Photo: zappers

Plastic’s been getting a pretty bad press for quite a while now. Bloggers like my erstwhile colleague Matt over at The Coffee House (‘The Dead Zone – plastic fcuktastic‘) have been covering the problem comprehensively, and quite right too. There can’t be too many people left who aren’t at least aware that plastic bags are a Very Bad Thing. How many of them take the issue seriously enough to actually do something about it is another matter.

Claire Morsman felt strongly enough about the media coverage of the thousands of marine creatures killed by ingested plastic each year, to make her own reusable cloth shopping bag, the Morsbag. This single individual act inspired a worldwide movement of over 200 ‘pods’ (groups of Morsbags creators), in the UK, America, New Zealand, Spain, Japan, Morocco, France. Since the ‘sociable guerilla bagging’ campaign began, the tally of Morsbags has reached 17,869, potentially saving 8,934,500 plastic bags. Says Claire Morsman:

“I’ve learned there are a lot of people out there who want to do something about environmental issues but don’t necessarily know how to start. There’s so much energy and emotion and intelligence ready to be unleashed. I’ve always thought there are many more good people than bad in the world, but now I’ve learned how brilliant people are! They’re joining in and not giving in to desperation.

“Everyone inspires each other. It’s a win-win situation. Anyone can do it, it’s completely universal, and you’re making a bag. How fabulous is that?”

For more information about Morsbags and instructions on how to make your own, go to www.morsbags.com

Susan Robb is an artist living and working in Seattle. Her website manifesto says:

“Susan Robb’s sculptures and built environments transform common objects into ideological hybrids of flesh, nature, and technology. Drawing on empirical observation, reflection, and imagination about her immediate surroundings and contemporary social issues, these hybridizations are open-ended investigations into the kaleidoscopic intersection of culture and nature, speaking of the intelligence of nature and dynamic systems.”

Having already explored the environmental impact of plastic waste in her 2007 work ‘Warmth, Giant Black Tubes’, she is turning her attention to the issue of melting Arctic ice.

“Project Sea-Ice Life Boat is a monument underscoring the disastrous effects of global warming. It is a poetic and far-fetched but calculated and potentially far-reaching attempt to rescue polar bears while simultaneously forming a complex expression about personal and corporate involvement in climate crisis.”

Robb intends to create three artificial floating islands that initially will be floated off the coast at Vancouver, Seattle and Portland, before being moved to Alaska’s Chukchi Sea where some of the most rapid sea-ice melting is being seen. The islands are to be constructed from old oil drums, and their design will echo the shape of an SUV, alluding to one of the top causes of climate change. The ‘carbergs’ will provide polar bears with a refuge to replace melting ice-floes.

The project is in the pre-construction phase; searching for funding and venues, meeting with materials people and habitat architecture specialists. Robb is the first to admit that this is not intended as a practical solution to the problems polar bears are experiencing as sea ice melts: “My slant on this project is as poetic gesture, as art.” There are uncertainties as to whether it would ever work. To quote Dr. Steven C. Amstrup of the U.S. Geological Survey in Alaska:

“The problem with disappearing ice is that ice is the platform from which polar bears hunt. Polar bears are adapted to a few very specific kinds of predation strategies, all of which depend upon access to seals at the air/sea/ice interface. Giving polar bears a place to rest doesn’t solve their main problem, which is how to catch something to eat in an ice-free environment. Hence, the idea of floating platforms—even if you could figure out how to anchor them in thousands of feet of water (100 miles north of Prudhoe it is 10,000-feet deep)—does not solve the main problem that polar bears are likely to face in the future.”

Hmmm, not sure about some of that. Icebergs aren’t anchored, are they? And surely the whole point is that there’s too much ice-free water; plenty of scope for hunting, but a dwindling number of places where polar bears (and seals as well, don’t forget) can rest up. However, this guy must know what he’s talking about, he’s Ursid and Arctic Marine Team Leader at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Alaska Science Center, and serves on Polar Bears International‘s Wild Bear Advisory Committee.

More research needed. Must try harder.

A court in Paris has found oil giant Total responsible for the sinking of the tanker Erika. The world’s fourth-largest oil company must pay a fine of €375,000 for negligence, plus €200 million in damages.

The incident, in December 1999, caused a 20,000 tonne slick of heavy oil which polluted 250 miles of the French Atlantic coast, killed or injured 300,000 seabirds and left a toxic legacy in the food chain. In all, 270,000 tonnes of waste comprising seawater, oil, sand and stones, had to be cleaned up. Prior to the court ruling, Total had already spent €200m on the cleanup operation. This may sound like a lot, but it’s a fleabite compared with Total’s latest record profits of €12 billion.

This is tremendous news. A major reason for global oil companies like Total being able to report such huge profits is that they can use a maze of paperwork and off-shore registration to evade or conceal responsibility for cost-cutting policies such as chartering unseaworthy rust-buckets like the Erika. Ségolène Royal, head of the Poitou-Charentes region, said in the Guardian:

“It is a very severe warning to careless transport groups, to the floating garbage cans that cross the seas, often in total impunity”

I hope this puts the fear of God into all companies. Quite frankly, anyone responsible for envionmental destruction on this scale should be tried on the same basis as war criminals.

A research team from the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre has analyzed 5,000 years worth of mud from the bottom of fjords in Western Canada. Variations in concentration of fossilized fish scales and diatoms in the mud layers show strong and consistent patterns of marine productivity that correspond to cycles of solar output. In line with many other studies, measuring things like Russian tree rings or water levels in the Nile valley, this project demonstrates that the sun drives climate change.

However, despite this clear and repeated correlation, variations in incoming solar energy are not sufficient to cause the climate changes observed in the mud record. Moreover, increases in direct solar input are not large enough to cause the past century’s modest warming. For the sun to be a primary driver of climate change, there has to be an ‘amplifier’.

The ‘X factor’ is the change in cloud concentrations caused by variations in the intensity of galactic cosmic radiation in the atmosphere. Increased output from our sun leads to a stronger solar wind, which prevents cloud-enhancing cosmic rays from reaching the Earth’s atmosphere. More sunspots = Fewer cosmic rays = Less cloud cover = Global Warming. QED.

So there we have it. High-quality evidence stretching back far beyond the start of our industrial ‘civilisation’ suggests that solar activity is directly and indirectly responsible for both global warming and global cooling. Contrary to what Al Gore will tell you, the science of climate change is far from settled. While the boffins beaver away in the backroom, I’ll carry on turning off the lights when I leave the room, just in case. It can’t do any harm.

‘Read the Sunspots‘ – R. Timothy Patterson, Financial Post

‘Cosmoclimatology: a new theory emerges‘ – Henrik Svensmark