by Russel Norman
On the weekend after the Crafars sentencing in Hamilton, a $90,000 fine for serious recidivist polluters is a joke really, it’s nice to read about a farmer trying to do the right thing.
A piece by Jon Morgan in the Dompost on Thursday was a good antidote to the despair fostered by the Crafars (they blame the RMA!). It’s about Chris Donovan’s organic sheep and beef farm near Taihape. He has a lot of experience in farming and focuses on looking after the soil, which means moving away from heavy use of chemical fertilisers – he calls the grass grown by heavy use of nitrogen fertilisers as junk food for cows.
I think this comment, drawing on his experience as a top dressing pilot, particularly interesting:
He had begun his own topdressing business and saw, especially on dairy farms, collapsed soils and polluted waterways. “The change in the pastures was most obvious from the air, and then when you landed, the stench of the sick land hit you. It was why drought hit the Waikato so hard last year – the soil’s humus layer had been burnt off.”
It is an interesting connection – by destroying our soils, by reducing their organic content, we seem to be making them much more vulnerable to drought as they store less water, not to mention the destruction of wetlands which act as giant sponges that slowly let water out during the dry spells.
He also makes the point that we made in our plan to reduce dairy emissions by reducing intensity (in Getting There) – you can make more money if your input costs are lower:
This year they [his lambs] fetched $98 each at a store sale, a price any farmer would be happy with. But he says his profit was more than $56 a lamb, well above the $20-$25 of a conventional farmer because of his low costs – such as $2 a lamb for cider vinegar, compared with $40 for a chemical drench [and lower fertiliser and vet costs].
There are farmers all over NZ who wold like to move towards a more sustainable form of production while still making a good living.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Russel Norman on Sat, August 29th, 2009
More posts by Russel Norman | more about Russel Norman
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Apologies for this repeat, posted earlier. Well said Russel.
Off topic, but I note the Crafar conviction and $90k fine for a string of dairy pollution offences. Alan Crafar quite unrepentent, blames the RMA!
Many hard-working (and compliant) dairy farmers in NZ will be cringing when they read this. Even Federated Farmers may disown the guy.
Perhaps the Sensible Sentencing Trust will get stuck in. After all, $90k is peanuts when you have 20k cows and an operation grossing $30m plus, even in a bad year. Petty cash. Should it have been $900k?
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Well done Russel. This is one that matters.
respectfully
BJ
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There is an article in the September/October Organic NZ magazine titled,
Soil Carbon – A win-win solution
where the characteristics of carbon farming are described:
* 100% ground cover
* deep rooted perennials
* vegetation stability (long-term plants)
* pasture cropping (explained in the article)
* grassy woodlands
* species diversity
* resiliance to drought/fire
* high levels of organic matter
The article talks about humus – and so should we! Russel, how about a post on that? It is key to the discussion.
A foot note to the article says:
From the conference an incorporated society was launched. Earth Food Inc. is a vehicle for initiating debate and ensuring that farmers get good information about the benefits of the potential carbon economy.
To join, please email Nicole Masters at
Nicole@integritysoils.co.nz
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Three comments bj!
What does that tell you?
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Well, 4…no, 5….hang on….
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The Crafars’ legal representation and fines are probably covered by public liability insurance. They should have been given a custodial sentence that would take them out of their comfort zone and get the message through.
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A message from Terry Dunleavy
Tena koe, Rahui,
Nga mihi.
You are quoted in today’s Sunday Star-Times as saying: “We are committed
to protecting the rights of Papatuanuku and Ranginui. We are obligated
to keep them from being polluted.”
If you classify carbon dioxide (CO2) as a “pollutant” you are grossly in
error.
Frankly, I am astounded that anyone with reasonable knowledge of teo ao
Maori or of te ao marama would not realise the importance of CO2 to
Papatuanuku and its ability to sustain human and animal life. You are
obviously not aware that CO2 has been described by the world renowned
botanist and environmentalist, Dr David Bellamy, as “the world’s best
friend”:
CARBON IS THE WORLD’S BEST FRIEND
By Dr David Bellamy and Jack Barrett
Carbon produced by dying stars is one of the major elements in the
interstellar void, the temperature of which is zero, degrees absolute,
which is so cold that chemical reactions slow to a standstill. Around 5
billion years ago some got caught up in the formation of this the lonely
planet, warmed by its place in the solar system to a temperature that
has to date nurtured an ever more complex panoply of living things.
History has it that an apple fell on Isaac Newton’s head allowing him to
realise why, “what goes up must come down” and go on to formulate the
basic laws of physics. Revisiting those laws in the infrared glow of the
global warming debate forces the realisation that when it comes to
radiant heat, “what comes down must go up” for if it didn’t the Earth
would overheat.
Some 50 years after the end of the little ice age, in a time we now call
the pre- industrial age, the world appeared to be well content with an
atmosphere containing 285 ppmv of CO2 and the average amount of water
vapour.
Since 1992 we have had a special Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change warning the world that we are heading for real trouble if the
concentration of carbon dioxide, one of the 5 so called greenhouse gases
in the atmosphere doubles its pre-industrial value.
Here are ten, let us call them Newton’s Apples that sow real seeds of
doubt about the application of the science behind the IPCC’s conclusions.
(1) Measurements prove that the pre-industrial damp blanket trapped
94.7% of all the infrared radiation as it escaped into space leaving a
mere 5.3% to warm the great interstellar sink directly. All this thanks
to the fact that the spectral escape window was partially blocked by
what we now call the greenhouse gases that kept the Earth warm.
(2) If we took no notice of the IPCC’s health warnings and burned all
the known reserves of natural gas, the concentration of carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere would rise to 454 ppmv.
(3) Now throw caution to the wind and burn all the oil reserves we know
about and the CO2 concentration would go up to 489 ppmv. Still nowhere
near the dreaded doubling figure of those “halcyon” pre industrial days.
(4) So lets pull out all the stops and burn at least one third of coal
reserves in all its forms. With an awful lot of mining we would make the
now much-feared figure of 570 ppmv. A point, at which IPCC’s super
computer models warn that the sky might soon come falling down.
Some 600 million tonnes of extra potential plant fertilizer and about 1
billion tonnes of extra irrigation water hanging about up there,
continuing to help balance the biosphere while increasing the
atmospheric pressure by a mere 0.3 millibars.
The atmospheric blanket now traps 95.6% of the infrared radiation (a
mere increase of 0.9% over those pre-industrial days) and the potential
absorption by the combination of water vapour and CO2 is almost complete
thanks to the logarithmic relationship between concentration and
radiance/absorption.
(5) Simple arithmetic also proves that at this moment of time in the
IPCC’s countdown to catastrophe the annual increase of CO2 pouring into
the atmosphere is a mere 3% of the natural turn over of this very
important gas in the atmosphere. Thus leaving little doubt that there is
massive buffering capacity in the system.
(6) Simple mathematics proves that all the much “feared” doubling of the
concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere actually accomplishes is a slight
narrowing of the infrared ‘window’ through which radiation escapes to space.
(7) Checking the spectra also shows there is a window in that infrared
escape route that can never be closed because there are no natural gases
with the right spectral bands. If there were the temperature might then
go up by around 5 degrees Celsius.
(8) Measurements also show that the infrared absorption spectra of all
the greenhouse gases overlap to a certain extent, in consequence their
cumulative effect can never be realized. A cumulative effect that is
already nearing saturation when no further heat will be trapped, thanks
to the fact that the relationship between the concentration of any of
the green house gases and radiance/absorption is logarithmic.
(9) Despite all this incontrovertible evidence that the increase of the
concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a benign and almost
spent force, the global warmers beg to differ. Their conclusions drawn
from a plethora of complex computer models leads them to warn the World
that an increase in trapped radiation of only 0.9% might trigger a
catastrophic course of events. A chain reaction that could be
responsible for a runaway enhancement of global warming that could pose
a threat too much more than our way of life. To give their argument
teeth they appear to put all their eggs into the basket of what they
call radiative forcing, building into their models only positive
feedbacks related to water vapour that trap more heat.
(10) Newton’s Law of cooling perhaps drops the largest apple on the head
of both the IPCC and the Kyoto Protocol arguments of a melt down
scenario. In the simplest of terms it proves that if the non-radiative
properties of water, (evaporation, albedo, mass transfer etc.,) were not
already at work at the earth/ atmosphere interface the Earth’s surface
would be some 13°C warmer. So again there is a lot of negative feedback
in the system.
The global warmers can hypothesise as much as they like about the cause
and effect of trapping the last few percent of the available infrared
radiance by the greenhouse gasses but without admitting that there is
another source of heat at play in the system their scare mongering is no
more than hot air.
Perhaps they should now turn their giant computers over to finding out
from whence does the extra infrared radiation, that could tip the
balance towards catastrophe come.
Take heart Earth’s climate has remained within the limits tolerated by
life, for several billion years. During this time the planet has
experienced unimaginable volcanic events which liberated huge amounts of
CO2, we have collided with extraterrestrial objects which triggered
either increase or decrease of temperature and even the energy flow from
the sun has altered over such a span of geological time.
And yet here we are! Life remains. The global temperature is well within
life’s limits – indeed the present-day is cooler than much of previous
geological time. There is one circumstantial conclusion and one only.
Earth’s climate, self-regulates with or without us.
Take heart all those super climate modellers there is still a lot of
work for your giant computers to get stuck into. Take a few gigabytes
out of Newton’s Apples and get cracking solving the real problems that
face over 6.4 billion human beings as they move into an uncertain energy
hungry future.
Please remember that the main reasons for soil erosion, salination,
floods, droughts, famines, the collapse of coral reefs and the
extinction of species are habitat destruction, overgrazing and
over-fishing not a 0.9 % rise in trapped radiance.
Using your computers you can help orchestrate the processes by which a
mixture of science based civil, social and ecological engineering can
ameliorate the effects of the worst or seize the opportunities of the
best of natural climate change. That was the conclusion of G8 2005 at
the Gleneagles Golf Course, itself a hot spot of local biodiversity
where an eagle from George Bush was shown to be worth a lot more than a
dead birdie from the IPCC.
Carbon dioxide is not the dreaded greenhouse gas that the global warmers
crack it up to be. It is in fact the most important airborne fertiliser
in the world and without it there would be no green plants at all. In
fact a doubling of the levels of this gas in the atmosphere would bring
about a marked rise in plant production, good news for everyone
especially those malnourished millions who cant afford chemical
fertilisers or the spray booms to spread them.
Plants are very clever things for their response to an increase in
carbon dioxide in the air, is to use it wisely producing more roots than
shoots to tap more mineral resources from the soil. Good news, with the
added bargain of burying lots more organic humus in the soil. Just what
soils need especially when they are over exploited and beginning to erode?
Hooray for global warming! How can we say that? Well a lot of very
qualified people have been saying just that for a long time. Sadly it is
not in the interest of the Kyoto Protocoler’s to agree for the truth
would prove just how ill conceived is their scheme to” save the world”.
From what one must ask?
The real truth of the matter is that the main greenhouse gas in our
atmosphere is water vapour. Any one who steps out of their air
conditioned car will know that on a dry clear night the temperature
drops rapidly, if there is water vapour (clouds) about, the wet
atmospheric blanket does its best to keep the planet warm.
If we took all of the water vapour out of the atmosphere the temperature
of our atmospheric greenhouse would plummet by about 33 degrees Celsius.
If we took all of the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, the
temperature might fall by about 0.3% but we wouldn’t be here to worry
because there would be no green plants to feed us.
Please talk to your plants and as you do rest assured that they in
effect say thank you by recycling your waste carbon dioxide to make
sugar and oxygen. As they did when the dying star of the silver screen
gave her all back to the plants that put the perfume into Chanel Number 5.
end of Bellamy article.
As for CO2 in Ranginui (a.k.a., the atmosphere) consider this:
CO2 The Building Block of Nature
Woe is me!
A key building block of our environment, an absolutely essential part of
all life, has been dealt a low blow, just to try and fit an
unsubstantiated computer theory.
The following puts the whole unfortunate farce into perspective.
Imagine 1 kilometre of atmosphere that we want to rid of human “carbon
pollution.”
We’ll have a walk along it.
The first 770 metres are Nitrogen.
The next 210 metres are Oxygen.
That’s 980 metres of the 1 kilometre, just 20 metres to go.
The next 10 metres are water vapour.
Now only 10 metres left.
The next 9 metres are argon.
Now just 1 metre remaining.
There are a few gases that make up the first 62 cm of that last metre.
Just 0.38 of a metre (38cm) left.
The last 38 centimetres of the kilometre – that’s carbon dioxide.
A bit over one foot.
97% of this CO2 is produced by Mother Nature.
It’s natural, it comes from the sea, from the land, from the environment.
Out of our journey of one kilometre, there are just 12 millimetres left.
Just over a centimetre
About half an inch. .
This is the tiny amount of carbon dioxide that global human activity
puts into the atmosphere.
The total worldwide activity of human endeavour only represents 12
millimetres!
Just 1.2% of the atmospheric CO2 is caused by human endeavour.
And of those 12 millimetres New Zealand accounts for just 0.018 of a
millimetre.
Less than 1/10th the thickness of a human hair, out of a kilometre.
Imagine walking over the Auckland Harbour Bridge – 1 kilometre – and
worrying about a human hair on the roadway or just 1/10th of a
hair……………………….!
There are plenty of real pollution problems to worry about.
It’s hard to imagine that New Zealand’s contribution to carbon dioxide
in the world’s atmosphere is one of the more pressing ones.
Perhaps we all need to just stop and take a few deep breaths.
For that 1/10th the thickness of a human hair, you want to impose costs
on all New Zealanders, which will inevitably fall hardest on those who
can least afford them, among who are most of your Maori constituents?
If you need scientific justification of the importance to us all of CO2,
read the attachment. If it’s too long, go to page 12 and read the
conclusion, in which the final para says:
“Human activities are producing part of the rise in CO2 in the at
mosphere. Mankind is moving the carbon in coal, oil, and natural gas
from below ground to the atmosphere, where it is available for
conversion into living things. We are living in an in creasingly lush
environment of plants and animals as a result of this CO2 increase. Our
children will therefore enjoy an Earth with far more plant and animal
life than that with which we now are blessed.”
Finally, nga tangatawhenua o Aotearoa should know better than anyone in
this country how climate rises and falls in cycles of warning and
cooling of varying lengths from 11 years to hundreds of years, because
it was in one of those warm cycles, when it was much, much warmer than
now, that Kupe and those who followed him experienced the balmy weather
conditions that enabled them to make the long voyages from Hawaiiki to
the southern islands their descendants now know as Aotearoa.
For all of these reasons, the Maori Party, of all the parties in
Parliament, should be asking the basic question: where is the evidence
that that these added costs on our people will have any noticeable
effect on climate – and if there is no such evidence (and I assure you
there is not!) why are we contemplating an emissions trading system
which will do nothing other than line the pockets of ticket clippers?
Kia ora, kia kaha!
Terry Dunleavy
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I met David Bellamy and spoke to him about all manner of things, even getting him to become patron of our organisation. In the piece above, I think this tiny clip:
airborne fertiliser
best sums up his relevance to the issue of climate change.
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Owen,
you go on about how the predictions of the computer models can’t be accepted and you “prove” this using a model first put forward in the 19th century and found to be overly simplistic about half a century ago. You are arguing that CO2′s furthur contribution will be negligible based on a model of the atmosphere as a single layer. However CO2′s biggest effect is to slow the transfer of heat upwards between layers in the atmosphere.
See http://www.aip.org/history/climate/
“The Discovery of Global Warming”
(hat tip to BOSH).
Most of your other facts are irrelevant. New Zealand’s CO2 contribution is negligible in the overall picture, as is the contribution of any other small country or state. However the combined CO2 contribution of hundreds of small countries and states is NOT negligible.
If you don’t like an ETS, then support a carbon tax or regulation.
Trevor.
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David Bellamy should stick to things he understands.
First – No climate scientist disputes the need or utility of SOME CO2. After all, A planet averaging some 33 degrees colder than present would not support a lot of life.
If we took no notice of the IPCC’s health warnings and burned all
the known reserves of natural gas, the concentration of carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere would rise to 454 ppmv.
I guess he doesn’t believe that the ocean can saturate and releases CO2 as it gets warmer…. (up to now it has been absorbing more because of the concentration of the stuff) how warm it was when that value last was approached, understand CO2 equivalents or contemplate the methane in the mix. He may be a wise appearing fool, but he is being a fool to be quite certain.
(a) You’d still get an increase in greenhouse warming even if the atmosphere were saturated, because it’s the absorption in the thin upper atmosphere (which is unsaturated) that counts (b) It’s not even true that the atmosphere is actually saturated with respect to absorption by CO2, (c) Water vapor doesn’t overwhelm the effects of CO2 because there’s little water vapor in the high, cold regions from which infrared escapes, and at the low pressures there water vapor absorption is like a leaky sieve, which would let a lot more radiation through were it not for CO2, and (d) These issues were satisfactorily addressed by physicists 50 years ago, and the necessary physics is included in all climate models.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument/
Which is to say, he’s being badly informed by his buddies.
His arithmetic is far too simple.
I had never heard of Newtons laws being used to trump conservation of energy until now (his item 10). The argument is sort of ridiculous on its face. In space there is radiative energy transfer and naught else unless two celestial objects crash into one another. So it is the radiation balance that counts in the end. However, I’d have to hear the details of that argument to ridicule it properly.
Just saying…
This for Terry Dunleavy –
We are living in an in creasingly lush
environment of plants and animals as a result of this CO2 increase. Our
children will therefore enjoy an Earth with far more plant and animal
life than that with which we now are blessed.”
His reality check just bounced sky high…
http://tinyurl.com/q9k5cw
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200603/s1596740.htm
http://www.well.com/user/davidu/sixthextinction.html
Of course, this is not directly related to CO2, but it warming will eventually take its toll as well.
As for graphic depiction of the absolute amount being too small to be relevant, it only reflects his knowledge… which is also clearly too small to be relevant. We’ve been through this.
Owen – I respect your positions in some other things, but when you post this tripe from ignorant twits it is … annoying. It takes time to read and answer.
respectfully
BJ
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Owen – a pollutant is essentially a substance which is in the ‘wrong’ place where it has a deleterious effect on that particular environment. In that sense CO2 in excess in the environment can have that effect by acting in concert with other factors to influence energy reflux in the atmosphere.
The article by Bellamy is a long rant by a discredited non-scientist (in the true sense even though he has Dr. after his name), who is a laughing stock in his native land. His long detailed look at various elements in the atmosphere, N2 etc. is a complete joke.
For example if the CO2 content at say 300 ppm, increased to 600 ppm, the actual volume in the atmosphere would still be very small, but of course it would have increased by 100 %. & could therefore be said, quite rightly, to be a pollutant in that circumstance.
Let’s look at it another way. Ignoring other gasses for sake of argument, if N2 content in the atmosphere you were breathing changed from around 78 to 82 (a little over 2% increase) thus changing the percentage of O2 to 17, you would die. Would the extra N2 be a pollutant? Having a bad effect on your chance of survival, I venture to say you would agree it was.
In that sense CO2 IS a pollutant if it’s % increase helps to cause a deleterious effect. You of course argue that it matters little if the content doubles, triples, quadruples – at what level would you say it was a pollutant ?
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Bellamie’s apparent support for George W would be enough to make me suspicious of him
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Actually Mr Bellamy, the main causes of collapse of coral reefs appears to be increased acidity (CO2 absorption ) and temperature increase (by a seemingly miniscule amount) caused by climate change (however caused)
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Owen, I’d suggest Terry Dunleavy should stick to topics he understands – like wine.
Bellamy is a botanist – NOT a climate scientist.
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How many times’ve you rebutted that one BJ? Yeesh
Bellamy is a botanist – NOT a climate scientist.
Even if he was, conducting science via press release is a reason to be pretty suspicious.
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Remember when Cindy Kiro attacked one of the worlds best child psychologists on TV for being a climate change denier?
Totally irrelevant to the debate they were having but hey, HE’S OF THE DEVIL!!!
nut.
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I don’t, but the fact it happened makes StephenR annoyed.
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Much of the comment on Terry’s piece has been addressed to me.
I simply passed on Terry’s message to another Maori commentator as it seemed useful to the Maori oriented debate going on here.
TErry is not a climate scienties but then nor is Al Gore or Toad.
David Bellamy is not a climate scientiest but he is a biologist – there is single climate science. Indeed that is one of the problems we have with developing robust refutable theories about climate – there are so many systems at work and most of them are chaotic. The most qualified people to write about the behaviour of the carbon dioxide molecule in terms of absorption and radiation are probably experts in quantum mechanics. But if they did so many of you would dismiss them because they are not “climate scientists”. I am actually not sure there is a discipline usefully described as “climate climate’ because it would almost certainly exclude many disciplines that contribute to our understanding of climate and its effects.
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CO2 as a pollutant.
I accept that too much of anything can be toxic.
Water causes many deaths every year. However, we do not describe water as a pollutant.
The problem we get when we start classifying carbon dioxide as a pollutant is that it has ramifications in the applications of many laws where the term pollutant is used to describe or name something which is generally toxic at common concentrations.
For example the US EPA has now classified carbon dioxide as a pollutant and there are all sorts of ramifications.
As most of you will know horticulturists routinely pump carbon dioxide into their greenhouses to about 1000 ppm (four times normal). This increases plant productivity and health (by about 40%) and has the further advantage or reducing water uptake because the stomata do not have to be open so far to get their required dose of CO2.
But the definition of a pollutant means that the plants in a greenhouse cannot be exposed to carbon dioxide because it is now a toxic chemical and the plants must be checked for residue and any surplus washed off.
Rachel Carson properly condemned the use of DDT as an agricultural chemical. So the EPA classified it as a toxic chemical which meant it could not be used to as an insecticide on the walls of bedrooms to kill malaria bearing mosquitos.
The Carbon dioxide in greenhouses has no adverse effects on the workers inside either. So I suggest if you to classify carbon dioxide for its impacts on the behaviour of the climate we need to find some other term which does not lead to horticulturists having to wash it off their beans.
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The Jolly Green Giant laughs off Climate Change
Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho !!!
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Owen – the Deep Greens who read and contribute to Frogblog welcome you, despite your expressed desire to see us off (we’re not easily dislodged, however).
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Owen
Yes, I did notice you were quoting other people. Please…. find smarter people to quote on these topics
Most climate scientists, (and it is a field of study now, encompassing the combination of physics, chemistry, biology etc that go into understanding the collective effects), would not classify CO2 as a “pollutant”. That it can be classed that way politically, or in terms of national policy, is an equine with a very different spectral characteristics.
However, it is not properly a “pollutant”, that IS misuse of the word as you are pointing out, and I have no brief to defend that misuse. I agree.
However, the release of excesses of the carbon that was formerly locked in the crust of the planet, as CO2, is not good for the continued existence of human civilization. Pollution? No… but not very damned good for us.
respectfully
BJ
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Owen said:
The Carbon dioxide in greenhouses has no adverse effects on the workers inside either.
Just curious Owen (I work in greenhouses regularly)
Do you see any situation where carbon dioxide would be a problem for glasshouse workers? I’m thinking concentrations and ventilation (or lack thereof).
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By that definition, fertiliser run-off into rviers is not a pollutant either, in that it is not poisonous. It aids growth – specifically, growth of toxic algae.
The problem is with a dumb legal definition of ‘pollutant’. It doesn’t make any difference to the science, only to the legalistic pontification.
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The normal legal process is to have define such legislative terms precisely in terms of their context.
Our own RMA prefer the word ‘contaminant” or “discharge” and then follows up with definitions etc wshich make the meaning and application clear (via the reference to rules in plans).
Here is section 15:
15 Discharge of contaminants into environment
(1) No person may discharge any—
(a) contaminant or water into water; or
(b) contaminant onto or into land in circumstances which may result in that contaminant (or any other contaminant emanating as a result of natural processes from that contaminant) entering water; or
(c) contaminant from any industrial or trade premises into air; or
(d) contaminant from any industrial or trade premises onto or into land—
unless the discharge is expressly allowed by a rule in a regional plan and in any relevant proposed regional plan, a resource consent, or regulations.
(2) No person may discharge any contaminant into the air, or into or onto land, from—
(a) any place; or
(b) any other source, whether moveable or not,—
in a manner that contravenes a rule in a regional plan or proposed regional plan unless the discharge is expressly allowed by a resource consent, or regulations, or allowed by section 20A (certain existing lawful activities allowed).
And contaminant is defined thus:
contaminant includes any substance (including gases, odorous compounds, liquids, solids, and micro-organisms) or energy (excluding noise) or heat, that either by itself or in combination with the same, similar, or other substances, energy, or heat—
(a) when discharged into water, changes or is likely to change the physical, chemical, or biological condition of water; or
(b) when discharged onto or into land or into air, changes or is likely to change the physical, chemical, or biological condition of the land or air onto or into which it is discharged
contaminated land means land of 1 of the following kinds:
(a) if there is an applicable national environmental standard on contaminants in soil, the land is more contaminated than the standard allows; or
(b) if there is no applicable national environmental standard on contaminants in soil, the land has a hazardous substance in or on it that—
(i) has significant adverse effects on the environment; or
(ii) is reasonably likely to have significant adverse effects on the environment
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Greenfly
I have no idea the concentration at which CO2 causes problems – which I would presume would be excessive breathing to try and flush it out.
NASA would be the experts because they have to design self contained systems which can tolerate a fairly wide range of concentrations.
But CO2 is not toxic in the sense that CO is toxic. We need some in the atmosphere to stimulate the breathing response. Some people need to breathe in and out of a paper bag after taking off in aircraft to boost their CO2.
OF course if the CO2 concentration gets so high as to displace the O2 re require then you quietly fall asleep and could die of suffocation. But that is oxygen deprivation not carbon dioxide poisoning.
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Owen
You really should choose a better source to quote than Dr Bellamy, his ignorance and errors are astounding. Interstellar space is not at absolute zero, rather it is suffused with the cosmic background radiation among other sources of energy. Also chemical reactions do occur in interstellar space, albeit very very slowly. Bellamy has truly lost the plot and entered fantasy land- witness his accusation that his climate denialist stance has cost him a tv career, when he stopped making television programmes years before he became a denier.
I suggest you find a better shill for the denialist message.
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wtf. This blog post is about Soil, not climate change.
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Owen – I guess it’s a matter of concentration, as it must be in the earth’s atmosphere. It’s unlikely that damaging winds might be generated inside of a glasshouse, as a result of excessive heat, trapped by either the glass or a blanket of gas (though I have seen images of clouds formed inside of huge aircraft hangers!). Those winds, however, are likely to result from an overheated earth atmosphere, don’t you think? They’ll have an unfortunate effect on the environment, especially if they take the form of typhoons or hurricanes. Let’s hope that doesn’t eventuate (or hasn’t already begun to manifest).
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Ah Rimu! You know soil consists of many things and droppings from animals are part of the mix – Owen was simply adding a little bullsh*t.
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nukefacts,
I was not quoting Dr Bellamy.
I sent a message from Terry Dunleavy to a Maori as some interesting comment within that part of the thread. I have not even had time to read it closely.
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Greenfly
I am no expert on weather and wind.
But I understand that wind velocity is less dependent on temperature per se than on temperature differences. We commonly observe that we get higher wind speeds in winter than in summer.
The Polynesians sailed across the Pacific during the warm period and stopped coming to NZ with the advent of the Little Ice Age. I would have thought that high winds would have been more important in stopping those voyages that actual temperature although as a yachtsman of times past I am aware that ocean sailing can be cold at the warmest of times. But you are certainly right in one thing – the greenhouse concentrations of carbon dioxide do not affect the weather inside the greenhouse. i do not know if the workers notice any side effects on the breathing rate. Interesting question.
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No Owen that will not do ! The description of CO2 as a pollutant in certain circumstances is perfectly legit. Of course a high school student of environmental science would recognse that CO 2 in a greenhouse situation was not a pollutant. Do I sense a retraction ?
Claiming that your post was just passing on information to contribute to the argumant is disingenuous to say the east. Does this mean you don’t believe this rubbsh either. Just putting it out there that Bellamy was having a silly rant were you. If you expect us to believe that you’re kidding me !
The fact that current regulations may fail to handle the fact that CO2 can be a pollutant is by-the-by. Change the regulations to reflect reality!
I also think it is quite silly to start talking about ‘greenhouses’ and somehow comparing them to the ‘so-called’ green house effect (planetary system)
It’s like comparing what goes on in a lab experiment involving sulphur, methane, CO2, etc., to what happens inside a great storm on Venus.
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Owen I suggest you do read things before you post them . That would save you the embarassment of having to defend the indefensible. Niether do I think that posting rubbish contributes to any sensible discussion.
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Where was the thread of the topic was it “looking after the soil”?
Crafers simply should not have been fined (unless a fine repairs damage to livestock, property and livestock) jail may get the mesage across.
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He appears to have the hide of a stegosaurus and the same creatures walnut.
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I agree Dracula – Jail is the only way to go from now on, perhaps next time they flaunt the all too weak regs. the judge will jail them – and there will be a next time – only question is when ?
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Now about soil!!!
I was hoping that this blog would have sparked some discussion on what constitutes a healthy soil.
I am a keen gardener, I have just completed building a hot house and I have built 4 boxed beds in which I am going to put rotted sawdust, compost and soil. Then I am going to put down weed-mat so that I won’t have to use stuff like Round Up.
I am certainly not going to take advice from the average dairy farmer unless it is someone like Chris Donovan who has obviously seen the writing on the wall. Or should I say on the grass.
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Drakula – about soil!!!
Keeping your in-hot-house soil healthy is going to take some thinking on your part. There will be no rain falling on it (probably) and little activity from soil organisms if you cover it with matting. Leave it open to the air. Hand weed or plant cover-smother crops. Legumes like lupins are best. Plant some phacelia to attract hoverflies and other insects to help with pest control and pollination. Pre-warm your water (rain is best) before watering seedlings. Feed your plants with home-made liquid manure. Use animal manures from an organic farm or collect comfrey to make a ‘tea’ to spray. Make a worm farm and collect ‘worm-rum’ to spray on your plants. This will benefit the soil also. Healthy soil is active soil. Critters living in it are generally beneficial if in balanced numbers. Try some preparation 500 from the biodynamic people. Seaweed teas can add useful nutrient. So can occasional sea water. There are many more things you can do to create healthy soil in a glasshouse. It’s a vey unnatural environment so you have to manage it cleverly. Many people replace the soil inside after a few years. I think this is a cop-out rsulting from poor management. Good luck with yours.
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While I agree and practice alot of this article I have to point out that being a sheep farmer I constantly am acessing the stock on local organic farms. All I can say is that the lambs in my veiw rarely look healthy and I would find it hard to go totaly organic as I like to own healthy animals.I have already seen one complete organic disater which should have been a MAF case. The article states Cider vinegar costs $2 versus “$40″ for chemical drench, My lambs recieve an average 3 chemical drenchs per season which costs me no more than “$2″ dollars. Get your facts right!!
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hayden said:
I have already seen one complete organic disater which should have been a MAF case.
Fair enough hayden, but can I ask if you’ve ever seen conventional farms that were disasters?
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Indeed yes I have, I’m just adding some ballance to the organic debate and as I said of the 3 organic farms I drive past weekly, I feel very sorry for the stock who are obviously suffering from a major worm burdon which could be fixed very easily. Whats better? Animal suffering or a minimal amount of stock drenching to keep the stock healthy.
For all that some organic farmers are aloud to drench once a year. On the disater organic farm the owner was able to apply for a waiver so he could vacinate his stock for scabby mouth which was granted, I mean really how organic is that???
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Freedom from suffering would be a good bottom line for all stock farming, wouldn’t it. I sympathise with some organic stock farms that are: learning or in transition, where the issues haven’t been solved yet. I know that in the early days, organic farmers were heavily criticised for the kinds of things you are describing. In many ways there aren’t the same guidelines and precedents that support conventional farmers so some ‘wobble’ is to be expected, I suppose. The vast majority of organic farmers of my experience are quite the opposite to the one you describe, being so very careful to avoid those kinds of problems. The best farms I’ve seen (I’ve seen quite a few and worked on a dozen of them) are managed alon ‘organic’ lines. As for the allowance for minor treatements in an organic system – why do you object to that? If there is NO alternative, surely your call for no suffering would have you supporting some intervention. The rules are very, very strict and take that into account. The ‘disaster’ farmer you described would have had restrictions on what he could do with those sheep in terms of marketing and where they could be run on his farm, just as conventionally farmed dairy cows have when they are treated for mastitis. Re: your sheep farmer – it could be that he is trying to organically manage standard breeds, where specialist, resistant breeds would be better. It’s hard to say from your description. Do you know more?
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Yes, no suffering would be great, unfortunatly there would be few farms that have no sick animals of some discription, “cant have livestock without dead stock”
I know of one organic farm who has been doing it for years now, I see him in the news papers saying how great his stock is and why everyone should be doing it, yet when I drive pass often the stock often look pinched with a black scour present through out the mob.
I beleive he is convinced his stock is healthy yet I would not be proud to own them.
Yes we can breed for resitant stock which I am indeed doing myself.
The disater farmer vacinated for scaby mouth before it was even present as he new he would have a prombem. His lambs were still marketed as organic allbeit into different markets like you say but they were still said to be organic which is simply not true. He is no longer farming as it got to much for him, it was an extreme case I know but one that highlighted many of the inconsistantcies of the organic system for me. As I said I farm sustainabley using RPR at times and many other sutainable ways.
After seeing what I see I know what lamb I would rather be eating and I’m sure the consumer would agree if they new the truth as well.
I can tell you are convinced that the organic sytem is a great one but I disagree. And can some clear up why that article says it costs $40 to drench a lamb??????
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Hayden – good points. You say you can tell I’m ‘convinced that the organic system is a great one’, but there are a great many versions of an ‘organic’ system. I’m convinced that the system I use is excellent, but then I don’t farm stock. I’m a cropper (with a few fowl, amphibians and a host of insects). I believe that New Zealand would benefit greatly from the adoption of best-practice organics across the board, but it does require defining well.
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Greenfly; Thanks for that information I have taken a few notes. MY last crop of tomatoes ,cucumbers and peppers were very sucessfull and I have had plenty of worms I keep changing the position of the plants. I do pre heat the water by solar slow soak method.
Tell me do you know anything about centipedes? Are they friend or foe?
Where I live is very cold it is in the high country ‘Scotty Country’ 1,200 ft above sea level and we get howling North Westers, hence the sheltered environment I have to create.
Hayden I don’t know that much about organic sheep farming but I think a look back in history to the 17th century (pre industrial revolution). There must be plenty of documented information on sheep farming.
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Hi Drakula – millipedes aren’t a favourite of mine, (though I wouldn’t destroy them wantonly). They bite through the stems of young seedlings, especially vulnerable veges and cause them to die. Centipedes, on the other hand, are predators and join in the pest management programme by dint of their habits. They eat some good insects as well, but it’s a matter of achieving a balance, as it is with all garden insects and their kin.
Have you developed a heateing system for your glasshouse? We’re trialling a traditional kerosine heater at the moment, but it’s expensive to run. We’ve also installed an old laundry copper, fired by wood, but that might introduce too much moisture. There is a brilliant ‘geothermal’ method that transfers heat from the day by fan, through undergtound tubes where at night the dew point causes a transfer of heat to the soil which then radiates up to the plants from below. It’s used elsewhere in the world extensively, but not much here yet.
Have you tried some of the rugged low temp tomato varieties, the sort that grow in Mongolia or the Arctic? Small is best in a cold environment.
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Here is a systen for heating greenhouses featured in the BBC program ‘It Aint Easy Being Green’ – accordig to Dick Strawbridge, the program’s host, it works brilliantly. It looks great but I haven’t tried it myself – intend to this winter.
Dig a pit (around a cubic metre) in a corner of the green house, fill it with glass shards (broken bottles e.g.), cover with insulating material (waste wool), arrange a flexi tube to carry air through the pit from the top of the G-House (recovered flexi aluminium tube from A/C installation) through the pit, discharging at various points in the G-House to distribute the heated air evenly as possible. Power the air circulation from a small solar panel + battery + old computer fan mouned in the flexi-tube.
The principle is that the warm air from the top heats the glass heat sink during the day & distributes heat back to the G-House during the night, thus keeping the whole place at a suitable warm temp. May need some controls but it should work fine.
any comments ??
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That sounds interesting bigbluekiwi, and not unlike the subterranean pipe model I’ve read about. The advantage of warm air from the day being slowly released at night is that many plants, especially tomatoes, suffer growth setback and blossom drop due to low nighttime temperatures. As most gardeners are asleep then, the problem is not always understood. It is possible to build a ‘hot box’ inside the glasshouse, where a hole is filled with fresh manure which continues to decay releasing heat slowly into the soil. If seeds are sown on top (in trays or directly into the soil) they will benefit from the underfloor heating.
I like the use of the computer fan and solar panel in your model.
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The Crafars seem to have received a distorted message:
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/5977410/farming-family-throws-in-the-towel/
They seem to have overlooked the fact that it was a judge that hit them with a record fine.
Trevor.
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