Arctic Sea Ice melting faster than projected

Keep Winter Cool


So far, this has been a whirl wind of a week. As I consider myself a bit of a renaissance person with a lot of different interests, I actually wanted to explore nuclear energy because of what James Lovelock wrote in his comment in the Independent:

"Most of us are aware of some degree of warming; winters are warmer and spring comes earlier. But in the Arctic, warming is more than twice as great as here in Europe and in summertime, torrents of melt water now plunge from Greenland's kilometre-high glaciers. The complete dissolution of Greenland's icy mountains will take time, but by then the sea will have risen seven metres, enough to make uninhabitable all of the low lying coastal cities of the world, including London, Venice, Calcutta, New York and Tokyo. Even a two metre rise is enough to put most of southern Florida under water.

The floating ice of the Arctic Ocean is even more vulnerable to warming; in 30 years, its white reflecting ice, the area of the US, may become dark sea that absorbs the warmth of summer sunlight, and further hastens the end of the Greenland ice. The North Pole, goal of so many explorers, will then be no more than a point on the ocean surface.

Not only the Arctic is changing; climatologists warn a four-degree rise in temperature is enough to eliminate the vast Amazon forests in a catastrophe for their people, their biodiversity, and for the world, which would lose one of its great natural air conditioners."

In permaculture, 'permies' as we call ourselves, are interested in the integration of various systems, and the understanding, that all of those systems are related, interconnected, and mutually dependent. Change one, you change the rest. It then becomes the domino effect. In the negative it means for example that you pollute soil (replenishing, healing the soil is one of the important goals of permies), you effect healthy micro organisms, in turn effecting depletion of nutrition and disabling the organic growing environment. Hence, when Lovelock mentioned the cycle of positive feedback, which in turn amplifies the temperature and the increase in temperature would do away with the one big hepa filter the world has (Amazon rainforest), I 'saw' the cycle, and understood the urge of redressing that course that Lovelock is after by endorsing nuclear energy.

In the short time I've browsed and printed out articles and the little bit of reading I can do in between, I have noticed what a controversial subject it is. Accusations of funding towards any pro-nuclear groups, the heated debate around nuclear energy and the environmentalists who are the proponents of it.. It's dizzying. So let me put it this way; what can we all agree on?
The fact that the Arctic sea ice is melting at a greater rate than first expected is something that should alarm both the pro and anti nuclear camps;

"(For) the new study, Dr. Stroeve and others at the ice center reviewed nearly six decades of measurements by ships, airplanes and satellites estimating the maximum and minimum area of Arctic sea ice, which typically expands most in March and shrinks most in September.

With an expert from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, also in Boulder, they then compared the observed trends with the projections made for the climate panel’s review using the world’s most advanced computer models of climate.

Dr. Stroeve’s team found that since 1953 the area of sea ice in September has declined at an average rate of 7.8 percent per decade. Computer climate simulations of the same period had an average rate of ice loss of 2.5 percent per decade."

This is why I feel an urgency to figure out for myself whether I concur that nuclear energy is the best option to stop this positive feedback loop as much as we can.

Look into the system of the sea ice and how everything is connected and effected.

The Nuclear Energy Debate, part 2

Palo Verde Nuclear Plant in Arizona, by George deLange








In the summer of 2004, James Lovelock dropped a bomb in the green community in the UK and elsewhere. Alarmed about the seriousness of the damage inflicted to his beloved 'gaia', and pressed by the urgency for the need for change, he announced that the only safe and viable manner to provide energy without the accompanying high levels of CO2 was nuclear energy:

"What makes global warming so serious and so urgent is that the great Earth system, Gaia, is trapped in a vicious circle of positive feedback. Extra heat from any source, whether from greenhouse gases, the disappearance of Arctic ice or the Amazon forest, is amplified, and its effects are more than additive. It is almost as if we had lit a fire to keep warm, and failed to notice, as we piled on fuel, that the fire was out of control and the furniture had ignited. When that happens, little time is left to put out the fire before it consumes the house. Global warming, like a fire, is accelerating and almost no time is left to act.""So what should we do?...(But) with six billion, and growing, few options remain; we can not continue drawing energy from fossil fuels and there is no chance that the renewables, wind, tide and water power can provide enough energy and in time. If we had 50 years or more we might make these our main sources. But we do not have 50 years; the Earth is already so disabled by the insidious poison of greenhouse gases that even if we stop all fossil fuel burning immediately, the consequences of what we have already done will last for 1,000 years. Every year that we continue burning carbon makes it worse for our descendants and for civilisation.">"...We have stayed in ignorance for many reasons; important among them is the denial of climate change in the US where governments have failed to give their climate scientists the support they needed. The Green lobbies, which should have given priority to global warming, seem more concerned about threats to people than with threats to the Earth, not noticing that we are part of the Earth and wholly dependent upon its well being. It may take a disaster worse than last summer's European deaths to wake us up.

Opposition to nuclear energy is based on irrational fear fed by Hollywood-style fiction, the Green lobbies and the media. These fears are unjustified, and nuclear energy from its start in 1952 has proved to be the safest of all energy sources. We must stop fretting over the minute statistical risks of cancer from chemicals or radiation. Nearly one third of us will die of cancer anyway, mainly because we breathe air laden with that all pervasive carcinogen, oxygen. If we fail to concentrate our minds on the real danger, which is global warming, we may die even sooner, as did more than 20,000 unfortunates from overheating in Europe last summer." Read the rest of his comment in the Independent.
He's not the only green to consider nuclear energy the only viable solution. Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace has this to say:
"In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That's the conviction that inspired Greenpeace's first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change. Look at it this way: More than 600 coal-fired electric plants in the United States produce 36 percent of U.S. emissions -- or nearly 10 percent of global emissions -- of CO2, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. Nuclear energy is the only large-scale, cost-effective energy source that can reduce these emissions while continuing to satisfy a growing demand for power. And these days it can do so safely."
"Today, there are 103 nuclear reactors quietly delivering just 20 percent of America's electricity. Eighty percent of the people living within 10 miles of these plants approve of them (that's not including the nuclear workers). Although I don't live near a nuclear plant, I am now squarely in their camp.

And I am not alone among seasoned environmental activists in changing my mind on this subject. British atmospheric scientist James Lovelock, father of the Gaia theory, believes that nuclear energy is the only way to avoid catastrophic climate change. Stewart Brand, founder of the "Whole Earth Catalog," says the environmental movement must embrace nuclear energy to wean ourselves from fossil fuels. On occasion, such opinions have been met with excommunication from the anti-nuclear priesthood: The late British Bishop Hugh Montefiore, founder and director of Friends of the Earth, was forced to resign from the group's board after he wrote a pro-nuclear article in a church newsletter."
Read his article "Going Nuclear, a green makes the case" in full.


The interesting part of doing the research is the backlash towards especially Patrick Moore that I found online. Consider this:
Eco-Traitor by Drake Bennet. As a poli sci person, I have to say that all the negative sites I've seen on Moore's position, makes it seem like a big campaign angry at the 'defection' of one of its champions. Laden with editorial venom is unfortunately not conducive for a real debate. I myself do not have a position in this debate, but I do understand from reading the material of the pro-nuclear energy greens that they consider themselves pragmatic.

Let me list some Pros and Cons.

Pro Nuclear Energy:
Supporters of Nuclear Energy, SONE
The Clean and Safe Energy Coalition
The Third Way, a progressive think tank
James Lovelock
Patrick Moore
Stewart Brand
the late Bishop Hugh Montefiore

Against Nuclear Energy:
Friends of the Earth who have a big article on radioactive wastes and the nuclear energy partnership
Greenpeace read their article on a french nuclear plant construction shut down.
Public Citizen

Since I am not paid by ANYONE, I will attempt to put the pro and con arguments together this week. With plenty of things to do as we're entering the last phase of school and the neighbourhood swimteam starting up in a week, I hope to have it done this week. If not, it'll have to be next weekend. Until that time, do your own research, read the opposite opinion of your own view so you're familiar with the counter arguments. Try to stay detached and unemotional and sift out the editorial venom. Unfortunately, even if I agree with someone, that totally takes away from an objective discussion.

The Nuclear Energy Debate, part 1

Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy









Due to having a family and having been very sleep deprived for years, I missed out on learning about a more important issue than the Kyoto Treaty: The Nuclear Energy Debate.
Even though my brain was too tired for anything in depth, I did pick up enough info and the occasional article and documentary to learn that we , earthlings, are at a major crossroads. Despite the 'tut-tut camp' who thinks it's all baloney, evidence abounds of global warming. People past a certain age recall the past and note how the weather and other aspects in nature have changed. Current freak weather; heatwaves in Europe; too much rain in Europe; drought in Australia; Corrals disappearing; stronger hurricanes; species disappearing.

From what I see, a major part of the argument of global warming rests with the various parties attributing global warming to different factors. Then there are those scientists who believe we are at a tail end of some natural cycle. The earth on its own has cooled, then warmed throughout its existence they say. This is is just inevitable.
Regardless, having 'woken up' in more ways than one, and not having the excuse of sleep deprivation, I wanted to explore and discuss the Nuclear Energy Debate.

In upcoming posts I will look at the environmentalists who consider nuclear energy not only the only viable option at preventing further damage to the earth, but who also consider it a safe one. James Lovelock, creator of the Gaia theory and 'whistleblower' or 'defector' however you want to call him being one of them.
James Lovelock








I will also look into nuclear plants here in the US and elsewhere and write about the nuclear-fuel- recycling business. I also want to look into the worst case scenario Lovelock described in his 'Independent' article.

The pro-nuclear energy environmentalists do not dismiss alternative energy sources, but realize that for the 6 billion people on Earth, a combined effort of nuclear and alternative energy is needed to save whatever we still can. As Lovelock notes in his Independent comment:

"Sir David King, the Government's chief scientist, was far-sighted to say that global warming is a more serious threat than terrorism. He may even have underestimated, because, since he spoke, new evidence of climate change suggests it could be even more serious, and the greatest danger that civilisation has faced so far."(bold added by yours truly)

To Be Continued...