Posts tagged child
Palm oil production a source of heat-trapping methane
Mar 13th
are a climate concern, CU-Boulder study says
In recent years, palm oil production has come under fire from environmentalists concerned about the deforestation of land in the tropics to make way for new palm plantations. Now there is a new reason to be concerned about palm oil’s environmental impact, according to researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder.
An analysis published Feb. 26 in the journal Nature Climate Change shows that the wastewater produced during the processing of palm oil is a significant source of heat-trapping methane in the atmosphere. But the researchers also present a possible solution: capturing the methane and using it as a renewable energy source.
The methane bubbling up from a single palm oil wastewater lagoon during a year is roughly equivalent to the emissions from 22,000 passenger vehicles in the United States, the analysis found. This year, global methane emissions from palm oil wastewater are expected to equal 30 percent of all fossil fuel emissions from Indonesia, where widespread deforestation for palm oil production has endangered orangutans.
“This is a largely overlooked dimension of palm oil’s environmental problems,” said lead author Philip Taylor, a postdoctoral researcher at CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR). “The industry has become a poster child for agriculture’s downsides, but capturing wastewater methane leaks for energy would be a step in the right direction.”
The global demand for palm oil has spiked in recent years as processed food manufacturers have sought an alternative to trans fats.
For now, the carbon footprint of cutting down forests to make way for palm plantations dwarfs the greenhouse gases coming from the wastewater lagoons. But while deforestation is expected to slow as the focus shifts to more intensive agriculture on existing plantations, the emissions from wastewater lagoons will continue unabated as long as palm oil is produced, the researchers said.
However, the climate impact of the leaking methane could be mitigated by capturing the gas and using it to fuel power plants. Biogas technology has been used successfully for decades and it can produce renewable electricity at a cost that’s competitive with traditional fuels, the authors said.
The amount of methane biogas that went uncollected from palm oil wastewater lagoons last year alone could have met a quarter of Malaysia’s electricity needs. Tapping into that unused fuel supply could yield both financial and environmental benefits, the authors said.
Capturing methane at wastewater lagoons could be encouraged by making it a requirement before palm oil products can be certified as sustainable, the authors said. Current sustainability certifications do not address wastewater emissions.
Taylor, whose research typically focuses on carbon cycling in old-growth tropical forests, was inspired to do the analysis by undergraduate researcher Hana Fancher, who also is a co-author of the journal article. Fancher and Taylor were doing research in Costa Rica, where palm oil production is spreading, when Fancher became curious about how the oil was being processed.
“She has a wastewater background,” Taylor said. “She ended up doing an honors thesis on palm oil agriculture and wastewater emissions. This paper is an extension of that thinking.”
Other co-authors from CU-Boulder include Associate Professor Diana Nemergut, doctoral student Samantha Weintraub and Professor Alan Townsend, in whose lab the work was based. Other co-authors include Cory Cleveland of the University of Montana, William Wieder of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Teresa Bilinski of St. Edwards University.
-CU-
Indictments: Parents aided in JonBenet’s death
Oct 25th
Grand Jury and Boulder Police say John and Patsy Ramsey murdered their kid. Straight Up
Court documents released Friday show that a Colorado grand jury voted in 1999 to indict the parents of murdered 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey on charges of child abuse resulting in death and being accessories to a crime.
The district attorney decided that year, however, not to file charges against John and Patricia Ramsey, saying there was insufficient evidence. In 2008, a new district attorney said new DNA evidence cleared the parents and their son in the death.
The court documents, which were previously sealed, show how the grand jury sought to charge each parent with two identical counts.
“The grand jury had alleged that Patsy Ramsey and husband John Ramsey “did … permit a child to be unreasonably placed in a situation which posed a threat of injury to the child’s life or health which resulted in the death of JonBenet Ramsey.”
The grand jury also had alleged that each parent “did … render assistance to a person” who “has committed and was suspected of the crime of murder in the first degree and child abuse resulting in death.”
The documents provide no further details on who that “person” was. The grand jury had accused the couple of committing the offenses “on or between December 25 and December 26, 1996.” JonBenet was found murdered in the basement of the family’s Boulder home the day after Christmas 1996.
The Boulder District Attorney claimed in 2008 that new DNA evidence ruled out the Ramsey’s as JonBenet’s murderer. But new DA Stan Garnet gave the case back to police in 2011. He told Boulder Channel 1s Jann Scott in May that the Ramsey’s were not exonerated by him and that the case was fully in Boulder Police departments hands.
Boulder Police believe that John and Patsy Ramsey were involved with their childs murder and that there was no intruder. The new DA Stan Garnet seems to believe that too.
by Ron Baird
Jann Scott contributed to this story
some information was gathered from CNN
JonBenet Ramsey’s murder front burner
Oct 24th
One of the most notorious unsolved murders in Boulder, not to mention U.S. history, has recently been moved to the front burner, at least for the time being.
On Dec.26, 1996, six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was found murdered in an obscure basement room in her family home in the University Hill neighborhood. She had been sexually assaulted, then strangled with a garrote.
Due to the fact that JonBenet was a child beauty-pageant star, the case captured the world’s interest and spawned nearly unprecedented media coverage for several years, never going completely away.
The case began as a suspected kidnapping due to an oddly written ransom note, which demanded $118,000 for her safe return. Late in the day, John Ramsey discovered her body and brought it upstairs to a roomful of shocked police officers and Ramsey family friends.
In the course of the investigation, District Attorney Alex Hunter empaneled a grand jury in 1999 to consider the case. The grand jury handed down indictments of JonBenet’s parents—John and Patsy Ramsey—but the indictments were never reported until the Daily Camera published a story earlier this year quoting members of the grand jury saying it had indicted the couple for child abuse resulting in death.
Hunter was quoted as saying he had declined to prosecute the Ramseys at that time because he didn’t believe he could prove the case “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Daily Camera reporter Charlie Brennan and a group known as the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed a lawsuit in Boulder District Court in September, claiming:
“The plaintiffs believe… that the indictment is a criminal justice record that reflects official action by the grand jury, and accordingly that it is subject to mandatory disclosure upon request.” Brennan and the RCFP also argue that the indictment should be made public in the interest of government transparency.
The Boulder DA’s office said unsealing the indictment would be “breach of promise” to the jury, citing the importance of maintaining the integrity of grand jury secrecy.
But last week, Weld County Judge Robert Lowenbach, the judge hearing the lawsuit by Brennan and RCFP, ruled that current Boulder District Attorney Stan Garnett must show why the indictment must remain secret.
Not surprisingly, John Ramsey opposes the move unless the entire Grand Jury records are released.
Whatever the grand jury transcripts might show, in 2008, then District Attorney Mary Lacy declared that new DNA technology proved the Ramseys innocent of any wrongdoing.
The genetic material matches came from a drop of blood found on JonBenet’s underwear early in the investigation. The authorities determined then that the blood was not from a member of the Ramsey family but could not say whether it came from the killer.
In 2006, Lacy’s office announced the arrest of John Karr , after several months of investigation. But Karr’s DNA did not match, and less than two weeks later Lacy announced that he was no longer a suspect.
Hal Haddon and Bryan Morgan, attorneys who represent John Ramsey said in a letter to the Camera: “Public release of the allegations of an un-prosecuted indictment only serves to further defame (John Ramsey) and his late wife Patricia. Mr. Ramsey will have no access to whatever evidence the prosecutors presented to the grand jury and will have no ability to disprove those allegations in a court of law. Nor will the public have any ability to evaluate the propriety of the indictment unless the entire grand jury record is unsealed and opened to public view.”
From the beginning, investigators believed someone in the household was responsible, citing the lack of evidence of a break in, the complex layout of the house, the amount of time it took to write the two, 400 +/-word ransom-demand letters and similarities to Patsy’s hand writing. But a key detective, Lt. John Eller, who was the ranking investigator, would not press the Ramseys to be interrogated separately; insisting that the parents were victims, not suspects.
Under pressure, Patsy finally provided writing samples but a forensic handwriting expert ruled that, while very similar, the writing in the sample did not rise to the legal standard required to determine it was hers.
On Wednesday, the judge ordered the grand jury record to be released.
BC1 Editor Ron Baird covered the JonBenet Ramsey investigation for the Colorado Daily, when it was a real newspaper.
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