As Christmas approaches, we need to acknowledge God’s gift of creation, the natural bounty afforded to us on this remarkable planet. This great gift carries important obligations.
In Genesis, the Lord grants humans dominion over all creation. We must care for the fish of the sea, and presumably the sea in which the fish live; for the fowl of the air and the atmosphere in which the fowl live; and for every living thing that moves upon the Earth and its waters. We are given the means to carry out this obligation. Our bodies, while not the strongest of all nature’s creatures, are by far the most flexible, and our brains are without peer.
In Minnesota, as everywhere, perhaps the most important of these natural assets is fresh water. Our state’s original resource endowment included large forests of virgin White Pine, one of world’s major deposits of rich iron ore, and deep layers of glacial soil nourished by the waters of our lakes, streams, and aquifers. Now those forests are clear cut. Most of the iron ore is gone, leaving behind those empty pits. It is essential that we protect our remaining major natural asset, fertile top soils and the waters which nourish them.
A new Minnesota study pinpoints agriculture — specifically, half a century of artificial field drainage — as the primary force behind the massive runoff of soil sediment that is adding pollution to the Mississippi River and threatening the future of Lake Pepin.
Volume from that drainage scours the fragile, sandy banks, of both the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers, sending millions of tons of sediment downstream, where it settles out in Lake Pepin.
Another ecosystem threat to water comes from climate change. Many scientists believe that one of the first effects of global warming will be a drier American west, placing the future of cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles in jeopardy. Those thirsty cities of the west are starting to look east at the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River for water.
This is fostering a disturbing vision, the image of a great pipeline which begins in Lake Superior. Like a giant flexible straw, it snakes its way west to irrigate parched Arizona golf courses and Los Angeles swimming pools. Although the pipeline is not practical, the bad dream persists, concluding with Lake Superior becoming a giant replica of those empty mine pits on the Iron Range.
The Earth, a watery oasis in the dry vastness of space, has a finite stock of water. The world’s population of 7 billion people has to share the same quantity as the 300 million people who were here at the time of Christ. In addition, the growing aspirations of the undeveloped world are increasing water use per person. As ecologist Lester Brown reports, nearly 3 billion people now live in areas of high water stress. By 2030, water scarcity could cut world harvests by 30 per cent — equivalent to all the grain grown in the US and India – even as human numbers and appetites increase. At the same time we are making a place at the dining table for millions of cars and trucks to consume their diet of irrigation grown biofuels.
Our future will require some hard choices like fees and taxes which raise water’s price. This will motivate conservation and make expensive technology like desalination of sea water effective. The National Resources Defense Council estimates that with a higher price, California could save 7 million acre feet per year from conservation, groundwater cleanup and storm water recycling. There is still time — but not much — to take seriously the responsibility for the earth that dominion gives us.
ROLF WESTGSARD is a resident of Deerwood and a professional member of the Geological Society of America. He teaches energy subjects for the University of Minnesota Lifelong Learning program.
Comments (25)
Add commentrolf
I have heard of the proposed pipeline before, although I see it as totally impractical. Cosidering the drought the Great Lakes had a couple of years ago, the additiion of a pipeline would be devasting. My question is if we have all of the agricultural runoff going down the Mississippi and creating a "dead-zone" in the Gulf, wouldn't any kind of pipeline or any other kind of negative impact have a catastrophic effect on all life from the Great Lakes to the Gulf?
Water Pipeline schemes
I think that any pipeline from either the Mississippi or the Great Lakes would be a disaster. I don't know about all life but the interference with nature, navigation, etc would be serious. all for more subdivisions and irrigation of low value crops in the west. Let them move back to MInnesota.
Speaking of totally impractical
The latest climate change conference in South Africa has ended like all the others with no real result. A summary of the technical remedies proposed to hold CO2 at 450 ppm includes the following:
60 mpg standard for vehicles with no increase in miles per vehicle.
one million new 2MW wind turbines(doesn't mention all the gas plants needed for backup).
enough solar panels to cover half the Sahara and a good part of the US southwest.
no more deforestation and tree planting on 3 million new square miles(size of lower 48)
carbon capture on coal plants(we don't know how to do this)
700MW of net new nuclear(only practical idea).
100 billion gallons of cellulosic biofuels(we don't know how to do this either).
Lots of promises by China, India, US, etc for 2020 with no real commitments.
Dry streams
I found a stream this fall that is entirely dry. Dagget Brook that flows into Mitchell Lake was so low that it was stagnant. In 40+ years I've never seen it that low. Entire flowages are dry this fall. The soil is so dry in some areas it's like dry beach sand and flows through your fingers. It makes me wonder how much more drought stress our forests can take.
Scientists have discovered that the worst case climate change scenario is beginning. That's the massive release of billions of tons of methane in the arctic. Methane is 20+ times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2. If the release continues it will create a feedback loop where warming releases methane and the methane creates more warming which releases more methane like a runaway freight train with us as helpless passengers.
"Our future will require some
"Our future will require some hard choices like fees and taxes which raise water’s price."
Sounds like you're proposing solutions with benefits that will accrue to 'society-at-large', Rolf, or in other words, more 'socialism'. Unimpeded free-market capitalism postulates that there are no limits to growth, other than those imposed by government. Let the free market prevail ..... if someone has the $ to quench the thirst in the Southwest (and create jobs and personal fortunes in the process) by siphoning off Lake Superior, let them have at it. Of course, in line with this free-choice philosophy, Lakes Mead, Powell, and Tahoe should all be drained first. After all, the people of the Southwest 'freely' chose to live in the most arid part of the country. Why should the rest of us be subject to their needs?
Rolf was there any
Rolf was there any commitments to reducing energy consumption?
Commitments
The part I have seen is pretty vague. The US, China, and India agree to cut emissions. How is up to them. NOthing much happens till 2020 when all are to reach an agreement with "legal force:
Lots of luck on that one.
The science tells us we are going to get a lot warmer. The problem is it isn't happening at the rate that it should.
Rolf
Selling water
Water might be a nice export crop. We've been paying Texas for oil for a long time. Now we can sell them water by the gallon.
Whigs, Federalists, and eventually Republicans have spent nearly
two centuries dismantling and marginalizing the US constitution"
Also Mr. Obama and his regime has spent his entire presidency doing the same thing. So what does that mean sir handsome youth of the Scottish highlands?
oh jomammy
please enlighten us as to how the US Constitution has been dismantled since 2008. And toss in how it's been marginalized, too, if you want to have any credibility.
oh lake
you'll hafta figger it out somehow cause you and yore sista hit the ignore on me, remember? you aint posed to be readin my sermons on here.
hint lake
whys Obama runnin guns to Mexcan drug dealers at the same time he wants more gun control on Americans? Him n his crooked pals are promoting a treaty that will go against our constitution right now. yore turn girl.
Jomammy; Constitution scholar
Tell us more about the constitution. Which part does the treaty violate and why?
We don't have 9 more years to
We don't have 9 more years to kick the can down the road just so they can give it another kick. Expecially with the recent news of the methane leaks in the arctic. I think the train has left the station and is picking up speed.
Technology dreams
One of the GW schemes carried over in Durban is the $100 billion fund to transfer technology from 'rich countries' to poorer developing countries. To start, rich countries are hard up these days and the source of those funds is doubtful.
Second, some of those transfer technologies really don't work. The least practical is CCS, capturing the CO2 from power plant flue gas and burying it.
This is followed by the so-called clean energy sources like wind, solar, and biofuels. None of those has the scale to replace a significant percent of what we get from fossil fuels. They are also expensive, intermittent, and land hungry. Then there's the fossil energy to make the 150 tons of steel and concrete in one 1.5 MW wind turbine which might last 20 years or so.
The NRC is now estimating 80 years for most US nuclear plants which don't emit any GHGs. And the French will build us a recycling plant for that spent fuel.
REW
We should be spending $100
We should be spending $100 billion on energy conservation in this country. We can afford it and it will save us many times that amount.
Not only are other states looking at our water, other countries
http://www.cleanwater.org/programinitiative/water-rights-campaign-puttin...
Eyolf ... for what it's
Eyolf ... for what it's worth, my previous post here, perhaps a bit vague, was tongue-in-cheek and intended to mock the blind hypocrisy and utter obliviousness of the far right. I agree with Rolf (and yourself) on most all issues, save building more nuke plants. Even there, tho I disagree with his conclusion, I recognize his methodology.
As for the pessimism expressed in your 5:42, on most days I'm with you. Fear, distrust, and ignorance hold sway, hypnotizing more people into supporting points of view that run contrary to all of our best interests than at any other time in history. I guess we can take cold comfort in the knowledge that the present fear inhabiting the souls of the far right will once again pass away, just as it always has, allowing all of us to move forward and actually fix some of the extremely critical problems we are confronted with.
anniejo
If the science is right, and FWIW I think it is, the earth is going to get a lot warmer with unpleasant results for humans. The bets these days to beat this are on technology that I don't think will work. The schemes include capturing CO2 from coal plant flue gas(CCS), and the green renewables, wind, solar and biofuels.
Despite years of effort, there is no large CCS project. The greens all lack the scale to match the power we get from fossil fuels. They are also costly, land hungry, use a lot of fossil fuels, and require fossil fuel backup. Then think of the emissions from producing the 150-200 tons of steel required for each 1.5 MW turbine which might last 20 years. Or to grow half the US corn crop.
The NRC is now planning on 80 years of operation for US nuclear plants, and the French will build us a recycling plant for the spent fuel. Nuclear does have the scale to replace fossil fuels for electric power, and we can electrify a lot of our transportation. If you have a better idea, I would like to hear it.
Rolf
Here's a major part of the
Here's a major part of the solution. Stabilize our population and then reduce it. If we fail at that I don't see much hope that we will ever solve the energy part of the crisis. There's no way we'll get ahead of the train if we continue to add another billion hungry mouths every 12 years.
I hope I'm wrong but I don't see it happening in time.
"If you have a better idea, I
"If you have a better idea, I would like to hear it."
You know better than I, there is significant research that's concluded we're past the tipping point on warming and GCC. It's now a matter of how much we will continue to compound things. In short, we're fubared on that one. IMO, solar will be our salvation, if we are to have one, and we need to keep pushing hard on that wheel. Small breakthroughs are steadily making their way out of the labs and into testing. I would not venture a guess as to whether a MAJOR breakthrough will appear before our economies and lifestyles begin to come seriously undone.
For all the benefits nuclear technology has provided, the most ghastly skeleton in the closet remains the leftover waste. Even with hybrid reactors, reprocessing, glassification, etc., we are still left with a horrible mess and no disposal solutions that science will allow us to agree on. Burying this poison in the ground in the belief that we've now made things safe for millenial generations to come is 'dog logic' and a natural sin of the highest order. The Great Pyramids are 5,000 years old. The first cities appeared 7,000 years ago. The area that is now Chicago was buried under a mile of ice 12,500 years ago. Humans discovered how to grow plants and raise food 20,000 years ago. Neanderthal was still breeding with anatomically-modern humans 50,000 years ago. Yet, in our haste for a convenient solution to an intractable problem, we proceed under the belief that we can outwit Mother Nature for a 100,000 years or longer.
We've had this conversation before and I don't think I've really added much to any previously mentioned thoughts. We have a huge mess on our hands and as a smart scientist once said, "Repeating the same mistake over and over and expecting a different result is indeed, insanity."
Despite the fact that nuclear energy, from the outset, comes with it's own unique set of hurdles, I'm with you until we get to the 'leftovers', Rolf. Maybe you have a better idea ... I know they're working on it.
Spent fuel or nuclear waste? Unwarranted fears
After about 300 years, most of the radiation issue is gone. The stuff with extremely long half lives is by definition not very radioactive. Think Yucca Mountain and recycling.
One of the disposal issues involves the navy's reactors which run for several years without refueling. Then they are removed to be buried in very elaborate holes near Hanford, WA using "dog logic".
If you really want to worry, near Hanford is the burial area for a number of giant tanks holding nasty nuclear waste from the cold war nuclear weapons build days. some of them are leaking into the Snake River aquifer. A $multi-billion effort is under way to open those tanks to transfer that material.
On average. each of us is receiving 300 millirems a year from radon, cosmic rays, med exams, etc. It doesn't hurt us. Some people live at high altitudes, and in areas with more radon, etc. They live longer and have less cancer than people who live in areas with low natural radiation. .
Solar is an excellent energy
Solar is an excellent energy source especially when it's used directly for space heating and not converted to electricity. HUGS in Pine River has proven that a super insulated building can be heated with solar even in this part of MN. When I build my new home I will be heating it with solar and sawdust/wood chip composting. Jean Pain heated his home with wood chip composting and I've seen sawdust piles that were still creating so much heat at for at least 20 years that your hands would burn if you dug into them.
Reduce your buildings energy needs with super insulation, proper orientation to the sun, shade trees, white roof, etc and there is no need for fossil fuel heating.
Passive solar
All good ideas, Fish. In what's usually called passive solar, you site and construct buildings to take advantage of the sun without spending a fortune on solar panel systems.
I want a home that won't
I want a home that won't continue to bleed me dry in my low income retirement years and is comfortable. The technology already exists and so does the information.