Lignite under fire
How heartening to hear the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Jan Wright, on the side of the environment.
While the Minister of Finance Bill English and Solid Energy chief executive Don Elder dig up a piece of New Zealand's richest, high-production Edendale loam for the filthy brown cheap coal beneath, at least there is someone speaking sense against this lignite mining.
Dr Wright says its large-scale use would have serious environmental and climatic implications.
I don't buy regional councils response that climate-change issues have nothing to do with them. How many of them have grandchildren and grandchildren?
Southland councillors and CEOs: the future of your soils, your citizens and their children's health lies with you. Please, please, please tell central government and Solid Energy to leave the lignite alone.
ROSEMARY PENWARDEN
Waitati
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
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24 comments:
No seriously RG, climate change has nothing to do with Southland Council, or humans for that matter.
Paranormal
Do you believe humnas could change the climate, paranormal, if they chose to?
(I'm keen to tease this one out with you - don't hit and run :-)
...And the gas....please don't frack!
Robert
When man can:
1) change the suns output,
2) control the planets orbit/ distance from the sun,
3) affect sea temperatures and currents
Amongst a number of variabilities that can affect the climate, then yes, humans could change the climate. That's if you are talking about climate on a global scale.
The belief that man made carbon emmissions are affecting the climate is ludicrous.
Paranormal
paranormal - you are dancing around the question I put to you. I expected you might want to engage in a real discussion, as the topic interests us both. Are you only wanting to play cat and mouse? No gain in that, I reckon.
To make it a little easier for you to settle to the debate, how about this question:
Has the cutting down of forests resulted in changes to climate?
Or maybe: has the climate in parts of the world been significantly affected by changes made to the landscape by humans?
Sorry RG, you'll need to be clearer in your questions. This is a post about lignite and carbon afterall. You asked me if humans could change the climate so only fair to think I would answer on that basis.
Climate/Weather is created by macro things like sea temperature. The cutting down of trees impacts how we feel the affects of weather. So if you are talking about local variations, then yes of course man can affect how local weather impacts.
I know this only too well - we're trying to grow shelter belts as fast as we can. It would be wrong to think that when our shelter belts are fully grown we will have any impact on windspeeds other than in our sheltered area.
So lets get to the nub of your question. Has chopping down forests caused wind and rainstorms that have caused damage in deforested areas? No - the wind and rainstorms are created by earths macro weather machine.
Paranormal
"So lets get to the nub of your question. Has chopping down forests caused wind and rainstorms that have caused damage in deforested areas? No - the wind and rainstorms are created by earths macro weather machine."
I'm puzzled by your insistence on changing the terms of the discussion, paranormal. Your version of my question differs significantly from what I asked:
"how about this question:
Has the cutting down of forests resulted in changes to climate?"
Are you doing this to make mischief?
I'm proposing that the creation of deserts, for example, through the activities on humans (agricultural practices especially) has affected the climate in minor and major ways. For example, rainfall in areas as big as the Sahara Desert has been radically diminished as the result of human activity. Climatic changes do and have resulted from human activity.
RG, I think the issue here is you are not understanding my answers based on your belief structure.
For example the Sahara is not the result of poor farming practices but is part of the global desert area from global weather dynamics. Have a look at the map of the worlds desert zones http://maps.howstuffworks.com/world-deserts-map.htm The deserts occupy roughly the same latitudes above and below the equator (with allowances for land mass/altitude etc.) for a reason.
Poor farming practices will 'temporarily' (on a geological time scale) damage areas but rainfall will not change because of it. There will be seasonal variation in rainfall based on sea temperatures and land mass etc., but again this will be 'temporary' on a geological time scale. The real issue around unsustainable farming practices in marginal areas - such as the North American midwest, is mans view of the environment on a short timescale and adopting farming methods that don't match the environment over a longer time period.
Yet again the discussion is around causation or correlation.
Paranormal
paranormal - you are suggesting that Mesopotamia, once the food basket of the known world, wasn't desertified by agricultural practice and didn't result in long-term changes to the climate there?
Your 'geological time' argument is a non-sense in terms of the impacts changing the planets climate will have on humans - it may well revert back to pre-hominid conditions once we are gone, but we'll be ... gone.
Your claim that agricultural practices don't affect rainfall is complete nonsense also. It's clear that it can and has, on both local and regional levels. Remove forests and rainfall stops. Remove huge forests and huge areas stop receiving the rain it once had. A tree is a pump. Water vapour goes up, condenses and falls as rain. That's waht forests do. Take them away, the cycle is broken.
RG - my reference to geological time is incorrect. I am trying to make the understanding that man looks at this over too short a timespan of a few years when decades is more relevant. When you look over decades you can see the natural variation caused by the impact of such things as El Nino and La Nina. Otherwise, last year, you would be saying things like Global Warming has made farming unviable in Waikato following to very dry years. When in actual fact is is the result of normal variation.
Yes trees create damp environments and create clouds. However the majority of rain comes from evaporation off the sea. Sea temperature will affect long term weather patterns - and consequently rainfall or drought in regions, regardless of trees. (Trees will ensure that what rain does fall will be retained better - isn't that one of the key tenets of permaculture?) Remember Robert, the trees can't manufacture water out of nothing, it has to originally come from somewhere for the trees to suck it up.
You can see from the world desert maps where rain laden air, from the tropics, misses the desert areas. The desert areas will change based on fluctuations in the heat source - which is why there are tropical oases in the heart of the Sahara desert complete with huge crocodiles. A memory of what used to be there.
Don't get me wrong - I am not in favour of the large scale destruction of forest, but climate is not driven by the presence of forests.
As an aside I find this discussion interesting in that it sort of replicates an argument I witnessed between two earthquake specialists. One felt that fault lines caused earthquakes whilst the other contended that earthquakes caused faultlines.
But all of this is a long way from the nonsense of global warming from carbon emissions your original post was about.
Paranormal
Tell me about the effect of volcanoes on the climate, paraormal.
Are you referring to the cooling they cause following a major eruption?
Can you tell me how nuclear winter has morphed?
Paranormal
Can you tell me about the climate on a geological timescale and where we are currently at on that scale?
Paranormal
para@4:06
Yes. No.
para@4:08
No.
So RG - What is your point to all of this?
Volcanoes spew massive amounts of CO2 and particulates into the air and there is cooling. Why do you suggest that the relatively smaller amounts of CO2 and particulates introduced into the atmosphere by man incurs warming?
Why do you consider Southland Council should try to ban mining of the resources in their area because of the 'serious climatic implications' that do not appear consistant with your comments above?
Paranormal
Particulates from volcanoes cause cooling and the climate is affected.
Human industry create particulates...which cause cooling and the climate is affected.
Therefore, human activity affects the climate. That is the claim I made at the beginning of this post and you've helped me prove it, para.
Secondarily, the invisible gases produced by human industry cause warming, just as those from natural sources such as volcanoes can do. I am saying that the atmosphere is being warmed by the greenhouse gases created by humans and their industries, and that warming will affect the climate.
That's perfectly logical and correct, isn't it paranormal.
Hang on Robert. How can gases and particulates from volcanoes cause cooling but when humans emit them they cause warming?
Also the affects from Volcanoes that pump out massive amounts, far in excess of mans efforts, in short time frames, are temporary at best.
From your words there is nil net affect on the environment - cooling and warming? So what is it?
Then we're just back onto the same cycle of discussion about CO2 responsible for the warming we haven't had over the last 10 years. That is the computer models that are the only 'scientific' evidence used to justify a massive political money grab.
And then we come back to the point at issue - How is Southland Council responsible for non warming caused by a life gas?
Paranormal
paranormal - you conflate my statements to suit your prejudice, as I expected you would. Volcanoes and human industry produce particulates that have the effect of cooling, due to their blocking/reflecting characteristics. Green house gases produced by both 'parties' do the opposite, because of the 'greenhouse effect'. Both are in operation. Take away the particulates, and the temperature would be rocketing up. The particulate effect is masking the 'time-bomb' of increased green house gases in our atmosphere, much of which mankind is responsible for. If we continue to add to the load, which we are doing, and the background concentrations of greenhouse gases continues to rise, as it measurably is, we are toying with disaster. Particulates clear quite quickly from the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases don't. If the former were to cease, in the case, for example, of a massive and 'sudden' downturn in dirty industries, or the burning of kerosene at high altitudes in jet aircraft, we'd be in hot water.
As for the Southland Regional Council's position -you've indicated that they might
'ban' the 'mining of the resources in their area', which is a nonsense from you - they/we can't ban and you gather everything up with your 'resources' description. Jan Wright called on the council to express, to the Government, it's opposition to the proposed lignite open-cast mining. Extrapolating wildly is a hallmark of your argument style, paranormal. I don't know if you do it consciously, or if it's something you are not aware of.
Again, to focus your mind, least you are straying from my original requeest of you, given that you haven't thrown in the towel believing that we are going in circles here:
"Do you believe humans could change the climate, paranormal, if they chose to?"
I guess you are sticking with no. I'm convinced we have and do and will.
RG - I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. It has been a very wide discussion.
Sorry your logic just doesn't add up.
Paranormal
Can't be helped, para. Oh for a third-party opinion :-)
Robert is absolutely right!
That's a joke right there, paranormal :-)
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