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Five of the Most Pressing Environmental Problems in the US

It's helpful, if a bit daunting, to assess our impact on the environment and see what the effects have been. Earth Day's a good excuse to do that. Here's a short list of the issues that seemed most critical from a US perspective.

1. Increased water pollution. In "Poisoned Waters," Frontline correspondent Hedrick Smith noted that 40 percent of Chesapeake Bay now consists of dead zones--uninhabited places in the water where chemical runoff from agricultural and residential land (due to overfertilization) has depleted the water of oxygen. As a result, the fishing industry in the area has been decimated. In places like Puget Sound and the Potomac River, hormones or hormone-mimicking chemical compounds from birth control pills and personal care products are causing mutations to fish and frogs.
2. Ubiquitous plastic trash. Salon reported in 2007 that there's twice as much plastic as biomass in places like the Northern California Gyre, an area of swirling ocean currents twice as large as Texas off the California coast. One nonprofit estimated that over 1 million birds and more than 100,000 sea turtles and marine mammals die from plastic. As recently as 50 years ago, there was no plastic in the oceans.
3. More frequent and destructive wildfires. Large fires consumed an average of 7.1 million acres annually between 2000 and 2007 in the US, according to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC). By contrast, the 1990s saw an average of 3.3 million acres consumed annually. Drought and climate change have caused the NIFC to plan for an average of 10 to 12 million acres consumed by large fires through 2013.
4. Increased carbon dioxide emissions. Global warming (see these historical global temperature statistics which indicate a rise since the late 1970s of about 0.4 degrees Celsius) is caused by human activity that results in increased C02 emissions. Total emissions rose from 734 million metric tons in 1987 to 1087 metric tons in 2007, a CAGR of 1.8%, according to the US Dept. of Energy.
5. Increased levels of carbon black, or soot. High soot levels in places where several freeways converge, for example, have apparent effects on the prevalence of asthma among schoolchildren, according to Science Daily. Soot from industrial sources drifts from North America to places like Greenland, where it collects and inhibits light from being reflected by the ice. As a result, melting increases, according to the National Science Foundation, which estimates that soot from industrial sources was seven times greater than from wildfires in between 1880 and the 1950s.

Fraudster: A Social Networking Platform for the Madoff Generation

You won't find Fraudster on the public Web--it's by invitation only. To be able to register, you need to ante up $10,000--other peoples' money, of course. Most new users submit payment by entering someone else's bank routing and account number and identity information. Fraudster then guides you through the triple-factor authentication setup process for your account—-voice biometrics, a phone number and a PIN. Once you've completed the setup process and have installed the Fraudster browser bar,you can add the Facebook friends who're validated Fraudster users (Fraudsters for short).

The platform's optimized for mobile devices. Most Fraudsters have iPhones. This is despite the fact that many Fraudsters are in prison. Possessing an iPhone would seem to be a challenge in prison, to say the least. Well, not really. It turns out the problem is not so much getting an iPhone into prison, but being able to recharge it once you do. There are ways of accomplishing this. Jeff Skilling, the former Enron CEO who's now at the Federal prison in Lakewood, CO, has a friend who works in the laundry recharge his iPhone behind one of the washers. Bernie Ebbers, the former WorldCom CEO, has an extension cord and charger hidden in one of his cubicle walls at Oakdale (La.) Federal Correction Complex. As we speak, Ruth Madoff's trying to get an iPhone to her Bernie.

So it's not easy to be a Fraudster, but it's these kinds of challenges that make Fraudster so much fun for the niche they serve. It's not just social networking, but a brand its users can truly identify with. They're inspired by its boldness, intuition and playfulness. The platform blends a browser extension interface with interest group knowledge sharing and some novel gaming features. After installing the browser extension, Fraudsters have a bar on edge of the frame that displays their friends' avatars.

The Website part of it focuses on your interests. The gaming features are built around those interests. Let's say you want to start a bank. The Fraudster banking interest group has advice on how and where to do that. Texas is a popular place for budding bankers behind bars to get started. To begin with, Fraudster's recommendation engine serves up relevant posts on the startup process, the in-person things that have to get done, and who to hire on the outside. Over time, it monitors and adjusts to your comments. Once you get your bank started, Fraudster can display a leader board ranking your banks assets with others in the interest group.

The latest contest on Fraudster is the undeserved bonus competition. To qualify, you must be employed by a TARP recipient, preferably one that's been called before Congress to explain its compensation policies.

The Taliban in 2001--Echoes of Christian Zealots in 391

Many Westerners (including I) were shocked to read in the newspaper that the Taliban had dynamited the statues of the Buddhas of Bamyan in 2001. How could they so callously destroy these precious antiquities?

It seems that Christians were equally callous back during the initial spread of Christianity around the Mediterranean. The statue of Serapis was a similarly precious item destroyed by zealous Christians in Alexandria. They also destroyed other pagan items in many other parts of Egypt in 391 CE, during the reign of Theodosius, according to Rufinus. Here's what Rufinus said about the statue and other things destroyed:

The temple of Serapis in Alexandria all have heard of, I think, and many even know it.  The sanctuary is raised a hundred or even more feet, not by nature but by a manmade structure, and extends on every side over a huge rectangular space.  The whole edifice is built of arches with enormous windows above each arch.  The hidden inner chambers are separate from one another and provide for the enactment of various ritual acts and secret observances.  Sitting courts and small chapels with images of the gods occupy the edge of the highest level.  Lofty houses rise up there in which the priests, or those which they call agneuontas, that is, those who purify themselves, are accustomed to live.  Behind these buildings is a freestanding portico raised on columns and facing inward runs around the periphery.  In the middle stands the temple, built on a large and magnificent scale with an exterior of marble and precious columns.  Inside there was a statue of Serapis so vast that the right hand touched one wall and the left the other.  They say this monstrosity was built of every kind of metal and wood.  The interior walls of the chapels are covered in gold laminate at the lower level, in silver above the first, and finally in bronze, which was to provide protection for the more precious metals.  Some parts of the temple were even designed by art and deception to evoke the astonishment and admiration of visitors.  A very narrow window had been laid out on the side towards the rising sun in such a way that at dawn the Sun was brought in to salute Serapis -- for the moment had been rigorously calculated -- a captive sun's ray lights up through this opening, as though approaching the statue, the mouth and the lips of Serapis, so that to the eyes of the crowd, Serapis appears to be saluted by a kiss from the Sun.  There was yet another illusion of the same kind.  As is commonly known, it is the nature of a magnetic stone to have the property of attracting and repelling iron.  A craftsman had fashioned a likeness of the Sun out of very pure iron for the following purpose: a stone which had, as we have already said, the property of attracting iron, was fixed above in the ceiling plaster, and when the statue was put into its place below it, the stone attracted the iron to it by a natural force.  The worshipper believed that the statue had been raised up and rested suspended in the air.  But after this fake had been exposed by an unexpected fall, the ministers of the lie said, "The Sun has bid farewell to Serapis and has gone up to be with him."  

 ...a belief had been spread abroad by the Gentiles themselves, that, if a human hand was laid violently on this statue, the earth would immediately open up, dissolving into chaos, and suddenly the heavens would collapse into the abyss. This story gave the people a senseless pause, when behold -- one of the soldiers, better protected by his faith than by his weapons, seizing a double-edged axe, stood up and with all his strength struck the jaw of the Old Man. A shout was raised by both groups of people, but neither the sky fell nor the earth sunk. Repeating his action several times, he cut off the worm-eaten genius of wood, blackened by smoke once it was cast down and thrown into the fire, and it burned as easily as dry wood. After which, the head was taken, having been torn away at the neck, with its modius broken. Then the feet and the other limbs were cut up in pieces by blows of the axe, quartered and dragged off with the aid of ropes. Then in each locale, member by member, the decrepit Old Man was burned under the eyes of his adoring Alexandria. Finally, the trunk which still remained was burned in the amphitheatre. Such was the end of the vain superstition and ancient error of Serapis....

In every Egyptian town, fortified post, village, and the entire countryside, along the banks of the river and even in the desert, all of the sanctuaries -- or rather, all of the tombs -- which could be found were overthrown and razed, thanks to the zeal of each bishop, with the result that the land which had been unjustly assigned to demons was once again given over to cultivation."

Here are some photos of the Serapeum by Dan Diffendale at his Flickr photostream: