Rattlesnakes are skilled swimmers, so take caution when reaching for that "stick" in the water. Image Courtesy of Mike Kahn / Green Stock Media

Rattlesnakes have always inspired our imaginations, from Native American cultures who have depicted them in their art and religions, to portrayals in Westerns as villainous, bad-tempered animals. But despite some popularly held beliefs about rattlesnakes’ supposed bad behavior, this is not usually the case. People aren't on the rattlesnakes' prey list. If they strike anyone, it’s usually a defensive maneuver – such as when they’re accidentally stepped on. And the majority of rattlesnake bites that occur in the United States are received by young men who tease a rattlesnake (and yes, alcohol is often involved in these instances). So for the majority of us who would never consider playing with a rattlesnake, there's relatively very little danger. It is important, however, to watch where you walk or put your hands when spending time in rattlesnake country. They’re not always vocal with their telltale rattle sound and blend in easily with their environment.

Katie Colbert, a naturalist at Sunol-Ohlone Regional Wilderness, has often heard people warn that a baby rattlesnake is a greater threat due to the fact that they're unable to control the amount of poison they inject into their victim when they bite.  According to Colbert, this is just not true: all rattlesnakes, babies and adults, can control their venom.  In addition, Colbert says, "Baby rattlesnakes can only produce and stash a very small fraction of [venom] an adult can."  This does not change the fact, however, that a bite from any rattlesnake, regardless of age, is a dangerous bite and requires medical attention.

Another myth is that a rattlesnake's tail can be used to determine the age of the animal. The origin of this misconception that each segment of the rattle corresponds to a year of the snake’s life can be traced back to English writer Thomas Morton, author of the book, New English Canaan, that was published in 1637.  According to the website, Daily Reptile News, we now understand that every time rattlesnakes shed their skin, they add a segment to their rattle. They can shed anywhere from one to three times a year, and the rattles often break off in the normal daily lives of the snakes.

And what should you do if you've been bitten by a rattlesnake? The California Poison Control Systems website offers some helpful guidance:

• A tourniquet should never be applied to the limb with the bite wound. This can cause gangrene to form and amputation may become necessary.

 

• Bite wounds should never be cut open with a knife or razor. The extra blood flow is not only bad for the injured victim, but it can also spread the venom throughout the body more quickly.

 

• Sucking out the poison is also a bad idea, as it will not extract all of the venom. Bacteria from the person's mouth could also transmit bacteria to the wound that could exacerbate the risk of infection.

 

• While keeping the victim calm and still, wash the wound with soap and water, keep the wound below the heart, and get them emergency medical attention as soon as possible.

Although they are potentially dangerous animals, rattlesnakes tend to keep to themselves and only really become aggressive when provoked or cornered.  As they are an important part of the ecosystem, it's best to just allow them plenty of room and safe passage when encountered in the wild so they can continue to do their part for the animal kingdom: control the population of rodents and provide food to the predators that feed on them.

Rattlesnake Image Courtesy of Mike Kahn / Green Stock Media

Water forecasting could be thrown off by a changing climate. Credit: Craig Miller

The severe flooding on the Mississippi River has left a lot of damage in its wake. It's an extreme event that government and insurance companies try to plan for by predicting the risk. But climate change is throwing a wrench in those calculations.

Most of us don't think about risk. We think about randomness. That's illustrated by a scene in the 1982 movie, "The World According to Garp", where Robin Williams is shopping for a new house with his wife. They're standing in front of one home when…a plane crashes into it.

Despite the crash, the Robin Williams character agrees to buy the house saying, "It's been pre-disastered! We'll be safe here."

That may not be a typical reaction, but climatologist Kelly Redmond says it reveals a lot about how we think about risk. "It has to do with how we describe rare things. We spend societally an enormous amount of resources and time and attention guarding against the very worst possibilities."

Listen to the QUEST radio story Insuring for Extreme Weather

You've probably heard of the "100-year flood." That's a flood so severe that it has a one in one hundred chance of happening every year. But how do we know that?

"About the only way we can get at how rare a rare thing is is by looking at a past record," says Redmond. So for floods, government agencies look into the historical record to see when floods happened in the past. They use that record to predict future flood risk.

But this relies on a very basic assumption. According to Redmond, the assumption is that the statistics of the future will look like the statistics of the past.

There's a fancy term for this – it's called stationarity. But there's a problem.

"What we don't know but what we suspect with changes in climate is that those statistics, especially about rare things, may change," says Redmond.

The US is already warming. Climate models show that western states could see more extreme weather as the climate continues to change. So, Redmond says, chances are good the future won't look like the recent past.

Jeanine Jones of the California Department Water of Resources agrees, saying "a lot of California's existing infrastructure was designed on assumptions that are no longer valid."

History of Water Forecasting in the West

Jones says using the past as a guide for the future is a huge part of water planning and building codes. The idea was first adopted in the 1940s and 50s, when dams and infrastructure were built at record speed in western states.

"Congress was looking at all these water development plans coming in from the Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation and wanting a common standard to compare all the projects," says Jones.

So they forecasted flood risk and water supply by looking at historical data. "But they had very short data records. Maybe they only measured records of 20 years, 50 years. And that's not really very long," Jones says.

Today, everything from building codes to home insurance is based on this short window of data. And so is another critical forecast.

During the winter, surveyors measure the Sierra Nevada snow pack every month, so they can crunch the numbers and predict the year's water supply.

"It is very widely used by reservoir operators, by water agencies, by farmers who are looking at what are my chances for having a full water supply," says Jones.

But climate models show that more precipitation will fall as rain in California, instead of snow. And that means spring runoff could behave very differently. "At some point, conditions will change enough that we've reached a tipping point where those statistical approaches really aren't valid anymore," Jones says.

An accurate water forecast is crucial to California's economy. So Jones says water officials are looking at using computer models to forecast spring runoff.

But when it comes to updating flood risk and building codes to reflect climate change, Kelly Redmond says that could take decades. "We have to get a buy in from the engineering community, the city planners. Because there's so much expense to goes into building a bridge or a culvert or a building."

A New Breed of Insurance Company

There is one industry that's taking note of climate change – insurance.

"The increased variability in climate is going to start to dramatically affect the profits of corporations worldwide," says David Friedberg, CEO of San Francisco-based Weatherbill.

Weatherbill is something of a next generation insurance company. They start with computer models that simulate weather and climate patterns. "We then use those sorts of models to determine what sort of price we should charge for certain weather events occurring," says Friedberg.

Weatherbill works mostly with farmers, insuring them against extreme weather for between 40 and 400 dollars an acre. "There's a range of things that can occur and that range is certainly widening. And as a result we should start to charge more for those sorts of events when we're insuring them."

Friedberg says this kind of insurance makes sense to a lot of farmers they work with, who are already noticing changing weather patterns. Investor Vinod Kholsa and Google have also noticed and put millions into the company. They're betting new software will be the answer when today's methods no longer work.

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Elegant Chilean flamingos help visitors gain a new perspective on our changing environment in the Monterey Bay Aquarium's newest special exhibit: "Hot Pink Flamingos: Stories of Hope in a Changing Sea." ©David Barnhardt/Akron Zoo.

Reported by Marjorie Sun.

The California Academy of Sciences and the Monterey Bay Aquarium have a big advantage that some educational institutions in other parts of the country do not: most of their visitors — who tend to be Californians — believe that climate change is real. That means their global warming exhibits can focus on solutions, for example, rather than laying out the basics of atmospheric science.

Californians’ concern about climate change has translated into political support for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. According to survey results released in July by the Public Policy Institute of California, two-thirds of Californians strongly back the pioneering state law known as AB 32. The law requires a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. And the recent defeat of Proposition 23 by 22 percentage points would appear to affirm that support (though in 15 counties, support for 23 was at least 47%).

Listen to the QUEST radio story When Teaching Climate Gets Controversial.

Californians appear to buck some national trends on climate change issues. A declining number of Americans say there is solid evidence that the world is warming. The number dropped from 71% in April 2008, to 57% in October 2009, according to a study last year by the Pew Research Center. Adults who believe that climate change is a “very serious problem” declined sharply in the same time period.

New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer details in a recent, in-depth article that billionaires David and Charles Koch, titans of the oil industry, have been spending millions of dollars waging a covert disinformation campaign to thwart climate change legislation in the United States.

Aboard the Bio-Bus

A local organization has launched a mobile counter-offensive. The Alliance for Climate Education, a non-profit based in Oakland, has created a hip, multimedia presentation spiced with animation and rock music to reach teens. Think "An Inconvenient Truth" goes MTV. The alliance has shown it to more than 420,000 high-schoolers across the nation in the past year. The presentation teaches teens the basics about climate change and urges them to “do one thing” to fight it.

Alliance staffers also have tricked out an old school bus with clean tech, driving it to schools and museums to showcase renewable technology. The blue bio-bus runs on used cooking oil collected from restaurants. Solar panels on the bus charge cell phones and computers on board.

A cow wearing a gas mask created controversy at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's climate change exhibit. Photo Credit: Craig Miller

Unmasking the Cow

Meanwhile, keeping the climate change exhibits up-to-date scientifically is a concern for the museums. At the Monterey Bay Aquarium, outfitting a life-size model cow with a gas mask was prompted in part by a 2006 study by the Food and Agriculture Organization. The FAO study said that industrial production of livestock in general, including cattle, pigs, and poultry, accounts for 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions. But another FAO study released in April — about the same time the climate change exhibit opened — examined the GHG emissions for the dairy industry alone, not beef production. It concluded that dairy production contributes just four percent of emissions. The study (PDF download), along with howls of protests from the local dairy industry, helped convince the aquarium to unmask the Holstein.

One last tidbit about interactive exhibits: One of the most popular — common to the Academy and the Monterey Bay Aquarium — is surprisingly low-tech. Thousands of visitors write on comment cards about what they can do to fight climate change and hang them on display boards there. One of them, in a child’s handwriting, read “Reduce, reuse, recycle and homework is bad for the environment."

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The water flowing past Big Break Regional Shoreline through the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers drains half of California's watershed, and creates the largest estuarine environment on Pacific shores.

We once again enlisted the help of our colleagues at the East Bay Regional Parks District on this feature. They've collaborated with us twice before, on science hikes in Briones Regional Park and Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve.

We were welcomed at the gate by EBRPD Naturalist Mike Moran. Normally, we'd have rolled right on in to the parking lot, but the district has closed the parking area temporarily as part of a significant renovation, to include new trails and interpretive facilities. The lot should reopen sometime in November of this year (2010). Check the EBRPD website for closure updates if you are planning a visit. That said, don't be discouraged by the locked gate, even without the lot, the shoreline is still accessible through the foot path to the right of the main entrance.

Before we'd even unpacked our gear, Mike pointed out some raptors on the horizon, perhaps a quarter mile away. Some careful spotting through the binoculars revealed they were likely a pair of Swainson's Hawks. To my untrained eye, it might have appeared they were juvenile Red-tailed Hawks, but the different markings on the underside of the wings (e.g. lack of the black bars on the leading edge), plus the overall narrower profile of the wings themselves indicate otherwise. I've learned not to rely on the presence of a red tail, but Mike's keen eye helped me add this majestic buteo to my life list. What a way to start the day.

Other highlights? An amazing number of dragonflies and damselflies, including the Variegated Meadowhawk (Sympetrum corruptum). Stumbling upon a field of the understated but lovely yerba mansa plant (Anemopsis californica). Getting to see the marsh monkeyflower (Mimulus guttatus), a close cousin to the sticky monkeyflower (Mimulus aurantiacus) so common in the drier areas of our region. And lastly, an encounter not with an actual bird, animal or plant, but with something they had left behind– Otter scat.

And there's much more that I can tell you in this short post – please go check out the science hike and let us know what you think. Even better, through our partnership with EveryTrail, you may take it with you in print or via your smartphone and let us know how it goes.

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A 2 MW battery the AES Huntington Beach power plant.

Energy storage (through batteries) is something we use everyday in our cell phones and computers. So it may be a little surprising that when it comes to the electric grid, storing energy is something that's rarely done.

California's grid is designed to deliver electricity on a real-time basis. Every four seconds, the grid operators at the California Independent System Operator have to ensure that the energy supply meets the demand in the state – something that's known as "balancing the grid." (You can check out today's electricity forecast on their site). As a result, they coordinate the one piece of the system that they have control over: the generators, like natural gas plants.

Luckily, most generators produce a steady power supply. But California is adding increasing amounts of solar and wind power to the grid each year.  Since the output of a solar or wind farm depends on the sun or wind, the power they produce is variable (here's a time-of-day profile of renewable energy on the grid today).  That causes problems for the grid operators on a number of levels.  Wind farms produce most of their power at night, but that's when demand for power is lowest. Solar farms using photovoltaics can drop off substantially when the sun disappears behind clouds. And large solar thermal farms ramp up extremely fast when they are first hit by the sun in the morning.

Energy storage is one of the ways that utilities and grid operators can address this intermittency.  By having some extra electricity on hand, they can smooth out the bumps caused by these renewables.  Just how to store energy is another issue.  Here are some of the ways it can be done.

Pumped Hydro

In the energy storage world, this is as old school as it gets.  Hydro power uses water and gravity to generate electricity.  Storage is added by pumping that water back uphill to the reservoir, so it can generate power again.  Of course, it takes electricity to run the pumps, but usually this is done a night when there is cheaper or excess power on the grid. California's largest pumped hydro facility is PG&E's Helms Pumped Storage Project outside of Fresno, which has a 1.2 gigawatt capacity (for more on how it works, check out this powerpoint). PG&E is reportedly looking at 2 gigawatts of new pumped storage at two other sites in California.

Batteries

There are a number of different kinds of batteries that can be used in grid-scale installations. I visited a 2 megawatt battery in Southern California that uses lithium-ion cells, much like a hybrid car uses. Southern California Edison is working on an 8 MW battery project near the Tehachapi wind farms.  But lithium-ion technology has plenty of competitors, many of which have been awarded federal stimulus funding.  The primary barrier for batteries is the cost. A Beacon Power flywheel.

Flywheels

This technology uses rotational energy to store power. Flywheels have an internal rotor that uses electricity to spin at high speeds.  When energy is needed, the rotor slows down and generates electricity through a motor.  This is used for what's known as "frequency regulation" on the grid.  Since they can charge and discharge power on a second-to-second basis, flywheels can smooth out the short-term fluctuations on the grid. Beacon Power has installed flywheels in Tehachapi, California as part of a demonstration project there.

Compressed Air

Using energy produced at non-peak times (at night), compressed air energy storage projects pump air into large underground caverns. When demand for energy is high, it's released to run power turbines. PG&E is now planning a 300 MW compressed air facility in Kern County.

Of course, for all these technologies, cost is major issue, not mention the siting and planning considerations. For a good comparison, check out thesetechnology comparison charts from the Energy Storage Association.

Listen to Energy Storage: The Holy Grail radio story online and check out the rest of our stories in the 33×20 renewable energy series.

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Where did California go wrong? And as other states try to learn from its lessons, does the Golden State have any hope of reaching its next ambitious target – 33 percent renewable by 2020? Follow KQED’s environmental and science initiatives, QUEST and Climate Watch as we explore the obstacles to achieving California’s ambitious renewable energy goals. Over the next several months we will explore some of the challenges including: finding a home for big solar and wind farms, energy storage, California’s complex permitting process and where to build new transmission lines.

Can California get one-third of its electricity from renewable energy by 2020? Stay tuned to our series 33 x 20: California’s Clean Power Countdown.

We’re launching the series this week with a story from Lauren Sommer about how we got here and how far we have to go. But what are your questions about renewable energy? What would you like us to cover in the months ahead? Leave us a comment and let us know!

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In 1995, the Grey Wolf was reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park and the wolves made a comeback.

I fell in love with wolves after reading Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat ten years ago. Their grace, playfulness, loyalty, keen sense of hearing and smell, and beauty made my heart bow low in respect. They were animals to admire. As the Conservation Manager at the Oakland Zoo, I had the opportunity to investigate my wolf interests by asking the California Wolf Center to present earlier this year at our Conservation Speaker Series. On a wolf roll, I am excited to host yet another canine event: Living with Wolves, on April 29th. This evening will feature a screening of the film,"Return to the Wild: A Modern Tale of Wolf and Man,"and a talk by the film's producers. We will also welcome Never Cry Wolf Rescue & Adoption and a few of their canine ambassadors.

The film Return to the Wild looks at the human-wildlife conflict that is felt all over the world with various humans, animals and habitats. We all want a place to live, to be safe, to find food and to raise a family. When settlers came to this country, they decided that there wasn’t room for both the wolf and the new American. As they "settled the wilderness" and fear overtook ecological knowledge, most wolves were killed by the 1930's by extreme and unnessesary brutality. Myths were created to keep the name of the wolf dark and dangerous in the human psyche. The continent dwindled from a healthy and balanced abundance of wolves to just over 500 animals. Living with wolves is something our country struggles with still.

In 1995, the Grey Wolf was reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park and the wolves made a comeback. Tens of thousands of tourists are thrilled with the wolves and come to the park in packs with giant cameras, hoping for a peek at the majesty a real wolf. Some, of course, are less thank thrilled with the wolves and their hunting choices, and have faced loss of livestock and livelihood.

Fear-based solutions to the conflicts have been formulated, such as in 2007 when Sarah offered a $150 bounty for wolves, asking hunters to present a wolf's foreleg to collect the money. The latest science has proven that hunting has is an inefficient means to control population, unable to mimic the complex web of life created by nature. Better solutions must exist.

Others dedicated fans of the wolf are ecologists, calling wolves the "bioengineers of the wild". Wolves keep the ecosystem in balance, as many keystone species do. As wolves returned to the park and created balance in elk populations, Aspens and Willows returned. So did songbirds, stream beads and beavers. The eco-systems began to function and thrive.

Return to the Wild takes a fair look at the re-introduction of the gray wolf and the various stakeholders involved. Wildlife experts, hunters and ranchers all get a turn at speaking their mind. The film’s hope is that a balanced, fair and soundly sustainable solution does indeed exist. That is something to bow to.

You can help wolves here.

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According to Sunset Scavenger Spokesman Robert Reed, San Francisco residents should have nothing but "film plastics" (like plastic bags from stores and dry cleaners) and polystyrene, aka Styrofoam.

But the life of a recycling ascetic ain't easy. First of all, it means learning the rules of your particular community, since recycling practices vary depending on where you live. Probably, It means forgoing juice boxes, disposable diapers, complicated, multi-material packaging. It means you've scraped out your cat food cans ("contaminated" recyclables are often tossed). If you're a paper shredder, you've put all the scraps into a paper bag labeled "shredded paper." (Tiny pieces of paper are too hard to collect – sorters usually landfill them.) In short, you've earned a PhD in recycling. (And if you think that's complicated, consider the Japanese.)

Some experts have argued that this is all too much trouble – that instead of aiming for zero waste, we should accept a certain amount of landfilling. Others say that the more citizens recycle, the more efficient the program becomes – hence the movement toward mandatory recycling. One point that nearly everyone seems to agree on is that products on the shelves must be designed to be more easily recyclable than they are today.

Is This Recyclable?

On that note, we interviewed two recycling experts: Mark Murray, director of Californians Against Waste, and Kurt Standen (no relation, amazingly to both of us), general manager of the Sacramento Recycling and Transfer Station. We came armed with six recycling stumpers, including a rubber boot, a juice box, and that much-maligned item of transport, the plastic bag. See what Standen and Murray had to say by clicking on the images below.

Listen to the Getting to Zero Waste radio report online.

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A pure beauty — your friendly Cathartes aura. a.k.a Turkey Vulture

When most people hear vulture, they think of a big ugly bird found in the desert, waiting for something to die, circling, circling… In reality, the Turkey Vulture is a local species, and is one of the more common birds we see soaring the skies of the Bay Area.

While we interviewed Dawn Manning about the Turkey Vulture, there were quite a few "colorful" facts we learned: The Turkey Vulture has no vocal organs – they can only grunt or hiss, although they usually stay silent. They do not build nests – they lay their eggs directly on the ground in caves, crevices, burrows, hollow logs, under fallen trees, or even in abandoned buildings. While they have few natural predators, their main form of defense is vomiting. The foul smelling substance deters most creatures, and will also sting if the offending animal is close enough to get it on them.

Luckily, this pretty lady didn’t seem to mind the camera and all the people; I might even go as far as saying she enjoyed the attention. You never know… yesterday, a wildlife ambassador; today, a star on QUEST; tomorrow, a Hollywood superstar??

Take a visit to the Lindsay Wildlife Museum in Walnut Creek, and say hello to the Turkey Vulture – some day you might be able to say, "I knew her when…!"

Watch "Cool Critters: Turkey Vultures" online.

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