A more holistic response to climate change.

Global Warming and Climate change have been hot topics for many years. At the heart of the issue is how to ensure that this little blue planet remains inhabitable for future generations.

The response till now has been focussed on reducing emissions of green house gasses. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was established to “The ultimate objective of the Convention is to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic (human induced) interference with the climate system.”

On the UNFCCC website, under Mitigation the focus is limited exclusively to reducing emissions. Burn less fossil fuels, use less aviation and maritime transport. All of this must counter development and depress economies. This is a recipe for disaster since Asia and Africa’s developing nations cannot afford to stop using coal and Oil. America and most First World economies are so dependent on oil that stopping emissions is practical impossible.

Prevailing wisdom suggests sinking money into the renewables sectors with Solar and Wind. This is not the silver bullet that can slay the climate change werewolf. Solar is great but wouldn’t you know it, it only works while the sun is shining. Unfortunately the peak consumption is usually just after sundown. Wind is great, as long as the wind is blowing. But where are we left when the wind stops blowing after sunset?

A world without a reliable source of electricity is a giant leap into the past. We, the consumers, are very intolerant of an unstable electricity supply. The folk in South Africa dealing with power outages for hours and days and some times even months on end will attest to that. In the 21^st century, to be left without power over night would spell disaster for civilisation. The population may explode, the TV industry would crumble forcing unemployment up. We may have to find real work for the folk in the reality TV industry. 

Industry too would be severely affected by power failures. Consider a rainy overcast day in the middle of winter. The full production from the wind farm is required to keep the population from freezing. That leaves little reserve for the aluminium/aluminum plant to keep functioning. If the power fails, the plant may have to completely replace machinery. A single brown out could cost an aluminium smelter millions. We are not able to maintain our current living conditions under these restrictions.

The best and most reliable means of producing electricity in large parts of the world remains coal fired power stations. Investment in Natural Gas power plants continues to grow, but the mining of natural gas has the environmental lobby up in arms. My personal favourite is nuclear power, however the events with the Tsunami at Fukushima appear to have been the death knell for Nuclear power.

The result, to take environmental concerns to heart, without being forced back into the iron age we cannot simply concentrate on reducing emissions. We need to be very focussed on removing CO2 from the atmosphere, not simply trying to put CO2 there at a reduced rate.

So carry on using less electricity, installing solar and use more fuel efficient cars, hybrid and electric, that is all good, but simply too slow. We all need to focus on getting CO2 out of the atmosphere. The question is how?

My Grade 3 child knows that plants absorb CO2 and release O2 during photosynthesis. This is a wonderful technology completely unencumbered by patents. Trees are particularly good at this, and a single tree can remove about 12 kg of CO2 each year. So perhaps we should start cultivating forests to counteract our voracious appetite for energy?

It would appear that the all told, our average CO2 emissions per person is 4.9 ton each year. The average for America is 17.6 ton, 16 for Australia, 8.9 for South Africa.  Countries like India 1.7 ton and Brazil at 2.2 ton are at the bottom end of the scale.

This is total CO2 equivalent taking industry transport and energy into account.

If you are interested in calculating your carbon footprint, here is an online carbon footprint calculator.

For the 4.9 ton figure, we require at least 408 trees per person. For the high 17.6 ton figure we require 1’467 trees per person. Obviously different varieties of trees will require different spaces, but as an average let us say that we can fit 700 trees per acre. That means we should each have between 1 and 2 acres of forest. As the population is approaching 7 billion we will require 14 billion acres of forest.That equates to 57 million square kilometres of forest.

The current forests of the world occupy 39 million square kilometres and this is declining in sub Saharan Africa and Latin America. The difference is almost 18 million square kilometres of forest or a shortfall of 46%. 

The beauty of this process is the benefits will be evident within two to five years rather than 20 to 50. Not only that but trees will minimise rainwater runoff, lower surface temperatures, provide shade and generally have a very positive influence on our well being.

Trying to fix our planet with a single strategy is not going to have the maximum impact. This needs to be beaten on several fronts, and I would like to see agriculture and forestry take up the clarion call.

Please let me know what you think. I would love to hear from you.

References: 

http://www.arborenvironmentalalliance.com/carbon-tree-facts.asp

Google Public Data Explorer - World Development Indicators.
image credit - https://www.facebook.com/ScienceIsSeriouslyAwesome.

PRISM, Snowden and Paranoia.

This last week has been very interesting. The revelation that the US is spying must surely not have come as any surprise. No sane person would believe that the NSA, CIA or FBI are anything other than intelligence machinery created to spy. I believe this is more a case that innocence has been lost.

We have understood that intelligence agencies will spy on the bad guys. That is a good thing because it will keep me safe. I do not however want these agencies looking too closely at my personal activities. I don't  want them looking at my online purchases, knowing what I say after a couple of beers at the bar or when I speculate about alien life. Heaven forbid they see what dark corners of the internet I browse from the privacy of my lounge. What about the silly prank calls my teenager makes to a random number for a yarn or the drunken calls or tweets after the world cup match?

Even more concerning is that the court that issues the warrants for this, FICA, is not subject to oversight. The court proceedings are secret and closed to the public. They are a power unto themselves.

This is exactly what Edward Snowden has told us is happening. The information he has provided shows that the US government is actively collecting data about where a call originates, where that call terminates, how long the call was and when. More than that, the IMSI numbers of the phones involved. The IMSI ties the call to specific handsets.

This surveillance is not just for a few persons of interest either, but for every user on the Verizon and AT&T networks. This includes international calls, so a distant cousin in England or Australia is included in this indiscriminate eavesdropping simply because of their association with someone in the US.

Snowden’s PRISM revelations indicate further that companies like Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Skype may give the N. S. A. access to their servers; to users emails, pictures, files, online chats, videos or anything else. This casts a shadow over the security or at least privacy of cloud computing. Since the Internet routing is based on the least cost rather than shortest path the bulk of Internet traffic worldwide is routed via the US.

This is where the intelligence gathering efforts bleed into the homes of users in the rest of the world. Add to this the Department of Homeland Security’s document “Analyst’s Desktop Binder.” This binder includes keywords and search terms that are on the DOHS’s radar. Generic terms like drill, exercise, facility, leak, virus, pork, port, power, metro and bust. The result is they could be gathering the data, pictures and emails from every electrician, middle aged man concerned about his weight, soccer mom planing dinner, plumber and student trying to get to class; worldwide.

Considering the number of these keywords and the concentration in this blog post, I may have trouble securing a Visa to visit the US in future. 

Whether Edward Snowden is a traitor or a hero will depend on the outcome of this debacle. If this gives the American’s sufficient pause to have their government return to accountability and democracy or continue with the autocracy; that appears to be a hallmark of American policy post 9/11, remains to be seen.

I see shades of the 1985 John Schlesinger film with Sean Penn "The Falcon and the Snowman."

Please feel free to leave comments; even anonymously if you are not already in the google system. I may not know who left the comment, but the US government will.

Is this purely paranoia? Is it paranoid if they are out to get you? Is Edward Snowden a traitor or a hero? What do you think?

note:
Related article in the Conversation "Nine reasons you should care about NSA's PRISM surveillance."
Related Blog from me about Orwellian Big Brother here.

Why do we need GMOs

In the last few years genetically modified organisms, GMOs, have featured quite prominently in social media and the news. In almost every case this has been very negative publicity. Google searches for GMO yields 61 million pages, Monsanto Evil yields 8 million. Negative articles from 2011 are dished up fresh today to show how bad GMOs are.

I have friends that attend marches protesting GMO use. I wanted to know more.

Morpheus said "You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes." 

No single blog post can adequately cover all the issues. This is an immensely deep rabbit-hole. In this first in a series of posts on the subject, I wanted to understand why anyone would want to use GMOs. It is a first blush look at the raison d'être for GMOs.
Are we able to improve on what nature has developed over the ages? The act of modifying the organism must by its very nature make the organism more expensive.

Any farmer will tell you that becoming a farmer is easy, staying a farmer requires great skill. The cost of producing a crop does not stop once the seed stock is bought. There are costs involved in preparing the field, planting the field and keeping the plants free of pests. The field needs to be fertilized to ensure there are sufficient nutrients for the plants and we need to ensure that weeds are eliminated to give the crop has the best opportunity to produce.

Pesticides.

For as long as plants have been evolving, bugs have been evolving to eat those plants. Traditionally pesticides are used to prevent pests from destroying the crop. Pesticides do not come cheap. So the more you need to use these, the more expensive the crop becomes. We have learned from experience with DDT and other pesticides, that the lingering effects remain in the soil and can leach into water supplies. This creates a whole host of issues everyone would prefer to avoid. 

Science has tried to modify organisms to be less palatable to bugs. The result is that less of the crop is lost to pests so the yield must improve. This should save money since the crops require less pesticides. 

Herbicides.

When a field is prepared for a crop, it is unfortunately also prepared for any other plant that may grow there. The weeds that come up in your field rob the plants of nutrients and water and light. You can get rid of the weeds by hand, but that is labour intensive and time consuming. The roots may be intertwined, so pulling up a weed could damage or pull out the desired crop. Weeding can be done mechanically. This saves time but this could also damage some of the crop. Herbicides are an efficient method as long as they can differentiate between plants. If the weed is too similar to the crop, herbicides may not be viable.

Worldwide we find drought, crop failures, famine and malnutrition. The global population has grown to over seven billion people. Higher yield crops can go some way to address these issues but more must be done. Vitamin A deficiency is but ine serious problem in poorer countries and can lead to blindness.

For numerous reasons the same countries with wide spread need are unable to feed themselves as a result of drought or war or desert. 

This is where the genetically modified organisms, GMOs come in to their own. It is possible to modify crops to make them more nutritious. The case of Golden rice is one example http://www.goldenrice.org/. GMOs that are nutritious and hardy can go a long way to providing Vitamin A and combating sight problems rice based societies.

The GMOs can also be modified to be resistant to specific herbicides. This would allow a farmer to use a herbicide with environmentally friendly characteristics, secure in the knowledge that the crop is immune to the effects of the herbicides but the weeds are not.

If the plant can be modified to repel the pests then we are working towards a super organism to solve a whole host of the worlds problems.

There is one problem with this super organism. If it is immune to pests and herbicides. What can be done to stop the spread. The super organism may become an unstoppable weed?  While we are engineering all these super features into the organism, perhaps a failsafe can be added so that the organism can be controlled.

Terminator and Zombie Technology.

The names given to these two technologies play right into the worst nightmares of popular media. So what is this and why would it be needed?

The terminator technology is a safety device or a protection mechanism to prevent a particular organism from going absolutely wild and spreading like a weed. Without the technology the GMOs could potentially force other plants out and this would affect biodiversity.

The Zombie technology is a refinement of the terminator technology. The organism is sterile unless treated with a compound that allows it to reproduce. Think of this as the plant on birth control. No possibility or reproduction until the farmer reverses the process by treating the crop. Monsanto holds a patent for a terminator technology. ~ http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Terminator-US-Patent-5723765.htm.

We have a saviour, our super plant can not take over the world.

As long as the science can outperform the pest and weed evolution the crops should deliver better yield purely because they do not need to compete for nutrients and water.

So far there is no downside. Unless higher yield is a bad thing. It seems that GMOs are extremely beneficial. Why all the bad publicity?

That question I am going to leave over for a future post. 

I would love to hear what you think. What are the issues that concern you most? Perhaps my next post on this topic will be able to address or commiserate with those concerns.