Today the Mayor of Rio de Janeiro announced that the bay where sailing will take place in the 2016 Summer Olympics will not be cleaned as once promised. Guanabara Bay, one of the world's most iconic expanses of water, suffers from a serious pollution problem despite its paradisiacal appearance on holiday brochures and tourism websites.
A cleaner area of the bay will play host to the races in just over two years, and Mr Paes has reassured athletes that they will face no risk in competing there. Beautiful beaches surround the bay, yet people are warned against bathing in the water because of the high levels of pollution. Search for Guanabara Bay in Google images and the engine kindly offers 'Guanabara Bay pollution' as a related search.
The bay is often compared to a sewer, and the Brazilian government's failure to completely clean it up will appall foreigners but will come as no surprise to the 10 million inhabitants of the metropolis.
It begs the questions of where the government's priorities lie. With the World Cup starting in Brazil in a matter of days, the pressure has been on to build stadiums and infrastructure as well as dealing with nationwide social issues. The tidying up and clearing out of dirt and crime ridden favelas has garnered much attention, maybe to the detriment of the environment. The International Olympic Committee does have a history of this; the situation brings back memories of Beijing 2008 and the controversy around the city's terrible smog problem.
What's more, the IOC's seemingly benevolent motives for bringing the Olympic Games to Rio are now even being called into question...
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-27752499
What We Learnt Today
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Sunday, 8 June 2014
Tuesday, 18 March 2014
The Existential Question of Hand Drying
In life there are some pretty important questions: why are we here? Is there a god? How did the earth start?
Well, new evidence was recently discovered to support the Big Bang Theory which, although far from conclusive, may lead to the further unraveling of this conundrum.
However, I'd like to focus on an issue much closer to our hearts, minds and more precisely hands. In an attempt to protect the environment and stop the poor polar bears from being stranded on their ever smaller blocks of ice, sanitary companies have invented high-powered super-efficient hand dryers. "Fantastic!" I hear you say. Not only do they vastly reduce paper waste, they also dry your hands more quickly. They are great, and save us the need to sprinkle the floor with drips and then finish off the drying process on our jeans.
Phoebe the Polar Bear's future has therefore been safeguarded. But hold on. Why is there a blue LED light shining on my hands? Do I not know they are there? Can I not feel the hot air on my hands, and perceive when they are dry already? I do not need a 'visible indication of the drying zone' as one manufacturer kindly points out, to undertake this exercise satisfactorily.
Admittedly LEDs use very little energy, but why not go the whole hog and remove them, potentially saving a huge quantity of watts?
Even more radically, do away with hand dryers completely and we can all revert to wiping our paws on our jeans to protect Phoebe. Although, dry cleaners' ecological footprints (and revenue) might rocket up...
Image from http://www.jetdryer.com.au/jetlite-jet-dryer/
Well, new evidence was recently discovered to support the Big Bang Theory which, although far from conclusive, may lead to the further unraveling of this conundrum.
However, I'd like to focus on an issue much closer to our hearts, minds and more precisely hands. In an attempt to protect the environment and stop the poor polar bears from being stranded on their ever smaller blocks of ice, sanitary companies have invented high-powered super-efficient hand dryers. "Fantastic!" I hear you say. Not only do they vastly reduce paper waste, they also dry your hands more quickly. They are great, and save us the need to sprinkle the floor with drips and then finish off the drying process on our jeans.
Phoebe the Polar Bear's future has therefore been safeguarded. But hold on. Why is there a blue LED light shining on my hands? Do I not know they are there? Can I not feel the hot air on my hands, and perceive when they are dry already? I do not need a 'visible indication of the drying zone' as one manufacturer kindly points out, to undertake this exercise satisfactorily.
Admittedly LEDs use very little energy, but why not go the whole hog and remove them, potentially saving a huge quantity of watts?
Even more radically, do away with hand dryers completely and we can all revert to wiping our paws on our jeans to protect Phoebe. Although, dry cleaners' ecological footprints (and revenue) might rocket up...
Image from http://www.jetdryer.com.au/jetlite-jet-dryer/
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