Despite all the talk and attention given to “Food Miles” the one factor that to date have not been brought into the equation is the greenhouse gasses that are produced in the manufacture processes of food production, and especially that of the meat industry.

When we talk about greenhouse gasses, we think immediately of the gasses that come from our exhausts. Yet the other greenhouse gasses are often far more dangerous.

Consider Methane for instance, whilst not present in as large volumes as carbon dioxide it is molecule for molecule more damaging than CO2. 1 Ton of methane is as dangerous as 50 tons of CO2 to the atmosphere.

A current fear amongst climatologist is that the change in temperature will cause lakes in the perma-frost to melt and release the Methane gas trapped under their iced tops.

Methane and Nitrous Oxide are well-documented by-products of the meat industry.

As one of the biggest meat, eating countries in the world

South Africa

is a huge contributor in this regard.

Recent research has determined that small organic vegetable farms are the key to lower food costs and a huge reduction in greenhouse gasses.

A small 5-acre plot can provide vegetables for up to 200 families, whereas a similar size plot only provides meat for a few families.

The biggest culprits in the huge distances food travel to get to our tables are the supermarkets. They are money driven businesses and if they can get chickens cheaply form china they will import it and sell it locally never minding the fact that the chicken had to travel thousands of kilometers to cross the road to your table.

Therefore, if the readers of these articles care for the environment in any way or even if they are more interested in just consuming that which the environment produces, I now offer them the same challenge.

EAT LOCAL PRODUCE.
DEMAND THAT YOUR FOOD SHOP GET MORE LOCAL PRODUCE.
STOP BUYING IMPORTED BASIC FOOD GOODS.

Currently your food consumption causes more than 1/3 of your total carbon footprint. (The amount of CO2 gasses one person causes to be released into the atmosphere.)

If we can reduce the amount of meat and dairy products, we consume on a daily basis and replace it with locally grown organic vegetable products then each one of us can firstly make a major contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gasses and we can all lead healthier lifestyles.

The links between illness and meat products are to well documented to discuss here but suffice to say that there are no known correlations between vegetables and illnesses apart from allergies.

So eat locally, eat healthy, help save our planet.
There is no plan B for planet earth.

A topic much in the news of late is the escalating cost of food.

Blame is incorrectly, placed at food producers such as farmers.

Let us examine a simple commodity such as milk, we all know that there are dairy farms in the area, yet we are paying a small fortune for a liter of milk.

The cost of the milk on our table is made up of the following components.

Production cost, this is how much it costs the farmer to produce the liter.

Then we add transport costs to the Dairy, and then come the packaging cost, then the distribution cost of getting the liter back to the shop where you can buy it.

So the milk that is made within 10km from us actually have to travel nearly 300km to get to the breakfast table and more than 5 companies handle the product, each of them adding a mark-up to the original production cost.

Therefore, if we want to blame someone for the high food cost we should not look at the producers but rather at that which adds FOOD KILOMETERS to our commodities.

If the consumer thinks that the current situation is bad then they are in for a very huge shock.

Therefore, as consumers what are we to do, starve or go bankrupt trying to feed our families, because striking and “mass action” is not going to solve this dilemma; caused primarily by global warming.

The solution lies in our own back yard.

I suggest our council takes a short drive up to Vredendal, go, and see what the framers there are doing with greenhouse tunnel farming.

Producing locally what is consumed locally has worked before and it will work again, it is labour intensive it is environmentally friendly and it is healthy.

Overall, it will solve the unemployment problem, reduce greenhouse gasses in the area and will give us food that is healthier than that which we buy in the shops due to reduced processing.

Just remember that it is not money, but the pursuit of money that is the root of all evil.

Recently, scientist has discovered, or shall we say rediscovered that the sands of the Kalahari are a forgotten storehouse for CO2.

Dr Andrew Thomas of Manchester Metropolitan University says that even though deserts cover more than one third of the earth’s surface our understanding of their contribution to the global CO2 balance is poor.

Sands like those in the Kalahari Desert of Botswana are full of cyanobacteria. These drought resistant bacteria can fix atmospheric carbon dioxide, and together they add significant quantities of organic matter to the nutrient deficient sands.

“We know that globally there is a huge exchange of carbon between the atmosphere and the soil. As average global temperatures rise, scientists are concerned that bacteria will break down organic matter in soils more rapidly, releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere”, says Dr Thomas. “However, there have been very few actual field studies of this carbon exchange through world soils and little information on how they respond to temperature and moisture changes. This is particularly true for deserts. Here the bacteria have to be able to cope with long periods without rain and extreme temperatures, so they lie dormant in the desert soil only springing to life when there is enough moisture”.

Much like our local flower seasons where the seeds of the flowers lay dormant sometimes for years, even though this is a small change the size of the deserts make a huge global impact.

“We discovered that even after light rainfall, the gains and losses of carbon dioxide through the sands of the Kalahari Desert were similar in size to those reported for more organic rich grassland soils. Despite being short lived, these raised pulses of activity are a significant and previously unreported contributor to atmospheric carbon dioxide” says Dr Thomas. “Global climate change models have forgotten them”.

So the science community is now once again turning their eyes upon us for a solution to the global CO2 problem.

What is amazing though is that although the rest of the world looks at us as a place that can solve the global environmental crisis locally we seem hell bent on contributing to the problem.

At the Carnegie Institution scientists puts a new twist on photosynthesis, the most important biological process on Earth.

Photosynthesis by plants, algae, and some bacteria supports nearly all life by producing food from sunlight, and in the process, they release oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide.

However, two studies suggest that certain marine micro organisms have evolved a way to break the rules–they get a significant proportion of their energy without a net release of oxygen or uptake of carbon dioxide.
This discovery impacts not only scientist’s basic understanding of photosynthesis, but importantly, it may also impact how micro organisms in the oceans affect rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

During normal photosynthesis, light energy splits water molecules. This releases oxygen and provides electrons, which are used to “fix” carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and manufacture energy-rich molecules, such as sugars.
In the newly discovered process, a large proportion of these electrons are not used to fix carbon dioxide, but instead go to putting the water molecules back together, which results in much less net oxygen production.

In the mean time scientists at the University of Illinois have discovered that the increase in Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere did not increase the biomass of plants as was expected but instead has decreased it along with the organic matter in soil.

It is this organic matter in the soil, which makes the soil more or less fertile, which in return leads to increased or decreased crops and plants.

So again, we see that that which comes out of our engines and our industries is on a rapid path of destruction of the ONLY PLANET we call HOME.

As the human race we have no other place to go to once this planet we call Mother Earth has gone barren and no longer produces food to eat, air to breath and water to drink.

STOP AND THINK for a second as to the real impact that you have on the environment.

The growth in China’s carbon dioxide (CO_{2) emissions is far out pacing previous estimates, making the goal of stabilizing atmospheric greenhouse gases even more difficult, according to a new analysis by economists at the University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Diego.}

Previous estimates, including those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, say the region that includes China will see a 2.5 to 5 percent annual increase in CO2 emissions, the largest contributor to atmospheric greenhouse gases, between 2004 and 2010.
The new UC analysis puts that annual growth rate for China to at least 11 percent for the same period.

The researcher’s most conservative forecast predicts that by 2010, there will be an increase of 600 million metric tons of carbon emissions in China over the country’s levels in 2000.
This growth from China alone would dramatically overshadow the 116 million metric tons of carbon emissions reductions pledged by all the developed countries in the Kyoto Protocol. (The protocol was never ratified in the United States, which was the largest single emitter of carbon dioxide until 2006, when China took over that distinction, according to numerous reports.)

Put another way, the projected annual increase in China alone over the next several years is greater than the current emissions produced by either Great Britain or Germany.

Based upon these findings, current global warming forecasts are “overly optimistic,” and that action is urgently needed to curb greenhouse gas production in China and other rapidly industrializing countries.

“Everybody had been treating China as single country, but each of the country’s provinces is larger than many European countries, both in geographic size and population,” said Carson. “In addition, there is a wide range in economic development and wealth from one province to the next, as well as major differences in population growth, all of which has an effect on energy consumption that cannot be easily addressed in models based upon aggregate national data.”

“Government officials turned away from energy efficiency as an objective to expanding power generation as quickly as they can, and as cheaply as they can,” “Wealthier coastal provinces tended to build clean-burning power plants based upon the very best technology available, but many of the poorer interior provinces replicated inefficient 1950s Soviet technology.”

With the Power Crisis South Africa is currently facing is this not a warning light for us not to follow the Chinese example of quick and dirty power sources over the more long term clean power sources.

Adapted from materials provided by University of California - Berkeley.

Once a year the people of the West Coast are blessed by visits form far away.

These Whales visit our shores yearly during calving season.

Using millions of year’s worth of research a Toronto based company called Whale Power Corp. has discovered that the fins of the Humpback Whale hold a great secret when applied to Fans and to Aircraft wings.

Scientists discovered that the tubercles, the little bumps on humpback fins, result in 32 percent less drag and an 8 percent rise in lift when compared to a smooth fin.

This makes for a quieter more efficient fan that is far better at moving air around and uses 20% less energy to function than smooth edged fans.

If the same principal is applied to Aircraft wings, we can soon see aircraft that use far less fuel and that have much larger lift capability than current designs.

With current concerns about extremely high food miles, the distance food travels from field to plate; this can be a solution.

Food miles or in our case Food Kilo’s is a factor that is not only having a great impact on Global Warming but also on the rising cost of living.

Our local area is capable of producing sufficient food to feed the whole of the West Coast, yet DAILY our valuable agricultural land is sold for industrial development.

How much further does the fuel price need to rise before we start taking care of ourselves and stop having everything driven into the area?

How much more poverty must we experience before we plant a seed in our garden and grow our own food.

As seen by the tubercles on the fins of whales and how a simple thing like that can make such a huge impact on efficiency, Mother Nature has all the answers we need and her laboratories have been running for millions of years, just have a look and you will see.

Pollutants known as aerosols play a role in cooling the planet and mitigating the effects of global warming.

Concerned that energy system transformations are proceeding too slowly to avoid risks from dangerous human-induced climate change, many scientists are wondering whether geoengineering (the deliberate change of the Earth’s climate) may help counteract global warming.

Sulphate aerosols, commonly released by volcanoes, serve to scatter incoming solar energy in the stratosphere, preventing it from reaching the surface.
To investigate the feasibility of deliberately mimicking the effect of volcanic aerosols, scientists, explore scenarios in which aerosol properties changed to assess their interactions with the climate system and thus to find a safe and environmentally friendly aerosol.

Aerosols are tiny particles of about a micron (one millionth of a meter) or so in diameter that scatter sunlight back to space and, thus, cause a regional cooling effect. The particles also can have an indirect cooling effect on climate by acting as seeds for cloud condensation and, thus, increasing the reflectivity, or albedo, of clouds. The effect of sulphate aerosols is equivalent to that of trillions of tiny mirrors floating in the sky, reflecting sunlight back to space. Concentrated predominantly over the industrial areas of the northern hemisphere, sulphates contribute to acid rain and haziness. In addition to sulphates, aerosols also include pollutants such as soot, organic carbon and mineral dust, and are produced by both naturally and by human activities.

During the last week, such experiments where conducted of St Helena Bay. A group of visiting scientist very quietly landed at Saldanha Airport from where they conducted their experiments over the ocean of St Helena Bay.
These experiments seeded the top surface of clouds with aerosols and then measuring the effect on ocean temperature before and after.

So quietly and without much fanfare Saldanha once again played a role in the fight against Global Warming.

In a previous article, we discussed the use of our “Red Dust” to create carbon sinks in the ocean; the team that visited was able to confirm that currently there are experiments currently underway of the coast of the UK with exactly that aim.

Globally scientist and policy makers say that local action cannot influence a global crisis.

According to Professor Charles Perrings from the Environmental Economics department of the Arizona State University, this might be the case but by acting locally, we can soften the economic blow of climate change.

By gaining an understanding of exactly how Global Warming is going to impact on our own local environment, we will gain the knowledge to prepare that environment for the NEAR FUTURE when the global warming hits us with its full impact.

If we understand and know our own Eco-system and our own environment then we can start taking precautions to make sure that as the earth’s temperature increases our local ecosystems are not affected by the changes.

We can ensure that our water supply systems are safeguarded against the increased evaporation.

We can ensure that our crops are not burnt to a crisp on the field.

That our fish does not go rotten when they are offloaded, and that our livestock does not die from heatstroke.

However, before this can happen our Local Government and our local Council should start identifying all the interweaving and interlocking Eco-systems that we have in our local environment and how they interact with the local economy. Once this is done, then it is Local Councils responsibility to implement mechanisms to protect our local resources.

Currently all the people who are shouting Global Warming, Green House Effect, Climate Change, etc are not taken very seriously, in fact we are often seen as the voice of doom and gloom.

This is understandable in a society that is more concerned with consuming everything in its path, a society that believe that money/ employment is the thing they should strive after because, “hey if we got the bucks we can get the bread”.

Is it that difficult to understand the very soon it will not matter how much money you have or how well you are employed, you will simply not be able to buy that which no longer exists.

So the writer asks that these articles stands as a pointer to those who have the responsibility to safeguard our resources that should they fail to start acting on a local level today they will be responsible for the failures of tomorrow.

To debate this or any of the other articles visit our blog www.sawestcoastdevelopment.com/envirobuz or email us at illness@saldanhabay.info

Yes another article on load shedding.

What many of us do not realize though is that apart from all the other problems Escom have in producing sufficient electricity for South Africa, one of the biggest is wet coal.

Most of the power generating capacity of South Africa is located in the Northern regions of this country.

Those generators where designed to cope with “normal” weather conditions.

During the past couple of months, that area has experienced abnormally high rainfall that in some places have caused flooding.

The coal being supplied directly from the mines to the power station by means of long conveyor belt systems.

These open systems often get affected by the rain. The abnormal amounts of rain though have turned the dust that accompanies the coal on the belt system into a mud that in return clogs up the rollers and the mechanicals of this system that in return causes the system to break and stop providing coal for the plant that in return slows down or shuts down.

So this seems to be one of the first impacts that global warming has on our country that is affecting us directly.

This is only going to get worse and more and more we are going to start feeling natures hand slapping us across the face.

Maybe we can still stop this effect maybe it is already to late as some people claim.

Nevertheless, unless we try to stop global warming we will pass this way with but a whimper whilst we should have shouted and clawed our way out of the mess in which we find ourselves.

The question that I would like to leave you all with this week is the following. For many years now we have had available to us a large number of alternative energy sources, some simply brilliant, some wacky, others where rather practical.

Yet they have all been shelved and never used. So are we going to take them out and dust them off and admit that maybe they where worth looking at in the first place or are we simply going to carry on as we are and believe that God will provide.

In a study released a few days ago by eminent Stanford Scientist Mark Jacobson, proved the direct link between an increase in temperature due to CO2 emissions and human deaths. It is claimed that for each degree Celsius rise in temperature globally at least 30% of the excess deaths are directly related to CO2 emissions alone.

This is particularly significant in urban areas where the higher temperatures due to carbon dioxide increased the chemical rate of ozone production, which leads to an increase in water vapour, which boosts the ozone production even more.

The increased water vapour and the increased in emissions of organic gasses caused the organic gas particles to swell and become even more deadly.

He also discovered that the air temperature rises much faster than the ground temperature, which changes the vertical temperature profile and thus reduces air pollutant dispersal.

Thus the rapid increase in CO2 emissions has now been directly linked to human fatality.

This same rapid increase was responsible for the greenhouse warming that took place 55mil years ago when volcanic activity released large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere thus causing the same kind of chain reactions that Prof Jacobson found in his study.

The period was known as the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum and actually only comprised a 6°C temperature variation.

Yet that small change in temperature caused the ice to melt on the polar caps, which in return released sub-marine methane into the atmosphere. We have all seen the pictures of the olden day miners who used to have a canary in a cage with them when they went underground…. That is because methane is poisonous to man.

Current fears are that global warming will again stimulate the earth to release those huge amounts of gasses such as CO2 and methane that it has stored within itself into the atmosphere and again lead to a global WIPE-OUT.

For a debate on this issue, visit our website at www.sawestcoastdevelopment.com/envirobuz