Does Opposing Coal Shipments Cause Increased Greenhouse Gas Emissions? A Discussion Of The Part Economic Health Plays In Environmental Protection

Preparing ground for planting in North Dakota:  1890s
Should we have stopped here for the sake of the environment?

As the fall of 2012 gets well underway an event in California demonstrates just how important economic prosperity is to environmental enhancement.

The event has to do with soaring prices for gasoline in California, prices driving people to rise up in protest.

One of the reasons California has higher prices for gasoline than most of the rest of the United States does is a requirement that a specialty blend called the “summer” blend be sold in the state from the beginning of summer through about the last day of October.  The summer blend is mostly unique to California in that the blend, in theory at least, is formulated to burn cleaner than more usual blends.

The problem with a unique blend is that disruptions in the supply, like that occasioned recently by a huge refinery fire in the state, creates shortages and those shortages mean rising prices for fuel. 

The governor of California, Jerry Brown, is renowned for his pro-environmental stance on most issues but even governor Brown has to bow to the dictates of public pressure sometimes so, headlines as this is written read, “As California gas prices rise, Governor Jerry Brown orders early sale of cheaper winter-blend fuel.”

The event is important because it provides a striking example of something that has been known for a long time but is not much considered or discussed in the world of pop-environmentalism; ardent environmentalism is a pursuit for the well to do and, as a corollary, one of the best ways to provide for environmental enhancements is to provide for economic enhancements.

The example is striking because average gas prices in California have ranged between $4.50 and $5 per gallon in recent months.  Much of the rest of the world would look at those prices and wonder at the low cost but, in California the price is enough above the usual to cause an outcry sufficient to cause the governor of the state to take an action likely to increase environmental pollution.

The governor’s action demonstrates the close connection between environmental protections and a healthy economy; something the pop-environmental lobby forgets as they use ham handed approaches to “encourage,” or even attempt to require, citizens of less wealthy areas of the world to give up hard won but still in process economic improvements for the sake of the environment.

What the American environmental lobby has never understood is that a starving father or mother giving up their own food to allow their babies to live does not particularly care about a few extra molecules of carbon in the air if it means an extra bite of food for the baby.  The so called ozone hole is far less important than the void in the belly left by too little food.

In my own neck of the woods the pop-environmental lobby is coming unglued over the possibility that coal might be shipped by rail to one of several west coast ports and exported overseas.  We discuss endlessly the potential effect of coal dust on long term health and the fact that diesel emissions might have some effect on our lives thirty years from now.

What is never discussed is the effect supplying electricity, electricity made possible by that coal shipment, for the first time to a remote area in a nation overseas might have on the health and welfare of men and women and children living in that area today.

Perhaps more significantly, we never discuss the fact that rising economies in areas that have never seen rising economies leads to the kind of prosperity that allows newly prosperous citizens the luxury of worry about the environment. 

When one wants to study the stars through a telescope or, microbes through a microscope, one must look through the correct end of the instrument to get clarity.  Regarding coal, for example, the pop-environmental movement needs to take a step back and wonder whether looking at the issue through the wrong end of the telescope leads to true environmental enhancements or, is it possible, opposing shipments of coal from the Unites States to overseas nations is an excellent way to assure more climate change gasses and particulate emissions to the atmosphere?

Environmental issues should never be looked at in isolation.  Events in California demonstrate that environmental enhancements, real or imagined, take a back seat to a host of other socio-political issues when push comes to shove.  To ignore that reality is to imperil true progress in preserving a healthy environment for the future.

More Environmental Analysis Should Include Examination Of Failing To Perform The Examined Action

Received an interesting comment on the last post about Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) and the need to not only examine what happens if an action does take place but also, what are the impacts if the action is not approved.




San Diego, California in the 1850s.  What if an EIS regarding the impacts of growth had been done then?  What would the town look like now?


The comment goes to the heart of a problem with the typical EIS.

Most EIS analysis, at least in the United States, contain a "No Action Alternative."  Most analysis does not take the no action alternative seriously.  A few weak comments about this or that impact regarding the current conditions may be included in commentary but, for the most part the overall approach is, "no action, no change."

A proper EIS should aggressively look at the positive or negative impacts of "no action."  If coal is not delivered to produce power to a region now without electricity will more people starve?  If the potential future pool of good paying jobs is reduced will more people live in poverty?  And so on.... 

Environmental Analysis Should Include Examination Of Failing To Perform The Examined Action

Environmental hazard or engine for environmental enhancement?

Remember “acid rain?”

We were all going to die of it once but, only after all our buildings and art works had been eaten away by the nasty stuff.

So all kinds of things were done to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions to the atmosphere, especially in North America and Europe, with the result that the term “acid rain” is seldom heard anymore.

The reason all that is important is that sulfur dioxide plays a part in cooling the atmosphere.  The 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines famously cooled the earth’s temperatures for at least a couple of years by, depending on the source, ½ to a full degree due to the massive releases of SO2 occasioned by the eruption.

Now, if SO2 releases result in global cooling, and we brought about massive decreases in SO2 emissions to the atmosphere in the latter decades of the 1900s, what should be expected?

Maybe, global warming!

Having lived through the acid rain controversy, one bearing remarkable similarities to the more recent discussions about global warming and climate change I can say that in the days when acid rain was going to pour down and dissolve all our faces no one much mentioned the probable result of SO2 reduction; warming of the atmosphere and, thus, the earth.

I’ve been thinking about this recently because locally, in Whatcom County, an incredibly angry discussion has been taking place regarding the permitting of a “coal” port in the county and the subsequent shipping of coal through the county to that port for export to Asian markets.

The discussion is now entering the scoping phase of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that will, purportedly, examine the impacts likely if the port is built and coal shipments to the port result in the shipping of more coal through Whatcom County than is already being shipped.

As a note, coal has been transported by rail through the county for decades with no controversy at all.  The announcement of a new coal port has suddenly made the future shipping of coal the source of all future evils to be visited on residents.

So the thought occurs, if Environmental Impact Statements are science based, purportedly removing politics and emotion from the assessment, shouldn’t the EIS include analysis of what happens if the proposed action does not take place?

In the example of SO2 reductions I have to honestly say the potential for global warming inherent in the scrubbing of the gas from power plant and factory emissions was never discussed so far as I can remember, certainly not extensively.  Had it been talked about we would at least not be as “surprised” as we are about today’s temperature increases.

I wrote in an earlier post about the millions of deaths, mostly in developing countries, caused by the elimination of DDT some decades ago.  Had we discussed the probability of those deaths honestly at the time we may have still banned DDT but we would have also have had to take responsibility for deliberately allowing those deaths to occur.

News Bulletin:  This just in!  Environmental Impact Statement finds travel by air poses unacceptable risks to natural environment.  Air travel suspended - clipper ship futures rise on stock exchange.

In the case of coal, what is the balance between any environmental consequences seen when we ship coal and the environmental consequences both in my neck of the woods and overseas if we do not ship the coal?

These are serious questions.

For example, there are known, and to some extent, measurable consequences to human life and health when an economy goes sour.  Some years ago I researched the issue and, at the time, the best analysis available in the academic world resulted in a calculation that in North America, at least, a $8,000,000 reduction in economic activity resulted in one premature death.

We intuitively know that is the case.  A breadwinner loses a job, comes home and assaults his wife and family.  Recent news in the United States has featured several stories of gunmen recently fired from their jobs bursting into their former places of work and killing one, two or several people.  To the extent the layoff occurred as a result of the on-going depression in the United States, a reduction in economic activity helps account for the premature deaths.

Unfortunately, especially in the United States, the consequences to the environment of not performing an action are seldom discussed.  All the discussion goes to the issue of what is likely to happen if the action is undertaken.

Perhaps it is time to change that.  If we ever want to really enhance our environment, we must change that.

Wasting Urban Wood = Increased Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Following is an article that appeared in a great little progressive forest products industry magazine:  Timber/West.

While the article is about a conference in San Francisco about using wood harvested from city forests, the application is world wide.  Even in wood rich nations it makes sense to utilize urban wood for lumber.  Each million board foot or cubic meter of lumber recovered from urban "waste" represents fiber not requiring harvest in healthy forests.  In wood poor nations, even those where fuel wood is important, every piece of wood recovered represents a piece that does not have to be imported or done without.

Anyway, here is something to consider:

From This

To this... everything is made from reclaimed urban lumber

New Approaches Mean New Opportunities

By Jack Petree

Groundbreaking work by David MacFarlane of Michigan State University’s Department of Forestry should cause those interested in the shape of the nation’s future forest products industry to sit up and take notice.

Billions of Board Feet

Recent work by Dr. MacFarlane indicates the U.S. urban forests are capable of producing annually about 3.8 billion board feet of wood suitable for processing into building products on a sustained basis through efficient removal and processing of dead and dying trees. On an annual basis, MacFarlane calculates, that is the board foot equivalent of the material required to build about 285,000 homes. All that from a resource that all too often has been considered waste to be disposed of in landfills.

In recent years, MacFarlane and other research professionals have participated in a number of efforts aimed at building awareness of, and making better use of, the resource represented by urban forests. The efforts have resulted in a fledgling urban forest products industry with considerable potential to become an important sector of the larger timber industry.

California Urban Forest Products Conference

A The 2011 California Urban Forest Products Conference (a gathering of industry participants in San Francisco) represented one more step in demonstrating the premise that urban forestry is a growth industry sector capable of one day changing the business landscape for harvesters, processors, lumber merchandisers, and end users of lumber and other wood products.

In the first half of the 20th Century, economist Joseph Schumpeter pointed out that while change created by entrepreneurial innovation creates economic growth, it can also lead to the destruction of older businesses, occupations, and approaches to business based on newly outmoded technologies or market conditions; firms not keeping up with the pace of change eventually perish.

Growth Industry

Few industries have seen as much change in recent decades as has the forest products industry. Some sectors of the industry were decimated by the winds of that change, but new industry sectors have seen considerable growth over those same decades. The California Urban Forest Products Conference opened a window offering a view of a forest products industry that may be on the edge of a significant growth spurt.

The ground breaking conference had loggers, academicians, sawmill owners, craftsmen and women, contractors, representatives from state and local governments, and avid members of green activist groups all rubbing shoulders as they explored the potential for working together to promote the vitality, diversity, and health of the urban forest across California. Sponsors of the event included the California Urban Forests Council, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, and San Francisco’s Friends of the Urban Forest, a group dedicated to working with individuals and neighborhoods to plant and care for street trees and sidewalk gardens in San Francisco.

In the past, the concept of urban forestry has mostly been ignored by the traditional forest products industry. The lack of interest is partly based on a realistic appraisal of the difficulties inherent in relying on the urban forest for a dependable supply of fiber but lack of information about the potential the urban forest has in producing fiber to fill the nation’s need plays a part as well.

On the other hand, innovative entrepreneurs, like those attending the California Urban Forest Products Conference have been, in recent years, actively exploring the potential offered by 3.8 billion board feet of available material suitable for conversion to useful product.

Counter tops made from "waste" wood:  Woods Coffee

Building a Business

It is likely to be some years before a strong national urban forest products industry becomes a fully developed and established sector of the larger and more traditional forest products industry.

The California conference featured plenty of material spotlighting the difficulty firms will face in establishing and building a business based on urban forest products. However, based on information put forward at seminars, panels, and other presentations during the three days of the California Urban Forest Products Conference, there are strong indications that rapid growth and increasing stability for the urban forest industry of the future are not only possible, but likely.

While not everyone’s cup of tea, participants in today’s conventional forest products industry might want to take a close look at where the urban based segment of the industry is going as it builds into a significant supplier of lumbers, especially specialty lumbers, to serve the nation’s future needs.

Change is in the air.

Want More Carbon Emissions? Try To Recreate An Old Growth Forest

If one really wants to do a bang up job of assuring we emit more carbon to the atmosphere, one should work hard to try to recreate an old growth forest. 

In my corner of the woods a number of activist groups, individuals and other pop-environmentalists are trying to do just that as they struggle to convince policy makers to convert about 8,700 of working forest to park land today and, tomorrow, place additional tens of thousands of acres on the figurative chopping block.

An 1860s Rendering Of A Western Forest

The activist’s approach is a great way to assure increases in greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere continue into the future.  In addition to generally being less bio-diverse than newer forests (albeit old growth supports a different range of plant, animal and other life), old growth forests offer the advantage of lots of dead and dying trees rotting away to contribute the carbon they’ve stored to the atmosphere and, at some point, the likelihood they will burn and, in burning, will emit that carbon in a short term burst of CO², methane, nitrous oxide and other gasses to what some claim is an atmosphere already overburdened by those compounds.

Stereo View Of The Forest Near Mt. Hood Oregon - Late 1800s

The Whatcom County effort involves removing a middle aged forest stand, a stand that is generally about 100 -125 years or so old, from the harvest cycle of a state agency charged with using the forest to provide funds for schools, libraries, port districts and local government. 

The fetchingly labeled Lake Whatcom Forest Preserve Park is then to be essentially left free of the footprint of man, woman and child until it becomes an “Old Growth Forest.” 

It should be understood that of Whatcom County’s approximately 1,400,000 acres, about 1,000,000 acres is already set aside as National Park, National Forest, State owned forest, private forest, and State and local parklands.  About four acres of park exist for every man, woman and child living in the county.

The term Old Growth Forest should also be explained as it is a misnomer as used by the various activists interested in the new park.

A 50 - 100 year old stand of alder trees is an old growth forest.  The older the stand the more likely most of the trees are beginning to rot or are already rotted at the core and likely to die within half the lifetime of the ordinary citizen.

When the pioneers began arriving in the western United States, a large variety of old growth forests made up perhaps as much as 15 - 25% of the forested area of the west.  In some areas coastal redwood forests were predominant while in others the “old-growth” might be predominantly fir and/or cedar.  Interior forests were heavily populated by species like the various pines, larch, or other species. 

Something has changed in recent years.  In decades past, old growth forests were defined by stand structure and the kinds of flora and fauna inhabiting the stands.  Today, just as global warming has been replace by climate change by the spin doctors of the environmental movement, the terms traditionally defining old growth forest are changing.  Stand structure and the inhabitants of the stand as definitional are being replaced by the number of years the stand has remained undisturbed.  To the pop-environmental community old growth is defined by big trees and lack of human contact.

The pop-environmental community interested in the Lake Whatcom Park wants to recreate a particular kind of Old Growth Forest, one mostly based on the “new” definition as understood by the pop-environmental movement.

So what happens to a forest simply left alone to grow old and, eventually, die?

Well, as is the case with most life forms, nature is not very nice.  In the natural world, most forests do not survive to reach “old growth” status. 

The Forest On Fire In The 1860s

By way of example, the entire 8,700 acres contained in the Lake Whatcom Reconveyance burned sometime in the late 1800s.  As is the case with most burned forests, pockets of the old forest survived the fire but, early photos of Whatcom County at the time and, the analysis of the forest by the U.S. Geological Survey in the last years of the 1800s demonstrates that most of Whatcom County’s lowland and foothills forests were thoroughly burned before the turn of the century in 1900.  A huge part of Whatcom County’s forest products industry in the first decades of the 1900s consisted of cutting down burned trees and converting them to shakes and other products.

The Lake Whatcom forest is already known to have insect infestations.  Across Washington insect infestations have reached epidemic proportions and are responsible for the intensity of some of the wildfire the state is becoming increasingly prone to so, it is at least a 50-50 proposition that fires will ignite in the new “park.”

Early settlers also reported massive blow downs of the original forest, ice storm damage and other natural occurrences. 

So what happens then?

Well, if we are really trying to recreate what is in our mind, original conditions, we would let the forest incinerate when lightening or some other factor starts a fire.  That then creates large areas of ash, tree parts and other materials that will fill streams for years and then, eventually, during the often devastating storms the county is prone to, will run off in the form of earth and debris slides ending up in the lake at the bottom of the hill where it will impact lake water characteristics for decades. 

The burning forest also will pump huge quantities of greenhouse gasses and other chemicals into the atmosphere as it incinerates both endangered and not endangered species, boils water and elements like mercury out of the soil and, starts the natural process of reforestation over again.

The whole thing is, of course, a gamble.  The future Lake Whatcom Forest Preserve Reserve Park could be the lucky one that doesn’t burn and, of course, those of us alive today don’t have to worry; we are gambling with the resources of future residents so we really don’t have to care what the odds of success are; it all makes us feel really, really, really good today and that is all that really matters.

A more logical thing to do would be to manage the forest for a variety of natural characteristics even as carbon is sequestered in the lumber taken from, for example, dead and dying trees removed to control severe insect infestations or root diseases or, whatever.  Carefully done, forest management on an on-going basis allows for a full range of values to be realized from the forest.  But it does have the downside of denying total control to those who constantly inform us they know best because they are the true “environmentalists.”

Is Climate Change Beneficial?

Is global warming real?

If global warming is real is it being caused by the actions of humans?

For every billion words written about the two questions, global warming (now reconfigured as “climate change” by the spin doctors) about ten words in total are written about the more valid question, “What does it matter whether the earth’s atmospheric temperatures are warming or cooling?”

If global warming, or global cooling, were not taking place the earth would be in a great deal of trouble.  The earth is just not set up to be static.



Even an 1870's school child understood thermal zones and their importance



 The second question is a silly one as well.  Of course the actions of mankind have some amount of influence on overall warming and cooling.  This blog includes many entries discussing how the inappropriate actions of the pop-environmental movement result in increased releases of carbon to the atmosphere.  In fact, if it could be measured, I believe the pop-enviros are almost certainly responsible for as much climate change as industry is, at least in the United States (see earlier blogs on the greenhouse gas and toxic metals emissions of forest fires).

Politically, of course, the two questions posed above matter a great deal.  In idle moments between inventing the internet and helping to run the United States Al Gore almost singlehandedly invented global warming and, just incidentally, made a great deal of money doing just that.

The pop-environmental movement raises and spends more money each year than the Democrats and the Republicrats (we used to call them Republicans in the United States but now, for the most part, the two parties are pretty much indistinguishable) do in a presidential election year.  A large part of the money raised is provided by raising the specter of death and destruction coming to fuzzy little creatures as the result of climate change.

More significantly, especially in terms of the ability of "environmental" groups to raise money, individuals may be impacted, or be led to believe they are impacted, by climate change. 

American politician Tip O’Neill is famously cited as at least one source for the quote, “All politics are local.”

In terms of global warming, or any other issue, the perceived impact a person feels overcomes all the science surrounding an issue.

By way of example, one of the most influential people in the world is Bjorn Lomborg, a European scientist who’s written devastating critiques of the hysteria surrounding climate change.  It should be noted, the devastation is not due to Lomborg’s positions; instead, Lomborg is hated by the pop-environmental movement because he fearlessly puts forward irrefutable science regarding warming and cooling of the earth's atmosphere.

If you don't already own this book, you should buy it and, more importantly, read it!

Lomborg points out that far more people in the world die each year as a result of cold than die from heat.  But if your 110 year old grandmother dies in the middle of summer on an especially hot day you will, if you are like most people, be forever convinced that global warming killed the old girl.

But Grandma’s death leads to a more important question.

Are there benefits to global warming?  Should we, as Al Gore would try to convince us, automatically assume global warming, or climate change, is a negative thing?

If ten grandmas die from heat, for example, but 20 children do not die from cold have we not benefitted from global warming?

As the atmosphere warms, temperate zones move north and south in terms of the globe.  The area where I live was, a few thousand years ago, covered by a thick sheet of ice.  Now it is home to some of the world’s most livable cities, large expanses of forest and thousands of acres of farmland.  We’ve certainly benefitted from global warming and climate change in Bellingham, Washington.

The movement of the temperate zones opens up incredibly productive lands to agriculture.  It’s no accident that the Canadian northlands are breadbaskets for the rest of the world.

But we concentrate on the downsides of the equation.  Forest composition, for example, changes when the temperate zones move.  Old trees die as their surroundings lose their hospitality to this or that species.  But that is the nature of things.  The sandstone found near Bellingham contains palm frond fossils meaning that before the region was buried in ice, it was covered by tropical forests.  Tropical forests that died at least partly due to climate change. 

Of course climate change is real and, of course the activity of mankind is responsible for at least some small amount of that change. 

What we really need much more discussion about is the possible benefits of climate change and about how we can use some of the tens of billions of dollars we waste on “fighting” the inevitable to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change on those who are harmed by the change.

The earth will change with or without us.  If we are willing to use that change in beneficial ways we can build a better future for all human kind.  If we are not willing to adjust to that change, the earth may go about its own change; without us!

Should We Ban Dihydrogenmonoxide?

Dihydrogenmonoxide is one of the most dangerous chemicals on earth.  It is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths each year.  It is used in nuclear power plants as a coolant, in sewage plants as a medium to blend and treat sewage, in cogeneration power plants and in hundreds of other industrial operations each year.  Those operations attempt to treat the chemical then spew it out into our air and into our streams where fish swim in it and humans are directly exposed to it.

Perhaps worse, dihydrogenmonoxide, when it vaporizes, is a major component of the world's green house gas inventory by volume. 

Well, sometimes we all take environmental issues too seriously so;

Dihydrogenmonoxide is found in even the most remote areas of the world

For a hilarious treatment of the issue watch two of America’s best comic performers, Penn and Teller, discuss the issue at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi3erdgVVTw.

In the video, Penn and Teller send an agent into the crowd at an event evidently titled “World Fest.”  The object is to get as many signatures as possible to help ban Dihydrogenmonoxide.  The effort is incredibly successful, demonstrating the commitment people like those attending World Fest have to the environment.

Had Penn and Teller come to Whatcom County in Washington they’d have gotten enough signatures to give Congress pause.

By the way, dihydrogen H2 and monoxide O, in combination is more commonly called H2O or, water.

The dihydrogenmonoxide practical joke has been around a long time.  Penn and Teller are not the first nor, hopefully, the last to use the approach to burn unquestioning "environmentalists" but, in the thought that it's good to have a little fun sometimes, and make a point consider:

The video pretty much says it all about the integrity of the pop environmental movement with its passionate advocacy of causes that, in the end, not only do not enhance the environment but, as often as not, degrade the environment.

That Penn and Teller do it in a funny way only adds to the BURN!

Enjoy the video.