EPA regulations

First of all, the article mentions that about 40% of the nation's coal plants do not have controls for toxic air pollution. That is an unacceptable number in my opinion. I think it should be 0%. Call me an authoritarian, big government type of guy but I think that there should be at least some sort of regulations on them if they are going to be emitting toxic fumes into the air which they most likely are because coal plants and air pollution just go hand in hand. Anyway, the other side of the story is that energy producing companies like American Electric Power will have a cost in the billions of dollars in order to abide by the new regulations that the EPA has set. Those costs would be transferred to consumers. There is the other side of the coin. Consumers will have to pay more for energy and companies will lose profit. However, I think that preserving air quality is more important than that because it is a long term kind of issue.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/04/2530866/can-coal-plants-afford-epas-new.html

Buildings that eat smog

The company Alcoa makes aluminum panels that are coated with a substance that breaks down the smog-causing compound nitrogen oxide. The titanium dioxide coating interacts with sunlight to break down nitrogen oxide into a harmless substance that just washes off the building where the panel is installed. The company claims that 10,000 square feet of the aluminum panels has the same detoxifying effect as 80 trees. Although the panels would have to be installed on a large scale in order to make affect smog levels, the idea of buildings cleaning the air is the kind of ideas that we need to preserve air quality. I like how science is being employed to solve the issue. Of course the government also has a responsibility to preserve air quality for its citizens through legislation and regulation.

Human progress getting in the way of human progress

The article is about Beijing's main airport canceling 233 domestic flights and 17 international flights due to the decreased visibility caused by smog. The airport is the second busiest airport in the world by passenger traffic. The smog is caused by Beijing's increasing energy consumption and the burning of coal in the city. Beijing is widely considered one of the most polluted cities in the world. The U.S. and China have different methods of gauging air quality. The Chinese rate air quality by measuring particles 10 micrometers or less while the U.S. embassy measures those particles that are 2.5 micrometers or less.
China's future progress seems like it might be hampered by all the pollution. The smogs interference in air travel represents that in my mind. It would do China well to learn from the mistakes of other nations that have gone past that beginning stage of industrialization. China would then be able to avoid the pollution that accompanies that beginning stage.

Synaesthesia in chimpanzees

German researches found that chimpanzees associate high-pitched tones with light colors and low-pitched tones with dark colors. The research was taken to mean that chimpanzees also experience some form of syneaesthesia, a condition where the senses overlap. A person with synaesthesia would experience a shape as a taste or a color as a sound. Vera Ludwig, the neuroscientist that led the study, thinks that connections between words and colors emerge from the structure of the brain and its wiring. The purpose of the study was to determine if the associations between different senses are learned from other humans or innate in the brain. Captive chimpanzees were studied and the researches found that the chimps associate light objects with high tones and dark objects with deeper ones. Ludwig thinks that because synaesthesia occurs in chimps as well as humans, synaesthesia was already a part of the human species before language arose. Ludwig proposes that synaesthesia may have influenced human language.

I like it when we humans learn about our animalistic biases because being aware of those biases helps us make more informed decisions about everything we do. If biases such as associating a color with a sound exist,  that leaves open the possibility that other biases exist that more directly influence how we act. For example people subconsciously attribute good qualities to attractive people and bad ones to unattractive people. Its good to know about these biases because although they are subconscious, they affect how we act.

http://www.nature.com/news/the-chimpanzee-who-sees-sounds-1.9541

Butterfly Lessons

"Ultimately, all of the crops we grow are biological species; all the diseases we have are biological species; all the disease vectors are biological species." Chris Thomas' remark points out that most of the things we depend on and know are biological in essence and as such they are sensitive to environmental change as other biological systems are. Humans ourselves are biological species. Butterflies and toads aren't the only animals sensitive to environmental change. Changes to their behavior is just more easily seen because they're more sensitive to smaller changes in temperature and other environmental changes.

180 Degrees South

I enjoyed the film and its combination of adventure and conservationism. Sports shown in the movie like surfing and rock climbing are activities that take enjoyment out of being with nature. The sports shown mesh well with the environmental message of the movie. The movie focuses on seeing nature as something in itself, as something with a value beyond its material value to humans instead of something that is used for people to exploit for natural resources. The film also implicitly warns of overusing the land to the point of societal collapse when the land can no longer support the stress that a over-consuming society places on it. Easter Island is used as an example of such a place where that has occurred.

From a different perspective

There is simply not enough food to supply the needs of an expanding population. The need for food is increasing and as a result, efficiency is the key to providing the food at the least cost. "Factory farming," as it is called, often derogatorily, provides food for people at a low cost. The low cost translates to a low price which surely helps lower income families. Meat is no longer a commodity to be enjoyed once a year as it was for the peasant of feudal Europe.