Farm Animal Waste Contaminating Water Supplies

As the report, Moove that Manure, in Scientific American describes, manure from large farm animal operations can overwhelm the systems meant to contain or dilute it. The result is often contaminated surface waters and groundwater. This is but one symptom of the unsustainable system of agriculture we are growing in America and many other countries around the world.

In the farms of yesteryear, manure was not simply a waste product, but essential fertilizer. It enriched the soil for the next growing season, and helped prevent erosion and the depletion of soil fertility. The smaller and more diverse farms of that day could optimize their use of everything because they did not depend on the mass production of any one product.

But we don't have to return farming to what it was 50 or 100 years ago to make it once again sustainable. We may have to change our conception of a reasonable size for a farming operation, establish incentives that promote diverse agricultural businesses, and remove barriers that make it difficult for small farms to thrive. But we can do those things while still taking advantage of new technologies such as genetic engineering.

Positive Feedback and the Runaway Greenhouse

Two recent reports about climate change research send up red hot flares warning of positive feedbacks promoting global warming.

The first is a report by Richard Kerr in Science magazine (see Kerr 2009) of research conducted by Amy Clement and colleagues at the University of Miami in Florida. The bottom line in this study finds that warming ocean temperatures may cause low clouds to thin, allowing more sunlight to reach the ocean and cause further warming of the ocean surface. In turn, this increased warming could cause further cloud thinning allowing even more sunlight to reach and warm the ocean. This positive, or reinforcing feedback provides one of the more frightening scenarios of climate change. The runaway greenhouse effect that a positive feedback loop could trigger threatens to make the worst predictions of the IPCC look tame.

The second report, by Charles Hanley of the Associated Press (see Hanley 2009), examines the findings of a host of permafrost scientists from Canada, Russia, the United States, Germany, Britain, Norway, and Sweden. The common thread here involves permafrost melting across the far northern hemisphere in response to rising temperatures. The danger lies with the large amounts of methane locked in the, until now, permanently frozen lands of the Arctic. If those lands thaw and release this methane, it would add significantly to the already dangerous greenhouse effect from the excess carbon dioxide we have added to the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Methane's greenhouse gas potential, molecule for molecule, is 21 times that of carbon dioxide. The release of even a fraction of the many billions of tons of methane locked up in the Arctic would cause a degree of increased warming sure to melt even more permafrost, and yes, you guessed it, release yet more methane. That should sound familiar, as it represents one more way that a positive feedback cycle threatens to produce a runaway greenhouse effect and catastrophic global warming.

And while climate scientists have been aware of both of these positive feedback possibilities for years, these new findings suggest that the possibilities may become reality. Both reports underline the need for continuing research, but both also point to a growing risk of extremely nasty climate surprises.

Climate skeptics are quick to point out that climate predictions may exaggerate the dangers of global warming. These two reports underline the fact that climate predictions may also greatly underestimate future global warming.

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Hanley, C.J. 2009. Climate trouble may be bubbling up in far north. News and Observer, Raleigh, NC. September 3, 2009 (Associated Press).

Kerr, R.A. 2009. Clouds appear to be big, bad player in global warming. Science 325:376.

Picturing Air

In the alternative energy video, "Kilowatt Ours", a resident of West Virginia laments the loss of a favorite mountain to mountain-top-removal coal mining. He recalls someone asking him if he had a picture of the mountain, and he replied that he did not, and for two reasons. First, it can be difficult to take a picture of a mountain since it is big and if you are close to or on it, how do you take a picture of it. Second, he lived on and around the mountain all his life, he never thought it would go anywhere, so why would he need to take a picture of it?

Similar difficulties face one wishing to take a photograph of the air. How do you take a picture of something that is all around you? Why would you take a picture of something that is ever-present?

Describing a hypothetical picture of air, one could mention it's oxygen content, temperature, water vapor content, water droplet density, carbon dioxide level, ozone concentration, particulate matter load, visibility or clarity, color, and the speed and direction of its movement. Some of these characteristics would show up in your image, some not, depending on their particular levels at the time.

How would you frame all of that?

13 National Academies of Science joint statement!

The National Academies of Science of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America have agreed that

"...climate change is happening even faster than previously estimated; global CO2 emissions since 2000 have been higher than even the highest predictions, Arctic sea ice has been melting at rates much faster than predicted, and the rise in the sea level has become more rapid. Feedbacks in the climate system might lead to much more rapid climate changes."

They go on to claim that "The need for urgent action to address climate change is now indisputable."

This is not the press release of a group of people who jump to conclusions.

The full 2-page report, issued in May 2009, may be found here:


http://www.nationalacademies.org/includes/G8+5energy-climate09.pdf

The Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century!!!

This is from the L.A. Times for August 25, 2009:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, trying to ward off potentially sweeping federal emissions regulations, is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to hold a rare public hearing on the scientific evidence for man-made climate change.

Chamber officials say it would be "the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century" -- complete with witnesses, cross-examinations and a judge who would rule, essentially, on whether humans are warming the planet to dangerous effect.

"It would be evolution versus creationism," said William Kovacs, the chamber's senior vice president for environment, technology and regulatory affairs. "

Does anyone else see just how appropriate the analogy is to the Scopes monkey trial, where creation was pitted against evolution, religion against science? So the U.S. Chamber of Commerce likes comparing its push to challenge the science of global warming to a religious crusade? I understand their bias, but that they would admit it up front is surprising.

Full L.A. Times story here.

2009 Year-to-date Land and Sea Temperatures

I've heard the climate change skeptics are excited that there has been a cooling trend that might appear to call into doubt forecasts of global warming. Not sure where they are getting their data, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently released it's July 2009 State of the Climate Global Analysis. There does not appear to be much of a cooling trend. If you look at their graph reproduced above, it shows the dramatic warming recorded in the combined global sea surface and land surface temperatures over the last 130 years.

They have also produced a graph separating the sea surface and land surface temperature record over the same 1880 to 2009 time period. You can see in the image below that both ocean and land surfaces show this warming trend. I wish there were a cooling trend overall, but it just isn't there.

The entire July 2009 report (including the two graphs above) may be found at the following link:

State of the Climate - Global Analysis - July 2009

No words, just enjoy!

This view along the Boone Fork Trail in Price Lake Park on the Blue Ridge Parkway might make a nice screensaver image.