Environment

Snowfall Inspired video

May 30, 2018 — Video — Leave a comment

Continuing my series of posts about making music inspired by videos/images I recorded previously based weather/climate events. This episode occurred when an unusual amount of snow felt during a short period of time this last winter. The therm unusual is used because this episode was unusual for the actual standards. The same amount of snow used to fall in the past and that was a normal event.

I called this video Snow – Spock’s finger as a joke to the album with the same name of the progressive rock band Spock’s Beard.

One of my major challengers in writing my climate change music: explain that winters won’t disappear any time soon

February 24, 2016 — Leave a comment

In general for the public, the concept of climate change is that the world is warmer than a few years ago thus winters will no longer exist and it will be summer all over the year. This is one of my biggest challengers, how to explain with my music this common misunderstanding of climate change.

First the change of seasons are a combination of different factors, but the main factor is the position of the Earth in relation to the sun. The world is getting warmer and there are different theories about who is the responsible for that (CO2, sunspots, etc.). However this does not mean that it will be only summer all over the globe all the time. Winters won’t disappear any time soon.

I’ve been reading some people comments about the misunderstanding of cold temperatures and climate change. For example when a cold temperature is recorded somewhere and someone says that climate change is not happening because of that specific low temperature. Unfortunately,  things are more complicated than that.  The seasons won’t easily disappear. What it is expected to occur is that in some places winters/summers for example will have more severe temperatures. Droughts and blizzards are more expected. However, in other few places it will be less severe and in others it won’t change.

Glaciers are a great example of those changes. Most of the world’s glaciers are melting and losing mass. However a few of them are gaining mass and some of them are with relatively unchanged mass. In addition snow is still falling on the places that the melting glaciers are located but the warmer temperatures are melting more quickly the snow.

Those are some examples of what I have to consider when writing my music. How I should incorporate those factors. Honestly, that is the fun part!

We are more connected with garbage than we think

January 23, 2016 — 4 Comments

The theory that Earth is a globe with a finite space is not new. We are more connected with garbage than we think. We are leaving a heritage to future generations with culture, technology and also garbage. In some cases we are basically putting our garbage under the rug (landfills). If the rug is the ocean imagine how hard will be in the future when next generations will have to deal with it, cleaning our garbage.

We consider ourselves the superior animal, however in most of the cases we are incapable of take care of our own garbage. Are we pigs? No, pigs don’t dump they garbage elsewhere. They live with their own garbage. Sometimes I don’t get it. How can we consider ourselves superior if we are not able to handle our own garbage? Why people still think that garbage will disappear if left on the streets. Every product we use has to come from a place and has to go somewhere. It does not matter the size or the material. In most of the cases the products, after they are used, go to a landfill or a recycle factory. However there are cases where they are left in the streets or dumped in the wrong place. Is it really hard to put garbage in the correct place? Last year I wrote a post about a recycle day for electronics in my neighbourhood and one of my neighbours dumping his old TV in the back alley. Now, I’ve been taking some pictures to prove my theory: we are not that intelligent and we are leaving our dirty culture to future generations. Every piece (small or big) of garbage that we leave is our direct responsibility.

I am optimistic because there are a few amount of people trying to do the right thing and most important: they are teaching children how to take care of the environment. Children are learning already that what we are doing with the environment is not right.

Doing the Climate Change Progressive Rock Opera and the Plan B

January 20, 2016 — Leave a comment

Last year I wrote in my instagram post: “Part A,B,…J?H? 11bars? 6bars? Wait, normal songs only have A, B and maybe a C. Am I being too progressive?” The whole Alphabet ? Sometimes it is easy to imagine that the composition of the album is the hardest part. Indeed, that is probably the most important part, but reality hit me hard and doing almost everything by myself take time. In my last post I set a deadline for a possible release of the first song of my progressive rock opera. December of last year, that was my initial plan A and it was kind of reasonable. However I’ve found more difficulties than I expected. First after composing a song, and if the song is technically ready to record (technically because until the music is released it can be always improved and rearranged), it does not mean that the hard work is done. Recording is the next step. As so far I am recording all the instruments and programming the drums, it is a lot of work. Does that mean that I will give up? Of course not, but it is taking more time than I expected.

I remember when I was watching the documentary Rush: Beyond the lighted stage and they mentioned that Rush tried to record “La villa strangiato” in one take but they couldn’t. Taking apart the comparison with the semi-gods of progressive rock and the time they recorded that song, I had to take similar approach. Instead of release the first song with almost 20 min long, I will divide the song in two parts. However live I will play the song without cuts. I’ll post more details about the recording process soon and I am sure it will worth it the wait.

Recycling and reusing clothes

August 5, 2015 — Leave a comment

The conversation about recycling and the environment are not new. Normally we do our job with plastic bottles and the correct recycle bin. But how about our clothes? What we should do with it? Is there a way to recycle clothes? Fortunately the answers is yes, there is a way to recycle “some” clothes. There are some companies doing this as Patagonia and H&M. In particular H&M Has a recycling program and released a campaign to receive clothes donations:

Here are some facts. Most of clothes end in the landfill. Why? Some of the reasons are similar to my post about how to recycle an old blender. I didn’t know anything about until I realized that I had so many clothes. Then I started a little research in the Internet. Here is what I’ve found:

  • According to a new report from the Council for Textile Recycling (CTR), the average American throws away 70 pounds. of clothing every year, which equals roughly 191 T-shirts…per person. Collectively, that’s approximately 3.8 billion pounds of waste.
  • Cotton is the world’s most commonly used natural fiber and is in nearly 40 percent of our clothing. It has a clean, wholesome image long cultivated by the garment industry. But the truth is that it is a thirsty little plant that drinks up more of its fair share of water. It is also one of the most chemically dependent crops in the world. While only 2.4% of the world’s cropland is planted with cotton, it consumes 10 percent of all agricultural chemicals and 25 percent of insecticides. Some genetically modified varieties, which are resistant to some insects and tolerant of some herbicides, now make up more than 20% of the world’s cotton crop.
  •  So far Existing cotton recycling methods make poor-quality fibers, and there is no efficient way to recycle garments of mixed materials, so the vast majority of clothes end up in landfill. In addition, the production of cotton destroys farmland and pollutes waterways.
  • Synthetic polyesters and nylon are made from petrochemicals, a byproduct of oil refining which increases our need and reliance on oil and increases harmful pollution which affects us all.
  • Dyes are creating a chemical Fukushima in Indonesia. The Citarum River is considered one of the most polluted rivers in the world due in great part to the hundreds of textile factories lining its shores. It also uses a lot of fresh water and the dye wastewater is discharged, often untreated, into nearby rivers, where it reaches the sea, eventually spreading around the globe.

One day I had to move. It is only when the moving happens one realizes that accumulation is not really necessary. We are used to buy new stuff even when we don’t really needed. Also sale is kind of a magic word. I must confess I was like that too. Until the day I needed to move. I checked my closet and I though: why do I have so many clothes? Then I started to pack my stuff. Gosh, it was a lot of stuff. A couple of luggage only with my clothes. I had so many clothes that some of them I didn’t  even remember I had. After that day my life and habits were changed. Instead of buy things that I don’t needed nor I used much, I started to spend money only on necessary stuff.

I have a procedure that works for me in order use my clothes until the very end. The procedure could be extended to other products. I started with clothes and at the end I had a feeling of joy. Joy because at the same time I was able to achieve goals such as:

  • my money was being well used
  • I wasn’t wasting
  • If a had to donate I was helping someone else
  • I was doing sort of recycling, reusing.

I know, for each person will work differently, but here is what I do and I hope it would help more people to achieve similar feelings of joy and also to recycle and reuse some clothes.

The first step is: stop the waste and only buy clothes you REALLY need and you will use a lot. Someone could say, but every time I buy clothes they’re necessary. Really? For me, every time I saw something I wanted to buy (mainly shirts) I asked myself: do I really need this? How many shirts/pants/shorts do I have at home? Are those clothes in my home really that useless? Do I have to buy new ones or I can still wear a little bit more? If I the answer was yes then I would buy otherwise no. It worked like magic. I started to buy only things I really needed. I was happy because I was not being wasteful and mainly because I was saving money.

The second step: to solve the problem at home. Too many clothes to wear. I divide clothes into categories. For example the shirts are divided into two categories: shirts (or pants, shorts, etc) to use normally at home and shirts to go out. The shirts to use at home are those shirts that are not really new. These are the ones losing color, with some stains, etc. The shirts to go out are the ones that I use to go out at night, to work (if the work needs a better dressing code), to play my shows (also work), etc. How will this division help? For some people the division is already a process to see which clothes will be donated. Some of the shirts could not fit anymore because it shinkred or the body magically changed (someone gained/lost weight). There are lot of old but usable t-shirts, blue jeans, ball caps and more that you may not want … but someone else does. Also, when deciding to donate clothes, ask yourself, if you were at a store would you buy it again?

After the division the goal is to wear clothes more, starting with the old ones. I know it is kind of contradictory, but why? The logic was simple, to use new clothes I had to use a lot the old ones until they’re not wearable anymore. When the clothes are not wearable anymore I replace that piece for one of the new ones (which at that time was not really new but as I wasn’t using it is kind of new).  There are some good reasons for that. First I spent money buy them. Second I don’t like to waste and it doesn’t matter my financial situation. Third if I buy something and I don’t really use I have the combined feeling of waste and bad investment.

After the clothes are not wearable, is there another way to reuse (recycle)? Yeap, there are some ways to reuse some of the clothes. The main idea here is: please don’t throw old clothes in the garbage. Here are some examples (ok, I know, some of them are good, some of them are really good and some of them are not that good):

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Patch-Your-Clothes/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Recycled-Clothes-Bib-with-Versatile-Pattern/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Recycled-Old-Clothes-Turn-White-Ribbed-Tanks-into/?ALLSTEPS

http://www.instructables.com/id/Twisted-scarf-making-from-old-clothes/?ALLSTEPS

http://www.instructables.com/id/Couch-Scarf-and-Flapper-Hat-from-Mens-Shirt/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Back-to-School-Make-Old-Clothes-New/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Recycled-Clothes-Jeans-Quilt/

Here are more about the topic:

http://www.recyclenow.com/what-to-do-with/clothing-textiles

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textile_recycling

http://www.mac-recycling.com/why.html

http://www.resolutionreuse.com/make-a-difference-by-recycling-clothes/why-recycle-your-clothing/

http://www.alternet.org/environment/its-second-dirtiest-thing-world-and-youre-wearing-it

Dumping Old TVs

July 27, 2015 — 2 Comments

Last weekend something really interesting happened. One of my neighbors decided to dump his old TV in the back alley. Very interesting decision, considering that two weeks ago there was a recycle day for electronics one block from our place (which by the way had an awesome response from the neighborhood as you can see in the picture).

I was asking myself, why did someone just dumped the TV there? Did the person knew about the drop off?  Well, I considered some of these possible reasons:
1-The TV was working until that specific day and then it stopped working, so the person had to buy another one and dumped the old one somewhere.
2- The person didn’t know about the drop off.
3- The TV was working and the person wanted that someone to use it. So the person dumped the TV in the back alley expecting that someone will reuse it.
4- The person didn’t care about recycling and environment.

The first reason seems reasonable, except the fact that there are specific places to throw old TVs. I know, those places sometimes are not obvious as I wrote here, but the majority of electronics appliances have a symbol showing they won’t belong to normal garbage.

 The second reason is very unlikely considering that there were posters informing the drop off inside and outside the building and also posters around our neighborhood. Also there are drop off days in our neighborhood (minimum twice per year), so I think it is possible to store the TV and wait for the next drop off.

The third reason is indeed a great act. I do the same sometimes but not with monsters super heavy old TVs. I do with books, DVDs or clothes. Super heavy TVs are not easy to transport. Besides how someone would know that the TV is working perfectly? Adding a sign? I had a similar experience before. I owned an old heavy TV (few years ago). I put my TV in my storage and I put add an ad in a website offering the TV for free. So a couple of days later a guy came and picked up the TV. Of course I don’t even want to comment the fourth reason.

Later during the day, I was at my apartment and I heard some bangs outside. A homeless guy was trying to open the TV (probably there was something valuable to sell inside the TV ). The guy did his job and of course left the TV there in multiple pieces. After the “service” it was clear that the TV would go to a common garbage landfill. It is not the correct option because those TVs have poisonous metals and frequently those metals will contaminate aquifers.

 

This is how the TV was after the “service”

I started to think whose fault is this? The former TV owner? The homeless guy? The government (of course, blaming the government is kind of default always)? I am not sure, but that is the reason i am writing this post. There are alternative solutions. I gave here some possible reasons to dump an old TV in a common trash and some possible solutions to drop off the TV in the right place.  I know is not easy but I hope to spread more the message make the world a cleaner place.

Where Should My Broken Blender go?

April 26, 2015 — 8 Comments

A couple of weeks ago I tried to use my blender and it did not work. My first thought it was, I need to get a new one. It could be a small problem easy to fix. However, as the majority of the world population, I don’t know how to fix a blender (or any electronic product) so i have to find someone to do that for me. Normally the cost to fix a blender is similar to buy a new one. Ok, I know, I am being cheap and that is not environmental friendly but I am not in that eco-level yet. It is a working in progress.

However, to feel “less guilty” about the situation i thought, is the blender recyclable? Should i throw it in the regular garbage? I am trying to reduce the amount of garbage that i generate and the amount of garbage that I throw in the regular garbage (which goes to the landfills). First, it is obvious that the blender should not go to the regular garbage. Why? Because all those products have a label saying so. Why? These products are made of different materials, and some of them are harmful to the environment. It can pollute water, food and cause diseases in animals and humans.

Second, where should i dispose the blender? In my recyclable bin? No. But where? I searched a bit in the Internet. I found some places where it is possible to dispose some electronic equipments, but unfortunately it was not for kitchen appliances but for computers, remote controls, tv, etc. I searched a little bit more and then I finally discovered that in the city where I live there is a program where in certain locations it is possible to dispose the blender. In the end I did the right thing and my old blender went to the right place. I used one of the neighbourhood programs to collect electronics.

I live in a building with around 20 suites, and it is not hard to find electronics inside our normal garbage can. Why? Do the people know about the recyclable program? Are they lazy ? All these products have a label showing they should not go to regular garbage. Well, I didn’t know about the program until I started to look for the right place to throw my old blender. Surprisingly, here in my city an environmental fee is charged every time an electronic product is sold to support the program.

 

What are the consequences of not dispose this kind of garbage in a proper way? An example (which only scratches the surface) is this documentary about the plastic pollution in the ocean called “Plastic Paradise: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch”. Most of these products are made of plastic with a combination of poison metals. Most of the plastic that has ever been created since the 19th century is still somewhere on our planet. So if it never goes away, where does it go? And If they are threw into the sea? Thousands of miles away from civilization, Midway Atoll is in one of the most remote places on earth. And yet its become ground zero for The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, accumulating plastics from three distant continents. 

Once I heard an old tale about a huge forest fire. All the animals of the forest were running away from the fire except for a little bird. The bird was diving into a lake close to the forest trying to hold as much water as possible and coming back in the direction of the fire. When he was flying above the fire he flapped its wings to release all the water he was holding, which it was normally a few drops. When an elephant saw the bird he asked: “Are you stupid? You know you will never end that fire”. The bird answered: “I am doing my part, if all the animals do the same we can fight the fire and save whatever we can of our forest”.

Sometimes I think, destroy a little less doesn’t protect anything. There are billions of people in this word. Millions of them are throwing garbage in the wrong place (including some of my neighbours) but I am trying to do my part and I know I am not the only one.

Next step… Where should my old bass strings go?

Would you like to know more and help?

http://plasticbank.org/

http://www.plasticoceanproject.org/

Does ‘Being Green’ Mean ‘Saving Money’? Well, Not always….

March 11, 2015 — 1 Comment

It is not new that plants help the environment, but I’ve been trying to read more news on the internet about helping the environment in general and I must confess that I am bored. If you google any site talking about environment you will find someone talking about climate change and CO2 and another one saying that CO2 is not causing climate change. It is like have your own soccer team or political party, it is not science any more. Look this article talking about green roofs. This article talks about the advantages and disadvantages (including costs and maintenance) of the roofs (which are not cheap by the way). However, there is one last part in the last line where it says something about “cooling the planet”. Damn it! You go to the commentaries and global warming this, CO2 that. Sometimes you can find even more radical ideas as we should not eat meat because the carbon footprint. Ok, yeah, we should also breath less to release less CO2 and we also should hold our farts because of the releasing of methane (another and even more powerful greenhouse gas). So, are we missing the point? Could we please focus on the benefits versus disadvantages of green roofs? Are we saving the planet using a green roof? I doubt it. However it is an interesting idea, and could be applicable considering the costs/maintenance. They need to be adapted to each place and situation  and of course for some places they can’t be economically viable because they probably need more maintenance than traditional roofs. So a balance must exist.

Credit: Arild Vågen – Own work

Another interesting idea is the use of rain gardens to help the runoff problem. Runoff is the portion of rainfall, snowmelt, and/or irrigation water that runs over the soil surface toward the stream rather than infiltrating into the soil. Each soil type has an infiltration rate (the amount of water able to enter the soil in a specified time period) and infiltration capacity (the upper limit of infiltration rate). However in urban areas the infiltration rate could be close to zero because of the impervious areas (roofs, driveways, parking lots, pavements, compacted soils). Consequently the runoff in urban areas is large and it is a major component of flash floods. In addition runoff flows can pick up soil contaminants such as petroleum, pesticides, fertilizers, trace metals, etc.

Credit: http://www.riversides.org

The rain gardens capture the initial flow of storm water and reduce the accumulation of toxins flowing directly into natural waterways. Thus the stormwater soaks into the ground instead of flow directly to storm drains.  In addition, they help to control erosions due the excessive runoff. Similarly to green roofs, rain gardens have to be adapted to place and situation. For example, native plants are recommended (for both) because they are more tolerant of one’s local climate, soil, and water conditions.

A place which has a rain garden and a green roof is more environmental friendly and it is also helping to save the world, right? Well, it is important to remember the costs and maintenance of these products. Be green does not mean cheap or easy. However the advantages of green roof and rain garden such as energy savings, runoff and pollution reduction, temperature control should also be considered. Maybe you won’t save the world but you can save a few bucks and have a better lifestyle. Besides, it is St. Patrick’s day, so green is the official color.

More about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_garden

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_runoff

http://www.riversides.org/rainguide/riversides_hgr.php?cat=2&page=39&subpage=92&subpage2=45

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_roof

http://commons.bcit.ca/greenroof/information-and-resources/backgrounders/

http://www.greenroofs.com/TV.htm

How is Artificial Intelligence Helping the Environment?

February 16, 2015 — 1 Comment

Recently, one of the most intelligent man alive, the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, said in an interview: “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”. Should we be afraid of Artificial intelligence (AI) because the machines could take over the human race (similarly to the terminator)? For the environmental science point of view, AI so far has been really helpful. First what is AI? There are different definitions, but one of my favourites is:

[The automation of] activities that we associate with human thinking, activities such as decision-making, problem solving, learning…
(Hellman 1978)

Thus, it is basically the use of machines (e.g. computers) to solve problems and to help complex decisions. There is a branch of AI called machine learning (ML). It is a scientific discipline which studies computational algorithms that can learn from data. One of the applications of the ML algorithms is to use some particular data to perform classification and numerical regression. But how is ML helping the environment?

Satellites (remote sensing) generate thousands of data every day. Images around the globe with different frequencies band (infrared, microwave, visible to the human eye, etc), time and scales. But How useful can be those images? One example is to detect phytoplankton in the ocean. Phytoplankton are important components to sustain the aquatic food web. The importance of them is beyond of being food for krills. Accurate estimates of chlorophyll concentrations (consequently phytoplankton) are essential for estimating primary productivity, biomass, etc.

Image Credit: NASA

Image Credit: NASA

It is possible to use satellites to detect phytoplankton presence in the ocean due the concentration chlorophyll in the surface water. Each frequency channel has a purpose. For example, at certain wavelengths, sand reflects more energy than green vegetation while at other wavelengths it absorbs more (reflects less) energy. However, even using satellites this is not a easy task. Aerosol concentrations could affect the ocean colour viewed from the satellite. Further complications arise when there are also suspended sediments,and/or dissolved organic matter from decayed vegetation in the water. In addition coastal water quality gradually degrades from increased pollution and human activities. To overcome those problems, ML algorithms such as artificial neural networks and support vector machines are used to automatically classify (separating chlorophyll from aerosols, pollution, etc) and detect the presence of phytoplankton in the ocean.

Credit: Nasa

It is also possible to use remote sensing to classify and detect land cover applying the same algorithms to identify and classify different types of vegetation including forests, dead trees in the forest, forest fires, portion of regenerated trees after forest fires, etc. With accurate information is possible to avoid more deforestation, track urbanization, mitigate diseases, understand and control ecosystems, planning, etc.

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These are only small samples of how AI is used in environmental sciences. There are so many contributions that is unfair to give only a few examples about the topic.

More about:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/RemoteSensing/remote.php

Sources:

William Hsieh (2009). Machine Learning Methods in the Environmental Sciences Cambridge DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511627217

Keiner, L., & Yan, X. (1998). A Neural Network Model for Estimating Sea Surface Chlorophyll and Sediments from Thematic Mapper Imagery Remote Sensing of Environment, 66 (2), 153-165 DOI: 10.1016/S0034-4257(98)00054-6

Schiller, H., & Doerffer, R. (2005). Improved determination of coastal water constituent concentrations from MERIS data IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 43 (7), 1585-1591 DOI: 10.1109/TGRS.2005.848410

Dash, J., Mathur, A., Foody, G., Curran, P., Chipman, J., & Lillesand, T. (2007). Land cover classification using multi‐temporal MERIS vegetation indices International Journal of Remote Sensing, 28 (6), 1137-1159 DOI: 10.1080/01431160600784259

Changing Ecosystems for the Good. Another Glimpse of Hope

February 8, 2015 — Leave a comment

Fact: Humans are changing the world and our landscape and consequently some ecosystems. Is it good or bad? I must admit, my last posts are not really encouraging. We are changing our landscape more for the bad. Sometimes I am searching the internet and then I find hope. After a beautiful ecosystem being totally changed to an infertile ground, Is it possible to rehabilitate it? In Green Gold environmental film maker John D. Liu documents large-scale ecosystem restoration projects in China, Africa, South America and the Middle East, highlighting the enormous benefits for people and planet of undertaking these efforts globally.

I couldn’t believe. It is true! This movie proves if humans want to they can do amazing things for the good. I’d like to see more projects like that. I have more links, I will try to read more about it and post here.