Guest Article by Alex Johnson

This week we have a guest article by a reader, Alex Johnson, on the role of environmental Science in US policy, using the case of asbestos and other issues. I hope everyone enjoys! And thanks Alex for the contribution.

Robert Oceans
WEB: http://adventure-naturalist.blogspot.com
EMAIL: adventure.naturalist@gmail.com
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Environmental Science
As the world’s population continues to grow, so does the demand on the planet’s natural resources. Increased consumption of these resources contributes to a decline in the environment, while ensuring energy depletion for future generations. 

For example, once fossil fuels are depleted that source of energy is gone for good.  Therefore, countries such as the United States are stepping up efforts to develop sources of green energy that are both efficient and affordable for the general public.

Prime Example

The use of asbestos highlights the importance of environmental science for future generations.  Although the use of asbestos actually dates back to Greek and Roman ancient history, more recent information regarding asbestos helps us understand the impact of this natural mineral substance.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the use of asbestos began to steadily increase in America. Because of its fire-retardant nature and insulating qualities, the material was used by construction workers, industrial workers, shipbuilders, and military personnel in the daily performance of their duties.  Although manufacturers and company officials were aware of the potentially hazardous qualities of asbestos, profits exceeded their concern for the environment and the workers that were constantly exposed to asbestos.

It wasn’t until years later that the workers began paying the price for mining and using asbestos.  The microscopic particles that polluted the air embedded in the mesothelium, the lining that surrounds many internal organs, of individuals who breathed in dust from this environment hazard. Decades later, those same particles are responsible for men and women developing mesothelioma, which is an aggressive cancer with a poor prognosis.

Because the cancer cells may lie dormant for decades, and the symptoms are very subtle, individuals are do not frequently show the mesothelioma symptoms, until the cancer has moved from the point of origin, making several treatment options unavailable.  Physicians are left with treatments necessary to reduce the symptoms and improve quality of life for the time remaining.

Another example of why environmental science is so vital to the future of America, and the world, is Dana Reeves.  Famous for her fight to find better treatments for spinal cord injuries, she died of lung cancer.  Dana did not smoke.  She was not a former mine worker. She was probably not exposed to asbestos.  Yet, she passed away from lung cancer at a relatively young age.

Environmental science is dedicated to improving the relationships organisms have with the environment (which includes people), in the hopes that it will improve the lives of this and future generations.

Alex Johnson 

Cool People Profile: Dr. J. Michael Fay

Name: Dr. J. Michael Fay 
Age: 54 
Nationality: USA 
Profession: Field Ecologist / Conservationist 
Employer: Wildlife Conservation Society 
Email: via public relations, Wildlife Conservation Society, ssautner@wcs.org  
Quote: "I think about GIS [geographic information system] and what it's about. It's about managing the landscape, quite simply. Whether it's oil or logging or crime prevention or conservation, it's about all that is living and all that is not on this planet. You can visualize the landscape and understand cause and effect and you can make change happen."

Social Networking

1. Old fashioned meetings and face-to-face contacts

Websites

1. Megatransect
2. Megaflyover
3. Redwood transect

By profession, Dr. J. Michael Fay is a conservationist and field ecologist, but it is hard to define him on paper. After completing a B.S. degree in 1978 from the University of Arizona he joined the Peace Corps, where he spent six years as a botanist in Tunisia and Central African Republic. He then began work in western Sudan on western lowland gorillas, for which he eventually earned his PhD.

In 1991 he joined the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and made a public name for himself in 1997 through a joint National Geographic Society and WCS-sponsored "megatransect" of central Africa. In other words, he walked for 3200km (2000+ miles) from eastern DR Congo to the Atlantic Ocean in Gabon. Throughout the yearlong journey he surveyed trees, wildlife, and human impacts. His story was featured in National Geographic Magazine, laying the groundwork for future long-distance and time-consuming environmental surveys as well as establishing the first national parks in Gabon.

In 2004 he completed an eight-month "megaflyover" of Africa in a Cessna to reveal photographically the impact of human activity on animal life and the environment.Over 800 flight hours and 116,000 vertical images were recorded, with all images uploaded to Google Earth.

In 2008 he completed an 1125km (700 mile) yearlong hike through California's redwood forests and collected data "critical to understanding the ecology and history of the redwood forest."

Dr. Fay has never taken the safe road, instead spending his time conducting longterm field research in African nations without internal resources or expertise. Dr. Fay has shown his committment to nature in a way few field biologists can claim and that is what makes him a cool person.

Cool People Profile: Gaspard Walter

Name: Gaspard Walter

Age: 29

Nationality: France

Profession: Novelist, Photographer

Employer: Studio Chine

Email: gaspard.walter@gmail.com

Quote: "Il n’y a aucune drogue qui ne m’ait pas lassé, aucune substance que mon corps n’ait pas fini par accepter. L’alcool ne me fait plus tourner la tête, la coke se contente de me niquer les muqueuses. Les taz, la mescaline, le speed ont perdu presque tous leurs effets. Je les avale en quantité industrielle, pour jouir de quelques secondes d’un plaisir qui ne ressemble en rien à celui ressenti lors de mes premières prises. C’est l’accoutumance, le début de l’ennui. La violence, elle, ne change pas." Google Translate

Social Networking

1. Facebook

Websites

1. Snuff (novel)

Gaspard Walter is selected as this week's Cool Person Profile because he has never stopped living a life against convention. Like Christopher McCandless (as portrayed in the novel and film Into the Wild) and so many artists before him, he refuses to accept societal rules at face value. Never finishing high school, Gaspard dropped out to make films, which he did for several years. He then sailed for a few years on various boats before finishing his first novel, Snuff, at the age of 28. While working on the novel he became a PADI SCUBA diving instructor, which led him to Thailand, the Maldives, and Cancun Mexico for work. Now he is a professional photographer working for the Paris publisher Studio Chine. He longs to continue seeing the world through his own lens and filter, to write, to photograph, to video, and to lastly die a good death.

For never accepting mediocrity or conventional work regardless of how easy it may have been, and for being the kind of person who seems carefree but really is just braver than most and takes those heartfelt dreams to a tangible reality, Gaspard Walter is certainly a cool person!

Cool People Profile: Dr. John Piña Craven

Name: Dr. John Piña Craven
Age: 86
Nationality: USA
Profession: Consultant, deposed King
Employer: Common Heritage Corporation
Email: craven@aloha.com
Quote: "The oceans are the biggest solar collector on Earth, and there's enough energy in them to supply a thousand times the world's needs. If you want to depend on nature, the oceans are the only energy source big enough to tap."

Social Networking
1. Old-fashioned meetings face-to-face and via email

Websites
1. www.aloha.com/~craven/
2. Ocean Energy Prospectus

Dr. John P. Craven describes himself as a marine mammal and an ancient mariner. His interest in living as a marine mammal came when he was designated (in his words, "through a bureaucratic mistake") the Project Manager of SeaLab II and III, a project he took over from George Bond, Walter Mazzone, and Robert Barth, and aimed at designing an environment where humans could live and work submerged for months at ocean depths between 100 - 1000 feet.

He also considers himself to be living life in reverse since he was 50 years old because he says that by counting backwards if he reaches his 100th birthday, he'll be in diapers again. On his 79th birthday, his children gave him the choice of picking between two gifts, one celebrating 79 years old and the other celebrating 21 years old. He proudly declared he'd celebrate his 21st birthday. Upon opening the box he had a 6-pack of cheap beer. Curious about what he was given for his 79th birthday, but having to stand by his decision, he saw a bottle of 30 year old scotch, proving that there are often consequences to living by one's convictions.

Dr. Craven has worn many hats, so many in fact that he considers himself as a king deposed every seven years. He holds a BA from Cornell University, an MA from Caltech, a PhD from the University of Iowa, and a JD from The National Law Center of The George Washington University.

1. Dr. Craven served as an enlisted sailor in World War 2 on the Battleship USS New Mexico. In his words, the men in his family either became priests or sailors, so he chose to become a sailor, which spawned his lifelong love affair with the mistress of the sea.

2. Dr. Craven has had more than 40 years of experience innovating, developing, designing, constructing, and operationally deploying major oceanic systems. Some of the key projects he was involved with in this respect includes the development of modern nuclear submarines and swath ships. He was the Project Manager for the US Navy's Polaris Program, eventually becoming Chief Scientist. He was involved in "the hunt for the Red September" (a successful US search for a downed Soviet submarine that became dramatized in the story and film "The Hunt for the Red October"). Through pioneering Bayesian search techniques, he was also instrumental in the US Navy's search for a missing hydrogen bomb lost off Palomares, Spain in 1966 when a B-52 bomber crashed and he helped find the submarine Scorpion, lost off the Azores. The cover story for the program was the idea of "mining for manganese nodules" on the seabed, which Dr. Craven designed as a plausible cover while the US Navy searched for the Scorpion.

3. He was Marine Affiars Coordinator for the state of Hawaii and Dean of Marine Programs at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where he founded the Marine Option Program, the first undergraduate marine-focused specialty at the University outside of the Oceanography program. He taught for a number of years the 2-semester course "Sea and Society" and helped encourage the formation of a Maritime Archaeology and History graduate certificate program (now defunct).

4. He was Director of the International Law of the Sea Institute and was the chief architect of the Exclusive Economic Zone delimitations now commonplace among all countries with coastlines.

5. He founded the Common Heritage Corporation to develop a technique of taking deep ocean water and piping it to the surface (called Ocean Thermal Exchange Conversion, or OTEC, technology) for agriculture (by piping underground in arid or hot climates, condensation forms on the cold water pipes, and allows agriculture where previously it was impossible through conventional techniques), sustainable electricity generation (through running a turbine driven on hot air and cold water exchange), and creating cheap air conditioning (by running cold water through a radiator before piping back to the ocean) and in the process creating fresh water from air condensation.

For never giving up and continuing to work for the betterment of human kind well into the years many are content to retire, and for always dancing to the tune of his own drummer (often with a lifestyle straight out of a Tom Clancy or Frederick Forsyth novel) while continuously inspiring others to do the same, Dr. John Craven is certainly a cool person!

Geopolitics: New Indian Nation

I based the above map on a National Atlas of the United States with Bureau of Indian Affairs and other Federal Agency lands color-coded.

I modified the map to outline (bright red with black border) my proposed plan to join independent American Indian reservations to make a continuous corridor from Mexico to Canada. Reservations were joined over 95% of the time via lands already under US Government Federal control rather than private lands. Cities were avoided in private lands.

Basically, I believe that any people that fall under their own nation should have access to contiguous borders (island nations would still share cultural boundaries rather than artificial ones). I mentioned this in a past post on Palestine, but I will reiterate my stance through a separate example: American Indians.

Indian reservations are considered separate nations, yet money generated through mineral rights on their lands are used by the government with only about one-sixth (or less) going to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and of that amount, much is spent on bureacracy aimed at perpetuating the functions of that agency.

In 1871 the United States passed a law that essentially stated all past American Indian treaties to be null and void, which paved the way for a major land grab in the East and forcing Indian tribes west. Further treaty breakages are detailed by the American Indian Movement (AIM).

American Indian lands could be almost completely joined through using Federal lands, thereby causing limited disruption of land use and avoiding conflict between the general public, but giving a greater future to American Indians after centuries of neglect and abuse, as well as allowing a continuous corridor (albeit often narrow) from Mexico to Canada.

For what it's worth...