A Passable Stream

I have pleasant memories of the street near my grandfather's southern California ranch bordered by a three-foot wide concrete lined drainage ditch. Though I now live in a residential area that borrows its name from western ranch culture, we don't do gutters here much. Instead, we have some stormwater management ponds, lots of woods, and drainage ditches that are pretty much out of sight and mind. Fifty years has taken a toll on many of these ditches, so it may be time to restore them.

The restoration work that would qualify as a Best Management Practice (BMP) is much more than I had envisioned. Whereas my first thought was to simply use several wattles to filter runoff before it reaches the lake, Maryland prefers that long runs be totally retrofitted. An example that bears a strong similarity to one stormwater channel near my land is shown on pg. 60 of this presentation on the topic of Step Pool Storm Conveyances and copied here:

The step pools in the lower photo were created by emplacement of very large rocks and an equal amount of riprap in the stream bed. Underneath is a substantial amount of woodchips and sand mixed together to promote drainage. The banks have been reformed into a wider floodplain, but the stream elevation is unchanged. The engineering behind it all is pretty intense, so taking this on would be a real challenge for me.

Getting someone to fund all this might be a problem, but it is worth taking some time to grind through some calculations to see if the nutrient loading on Lake Lariat (which carries over to the Chesapeake Bay to some degree) could be reduced enough to earn nutrient trading credits. Who knows, the restoration might even pay for itself (besides doing nice things for the neighborhood and the lake). Fortunately, the HOA has equipment that might allow us to do it all in-house.

Wattles could still be the first step. They would be located near the outfall where the channel is shallow. The restoration work could take place upstream of the wattles, which would be useful for a few years and help reduce sediment spilling into the lake during restoration.

Git 'er Done

By Mark Rain

To get them all done in time to avert ecological armageddon, the thirteen prescriptions for healing the planet offered by the concerned scientists who signed the updated warning to the world would require coordination at the highest level conceivable. Coordinating implies a grasp of the larger system effects of any particular activity, prioritizing some over others as needed for the good of the whole. Though strategic coordination is sorely lacking on the environmental front, focused efforts may still help, if not just to allow more time for wiser leadership to ascend.

One of the ominous trends shown in the report is the 75% increase since 1992 in the number of dead zones in the oceans and estuaries.  The supplemental report's description reads,

Coastal dead zones which are mainly caused by fertilizer runoff and fossil-fuel use, are killing large swaths of marine life. Dead zones with hypoxic, oxygen-depleted waters, are a significant stressor on marine systems and identified locations have dramatically increased since the 1960s, with more than 600 systems affected by 2010.

The trend has been nearly linear for the past 50 years, in which about 12 additional aquatic zones have died each year. One of these is the upper Chesapeake Bay where I live. Dead zones are a degenerated condition of algae blooms that rampantly feed on phosphorus and nitrogen, overpopulate, and die, with the consequent breakdown of algal biomass starving the surrounding waters of oxygen and releasing chemical toxins. In 2016, toxins from blue-green algae were found in one-third of lakes and reservoirs in the U.S. One of those was the 90-acre lake in my neighborhood.

Agriculture is blamed for much of the nutrient runoff in the developed world. Fossil-fuel use is also implicated in the report as a cause of dead zones. In less developed areas, sewage is the main contributor. In that respect, my neighborhood belongs to the less developed category. With 4,500+ homes on 6 square miles of hilly land, the number of septic systems overloads the watershed.

While hilly land promotes more runoff, it may also be key to a solution. Most of the runoff does not flow directly into the lake, but into ravines that eventually empty into the lake. My idea to lessen the amount of nutrients in the lake is to install filtration wattles not along the entire lakefront, but one wattle per ravine at the endpoint of contributing septic drainage. Using a mixture of biochar and ablated clays, zeolites, vermiculite, and possibly peat, wood chips, mushroom spawn, or compost, the wattle can be imbedded at the surface of the streambed. This would be done initially at several of the largest ravines with test filters which could be used to measure phosphorus buildup after a year. The ravines with the largest amounts of phosphorus in their test filters would then receive a larger number of wattles to capture the major nutrient flows. I am hoping to get a grant to execute this plan, possibly teaming with a local biologist and academia as an innovative research project. Without funding, I could probably perform a limited version of the plan.

For those whose decisions lack global reach, thinking globally and acting locally at least gains you some cred, raises awareness, encourages replication, and offers the consolation of confronting the world's problems, though they may seem to mount. As one's credibility grows, one can possibly take a leadership role which could involve less hands-on implementation and more coordinating. I am not knowledgeable enough to adjudge priorities between the thirteen global solutions recommended by the thousands of scientists who issued the warning, but that doesn't stop me from taking action at a local level.

America's Fateful Choice

As we approach the climax of the USA's fourth turning, a national consensus is brewing on the nature of our crisis and the way to overcome it. It hardly appears that renewed warning cries from concerned scientists are what we are preparing to rally around. Americans are loath to allow global concerns to trump our privileged status. On the other hand, threats to our great nation could lead us to intervene globally, saying with Lucifer, 'Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Paradise.' Only one problem with that: Lucifer is immortal. Mankind is not.

Hell could overwhelm Earth regardless of who reigns if humanity does not rally in the next few years to reclaim what we can of this lost Paradise. Then, what will it matter whether Putin, Xi, or Trump wore the one ring to rule them all? It is not just a matter of quality of life, it is a matter of life and death - for everyone.

A war between great powers, while culling masses from our overpopulated planet, will only delay action and waste resources needed to resolve the ecological crisis. If the war goes nuclear, it would doom untold millions even more quickly by accelerating the collapse of earth systems.

By James Vaughn

As Old Blowhard acts out his China policy, we will soon have a better idea of the USA's propensity to ignite the nuclear fuse. A war between the U.S. and Russia is now doubtful, but, unless the Un-President's Asia trip marks a real change of tone toward our next near-peer competitor, doomsday could be in the offing.  Let's hope that Xi realizes that the Fatty Trumpling is just a blowhard and also, that said blowhard would find a Gameboy should he ever pop open the nuclear 'football.' If his future actions vis-a-vis China comport with the airs he displayed while visiting, then we should be relieved. The strategic situation calls for retreat, not saber rattling.

When the two possible alternatives are permanent human extinction or a temporary era of difficulty, eliminating the first choice should be a no brainer. Are we such misanthropes that we would risk the lives of billions of humans just for a chance at greater personal freedom? Better for a nation to endure, for a spell, even the indignity of subjugation, than to endanger the whole world with annihilation. In the culmination of our secular crisis, whatever beligerence Old Blowhard engenders with China, let our singular consensus be to reject fratricidal war and, instead, turn as a nation to the intergenerational project of saving the planet.

AFOLU

Leading up to COP-23 being held this week in Bonn, Germany, a flurry of reports on climate progress and solutions have been released by NGOs and governments. Drawdown was one of the early arrivals, but in the past couple of weeks, we have seen the annual Countdown report by The Lancet, a National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) report called Natural Climate Solutions, the fourth U.S. National Climate Assessment (Vol. 1), and the eighth annual Emissions Gap Report by the UN Environmental Program.

Of these, I gravitate toward Natural Climate Solutions, which is an independent update of work included in IPCC Working Group III (WGIII) for the greenhouse gas inventory sector referred to as agriculture, forestry, and other land use (AFOLU).  +Albert Bates offers a good case for prioritizing NCS, predicated by the understanding that these ecosystem solutions are only a small part of human activity required to prevent climate chaos. In NCS, as opposed to other remedial efforts, nature cooperates in restoring climate equilibrium, though humans, in their proper domineering role, intervene to initiate and manage that renewal.

Biochar, my chosen interest, ranks pretty high among NCS solutions, despite use of much lower estimates than scientists have offered. The NCS authors took pains to ensure no overlap when they compiled these, but in doing so, probably missed some synergies, partly because biochar is not just good for thirty years, but for hundreds of years. For biochar, synergies are possible with fire management, improved forest plantations, reforestation, trees in croplands, improved feed, crop nutrient management, conservation agriculture, and rice cultivation.

Granted, the problem we face must be dealt with quickly, but a long view puts the carbon net present value of biochar much higher than such a crisis management evaluation would include. For example, suppose reforestation included soil-ready biochar in the initial planting and added to the periphery of each tree's root tips each year for thirty years. That tree will likely grow healthy and live a hundred years or more, with larger and more plentiful roots, sequestering much more carbon than trees absent biochar. Those synergies were not assumed in the reforestation category or the biochar category. Another example of synergy, regardless of biochar's longevity, is the use of beetle-killed trees in providing biochar feedstock. This make biochar production more economical and helps with fire management and natural forest management.

Though synergies aren't accounted for in the NCS estimates (but possibly inadvertently included in the uncertainty ranges), they are still acknowledged in the larger sustainability context. The Nature Conservancy's summation concludes:

Most nature climate solutions—if effectively implemented—also offer water filtration, flood buffering, improved soil health, protection of biodiversity habitat, and enhanced climate resilience.

“The approach is synergistic,” says Justin Adams, managing director for Global Lands at the Nature Conservancy. “We can hit multiple targets of the UN Sustainable Development Goals if we get this right.”

Death Spiral

This week, the British medical journal, The Lancet, put out their annual assessment on the impact of climate change on human health. The report examines a small number of human health indicators and a much larger slate of human climate intervention measures to arrive at the conclusion that:

Many of the trends show positive change with time, most notably in global investment in zero-carbon energy supply, energy efficiency, new coal-fired electricity capacity, employment in the renewable energy sector, and divestment in fossil fuels. However, the change is relatively slow and must accelerate rapidly to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement.

Just how slow the change has been and how rapidly it must be accelerated is the subject of a report, also issued this week, by financial gurus from Stanford and the Hoover Institute. Both of these reports are a bit too opaque for the general reader, but the Energy 202 clarifies one salient point from the latter, i.e. that 2/3 of all private investment capital would have to go to clean energy projects in order for the world to meet the 2 C upper limit set by the Paris agreement.  Right now, the proportion of investment in this sector is less than 1/5 out of the total $3.4 trillion invested by pension, mutual, and sovereign wealth funds, alongside billionaires. So much for The Lancet report's saving grace, huh?

As we would expect in a report about human health effects, mortality due to weather-related disasters and diseases is reported by The Lancet. The figures appear to be fairly steady over the past ten years - nothing to get excited about. For that, one needs to look at forecasts, rather than statistics.

From Albert Bates at The Great Change

One forecast that includes global death rates is The Limits to Growth. The notional curve portrayed in this World 3 result shows deaths beginning to climb within the next few years as food scarcity kicks in and industry output declines. Sometime before 2050, deaths begin to skyrocket. A forecast curve showing climate-related deaths only, by Sam Carana, shows a similar steep rise in the next few years after being lulled by such steady, predictable death rates over the past half century. 

Point being, that we can't expect to keep seeing a stable death rate, whether due to climate factors or in general. Life is going to become much more precarious. The Lancet understates the severity of our predicament, but deserves the last word for prompting this look at how close we might be to human extinction.

We found that the symptoms of climate change have been clear for a number of years, with the health impacts far worse than previously understood... Climate change has serious implications for our health, wellbeing, livelihoods, and the structure of organised society. Its direct effects result from rising temperatures and changes in the frequency and strength of storms, floods, droughts, and heatwaves—with physical and mental health consequences. The impacts of climate change will also be mediated through less direct pathways, including changes in crop yields, the burden and distribution of infectious disease, and in climate-induced population displacement and violent conflict.