Health & Environment

Studies have shown that moisture commonly found in conventional flush urinals can act as a host to a number or microbes, bacteria and even viruses. When a water using urinal is flushed these pathogens become airborne settling either on the surrounding surfaces or being inhaled by the urinal user. A second major source of potential contamination with a flush type urinal is the flush valve handle. It should be noted that non water using urinals eliminates these potential sources of pathogenic contamination.

The chemical reaction between urine and water, which commonly occurs with the use of flush type urinals, is responsible for the formation of ammonia oxide. It is this reaction that produces the some of the odors frequently occurring where urinals are in use. By choosing to use non water urinals this chemical reaction is reduced along with the resulting unpleasant odors. Yes---the restroom may actually smell better!

The Reality and Impacts of Climate Change

The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change and a panel of the US National Academy of Sciences (commissioned by George Bush) are agreed on the three main points:1)the earth is warming;2)human activities is largely to blame; and 3)the warming trend is likely to accelerate in the years ahead.   The implications are profound and will affect fundamental human survival needs ranging from food security to a reliable water supply to the loss of land to rising oceans.

• US freshwater stocks are low. Global warming, which has been blamed for increased evaporation rates of surface water and the smaller mountains snowpacks the feed major rivers like the Colorado and the Columbia, is cited by many scientist as the biggest single culprit in some of the emerging water shortages.
• Ice caps and glaciers are melting. Mount Kilimanjaro has lost 75% of it's ice cap since 1912. The ice on Africa's tallest peak could vanish entirely in 15 years. The Northwest Passage is about to lose it grim impassable reputation thanks to global warming. Massive ice floes the have blocked all attempts to establish Arctic trade routes between the East and the West are now disappearing so quickly the the passage is expected to open up in the next few years.
• Island nations are disappearing as sea levels rise. Tuvalu, and island a few hundred miles northwest of American Samoa, is developing concrete emigration plans to evacuate its islands in the century, migrating its population of 11,000 to "host countries".

Greenhouse Effect

Energy from the Sun beats down on the Earth. Some energy is reflected into space, the rest enters the atmosphere. The Earth absorbs the energy and emits heat. Unlike other gases, greenhouse gases absorb and re-emit the heat energy - some is emitted into space and some back to Earth. The heat is effectively trapped and warms the Earth.

• The greenhouse effect is the natural process by which the atmosphere traps some of the Sun's energy, warming the Earth enough to support life.
• Most mainstream scientists believe a human-driven increase in "greenhouse gases" is increasing the effect artificially.
• These gases include carbon dioxide, emitted by fossil fuel burning and deforestation, and methane, released from rice paddies and landfill sites.

• The US space agency's latest research into climate change has revealed a dramatic thinning of some ice regions in Antarctica.
• A number of glaciers have been observed to be advancing into the ocean at eight times the rate they were a decade ago.
• Much of the data for this research is gathered by a series of low-level flights by aircraft fitted with special equipment.
  
• Many water-scarce regions now will probably become thirstier
  
  

Climate change: Uncharted waters?

• Climate change is our biggest environmental challenge, says the UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair. His chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, calls it a far greater global threat than international terrorism.
• It is certainly possible that warming temperatures could take the Earth into uncharted waters, even though nobody can say exactly how fast it may happen and who will be most affected.
• Life on Earth exists only because of the natural greenhouse effect, the ability of the atmosphere to retain enough heat for species to thrive (and no more).
• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a consortium of several thousand independent scientists, says rising levels of industrial pollution are unnaturally enhancing this effect, with increasing amounts of heat trapped near the Earth instead of escaping into space.
• The main culprits, it says, are the burning of fossil fuels - oil, coal and gas - and changes in land use.
• The chief greenhouse gas from human activities is carbon dioxide (CO2).
• Before the Industrial Revolution, atmospheric CO2 concentrations were about 270-280 parts per million (ppm).
• They now stand at almost 380ppm, and have been rising at about 1.5ppm annually.

Rising temperatures

• The consequence of increasing CO2 and other pollutant levels, the IPCC says, will be higher average global temperatures, meaning unpredictable weather, rising sea levels, and perhaps runaway heating as the whole climate system slips out of gear.
• The IPCC predicts that if we go on as we are, by 2100 global sea levels will probably have risen by 9 to 88cm and average temperatures will be between 1.5 and 5.5C higher than now.

Sobering Facts

• But many who were once skeptics now accept that enhanced climate change is happening, and that we have to respond - not necessarily by trying to reduce its extent but by adapting to its effects.
• But the facts are sobering enough. We know that average global surface temperatures have risen by 0.6C in the last 140 years.
• All of the 10 warmest years have occurred since 1990, including each year since 1997.
• Higher temperatures may release more methane from the Arctic tundra and CO2 from peat bogs, which will themselves speed up the warming process.
• And wildlife, less equipped to adapt than humans, could be hit hard. One estimate suggests hundreds of thousands of species may be at risk of extinction by 2050 because of climate change.
• And what's happening now could lead to a world beyond our experience.