Virulent E-Coli strain lives in grain-fed cattle.

Byoliveridley

Interesting side note about the spinach E-Coli outbreak

Leafy Green Sewage – New York Times

Where does this particularly virulent strain come from? It’s not found in the intestinal tracts of cattle raised on their natural diet of grass, hay and other fibrous forage. No, O157 thrives in a new — that is, recent in the history of animal diets — biological niche: the unnaturally acidic stomachs of beef and dairy cattle fed on grain, the typical ration on most industrial farms. It’s the infected manure from these grain-fed cattle that contaminates the groundwater and spreads the bacteria to produce, like spinach, growing on neighboring farms.

Well, talk about unforeseen consequences, cows really should not eat grain. Go watch my favorite food cartoon ever, the Meatrix, and its most excellent sequel, The Meatrix 2: Revolting for more.

When cows were switched from a grain diet to hay for only five days, O157 declined 1,000-fold. This is good news. In a week, we could choke O157 from its favorite home — even if beef cattle were switched to a forage diet just seven days before slaughter, it would greatly reduce cross-contamination by manure of, say, hamburger in meat-packing plants.

Seems easy enough to implement, if impossible to enforce.

Update

A more nuanced look, if not a debunking of the above theory can be found on this scienceblogs page.

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  • What happens when…

    Byoliveridley

    the national science academies of the 13 most important countries release a landmark strong statement about the state of the world’s energy crisis? According to the grist, nobody listens. Well, here’s to my 10 or so readers (self deprecation is the best deprecation!), the rant!

    Bad news re: good news about bad news | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist

    The bad news is that we are in quite a pickle.

    The good news about the bad news is that the national science academies of the G8 countries, along with those of Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, China, and India, have issued a unanimous and remarkably strong statement about our global energy quandary.

    The bad news about the good news about the bad news is that the press is almost totally silent about it, at least in English-speaking countries.

    Among the crucial statements in this document (PDF):

    • “Our present energy course is not sustainable.”
    • “Responding to this demand while minimizing further climate change will need all the determination and ingenuity we can muster.”
    • “The problem is not yet insoluble but becomes more difficult with each passing day.”
    • “G8 countries bear a special responsibility for the current high level of energy consumption and the associated climate change. Newly industrialized countries will share this responsibility in the future.”

    Let me be as polite as I can stand about this. Where in the @$#! is the press?

    And it goes on in similar vein…

    If you read the pdf, you will note that it has the obvious solutions (obvious to the half alive, that is)

    1. Set standards and promote economic instruments for efficiency, and commit to promoting energy efficiency for buildings, devices, motors, transportation systems and in the energy sector itself.
    2. Promote understanding of climate and energy issues and encourage necessary behavioural changes within
      our societies.
    3. Define and implement measures to reduce global deforestation.
    4. Strengthen economic and technological exchange with developing countries, in order to leapfrog to cleaner and more efficient modern technologies.
    5. Invest strongly in science and technology related to energy efficiency, zero-carbon energy resources and carbon-removing technologies.

    Nothing new here, just a very easy policy framework under which every major action taken by every one of these countries (and others) needs to work. Of course, planning, evaluation, implementation, etc. are difficult, especially on the technology transfer, behavioral change, and deforestation, but evaluate every major decision under this framework. You will see that things like corn ethanol (promotes deforestation, carbon intensive, not energy efficient), coal to liquid technology (carbon intensive, polluting, inhibits behavioral change), suburban sprawl (energy inefficient, inhibits behavioral change, etc.), excessive patent protection and intellectual property rights (inhibits technology transfer), war (well, everything on the list, really!), and I can keep going on, are just plain stupid, irresponsible and will lead the world to ruin.

    just print that framework out (or better still, put it in your PDA) and evaluate every thing you read about energy policy using it. You’ll see why I beat my head against the wall a lot!

    Also, note this simple two sentence evisceration of the “China and India are not doing it, so we won’t” argument…

    G8 countries bear a special responsibility for the current high level of energy consumption and the associated climate change. Newly industrialized countries will share this responsibility in the future

    I would add, of course, that G8 countries bear both current, and historical responsibility, other than that, well said.

  • Volcanos and Climate Geoengineering

    Byoliveridley

    The first thing that occurred to me when I heard about the Sarychev eruption was whether it was going to be large enough to inject significant quantities of sulphate aerosol into the stratosphere. Apparently, it is.

    Sarychev Eruption Generates Large Cloud of Sulfur Dioxide

    When sulfur dioxide reacts with water vapor, it creates sulfate ions (the precursors to sulfuric acid), which are very reflective. Powerful volcanic eruptions can inject sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere, beyond the reach of cleansing rainfall. At these altitudes, the sulfates can linger for months or years, cooling the climate by reflecting incoming sunlight. (The effect is stronger when the eruptions occur at tropical latitudes.) Carn says the persistence of such high concentrations of sulfur dioxide in the OMI data throughout the week indicates that the plume from Sarychev Peak reached high altitudes. Data from other satellites (such as CALIPSO) suggest that the volcanic plume reached altitudes of 10–15 kilometers, and perhaps as high as 21 kilometers.

    In 1991, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines injected enough sulphate into the atmosphere to cause a 0.5° C drop in global temperature. This was caused by about 20 million tonnes of SO2. We are nowhere close to these kind of emission levels. After all, Pinatubo was one of the two biggest volcanic events of the century.

    Injecting sulphate particles into the stratosphere has been proposed for a while now, I first wrote about it in 2006 when a prominent atmospheric chemist, Paul Crutzen wrote an article proposing this. The science behind this proposal is basic, sulphate aerosols of the size that would be formed from the oxidation of SO2 are the right size to scatter and reflect solar radiation back into space (my Masters thesis did a first order estimate of this effect from Indian emissions!). If injected directly into the stratosphere, they can stay there for a long time and will not deposit to the the Earth’s surface as acid rain. The issue is managing all the crazy regional variations in climate that would result, and the attendant complications in assigning blame, etc. It would also not help the oceans, which would acidify to hell with all the CO2.

    Anyway, so much for that, the volcano is causing all kinds of havoc with Pacific travel and making for all kinds of cool pictures, which are about the most interesting thing happening at this point in time. We shall see how the sulphate situation plays out in the days to come when the dust settles.

  • |

    Canada to stop asbestos mining and stop defending it.

    Byoliveridley

    Canada’s long and sorry saga of exporting death (asbestos) and defending it loudly and proudly in international fora is over and I needed to mark this happy day on the blog. The newly elected provincial government in Quebec, the Parti Quebecois have followed through on their campaign promise to finally end this small “industry” employing a few workers. Canada will no longer produce asbestos, or fight the listing of asbestos as a toxic substance.

    It is going to take $50 million in government funds, a fraction of the cost of one fighter jet, to transition the workers away (if they get the money, not the mine owners). That’s it, why were we exporting death to India and other countries for this, I don’t know.

    Canada’s many conservative and liberal governments fought hard for years to preserve the industry, using techniques lifted from tobacco propaganda, or today’s climate change challenges. I leave you with the ruling Canadian government’s response: Finely tuned to appeal to everyone who likes mesothelioma, cancer and death.

    “Mrs. Marois’s decision to prohibit chrysotile mining in Quebec will have a negative impact on the future prosperity of the area,” (Industry Minister) Mr. Paradis said in a statement.

    That about sums it up. But, it is a good day for public health, nevertheless.

    Citing PQ pressure, Canada to cease defending asbestos mining – The Globe and Mail.

    Featured image courtesy wikipedia used under a Creative Commons license (a micrograph of asbestos fibres causing lesions in the lung).

  • |

    People way ahead of politicians on smoking

    Byoliveridley

    Dear state politicians, if you can’t lead, can you at least follow?? If you have not been following this issue, click here. North Carolina recently failed to pass a smoking ban in bars and restaurants.

    newsobserver.com | Poll finds support for tobacco ban

    More than two-thirds of North Carolina adults favor a statewide ban on smoking in public enclosed areas, such as restaurants, stadiums and shopping centers, according to a new poll by researchers at UNC-Chapel Hill.

  • PFOA Precursors to be phased out

    Byoliveridley

    Leftovers may explain perfluorinated compound puzzle:

    See my earlier post about this. Looks like the EPA did want the companies to phaseout not just the PFOA, but the precursor compouds as well, and according to this article, quite a bit of progress has been made.

    Eight companies have pledged to slash releases of several perfluorochemicals at their operations around the world, EPA announced on March 2.

    Arkema, Asahi, Ciba, Clariant, Daikin, DuPont, 3M/Dyneon, and Solvay Solexis have agreed to reduce emissions of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), its longer chain homologs, and compounds that can degrade into PFOA, EPA said. The companies will also reduce levels of these compounds in their products. Responding to a challenge EPA made in January, the eight firms volunteered to cut industrial releases of PFOA as well as amounts of the chemical in products 95% from 2000 levels by 2010 or earlier. The companies also pledged to work on eliminating releases and content of PFOA in products by 2015.

    Here are the individual companies’ commitment letters. They all loudly proclaim their commitment to reduce PFOA levels in their products, not quite so universally unequivocal on the precursors… I need a lawyer to parse some of the language. 3M, for instance, says that they do not “manufacture” the telomers’, which is not the same as saying they do not use them. Solvay Solexis, is extremely straigtforward and agrees to the EPA conditions in a letter actually written in plain English! Dupont, good letter too. Let’s see how this situation plays out, outright elimination in 10 years seems nice, which leads me to believe that the companies are already moving in this direction. The journal article suggests that the residuals are mainly due to inefficiencies in the manufacturing process. The reaction yield is 70%, meaning the 30% left behind from the monomer formation reaction will need to be removed from the product.