Environmental Nightmare Research Articles

PFAS: The Journey from Wonder Chemicals to Environmental Nightmares and the Search for Solutions

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are diverse synthetic chemicals manufactured over seven decades. It is an aliphatic molecule with a basic hydrophobic structure of carbon and fluorine linked to a hydrophilic end group. Due to their physicochemical properties associated with the unique structure, PFAS has been used in a wide variety of applications including aqueous film-forming foams (AFFF), paper, carpets, non-stick cookware, etc. as they make products resistant to water, heat, and stains. These molecules have drawn great attention recently for their unique properties, high stability and low degradability, and so-called “Forever Chemicals”. PFAS has the strongest carbon-fluorine bond which makes them persistent in the environment. Hence it contaminates natural resources and endangers public health. This review discusses the discovery, development, and evolution of PFAS from the wonder chemical era to a nightmare chemical era, exposure and its impacts on human health and the environment, current remediation techniques, and future trends of PFAS molecules and related products. The primary objective of this review is to identify knowledge gaps on PFAS contamination, remediation methods, and possible PFAS alternatives.

Clara Orban. Slow Places in Béla Tarr’s Films: The Intersection of Geography, Ecology, and Slow Cinema

Clara Orban. <i>Slow Places in Béla Tarr’s Films: The Intersection of Geography, Ecology, and Slow Cinema</i>

Victorian Environmental Nightmares, edited by Laurence W. Mazzeno and Ronald D. Morrison

Reviewed by: Victorian Environmental Nightmares ed. by Laurence W. Mazzeno and Ronald D. Morrison Ailise Bulfin (bio) Victorian Environmental Nightmares, edited by Laurence W. Mazzeno and Ronald D. Morrison; pp. xi + 273. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, $119.99, £79.99. Seeking to open new lines of inquiry for Victorian ecocriticism and address a notable gap within it, Laurence W. Mazzeno and Ronald D. Morrison’s Victorian Environmental Nightmares focuses on the dark side of Victorian literary engagements with the environment, aptly encapsulated in its arresting cover image of a spectral figure symbolizing deadly Thames pollution. This edited collection thus focuses on texts that offer insight into what it calls Victorian environmental nightmares, defined briefly as “actual and imagined environmental crises during the Victorian Age” (8). In doing so, it follows the relatively recent turn in ecocriticism from examining how the nonhuman world is represented in literature to focusing more specifically on representations of environmental degradation and catastrophe, often through the lens of the Anthropocene and inspired by contemporary awareness of the spiralling climate and biodiversity emergencies. As such, the collection is an important intervention in Victorian environmental criticism and one of the first full-length works to address this subject. A key strength of the book is its broad, inclusive approach, expanding the parameters of what the editors view as a “developing” “canon” of Victorian ecocritical genres, authors, and texts (4). The collection places essays on expected authors, such as John Ruskin, Charles Dickens, and H. G. Wells, in productive conjunction with essays on authors not yet typically considered from this perspective, such as Ouida and Oscar Wilde. Chapters pursue the theme of environmental crisis across an extensive range of sources, from mid-century realism and poetry to travel writing and children’s natural history, finde-siècle speculative fiction, and fairy tales. Taken together, the essays demonstrate both the transgeneric prevalence of this theme in Victorian writing and the corresponding presence of some form of environmental awareness and concern in Victorian society. In keeping with its inclusive stance, the collection imposes no prescribed critical or theoretical approach, though many contributors deftly apply critical tools from the interrelated frameworks of environmental humanities and postcolonialism to reveal [End Page 433] how the texts problematize human exceptionalism and critique the capitalist socio-economic structures underpinning the environmental degradation depicted within them. John Miller and Alicia Carroll use the lens of eco-apocalypse to reveal, respectively, the radical, even utopian, extinctionist strain in James Thomson’s The City of Dreadful Night (1874) and the paradox in Ouida’s environmentalist The Waters of Edera (1900), in which “nature” versus “modernity” is framed as a zero-sum game that leaves no room for recovery, “thereby effectively curtailing an ecological futurity” (149). Other contributors deploy the concept of the Anthropocene. Mark Frost reads late-Victorian disaster tales as “early intimations of the crises of identity, being, and agency that the Anthropocene prompts,” while Shun Yin Kiang critiques the concept’s inherent anthropocentrism by showing how Wells decenters the role of the human in the island ecology depicted in The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) (249–50). Together, these two essays draw attention to the ways in which all Victorian literature can be viewed as Anthropocene writing, extending Jesse Oak Taylor’s contention regarding the novel’s complicity in producing this epoch of massive human inscription on the nonhuman world. Despite, or perhaps because of, the collection’s wide-ranging, theoretically diverse approach, many synergies arise from the assembled essays—though the editors could have done more to highlight these in the introduction. Most notably, the essays collectively work to nuance scholarly understandings of Victorian environmental consciousness by revealing key differences as well as similarities between nineteenth-century and current perspectives, rather than simply reading contemporary views onto historical texts. Several contributors show how some Victorian authors conceived of the unadulterated nonhuman world as a threatening, hostile environment, notably Morrison’s deployment of the eco-gothic to illuminate Frances Trollope’s horror in Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832) at the threat posed by the uncultivated parts of the Western U. S. to the nascent domestic realm. Sara Atwood convincingly argues that the mythic and apocalyptic...

Flame retardant PP/PA6 blends: A recipe for recycled wastes

AbstractDisposal of plastics in the form of discarded scrap or waste is an environmental nightmare to the developed and under-developing countries. In this sense, modern technologies are every day growing; meanwhile recycling wastes are taking credit for higher performance to pave the way towards a cleaner planet. Recycling of polymer blends is associated with serious complexities in finding appropriate additives acting in each phase or at the interface of non-miscible polymers to attain materials with higher properties. A flame retardant system was designed and intended to play the role of typical recycled flame retardant polypropylene/polyamide (PP/PA6) blends by incorporation of two kinds of talc, sepiolite, and a phosphorus-based flame retardant. First, two types of talcs having different physical properties were added to PA6 in combination with melamine cyanurate (MC) or melamine pyrophosphate (MPP) to find the one acting as a barrier during combustion. Then, high-aspect-ratio talc that appeared more effective in the first-stage survey was then used in combination with MC, MPP and ammonium polyphosphate (APP) together with a compatibilizer for PP/PA6 blend. Then, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), microcalorimeter of combustion (PCFC) and cone calorimeter measurements were performed to study thermal degradation and flammability behavior. The results are indicative of successful formulation of flame retardant system containing the aforementioned precursors to be intended to the recycled PP/PA6 blends.

Environmental dystopias: Margaret Atwood and the monstrous child

ABSTRACTThe future of childhood is often described in terms of utopian thinking. Here, the turn is towards dystopia as a fertile source of wild imaginings about the future. The dystopian literary fictions featured here act as a message and are projections of an uneasy future requiring a reader to see the present differently. Such projections make reading dangerous as they create an alternative world often disorderly and dismissive of contexts that are familiar and safe. In these scenarios, the child is often a key figure. In the work by Atwood (Oryx and Crake; The Year of the Flood; MaddAddam), the world is an environmental nightmare. The focus is on MaddAddam, in which the child is an object of desire and both monstrous and redemptive. A reading of MaddAddam as a posthuman text is undertaken and it is argued that Atwood's dystopia creates a discourse of monstrosity (both weird and beautiful) that contaminates thoughts about the child/children/childhood and the future.

Oil on zap!

Hambling talks about microwave zapping. Engineer Peter Kearl sees microwaves as the answer to humans' energy woes. As the world debates whether fracking for oil and gas is an economic godsend or an environmental nightmare, Kearl thinks zapping the ground with microwaves could provide a cleaner, greener way to get those fuels out. Microwaves can exploit an underappreciated feature of some hydrocarbons: while they can be an asphalt-like solid at room temperature, they become liquid with a little heating. The trouble is getting the heat down into the kinds of permeable racks that trap oil and gas.

Making critical connections through interdisciplinary analysis: exploring the impacts of Marcellus shale development

The term “fracking” simultaneously conjures up images of extractive technologies, community tensions, and stories of overnight wealth and environmental nightmares. The introduction and rapid expansion of hydraulic fracturing technology to develop oil and gas resources in shale plays across the USA has created complex and interrelated socio-economic, biophysical, and geopolitical challenges. In the Marcellus shale region, distinct but interrelated issues of water security, health, energy, and community overlap in the broader socio-ecological system and further illuminate the daunting character of drilling for natural gas and other hydrocarbons. This special issue of the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences intentionally focuses on hydrocarbon development in the Marcellus shale, but situates this dialogue in the context of a broader, transdisciplinary approach to realizing a sustainable energy system. The interdisciplinary research published here examines the far-reaching complexities and consequences of the impacts of rapid, intensive natural resource development, including the role that access to information and inclusion in decision making have in connecting the global to the local facilitating critical evaluation of the long-term sustainability of development decisions at multiple scales.

Green Illusions: The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism by Ozzie Zehner

 OHQ vol. 114, no. 2 By the mid nineteenth century, it became one of the most common languages in the Pacific Northwest,spoken by Native people,Hawaiian and Scottish employees of the Hudson’s Bay Company,Chinese,andAmerican wagon train pioneers.The story of ChinookWawa has been toldmanytimesbylinguistsandhistorians,and Chinuk Wawa: As Our Elders Teach Us to Speak It is among the latest. The book was produced collaboratively with the ChinukWawa Dictionary Project of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon. The Grand Ronde Tribe is ideally situated to offer a fresh perspective on Chinook Wawa. Established in the 1850s,the reservation became the home of Indian people from all over western Oregon,including speakers of Multnomah, Clackamas, Upper Chinook, Molala, at least three dialects of Kalapuyan, Athapaskan dialects from the Umpqua River, Takalma, many dialects of Oregon coast Penutian languages, Shastan,and several others.ChinookWawa was the lingua franca among those peoples,and for many generations has been a source of cultural continuity, strength, and identity. The book includes a short introduction, an extensive dictionary and grammar of Chinook Wawa with guides to pronunciation, and a series of transcriptions of tribal elders reciting stories in thelanguage.Therearebiographicalsketchesof the elders and their families,photographs,and discussions of the participation of linguists, such as Melville Jacobs and Henry Zenk, with Chinuk Wawa speakers at Grand Ronde over the years.The book is ideal for educational settings and is currently used in immersion classes on the Grand Ronde Reservation. The Chinook Wawa dictionary is clearly a labor of love and is a useful and accessible reference of the language and its context. The transcribed stories from the Hudson,Wacheno, Kenoyer, LaBonte, Riggs, and other families are particularly evocative, and range from adventures of Coyote to stories of daily life on the reservation to lullabies and love songs.Collectively , they capture some of the traditions, history, and aspirations of several generations of Grand Ronde people in a way unavailable in other historical,linguistic,or anthropological works. In this sense, the book channels the spirit of Chinuk Wawa as it facilitates communication between people across cultures, time, and geography. Mark Tveskov Southern Oregon University Green Illusions: The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism by Ozzie Zehner University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2012. Illustrations, tables, notes, index. 464 pages. $29.95 paper. This audacious and rewarding book by University of California,Berkeley,researcher Ozzie Zehner takes direct aim at a durable narrative inthecontemporaryenvironmentalmovement that grants legitimacy and authority to alternative energy technologies: if only the developed world would switch to cleaner energies, then we would live in a more sustainable, less toxic, and more socially responsible world. In Green Illusions,Zehner makes a convincing argument that this kind of thinking is terribly misguided. After reading his book, I am inclined to agree with him. The book is divided into two roughly equal halves:the first deals with the litany of environmental problems associated with alternative energy solutions; the second with theoretical and practical suggestions for reducing our collective carbon footprint. Zehner goes over the important alternatives to fossil fuels and then eviscerates each one.Some of the author’s missivesin this“colonoscopyon theU.S.energy infrastructure”cover familiar ground and contain few new insights — such as pointing out the dangers associated with hydrofracking for natural gas;exposing the fantasy of“clean coal”  Reviews waste sequestration; explaining the carbon impact of producing biofuels; and describing the environmental nightmare that is nuclear waste (p. xviii). In the most interesting and provocative sections of part one,Zehner levels his sights on the technologies that the political Left adores,especially wind power,solar power,and hybrid and electric vehicles.Readers learn that the problem of scale dooms all wind power schemes, since it would take a line of turbines one hundred miles long to replace the capacity of a single coal-fired plant. And the photovoltaic cells used in solar panels, like most everything else in the manufactured world, come from finite mineral deposits that cannot be replenished in anything but a geologic timeframe. Green cars, such as the Toyota Prius and Chevy Volt, use batteries that deplete trace elements and become...

China Amasses War Chest to Confront Its Environmental Nightmares

In a nod to rising public expectations, China's government work plan for 2010, rolled out last week at the country's two major annual political powwows, puts the environment front and center.

Carbon Capture &amp; Storage: Blue-Sky Technology or Just Blowing Smoke?

Towering 650 feet over the sea surface and spouting an impressive burning flare, it would be easy to mistake the Sleipner West gas platform for an environmental nightmare. Its eight-story upper deck houses 200 workers and supports drilling equipment weighing 40,000 tons. Located off the Norwegian coast, it ranks among Europe’s largest natural gas producers, delivering more than 12 billion cubic feet of the fuel annually to onshore terminals by pipeline. Roughly 9% of the natural gas extracted here is carbon dioxide (CO2), the main culprit behind global warming. But far from a nightmare, Sleipner West is actually a bellwether for environmental innovation. Since 1996, the plant’s operators have stripped CO2 out of the gas on-site and buried it 3,000 feet below the sea floor, where they anticipate it will remain for at least 10,000 years. We believe [CCS] is a viable way to cut global warming pollution. . . . We have the knowledge we need to start moving forward. –David Hawkins, Natural Resources Defense Council Operated by StatoilHydro, Norway’s largest company, Sleipner is among the few commercial-scale facilities in the world today that capture and bury CO2 underground. Many experts believe this practice, dubbed carbon capture and storage (sometimes known as carbon capture and sequestration, but in either case abbreviated CCS), could be crucial for keeping industrial CO2 emissions out of the atmosphere. Sleipner injects 1 million tons of CO2 annually into the Utsira Formation, a saline aquifer big enough to store 600 years’ worth of emissions from all European power plants, company representatives say. With mounting evidence of climate change—and predictions that fossil fuels could supply 80% of global energy needs indefinitely—the spotlight on CCS is shining as brightly as the Sleipner flare. A panel of experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently concluded that CCS is “the critical enabling technology to reduce CO2 emissions significantly while allowing fossil fuels to meet growing energy needs.” The panel’s views were presented in The Future of Coal, a report issued by MIT on 14 March 2007. Environmental groups are split on the issue. Speaking for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), David Hawkins, director of the council’s Climate Center and a member of the MIT panel’s external advisory committee, says, “We believe [CCS] is a viable way to cut global warming pollution. . . . We have the knowledge we need to start moving forward.” Other environmental groups, including the World Resources Institute, Environmental Defense, and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, have also come out in support of CCS. These groups view CCS as one among many alternatives (including renewable energy) for reducing CO2 emissions. Greenpeace is perhaps the most vocal critic of CCS. Truls Gulowsen, Greenpeace’s Nordic climate campaigner, stresses that CCS deflects attention from renewable energy and efficiency improvements, which, he says, offer the best solutions to the problem of global warming. “Companies are doing a lot of talking about CCS, but they’re doing little to actually put it into place,” he says. “So, they’re talking about a possible solution that they don’t really want to implement now, and at the same time, they’re trying to push for more coal, oil, and gas development instead of renewables, which we already know can deliver climate benefits.”

Is Taiwan's political and economic development an environmental nightmare?

More than a century ago, naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace was impressed with the ecological beauty of Taiwan noting that, ‘Among recent continental islands there is probably none that surpasses in...

RESPONSE CAPABILITY: CAN ECONOMICS JUSTIFY SUSTAINABILITY?1

ABSTRACT This paper explores the motivations for corporate engagement in environmentally sustainable behavior. Although there are several reasons for companies to apply environmentally sustainable business practices, the most enticing are economic. Like a pendulum, the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 responded to a full left swing of potential major disasters and brought the weight to the far right. These regulations established requirements for the response equipment/personnel needed in the event of a worst-case discharge. Also due to the significant efforts of established pollution prevention regulations, the past decade has seen a drastic drop in the number of spills and the amount of oil discharged. The strides toward improvement are impressive, but the reduction in spills, seems to be leading toward regionalization of local response assets and elimination of excess duplication by not replacing unserviceable equipment. Effective responses are also a key part of environmental sustainability. The end result could be a very expensive response, which could be simply averted by retaining current levels of local response capability. Understanding that the primary objective of any company is profit, environmental protection can provide one path toward financial reward. This includes, but is not limited to a “green” public image, which generally increases the consumer base and profits. The economic benefits of environmentally sound business practices, however, are not always initially apparent. Therefore, monetary gain may not always present sufficient motivation. In this case, proponents of environmental sustainability can cite social responsibility as cause, or look to the federal government for support and control. In an effort to stop the swing of the pendulum between a major disaster and the inability to respond, companies should be encouraged to maintain response capabilities at their current levels and to recognize that a loss of local response resources could be both an environmental and financial nightmare.

Environmental insurance: Enhancing and adding value to business transactions

Business transactions come in three forms: simple, complex or impossible. Impossible equates to a transaction that has been abandoned because one or both parties sees no potential gain—financial or otherwise—in completing the transaction. Providing such a compact definition for complex transactions is not as simple. Complex transactions often involve negotiation. As we all know, negotiated transactions usually require a sacrifice of either time or money, often both. These sacrifices usually results in reducing the value of the transaction. It also creates inefficiency because of the amount of time it takes to sort through all the options, negotiate, and renegotiate. The bottom line is that the key component that makes a transaction “complex is the willingness of either party to assume or agree to taking on risk. In the world of environmental risk, these factors are often exacerbated by a level of uncertainty that accompanies environmental liability. It's not hard to imagine the complexity of dealing with an environmental liability and, from a business owner's perspective, the following concerns are common: For a known environmental condition, what is the total cost of cleanup? What's the guarantee that costs won't exceed what is allocated? What if regulations change? What if the cleanup technology does not work in the time frame allowed‐which may be deal sensitive? What if another environmental condition is found that was not previously identified? If another party indemnifies my company for the cost, what is the value of that indemnity...will they be around five, ten, or even twenty years from now? Or, from a lender's perspective: How can we lend on property that has no or negative collateral value? For unknown conditions, what level of due diligence is enough? If an environmental nightmare is discovered, could it have been identified sooner? How much time and money can be spent studying a transaction before the research cost and time reduce the potential opportunity? As a lender, will the borrower remain sound if an environmental condition is discovered? If a condition is discovered, what collateral exists to secure the loan balance? The question must be asked: Is fear of environmental risk stifling growth and market expansion for developers, lenders, or growth companies? And, what conditions of sale exist in a transaction to address unknowns, and risks that parties to a transaction would be willing to accept. Equally important, is ensuring that an organization has evaluated environmental risk for new conditions alongside other exposures faced in the business operations. Implementing loss control measures to help minimize risk, as well as examining what risk can be assumed and what should be transferred are strategic, sound business practices. This is where environmental insurance comes into play. Environmental insurance offers a critical mechanism by which to remove environmental risk from the transaction table. By moving risk out of the negotiation to a third‐party insurer, environmental insurance can increase efficiency and bring about successful completion, whether the transaction is a merger or acquisition, a securitization of a loan pool, a lending commitment, a redevelopment project, environmental disclosure, or satisfaction of regulatory obligations. Through the use of numerous examples, the authors will try to illustrate the value provided by today's environmental insurance market in business transactions. After twenty years of development, the insurance contracts have proven meaningful to many transactions and continue to be written to meet the needs of individual insureds.

Peer Reviewed: Megacities: Sweet Dreams or Environmental Nightmares?

Absent external financing mechanisms, megacity problems in developing nations may be insurmountable.

Small Community Beats PCE Contamination

To many of us, life in a rural community means a healthy, pollution‐free environment‐‐clean streets, fresh air, and safe drinking water. Thoughts of chemical contamination seem out of place in such pleasant surroundings. But the flowered meadows and rippling creeks, which attract so many retirees and big‐city dropouts, may hide an environmental nightmare. The truth is communities of all sizes‐‐and the water systems that serve them‐‐are vulnerable to contamination. This article happens to focus on one small rural system located near Centralia, Washington, and what happened when they found extremely high levels of tetrachloroethylene (PCE) in their drinking water.

The environmental nightmare of the economic miracle: Land abuse and land struggles in Taiwan

The environmental nightmare of the economic miracle: Land abuse and land struggles in Taiwan

America's Worst Environmental Nightmare: The U.S. Military's Toxic Legacy

America's Worst Environmental Nightmare: The U.S. Military's Toxic Legacy

Reducing groundwater pollution by toxic substances: Procedures and policies

One major source of water-related health problems is the improper disposal of toxic substances in the environment. Toxic materials leaching from unregulated and unlined pits, ponds, lagoons, and landfills have created a widespread environmental nightmare in the United States and many other parts of the world. At present, there are two major and interrelated components of this problem in the United States. The first is the issue of cleaning up abandoned disposal sites that pose actual or potential threats to water supplies. The second aspect of the problem concerns the necessity of siting proper management, treatment, or disposal facilities in the future. Priorities must be set to allow efficient, effective, and equitable allocation of the scarce resources that are available for accomplishing these tasks.