Australia’s Biggest Security Risk May Be Climate Change

by Catherine Bodry on

Australia may be tightening security at its borders soon, but not because of terrorist threats. While the climate-shift story in the rest of the world reads like the Book of Revelations, Australia has got a problem almost as large as floods and famine: mass immigration caused by floods and famine (and overpopulation).

Reuters states that China’s population is posed to tip 1.5 billion by 2030, and while the Chinese might be making babies, Mama Nature is wreaking havoc. A 3 percent temperature rise, rising sea levels and shrinking glacial runoff could reduce runoff into major Chinese rivers, while land for grain and rice might be reduced by 30 percent. More citizens and a lot less food and water could prompt a forced migration of millions of people.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty suggests that since police will be dealing with resulting racial tensions and thus directly involved “with the struggle to cope with the impact of global warming,” they should also be involved in the regulation of emerging carbon trading schemes.

Australia, along with the United States, has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which requires 36 industrial nations to cut greenhouse emissions.

Big in Japan: Making Biofuel Out of Used Chopsticks

by Matthew Firestone on

Today’s ten-million yen trivia question is this:

How many disposable, wooden chopsticks are used each year in Japan?

Give up?

The answer is approximately 90,000 tons (81,646,000 kilograms) or approximately two-hundred pairs per person per year. Needless to say, the Japanese aren’t exactly the world’s greatest environmentalists!

Indeed, one of the biggest culture shocks foreigners experience upon arrival is the incredible amount of trash that the Japanese generate. For example, if you go to the convenience store to buy a bento or lunch box, it’ll be skillfully double or even triple bagged by the clerk. After unwrapping the endless layers of your bento, inside you’ll sometimes find as many as three pairs of chopsticks- just in case you feel like sharing your lunch with a few friends.

So, what can be done you ask – how about making biofuel?

Earlier this week, the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery announced plans to allocate funds to support nationwide chopstick recycling programs. The aim of the program is two-fold: the first is to raise public awareness about the need to conserve resources, particularly items that are a daily fixture in people’s lives. The second aim is to support projects by businesses and local governments to turn disposable chopsticks into biofuel.

Currently, used chopsticks are simply discarded in the burnable rubbish bin (one credit to the Japanese is that they routinely separate burnable and non-burnable garbage). In a country obsessed with hygiene and cleanliness, the idea of reusing chopsticks is unheard of, especially with the fear of pandemic illness on the rise such as SARS and avian flu. Indeed, environmentally conscious foreigners like myself who carry our own chopsticks around with us are usually the subject of intense ridicule!

However, the current plan is to install boxes to collect used chopsticks outside restaurants and convenience stores. Private contractors will then transport these boxes to special facilities where the chopsticks will be ground up and compressed into wooden pellets, which can be used as a high-energy fuel.

Typically, wooden pellets are formed using heat and pressure to compact sawdust and paper, though disposable chopsticks are clearly a more abundant resource. There is also hope that disposable chopsticks can be converted into ethanol, which is becoming an increasingly important additive to gasoline. Currently, there are approximately thirty facilities producing wooden pellets across the country, as well as ethanol-producing facilities in Osaka and Okayama.

The Ministry is hopeful that the program will also help raise consciousness about the social responsibility of large corporations across the country. This is particularly relevant as global climate will be a major topic on the agenda at the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations’ economic summit scheduled for June of 2008 in Hokkaido.

Furthermore, I think I can speak for everyone here in Tokyo that after suffering through one of the hottest summers on the book (I’m tired of sweating through everything I own), stepping up the fight against global warming is something all of us can agree on.

Japan may have sparkling whale-free seas, but at least there’s hope for the forests.

PS As a disclaimer, I am by no means knowledgeable on the process of making biofuel, so please feel free to comment on the efficacy of this program!

** Special thanks to Flickr users Rick (Chinese Lunch), MShades (Bento Box) and View-Askew (Pollution) **

Dr. Warmlove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Climate Change

by Erik Olsen on

The panic and mayhem that seems to surround global warming sometimes gets so shrill you’d think the world was going to end. And maybe it will. For some people.

But for others, global warming could be a boon. Once icy climes could turn positively cozy, and just imagine what that will do for real estate values. So you see, there is a bright side.

And perhaps no one sees that bright side more than the folks living in Greenland. Yes, you know, Greenland. It’s the place that’s all white. Though perhaps not for long. And the people there are not very green either, in fact, according to this piece in the Washington Post, they seem to be cheering on the arrival of climate change. “It’s good for me,” said Ernst Lund, one of 51 farmers raising sheep on the world’s largest island. “I can keep the sheep out two weeks longer to feed in hills in the autumn. And I can grow more hay. The sheep get fatter,” he said. Now that’s optimism. And its not just the sheep that are enjoying the rising temps. The cod are too. Cod have been in serious decline all over the globe, but particularly in once thriving fisheries like the Northeast US. And, says the story, seals are now easier to reach to kill for grub. The list goes on in this fascinating, sometimes uplifting (in an irony-laden Don DeLillo way) piece.