Copenhagen's Success, Climate Change's Impact on Food and Water Supplies, and Asian Carp Updates
Posted December 22, 2009 in The Media and the Environment
Frances Beinecke explained in E/The Environmental Magazine that while the climate accord reached in Copenhagen is not perfect, it will set the stage for meaningful action in the months ahead… In a CNN Tonight interview Kim Knowlton stressed that over the next few years all countries will feel the impact of climate change on their water and food supplies…Dale Bryk was also on CNN Tonight last week speaking LIVE on the topic of green jobs…
In a front page San Francisco Chronicle article Peter Miller stressed the importance of California’s continued climate change leadership… Alex Wang highlighted the two major contributions China made in Copenhagen in an interview with China Daily…
Henry Henderson and Thom Cmar addressed the urgent need to create a permanent barrier and prevent the spread of Asian Carp to the Great Lakes ecosystem in interviews running in the Environmental News Service and the Christian Science Monitor respectively… Barry Nelson co-wrote an op-ed in the Marin Independent Journal clarifying what California’s new water reform bills mean for the average Californian…
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Dr. James Singmaster — Dec 23 2009 01:33 AM
The CHopenhagen Conf. was doomed to failure, even if NRDC tries to whitewash the failure, because no one there including NRDC understands the real issues involved. Piddly-diddling about controlling emissions means nothing when we already have an overload of GHGs in the biosphere causing unstoppable warming. Warming that may soon see Mother Nature with her own infernal combustion machine emitting CO2, methane(CH4) and other GHGs as the yedoma being exposed under melting permafrost mainly in Siberia starts biodegrading. NRDC staff and readers of this blog ought to check out the paper "Permafrost and the Global Carbon Budget" in Sci. Vol. 312, pgs.1612-3 (2006).
To get control of the climate crisis, we have to stop emissions from trapped energy sources such as fossil and nuclear fuels and find a way to be removing some of the overloads of heat energy and carbon dioxide, something no one at the Conf. understands. We have to get to renewable energy such as wind and solar collectors, and NRDC and WRI should stop wasting contributors money on the "Clean Coal-CCS" farce.
A way to achieve some removal of the overloads is available in making a resource out of our massive ever-growing messes of organic wastes and sewage solids. P. Lehner, NRDC Execu. Dir., had Switchboard posting in July, 2008 about the waste messes but NRDC has had no follow up on the way those messes are getting out of control making messes out of the oceans. The process known as pyrolysis can be applied to those messes with major benefits on several fronts. These include stopping the reemitting of GHGs from the way these messes get handled presently especially in composting. An even bigger benefit accrues with pyrolysis destroying all germs, drugs and most toxics(A few may remain that may needed some cleanup of an expelled crude oil like mix.).
About 50% of the biocarbon in the messes gets converted to inert charcoal to be buried or possibly used as a soil amendment. No hazards are left to be a source of water pollution problems from those hazards that are rapidly growing with present disposal procedures with the messes. The other 50% of the biocarbon will distill out as a crude oil like gaseous mix with water and some gases and can possibly be passed through a turbocharger to generate some electricity. The oil part can be refined to get a renewable fuel to use for firing the pyrolysis process. The hot charcoal after being formed can be passed through a heat exchanger to be used for making steam to power a generator. Having those hazards destroyed means reducing many billions of dollars presently being spent in monitoring dumps for escapes and seepage.
Why can't NRDC staff see the benefits of viewing those messes as a resource for controlling several major environmental problems. Those messes, if we do not get control of them and the increasing pollution arising from them, may soon be a bigger problem than the climate crisis as food and water contamination with germs, drugs and toxics grows along with the wastes and population. Dr. J. Singmaster