Homo Sapiens Redesign: Homo Sustainabilius

I just knew Mother Nature would figure something out! The 6 Billion of us is such a tight squeeze on this planet, with our unsustainable ways!

Ecologists say that eventually climate change will shrink all species. They don't say, but, well, won't that include our own species?

It turns out the degradation of environments around the world due to climate change is limiting food availability, and as a result, smaller animals are doing better now than larger ones that need more resources.

Warmer temperatures limits species size.

Bergmann's rule says that species size decreases as warmth increases. That's because smaller species can radiate heat better to adapt to warm temperatures. The tropics host smaller species. Larger animals have a lower surface-area-to-volume ratio, allowing them to retain more heat and fare better in a cold climate, smaller ones in warm climates.

As a result, "As the world gets warmer, species will shrink."says Wendy Foden, the World Conservation Union biologist studying the effects of climate change on species.

Another population biologist Andy Purvis says that dying early will also reduce size. He says that all species will gradually evolve into smaller versions because as a result of climate change, they'll be coping with sudden changes in their environment and hence dying prematurely, leading to smaller offspring over time

So this will make sustainability more attainable for our species, won't it?

Imagine if we had been only 1 foot tall from the get-go. We'd have much less impact on the planet's resources. We would have set sail for America - where we now tear through five planets-worth of resources- in a boat about the size of one large log.

But of course, this adjustment is going to be in the very, very, very long run.

If only Gaia had had the foresight to make this adjustment to the size of Homo Sapiens a few million years earlier, we might not need five whole planets now to live the unsustainable way that we live now.

Artwork by Slinkachu

For the NRDC OnEarth

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Magnetic Strips To Steer Automated Buses

UCBerkeley's PATH innovation will bring us driverless buses for speed and a more efficient use of available space on roadways

The innovative UC Berkeley PATH team partly funded by DARPA, has successfully tested their automated magnetic guidance system to speed up bus systems and the traffic around them.

Bus drivers would still decide when to go faster or slower, and could take full control at any time, but otherwise their route would be fully automated - so it's completely predictable by other drivers.

No more of that holding up everyone behind you while you hang about behind a bus wondering if it's really going to finally pull into your lane or not.

This magnetic guidance comprises a simple two-part system: a series of magnetic markers embedded in the center of the lane, and sensors and processing units in the vehicle passing over them, that read and act on the information.

This very clever bus only takes a second to read and obey all these traffic condition inputs from the markers even at 60 miles an hour. None of all that indecisive dithering like with you and me driving.

As the bus travels, a bar underneath scans each magnetic field and feeds information to an on board computer, telling the bus where to go and when to pull up at each stop.

Magnetic guidance would reduce the time needed to load and unload passengers at every stop, which makes the route almost as predictable as a subway system. Such precision would also enable roads to allow more lanes as each lane can be safely narrowed. The San Leandro test bus was able to land exactly on its marked target just a centimeter from the curb.

These researchers have been studying magnetic guidance systems as a means of controlling vehicle movement for almost 20 years. More interestingly, for a nation that depends on individual transportation, they are also looking at how magnets could control groups of cars together so they can be automated while traveling crowded highways.

Automating the bus system on the roads that we already have would cost only about $278 million for Berkeley, compared with billions for putting in comparable stretches of rail through this area.

For Matter Network
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Scientist To Tap River Currents

The US could sustainably produce electricity from 3.5 million miles of rivers, using "smart materials"

An expert in electricity-generating "smart materials" and the author of 22 papers in refereed journals is searching for a way to harness the power of rivers without the ecological consequences of hydroelectric dams.

Dr Weiland, Materials Science Professor at the University of Pittsburg has come up with a gentle way to create what could be the next great clean energy supply for the world using piezoelectric ionic polymers.

Piezoelectric materials generate a slight electrical current when moved: in this case, by river currents and eddies.

Dr. Weiland is trying out the idea of using a flowing mesh of tiny strips of piezoelectric plastic, undulating like seaweed in the current of rivers and streams, up to 30 yards wide and about a mile long, to create electricity. The resulting electrical current would pass to small substations along the river's edge before charging a group of batteries to supply up to 40% of the electricity needed for a small town.

Her method likely wouldn't generate as much energy as a hydroelectric dam but would work with the river flow keeping the river intact and healthy. "There are other materials that give better performance or have higher energy densities," said Weiland, who is a published expert in "smart materials". But she is willing to sacrifice a little power to keep the ecosystem happy.

Dr. Weiland and her engineering students are now working out the best size, shape and array to test in the Kiskiminetas River, to supply the town of Vandergrift, near Pittsburg. An important consideration in the final design will be that they maintain the health and appearance of the river which is used for fishing, canoe trips and other recreational activities. Once the array goes in on the riverbed, she said, "if you were able to look at it, you would just see a bunch of little things wiggling. It wouldn't look that different from a bunch of plant life."

According to Christopher Lynch, a smart materials researcher from the University of California, Los Angeles, this is the first freshwater hydroelectric power project of its kind. "The whole idea is very interesting," said Lynch. "Harvesting energy from rivers, ocean waves and currents are going to be an important segment of our overall energy generation in the future."

For centuries humans have dammed rivers and streams to grind grain and later, generate electricity. This could be the beginning of tapping into the power of flowing water more sustainably, using a more subtle technique. There are three and a half million miles of rivers in the nation, with towns along those riverbanks, and this small installation could supply as much as 40% of one town's electricity, so this could have wide applications...

From Mark Roth at the Post Gazette via Discovery News
Image from the Post Gazette

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Virgin Amazon Partly Manmade

The Amazon was apparently clear-cut in the 13th century to build densely packed towns, villages, and hamlets far more organized than medieval Europe.







An anthropologist has uncovered dozens of organized, densely packed towns, villages and hamlets dating to the 13th -16th centuries hidden in the Brazilian Amazon. After 15 years of mapping it all out, Heckenberger and his international colleagues report their findings in the journal Science this week.

They found that vast swathes of apparently "pristine" rain forest had been cleared for elaborate settlements across an area the size of New Jersey prior to the arrival of European colonists.

The repeated patterns within and among settlements across the landscape suggest a more highly ordered society than contemporary medieval towns in Europe. There was clear evidence of a sophisticated man-made landscape.

The planned structure of the settlements showed regional planning and political organization only found in urban societies: Heckenberger noted that while rural landscapes that grew up in medieval European settlements were randomly oriented, by contrast, here things were all oriented at the same angles and distances across the entire 8,000 square mile landscape.

Larger towns, placed at cardinal points from the central seat of power, were walled much like a medieval town. Between the settlements was a patchwork of agricultural fields for crops such as manioc along with dams and ponds likely used for fish farms. The whole landscape is gridded off like latticework.

Each town had its own central plaza and was protected by an earthen wall. They were surrounded by smaller, non-walled residential hamlets. The towns, villages and hamlets were interlinked by roads, the largest of which followed the direction of the sun at the mid-year solstice.

These indigenous peoples from the Amazon had little stone close at hand. They built with earth and, after they were wiped out, the forest reclaimed the land, leaving little trace.

The World Without Us imagines what will happen to remains of our own structures after we are gone. This gives us an example of that concept.

The discovery forces a rethink of the long-held assumption that these parts of the Amazon were virtually untouched before colonization. Similarly, research published in January found that what has long been thought of as the "original" New England landscape had in fact created by British settlers in the 17th century.

So, the virgin Amazon rain-forest... it's partly man-made.

From National Geographic
Contemporaneous portrayal of comparatively chaotic European village life by Pieter Brueghel The Elder

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Refilling Dead Sea With Red Sea Could Make Gypsum

By introducing water of a different density and composition to the Dead Sea, engineers may drastically alter the very thing they are trying to save.

From Worldchanging we get news of an attempt to refill the shrinking Dead Sea by piping water in from the neighboring Red Sea.

The Dead Sea is unique. More salty than the oceans, it is now actually a lake, like none other in the world. But it has shrunk by a third in the last 30 years. Nearly 100% of the Jordan, virtually its only tributary, has been diverted for agriculture. Excessive mineral mining for potash and magnesium chloride is removing water at a rate of 150 million cubic meters per year. Now water levels are dropping a meter per year.

Dramatic engineering may be necessary in order to save it, and one proposed idea is to refill it with water from the neighboring Red Sea at a cost of $15 billion. Projects of this scale are not unprecedented, especially as water demand grows rapidly in many regions of the world. Egypt planned a similar water transfer project at a cost of $11 billion. Another example of this kind of desperate engineering is the $60 billion Chinese water transfer. Water transfers and withdrawals like this have increased at twice the rate of population growth, per the UN. The chief cause of the need for projects like this is the increase in desertification. Desertification has doubled worldwide within the last 30 years.

The possible untoward results of combining these seas include new algae growth that would also change the buoyancy of the water and alter its blue water to appear red. But the strangest comes from the mineral makeup of the two bodies of water.

Because the Dead Sea is rich in calcium and the Red Sea is rich in sulfate: if we mix them together we could create an ungodly new sea with a surface layer of gypsum.

Photo by Flikr user ccarlstead

For Matternetwork

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Roofer Finds Greenroofs Last Longer - Acts

Why, after seeing 15,000 roofs weather, a Washington roofer builds a vegetable garden on his roof

Washington roofing contractor Troy Wagner came to a gradual realization during 15 years of working on other peoples' roofs.

“When inspecting the roof system that should only last 20 years and finding those covered with moss lasted 40 to 50 years, and only were changed out because the home was being sold or an insurance company saw it, I scratched my head.

After seeing this a few times I started to believe that the moss was protecting the roof from the sun’s radiation. The sun’s radiation can cause a roofing system to loose the ability to expand and contract with the change in temperature causing it to crack, curl and become brittle.”

“Over 15 years I figure I have looked at 15,000 roofs, and occasionally I would come across a roof covered in moss. In the western side of the state of Washington we are blessed with 50 inches of rain a year, this means moss on all the roofs. Insurance companies require the roofs to be moss-free, believing it leads to leaks, so to find a roof covered completely with moss is rare.”

But during his professional life inspecting roofs, Troy observed that moss-covered roofs lasted much longer than ‘clean’ roofs — sometimes more than twice as long:

“Five years ago I ran into a house with a low pitch 3/12 that had wood shingles, no felt paper and on skip sheeting (1×4s with a 4” space) the roof was 75 years old, covered with grass that had grown in the moss. This caused a light bulb to go off in my head and I said ahhhh, then ran home and tore off my roof.”

Troy started investigating vegetative options and now he and his wife grow dinner on a roof that, if he is right, will last longer than the traditional roof - and certainly it will work harder for them, by helping them put food on the table.

He has no qualms about putting himself out of business. As he sees it, this is a greater good.

Growing your vegetables on your roof has another advantage, too. Garden pests like deer and squirrels can't get at them.

From Greenroofs Australia
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Solar farming Our Land - The Best Of Both Worlds

Solar panels don't have to fight for space on green roofs. Two experts suggest combining solar with green roofs works best.

If a solar roof is placed over plants, both the roof and the plants do better. The plants make the solar panels more efficient, because their evaporation cools the back of the exposed panels. Solar panels work better when they are cool.

Likewise, the dappled shade that the solar panels provide the plants below is similar to the canopy effect of taller trees protecting plants underneath from harsh direct sun.

That is the finding of Neubrandenburg Professor of Landscape Ecology Manfred Köhler, who has been involved with research on green roofs and façade greenery since 1981.

In his paper, Positive Interaction between PV-systems and Extensive Green roofs Dr. Köhler says (rough translation)

On some of these greened roofs a photovoltaic –research power plant (PV) was installed in 1999.

Results: Under the shade of the PV panels the vegetation is modified significantly. It changed from a Moss-Sedum roof to a vegetation stand dominated by higher taller plant species likArtemisia and other. The biomass of plant species increased through the years.

A green roof reduces the maximum temperature during the day time. This has a positive influence on the production of electricity by the PV-panels and makes them more efficient in the summer months.

The CEO of nanosolar has said the same thing. Solar panels can be arranged to drip water for plants underneath:

"In a municipal solar power plant, solar panels are mounted onto rails above the ground so that grass and flowers can continue to flourish in between and below the rows of panels. Care is taken that sufficient amounts of rainwater can drop through between adjoining panels so that the flowers and organisms below are not starved. In fact, in dry regions, the solar panels even benefit the ecosystem by increasing the moisture level in the soil.

This synergy is good news, not just for us as homeowners going green, but also for us as a nation.

The Solar Grand Plan published in Scientific American last December said we could power 1/3 of the nations electricity with 30,000 square miles of photovoltaic arrays.

That sounds like a lot of space, but that is actually less square miles than coal per gigawatt produced, when you include the mined areas, not merely coal power stations. It seems like a lot because its all in one place, unlike coal mines.

More than enough land in the Southwest is available without requiring use of environmentally sensitive areas, population centers or difficult terrain, says the NREL. More than 80 percent is not privately owned. Arizona is very interested in developing this solar potential because coal is water intensive. This could eliminate the need for more than half the nation's coal plants.

And even better for the solar grand plan to be designed to allow some desert plant growth underneath in the dappled shade that could cool the panels in that hot Southwest sunshine. If the installation were designed as recommended by the green roofing professor and the solar CEO, we might have the best of both worlds.

Photo from Green Roof Magazine

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Garden Of Eden To Get Rain Again

The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden story could almost be interpreted as an account of catastrophic climate change. Both the Sumerian Epic Of Gilgamesh and genesis stories of the Bible suggest a lush land of plenty, that was much more capable of nurturing civilization during the late Stone Age, than the arid land it became by about 4000 years ago, with drought afflicting Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Even the Sahara was lush and green during the late Stone Age. Starting around 7000 years ago, when rains returned after a 1000 years of drought, bones and artefacts suggest that a large population was able to herd cattle and hunt fish and wildlife. Their burials indicate they had spiritual beliefs and cared for their dead.

Apparently Climate Change will bring rain back once more to the Euphrates-Tigris watershed. This is land encompassing parts of Turkey, Syria, northern Iraq, and north-eastern Iran and the strategically important headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

In a detailed study, to be published in the Journal of Hydrometeorology, Evans uses regional climate modeling, which can run counter to global climate change averages.

He found that while storm activity over the eastern Mediterranean would decline, moisture-bearing winds would be channeled inland more often and diverted by the Zagros Mountains, bringing an increase of over 50% in annual rainfall to the Euphrates-Tigris watershed.

This would mark a return to the original climate setting in which we began to settle down and farm in the cradle of civilization.

The Fall by Lucas Cranach the Elder: 1533

For MatterNetwork

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A Lifeform Discovered With Million Year Lifespan

Microbes Devise Superior Evolutionary Strategy

One of the prerequisites for us humans to achieve interstellar travel is faster spaceships.

But what if we could do the opposite: what if instead we could evolve as slower people?

Imagine us with million year lifespans. Imagine if we lived on a geologic timescale.

If we could live a million years, then travel to a star 60,000 light years away would have all the traveltime investment of a bus trip cross town.

Compared to us, a butterfly doesn't seem to get much done in it's tiny two week span. Imagine how much more we would achieve as a species if we could live a million years.

For one thing, locating and colonizing other planets looks a lot easier. So it is exciting news that scientists have found a new life form that looks to be working on exactly this evolutionary feat: learning to live for millions of years.

No doubt this is to make sure that theres a more feasible exit strategy when they evolve to our level and need 5 more planets for all the stuff they make, like we do.

This new lifeform is just a speck of stuff right now, living under the sea floor, but hey, where was your big fancy SUV a billion years ago? You too evolved from a tiny speck of stuff just like these newly discovered lifeforms.

ScienceDaily (July 22, 2008)

Tiny microbes beneath the sea floor, distinct from life on the Earth's surface, may account for one-tenth of the Earth's living biomass, according to an interdisciplinary team of researchers, but many of these minute creatures are living on a geologic timescale . While the Bacteria Escherichia Coli, as an example, doubles its numbers every 20 minutes, these Archaea double on the order of hundreds or thousands of years and consume very little energy.

"In essence, these microbes are almost, practically dead by our normal standards," says House. "They metabolize a little, but not much."

According to House, organisms metabolizing at such slow rates is what we could expect to find in other areas of our solar system because such environments have much less energy available than on Earth. Perhaps, similar organisms may be in hydrothermal vents beneath the ice of Europa -- the second moon of Jupiter -- or in subsurface aquifers of Mars.

"We do not expect the microbes in other places to be these microbes exactly," says House. "But, they could be living at a similar slow rate."

"For example, how do they die?" asks Biddle. "It is a simple question that we cannot answer."

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