Sunday, February 21, 2016

The Ideas and Institutions Holding Up Society Are Disintegrating | Alternet

The Ideas and Institutions Holding Up Society Are Disintegrating | Alternet: "My research proved so mind-boggling that it led to my leaving the university. I saw that genetically identical cells put into different environments have different fates. I'd start with genetically identical stem cells, change some of the constituents of their environment, and the stem cells would form muscle; change the environment a little bit differently and genetically identical cells would form bone; change it yet again, and another group of genetically identical cells would form fat cells.

I was teaching medical students that genes control life, yet my research said that the genes were actually controlled by the organism's response to the environment.

That work ultimately led to The Biology of Belief, and presaged epi-genetics, one of today's leading areas of research in biomedicine. Epi is a prefix that means above. Epidermis means the layer above the dermis. Epi-genetic control literally means "control above the genes.""

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The China Delusion | naked capitalism

The China Delusion | naked capitalism:

The China Delusion

Posted on February 19, 2016 by Yves Smith

By Robert Johnson, President of the Institute for New Economic Thinking and a Senior Fellow and Director of the Global Finance Project for the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute in New York. Originally published at the Institute of New Economic Thinking website

China’s management of its exchange rate peg continues to rattle global financial markets. Uncertainty about renminbi devaluation is fuelling fears that deflationary forces will sweep through emerging markets and deliver a blow to developed economies, where interest rates are at, or near, zero and thus cannot be lowered to defend against imported deflation. Fiscal gridlock in Europe and the US is heightening the angst.

But the current bout of exchange rate anxiety is really just a symptom of the fact that China’s transition from an export-led growth strategy to one propelled by domestic consumption is proceeding far less smoothly than hoped. For some people, visions of the wonders of capitalism with Chinese characteristics remain undiminished. They are certain that, after more than three decades of state-directed growth, China’s leaders know what to do to turn their slumping economy around.

The optimists’ unreality is rivalled by that of supply-siders, who would apply shock therapy to China’s slumping state sector and immediately integrate the country’s underdeveloped capital markets into today’s turbulent global financial system. That is a profoundly dangerous prescription. The power of the market to transform China will not be unleashed in a stagnant economy, where such measures would aggravate deflationary forces and produce a calamity.

The persistent downward pressure on the renminbi reflects a growing fear that Chinese policymakers have no coherent solution to the dilemmas they face. Floating the renminbi, for example, is a dangerous option. After all, with the Chinese economy undergoing wholesale economic transformation, estimating a long-term equilibrium exchange rate that will anchor speculation is virtually impossible, particularly given persistent doubts about data quality, disclosure, and opaque policymaking processes.

But if the current exchange-rate peg to a basket of currencies fails to anchor the renminbi and prevent sharp depreciation, the deflationary consequences for the world economy will be profound. Moreover, they will feed back on the Chinese export sector, thus dampening the stimulative impact of a weakened currency.

The key to stabilising the exchange rate lies in creating a credible development policy. Only then will the pressure on the renminbi, and on China’s foreign-exchange reserves, subside, because investors will see a clear way forward.

Establishing policy credibility will require diminishing the muddled microeconomic incentives of state control and guarantees. It will also require reinvigorating aggregate demand by targeting fiscal policy to support the emerging economic sectors that will underpin the new growth model.

But, as usual with China, such a strategy is riddled with contradictions. For example, reducing the size of the state-enterprise sector is necessary, yet would be certain to depress aggregate demand at a time when demand is already soft. Likewise, cutting fiscal support (via government-directed bank lending) to zombie firms would free up fiscal capacity and enable resources to be redirected to new sectors that facilitate services and urban employment; but this would exacerbate – at least at first – the current demand shortfall.

Slashing the state sector abruptly and expecting to achieve transformation through austerity is not the way forward. Economic historians, notably Michael Bernstein in his study of the great depression in the US, have convincingly shown that an economy in transition requires strong aggregate demand to pull resources into new sectors. If both the old and new sectors of an economy are in a slump, capital formation will sputter, investment in upgrading human capital will decline, and structural adjustment will stall. Robust aggregate demand is always essential to successful transformation.

An equally large obstacle to China’s economic transition – the problem that almost dare not speak its name – is the widespread worship of China’s hybrid market economy. Simply put, current muddled market incentives impede transformation by favouring state-owned enterprises.

In early 2012, when the Chinese leadership moved toward stronger private ownership, stocks in the private-sector sub-index outperformed the state-owned sector sub-index on both the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges. But since the spring of 2014, this trend has reversed, and the state-owned sector sub-index has outperformed the private-sector sub-index. As the Chinese economy slows and default risk grows, the value of state guarantees rises, directing capital away from private-sector growth.

This hybrid system clearly impedes credit allocation from catalysing development while creating and sustaining vested interests opposed to change. This holding pattern is particularly harmful because profound transformation will surely depend on financing from a sound sovereign bond market, which cannot function properly until uncertainty related to the government’s contingent liabilities – all those implicit guarantees – has been resolved.

China has it within its power to stabilise its exchange rate via credible reforms, particularly policies that redirect resources to invigorate domestic demand and pull resources toward the newer high-value sectors. The overhaul China needs cannot be accomplished in a slump, or by a large exchange-rate depreciation that deflates the world in a vain effort to turn back the clock to an era of export-led growth that stagnant demand in the west has rendered nonviable.

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Sunday, September 13, 2015

Urban Lab Global Cities (ULGC)

Urban Lab Global Cities (ULGC)

A look at the terrible toll of Canadian Tar Sands

The Birth of Edge Cities in China: Measuring the Spillover Effects of Industrial Parks

Rethinking Carbon Dioxide: From a Pollutant to an Asset by Marc Gunther: Yale Environment 360

Rethinking Carbon Dioxide: From a Pollutant to an Asset by Marc Gunther: Yale Environment 360

Klaus Lackner, a Columbia University physicist who first wrote about air capture of CO2 in a 1999 paper

New Method Removes Carbon from the Air, Churns Out Valuable Carbon Products | MIT Technology Review

New Method Removes Carbon from the Air, Churns Out Valuable Carbon Products | MIT Technology Review

versatile building material.

By Mike Orcutt on August 19, 2015

A new method for taking carbon dioxide directly from the air and
converting it to oxygen and nanoscale fibers made of carbon could lead
to an inexpensive way to make a valuable building material—and may even
serve as a weapon against climate change.

Carbon fibers are increasingly being used as a structural material on
the aerospace, automotive, and other industries, which value its
strength and light weight. The useful attributes of carbon fibers, which
also include electrical conductivity, are enhanced at the nanoscale,
says Stuart Licht,
a professor of chemistry at George Washington University. The problem
is that it’s very expensive to make carbon fibers, much less nanofibers.
Licht says his group’s newly demonstrated
technology, which both captures the carbon dioxide from the air and
employs an electrochemical process to convert it to carbon nanofibers
and oxygen, is more efficient and potentially a lot cheaper than
existing methods.

But it’s more than just a simpler, less expensive way of making a
high-value product. It’s also a “means of storing and sequestering
carbon dioxide in a useful manner, a stable manner, and in a compact
manner,” says Licht. He points out that if the process is powered by
renewable energy, the result is a net removal of carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere. In a recent demonstration, his group used a unique concentrated solar power system,
which makes use of infrared sunlight as well as visible light to
generate the large amount of heat needed to run the desired reaction.

The process requires molten lithium carbonate, with another compound,
lithium oxide, dissolved in it. The lithium oxide combines with carbon
dioxide in the air, forming more lithium carbonate. When voltage is
applied across two electrodes immersed in the molten carbonate, the
resulting reaction produces oxygen, carbon (which deposits on one of the
electrodes), and lithium oxide, which can be used to capture more
carbon dioxide and start the process again.

The researchers demonstrated the ability to make a variety of
different nanofiber shapes and diameters by adjusting specific growth
conditions, such as the amount of current applied at specific points of
time and the composition of the various ingredients used in the process.
They also showed they could make very uniform fibers. Licht says the
mechanisms underlying the formation of the fibers still need to be
better understood, and he’s confident the group can keep developing more
control over the nature of the fibers it makes.

As for the technology’s emissions-cutting potential, the researchers
are optimistic. They calculate that given an area less than 10 percent
of the size of the Sahara Desert, the method could remove enough carbon
dioxide to make global atmospheric levels return to preindustrial levels
within 10 years, even if we keep emitting the greenhouse gas at a high
rate during that period.

Of course, this would require a huge increase in demand for carbon
nanofibers. Licht believes the material’s properties, especially the
fact that it is so lightweight and also very strong, will spur greater
and greater use as the cost comes down, and he thinks his new process
can help with that. Imagine that carbon fiber composites eventually
replace steel, aluminum, and even concrete as a building material, he
says. “At that point, there could be sufficient use of this that it’s
actually acting as a significant repository of carbon.”

low carbon china blog - Google Search

Seabreeze Bamboo | Bambusa Malingensis | Palmco - Wholesale Bamboo, Florida

STATS

Common Name: Seabreeze
Scientific Name: Bambusa malingensis
Zone: 20°F
Origin: Southern China
Typical Height: 40' OA
Culms: 2.5"" Diam
Branches: Branching lowest internode
Habit: Tight erect clumper
Leaves: Small
Uses: Screening, or windbreaker

DESCRIPTION

Seabreeze or Bambusa malingensis is a fast growing, tough, hardy and bushy bamboo with attractive blue-white canes.

Seabreeze is native to Southern China. This bamboo is a perfect
coastal bamboo for Florida, Texas, and Southern California because of
its tolerance to high winds and salty breezes. Great wind breaking
bamboo.

Bambusa malingensis can handle temperatures down to 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

Seabreeze Bamboo can reach heights up to 40 feet tall. The Seabreeze
bamboo is a mid-sized bamboo. This bamboo forms a graceful umbrella
shaped arch when mature. It has few lower branches so you can admire the
distinctive canes.

This bamboo is a tight, non-invasive clumping bamboo with small green
leaves. The culms are straight and form tight, dense clumps.

This particular bamboo is great for screening within one year you
should have great screening from that noisy road out front or that nosey
neighbor next door or maybe you need it to hide that unsightly piece of
equipment in your yard.

Seabreeze can tolerate drought as well as flooding conditions.

The Seabreeze bamboo has many attributes salt tolerant, wind tolerant, and beautiful.

Building up bamboo | MIT News

Building up bamboo | MIT News

Bamboo Reinforcement of Concrete - Pg 7 - 11

Published
references to the use of bamboo in reinforcing cement concrete
structures or parts thereof indicate that the practice has been followed
for some decades at least, in the Far East (China, Japan, and the
Philippine Islands).
During the 1930's several experiments were
carried out in Europe, particularly in Germany and Italy, to test the
performance of cement concrete beams reinforced with bamboo.
The most
recent, comprehensive, and readily available information on the subject
is to be found in the report of a series of experiments carried out by
and under the direction of Professor H. E. Glenn.

Building up bamboo | MIT News

Building up bamboo | MIT News

The researchers then used the stiffness and density data to create a
model that accurately predicts the mechanical properties of bamboo as a
function of position in the stalk. Gibson says wood processors that she
works with in Canada may use the model as a guide to assemble durable
bamboo blocks of various shapes and sizes.

Going forward, the processors, in turn, will send the MIT team
composite samples of bamboo to characterize. For example, a product may
be processed to contain bamboo along with other materials to reduce the
density of the product and make it resistant to insects. Such composite
materials, Gibson says, will have to be understood at the microscale.

“We want to look at the original mechanical properties of the bamboo
culm, as well as how processing affects the product,” Gibson says.
“Maybe there’s a way to minimize any effects, and use bamboo in a more
versatile way.”

Modeling on piezoelectric energy harvesting from pavements under traffic loads

Building up bamboo | MIT News

Building up bamboo | MIT News

MIT scientists, along with architects and wood processors from
England and Canada, are looking for ways to turn bamboo into a
construction material more akin to wood composites, like plywood. The
idea is that a stalk, or culm, can be sliced into smaller pieces, which
can then be bonded together to form sturdy blocks — much like
conventional wood composites. A structural product of this sort could be
used to construct more resilient buildings — particularly in places
like China, India, and Brazil, where bamboo is abundant.

Such bamboo products are currently being developed by several
companies. The MIT project intends to gain a better understanding of
these materials, so that bamboo can be more effectively used
structurally. To that end, MIT researchers have now analyzed the
microstructure of bamboo and found that the plant is stronger and denser
than North American softwoods like pine, fir, and spruce, making the
grass a promising resource for composite materials.

“Bamboo grows extensively in regions where there are rapidly
developing economies, so it’s an alternative building material to
concrete and steel,” says Lorna Gibson, the Matoula S. Salapatas
Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT. “You probably
wouldn’t make a skyscraper out of bamboo, but certainly smaller
structures like houses and low-rise buildings.”

Gibson and her colleagues analyzed sections of bamboo from the inside
out, measuring the stiffness of each section at the microscale. As it
turns out, bamboo is densest near its outer walls. The researchers used
their data to develop a model that predicts the strength of a given
section of bamboo.

The model may help wood processors determine how to assemble a
particular bamboo product. As Gibson explains it, one section of bamboo
may be more suitable for a given product than another: “If you wanted a
bamboo beam that bends, maybe you’d want to put the denser material at
the top and bottom and the less dense bits toward the middle, as the
stresses in the beam are larger at the top and bottom and smaller in the
middle. We’re looking at how we might optimize the selection of bamboo
materials in the structure that you make.”

Gibson and her colleagues have published their results in the Journal of the Royal Society: Interface.

New Genetically Modified Tree Approved by USDA with No Assessments | Natural Society

A means for toxic cleanup and bioremediation that will help to remove heavy metals, and reduce contaminated soils.

However:

Fast growing, non-GMO trees are not looked to as a resource. Bamboo, for example, is fast-growing and is a carbon sink.

The level of disease in GMO-planted forests is not yet determined,
and since GMO crops have led to super bugs and weed-resistant
super-weeds, assuming that GMO forests would be any different is less
than logical.

There is no question that the genetically modified foods infiltrating
our food supply could be causing negative health effects and
compromising the quality of the ecosystem.But the genetic modification
we’re working so hard to prevent goes beyond the food supply, as even
trees are being genetically engineered. Some experts say that these genetically modified trees are even more environmentally-damaging than GM foods.

Building up bamboo | MIT News

The GM tree plantations bred to satisfy the world's energy needs | Environment | The Guardian

The GM tree plantations bred to satisfy the world's energy needs

Israeli biotech firm says its modified eucalyptus trees can displace the fossil fuel industry

GM eucalyptus trees at 5 and a half years old, grown in a field trial.
FutureGene claims GM species grow thicker and faster than the natural
plant, making it possible to be grown for energy generation.
Public Domain

John Vidal, environment editor

Thursday 15 November 2012 06.58 EST

Last modified on Wednesday 21 May 2014 06.50 EDT

161

Comments

Save for later

It's a timber company's dream but a horrific industrial vision for
others: massive plantations of densely planted GM eucalyptus trees
stretching across Brazil,
South Africa, Indonesia and China, engineered to grow 40% faster for
use as paper, as pellets for power stations and as fuel for cars.

The prospect is close, says Stanley Hirsch, chief executive of the Israeli biotech company FuturaGene.
All that is missing, he says, are permissions from governments for the
trees to be grown commercially, and backing from conservation groups and
certification bodies.

FuturaGene has spent 11 years trialling thousands of GM
eucalyptus and poplar trees on 100-hectare plots in Israel, China and
outside São Paulo in Brazil, and is now at the last stages of the
Brazilian regulatory process for commercial planting. Thanks to a gene
taken from the common, fast-growing Arabidopsis weed, the
company has found a way to alter the structure of plant cell walls to
stimulate the natural growth process. The company says its modified
eucalyptus trees can grow 5 metres (16ft) a year, with 20%-30% more mass
than a normal eucalyptus. In just five and a half years they are 27
metres high.

Hirsch claims the gene-altering technique is an industrial "game-changer" and integral to the UN's vision of a future "global green economy".

"Our trees grow faster and thicker. We are ahead of everyone. We have
shown we can increase the yields and growth rates of trees more than
anything grown by traditional breeding. Potentially, we believe this
[development] can displace the whole fossil fuel industry. The
technology can be adapted to any trees. We can have a whole new supply
of fuel. Yes, I do want to save the world."

GM trees have been grown experimentally since 1986 but despite more
than 700 field trials, mainly in the US on eucalypts, pines, poplars and
fruit trees, European and US legislation has delayed permissions and
very few have ever reached the market. Papaya, a few plums and some pine
trees with genetically engineered viral resistance have been approved
in the US, but only China, which has planted more than 1m GM pines, has
given permission for them to be grown on any scale.

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Trees: The Carbon Storage Experts - NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation

Trees: The Carbon Storage Experts - NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation: "The actual rate of carbon sequestration will vary with species, climate and site, but in general, younger and faster growing forests have higher annual sequestration rates. Considering that one half of the weight of dried wood is carbon, trees in a forest hold a lot of carbon. When the enormous amount of carbon stored in forest soils is added to the trees' carbon, it becomes obvious that forests are major carbon storage reservoirs.

The main strategies for using forests for carbon sequestration are listed below in order of their potential for carbon sequestration in New York:

Active forest management - enhancing forest growth through sustainable forestry
Avoided deforestation - reducing the loss of forested land by promoting smart growth and less sprawl.
Forest preservation - leaving forests undisturbed as is done in the 3 million acres of the Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserve.
Afforestation - adding forest to previously unforested land, as was done on State Forest land during the Great Depression ."

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Carbon sequestration: Managing forests in uncertain times : Nature News & Comment

Carbon sequestration: Managing forests in uncertain times : Nature News & Comment: "Increasing both forest stocks and timber harvest will buy time while we learn more about how trees absorb carbon, say Valentin Bellassen and Sebastiaan Luyssaert."

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Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Amazon.com: By All Means Necessary: How China's Resource Quest is Changing the World (9780199921782): Elizabeth C. Economy, Michael Levi: Books

Amazon.com: By All Means Necessary: How China's Resource Quest is Changing the World (9780199921782): Elizabeth C. Economy, Michael Levi: Books

In the past thirty years, China has transformed from an impoverished
country where peasants comprised the largest portion of the populace to
an economic power with an expanding middle class and more megacities
than anywhere else on earth. This remarkable transformation has
required, and will continue to demand, massive quantities of resources.
Like every other major power in modern history, China is looking outward
to find them.

Bigger Cities Aren't Always Greener, Data Show - Scientific American

Density does not reliably predict per capita carbon dioxide emissions

By Amber Williams |
Aug 18, 2015

Cities will save us, experts argue. Higher densities of people mean
less energy consumption and lower carbon emissions per capita—a boon for
the environment. People supposedly switch from driving cars to using
public transportation, for instance. But “density in and of itself isn't
changing behavior,” says Conor Gately, a graduate student in Boston
University's department of Earth and environment. Gately and his
colleagues analyzed 33 years' worth of annual carbon dioxide emissions
by on-road vehicles across the U.S. Since 2000 the 50 fastest-growing
counties by population decreased their per capita emissions by only 12
percent—a reduction that was not enough to offset the total emissions
growth in those same areas. The discrepancy probably comes down to the
sprawl of suburbs, the researchers say. If public transportation between
city and surrounding neighborhoods, for example, fails to keep pace
with growth, more and more people will drive into center cities for work
and play and add pollution to areas where they don't live. (That's
what's been happening in Salt Lake City.)

Urban areas that are already dense and have the necessary green
infrastructure, such as New York City, will see their per capita
emissions decline as they grow larger. In 2012 carbon emissions from
vehicles on the road accounted for 28 percent of the total fossil-fuel
CO₂ emissions for the entire country—a sizable chunk to
target for reductions. The data suggest that solutions and regulations
should be customized for individual cities, not mandated as national
catchalls.

Not a carbon copy of the U.S. - latimes

Not a carbon copy of the U.S. - latimes

If per capita carbon emissions in China and India rose to car-happy U.S.
levels, global emissions would increase by 127%, according to the
International Energy Agency. If their emissions stopped at the levels
found in hyper-dense Hong Kong, world emissions would go up less than
24%. As the Asian economies prosper, the United States should hope that
they embrace the skyscraper more than the car, and we should reform our
own policies that subsidize sprawl.

Low Carbon China

Sunday, February 21, 2016

The Ideas and Institutions Holding Up Society Are Disintegrating | Alternet