The latest New Scientist (http://www.newscientist.com/) carries an article about injecting SO2 into the stratosphere. Observations of giant volcano eruptions have shown that this could reduce world temperature by 1 or 2 degrees for a year or two.

This was “seriously” proposed in USA a dozen years ago as the cheapest solution to the global warming problem. Groups which have been denying that there is a problem are now supporting this idea. Now the Russians are planning a large-scale test. New Scientist sadly predicts that it will happen.

Many countries are capable of doing it, and also large companies. There is no international agreement or law that prohibits it. Of course this treatment must then be repeated regularly, until a better solution is found.

I remember, in my school days, it was found that fish and other animals were dying in Scandinavia, because of SO2 being produced by British power stations. The rain was too acid. Since then, SO2 emissions have been greatly reduced. Stratospheric SO2 will come down into the oceans, and add to the acidification due to CO2.

cw

These days, the media are full of the “Federal Budget 2011” and the “Financial Planning Until 2014”.

The total federal debt at the end of 2010 will be around 1,800 billion Euros. During the year 2010, the increase of the federal deficit will be around 141.3 billion Euros.

In 2011, everything is supposed to improve. Our government will “restrict” the debt increase to 57.5 billion Euros and limit spending in by 3.8 % relative to 2010. To be sure, nobody knows how this can be achieved and everybody knows that it cannot work. Incidentally, the estimation for 2010, as well as the plans for 2011, fail to take many risks into consideration (such as social costs, insurance for the handicapped and health insurance, the general employment situation, more financial problems with insolvency of banks, insurances, countries,…). Moreover, the plans are based on a strong economic growth, on a very optimistic view of the world and an almost total disregard for demographical developments, environmental risks and their consequences.

Then there is the question whether all those rational considerations, estimations and plans still make any sense at all. I often get the impression that the socio-economical system, both of the Federal Republic of Germany and all over the world, has long since developed its own rules and that the situation cannot be controlled any more.

Warnings come from many places: How can we burden our children with this kind of debt as their heritage?

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Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

Why are we so horror-stricken after the environmental catastrophe at the Gulf of Mexico?

Because we can see the damage!

Yet there are things happening that are just as bad, except we cannot (and do not want to) see it. These things also happen a lot closer to home.

Here is a citation from the “Welt” (Science Section – Wissenschaftsteil):

“Looking for oil in the North Sea in 1990, the English oil company Mobil North Sea Limited did some drilling and accidentally hit a gas pocket that stood under huge pressure”. The pocket finally burst on November, 21st, 1990. Since, regardless of several attempts, the drilling hole could not be closed, it is still open after 16 years (that would be 20 today). On the international oceanic charts, it is marked as a zone of danger.”

Incidentally, the site of the accident is located about a third of the way between Scotland and Denmark.
You really should read this “Welt” article . It also informs you:

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SPOF – Single point of failure

Yesterday, the media showed us in a drastic way how dependent our society and industry are from aviation. Well, I can easily do without roses from Kenia and exotic fruits. After all, I already try not to consume these kinds of things.

Today, we heard about the first restriction in production at BMW – because the electronics are delivered just in time by the airborne transport companies.

These are the kinds of problems the future will bring more and more often. And we will have to and certainly will cope. I am convinced that we could quite well live in prosperity even with only 10 % of the current air traffic.

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or the “Bloody Finger”:

A short time ago, I found the following tweet by talkabout:

#Nestlé board member Peter Brabeck says: the UK, Germany and Italy alone processed around 300,000 tons of palm oil for biodiesel in 2009.

You can find an interesting article on the same issue in http://bit.ly/c5dEhh.

For me, the most interesting thing about this is that we waste our vitally important reserves in a careless way for so-called comfort that in reality does more to minimize our personal well-being than to improve it.

RMD
(Translated by EG)

Or:

Help. It never rains any more these days!

Phoenix

I have now been going from Ottobrunn to Unterhaching by bike for quite a few years. And if all goes well, there will be another three to four years ahead of me. During the last ten years, my raincoat was a reliable accessory I always carried with me. Being an obsessive person, I always have it in my bag. After all, I do not want to get wet.

Lately, something strikes me as rather strange: I only seem to need my raincoat very rarely these days. It spends week after week folded into the red saddle-bag (Ortlieb) and is never taken out. So today, I asked myself:

When was the last time you wore your raincoat?

The answer was:

“A long time ago!”

Now, in my opinion, there might be several explanations for this phenomenon:

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Accidentally, I also know a few Chinese. For instance from playing soccer or from the university. Once in a while, we discuss the role of China in the world. Or Copenhagen and the climate catastrophe.

In one of these discussions, one of my Chinese friends mentioned the following aspect:

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A friend of mine is an engineer. And a physicist. He is very clever and always does his calculations about everything. I admire him greatly. Being a mathematician, I cannot always follow his procedures, but I am sure he always does his calculations correctly.

A short time ago, he annoyed me. He showed me his calculation proving you need less than the amount of petrol that fits into a schnapps glass in order to accelerate a big BMW from zero to 150 km/h. Which is basically negligible.

Now, however, he showed me a totally different calculation. He added up what energy his family consumes. They are four: parents and two grown-up children. To be sure, they have three cars, but other than that, they live relatively reasonably. The result of his computation showed 0.1 gig watt hours per year. It came as a surprise for him, as well.
Now I find it hard to imagine what exactly one gigawatt is. Also, I do not know if the computation is correct. For me, this is a little like the billions for the banks.

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When I heard the presentation by Martin Lees (Secretary General of the Club of Rome), I got the message clearer than ever: we pollute our atmosphere at enormous dimensions. The amount is truly gigantic. And it will kill us. By now, everybody agrees that we cannot go on like this.

But where to start? With the car? Well, compared with the entire amount of existing air pollution, the machine “car” only blows a rather small amount of poison into the atmosphere. Is that worth the effort of doing without cars?
Here is a story that comes to my mind.…

Once upon a time, when the number of my children was still four, we all went toFuerteventura (shame on me). That must have been quite some time ago. It was a club holiday (shame on me). One day, we went on a jeep tour to the beaches in the south (shame on me).

As we arrived, I saw beaches more beautiful than ever before. Unfortunately, all the beautiful beaches were strewn with rubbish. I had never before witnessed it in that intensity. Of course, our lunch packets, too, contained plastic wrappings. It would have been logical – and it certainly would not have been noticed by anybody – if we had left our rubbish lying around at the beach. Naturally, that was out of the question for us. We took our rubbish back with us to the hotel.

It is the same with the “little bit of car”. Basically, considering how much air pollution is blown into the environment all the time, the contribution you make by driving a car is rather insignificant. Yet most of the time we take the car in order to go places without thinking at all. And there are many cars.

You have to start with your own habits. You have to be forceful and probably really pedantic. Even if you sometimes feel rather stupid. I am pretty familiar with that feeling. Nevertheless, I try to continue doing what I consider the right thing.

RMD
(Translated by EG)

P.S.
Back to my vacation: a short time afterwards, I saw Sigi Schwab and Percussion Academia in the “Lustspielhaus”. And in his performance, Sigi reported about someone on Furteventura. He dedicated his album “Silver Sand” to the polluted beaches of this world.

Here he is:

P.S.1
On the picture, you see the steep coast near Ajuy. It was taken in June, 2003, by Fab, who published it in wikipedia under the licence GNU-FDL. Many thanks!