levels were high enough to be unhealthy for sensitive members of the population. On another 55 days, the ozone level was unhealthy for everyone, and on 11 days, the ozone in the air was rated “very unhealthy.”

Particle emission pollution is generated primarily by diesel engines, coal-fired power plants and the burning of wood and other combustible fuels. For California’s coastal cities, much of their pollutants come from ships coming into port. In fact, sea-fairing vessels contribute significantly to both particle and ozone emission air pollution.

Whatever the source, some states are taking very aggressive action in an attempt to combat the problem of air pollution. New York and Washington have been successful in reducing air pollution drastically over the past 10 years, and California is introducing cleaner diesel fuel for everything from semi-trucks to large ships.

There has been some criticism of the ALA’s air quality report because the findings are based on where the EPA monitoring stations are located. In Pittsburgh, for example, one monitoring station sits close to the largest coke plant in the United States. Coke is an important ingredient in the steel manufacturing process and is made by baking coal, which produces large amounts of ash and other toxic particles.

It is not a surprise then that Pittsburgh had the highest recorded number of particle pollution spikes, which are jumps in the number of particles in the air that can last for many hours or even days.

However, it is important to note that the findings are supposed to capture the worst cases of air pollution for each metropolitan area because that is what will have the most negative impact on a population’s health. So, it is actually appropriate to locate monitoring stations where the air pollution problems are most acute and potentially damaging.

While air pollution is a chronic problem across the United States, there are still some places where a taking a fresh breath is just that…a fresh breath.

The healthiest cities list mostly consists of cities in the vast-open spaces of the nation’s heartland. These areas are typically far from heavy industry and massive traffic jams. Cheyenne, Wyoming has the lowest long-term particle average, followed closely by Santa Fe, Honolulu and Great Falls, Montana.

The lowest, in fact almost non-existent, ozone levels were discovered in Billings, Montana, Carson City, Nevada and Fargo, North Dakota. Interestingly, only two eastern cities were on any of the three least-polluted lists. Portland, Maine had among the lowest spikes in particle emissions, and Port St. Lucie, Florida had among the lowest ozone levels.

However, the fact remains, many of us are still not breathing clean air. According to the ALA, six out of every 10 Americans, or 186 million people, currently live in communities where the air they breathe endangers their lives. As a nation, we obviously still have a long way to go.

Photo credit: Hot Raw Sewage by Trey Ratcliff

Of course, steroids have long been in the spotlight as numerous professional athletes admit to using steroids as a shortcut to enhancing their performance and helping them achieve victory over their fellow athletes. The term “steroid,” however, actually encompasses a relatively large class of biological molecules.

These molecules include virtually anything the body makes from the parent molecule, cholesterol. Most happen to be hormones or intermediate chemicals in hormone synthesis and metabolism, or synthetic drugs that imitate hormones or interfere with natural hormone action.

Steroids include such chemicals as the anti-inflammatory hormone cortisol (hydrocortisone), which is typically added to medicated skin creams. Synthetic varieties of cortisol are also the active ingredients in organ transplant anti-rejection drugs and asthma inhalers.

Additionally, the primary sex hormones are also considered steroids. Estradiol, the main natural form of active estrogen, and progesterone dominate in women. For men, testosterone, the main natural form of active androgen, dominates. In fact, it is testosterone and other natural and synthetic varieties of androgens that are the main steroids used for muscle enhancement by athletes.

While it has long been known that these male forms of anabolic steroid drugs cause liver cancer, the news has not been spread about the environmental consequences of oral contraceptives (“the Pill”), levonorgestrel (“the morning-after pill”), and mifepristone, or RU-486, (“the abortion pill”). That fact is that all of these synthetic chemicals are also all steroids. These chemicals are actually the same sort of synthetic anabolic steroids that are illegal for professional athletes to take. The difference is that they are anabolic for female tissues, like breast tissue, rather than muscle.

In wasn’t until 2006 that the World Health Organization acknowledged that the estrogen-plus-progestin drugs, which include birth control pills and combination hormone replacement drugs, like Prem-Pro, do have the potential to cause cancers in the breast, cervix and liver.

And, here lies the connection between these synthetic drugs and the part they play as environmental pollutants. It is not common knowledge, but it is fact, that in order for contraceptive steroids to function effectively as pills, they must be non-biodegradable, at least by the human liver. The liver is the first stop for any substance absorbed through the digestive tract before it enters the body’s blood circulation.

In fact, it is one of the liver’s jobs to metabolize, or break down, all substances in order to detoxify them before they can adversely affect the rest of the body. Because of this, these drugs must interfere with the liver’s normal function. While this is true of many oral medications, how many prescription drugs are taken daily for decades by hundreds of millions of women worldwide?

Because of this massive use of synthetic contraceptives, there is a substantial percentage of the worldwide human population who excretes significant quantities of synthetic, carcinogenic and largely non-biodegradable female sex steroid drugs into the environment every day.

photo credit: elbisreverri

This situation is only complicated by the fact that out of all the steroid hormones that act within our bodies, the estrogens are by far the most potent. And, it is important to note that even the monthly highest level of estradiol in a non-pregnant woman’s bloodstream is measured in parts per trillion. Additionally, the most common form of estrogenic steroid drug found in many oral contraceptives, 17-alpha ethinyl estradiol (EE2), is even more potent than estradiol.

For over a decade now, EE2 has actually been showing up in waste water, groundwater and streams that are downstream from major metropolitan areas. There is mounting, creditable research and evidence that documents this contamination. This contamination is beginning to have significant affects on the reproductive function and is feminizing fish and other wildlife.

With this mounting contamination comes a worldwide effort to find ways to remove EE2 and other estrogenic contaminants from our water supplies. Put simply, the chemical inactivation of EE2 is quite simple. In effect, the same types of techniques used to purify our drinking water, such as ozone and ultraviolet light treatment, will work, however most see treating raw sewage by these methods as extremely impractical.

So, while there has been significant research in the area of synthetic contraceptive pollution, much of the research findings are not yet widely know. Even though the World Health Organization has acknowledged the carcinogenicity of synthetic contraceptive steroids, is still hardly mainstream knowledge.

The fact remains, however, that our health and the health of our environment, is being affected by the excreted amounts of these steroids. For years now, reports have also been growing from around the world that the massive amounts of synthetic birth control hormones being pumped into the water systems through sewage outflow is changing the sex of many types of fish.

Going back as far as 2002, the UK Environment Agency issued warnings that fish stocks in several British rivers were showing signs of gender ambiguity as a direct result of high levels of estrogen in the water. A survey of 1,500 fish at 50 river sites found more than a third of males also displayed female characteristics.

photo credit: Joseph Wu

Roughly two years ago, scientists at University of Colorado found that out of 123 fish caught in Boulder Creek, which is downstream from the Boulder sewage treatment plant, 101 were female, 12 were male and 10 had both male and female characteristics.

And, more recently, University of Pittsburgh research scientists investigated fish populations in the Allegheny River near storm sewer outflow pipes and discovered the same types of deformations. This is noteworthy as that region is dependent upon the Allegheny system for clean and safe drinking water.

Dr. Conrad Daniel Volz from the University of Pittsburgh Center for Environmental Oncology even warned that this significant rise in steroid hormones in drinking water throughout the Pittsburgh area is a real threat to human health. Numerous studies have now shown a link between contraceptive estrogen and hormone problems and cancers, including testicular and breast cancers.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that other study results have also shown ambiguous gender in as much as 85 percent of the catfish caught on the Allegheny, Ohio and Monongahela rivers. In fact, chemicals extracted from 25 randomly sampled fish caused the growth of estrogen-sensitive breast cancer cells cultured in a laboratory, out of which 11 produced very aggressive cancers.

Of course, scientists and environmental groups alike are very careful to avoid making recommendations for restricting artificial contraceptives.

As we all know, most of us would not take kindly to the suggestion of restricting or banning hormonal contraceptives. In today’s modern world, it has become not just an issue of economic necessity, but also an issue of personal choice and freedom.

However, while estrogenic chemicals are affecting and altering the reproduction and gender of aquatic life, it should be natural to wonder what lasting and long-term affects these popular drugs are having on the future reproductive ability of humans.

It seems a cocktail of dangerous chemicals are leaking into our fresh water supply, and we all need to consider tougher safety margins and practices that will better protect the planet and all who live on it, both the wildlife and humans.

The land of the Somali people, much of it arid and inhospitable, has been close to civilization and international trade for thousands of years.

Situated on the Horn of Africa, jutting out into the India Ocean, Somalia’s harbors are natural ports of call for traders sailing to and from India. Somalia’s coastline is frequented by many foreigners, in particular Arabs and Persians. But, in Somalia’s interior, the Somali are on their own.

Most urban households use charcoal for everyday cooking. It has been estimated that some families use a full sack of charcoal every four days due to their large family size. And, with this exacerbated charcoal use comes a significant amount of environmental fallout.

Because of an insufficient and cheaper alternative to charcoal and a large former refugee population, tree felling and a great dependence on charcoal in the self-declared republic of Somaliland are adversely affecting the environment. A 2007 study by the Academy for Peace and Development reports that greater than 2.5 million trees are felled each year and burned for charcoal in Somaliland. The report further stated that each household in Somaliland consumes an average of 10 trees a month.

Considering this extensive use of trees, the serious affects of deforestation should be noted. Deforestation not only exacerbates soil erosion, it also reduces rainfall availability. In addition, trees are a vital component in carbon fixing, which is the natural process of reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Interestingly, the demand for charcoal remains very high, despite charcoal prices going up since 1991 with the resettlement of former refugees. Roughly 10 years ago, one sack of charcoal cost Somalis only about 5,000 Somaliland shillings, or 0.76 US dollars, but now the price is about 30,000 Somaliland shillings, or 5 US dollars. And, this price is only aggravated by rainfall, because when it rains, the trees become wet and the charcoal becomes more expensive.

It is not difficult to see that the ever rising gas prices have helped to encourage charcoal use. In past years, gas was actually cheaper than charcoal, but the price has increased dramatically. Now, one liter of gas costs approximately 4,000 Somaliland shillings or 0.61 US dollars, which is up from 1,500 Somaliland shillings or 0.23 US dollars.

Nowadays, charcoal is even the preferred fuel in hotels, which obviously consume even larger quantities of this valuable and environmentally important commodity. It has been estimated that some hotel chefs even use a full sack of charcoal for a single day’s cooking.

It is no wonder that researchers have determined that one of the main driving forces of African deforestation is the need for fuel.

It is also estimated that in sub-Saharan Africa, only 7.5 percent of the rural population has access to electricity. A 2009 report on the state of the world’s forests reports that “as household incomes and investment in appropriate alternatives remain low, wood is likely to remain an important energy source in Africa in the coming decades.”

Going back as far as forecasts made in 2001, it was suggested that there will be a 34 percent increase in wood fuel consumption from 2000 to 2020. However, as the price for fuel continues to rise, this increase is likely to be even greater. In other words, the share of wood fuel in the total energy supply is likely to decline, while the number of people dependent on wood for fuel and energy is likely to grow.

The report goes on to say that “the forest situation in Africa presents enormous challenges, reflecting the larger constraints of low income, weak policies and inadequately developed institutions.”

With this ever-increasing demand for fuel, many environmentalists are concerned that the trade in charcoal will eventually wipe out some species of trees. For example, one species of trees used for charcoal production is the Acacia bussei tree, which can produce between eight to 10 sacks of charcoal per tree. Researches are worried because the Acacia is the most preferred tree specie for charcoal production, timber and fencing, and its extensive use could force it to the brink of extinction in the Somaliland territories.

Efforts are being made, however, to stop or slow down the felling of Somaliland trees. On April 30, 2009, concerned with the impact of charcoal burning on the environment, Maroodi Jeeh, regional governor of Hargeisa (a city in the northwestern Somaliland region of Somalia), banned trade in charcoal as well as the burning of trees. Other attempts at protecting the environment have included the introduction of gas stoves and solar cookers in the main urban centers of Burou, Las-anod, Gabiley, Wajalea and Borama.

Since January, Somgas Company has been supplying gas to residents. A typical household uses an 11-kilogram cylinder for approximately six weeks. Although initial gas and cylinder prices remain high, an 11-kilogram gas cylinder plus gas costs $44.50 and is recharged at just $19.
This is certainly not expensive compared with the monthly charcoal consumption of about $15 for three 20-kilogram sacks of charcoal per household. (The gas cylinders range from two to 22 kilograms.)

According to Somaliland’s Ministry of Pastoral Development and Environment, there is still great cause for concern, even though charcoal consumption fell in 2008 compared with 2007.

Mohamoud Ibrahim Mohamoud currently heads the forestry section in the ministry. He says he is concerned about environmental degradation caused by the charcoal trade, and is working with several organizations to search for alternatives to charcoal energy. The problem that seems to drive the tree felling and forest burning for charcoal is the poverty throughout the countryside and the high demand for charcoal energy in the urban areas.

Overall, the demand for charcoal appears to be increasing daily and the burning of trees is also increasing. But, many leaders and environmentalists are now trying to encourage awareness and education among the people of Somalia and give them other sources of income, such as helping young people become involved in alternative activities such as bee-keeping.

It is obvious that other sources of income and further education and research are needed if the problem of deforestation and charcoal burning will be successfully addressed and redirected in Somalia.

In the 1920s, farmers succeeded in conquering The Great Prairie Plains of the Midwest. The plains were then transformed into the “amber waves of grain” we know today. However, this transformation came with a heavy price.

In fact, the agricultural triumph over The Plains was the tipping point that changed a typical La Nina-type drought cycle into an enormous environmental disaster that we now know as the Dust Bowl.

Depending on where you are in the world, a drought can have different meanings. According to the United States Weather Bureau, a drought is a period of 21 or more days during which rainfall is no more than 30 percent of the average rainfall for a specific geographical area at a designated time of year. 

The Dust Bowl was an area in the United States that experienced an extended and intense period of drought, which lasted from 1931 until 1939. The states that made up the Dust Bowl were Kansas, southeastern Colorado, northeastern and southeastern New Mexico, and the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma. 

Throughout the Dust Bowl, soil from roughly 150,000 square miles of farmland was blown by the wind into huge dust storms. Immense clouds of dust filled the sky as far east as New York City, New York and Baltimore, Maryland.

While the Dust Bowl occurred during a period of drought, researchers know that the Dust Bowl drought, while much hotter and drier than a typical drought, did not fit the profile of the periodic droughts that generally hit farther to the south. Actually, while regular climate oscillations may have triggered the initial drying, the contribution of human land degradation played a big part in this atypical disaster.

In the absence of modern agricultural techniques, large-scale crop failures at the drought’s onset reduced vegetation cover, which only exacerbated the heat. Then, the resulting dust storms brought on by the badly eroded croplands also affected the atmospheric moisture content enough to further intensify drought conditions.

In 1931, dust from the seriously over-plowed and over-grazed prairie lands began to blow. And, it continued to blow for eight long, dry years.

As the storms blew across the plains, it came in a yellowish-brown haze from the South and in rolling walls of black from the North. This just wasn’t any wind, this dust-filled wind made even the simplest acts of life difficult. Taking a walk, eating a meal and breathing were no longer easy and they couldn’t be taken for granted.

Most children wore dust masks to and from school, people started hanging damp sheets over windows in feeble attempts at stopping the dirt and farmers could only watch as their valuable crops were blown away. The agricultural devastation that resulted from the Dust Bowl windstorms helped to lengthen The Great Depression, whose effects were already being felt worldwide. 

During the years of normal rainfall, the grasslands in the Dust Bowl states had been deeply plowed and the land had produced bountiful crops of wheat. However, as the drought of the early 1930s worsened, farmers continued plowing and planting, even thought very little could thrive in the parched soil.

The ground cover that once held the soil in place was now gone. The winds had whipped across the fields pulling billowing clouds of dust and dirt into the skies often reducing visibility to just a few feet. The skies would be darkened for days, and it became common for even the most well-sealed homes to have a thick layer of dust on the furniture. In some of the hardest hit areas, dust drifted like snow and covered whatever was in its path, including farmsteads, cars and city streets.

In 1932, there were 14 reported dust storms, also referred to as “black blizzards” or “black rollers.” As conditions worsened, in 1933, the number of black blizzards jumped to 38. These devastating dust storms spread from the Dust Bowl area and affected the entire country. The extensive drought that accompanied the dust storms is said to be the worst drought in United States history because it covered over 75 percent of the country and severely affected 27 states.

The Yearbook of Agriculture for 1934 says, Approximately 35 million acres of formerly cultivated land have essentially been destroyed for crop production; 100 million acres now in crops have lost all or most of the topsoil; 125 million acres of land now in crops are rapidly losing topsoil.

Because this ecological and human disaster caused millions of acres of farmland to become useless, hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes. These people became known as “Okies” because so many of them came from Oklahoma. Countless Okies migrated to California and other states in hopes of better living conditions and jobs.

However, what they found were economic conditions little better than those they had left behind in the Dust Bowl. Because they didn’t own land and had no home, many people traveled from farm to farm picking fruit and working in the fields for only starvation wages.

With no rain clouds in sight, the drought continued and so did the Dust Bowl storms. On Sunday, April 14, 1935, the worst black blizzard occurred, causing extensive devastation and turning the day to night.

Shortly after Black Sunday, the United States Congress declared soil erosion “a national menace” and established the Soil Conservation Service in the Department of Agriculture. The SCS developed extensive conservation programs, which helped to retain topsoil and prevent irreparable damage to the land.

Farming techniques, including strip cropping, terracing, contour plowing, crop rotation and cover crops were promoted. Farmers were now paid to practice soil-conserving farming techniques.

The SCS and these new land-friendly farming techniques was a great step in the right direction, but the storm was not over yet. By the end the year, experts estimated that about 850,000,000 tons of topsoil had blown off the Southern Plains during 1935 alone. The fear was that if the drought continued, the total area affected would increase from 4,350,000 acres to 5,350,000 acres by the spring of 1936.

Because the Dust Bowl black blizzards raged on and the drought continued, President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated the Shelterbelt Project in 1937, which called for large-scale planting of trees across The Great Plains, stretching in a 100-mile wide zone from Canada to northern Texas. The goal was to protect and preserve the land from erosion.

Native trees, including green ash and red cedar, were planted along fence rows separating properties, and the farmers were paid by the government to plant and cultivate these trees. Ultimately, the project cost roughly 75 million dollars over 12 years, and had somewhat limited success.

However, as time passed, even thought the drought continued, further land conservation efforts began to make progress. The extensive work re-plowing the land into furrows, planting trees in shelterbelts and other conservation methods had finally resulted in a 65 percent reduction for soil blowing.

In the fall of 1939, after nearly a decade of drought, the rain finally came. This brought an end to the black blizzards of the Dust Bowl and allowed The Plains to recover and once again become golden with wheat.

In today’s ever-changing world, in areas where vegetation loss often leads to increased wind erosion, it appears that history could repeat itself and we could experience Dust Bowl-type droughts again in the future.

Researchers with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center report that, although it is not possible to predict the exact time, history suggests that another great drought could certainly occur in the future.

The first step for anyone wanting to predict the risk of a future catastrophic climate event is to look at past occurrences. Unfortunately, however, good rainfall records only go back about 100 years, and accurate atmospheric records only exist for the last 50 years.

With that said, historical measurements do suggest that droughts have been a fairly regular event in this country. North America experienced a dry spell during the 1950s and another in the late 1980s. NASA’s research suggests that there was almost a drought in the 1970s, but for some reason it did not happen.

On a much longer timetable, sediment records, tree rings and other alternative evidence of climate change suggest that The Great Plains has actually weathered multiple droughts, which lasted significantly longer than the Dust Bowl.

These severe droughts appear to have happened once or twice a century over the last 400 years. Some evidence even points to droughts lasting over a decade during the late 13th and 16th centuries, which were much more devastating than the droughts of the 20th century.

It seems that history indicates that we can expect much worse than the 1930s Dust Bowl in the future, but knowing when and where remains anyone’s guess.

Imagine for a moment a 3-kilometer-thick band of soot, particles, a cocktail of chemicals that stretches from the Arabic Peninsula to Asia,” said Achim Steiner, U.N. undersecretary general and executive director of the U.N. environment program.

Glaciers melting
Some particles within the pollution cloud, such as soot, absorb sunlight and heat the air. That has led to a steady melting of the Himalayan glaciers, which are the source of most of the major rivers on the continent, the report said.

The pollution clouds also have helped to reduce the monsoon season in India. The weather extremes may have also played a part in reduced production of key crops such as rice, wheat and soybean, the report said.

The report also noted that health problems associated with particulate pollution, which include cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, are linked to nearly 350,000 premature deaths in China and India every year, said Henning Rohde, a University of Stockholm scientist who worked on the study.

Source: Brown Clouds threaten world food supply

In 2006, Americans spent roughly $15 billion on bottled water. That’s more than we spent on movie theater tickets and ipods. While $15 billion seems staggering, also consider the fact that we pitched roughly 38 billion plastic water bottles into our landfills.

The ever-growing bottle water industry is not only taking a toll on our wallets, it is also having an impact on our environment. When you consider that 24% of the bottled water we buy is actually just tap water that is repackaged and sold by companies like Coke and Pepsi, we really need to ask ourselves: Is it worth it?

Today, it is difficult to go to the gym, go to the store or take a walk in the park without seeing at least a few people toting around water bottles. Bottled water has become an essential prop for everyday living in the United States. Take a minute to think about the bottled water your buy or are given in the course of a week.

We put it in our children’s lunch boxes, we drink it during meetings at the office, we sip water while listening to a public speaker or watching a little league game. Let’s face it, most of us can find a couple of half full bottles of Fiji Water, Aquafina or Evian rolling around under the seats in our cars. Not only that, but we are bombarded with images of good-looking actors sipping water from a Poland Spring bottle on our favorite television shows.

But why? Just 30 years ago, the bottled water industry was not really an industry at all. In fact, it barely existed.

Photo credit: ekstasis23 via Creative Commons

Most of us can remember drinking water straight from the tap and at water fountains as we grew up. But, now, as many of us have children, we are teaching today’s youth that tap water is not up-to-par. We have switched from getting something virtually for free to paying billions for something that is supposed to be better for our health.

Whether or not bottled water is safer to drink than tap is up for debate and with good reason. Something that we also need to consider is the serious impact the bottled water industry is having on the environment.

If you stop to think about it, when we shell out money for a bottle of Fiji Water at the gas station, we are really paying for the plastic water as well as the actual H₂0. We are also buying into a sly story fed to us by the water company marketing experts — We are told where the water comes from and how healthy it is, and we are told what drinking their water will say about us.

The fact is, however, that regardless what we tell ourselves or allow ourselves to believe, bottled water is not simply a benevolent indulgence. Consider this. In the United States alone, we transport approximately one billion bottles of water each week via semi trucks, airplanes and ships.

While we allow ourselves to indulge in bottled water with fancy names and stylish bottles, one out of six people throughout the world has no safe and reliable source of drinking water. Our priorities, along with the global economy, have inadvertently been denying life’s most fundamental components to one billion people a year. While we have numerous water selections from all around the world to choose from, many people around the world are denied clean drinking water.

Photo credit: Michael via Creative Commons

In today’s world where we expect and demand instant gratification, those many varieties and rows of bottled water in the grocery store cooler are really an ominous symbol of the direction the world is heading. We have allowed a big business to supply us with a product we do not need, and they have accomplished this goal through convincing marketing and attractive packaging.

In truth, if we go to the trouble of tracing the bottled water industry back to its grass roots, we discover a story more convoluted than most of us would ever expect.

Take for instance the Italian town of San Pellegrino Terme. There is a spigot that constantly runs and provides San Pellegrino water for free to the locals. The only catch is that this water is lacking the famous bubbles that are added to the San Pellegrino bottled water that is shipped around the world. This famous bottled water giant has the bubbles trucked to the plant.

Also, you may recall the gentleman who brought the first bottled water to American soil. He agreed to a water taste test, which he shamefully failed.

The intricate and sordid story of the bottled water industry would not be complete if we did not take a look at Fiji. Fiji’s state-of-the-art bottled water company produces in excess of one million bottles of the highly-prized Fiji Water a day. Fiji Water is considered, by many of us, to be the best bottled water on the market today.

I wonder if our perspective would change if more of us knew that over half of the local citizens in Fiji do not have any dependable source of safe drinking water. It is really ironic that I, an American, can obtain pure Fiji H₂0 easier than many of those living in Fiji.

AN OBSESSION WITH A LASTING IMPACT

If asked, many of us will say we drink so much bottle water because we believe it to be healthy. Well, it is. However, under normal circumstances, bottled water is not any healthier or safer than tap water. In fact, the United States is the single biggest consumer of the world’s $50 billion bottled water industry. This is off balance considering that America’s tap water is considered a safe and universally reliable water supply.

While there are exceptions to every rule, American tap water is remarkably safe. It is monitored consistently and all test results are provided to the public.

Photo credit: malla_mi via Creative Commons

Consider San Francisco. The municipal water originates from within Yosemite National Park. This water is actually so clean, San Francisco is not requited to filter the water, which is typically a standard EPA requirement.

It’s interesting that so many of us pay significant dollars for bottled water that may only be rebottled tap water. In reality, regardless of the perception that there is a lot of variety to choose from, the world-wide bottled water industry is dominated by four big corporations.

Pepsi, which has the top selling bottled water product in American, monopolizes 13 percent of the market with its well-known Aquafina. Coke comes in at a close second with 11 percent of the market buying its Dasani water. What might not be well know is that both of these bottled water giants, making up as much as 24 percent of the industry, are selling us purified municipal water — just tap water that has been neatly repackaged. The water they are purifying is already safe and ready to drink.

So, if this is true, than it is worth looking at what impact the water bottled industry is having on our global environment. Take Fiji Water for example. If you trace the journey a bottle of Fiji Water must make to reach our shelves, it is obvious that this industry, as a whole, is having a negative environmental impact.

Photo credit: Dan DeLuca via Creative Commons

Let’s say we start in New York. It is an 18-hour plane ride and a four-hour drive along King’s Highway in Fiji. Bottles of Fiji Water take a similar trip, in reverse, by trucks and ships. And, the plastic for the bottles must be shipped to Fiji first, so the bottles’ journey is considerably longer.

This can explain why roughly half the wholesale cost of Fiji Water is based on transportation costs. This is not the only environmental cost associated with Fiji Water. Take a look at the Fiji Water plant, which is a state-of-the-art facility, that is typically in operation 24 hours a day.

This constant operation requires energy – an endless supply of electricity. Because the local utility system cannot support this demand, the factory provides its own electricity by using three large generators that run on diesel fuel.

In the event that plastic bottles are considered less desirable, look at San Pellegrino’s one-liter glass bottles. These add to the popularity of the product but also weigh about five times what plastic bottles weigh. Because of this added weight, shipping expenses and energy consumption increases. Each bottle is washed and rinsed, with mineral water, before being filled with Pellegrino water. During the rinsing process, about two liters of water is used to clean each one liter bottle.

Of course, one of the most noticeable environmental factors associated with the bottled water industry is the bottles. Plastic water bottles are typically made of totally recyclable polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic so we can have a big impact on our landfills by just tossing the bottles in the trash. Currently, our recycling rate for PET is only around 23 percent. This is not a lot considering how big the bottled water industry is.

Photo credit: Yaniv Yaakubovich via Creative Commons

Although some argue it is not fair to point a finger at this industry. Just look at all of the juice and soda companies, who also produce recyclable plastic bottles. We actually drink close to double the amount of soda as water.

However, the difference is that water runs freely from our taps in our homes and from public water fountains. Juice and soda do not. Even so, we still feel the need to pay, at minimum, 99 cents for water. This is a sign of our level of affluence that we have taken for granted for years.

Drinking bottled water is certainly not a sin. However, maybe it is a choice that we need to look at a little more closely. Maybe we should ask ourselves why we want to pay for something that is available free in this country, and why would we be willing to contribute to the pollution of our environment.

Is it really worth it?

We’ve made a few improvements to make it easier to virtually visit the places we’ve written about. You can now browse all Sprol articles visually on a map in two different ways.

Visit the Sprol World Map, and via a Google Maps mashup, you can see all of the articles we’ve published so far right in your browser.

If you have Google Earth installed, you can download all Sprol articles in a KML file and visit all the places we’ve written about right from inside Google Earth. Just download the file and then double-click it to load the placemarks into Google Earth.

Seasons Greetings from Sprol!