Saturday, December 15, 2012

I Love the Environment (part II)

I wear size 8 shoes. It turns out my carbon footprint is also 8. Every year, I am responsible for the equivalent of 8 tons of carbon dioxide* entering our atmosphere. These molecules absorb infrared light from the sun and begin to vibrate - they get hotter. My footprint would have been less than 5 if I hadn't taken a trip back to Australia last year (them jet airliners burn through a lot of fuel!). But my vegetarian diet and lack of a car work in my favor - the average American has a footprint more than double mine. Most other countries are less polluting, with your average Chinese and European denizen having a footprint comparable to that of moi. Among the worst offenders is Australia :( My nation lives off coal exports, resulting in a whopping 28 tons of carbon dioxide per Aussie!

After finishing grad school three and a half years ago, I decided to holiday my way through Western Europe (yup, that's 3 tons of carbon dioxide right there!). Well, it wasn't strictly a holiday - I was there to attend the Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Germany. Picture hundreds of chemistry grad students from around the world hanging out with a couple dozen Chemistry Laureates. It was all rather exciting, perhaps the highlight for me being the lectures by Professors Molina, Crutzen and Rowland. These guys discovered how certain chemicals destroy the ozone layer (the Earth's "sunscreen"). As if global warming wasn't bad enough, now we had a second problem on our hands - instead of being absorbed or reflected, the harmful UV rays from the sun were getting all the way to our Earth :(

Last year, I once again had the pleasure of meeting a Nobel Laureate, a certain Prof. Solomon who was visiting UIUC to deliver a lecture. Ms Solomon was part of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, a body which had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I was lucky enough to have been allocated a one hour meeting with her, during which we could discuss research. Needless to say, I diligently put a presentation together highlighting all my plans for converting carbon dioxide into useful chemicals. Transforming a pollutant into a valuable material is like killing two birds with one stone and I was excited to disclose my plans to her. It was late afternoon and we met in my office, went through my work and chatted about climate change and what not. That lasted all of ten minutes. She told me about her adventures to Antarctica to collect ice core samples to quantify the carbon dioxide trapped inside, thereby tracking CO2 levels over the course of many years. She said I should visit the South Pole sometime. I responded by telling her yours truly was cold enough in Illinois and that traveling to Antarctica would be lunacy. She then changed topic by asking me about my story, about which we talked for over an hour. Indeed, the tale of a woman traveling from Hong Kong to Europe, meeting a Swiss man and settling down in Australia appeared much more interesting to her than my research proposal. Fair enough, talking exclusively about chemistry can be a little much sometimes.

While I enjoyed the meeting immensely, the one thought that had stuck with me afterwards was a negative one. She had told me that ordinary people can't really change their carbon footprint much. This had deflated me a little - she was saying that your average peep can't make a difference to our environment. While I understand that individuals can do little to affect how products are manufactured and the way in which energy is processed (although in some countries one can pay extra to have part of one's power bill come from renewables), I beg to differ. However small, our actions have important consequences for the future of our planet and our kids and grandkids. Every little bit counts, so: do take the stairs, do buy those locally grown vegetables, do ride your bike. And next time someone says you can't make a difference - don't believe them for a second :)

When the time comes for me to leave this Earth I hope that I will have done as much as I can to enrich the lives of others. Conversely, I want to have done as little as possible to disturb the environment that we all share. Professors Molina, Crutzen and Rowland, elder statesmen in the chemistry world, had got me fascinated in atmospheric science, an area very unrelated to my research. It's fair to say the next generation of scientists has big shoes to fill. But they also have smaller footprints to make.

*For those interested in chemistry: other anthropogenic greenhouse gases are included in this figure. For example, my existence might also result in nitrous oxide and methane production. Owing to their high absorptivities, these are far worse than carbon dioxide (laughing gas is no laughing matter, if you'll excuse the bad joke). Their contributions are included in the "carbon dioxide equivalents" and are scaled accordingly.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Make love, not war

While walking to the lab yesterday, I recalled an event that transpired on a school excursion sixteen years ago. I was in the eighth grade at the time and the seniors at my high school had gone on a trip, which was, however, marred by an incident which was to become infamous and the subject of discussion in NSW State Parliament.

Said the Honorable R. S. L. Jones: "It is with regret that I have a very serious matter to report to this House. Last week approximately 100 year 12 students from Normanhurst Boys High School were taken on a field study excursion to Broken Hill. They were led by social science master Peter Plant, and science teacher Philip Blackman. The boys came across a baby goat, and I am informed that they were given the options of leaving the goat alone, taking it into town and selling it, or killing it. One of the boys, whose name I have but obviously do not intend to publish, took the goat and threw it down a cliff. The goat survived and the boys scrambled down the cliff, picked the goat up and threw it down again. The goat was still alive. Another boy, whose name I also have, then proceeded to stone the goat to death. If these facts as I have stated them are true, and I am reliably informed that they are, I ask the Minister for Education and Training to instigate an immediate investigation into the behavior of the boys and into the part played by the teachers. Did the teachers encourage these actions? If not, why did they not stop them? Why did the other students not stop the boys? I am absolutely horrified by this alleged gross cruelty to a baby goat. I seek an assurance from the Minister that he will order an immediate investigation."

Well, an investigation did happen and we ended up getting new geography teachers (not that it affected me since I hated geography and dropped it as soon as I could!). But the damage was done - not only in terms of the appalling suffering of the goat, but also with respect to the School's reputation. Our School motto of "Know Thyself" had been jokingly reworded by some to "Throw Thy Goat".

Yogis have five observances (yamas) that we, well, observe. Arguably the most important of these is non-harming (ahimsa). Regardless of whether we're vegans or vegetarians, omnivores or a carnivores, we are all human. And as long as we practice ahimsa, we can all be humane.

P.S. I was reminded of this event when I turned the clock back three three years to my arrival in Champaign. After having my granola one morning, I noticed a lady beetle in my house, which I frantically tried to trap. It eluded me for ten minutes, after which it was finally caught in between my mug and a wall. I slid a piece of paper in between the mug and wall, so I could move the critter, open my window and let the little guy fly into the big wide world, where it would have food to eat and other bugs to meet and greet. After arriving at work late, I was told by a co-worker that these orange bugs were invasive pests. Apparently, the real ladybugs were red, or something like that. But I didn't regret my actions and at least I learned something along the way. I've since trapped and released several spiders of late, which might not sound like a big deal, but given my arachnophobia I'm proud of myself. Come to think of it, I'm scared of any animal with more than four legs (*recalling incident where students laughed at me for running away from a moth 
while TA-ing*) but I don't mean them any harm.