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Coal occupies a central position in modern human endeavors. Last year over 7000 megatons were mined worldwide. Powerful, yet dirty and dangerous, use of coal is expanding every year, with 2010 witnessing a production increase of 6.8%. Around 70 countries have recoverable reserves, which some estimates claim will last for over a hundred years at current production levels. Mining for coal is one of the world's most dangerous jobs. While deadliest in China, where thousands of miners die annually, the profession is still hazardous in the West and other regions as well. Our mining and use of coal accounts for a variety of environmental hazards, including the production of more CO2 than any other source. Other concerns include acid rain, groundwater contamination, respiratory issues, and the waste products which contain heavy metals. But our lives as lived today rely heavily on the combustible sedimentary rock. Over 40% of the world's electricity is generated by burning coal, more than from any other source. Chances are that a significant percentage of the electricity you're using to read this blog was generated by burning coal. Gathered here are images of coal extraction, transportation, and the impact on environment and society. The first eight photographs are by Getty photographer Daniel Berehulak, who documented the lives of miners in Jaintia Hills, India. Jimmy Murphy of Sprigg, W.Va. holds a jar filled with well water from his home on November 15, 2010. He says the water was contaminated with coal slurry by Massey Energy and subsidiary Rawl Sales & Processing. Mining company Massey Energy settled a 7-year-old lawsuit with hundreds of southern West Virginia residents who claim the company poisoned their drinking water supplies with coal slurry. Heavy machinery works in the distance at the Kedrovsky open pit coal mine, operated by OAO Kuzbassrazrezugol near Kemerovo, Russia on March 31, 2011. OAO Kuzbassrazrezugol is Russia's second largest coal producer. 0-year-old Anil Basnet sits for a portrait above the coal mine where he works on April 13, 2011 in Jiantia Hills, India. Many workers leave homes in neighboring states, and countries, like Bangladesh and Nepal, hoping to escape poverty and improve their quality of life. |
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view Coal as presented by: Boston Big Picture |
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We share our world with many other species and live in an ever-changing environment. Fortunately, photographers around the world have captured the moments and beauty that allow us to see amazing views of this awe-inspiring planet. This is a collection of favorite photos from The Natural World gallery in 2011, a showcase of images of animals and environment that runs on Boston.com throughout the year. Next week's posts will take a look at the year in photos, so stay tuned. A new blue phalaenopsis orchid called "Blue Mystique" is sold by Bachman's florists in Minneapolis. The color is achieved using a patented process from Europe that colors the flowers from the inside. An Abyssinian Colobus baby yawns at the Nogeyama Zoological Gardens in Yokohama, Japan. A chameleon waits to be weighed and measured in the reptile house at the London Zoo. Every year the keepers record the heights and weights of more than 750 different species in the International Species Information System, where they can be shared with zoos across the world. |
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view 50 Best Photos from The Natural World as presented by: Boston Big Picture |
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According to projections by the United Nations, the world population has reached 7 billion and continues to grow rapidly. While more people are living longer and healthier lives, gaps are widening between the rich and the poor in some nations and tens of millions of people are vulnerable to food and water shortages. There is, of course, the issue of the impact of that sheer number on the environment, including pollution, waste disposal, use of natural resources and food production. This post focuses on wheat and the effect of our numbers on the environment. Wheat is the most important cereal in the world and along with rice and corn accounts for about 73 percent of all cereal production. It isn't surprising that 7 billion people have a lasting impact on our world's natural resources and the environment in which we live. Gasoline prices at a station near Lindbergh Field as a plane approaches landing in San Diego, California, in 2008. One of the world's breadbaskets lies in the prairies of Canada. This stalk, near Lethbridge, Alberta, helps form the foundation for the most important food product in the world: cereal grains. A worker removes dead fish from a lake in Wuhan, central China's Hubei province, in 2007. Mankind's immense pressure on the planet is causing the fastest extinction of species in millions of years and is rapidly heating up the planet, threatening more extreme weather, according to scientists. |
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view Feeding 7 Billion and our Fragile Environment as presented by: Boston Big Picture |
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Sukkot, or Feast of Tabernacles, is a Biblical holiday celebrated in late September to late October. The holiday lasts seven days. The Sukkah is a walled structure covered with plant material - built for the celebration - and is intended to be a reminiscence of the type of dwelling in which the Israelites stayed during their 40 years of travel in the desert after the exodus from slavery in Egypt. Throughout the holiday, meals are eaten inside the Sukkah and many sleep there as well. On each day of the holiday, members of the household recite a blessing over the lulav and etrog (four species). The four species include the lulav (a ripe green, closed frond from a date palm tree), the hadass (boughs with leaves from the myrtle tree), the aravah (branches with leaves from the willow tree) and the etrog (the fruit of a citron tree.) A woman from the ancient Samaritan community decorates a Sukkah made from fresh fruit for the Feast of the Tabernacles, or Sukkot, in Mount Gerizim near the West Bank town of Nablus, Oct. 10, 2011. An Ultra-Orthodox Jewish child walks over palm fronds to be used to build a Sukkah hut, in Jerusalem's religious Mea Shearim neighborhood, Oct. 6, 2011. The palm branches are used as the roof of a temporary house called a "Sukkah" which is built and lived in during the week-long Jewish holiday of Sukkot. The selection of the Hadas or Myrtle, one of four plant species to be used during the celebration of Sukkot or the Feast of Tabernacles, is a meticulous process. The Sukkot feast begins October 13 for 2011 and commemorates the exodus of Jews from Egypt some 3200 years ago. |
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view Sukkot: A Celebration as presented by: Boston Big Picture |
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The Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition lets us see beyond the capabilities of our unaided eyes. Almost 2000 entries from 70 countries vied for recognition in the 37th annual contest, which celebrates photography through a microscope. Images two through 21 showcase the contest's winners in order, and are followed by a selection of other outstanding works. Scientists and photographers turned their attention on a wide range of subjects, both living and man-made, from lacewing larva to charged couple devices, sometimes magnifying them over 2000 times their original size. A freshwater shrimp eye and head shot with image stacking photography by Jose R. Almodovar at the Microscopy Center, Biology Department, UPR Mayaguez Campus in Mayaquez, Puerto Rico. Dr. Igor Siwanowicz of the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried, Germany shot "Portrait of a Chrysopa sp. (green lacewing) larva" at 20x magnification using the confocal method. Using laser-triggered high-speed macrophotography, Dr. John H. Brackenbury of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, UK captured a water droplet containing a pair of mosquito larvae. |
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view Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition as presented by: Boston Big Picture |
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The taps were flowing and the oom-pah bands were oom-pahing again in Germany. It’s Oktoberfest time, and the world’s largest festival celebrating beer reportedly attracted some 6 million visitors this time around before the taps ran dry earlier this week. The origin of the event dates back to 1810 when Crown Prince Ludwig was married to Princess Therese and the people of Munich were invited to attend the festivities. Only beer brewed within the city limits of Munich can be served at the festival. Revelers attend the last and sunny day of Oktoberfest beer festival on Oct. 2 in Munich, Germany. A Bavarian rifleman in traditional costume stands in front of the 'Bavaria' statue in Munich. Participants of the traditional costume and riflemen's procession during day 2 of the 2011 Oktoberfest. |
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view Oktoberfest 2011 as presented by: Boston Big Picture |
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There are many forms of protest, many ways to express an objection to particular events, situations, policies, and even people. Protests can also take many forms - from individual statements to mass demonstrations - both peaceful and violent. In the last 30 days, there have been numerous protests across the globe in many countries. The following post is a collection of only some of those protests, but the images convey a gamut of emotions as citizens stand up for their political, economic, religious and lifestyle rights. An anti-government protester waves a Bahraini flag and chants during a peaceful march on Sept. 9 in Muqsha, Bahrain, west of the capital of Manama. The harsh crackdown on anti-government protests has failed to silence people's demand for greater rights, a senior Shi'ite cleric in the Gulf kingdom said as thousands of opposition supporters rallied on the outskirts of the capital. Bahrain, a close ally of the United States and home of its fifth fleet, is a Sunni Muslim monarchy. Most of the population, however, is Shi'ite Police subdue a Bolivian from the Isiboro Secure indigenous territory after he and dozens of other protesters blocked an airport runway on Sept. 26. The demonstrators had been on a 370-mile protest march from Trinidad in the northern lowlands to the government seat in La Paz in an attempt to draw attention to the government's plan to build a highway through their territory. President Evo Morales ordered police to stop the march. As police were herding the protesters onto a plane at Rurrenbaque airport to return them home, a large group broke away and blocked the runway with burning wood and tires. Contending that it's time for Utah to strip away its "uptight" laws, people jog and walk in their underwear from the Gallivan Center to the Capitol in Salt Lake City. Undie Run coordinator Nate Porter says the goal of the event on Sept. 24 was to organize people frustrated by the conservative nature of state politics. |
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view Global Protests as presented by: Boston Big Picture |
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Tribal elders say the Taliban are far from defeated. The Taliban continue to wage a brutal war, taking a toll on Afghan citizens and American forces. The Department of Defense has identified 1,761 American service members who have died in the Afghan war and related operations as of Sept. 21, about 10 years since the start of the war. In visiting Afghanistan monthly in The Big Picture, we try to reflect our troops presence in the country as well as their interaction with the Afghan people. Sergeant Daniel Chavez, an Army flight medic from Rio Rancho, N.M., hold his gun aloft as fellow medic Specialist David Bibb, from Santa Fe, waves an American flag as they commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks at Forward Operating Base Edi in the Helmand province of southern Afghanistan on Sept 11. The United States, which had largely pulled out of Kunar province, has recently moved troops, including the 27th Infantry Regiment, back in as part of an effort to take the battle to Taliban strongholds. The mountainous region of Kunar borders Pakistan and is often a transit point for Taliban between the countries. US army Pfc Kyler King gets his head shaved by Pfc Shawn Riggins in the FOB Kuschamond. Of 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan, 33,000 will leave by mid-2012. |
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view Afghanistan, September 2011 as presented by: Boston Big Picture |
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