

# Environmental Issues: Mankind's Relentless March to Oblivion

# Jon Van Loon

# Copyright 2012 Jon Van Loon

# Smashwords Edition

#

# Dedication

To those citizens of the world who have worked to have enacted long term solutions to the problems that could have helped prevent man's now unstoppable march to oblivion.

# Preface

If you have been lulled into a false sense of security after reading the book 'Abundance', and you believe that all the world's problems will be taken care of mainly through a flood of new technology, then you may not want to read this book. Yet If you really seek the truth about the future of mankind and long term bio-sustainability of this planet for future generations then this book is truly a must read.

I have spent my life working in the field of environmental science, and my wide ranging world wide experience suggests much more complex problems in enacting solutions are now upon us and worse will be faced in the future. Material presented in this treatise will demonstrate why overpopulation coupled with practical and deeply ingrained inertia spawning obstacles will prevent abundance even born of technological genius from becoming practical solutions to the growing worldwide grave problems.

# Introduction

Inventing revolutionary technology especially at exponential rates is just the first and often the easiest step in an overall glacial speed multistep process that ends in a practical solution to a world problem. Within a single industry adoption of in-house inventions or otherwise acquired revolutionary technology can be relatively straight forward and relatively quickly enacted. However when such a technology is meant to have application over widespread jurisdiction(s) many complex factors come into play. At worse these often negate the practical implementation of the technology. At best they cause unacceptable long time delaying impediments to its adoption. So we can produce new technologies at exponential rates but governments and people still implement change at an almost imperceptible pace.

Thus since having a revolutionary technology and making that technology actually operational in the real world as a practical reality is two very separate things. This is something that would seem the worldly hands on inexperience of the Abundance authors prevent them from really understanding the difficulties of achieving a useful outcome. In an ideal world a technology developed which had the potential for correcting one of its critical problems would gain immediate acceptance and be sped through the essential stages into full scale operation wherever needed. We are all aware of how far from ideal this world can really be. People themselves at the ground-roots level but particularly their leaders, governments, religions, sects and other institutions often provide time consuming impedance to the acceptance of anything no matter how outwardly advantageous it seems. To add to this the world population is dotted by career technological criminals who particularly in the IT world badly use their ample skills. I can't see any of these problems of mankind changing for the better anytime soon if ever.

It is crucial to note that admirably the First Author possesses degrees in molecular biology, aerospace engineering and has an MD which places him potentially in good position to forecast and develop the wonders of technology in fields of urgent world need. However for such technology to become a real world functional solution to the world's problems demands the involvement of experts from many other disciplines and the hands on experience of having worked in a variety of jurisdictions outside the USA.

I possess a double major degree in Geology and Chemistry and a PhD in Chemistry also broad but nothing near capacious enough on its own to allow me to forecast my own developed technological firsts as to their impact or lack thereof on solving major problems worldwide. As will be shown below, I also worked in multidisciplinary research teams consisting of more than a dozen experts in other fields when proposing solutions to widely based real world problems. Additionally I lived and worked for short periods doing research and teaching in various jurisdictions on 6 Continents of the world.

Keeping it simple, here are important interdependent stages before a technology becomes useful; invention and development usually through several prototype stages, acceptance by the officials and governments involved, implementation and trouble free operation and skillful maintenance. In California typical environments where a plethora of this innovation originates is far from representing real world conditions from a variety of perspectives. Placing these technologies in much less ideal environments usually involves time consuming large scale prototype testing. Although the Abundance innovators try to extrapolate how such required technology for future abundance might work worldwide; their lack of real world hands on work and experience in dealing with other diverse political, religious and social situations is in large part lacking. Thus these 'Californian type' originating technologies most often fail at the acceptance, implementation, operation and maintenance stages. In a world that because of procrastination on urgent problems has already placed us in dire need of operational fixes; if total failure does not occur these processes drag on so long and have so many practical pitfalls that from any practical sense they are failures. Quite often just the human factor is enough to guarantee failure in this overall process.

History has many times demonstrated the potential difficulty in adopting poorly vetted plans to solve serious problems that ended up causing worse problems than they were intended to alleviate. Then we have the side effect deleterious potential of even tested technology, the pharmaceutical industry yielding some prime examples. To this must be added procedures like widespread use of genetically modified seed in agriculture to improve crop yield and resistance to insect damage and disease. This technology sounds wonderful on the surface but little research exists to demonstrate the safety of such an innovation.

Perhaps a good way to end this discussion on the practical uselessness of exponential technology development proposals proposed in the book Abundance is to cite the climate change conundrum that remains in worldwide dispute despite ample evidence that this issue threatens the very existence of mankind. This example has the advantage of exposing the typical factors that prevent agreement which are manifold but boil down mostly to trumped up disagreements between various forms of government and their selfish economic concerns. If mankind cannot even agree on the world threatening issues like climate change then what help will be an exponential flow of technology which itself is bound to often end up in disputes.

## The Real Problem

Human Overpopulation has arguably become the dominant predicament facing the world today.

The influential journal Science devoted a special edition to the question of population, in July 29/11. The lead editorial written by Babatunde Ostimehin, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, states "As the World's Population reaches 7 billion this year, we should reflect on the many ways in which population dynamics matter to the planet's future. Population growth patterns are linked to nearly every challenge confronting humanity, including poverty reduction, urban pollution, energy production, food and water scarcity and health".

World population expansion at unsustainable rates is the main problem threatening mankind's earthly sustainability and continues unabated. Those dealing in the subsets of this issue are constantly forced to play catch up with the variety of resultant predicaments. The most pressing of these other than those mentioned by Ostimehin include climate change, resource depletion, economic inequities and recycling and waste disposal.

David Pimentel, Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Agriculture at Cornel University, has stated that "With the imbalance growing between population numbers and vital life sustaining resources, humans must actively conserve cropland, freshwater, energy and biological resources". Further a United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) entitled 'Global Environmental Outlook' involving 1,400 scientists over a 5 year period found that "human consumption had far outstripped available resources. Each person on earth now requires a third more land to supply his or her needs than the planet can supply". It faults "a failure to respond to or recognize the magnitude of the challenges facing the people and the environment of the planet". It further notes "The systematic destruction of the earth's natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the viability of economies is being challenged – and where the bill we hand to our children may prove impossible to pay".

Many will be familiar with China's 1 child per family population control initiative introduced in 1979. This laudatory program however has a spotty history of implementation and enforcement throughout the country. The result has been a continued pattern of substantial population increase through the latest figures available to me of 2010.

Using the World Population clock provided by Princeton University on their website <http://opr.princeton.edu/popclock/popupclock.html>the world population at the time of writing was 7 billion and increasing by an astounding 2.4 persons a second. Relating births to deaths the figures for 2010, according to the UN population Reference bureau show there are 19 births and only 8 deaths per 100 people. The world population was estimated to have reached the 1 billion mark in 1805 and has increased almost 700% in the last 200 years. With a World already facing overpopulation, a 30% increase from 7 billion to an estimated 9 billion in 2050 is truly frightening. The pre-eminence of the overpopulation problem prompted Nobel Laureate Dr. Henry W. Kendall to state, "If we don't halt population growth with justice and compassion, it will be done for us by nature, brutally and without pity – and will leave a ravaged world".

It is difficult for most to conceive that North America, a relatively large area with a population of about 370 million, could suffer from overpopulation when compared to our usual benchmarks of India and China with combined populations in the billions. However when considered in the light of interrelationships related to disproportionate consumption of resources, consumer demand for goods and services and the wastes generated there-by, a relatively small highly developed population can indeed exhibit the properties consistent with a population surplus. US National Research Institute on Food and Nature (INRAN), estimate the maximum US population for a sustainable economy at 200 million. According to their theory, in order to achieve a sustainable economy and avert disaster, the US would have to reduce its population by at least one-third and the world population would have to be reduced by two-thirds.

An appreciable portion of the population in Canada and the USA were born In North America and have had little need to contemplate the world in its most urgent contexts, with the probable exception of climate change. Yet consider the large number of world citizens migrating to Canada and the USA in search of an improved future. What better indication of the good fortune that most enjoy simply because of their birthright. Thus it becomes clear that North Americans have the duty to amplify their global concerns and send strong directives to the government to change their priorities to emphasize actions that might help to promote prolonged worldwide human sustainability.

The above written, presented and published in different forms in a number of jurisdictions has failed to have any degree of widespread acceptance. Governments in particular have little interest in this logical but unpopular view. Thus I am undertaking in this book to place the argument in a much more detailed and expanded format. I truly believe that in this matter, even though fully cognizant of many of the essential remedies but without the willingness to make substantive sacrifice for change, the human race is acting like proverbial Lemmings, and is about to leap over the cliff to oblivion.

## The Author as a Doomsayer

A few population related statistics as of Dec 27 (2012) 6:15pm and (7:15pm) from Worldometers-(www _._ worldometers _._ info)

Current World population 7,087,954,425 (7,087,963,421)

Births this year 131,226,615 ( Births today 277,015 (131,243,356)

Deaths this year 56,045,943 ( Deaths today 118,550 (56, 052 002)

Net Population growth this year 75,181,415 (75,189, 075)

Readers will look at the title of this book and wonder if I am just another one of the many crackpot scaremongers or pessimist fatalists who come out of the woodwork from time to time with a new unfounded theory predicting the demise of the universe, the solar system, the earth or in this case mankind. Or might I be a Cassandra, which the MacMillan Dictionary/Thesaurus defines as "someone who always says something very bad is going to happen with the result that nobody ever listens to them"?

Having read my opening proposition on population and looked through my stated credentials that follow, the readers will have to make their own decision. It is my hope that I have provided enough substantiation that many will deem me qualified to write such a book. I reluctantly present the following information that is a form of self promotion and hope the reader will understand its necessity in this circumstance.

As a Professor at the University of Toronto I was a founding member of the Institute for Environmental Studies. I have a degree in the double major of Earth Sciences and Chemistry and my PhD is in Chemistry. My research group at the U of T developed 2 new detectors for chromatography, thus amplifying the utility of this technique of wide application in environmental, clinical and other analyses. Also having been privileged to have worked for short periods in a typical variety of jurisdictions on 6 continents in an Environment Consultants capacity I feel I have a uniquely broad perspective on governing techniques, standard of living trends, religious proclivities and cultural propensities to provide a worldwide perspective . In conjunction with experts in many other disciplines at The Institute for Environmental Studies and abroad I served on many Working and Study Groups in the environmental area. The experience gained in these, in particular the very broadly based Lakeshore Capacity Study, which developed strategies for managing and future planning and dealing with the environmental problems in the Great Lakes has left me convinced that to deal effectively with the major world environmental problems the procedure demands dialog and research involving groups of disciplinary experts.

On this basis I must emphasize that Governments and International Agencies typically bereft of a broad base of discipline experts must accept the results of such studies and putting economics, egos and politics aside work quickly to enact the recommendations. After all how can you put a price on timely actions required to promote a long term sustainable biosphere and thus the continued existence of mankind?

In viewing the world with this international background from which to judge the vagaries of mankind I was startled to realize that the rapid decline in prospects of achieving a sustainable environment in which to exist is most strikingly obvious right here in North America. Not as one might expect in such as the anarchy of Flavelas of Rio and present day Johannesburg or the squalor in extensive sections of large Indian cities and not even war such as the perpetual chaos in the Middle East, but right here on my own doorstep. Worse on a personal note I found in viewing my own daily living style the presence of some of the characteristics which I am about to proclaim are central to causing the impending chaos. When experts such as myself must admit any measure of complicity this is indeed frightening.

The main problems we are about to share boil down to our inability to manage population growth and effect change in what is easily demonstrable in its broad based domino effect of ramifications, the path to perpetuating an unsustainable standard of living. Our fateful situation has been complicated by the failure of humanity to as yet put in place mechanisms that permit quick and decisive action on most major world problems that have long term perspective.

The arguments made in this book can be presented in two possible ways. A manuscript consisting of dialog frequently interrupted by of large numbers of directly referenced quotations from the literature can be presented or a smoother flowing less voluminous argument mostly in the author's own words can be employed. Of course the former would be more convincing to those who require such direct quotation substantiation. For these a simple remedy is to cut and paste any of my statements into an internet browser for confirmation. However my experience suggests for many a book full of detailed referrals and a plethora of substantiating references is off putting and overwhelming. Thus flying in the face of scientific rigor I am not going to resort to a long string of references, hoping that the reader will understand that I have read the appropriate references and in large part presented figures averaged from several references and summarized a variety of the appropriate content in formulating the contentions in this manuscript. The fact that I have had a privileged exposure to the subjects contained in this books premise, have taken part in a broad range of related research programs with experts from other salient disciplines and by working on related projects in a wide area of jurisdictions on 6 Continents, I hope this will provide the necessary reader confidence. By using the above stated style of presentation the following book will be concise and hopefully easily read. More importantly I hope the content will lead to controversy that will stimulate the reader to consult other sources. Through this latter stimulus hopefully the reader becomes more intimately involved in understanding those problem areas that fall within her/his field of expertise and/or specific interest and in particular will then make demands for remediation.

I will not apologize for rendering illustrations and data most commonly from Canada and the USA. In particular the book will carry a notably large amount of argument based on Ontario and herein the Greater Toronto Region (GTA). Despite my wide ranging experiences in a variety of worldwide jurisdictions I find these, my own local domain, to be a gold mine particularly blatantly illustrative of mankind's self perpetuated destructive proclivities. In this regard although there are many worldwide examples of extremes of some of the problems most pertinent to this books basic premise; the local large middle class zealously protecting their relatively high living standards in the face of obvious long term world biosphere unsustainability is strikingly pertinent. This is not an unusual phenomenon. After all a hallmark of mankind is to without critical appraisal of one's own life style, assume it has little relevance to the long term future; instead blaming critical future determining problems, on actions of others.

Please note that because of the volatile nature of the developments relating to the subject matter in this book, revisions will be necessary from time to time to keep up to date and these will be published as required in an appropriately altered manuscript here. I must stress however that the basic tenant expressed in this book's title will not change.

# Chapter: 1

## Major Issues with Important Examples to Define the Argument

### Twenty First Century Complex Problems face 19th Century Styled Governance

I strongly believe in democratic systems of government but must note the following:

The 21st Century is characterized by issues that differ from those even in the fairly recent past. Many problems are now multilayered and involve research and inputs from multidisciplinary teams of many experts. Solutions proposed by such teams are often so technologically complex that they cannot be understood by heads of Government or even the government departmental groups of experts who from my experience cannot hope to include nearly all the relevant disciplines involved. Additionally, procedures for the approval of proposed solutions and the enacting of the required amelioration must occur quickly to prevent the possible long term consequences that can result due to today's protracted decision making. Democratic governments are sensitive to pressure groups, often Lobbyists that represent major sections of our economy.

Let's take the manufacturing segment as an example. Here proposed environmental legislation will often require costly modifications to existing manufacturing processes to for example cut down on pollutant emissions. This means money must be spent by manufacturers to conform to the require regulations, which in turn eventually effects the companies' bottom-line and perhaps in a worst case scenario their ability to compete in the marketplace. Lobbyists Higher by this manufacturing segment put pressure on members of the government to change or abandon the proposed environmental legislation. This in turn causes time delays that if the issue is affecting a critical environmental problem like climate change could have catastrophic consequences.

Other forms of government facing similar environmental time sensitive issues react in different ways but the effects on solutions can be even worse. In my experience in dictatorial or Communistic forms of government often refuse to take any action and/or make public promises they never intend to keep.

Governance as it exists today was geared for the slowly contemplative discussions relevant to the 19th century, from which it has not significantly changed. The present disaster we are experiencing right now from Climate Change is in large part a testament to this outmoded style of bureaucracy.

### The Important Time Plight

Mankind has existed on earth for roughly 1 million years. Yet in just a small smidgen of this interval, the past 200 years, the population of our planet has gone from 1billion to an overpopulating 7 billion. In lockstep we have transformed a mankind sustainable environment to a condition in several critical areas where mans sustainability on this earth is threatened. Worse the solutions to threatening problems if they do exist being very time sensitive are typically subjected to unacceptable delay. The reasons for these delays are multifold and among other things are imbedded in the process of governance, economic practices and even pressures from the citizenry. This subject is covered in detail in my recent free eBook 'Middleclass Life Style-Fatal Environmental Consequences'.

It's sad/amusing to think the authors of the bestselling book 'Abundance' fail to realize that they can spit out crucial technology at exponential rates into a politically and economically screwed up world as represented by examples like the oil sands and Keystone type pipeline controversy and make a spec of difference in achieving solutions to our most critical problems. Most of their proposals would never ever be adopted for critical problem solutions in time to save us after they drag and grind up through the glacially moving political and other deliberation processes worldwide.

## Essential Background

Some Environmental Statistics Source Worldometers-real time world statistics Dec 27 6:45pm 2012:

Forest lost in (2012) 5,154,426 hectares

Carbon dioxide emissions in (2012) 33,258,505,375 tons

Toxic Chemicals released in the environment in (2012) 9,705,650 tons-about 60,000 tons /min.

### "Renewable" Energy

The concept that we can create new energy often expressed in the press using the popular but totally erroneous term "renewable" energy is very misleading to the average citizen. Traditionally electricity been mainly generated by hydro electric, coal fired and natural gas plants all of which perform this feat by using water or steam to drive large electricity producing turbine generators. Carbon dioxide a major by-product of the combustion of coal and natural gas has been fingered as a worst problem in the phenomenon of accelerating climate change.

In an attempt to reduce the deleterious volumes of emitted carbon dioxide and yet maintain the necessary levels of electrical energy required to maintain our current requirements, most citizens these days know we are creating more and more of our electrical energy through wind turbines (windmills), solar panels and with nuclear reactors all of which have relatively low, but not zero, carbon dioxide footprints. These 3 techniques are the most fruitful methods used for this purpose at present but there are many more electrical generation techniques which are being used on smaller scales and/or are being intensively researched. By the way did you know that all these technologies are highly Government subsidized in many worldwide jurisdictions through our taxes to be competitive in cost per kilowatt to the older technology? This keeps our present hydro bills artificially low. Can you imagine the increases we will begin to see as these subsidy costs are transferred into our hydro bills?

It might appear that all of these above methods new and old are creating new energy, in the form of electricity. Nothing could be further from the truth. It would be wonderful if we could create new energy that way baring other catastrophes the world might well last as a viable entity until the death of our sun.

A theory of Physics with the intimidating sounding name Thermodynamics, describes an important irrefutable set of laws of nature and in its First Law states that energy can be neither created nor destroyed. This means that although energy can be converted from one form to another, no new energy is produced. For example in the case of windmills wind energy can be converted using a turbine to electrical energy. But in doing the sums for this action it will be found that the amount of electricity produced adds up to a value that is less than the amount of wind energy used to produce it in the turbines. But remember this law also declares energy cannot be destroyed? Where is the missing energy in the case of the lesser amount of electricity produced? Actually put in a simplistic way this turns up in useless forms comprising friction (inertial) and heat energy in and about the turbines.

### Green Energy

Another term that is often encountered when we read about new methods for energy transformation is Green Energy. An ironic illustration of the blunders that can be perpetrated in the energy field is the production of ethanol from corn. Ethanol is a cleaner burning fuel than gasoline. The idea therefore arose that significant ethanol should thus be added to gasoline as a method for emissions control and as a method of reducing petroleum dependence. In this case when the sums were done reliable calculations showed with the energy consumed and the volumes of carbon dioxide emitted thereby during the harvesting of raw materials, production and transport of ethanol that on balance it made no sense to utilize ethanol in fuels. Despite this clearly deleterious finding the next time you fill your car at the pumps in many jurisdictions you will find that the fuel you are pumping contains a very significant percentage of ethanol!

Some of this concept will necessarily be repeated in slightly altered form below in a detailed look at energy as a resource and the consequences that would be involved should we miraculously decide to convert to alternate energy for all our electricity needs.

### A Persistent Sustainability Myth

The summer 2011 'York Region', York Works Transportation and Environmental Services Newsletter trumpets; "Sustainability is a focus of York Region's community development, reflected in our commitment to efficient transit, clean water, waste management policies and environmental protection". York Region is a region of 1 million in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). On the initial page of Markham's (a city of 300,000 in York Region, population 1 million in the Toronto region-GTA) Greenprint Sustainability Plan recently published, the mayor states; "During my inaugural speech when I was elected Mayor in 2006, I announced the creation of the Greenprint as part of Building Markham's Future Together. It is my pleasure to present the Greenprint, Markham's Sustainability Plan – our commitment to transforming Markham into one of the most sustainable cities in North America". Apart from the erroneous implications of such statements, I have personal evidence from several jurisdictions that this type of implied commitment is lacking. In my experience it is for the most part only under conditions of duress that remediation of environmental problems for the most part can be accomplished.

In environmental publications of a plethora of communities of all sizes, exemplified by the two above, "Sustainability" has become the quintessential buzzword that is apparently used as a supposed seal of validation and a political exigency. How this erroneous use of the term came into such prominence is hard to fathom. The use of qualifying phrases such as "most sustainable cities" is also redundant and will be obvious in the following.

Sustainability is an imposing term and when used in an environmental sense it implies a state that exists pursuant to the stable existence of life. Additionally it implies the endurance of the world's ecosystems over the long term. Thus for true sustainability to be developed for any community on this planet the locale must, for example, be able to control climate change. How can York Region and Markham produce a plan for its own sustainability when the world's climate including that pervading Markham is in serious deterioration? Obviously any contribution that Markham can itself make toward climatic stability is welcome but not integrated into a national plan and is therefore infinitesimal. The same argument can be expressed for most other of the crucial sustainability parameters. True sustainability implies worldwide control of many other essentials including, water quality and its long term availably, equitable resource availability including oil, metals and forest products, world health research as in the case of the prevention of pandemics and Political and economic stability. Such programs must originate and be applied at the National and International level.

Thus in order for relatively small communities like Markham and in a somewhat more extensive area York Region to claim that they can develop a plan for a sustainable future in their locales they must be able to include in their scenario procedures that will exercise control over parameters that are worldwide in nature. This is a very obvious impossibility.

Time is too short to work from the bottom up as is the case when planning like this occurs predominantly locally and in a nonintegrated form in a checkerboard manner.

An important example of the difficulties encountered even in providing meaningful plans for large scale responsible local environmental practice is evident in the attempt to choose a workable alternate energy plan. For example choosing the most competitive form, wind power to power Markham, would require a wind farm covering an area the size of all of Markham which would have to run 100% of the time. Solar energy sarcastically deemed "cute" by Computer guru and philanthropist Bill Gates, is hopelessly expensive and land coverage intensive. Other environmentally friendly proposals such as widespread adoption of electric cars cannot become a viable option because of lithium ion battery limitations, the most important of which is unacceptably short driving ranges between charges coupled with lengthy charging times. Unfortunately with the exception of nuclear power generation, where a 1GW installation is equivalent to a wind farm running 100% of the time and covering ¼ the area of Lake Ontario, most scientists agree that for the foreseeable future there are no viable schemes for alternate energy emerging.

Thus the claim by politicians in municipalities to be able produce a sustainable local environment anywhere in the world is an often exercised, unforgivable political desideratum and misleading myth.

### Selfishness

This trait although also pertinent to the standard of living discussions below must be mentioned under its own heading here. People in the developed world are more concerned with their own wellbeing within their own family groups than the welfare of society within and outside the jurisdictions in which they live. Thus critical world problems that don't at the moment threaten this narrow sense of self, garner a much diminished concern. As a result world problems will most often be allowed to develop to crisis stage in which time the individual and their families are threatened before the average person expresses meaningful concern. In an overpopulated world where critical problems are becoming much more diverse and complex than in previous decades solutions at the brink of disaster will not be forthcoming.

### Consumerism

Think about this:

Sit at your desk and grab 4 or 5 items at random. Where were they manufactured? Here's what I found for my items.

1. Panasonic Telephone 5.6 GHz Digital Gigarange: Made in China.

2. Sharpie Pen: Assembled in the USA.

3. Olympus Stylus Camera: Made In Indonesia.

4. Gear Head Optical mouse: Made in China.

5. Boston Grip Stand up stapler: Made in China.

As this exercise indicates most of Brand Name consumer items sold in discount stores in North America like Walmart, COSCO, Target etc are outsourced, that is usually made Offshore in cheap labour markets such as exist in much of Asia. As a result the average household is well stocked with items that have become 'essential' to the 'good life' most of us including myself enjoy. Shopping has become an obsession with many. As I write this it is "Black Friday" 2012; the day of the year when shopping is at its peak. People even line up over night for blocks at some shops in anticipation of obtaining loss leader bargains available at opening time. Some of these bargains are in such demand and short supply that fights have been known to break out causing stores to require heightened security. But the shopping proclivity of many citizens is not restricted to such occasions but is practiced as simply an almost daily activity out of habit and often to prevent boredom.

Here is an important indication that mankind driven by its own innate greediness, intensified by the commercial interests surfeit advertising style and easy credit is headed for problems.

Although an issue relating to our shopping addictions appears on the surface to be of limited consequence; it is actually a potent example illustrating a predicament that, when exacerbated by, limited and miss-apportioned resources, large scale energy consumption, labour cost inequities, and other related consequences has grown to assume something of major proportions.

A major cause of inertia to dealing with issues like those that relate to consumerism which are on the horizon poised to becoming long term major impacts, relates to our up to the present ability to successfully pull ourselves back from the brink of disasters at the last moment. This problem and its implications and breakdown under modern conditions will be discussed in further detail later on. For our purposes here suffice it to say the Science and Engineering disciplines when faced with former serious problems have been able to relatively quickly invent solutions and cures for most problems because of the skills of the personnel and abundance of information about these problems being faced. In many cases the problems had few dimensions and involved a restricted number of disciplines.

That was then and this is now:

The world population has expanded to levels that mean the impact of even relatively simple problems is exacerbated by mere numbers. Now in a crisis if a solution is found it may be ample for the short term but the impact of growing numbers of individuals involved can mean that the invented solution for coping today may have to be drastically revised or totally revamped to handle a greater density of individuals in the near future. Long term solutions are seldom possible on a crisis basis.

# Chapter: 2

## Water Problems and Global Warming the already Initiated Tipping Points to Disaster

### Water

Up to 1.8 million children die yearly due to water related disease!

About 800 million people worldwide have no safe drinking water.

In my view problems in maintaining an adequate world supply of fresh water is most likely the tipping-point in the fate of mankind and a sustainable earth's biosphere.

"While the amount of freshwater on the planet has remained fairly constant over time—continually recycled through the atmosphere and back into our cups—the population has exploded. This means that every year competition for a clean, copious supply of water for drinking, cooking, bathing, and sustaining life intensifies". This is a quotation from a recent National Geographic article entitled Freshwater Crisis (2).

A related statement occurs in the Executive Summary of The UNEP/GRID- publication Sick Water? (3) "The world is facing a global water quality crisis. Continuing population growth and urbanization, rapid industrialization, and expanding and intensifying food production are all putting pressure on water resources and increasing the unregulated or illegal discharge of contaminated water within and beyond national borders. This presents a global threat to human health and wellbeing, with both immediate and long term consequences for efforts to reduce poverty whilst sustaining the integrity of some of our most productive ecosystems".

There is a persistent migration throughout the world but particularly in developing countries from rural to urban centers. This trend is particularly troublesome for dwindling freshwater supplies and the ultimate pollution of nearby water bodies by the polluted waste water remnants of that water. These discharge areas, frequently depended upon as a local aquatic food supply are damaged by the pollutants so that they no longer are useful for this purpose.

Most mammals including humans are over 60% water by composition making continuous water replenishment on a daily basis essential. The world is 70% covered by water but of this less than 3% is fresh and of this 2/3 is tied up in polar ice caps and glaciers. With Global Warming melting this latter this fresh water is mixing into the surrounding salt water oceans and hence relentlessly depleting the small existing fresh water supply. These figures emphasize the tiny amount of water, about 1%, in the world that is directly useful to humans and much of the rest of the water dependent world's life forms. Since there is no desalination process that is simple, not highly energy consumptive and economical on a large scale for use widely on ocean water we remain dependant on the present fresh water supply.

A look at the map of North America shows a landscape dotted densely with fresh water lakes in the north including the Great Lakes. These latter large fresh water bodies contain 20% of the world's fresh water and 80% of the freshwater in North America. Statistics are boring but the essential point in this data is the revelation concerning the relatively tiny amount of fresh water available to the bulk of the rapidly expanding human race.

Not all available fresh water is visible on the surface of the earth, 30% being below the ground level in the form of large bodies of water known as aquifers. Several large cities such as Phoenix which are appreciable distances from an adequate source of surface water must obtain their fresh water supply from sources natural and man constructed from some distance away. Often aquifers exist beneath the surrounding area and even underlie the cities themselves. In many cases as with Bangkok replenishment of these sources is slower than the withdrawal causing potential problems due to subsiding of inhabited areas residing above and in the case of this city a 1.6m subsidence has occurred in only 10 years. Some of the world's largest aquifers are brackish in composition that type of water being unfit for human consumption. Probably the most famous of these brackish aquifers, the Great Artesian Basin, underlies much of Australia and although too salty for human use fortunately some major farm animals such as cattle can tolerate water in this condition.

On average over 70% of the worlds available freshwater is used agriculturally. Depending on location the fraction of domestic to industrial sources vary. In North American locales domestic and industrial usages are about equal. Whereas in Southern Asia only a small percentage of available water is used by industry and for domestic purposes the vast majority being required for agriculture. This situation is changing with rapid urbanization and the associated large scale industrialization that must result.

Climate Change, often termed global warming is certain to have an effect on the water cycle if only to change precipitation patterns perceptibly. Changing patterns involving drought and excessive rainfall are already being noted in many parts of the world. Climate Change and problems related thereto will be covered in much greater detail in a section to follow.

Pollution of fresh water by human, industrial and farm use rises rapidly as a threat to the sustainability of adequate supplies. Water pollution in Developing countries remains largely unabated. This problem is now being addressed in many jurisdictions in the developing world in some cases with new ingenious technology. Schemes have even been developed whereby the water in sewage steam arriving at sewage treatment plants is recycled and purified to the point of being suitable for drinking. Yet presently even in many Developed Country urban centers poor quality waste water treatment abounds.

The urban populations present astounding rate of increase will likely result in doubling the current 3.5 billion urban value by 2050 thus being the main contributor to the rise to a total 9 billion estimated world population in 2050. Sadly the population rise in the associated slums will be even greater than that of the urban population as a whole. Only a miracle can hope to solve the attendant increasing urban fraction of discharge of largely untreated wastewater outside those forward looking large Developed Country urban centers with installed advanced wastewater treatment. With the concentration of most large urban centers being positioned on the world's major waterways the destruction of self sustaining aquatic ecosystems due to waste water pollutants in both salt and fresh water is rapid. The attendant damage to natural aquatic food resource follows in lock step.

The greatest benefit to dealing with wastewater in urban areas is to have a system whereby the sewers that connect to homes, industry and businesses are separated from storm sewers that carry waste water from urban runoff. Thus by concentrating the waste water that requires special treatment in sewage treatment plants by separating this from the runoff waste water, treatment plants will not suffer raw sewage overflow problems during storms and other periods of high volume waste water runoff. Low Impact Development (LID) is a program that takes this sewer separation a step further in treating runoff sewerage as a resource rather than a waste. A variety of practices are already available for this bio-retention of runoff. These include, rain gardens, vegetated roof tops, rain barrels and permeable pavement. In areas where road salt run-off into storm sewers occurs in winter care is required in making choices in the receiving area that do not involve the salty discharge contaminating any soils.

Sewer separation is an expensive proposition, especially as a retrofit procedure. Thus to avoid municipal tax increases many municipalities are wary of this approach. Again we find ourselves facing the problem that environment related choices that will be essential in the long term often fall by the wayside to prevent expenses that could contribute to a loss of constituent spending power and hence an assault on living standards.

The supply of potable water in Developing countries is sadly restricted since half the population in these jurisdictions does not have adequate sanitation facilities. Under present condition of rectification the problem is bound to become worse with climate change and population increase. Currently over 1 billion people suffer from water shortage likely to increase to close to 3 billion as early as 2050. My experience of working with environmental chemistry problems in developing countries indicates a persistent lack of will within governments to tackle even such dire problems.

Although seldom mentioned in well informed sources that I am reading the problem of corruption at all government and government services levels is rampant in many of these counties. Thus money often donated from foreign sources diminishes significantly through pay outs to officials at all levels and is greatly reduced before reaching its intended beneficial destination. In my view this is a problem that in magnitude and nature is often more atrocious than most others. Thus the reader is cautioned in reading in detail an account of promising sounding solutions in any of these comments that a genuine will to implement such programs is frequently sadly lacking.

Despite the availability of high tech solutions to wastewater treatment, many of these processes being energy intensive require consumption of large amounts of energy resources and often result in other forms of pollution during the process. This cycle of the abating of one form of pollution requiring large energy consumption while often resulting in an additional other type of pollution is a dilemma that ranks high amongst those that inhibit the process of establishing worldwide sustainable conditions of the biosphere. As in most problem issues debated here exacerbation due to the mushrooming population and the larger proportion of the growing population demanding a standard of living equal to the average in North America pertains.

### Climate Change/Global Warming

Carbon dioxide emissions (2012)-about 34 trillion tons

The so called greenhouse gases include mainly, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, water vapor and ozone and all are present naturally in the atmosphere; the fifth a group of fluorocarbon compounds are manmade.

The consequence of excesses of these gases in the atmosphere is designated by many under the umbrella of Global Warming, Climate Change is a weather related phenomenon; a very obvious consequence of global warming. This public confusion has been generated through over use of the moniker "Global Warming" to represent the total consequence of human source (anthropogenic), greenhouse gasses.

A further confusion in understanding the ramifications related to human source greenhouse gas emissions is the slow deleterious acidification of the world's oceans resulting from the dissolution of carbon dioxide in ocean water, which sets up a reaction whereby carbonic acid is a product. Carbon dioxide the most prominent of the human source greenhouse gases is emitted into the atmosphere and causes increased levels there-in, but it is also dissolvable in water accounting for the present ocean acidification trend. The most immediately proposed ocean acidification consequence is the partial dying off of ecologically important coral reefs in some localities. But for this treatise we will look at the better understood atmospheric consequences of greenhouse gas emissions.

Presently the phenomenon of global warming is most obvious in Polar Regions where the predominant rise in average temperature is now occurring. In particular the 2011-2012 discovery in the Western Antarctic, a region some distance from the atmospheric ozone hole, that temperatures in this region are rising at rates 2- 3 times the global average is particularly ominous.

Weather is a phenomenon related to air pressure differences from one locale to another, the latter thus being responsible for daily weather patterns. Mid-latitude yearly seasonal weather variations are due to the change in the angle of the rays of the sun passing through the troposphere (atmospheric layer that intersects the earth's surface) and hitting the earth's surface. The temperature difference between polar and equatorial regions generates the "Polar" Jet Stream in the mid-latitudes. The Northern Hemisphere jet stream is a thin band of fast flowing air which itself moves from west to east together with the daily weather causing high and low pressure zones.

Climate is the yearly combination of changing weather trends on a seasonal basis. Climate Change is a phenomenon whereby the average weather patterns undergo a permanent change. Ocean temperatures vary seasonably to a lesser degree than those on the land and hence have a buffering effect on coastal temperature fluctuations. Warm or cool ocean currents occur along most coastal regions and these can have a very tangible effect on climate. In the Northern Hemisphere the warm temperature massive Gulf Stream is of particular importance. By this system which travels far north the climate of Western Europe is moderated.

In the mid- latitudes which possess the greatest world population density, climate change is the more prominent vestige of the global warming phenomenon. For this reason the public's attention to dangers there-from are more easily captured noting presently occurring changes in local weather patterns. Shifting regions of wet and dry zones, increased frequency and ferocity of storms and widely fluctuating seasonal temperatures both hot and cold are presently occurring. It is important to stress not all weather changes in every locale are reflected in phenomena suggestive of rising temperatures; some few regions are actually showing colder trends at present. A frightening comment indicative of human non concern of Climate Change vagaries is the common statement, on a particular cold winters days here in Ontario; "wouldn't a little global warming go well just now"?

It is not uncommon to encounter in the press and by word of mouth the view that human source global warming is not occurring. Even a few well-known scientists engender this concept. Many try to reason that the warming being noted today is similar to some of the many natural warming cycles that have been noted in the earth's history over hundreds of millions of years of geological time. Fast forward to an article in the July 2012 Scientific American reporting on a fact finding scientific expedition to the Arctic island of Spitsbergen. The study was carried out by a group of scientists under the jurisdiction on the Worldwide Universities Network by world renowned experts representing a wide variety of specialties and emanating from England, Norway and The Netherlands. The following is an interpretation in my own words of what I felt most relevant in this content.

The concept was to compare the rate of temperature change and consequences that occurred in a particularly notable natural cycle of global warming 56 million years ago, which will be designated (GW 56M), with that occurring today. The (GW 56M) temperature rise maximum of 8 degrees C, with catastrophic consequences, occurred after an ascent lasting about 20,000 years. However it then took another 200,000 years for the earth's natural defenses to decrease the temperature to what we consider normal. In (GW 56M) there were many consequences including a large rise in ocean levels, rapid ocean acidification that destroyed much of the ocean life and a forced migration of much terrestrial life both plant and animal toward the poles to ensure survival.

Unless drastic measures are very soon taken to cut human activity sourced carbon gas emissions, the same catastrophic 8 degree temperature rise on today's earth will occur in only a few 100's of years. Grievously all the same (GW 56M) consequences would happen but ever so much more quickly. Considering the massive human population involved, heading the consequence list this time would be unthinkably large losses of human life. As demonstrated through fossilized evidence found in cores drilled in many locales into the oceanic subsurface there becomes a point-of-no-return. That is at a presently uncertain point in the temperature rise curve; the disastrous upward temperature rise becomes self sustaining and hence continues unaffected by any human intervention. At this point-of-no-return mega tons of methane gas now trapped safely in the oceans depths in the form of methane ice begins to melt in the warming ocean water and bubbles into the atmosphere. At that point the unstoppable methane gas release becomes the dominant cause of Global Warming.

Is anything of real consequence presently being enacted to slow or prevent the present calamitous human induced greenhouse gas emissions damage to the earth's environment? In a word; no.

The very savvy Bill Gates, ex CEO of Microsoft and the personal computer guru is one of the World's richest persons. Through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation he gives billions to charity and in support of innovative research and technology. In this regard one of his largest grants is supporting a particular favourite, the production of ultra safe Nuclear Power technology. On the other hand the Ontario Government while speaking of expanding Ontario's nuclear power capability has spent billions of your tax dollars on Wind Power and Solar power projects the former Gates terms sarcastically "cute" and the latter he treats as so expensive as to be not worth considering. For emphasis again, remember that when comparing wind and nuclear power, 1GW of energy requires 1 nuclear power plant. In contrast a wind farm covering ¼ of the surface of Lake Ontario and running at full power 100% of the time (impossible) would be necessary to generate a similar amount of energy. Meanwhile our yearly output level of carbon containing, greenhouse gas emissions remains undiminished. Remember also that for now, climate change is an appropriate term to describe the present consequences of human source greenhouse gas emission. But under existing political and economic circumstances global warming will soon have migrated to cover even our temperate zones. Most disconcertedly, due to worldwide changing greenhouse gas emission dynamics, the time in the future when the point-of-no-return will occur is not known and cannot be predicted.

Let's look at the earth from another perspective that casts global warming in an innovatively different light.

Gea better known as Gaia, is the Greek Goddess of the earth (Ge=earth).

What possible connection to anything relevant in modern times, could be ascribed to Gaia? James Lovelock in 1968 while working at NASA, chose this name for his world renowned and revolutionary theory. Here-in he postulates that the earth can be best described as being much like a living organism, particularly in determining earth's atmospheric compositional makeup from its inception until its final hot passive state hopefully sometime in the very distant future. This precept replaced for most scientists the static earth concept of previous theories.

Since the earth is in dynamic interaction with the atmosphere the composition of the latter is then dependant to a major degree on the reactions occurring in the biosphere and the lithosphere. This self regulation is crucial not only to maintaining the 20% atmospheric oxygen content into which the human race evolved, but also to preserving life sustaining climatic conditions. Reasoning that helps verify the Gaia approach is convincing, but involves points concerning the need to employ nonlinear rather than linear differential equations in all climate modeling, the first law of thermodynamics and the natural regulation of methane and is beyond our scope here.

But in any case through this approach we can see that the maintenance of this self regulation must be considered important in deliberations of today's urgent climatic concerns.

In his latest book, "The Vanishing Face of Gaia" 2009, James Lovelock outlines the indomitable threat that human sourced emissions, now and in the near future, pose to this self regulation mechanism named Gaia. It is important to emphasize that after the title is appended the phrase "A final warning" which should be ample to garner our rapt attention. But why should this book be singled out from the many others on climate change? Like other authors of popular Climate Change/Global Warming books Lovelock carefully hunts amongst the available data for material that best serves his purpose. However as the inventor and main purveyor of the dynamic earth theory he builds his arguments in a scientific, yet very readable format, around this theory, a fact in marked contrast to most others which have no accepted central theoretical dictum. This scientist who possess earned degrees in Chemistry, Medicine and Biophysics, all from first rate universities, looks at climatic problems as an expert from a multidisciplinary perspective, also unique from writers of other popular treatments.

Some may ask, how with some current local trends to cooler, wetter, summers and cold winters could Lovelock and indeed I, still offer an urgent plea to please take seriously the present warming trend of this planet as caused by the activities of man? This brings out one of the strengths of the Gaia based approach. Lovelock bases most of his important conclusions on average Northern and Southern hemispheres open ocean temperature trends and accompanying biochemical changes rather than terrestrial local variations. The rising ocean temperatures are most discernible closer to the poles and as stated above the oceans have a buffering effect against short term land based temperature fluctuations providing a truer picture of the serious Global Warming trend.

What are Greenhouse gases and why is the situation relating to mans contribution to these so urgent now? Greenhouse gasses are substances that when introduced into the atmosphere impedes the reradiating of heat produced at the earth's surface by radiation from the sun. This can occur because the wavelength of the pertinent radiation from the sun is of such values that they freely penetrate the greenhouse gas laden atmosphere; while on the other hand the heat radiation thus produced is of different wavelengths and upon attempted re-radiation are susceptible to greenhouse gas interaction thus becoming trapped. Of particular note; when we introduce "greenhouse gasses" into the atmosphere their effects are not instant but take several years to develop. Thus should we find some time later, maybe even in the near future that human source atmospheric discharges are causing a serious problem, it may be too late for meaningful action. This could transpire since the warming trend will continue regardless, based on the delayed affect of years of previous uncontrolled emissions. That could then result in 'The Demise of Gaia' as this indispensible self regulation gives up and leaves us in an essentially out of restraint situation.

Of the 5 most common greenhouse gases 4, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone are present naturally in the atmosphere; the fifth a fluorocarbons (a commonly used refrigerant) is not. Each of these naturally occurring gases has a different efficiency of effect as a factor in Climate Change/Global Warming. For example methane is many times more severe a problem than is carbon dioxide based on the radiation spectral region in which it is most active. On the positive side methane has a much shorter atmospheric lifetime than carbon dioxide. Up to the present time carbon dioxide has largely been the greenhouse gas released due to human induced activity. It is important to understand that methane, largely a low volume human induced greenhouse gas emission presently results mainly from cattle husbandry in agriculture venues. However it is important to remember that humongous quantities of methane ice, most at great depths cover large areas of costal ocean floor. Some of these deposits; most particularly in the Russian North have been noted to have been subjected to warming typical of far northern localities and hence are releasing methane gas that has begun slowly bubbling into the atmosphere.

Over millions of years variations in the levels of the naturally occurring greenhouse gases, solar radiation intensity, volcanic activity and other factors have themselves caused climatic disparities. As noted above there have been well defined cycles of natural climatic warming and cooling on the earth each normally lasting 10's to 100's of thousand years. Yet variations of climate under natural circumstances have been recorded that lasted for much shorter times, some even as short as a few hundred years. Again this has led some few scientists to question whether present climatic change trends are just a natural occurrence. Although no absolute proof exists of human sources being the cause of present climate change, the best meteorological models absolutely do require a human induced component to account for the magnitude of present global warming trend. Thus approximately 90% of meteorological experts are now convinced that human activity, particularly extending since the period of the industrial revolution and rising in a lockstep relationship to the magnitude of this human activity is the cause of this phase of Climate Change/ Global Warming.

This delayed reaction time associated with emitted greenhouse gases is an important parameter of unknown magnitude in establishing the size of the problem being caused by present and predicted greenhouse gas emissions. This unknown affects all models of Global Warming and not only Lovelocks Gaia model just discussed above. Thus in attempting to establish the point at which the human induced greenhouse gas emission effects will become irreversible is exacerbated in all cases by this delayed reaction unfortunately of unknown magnitude in whatever model exists or may be developed.

As emphasized throughout this book one of the most worrisome characteristics of the average human being is to carry on as usual particularly when said problem has been developing over a considerable period of time as in the present problem of Climate Change/Global warming. Thusly we largely ignore such a predicament until it becomes a full blown crisis. The cause of this popular trend is many fold but mainly results that up to now something has normally been devised that will provide a solution to such a problems just before the catastrophic point.

With Climate Change/Global Warming a variety of worrisome climate related changes are yearly being revealed with little meaningful remedial phenomena resulting. The plethora of circumstances that one can delineate for example the increased frequency and destructive power of wind related events, widespread drought and record high temperatures in some regions and flooding accompanied by destructive erosion events in others are likely results of this inaction. Of these, economic ramifications at governmental, industrial and personal and particularly at agricultural levels are particularly noteworthy. Greenhouse gas emissions being the main source of Climate Change/Global Warming phenomena and a rapidly rising increased human activity related component of these is now abundantly obvious as the main culprit. Real progress on reduction of this source can only come at the Federal government and International levels as a worldwide initiative. In democratic countries Governments themselves although directly contributors often through their ownership and/or control of utilities; the problem falls most precipitously within the jurisdiction of industry and individuals. Resistance to amelioration at these latter levels is particularly strong due to the very appreciable added costs that are inherent in any positive action. Of course democratic governments react strongly to pressures imposed from constituent and business and industrial sources and are unlikely to invoke meaningful changes with negative reactions from these jurisdictions.

Again it is important to remind ourselves that cost increases incurred for pollution abatement if imposed have strong negative ramifications related to maintaining our present standard of living. The situation is totally different in concept with non democratic systems of government. Depending on the form of governance the government or individual in power can make decisions independent of the operators of industry and individuals, but instead of taking positive steps toward amelioration of their pollution sources in general they tend for many reasons in my experience to be on the average more recalcitrant. Additional comment appears below on worldwide organized attempts to develop multinational strategies to ameliorate the Climate Change/Global Warming Problem.

But first let's stop here for a moment and remind ourselves again that in the recent past, solutions often technological or political in nature have been developed in good time to prevent serious problems from taking place. Where are/were those solutions in the case of the present problem of climate change? Even looking forward do effective remedies seem likely? Problems that affect the continued sustainability of the world's biosphere are gargantuan being highly multi disciplinary in nature and demand radical procedural changes at all levels of government. Pure and applied science funding and reordering the priorities of and interactions within the disciplines must change drastically.

# Chapter: 3

## Energy

### Our Energy Resource it's Sources and Conversion Misconceptions

Energy used Dec 26 2012- about 316 million mW-250 million from conventional sources-about 60million from alternate (green) sources.

Days left to end of oil-about 15,000 days, natural gas-about 60,000 boe

Despite the optimism expressed in 'Abundance' of exponential growth in technology solving our energy problems long standing technological road blocks remain unsolved and are ongoing at a time where Climate Change, perhaps past the point of no return is the immediate inevitable consequence.

Energy and Climate Change are inexorably related thus some of the concepts in this Energy sections have been mentioned in the above section. This is unavoidable.

I have already made it clear that energy as dictated from the tenants of basic physics is not in any sense renewable. What is commonly designated in the popular idiom as renewable energy originates from reports about devices such as solar cells and windmills and these should be referred to as something like alternate energy technologies. In conversions of other energy sources such as solar the efficiency of the conversion to the desired form of energy, electricity can be calculated. Thus we find the conversion of energy in the sun's rays by solar cells is only about 35% with 65% waste using 2012 technology.

But speaking of wind and sun as energy resources you could say "so what", we have an unlimited source of solar and wind energy so who cares that the conversion efficiency is low. The trouble in both the sun and wind energy conversion cases is as follows. Both technologies are expensive to fabricate, install, maintain and connect to the existing power grid. Worse they require large areas of space and their generation is intermittent. Thus compared to cost of electricity from conventional electrical energy sources electricity from wind and solar installations is several times higher. Here in Ontario we already have seen the overwhelming public reaction opposing increased electricity bills which are presently based on electricity generated by conventional sources.

But let's assume that if by some miracle the idea that the very significant cost increases incurred by switching to alternate less polluting sources of electrical has been accepted as a necessary consequence of our need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions we still have the problem of the huge space that would be necessary being unavailable if we were to produce our total requirement for electricity in these ways. This is true even if these technologies achieve increased energy conversion efficiencies. There is no direct solution to the intermittency constraint associated with both wind and solar technologies. Importantly there still is no storage technology for large amounts of energy. Thus excess capacity when it is produced cannot be saved for use when required at another time. Thus as things stand these electrical energy sources must have intermittency back up by fossil fuel electricity generators.

Of course any problem such as this lack of suitable alternate energy electrical generation technology capability is daily being exacerbated by population growth. This coupled with more and more of the existing and increasing population insisting on a higher standard of living such as many of us now posses in North America; the space requirement for these existing technologies, already a serious impediment becomes rapidly more acute. Thus in 2012, even if we demanded that the government work toward adopting alternate electrical energy technologies as our sole form of electricity generation this could not be accomplished.

### Electricity Storage Technology Constraints

The lack of adequate battery technology to make electric vehicles a practical reality persists. Electrochemistry, the science on which battery design depends, has been investigated to death and the lithium ion battery in current use in most electric cars is the technically superior. The trouble is that from a really practical stand point these batteries don't fit the bill. Continued research relating to this technology can only achieve marginal improvements. Lithium ion batteries that are in use today are large, provide electrical storage power for only short trip driving, recharging is relatively slow, no practical scheme of battery exchange has been proposed and these batteries are expensive and must be replaced at regular intervals after the recharging limit is reached.

If as has been supposed here no electrochemical scheme will be found to provide batteries of a practical capacity are there other technologies for such a purpose. One present area of investigation is the ultracapacitor. These devices have 2 oppositely chargeable metal plates which are coated with porous activated carbon and are then immersed in an electrolyte. The plates are closely separated by a thin sheet of plastic or ceramic insulator material and the whole device contained in a package. When ultracapacitors undergo the charging process, 2 layers of opposite charge form on each of the 2 plates instead of just 1 layer per plate in conventional capacitors; this results in the alternate name dual layer capacitors. During charging and discharging no chemical reaction occurs as in a battery and hence ultracapacitors do not suffer the wear and tear as does a battery when in operation and hence have a much greater lifetime. These capacitors have the same properties as a battery in the sense that they can deliver an electric current to run an electric motor. Presently available ultracapacitors are unsatisfactory for use in electric vehicles because when used for this purpose they can only store about 5 to 10% the charge of the lithium ion batteries currently in use.

The above discussion relating to electrical storage devices presently available having insufficient capacity for really practical all electric vehicles holds has a parallel in the field of high capacity electricity storage for intermittent electricity generation sources. Availability of such a storage device is essential for standalone wind and solar electrical power generation.

### Electrical Energy Transmission Consequences

Another factor to be considered in costs of electricity is that necessary new electricity generation facilities both alternate and conventional for greatest economy in provision of product should be built near the points of greatest demand. An important factor in electricity transmission along the electric power grid is the power losses that occur therein. For a given unit of power generated the fraction of that unit that is received by the consumer depends on the distance travelled from source to consumer. The greater the distance of the power generating station from the consumer the lower is the percentage of each unit of generated power that arrives. Unfortunately attempts of electrical power generating utilities to construct generating facilities within local areas of high electricity consumption demand thus lowering transmission costs are met with a not-in-my-back-yard (NIMBY) attitude. This resistance to locating power sources near the consumer is so hard core that a week or 2 before a recent Ontario election the government currently in power promised to relocate some long distance away a partially completed, urgently needed, gas fired power generating plant out of an urban area to save a government politicians which was presumed likely to be lost because of NIMBism. The politician's seat was indeed saved but at a projected cost just for disassembly and reconstruction of the facility of nearly 1 billion dollars! Of course increased transmission costs incurred by this move will be ongoing.

### Ancillary Consequences of Using Petroleum Resources as Fuel

Interesting crucial but seldom thought of serious consequences pertain as to the types of resources chosen as energy sources. Petroleum and natural gas are the most common resources used for production of vehicular propellants.

Both resources consist of organic polymeric compounds that were synthesized over periods of millions of years over a variety of epochs of the earth's evolution; but in large part during the Mississippian era 200 to 400 million years ago. Plant and animal life was at a peak and petroleum resulted from the remains of these life forms in locations at depth and at extremely high pressure. The polymers that form petroleum (hydrocarbons) are long strings of many different lengths of carbon atoms chemically bonded together with hydrogen atoms which in turn are chemically bonded to each carbon atom along these strings. Why bother the reader with all this millions of years, high pressure and chemical bonding palaver? First and foremost the crux of the matter is the tremendous energy contained in the carbon atom chemical bonds. In the production of gasoline petroleum is placed in a distillation chamber together with steam and subjected to additional heat whereby the various hydrocarbons are separated according to the length of their string of carbon atoms (The shorter the carbon atom string the more volatile the hydrocarbon) into different size fractions with the gasoline fraction being quite volatile, containing that with only 5 to 12 carbon atom strings. Other fractions form other useful products for example that averaging 12 carbon atoms being diesel. Other less volatile, longer string fractions are sent to a petrochemical "cracking" reactor where the carbon atom chains are broken into shorter more volatile hydrocarbon products such as more gasoline.

Not to worry if I lost you in some technical pot hole along the way because the critical concept relates simply to the consequence of using the largest portion of our rapidly dwindling supply of petroleum resources for combustion in vehicular transportation. The process of vehicular combustion is the breaking down of the gasoline or diesel carbon atom strings in the engine cylinders releasing energy for vehicular propulsion resulting in the waste pollutant exhaust gases, the worst being the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Yes this is a serious consequence of our use of petroleum resources as a fuel, but it is not the one I want to emphasize.

The chief raw materials for plastic production are presently petroleum products. The petroleum industry is commonly cracking the longer carbon atoms in petroleum to augment the amount of gasoline and other more volatile hydrocarbons produced from a unit of petroleum. Instead if these products were treated in other chemical processes they would be also useful as raw materials in the plastics industry.

The rapid depletion in our non-renewable petroleum resources using most of the energy locked up over millions of years in the carbon chemical bonds as a source of vehicular propulsion means that when the presently economical sources of petroleum are soon depleted the main raw material from these sources for plastics will likewise be gone. In itself this does not mean that no plastics or gasoline will be available. There are costly sources of petroleum products such as the Athabasca Tar Sands in large supply as a raw material source.

### Fracking to increase Oil and Gas Production

Oil and gas production is from bores or wells drilled into the surface of the earth down deeply enough to intersect reservoirs of these substances trapped below. Oil from some of these wells flows freely, but others must be pumped. Gas wells flow freely. Oil and gas fields contain many individual wells. In time oil wells that were free flowing often require pumping as the supply diminishes. Finally the flow of oil and gas from a well diminishes to the point that working the well is not economical and it is sealed off (capped) and abandoned. Since 1947 it has been known that production from gas and oil wells can be increased by hydraulic fracturing (Fracking) of the rock that boarders the wells. In this process new fractures and fissures are created in the adjacent rock by injecting fluids under high pressure into cracks. This opens up areas in the rock formations that have trapped petroleum products that were otherwise inaccessible. This procedure has been used to reopen capped wells for further production, increased production from existing working wells and reached petroleum products at greater depth and horizontal distance from wells.

Fracking is a controversial practice that has resulted in a wide variety of environmental concerns. Of particular direct worry is ground water contamination both by petroleum and from the complex compounds used in fracking fluids. Both surface air and water pollution are additional concerns. Without giving more details it is easy to see that fracking is a technique with great potential benefit to the petroleum industry but at a possible environmentally costly price.

Resource depletion problems leads to the proposed wide use of controversial techniques like fracking that complicate our decisions on what can be permitted for commercial reward in the face of possible permanent damage to the biosphere. This technique is discussed here as an example of the economic and environmental conflict that new techniques for working diminishing resource sources can occasion. If fracking were banned as it is in many jurisdictions, the available reserves of these resources become less. Oil and gas being examples of resources essential resources the depletion of which has negative connotations for our standard of living if not as fuels then certainly for the plastics industry.

### Nuclear Energy Sources

Of great relevance to energy resources, scientists demonstrated to the public that humongous amounts of energy are available from tiny sources when they used a relatively tiny quantity of a fissionable isotope of uranium for the destruction, during the 2nd World War, of a large portion of 2 Japanese cities. A natural consequence of this discovery was the subsequent development of nuclear reactors as electricity sources. It being impossible to use the explosive release of energy as was done in the detonation of a nuclear device for energy conversion to electricity Nuclear Power Generation Facilities employ a controlled fission reaction in a very trivial way to generate heat which in turn produces steam that drives turbine electricity generators. The many controversies surrounding this method of electricity production are well-known and the relevance of this to our energy future will be touched upon below.

This leads naturally to the idea that since bonds between subatomic particles in atoms represent a source of immense energy, might there be some way to tap directly into this as a method of energy conversion and acquisition; hence the proposal to use the concept of nuclear fusion as a possible approach. The world famous Einstein Equation Energy equals the Mass times the square of the Speed of Light holds the secret to how this could be accomplished. Since the speed of light squared is an immense quantity only a tiny amount of mass represents a huge amount of energy. Thus a nuclear reaction was proposed whereby 2 different isotopes of the element hydrogen would be fused together to form on an atom of neon. If this can be made to occur the energy sums would mean that the product neon atom formed, having slightly less total mass than the reactants would release this excess in the form of an equivalent amount of energy which in magnitude would be massive. To this date in actual fusion experiments even on a very small scale the output of energy obtained has yet to exceed the input energy required to initiate fusion. Even assuming this problem will be overcome and the output exceeds the input energy the scaling up to large plants for commercial sized production is very problematic.

Thus back to realistic sources of energy that might provide a practical long term solution to our energy needs. In this category nuclear stands out as a technical winner. Unfortunately unrealistic public concern for safety impedes its wider spread adoption. However think seriously about this energy source as discussed below before writing off nuclear reactors for future emphasis in the energy field.

One nuclear power plant can generate the power equivalent to a wind farm that would cover an expanse ¼ the area of Lake Ontario.

Lest we allow the very serious nuclear catastrophe in Japan to determine our future attitudes to the relative safety of the nuclear power generation worldwide I wish to make the following points. This perspective is based on the very different Geological and technological situation as it exists in many other regions.

Geologically Japan is located on top of an area that is underlain with continuously very active continental tectonic plates. The earth is not a solid system of continents and sea floor that is inherently stable and unmoving. Instead the continents are forever moving, the movement being more in some areas like Japan while much less in most. The crust and upper mantle of the earth, often denoted geologically the lithosphere, comprise the total surface and under pinning of the earth. The lithosphere is broken up into sections called tectonic plates. There are 8 major tectonic and many minor tectonic plates on the continents and on the sea floor worldwide. There are 3 types of motion occurring along plate boundaries; these are transformal, convergent or collisional and divergent or spreading.

Tranformal movement is most troublesome and is characterized by major earthquakes, volcanic activity and mountain building, this approximating the situation upon which Japan is located. Strong earth quakes happening at sea are accompanied by a tsunami, which usually accounts for the largest proportion of damage and deaths. Twenty percent of the world's earthquakes occur in Japan making this region the most probable for such a problem. When I was living in Tokyo it seemed unusual for me not to feel minor earth tremors weekly. Japan has an immense person to surface area ratio and a large industrial base much of it concentrated along the coast. The power requirement is high and in Japan natural resources for conventional power generation are low by proportion making supplementation by nuclear electrical power generation attractive. Unfortunately even using the best safety precautions, many unavailable or improperly maintained in the 40 year old 4 Fukushima reactors affected by the recent earthquake, the chances for serious nuclear accidents resulting from an earthquake were high. A frightening figure is that there are a total of 55 nuclear reactors in Japan.

Need this recent Japanese experience cause us to dynamically alter our plans for development of new nuclear electrical power facilities Worldwide? For example according to Natural Resources Canada in all of Eastern Canada 450 earthquakes can be expected to occur each year. Of these only 4, averaging about a magnitude 4, will be strong enough to be felt and then only very slightly. In comparison the recent Japanese quake was about a 9. This is 5 orders of magnitude greater or in other terms 10x10000 times greater. The reason Eastern Canada does not have large structural damaging earthquakes is that geologically this region is in the middle of a very broad and stable continental land mass containing very old and relatively stable fault zones.

For the more technically minded, a few comments on the design and safety features of present Canadian reactors used for power generation. CANDU reactors, originally designed by Canadian Researchers at Chalk River Ontario, are among the best and safest available worldwide. Multiple systems exist that can detect loss of coolant in the fission (the nuclear reaction) reactor vessel and any one of these can shut down the reactor and inject a reaction poisoning mixture under high pressure to prevent overheating and meltdown. These entities are multiple so that if one or more fail there will always be others to take over this function. Additionally the reaction rods in the core are grouped so that coolant failure can affect only small sections of the total reaction chamber, not the total chamber as occurred in Japan. A large volume low temperature fluid moderator surrounds the reactor chamber and is a heat reducing (heat sink) safety shield that can safely absorb heat from heat causing events. This again is surrounded by a water shield tank for biological and further thermal shielding. The heavy water neutron kinetics (an energy expression), a property of the CANDU nuclear reaction process, is several orders of magnitude slower making control easier than in the Japanese type reactors. There are other technical factors relating to safety too complicated to discus here that are part of the CANDU design.

Although safe disposal of nuclear reactor waste, even just the large amount accumulated to date is a serious problem; locations and adequate containers for this purpose are being sought. Recycling procedures have been developed to recover reusable components of nuclear waste Additionally treatments now exist to reduce drastically the volume of waste by separating the relatively much smaller quantity of highly radioactive waste components from the whole thus reducing the disposal problem. Much more research is still urgently needed.

Nothing exists of a complicated technological nature that is totally foolproof. However nuclear reactors for electrical power generation in Eastern exist under favourable geological conditions plus they possess the superior safety features embodied in the CANDU design. This means that as long as safety precautions are continuously reviewed and then updated when these are determined to be advantageous and stable areas are chosen there should be no need to delay plans for building new nuclear power installations despite the catastrophic problem with the 4 inferiorly designed and drastically geologically misplaced Fukushima reactors in Japan.

Of particular desirability is that unlike the harmful nuclear waste products characteristic of the fission reactors the fusion reaction produces virtually none. As we noted the problem with fusion is that to date the energy output from experimental fusion trials has not exceeded the input. Full scale energy production using fusion is likely decades away if it is ever achieved.

### Journalistic Unbalanced Short Term Perception of Energy Related Topics, an Understandable Difficulty

There are many reasons for our confused state towards choosing viable future energy "generation" sources. Commercial interests and the susceptibility of Governments to their desires frequently predominate. But reports on energy sources that are disseminated by the media carry appreciable public opinion guidance.

One danger we face in the media world today is the plague of influential Business Section journalists often graduates in economics and business with little training in science technology that seem to constitute the majority of authors of articles on energy in our major newspapers. An average citizen reading these articles has no basis on which to judge there validity. Truly the fate of the worlds energy and other resources and the problems related there-to have very little to do with economics as portrayed presently.

Basically there are 4 main problems that disenfranchise Business/Economics prattlers as capable of writing meaningful dissertations on the Energy problem.

They seldom demonstrate a useful knowledge of even basic science and most particularly that essential to geology, chemistry, physics and related engineering of energy products.

They consider each source of energy as relatively unrelated marketable commodities whose dollar values in the western world should be governed simply by supply and demand and the markets and their fates being related largely to the present and very near future.

Their articles are frequently stimulated by the public conception that energy prices are presently excessive and for the most part economists/business scribes with shallow reasoning support this view.

These writers must rely in large part on interviews or quoted reports of vocal spokespersons in the energy/resource field whose views they are incapable of expertly judging.

We are at a pivotal time in the future of energy sources. Concern for the environment has recently spurred a spate of alternative energy production alternatives. As already stressed these produce energy at a much higher cost than present conventional methods. To encourage alternative energy production large government subsidies are paid from our taxes to the entrepreneurs. Thus at present in many instances the consumer is directly billed at a rate much less than the actual cost of the energy they consume. Economists/business writers seldom give recognition to this dichotomy. In terms of long term bio-sustainability suitable for the existence of life on this planet, present economic thinking is inapplicable. This is of course understandable since short term problems necessary for financial stability and maintaining our present standard of living are uppermost in the public, corporate and governmental idioms.

On the other side of this journalistic coin are the often fine articles by outside experts under headings such as 'Opinion' that are frequently presented on topics of importance such as energy. This is highly commendable.

The incredible magnitude and rate of natural energy resource depletion and the skew of this depletion as being a Western World paradox is basically not considered by economists. Considering the earth as 5 billion years old and then for easy illustrative purposes lets equate this interval to one year. Using this analogy mankind will have depleted the readily recoverable resources in less than 1/10th of a second. Petroleum products and coal emanate from a period about 300 million years ago and using the same relationship these resources will have largely been consumed in 1.7 seconds. The Western world countries containing only 15% of the world's population, with our high living standards and considered at the present rates of consumption is consuming 70% of energy resources.

Modern, major, media sources have a myopic view of a wide range of important issues as the one illustrated above. Intervals of more than a few years are rarely involved in crucial reports. Despite "sustainable" the new politicians buzz concept now being used to describe a hypothetically stable condition of life in the future, the fate of future generations seldom appears to even enter economist journalistic equations. As harmful as such an approach will prove to be, perhaps it is easy to understand. Consistently the main departments of dominant news outlets feature spectacular daily events. Why then should economists not follow suit and report nearsightedly on current subjects which really deserve a long term perspective.

### Unrealistic Expectations in Energy Pricing

A serious problem that begets public confusion is energy pricing. At present in round figures Ontario residents pay on their electricity bill 6 to12 cents per kilowatt hour depending on the time of use with the new Smart Meters. This is however very misleading. The present mammoth costs associated with the establishment and production of electricity from alternate energy, a legitimate item in the price of electricity, are also being paid by you but from your taxes as Government subsidies. These subsidies for wind and solar power alone are estimated variously as between 3 and 5 billion dollars. At these subsidies Ontario consumers will obtain about 800 to 900 megawatts of electrical power. Contrast this with the present output from the Darlington nuclear facility of 3500 megawatts which is over 3 times as much. At present total Ontario electricity generation potential stands at 19,000 megawatts. Thus this subsidy from our taxes will replace only about 5% of existing electricity production with wind and solar power. Similar dichotomies are common throughout North America.

There has already been such a public ruckus over rising electricity bills that the government dares not admit to the real cost of electricity. Government subsidies like this for electricity are common across the alternate energy sector and for that matter in some instances for conventional energy processing.

Electricity pricing differs from Province to Province in Canada. Consumer complaints about billing for this commodity in Ontario have been vociferous of late. But again on a nationwide basis, comparisons of our electricity costs with those of other nations are possible. In this case comparing 20 prominent industrialized nations Canadian prices were the third lowest overall. Similar consumer unrest due to energy pricing exists in many of the Developing Nations

Recently Ontario residents will have received a missive from the Ontario Government entitled "Electricity Prices are Changing-Find Out Why". Herein the opening gambit states "Like a lot of places around the world, electricity prices in Ontario are going up". Under "How much will I pay" we learn that each year for the next 20 the rise is projected at 3.5% but the likely increase in the next 5 will be 7.9% per year. This will add up to $300 annually to an average electricity bill by about 2016.

Alternate electrical energy producers have contracts promising payment for power produced and hence the government must pay for the electricity whether needed or not. An option is to sell excess power to adjacent US and Canadian jurisdictions. As was reported recently, at times the government has even had to pay these neighbors just to rid ourselves of this surplus. Since the wind does not blow nor the sun shine consistently it is not possible to rely on a steady supply from these electricity suppliers.

Note how the government tries to hide the costs for subsidizing companies to build alternate energy installations by emphasizing the many jobs thus produced. Down the line when these expensive sources of energy cause electricity rates to skyrocket there may actually be a loss of jobs when other industry decides to avoid investment in Ontario due to exorbitant power rates.

Clearer power technologies are indeed needed to combat climate change. The problem is worldwide in nature. The USA and developing countries continue to persist in an appreciable reliance on coal, the dirtiest but cheapest method of power production. Industry in Ontario will thus be in a disadvantageous competitive position if clean energy costs do not continue to be subsidized from our taxes but are passed on to the consumers.

Another important misconception exists relating to the price of gasoline, a factor that enters the public's mind after every trip to the gasoline station.

According to a recent Yahoo pole 63% of the respondents identified gas prices as the top money issue in a recent Canadian election. Gasoline prices in Canada differ city by city. Taking an average on a national basis several surveys showed Canadian gasoline prices to be in the 40% range of about 150 countries surveyed. For example gasoline is more than 2X as expensive in The Netherlands, Germany, Italy and the UK; while in the US, China and Russia gas is only 0.8, 0.7 and 0.5 as costly as in Canada. Perhaps the chronic complainers would like to move to Venezuela where gas costs a measly 5 cents per litter. Also just for fun compare the current Markham gas price at about $1.36 per litter with local supermarket prices for 1 litter well-known, Brand Name, bottled waters averaging $1.60 when checked recently.

A large proportion of Canadian Oil reserves are located in the Western Canadian oil sands. Production from this source is still subsidized at the billion dollar level by the Federal Government. Environmental problems related to production of oil from this source will accelerate drastically with the June 2013 tentative approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. The oil sands operation already often referred to as the worst source of pollution in Canada any large scale oil production from oil sands must be queried on this basis. Never-the-less as the amount of oil production in Canada from conventional wells inevitably decreases over time, reliance on oil sand produced product will undoubtedly rise. It is essential that this also be accompanied by innovative improvements in oil sand processing pollution control. The result will have to be an attendant increase in the cost of gasoline, diesel and the many consumer products based on petroleum as a raw material.

No one can deny that present higher gasoline and diesel prices can unbalance the family budget and cause problems for commercial and industrial users. With gasoline prices always likely to vary up and down, over the long term a relatively consistently rising trend cannot likely be avoided. The only answer is to plan to adjust our cost expectations both for fuel and for products and services that depend on this commodity.

Considering these inevitable cost increases in consort with a growing population and mode of resource consumption particularly of the conventional type; such will presage the fate of our present average middleclass high standard of living. This detailed discussion involving the fate of a familiar and widely utilized conventional resource is just one example of our constant the relentless shortsighted approach to life that continues to be typical of mankind.

# Chapter: 4

## Public Confusion on the Magnitude and State of Life's Critical Problems and the Resultant Inattention Thereto (From my own publications)

In the US in 2009 there were about 2,000,000 people injured in vehicle crashes, 250,000 were incapacitated and 42,000 killed.

In the US in 2009 about 122 people died in air crashes. In the same period in the US there were 9,000,000 commercial flights.

The press is prone to jump on stories with seductive content.

Thus a single aircraft crash commands instant news coverage and bits and pieces of news relating to this accident are on major news casts for many days.

### Medical Research in the Public Domain

Consider press research reports on medical advances.

In this high profile research field widely reported results from respected researchers at High profile Medical Schools and Hospitals often make headlines. In many cases the content is premature and misleading based on the nature of the research but is still portrayal as a proven new and crucial development. The following illustrative comment is common in most fields of life sustaining concern; I call this common dilemma "Mousey Medicine".

Presently there is a wide spread use of animals for testing purposes in medical research. This practice, embracing a wide range of nonhuman species, is however largely centered on rodents. Of these by far and away the greatest number are mice. An important reason for this choice is that mice have a genetic composition that is about 90% identical to humans. For this reason many researchers expect results obtained on mice to closely approximate those that might be expected to be obtained with humans. However, close genetic similarities of species are just one factor to be considered when choosing a species for this experimental work. Many other important factors such as adsorption and elimination of test substances in mice and humans can still be quite dissimilar. This and other important factors greatly affect the use of such experimental results in predicting their implications for human treatments.

In perhaps the best historically documented case of this type the drug Thalidomide, a supposedly harmless sedative and nausea suppressing drug, was prescribed for expectant mothers based on excellent results obtained with mice. This substance occasioned a disastrous outbreak of widespread human birth defects, up to 10,000 before the problem was discovered and thalidomide use discontinued. In this instance a follow-up study found that mice could actually tolerate about 8000 times, on a relative basis, the dose compared to humans without ill effects of any type. The thalidomide disaster beginning in 1961 caused dramatic changes to occur in procedures and permissions for human testing using substances flagged as possibly useful based on results obtained with experimental animals.

It would appear however that many medical researchers show little concern for reporting results as possibly having favourable implications for treatment of human disease from research still at the mouse stage that is before enacting any testing directly on humans. Since rules for human testing of such substances are now so stringent and time consuming the temptation for reporting of new potential human disease treatments at the mouse stage is high. Those of us who have reached middle age or greater are very familiar with this practice followed with the very common disappointments that result when mouse study predictions for favourable human treatments are never realized. In fact less than 10% of successful treatments on mice translate into successful treatments for humans. Being learning disabled I have a great interest in possible medical treatments for this problem. At the age of 76 I have seen several dozen predictions for successful drug treatments of this problem doomed for failure. As of this date no properly documented cure for learning disabilities exists.

Due to revolutionary advances in analytical biochemistry the genetic composition of a large number of organisms including humans has become known. Researchers can now identify defective and marker genes related to a variety of problems and using this information can predict the likelihood of certain diseases being developed through individual testing. For example this can infrequently even result in women opting to have mastectomies despite the absence of any actual physical symptoms of breast cancer. Should individuals results fall into the public domain genetic testing could be utilized in pricing and even determining whether to grant life insurance. Likewise genetic information could be used in making hiring decisions.

Although some successful genetically based treatments for human disease actually exist today, I have particular concern relating to the following growing practice. Here non human laboratory research studies show that a genetic procedure has cured a disease or drastically improved the treatment of that disease, in a test population of mammals such as mice. These results are then used as the usual springboard for predicting the likelihood of developing medications or favourable clinical procedures and even cures, when used with humans in the future.

Results are still often being reported without any vestige of human testing having been done. The problem today is the much wider ranging, still weakly based, but much more aggressive nature of this type of prediction, something the science of my day would strongly have disavowed. Many medical research facilities actually maintain Media Rooms for release of such material.

Charitable organizations and research groups in the medical domain depend on favourable research results for the granting and improvement in monetary support. Many of us donate to charity and would be predisposed to be more generous if favourable predictive medical results applied to diseases affecting our progeny, other loved ones and the fate of life in the long term. It is worrisome to me, as a scientist who believes that some research indication of human benefit should be accomplished, which is publishable in peer reviewed journal, before probability of any human success is announced. Otherwise, less rigorous press released material; totally non human based may wrongly influence the charitable actions of generous citizens. Non-the- less carefully validated genetically based medicine does hold tremendous and wide ranging promise for treatment now and in the future.

A specific area of medically related research that illustrates the public confusion that may arise on prominent issues relates to cell phone use. Controversy is rampant as to whether cell phone use can cause cancer. This is an example of a field of research that being very high profile attracts a multitude of researchers many of whose credentials are marginal at best. The Press is commonly unable to judge the validity of results and reports those that are most attention getting regardless.

On the surface there appear to be a large number of important studies on whether the use of cell phones can be linked to forms of cancer particularly of the brain. These are much divided as to whether such devices do or do not present a cancer danger. Because media is prone to report on new research studies as soon as they appear often without regard to validity unreasoned public concern arises. The main problem is that the majority of this reported research is inadequately performed making the conclusions useless and worse misleading. Decisions by the public should be guided for the most part by seeking recent results reported or reviewed by major government health departments, world renowned health agencies and national Cancer agencies and institutes.

To understand the reasons for the conclusions of these reputable sources and the issues from which these conclusions result it is important to have a few facts. These include the nature and consequences of the radiation that carries cell phone signals, the controversy related to this radiation and the requirements of a properly designed study to evaluate the possible consequences of cell phone use.

### The Health Effects of Cell Phones Controversy

The term radio frequency radiation (RF), the carrier for cell phone conversations, is used in almost all popular media reports on cell phone use and possible health consequences; but what is this radiation? Frequency can be thought of as the rate of oscillation of a radiation wave. The electromagnetic spectrum covers a wide frequency range from relatively low at one end, in the case of radio waves, to very high in the gamma ray region at the other end. In terms of its potential for cancer causing potential radiation can be divided into ionizing (potentially cancer causing) and non-ionizing, terms which again often appear in popular media reports on cell phone health hazard potential. Visible radiation, that comprising light, appears in approximately the middle frequency range of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is boarded on its high frequency side by ultra violet (UV) radiation. In the summer those of us who sun bath should use a sun screening lotion to block ionizing UV radiation from causing skin damage one form of which can be skin cancers. Coincidentally, roughly speaking, the frequency dividing visible and UV radiation is the important separation point between non-ionizing (visible and all lower frequencies) and ionizing radiation (UV and all higher frequencies). Ionizing radiation is potentially cancer causing because it can cause changes (mutations) in our body cells DNA. Thus non-ionizing radiation such as RF from cell phones should, by this criterion, not have the capability to cause cancer. Why then is there the "cell phone radiation might cause brain cancer", controversy?

One reason is that a spate of poorly designed experiments have been reported in the literature that claim RF from cell phones has been shown to cause some types of brain cancer. It is difficult and expensive to design and execute a research project that will give meaningful definitive results to such questions. First a group of thousands of cell phone user participants must be assembled and extensive documentation of each participant's health history and cell phone habits must be determined and administered over a long time interval. Input from experts in a variety of disciplines is essential in achieving a proper experimental design followed by constant attention and supervision being available from many of these key authorities. Expansion on this point alone is beyond the scope of an article of this nature. Suffice it to say that in the environmental field I have been the member of such a multidisciplinary team. Thus I can state that very few groups around the world possess the capability to undertake a valid research program that will yield results of a definitive nature concerning the cancer causing effects of cell phone use. So where does this leave us in being able to draw valid conclusions relating cell phones and cancer? Most importantly we must only use the most recent material available from the best sources.

Thus I am obligated to outline the most recent release dated Lyon France, May 31, 2011 from the World Health Organization (WHO), Press release no. 208 (7). This I must emphasize is not the results from a Scientific Research Study. Quoting from this release: "From May 24-31, 2011, a Working Group of 31 scientists from 14 countries has been meeting at IRAC Lyon France to assess the potential carcinogenic hazards from exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields". Under Results appears the following quote; "The evidence was reviewed critically, and overall evaluated as being limited (limited evidence of carcinogenicity) among users of wireless telephone for glioma and acoustic neuroma, and inadequate (inadequate evidence of carcinogenicity) to draw conclusions for other types of cancers". Glioma and acoustic neuroma are types of brain cancer.

Still on the basis of such couched statements they state as follows "the evidence, while still accumulating, is strong enough to support a conclusion and the 2B classification (that is, possible carcinogenicity to humans)". They provide the following quotation relating to the conclusion "The conclusion means that there could be some risk, and therefore we need to keep a close watch for a link between cell phones and cancer risk".

I felt obligated as a scientist to give you the readers the direct quotes from this press release before providing my own view. After having read conclusions from other authoritative sources such as Health Canada and the American Cancer Society that are admittedly several months less recent, my view is that since cell phone radiation is of the non ionizing type and especially since RF is itself very low frequency within this generally believed to be non cancer causing grouping, much more research is needed especially among child cell phone users before any conclusions as to its cancer causing possibilities can realistically be made. I feel comfortable, speaking only for myself, when I say that I would not hesitate to allow my own grandchildren cell phones but would encourage them to use as much text messaging in their communications as possible.

### Pesticide Controversies

The history of pesticide use, abuse and banning demonstrates how public perceptions of a possible major problem suffer confusion from both scientific bungling and government practice and regulatory inconsistencies. For this purpose the widespread use of DDT and a recent renewal of an Agent Orange fiasco are blatant examples.

Agent Orange used by the American Military as a widespread defoliant in the jungles of Vietnam during the war of 1959 to 1975 broke suddenly into the Canadian news a year ago and then disappeared from public scrutiny within a few weeks. The report related to the discovery of the possible widespread use of Agent Orange in Canada.

This substances name arose from the orange coloured barrels in which it was contained. Its health effect horrors were made famous by widespread use during the war in Vietnam. The 2 chemicals that comprise Agent Orange in a 1:1 mixture by volume are 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T.

2,4,5-T the more controversial of the 2 chemicals that comprise Agent Orange is actually only of moderate toxicity. However during its manufacture for use in the Vietnam War, which was done without proper temperature controls, it became contaminated with trace amounts of an extremely toxic dioxin which accounted for the major health hazards of Agent Orange.

To date there are few well documented accounts of the widespread use of Agent Orange in Canada. In the most famous case in 1966 the US military was given permission by the Canadian Government to test Agent Orange on forests adjacent to the Canadian Forces Base at Gagetown, New Brunswick. Recent accounts suggest its usage by unprotected workers as a defoliate near airports. It remains to be seen what present investigations of the possible further use of Agent Orange elsewhere in Canada will uncover. The suggestion that Agent Orange may have been used for clearing hydro right-of-ways is unsettling.

To further confuse the issue of the use of these substances they have been employed for many years separately in Canada in commonly available gardening products. The substance 2,4-D is the more commonly used of the two chemicals in this regard. When made free from the toxic dioxin the byproduct in Agent Orange both these chemicals decompose in a short period when in the environment and hence do not linger to cause later collateral damage. In this regard they would have distinct advantage over widely used predecessors.

Perhaps the best example of a widely sprayed chemical in Canada that has a long harmful lifespan in the environment is the pesticide DDT. In the 1940's and 50's this chemical was discharged in large quantities from aircraft flying over marshes in the GTA for mosquito control. Despite its harmful nature but perhaps understandably because of its cheap price and wide availability, this chemical is still extensively used in many developing countries for control of the malarial mosquito.

Presently in many urban areas of Canada the Dandelions reign supreme. Pesticide use in Canada is regulated by Health Canada but it is important to point out the inconsistency that exists in the present move to ban cosmetic use synthetic lawn pesticides for cosmetic purposes. At the end of 2010 almost 200 jurisdictions including the Provinces of Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick have adopted this cosmetic ban. However the public must be confused as am I that we conclude as many experts have, that these substances may have environmental and health risks then why has this ban not become nationwide? Additionally what prevents this ban from being enacted on golf courses and what is the current view on pesticide use in agriculture?

### Political Agenda Ruses

Political agendas when played out in the public venue often appear to have imbedded therein solutions to critical long term bio-sustainability related issues. Here we go back to a familiar always useful example and re-examine this as an election issue. The following relates to an election campaign at the Province of Ontario level. Our already detailed environmental examination of the alternate energy issue will help us to see how politicians employ such a high profile concern to for political purposes misleadingly.

A recent election campaign and people's perception of the energy issues surrounding this critical part of each party's platform became a minefield of misdirection. Does anyone seriously believe that energy prices will not continue to climb relentlessly despite any electioneering rhetoric to the contrary? The chances of new major oil fields being discovered are minimal and as petroleum supply must eventually peak or even start diminishing with time the unsubsidized prices must increase. Costs of producing electricity are rising steadily and thus likewise the unsubsidized price must rise. Meanwhile the 2 major party leaders that were involved in this election in particular are making the subject of alternate energy into a election ruse.

"The Ontario Government Plan has delivered 20,000 new clean-energy jobs for Ontario families and is on track to create 50,000 by the end of, The incumbent Premier announced today." ( CNW Sept. 8). This statement based largely on a deal with a large multinational company and other closely related statements have continued to be a vanguard of the Ontario Liberal electoral platform.

The opposition party leader threatened to cancel the Multinational Company part of this initiative and the 16,000 jobs involved therein and rightly states this Liberal Party aspiration is part of an "expensive experiment" which will cause electricity rate increases. While promising to reduce taxes (amounts to a subsidy) on electricity, he will not commit to ruling out increases in electricity costs in the future. Analysts in a prominent local newspaper point out that the opposition platform has only 2 substantial changes from the present status quo. As an indication of the importance accorded energy in this election one of the Opposition Party substantial changes relates to scaling back the government rush to alternate energy programs together with "lowering homeowners hydro bills", the latter being an impossibility without substantive subsidization . Despite the importance of energy production, no specific details on Opposition Party future plans for alternate energy or how they would otherwise maintain adequate energy supplies, have been presented.

We have defined 2 classifications of energy production conventional and alternate. For perspective, consider present conventional electricity production situation from the following figures gleaned from the Ontario Power Generations (OPG) official web site. These are based on a total current OPG output capacity of approximately 20,000 mega watts. It is important to realize that the original procedure for mass production of electricity in Ontario, that of using the energy of moving water-usually waterfalls, to drive turbines is the cleanest of all methods and still accounts for about 7,000 megawatts. Nuclear energy production, accounting for 6,600 megawatts, although involving very small amounts of greenhouse gas emissions during nuclear fuel production, transportation and erection procedures in relative terms is considered a non contributor to the climate change problem. Thermal electricity generation involving mainly coal or natural gas facilities have a capacity of 6,300 megawatts. These plants are the major source of climate changing greenhouse gases. Coal still used but now being phased out, is the worst polluter because of its emissions of additional harmful substances, 2 being mercury and sulfur dioxide. Thermal electricity generators are indispensible because, in contrast to nuclear and hydro sources, output can be ramped up and down quickly to suit the current demand.

Nuclear energy requires additional information. New technology nuclear reactors are inherently safe. The chance that you will be harmed by radiation from such an installation built in a relatively tectonically stable area such as exist in Ontario is close to zero. The technologically savvy Bill Gates of Microsoft fame is so enamored by new style, safe, nuclear power generation that he has funded a company developing such reactors. The 2 major parties are promising more nuclear energy which as stated above is considered in the conventional energy source grouping.

Enter into this election the wishes of concerned citizens who pressure politicians to choose clean, i.e. very low greenhouse gas emitters, methods for energy production.

Our main forms of energy requirement are electricity, heat and vehicular propellant. Considering for the moment only the major non greenhouse gas emitting alternate energy methods for yielding electricity, all the above forms of energy requirement are served by wind and solar.

To the contrary of much political thinking, proposing the presently heavily subsidized (from property taxes) wind and solar power as technologies for future production of an appreciable percentage of Ontario's electrical power requirements is a particularly inane election proposal. While the Government promises new jobs and sources of electricity in developing these technologies the Opposition promises to save money by cancelling this investment but without any plans for required new alternate energy sources. As we already know not only are wind and solar power overly expensive, they have immense territorial requirements and in both cases the electrical output is intermittent depending on time and speed of wind and hours of sunshine respectively.

Energy prices and supply and the job creation stimulated there-by has proven to rate among the top issues in the upcoming election. Sadly the 2 major parties have nothing sagacious to offer the electorate in this regard. Unfortunately proposals that have been offered, if implemented would seriously exacerbate the present rising energy costs. Therefore the electorate in demanding alternate energy initiatives must understand implementation is not possible without incurring much higher utility bills one factor along with government services in general that could become a significant component in the struggle to maintain current standard of living standards.

With this confusing information how does the electorate make an environmentally friendly informed decision?

The above are detail high profile illustrations to indicate why the public has distorted perspectives on issues of importance through no fault of their own. Because of such examples it is not difficult to understand why subjects related to The Overpopulation problem, although critical to bio-sustainability on this planet, are widely misunderstood and do not sustain intense public concern.

# Chapter: 5

##  The Multipronged Problems Relating to Resources

### Maintaining the Average Middle Class Living Standard

Straight out it will with certainty be impossible for us to maintain our present living standard if we wish to guarantee the sustainability of life in this world for future generations. Has the reader ever considered the amount of resources that would be required particularly in the light the finite nature of resources and with the mushrooming population to carry on in our present lifestyles as usual? What about the energy consumption inherent in producing the needed manufactured goods and the amount of pollutants released thereby and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The sad reality is that in our daily life most individuals and governments do give consideration to what they presume are the factors that will ensure security for our children and grand children. The problem is that these factors being considered are miniscule when placed in perspective of what is really needed to ensure this goal. This erroneous deliberation has been the case in the past still remains and continues to march basically unabated into the foreseeable future. What is particularly disturbing is that some of proper corrective factors needed for future planning, though well known are unpleasant in being disabling to our present life styles. It is my supposition that these needed corrective measures are not being acted upon in large part is because humans do not have a conception on how immanently critical they are; still having faith that miracle answers will be found in science, engineering medicine and economics that will solve these potential disasters without requiring uncomfortable lifestyle changes.

Take the need to reduce or even eliminate human source greenhouse gas emissions as an example. The sources of greenhouse gas emissions are well documented the most common being vehicular exhaust, electricity utilities, a smattering of other definable industry eg. cement, deforestation fluorocarbon refrigerants and agriculture. Concerted attempts have been made in the electrical utility and vehicular emission source categories to find solutions. At present rate of utilization of vehicles and electricity the proffered solutions are too slow being enacted or will not solve the problem. In Developed Countries the present rate of consumerism in these categories is driven by maintaining current personal relatively high standards of living. Obvious solutions which would imply significant standard of living cuts like drastically reducing personal vehicle numbers and greatly reducing electricity production would not even be considered. This demonstrates in microcosm why current everyday personal lifestyle priorities that even at present population numbers dictate our present environmentally intolerable status quo. But worse the environmental consequences we now experience on this account are being exacerbated by improved life style demands from the population in Developing Countries. If all this is not disquieting enough there is another aggravating factor in this environmentally destructive lifestyle equation and that is the perpetual incremental consumerism demands from population growth.

Mere sustenance of today's human population at the present average standard of living and the maintenance of the retinue of life forms upon which we depend for this state require a continuous consumption of resources. Ignoring recycling for the moment there are 2 types of resources, renewable such as food products and nonrenewable an example being metals.

In the case of the nonrenewable resources and using metals as an example, metals such as iron would appear to exist in infinite supply it being one of the more abundant metals within the earth's crust. Why this is not in a practical sense true relates to energy consumption required to extract a metal from its natural state in an ore. The number of, "rich" i.e. high grade deposits of a given metal, vary depending on which metal is being considered. Extracting metals from high grade iron ores requires much less energy than will be necessary when the rich deposits are depleted. Since energy consumption is of crucial concern in itself there becomes a practical limit on the lowest grade of iron deposit which can be considered as a source for that metal. The refining of metals from a source whether high or low grade requires the consumption of energy and in both cases environmental pollution results. The problem is that the amount of energy required and the resultant pollution rise quickly to a point where the only source for the metal becomes so low the amounts of energy required and the pollution generated are too high that the process cannot be tolerated. Of course more efficient iron refining processes may be developed but even these will eventually become intolerable for the same reasons.

Recycling is an obvious rich source for a depleting resource and must be utilized. Any process used to reprocess scrap to recover, eg. iron from car body wrecks, also results in energy consumption and pollutants. Thus this method of prolonging the availability of a resource has its own typical limitations.

Mention was made above of improved refining processes perhaps coming available. These would work by reducing the energy requirement and/or decrease the resultant pollution or are more readily useful for lower grades of the metal. One of these worth a mention in 2012 is the use of bacteria for some part of the refining procedure. While this is attractive and would seem to reduce energy requirements and might reduce pollutants for that part of the process; problems like keeping the bacteria alive and active, the unique infrastructure outlay needed and other factors will have to be assessed before any conclusion can be made relating to possible benefits.

This is a good illustration of how new concepts that on the surface would seem to be of benefit must always be critically appraised in depth before their true usefulness may be concluded.

Please note that even the refining of an abundant metal such as iron results in energy consumption and pollutants. Also note that as the grade of ore or scrap decreases the amounts of energy and pollution increase finally reaching the point that the refining of even the formerly abundant iron will be untenable. Our increased needs for energy caused thereby will exacerbate the already problematic depletion of energy resources in other venues. Since the population demanding the present average standard of living is also rapidly increasing so the demand for a resource increases accelerating resource depletion and energy consumption.

The case for processing other natural resources for the recovery of a needed commodity is often more problematic. In many instances the resource sources are few and of lower grade. Gold is an excellent example although it is by no means a crucial resource. Apart from jewelry, industrially it is employed in applications that require a superb conductor in the electronics industry. Its case is complicated because all high grade sources of this metal are presumed to have been consumed. Gold is present at extremely low levels both in the native state and in ores of other metals where it is recovered as a byproduct. Many Mining resource scientists are describing gold as a peaked out resource, that is that we have found the major sources of this metal and thus the production of gold will also have peaked. This of course implies that future production from natural deposits will be in ever sharper decline. Gold with few exceptions although not required for the sustenance of life still the main consequence, if demand patterns remain as at present is the price will for the most part keep trending higher. Indications of the reality of the need for constant gold supply even considering today's non largely urgent demands is the recent strong demand from dealers for purchase of "old" or scrap gold.

# Chapter: 6

## Examples of Where Massive Change in Crisis Response Is Essential

### Governments Limping Along

Governments of the 21st century in Developed Countries are limping along functioning with slight modification of the structures and procedures that have largely been dragged along out of the 19th century!

Deliberations relating to the economy within the US Government in 2012-2013 are typical examples. When contentious issues arise what appears to be a form of gridlock takes hold between the Democrats controlled House of Representatives and the Republican dominated Senate with decisions eked out only after protracted periods and often just at the point of immanent disaster.

From the Mouths of the Young:

Granddad, are you going to vote for the Green Party? This question from my teen granddaughter, Stefanie broadsided me unexpectedly. As a university environmental researcher for 25 years, I had arrived at some perplexing conclusions as to the future of the environmental quagmire that we will be consigning to the younger generation. It is essential in the upcoming federal election to elect a political party that will have not only the will but the capability to tackle these issues. As an environmental scientist the Green Party would appear to be an obvious consideration for my vote.

Most researchers, I included, find themselves working in great depth on a relatively small piece of the immense jigsaw puzzle. For example my research group had devised simple equipment and methodology for assessing the forms of toxic metals in the very complex samples of the solids, liquids and gasses encountered in domestic and industrial wastes. Fortunately the equipment and procedures thus obtained were found to be much more widely applicable, also being useful in the earth sciences, biological and clinical fields. Non-the-less someone of my ilk could hardly claim to be an expert in any broad ecological context.

On the other hand other academics study the environment from a much broader perspective. They attempt to answer the big questions such as the nature of the present state and future of the climate. However generalists of this stripe are unable to come to valid conclusions because an in-depth knowledge of the specialized interrelated variables concerned, one of the many being my own research for example, is lacking in such investigators in sufficient depth for this purpose.

The answer to dealing with the broad and critical environmental problems which face Canada and the world today, climate change for example, lie in assembling multidisciplinary working groups. In such a case these groups should contain the best specialist researchers available in the many relevant disciplines. A proper aggregation of this type would consist of physicists, climatologists, analytical chemists, botanists, zoologists, chemical and other engineers, economists, physiologists, lawyers and others. Developing a working relationship in such a diverse team is difficult and must begin by simply learning to speak to and understand one another. Defining the contribution required from each must be next. Only then can the dialog toward the solving of broad complex problems even begin. No generalist or single disciplinary individual can hope to make a meaningful contribution to such a broad multi faceted problem.

Now back to a choice of political party for the task. Elected politicians of the Parties, including the Prime Minister appointed Ministers are seldom research experts. One would not expect such individuals to study and develop solutions to environmental problems. Some of the expertise for this purpose arises from the scientists and engineers within the Ministries. In the case of environmental problems several Ministries could be involved headed by the Ministry of the Environment. Additionally since personnel here-in seldom consist of world class researchers, teams of consultants from industries and universities with such pedigrees are often essential to provide the data and interact with the individuals within the Ministries charged with compiling the Government policy on crucial worldwide issues.

The Green Party has a strong will to tackle environmental problems and that is praiseworthy. But what of other compelling issues such as the fragile economy. Such strongly environmentally oriented candidates if elected would they have the will, savvy and understanding even provided with expert help to develop policy in disciplines such as this? A lack of disciplinary breadth thus emphasized underlies my view that only the major political parties have the depth to handle the complex interwoven priorities that are essential to solving environmental problems. Having argued thusly I have little confidence that the major political parties are convinced of the dire nature of worldwide environmental problems and will devote enough human and monetary resources towards their solutions. The only hope is convincing the candidate of your choice to pledge to do so, followed by constant reminders to honour this undertaking.

The above story, written in response to having considered the question of why I could not vote for the only party in Canada that puts the Environment first in their deliberations even though my career and in fact my life in general was dedicated helps steer our attention to the reason for usual governmental recalcitrance in dealing effectively with issues that bear most consequentially with sustaining life on this planet. In one phrase the form, main interests and vote grabbing issues have little relationship to this subject. From my experiences in dealing with governments that run the gamut from left to right, including those which have no need have public support, political reaction is based most commonly on, furthering actions related to conflicts with perceived enemies, predetermined agendas, a wide range of special interests represented by lobbyists, feeding egos, lining pockets of their supporters and/or themselves, and avoiding any hard decisions that have long range implications. In fact government activity can be likened to action occurring within a complex maze designed on a template basically but not totally containing avenues relating to a predetermined agenda. Surrounding this maze reside the real problems that beset humanity desperately needing to gain recognition and amelioration. Interaction with these crucial issues directly, occurs in the unlikely event that the Government activity will somehow work its way through this trivial maze during its present term. Government activity is directed along pathways within the maze, according to party policy most of which is superficial and commonplace and based on the factors listed above, only choosing new directions on emergence of urgent short term issues.

Factors that involve world economies are many and varied. Yet the Economy is the Engine that drives much of daily life worldwide either directly or indirectly. I don't pretend to understand the stated meanings that relate to the term Economy. But money, ah money this I do understand at least from the point of having had some and also use of many different countries currencies worldwide. Although economies are not money the pathways by which issues bound to the Economy depend on the flow of this and many closely related commodities is important.

At the level of the individual the possession and access to money drives the lifestyle. Individual country currencies vary in type and the basic buying power. A given currency has a determined range of commodity purchasing powers even within the same country. The currencies of many nations although not tied to the American dollar are closely related to changes in its valuation. To the amateur such as I this seems strange when you consider that the American dollar is strapped to trillions of dollars of the monstrous American debt that is owned by the Chinese. Since The US is basically broke the preeminence of its Dollar must only be historical. But money is only paper and of course who knows how much gold is stored in Fort Knox.

This brings us back to gold which we discussed in reference to resources above. When times are tough economically, historically individuals and groups have horded gold and or other precious metals such as silver. Due to present demand of this probably peaked out resource the price of gold is rising rapidly. But gold is only a metal and its intrinsic value is probably more closely related to the state of mind of a woman wearing a prized gold necklace.

But what has this "Economy" discussion got to do with anything, but particularly to the fate of mankind? As modern economies are structured can they be manipulated to handle large sums that must be spent on urgent long term essential programs for environmental research and remediation? A more relevant question is whether governments are concerned enough to set aside such sums for these purposes? Both questions would appear to be in the negative considering the already experienced climate change related problems that have beset US Mid West agriculture.

### Consumer Credit and Debt out of Control

Consumer Credit that potentially dangerous bear trap on the road to improving our apparent ability to possess commodities has become a major calamity for many consumers by encouraging over spending in the scramble to enhance life styles. One vehicle of credit, the personal Credit Card, is particularly dangerous to our financial wellbeing.

The following are rounded off figures from a variety of sources relating to consumer credit card use in the USA in 2011. Six hundred million credit cards are held by consumers in that country having a total population of 310 million, which number includes 60 million that do not qualify for credit card possession. Fifty percent of credit card holders pay only the minimum monthly balance. There is nearly 1 trillion dollars of credit card debt included in a total of 2.5 total consumer debt from all sources. Many unsettling statistics are available that can be calculated from these statistics and I leave the readers to do their own calculations of interest.

No figure could be found that estimates the number of maxed out credit cards in the USA. However there were a numerous personal accounts in which the consumer indicated possession of multiple cards that were at their credit limit. Of these it was not uncommon to have more than 3. This begs the questions of the ethical practices of Credit Card Providers. My personal experience is that I shred all of the average 2 or more unsolicited credit card applications received in the mail per month. Another questionable practice is the frequent unsolicited offers to raise the credit limit on existing personal credit cards.

Recent estimates place the total wealth of the population of the world at between 100 and 200 trillion dollars. A value of about 10% of this represents the present level of the USA debt based on a 150 trillion dollar figure. Total world debt from all sources has been estimated at nearly 200 trillion dollars. At this writing debt crises of major proportions exist in much of Europe

But what does all this mean in relation to long term sustainability of life on this planet? Consumers in North America cannot continue living at twice their income levels as has been the case over the last decade and is persisting at present with no sign of a let up. Additionally nations worldwide are economically performing in a similar manner at a variety of untenable debt levels. Overpopulation and all its dire subset of problems continue largely unabated. Scattered programs presently in existence in relation to amelioration of some aspect of these problems are generally deficient in a meaningful sense and often simply a political smoke screen to suggest that real progress is in the offing. All such programs familiar to the author are heavily government subsidized and thus exacerbate nation debt levels.

### Untenable Government Environmental Agendas

The main problem in developing adequate and innovative strategies for dealing with Critical Problems which continue only to worsen can be seen on the national level by showing how a untenable agenda has developed as a dangerous and negligent position on a dire world problem right here in North America. For this elucidation I choose Canada

In the first place Canada is one of the worst polluters on a per capita basis in the world. It is not difficult to understand how this unforgivable situation arose.

A January 2, 2013 Editorial in the Toronto Star entitled, "Bad Year For the Environment" reports that in a budget, "the most austere in over a decade", consisting of spending cuts in the 5 billion dollar range; projecting the impact of these cuts in many areas will be impossible to measure, due to the lack of evaluation of most cuts by the relevant committees of Parliament. Further the Editorial points out that the 2012 government environmental policies demonstrate a process of emphasizing a short term economic benefit that triumphs over the risk of possible long term problems. The Editorial then concludes that "there is an important debate to be had about how to negotiate between the economic potential of Canada's natural resources and the environmental cost of exploiting them".

Nowhere is there a better illustration of the government's policy long term planning shortcomings than in its approach to the highly subsidized recovery of petroleum from an almost endless supply of tar sands in the Northwest of Alberta. Canada's Federal Government favouring the powerful commercial prospects in this sector, has no intention of meaningfully rectifying this situation. Couple this with equally weak, ineffective government management of many other pollutant sources frequently based on foot dragging input from vested interests and it is obvious why at the international level Canada is rated so poorly. Then add the widespread adoption in some Provinces of highly subsidized poorly chosen alternate energy schemes based more on political expediency than on a genuine attempt to be solving a problem and you have the prototypical formula for eventual widespread environmental disaster.

Shortsighted national policies such as Canada's described above when combined with many other phenomena of a similar ilk from other countries and together with the general ineffectiveness of multinational organizations in finding long term solutions is specifically illustrative of why mankind is indeed incessantly marching to extinction.

Many respected commentators speculate on the consequences on the untenable and increasing levels of world debt which range from recession to hyperinflation. Some even predict total economic collapse worldwide. In any case economic problems of such a nature would stem the flow of money essential for dealing with Mankind's sustainability on this planet. Any prolonged period of inaction in such a way would be a disaster. On the other hand a cynic might be led to predict that such an outcome might help solve the overpopulation problem and therefore some of its subsets.

### United Nation Type Organizations and Related Multinational Action Committees

It would seem most logical that worldwide sustainability solutions must be tackled from a multinational perspective. Forming groups of multinationals to tackle critical problems such as climate change/global warming have largely proven to be failures as has been the case with the Kyoto Protocol.

Regarding the Kyoto deliberations initiated in 1997 the participants being largely government representative groups with a vast range of different perspectives on causes and blame and hence solutions; mixed together with short sited territorial and economic agendas were largely immovable from these view points throughout deliberations. From this authors point of view the developing nations garnered a disproportionate level of blame and were pressured unfairly by the developed nations for remedial actions. Most recently, Nov. 26 2012, and as the Protocol is about to elapse Lord Stern, a climate economist, thankfully and correctly took a sharp "right " turn by saying that the Developing Countries must face the "brutal arithmetic" of their culpability for emissions. Despite this wakeup call it seems unlikely that a deal other than toothless generalizations will result at the end of this first period. An agreement to an extension to the first period covering 2012 to the end of 2020 has been made. Of particular concern is the designation of the perception of participating countries statist. Most of the developing countries are designated as having agreed upon binding targets. Of the developed countries only most Western European jurisdictions and Australia are in this laudatory group. The USA is a signatory country with no intention of ratifying the agreement. My own country Canada is totally irresponsible being the only major country that has not only no binding targets, it has vociferously denounced the Protocol.

Now we turn for anxious attention to the December 2012 UN Climate Conference in Doha Qatar (COP 18). Early news on the results of this important initiative suggest that the commitments fall far short of what will be necessary if climate change is to be addressed with sufficient rigour in the next critical 3 to 5 year period.

It seems senseless to observe and discuss results of further initiatives of this Kyoto or COP 18 format since participants consistently fail to generate radical new proposals that might free the present pattern of simply building incrementally on past proposals and procedures. Participants in these meetings consistently acknowledge the urgency of the Global Warming/Climate Change problem and then just as faithfully fail to recognize that previously failed formats when reborn with only minor revision are equally destined to failure.

United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) has produced a Rapid Response Assessments series that although having no directly related action component like the Kyoto Protocol; is very highly recommended reading for those who desire an in-depth view of these crucial topics. Of particular note is the emphasis in these documents on the population growth component. The following in this series relate most closely to the content of this book. Living Planet: Connected Planet, Dead Planet, Living Planet: Biodiversity and Ecosystem Restoration for Sustainable Development, Sick Water?, The Environmental Food Crisis and The Natural Fix.

Then we have the high profile well intentioned but unqualified Committees such as those that are represented by the 2004, 2008 and 2012 Copenhagen Consensus initiatives in which every 4 years a panel of 8-12 Economists, some being Nobel laureates, are faced with a carefully selected group of global challenges. Taking the 2008 and 2012 meetings as an example the challenges to be considered by economists were in2008, Malnutrition and Hunger, Trade and Subsidies, Diseases, Education, Woman and Development, Global Warming, Sanitation and Water, Conflict, Air pollution and Terrorism. Then in 2012, Armed Conflict, Chronic Disease, Education, Infectious Disease, Population Growth, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Hunger and Malnutrition, Natural Disasters and Water and Sanitation were chosen. Sounds like a worthy group of subject areas many currently on the topics in this book, crying for solutions. Clearly, only in a worst case scenario would economists have the credentials, even in consultations with experts, to develop solutions in most instances with any meaningful innovative long term content available therein. None of the prominent problems among this 2 year list of challenges has a meaningful solution by a group of single discipline experts no matter how talented.

Consider the most pressing muck-up facing the Developed World today, is it not the economy? If that is not enough reason to disqualify Economists as useful problem solvers even in their own field it certainly would do so over this 2008 and 2012 Copenhagen Conesus list of challenges. Taking at random Water and Sanitation as an example Challenge; a committee of Microbiologists Agriculturalsts, Chemical, Industrial, Municipal and Sanitation Engineers and Health scientists would form a knowledgeable nucleus to form a long term strategy for dealing with this problem. What is required if we are to hope to develop long term solutions that will help to portend a sustainable environment for the habitation of mankind is solutions for such major problems to be developed by groups of relevant experts with no economic constraints to contend with. One of the reasons that I predict that mankind is relatively soon doomed to extinction is just this conundrum, that relevant groups of experts with no economic and political constraints will not be organized due to lack of commitment by Governments and other World Bodies worldwide to make plans in the long term. The world is in such a mess in all these Challenge areas above listed that solutions hobbled by economic constraints will not save us and non economic constrained solutions will because of historical long term neglect, be far too expensive.

# Chapter: 7

## Waste Related Issues

Toxic Chemicals released into the environment worldwide this year-about 8 million tons.

In this section I propose to outline waste as a resource, dangerous waste, ancient waste disposal sites, waste which will continue to require disposal(garbage), and areas in the world that are essentially unused, underused and unusable at present by mankind. Radioactive Waste will be discussed separately when dealing with Nuclear Reactors.

Garbage both urban and rural with a growing population increases so rapidly that existing "landfill" sites are rapidly depleting. I place landfill in quotation marks as being modern euphemisms for garbage dumps. The hunt for new locations is a perennial headache for politicians. This is because nobody wants to live near a garbage dump, true parcels of land that require landfill are quickly grabbed up for clean land fill materials such as earth from excavation sites and areas truly suitable for retaining garbage are few in number.

### Recycling

For many decades products containing iron have been sent to scrap yards and compacted, non iron containing parts having been separated, this is then sent back to iron foundries as a resource for new iron products together with iron ore. This and similar procedures for returning other metal waste to foundries has reduced the volume of garbage and reduced the levels of ore resources required.

One area viewed quickly on the surface that should be an unquestioned useful and welcome prospect is continued innovation in reclaiming valuable resources from waste. Commonly referred to as recycling many communities both urban and rural particularly in the developed parts of the world have programs whereby industries, businesses and individuals are provided with or are required to acquire a small variety of special containers in which are deposited specific waste products outlined in brochures in detail by local authorities. These materials were formerly all sent to landfill sites. With rapid population growth in urban areas the disposal of garbage in landfill sites has became a problem of finding suitable locations for this purpose. Pressure of this type plus suggestions for reuse of segments of garbage through recycling processes in theory reduces the amount of garbage that must be sent to diminishing landfill sites. I say in theory because the volume of recyclables and the cost of recycling both directly and in measured in energy consumption compared to the present cost of recovering many resources from natural deposits has resulted in much more recyclable waste than hoped for ending up as garbage in landfill sites. In fact in the GTA reports abound of materials that were collected as recyclables and carefully separated into particular types ending up disposed of with the garbage.

In judging any energy requiring process involving resource consumption its utility must be measured on a variety of factors that determine its ultimate cost per unit product. In the recycling area costs required to generate the desired product, such as using iron scrape to convert back to iron foundry product compared to processing the presently available grade of ore into iron foundry product must be competitive. Additionally the product obtained must have only desired impurities and have the desired physical properties in each case. In some cases iron production being typical, a mixture of scrap and ore may provide the desired product with least energy consumed or in some cases a better product results than when using only one source in the production process.

Recycling can be a very volatile business. Technological innovation both in Product fabrication from raw materials and from recycling procedures is common. The result is that the economics vis-a-vis which methodology is chosen changes. Hence from time to time recycling might become uneconomical presenting the problem that said material must be stored or dumped with garbage.

Statistics relating to the magnitude of recycling worldwide are mostly sketchy and out of date. Overall the problem seems to be touchy and governments seem reluctant to divulge recycling percentages. Austria has been quoted from several sources as the leading recycler in Europe with Greece trailing at 10%. Figures for Canada date from 2006 and hence would not likely be relevant. Ontario, probably the best recycler populous province in Canada in 2012 records a figure approaching 40 % with the USA recording recycle levels reported in the 35% range. Tiny Prince Edward Island deserves special mention as having a recycle percentage in the 60 to70% range If Ontario is the best large province for recycling in Canada I fear the overall average for Canada would be less than the US 35%. In a sweeping attempt at producing an average figure for the developed countries based on the limited data available I think 30% would be a realistic amount, with the other 70% going to landfills or incineration.

A number of jurisdictions with fading landfill prospects for garbage including Toronto have tried Incineration as a method of garbage disposal. Of course such a disposal method is not capable of dealing with the all of the volume of city garbage. The present author did research in the 80's to show that incineration resulted in come dangerous volatized pollutants such as mercury and this and other studies resulted in cessation of incineration for local garbage disposal. A variety of other high temperature garbage disposal method such as using a plasma (extremely hot gas) are in different stages of trials.

Of more recent innovation jurisdictions such as Ontario have initiated special programs for recycling hazardous household waste such as medical waste chemicals, paints, electronics -including computers etc. Hazardous industrial wastes are now commonly treated by companies that specialize in such technology.

Up until now recycling in developing countries is virtually nonexistent but relative to developed countries garbage per capita has been extremely low. Garbage dumps do exist associated with urban environments, but these are combed carefully by individuals who carefully remove anything of use. Might this not be designated as an informal recycling process? Packaging for foods and other commodities has up to now been relatively rudimentary. Additionally items that we might recycle through donation to Thrift Shops are often purchased door to door such as textile materials by a Ragman. With the worldwide pressure in developing countries for increased standards of living; problems related to recycling and garbage disposal have placed this situation into a rapidly changing state of flux. Presumably the garbage/recycling situation in many quickly developing countries such as China and India will soon approximate some of the poorer European counties where garbage volume for disposal though much less than in fuller developed countries in Europe and North America is complicated by less than 10% recycling rates.

### Biodegradability/Composting

Biodegradability is the rate at which substances that are discarded as garbage disappear due to biological reaction. These reactions are occasioned for example by interaction with components of the sun's radiation or bacterial aided decomposition. Rates of biodegradation occur at widely different rates a few examples exposed to abundant moisture being soft foods from 1 to several months, milk cartons 5 years, tin cans up to 100 years and glass products never. Plastics have a biodegradability that varies widely in length from a few months to many 10's of years depending on the polymeric composition of the product. Research in recent years has resulted in polymers suitable for example for grocery shopping bags that bio-decompose in 1/10th the time of the regular variety. On the other hand there is polystyrene; billions of kilograms of this substance are produced worldwide. Biodegradation of this bulky material is exceedingly slow and bulk polystyrene cannot be recycled in the conventional manner.

Compostable materials such as food and certain types of paper products eg. Diapers are collected separately in some recycling jurisdictions and are treated and composted at a municipal site. The resulting compost may then be made available to urban gardeners.

Farming throughout its history has involved composting particularly of animal waste and fallow crops when ploughed under as a crop fertilizer. Household composting is a process favoured by many gardening enthusiasts.

### Landfill

Despite the laudable continued expansion of recycling programs; at this date of writing with a few isolated exceptions, more than 60% of waste ends up in landfill sites. An appreciable part of this problem results from the lack of commercially viable recycling processes such as recycling polystyrene materials. This very slow to biodegrade material has tremendous bulk per unit weight making it a problem not only from the sheer space consuming standpoint in landfills but it must be buried under heavier waste to prevent it's dispersing as litter over the adjacent areas in the wind.

One of the most serious problems in garbage deposal today is lack of suitable sites reasonably close to large urban areas. For example Toronto could find no site in the Southern Ontario Region between 2003 and 2010 resulting in the need to transport over 2000 tons per day garbage from this city to a site across the border in the State of Michigan a distance of more than 300km.

Methane gas a very volatile and flammable hazardous effluent of organic and some plastic biodegradation has been identified as a concern associated with land fill sites. This is of greater potential hazard with the plethora of old abandon landfills used by urban areas from eras when organic waste and plastics were not collected for recycle. Expensive schemes of controlled venting of methane are essential.

More recently in the absence of suitable landfill locations has returned attention to incineration which from some reports is much less endowed with hazardous pollutants. Additionally plasmas for garbage consumption have continued to evolve and are being frequently scrutinized as viable garbage disposal procedures. Some of these procedures even claim to result in energy production and solids suitable for manufacture of building materials.

We must relate this garbage/recycling discussion to this books premise. Recycling is an important step in reducing problems due to volume of garbage needing disposal and resource depletion in some areas. The mushrooming world population and the scramble by developing up the ladder to better living standards is exacerbating these problems at such a rate that recycling at best can only help prolong the time before waste disposal enters the equation of worldwide environmental sustainability most serious problems.

# Chapter: 8

## Agriculture Food and Urban Issues

### Agriculture

In one form or other a variety of scientists from different disciplines have indicated Agriculture is the overriding force behind most ecological problems on the earth. Thus agriculture is in many minds the most important aspect of life that requires protection and improvements. I have already stated that water ranks number one in these subsets related to world overpopulation. This can easily be defended since in the absence of adequate freshwater of suitable quality an ever increasing pressing problem would ham string required agricultural yields.

According to Bill Gates in his 2012 Annual Letter 15% of the world's population live in extreme poverty. This could be the compelling reason to rank agriculture at the highest level. As will be outlined below there are many problems related to retaining high quality soil condition and hence fertility including basic agricultural practice and soil protection and amelioration with organic matter, microorganism health and fertilizers, erosion problems, salinization and other damage the preeminent considerations. These combined with animal husbandry, seed production, choice and use of herbicides will control the future of agriculture.

Problems related to present day agricultural practice and food production are gargantuan and our emphasis on and choices in many of the above areas will largely determine how the agricultural future plays out. Considering all the subsets of the problem of overpopulation agriculture and fresh water will be among the most severely affected.

### Suitable Land Availability

Forest lost this year (2012)-about 5 million hectares

A serious conundrum evident in jurisdictions such as Ontario in Canada, typical of many in Eastern North America is that some of the best agricultural land is being rapidly consumed by urban sprawl occasioned by the rapidly growing population that must be accommodated therein. This is occurring despite designation of Greenbelts supposedly aimed at protecting an area as green space and defining the limits of further expansion of urban areas. In the case of the Greater Toronto area greenbelts are typical of their name and are relatively narrow and are simply jumped over by developers with a continuing consumption of quality agricultural land on the further side. The negative ramifications to agriculture are only one of the problems this expansion begets. Developers build large communities without any direct obligation to provide expressways and other infrastructure to deliver the occupants to their workplaces in many cases 10's of kilometers away in the center of the city. Politicians having little advanced heed for these problems reply if they do on a crisis basis. This alone is a discouraging but typical example of how governments work at as disaster dictate levels on issues of public concern. How can one then expect substantive foresight and action on the major issues involving future sustainability of the biosphere worldwide?

### Soil Quality and Fertility

Soil consists of varying amounts of sand, silt, organic matter and clay. Soil textures and hence their ability to retain moisture vary depending on the proportions of these 4 ingredients. Sandy soils, loose aggregate, hold little moisture and require frequent watering; loams have a clay content of about 25 to 30%; medium clay soils have clay contents in the 40% range and aggregate firmly thus having inadequate drainage. Good soils have loose to medium aggregate properties and have a sufficient of organic matter to hold plenty of moisture. Organic matter must be added periodically to soils to replace that that biodegrades into plant nutrients and particulate material.

Treatments of agricultural soils in fields before seeding have changed in some farming practice to the point that some approaches involve no physical disturbance such as plowing. In conventional tillage were minimal residual crop residue remains on the surface a mould board plow is employed and may be repeated multiple times; using a chisel type plow about 20% of the residual coverage remains. In contrast conservational methods of seeding involve no tillage whatsoever with the seed placed directly into the previous season's crop residue. Since roughly the same amount of herbicides is used in all methods for the killing of weeds, no crop preparation method is preferred on that basis.

### Agricultural Soil Degradation

Desertification this year(2012) about 12 million hectares

Land lost to erosion this year (2012) about 7 million hectares

Massive agricultural soil degradation has already been experienced worldwide. The effects are reduction in soil fertility, decreased soil biodiversity and destruction of the vertical soil ecosystem.

The source of this degradation can be basically summarized as follows.

Tillage and grazing destroy the soil vertical configuration and in extreme cases causes desertification.

Chemical causes include poor fertilizer practice particular application of excess amounts. Other chemical forms of degradation include salinization, acidification or alkalination.

Water problems are related to erosion, flooding, poor tillage practice and deforestation.

Wind over bare tilled fields results in dust storms that damage the topsoil.

Pesticides are widely used. Early in pesticide application history the types used had a broad species kill spectrum and long lifetime, breaking down only very slowly and often leaving harmful residues particularly in use on food crops. Unfortunately due to their wide availability and cheap price they are still commonly used in Developing Countries. These substances banned in other jurisdictions have been replaced by more selective varieties that biodegrade quickly leaving much less harmful residues. Pesticides can have a very serious effect on soil and plant beneficial microorganisms and biodiversity. Because of these problems nitrogen fixation is also perturbed.

Soil degradation has resulted in famines in China and Africa. Natures well established water carbon and nitrogen cycles suffer serious perturbations in soil degradation regions. Desertification is causing widespread area increase of desert in many areas already rife with large deserts.

A word map showing the horrendous magnitude of world soil degradation is available (4).

### Food Issues

People who died of hunger Dec 26, 2012-about 25,000

Undernourished people in the world this year (2012)-about 910 million

People who are obese in 2012 about 500 million

The staggering statistics above relating to undernourishment and starvation are made all that more vexatious and untenable in the light of early Jan 2013 widespread reports in the public media that up to one-half of the world food supply goes to waste. Sources for this wastage in Developed Countries include, food discarded by consumers as out of date, unattractivness, spoilage or not even reaching store food shelves due not meeting appearance and quality expectations.

The most serious result of degradation of soil relates to food production. One of our most serious worldwide problems is to increase food production to meet the growing demand despite our declining soil quality.

In a December 2012 D.K. Ray and coworkers (5) report that; " in the coming decades, continued population growth, rising meat and dairy consumption and expanding bio-fuel use will dramatically increase the pressure on global agriculture. Even as we face these future burdens, there have been scattered reports of yield stagnation in the world's major cereal crops, including maize, rice and wheat". In observations over the period 1961 to 2008 they examined the trends in crop yields for four key global crops: maize, rice, wheat and soybeans and found that; "although yields continue to increase in many areas, we find that across 24–39% of maize-, rice-, wheat- and soybean-growing areas, yields either never improve, stagnate or collapse".

Under the title "The Environmental Food Crisis", UNEP/GRID- Arendal(6) reports extensively on food issues and agricultural trends and challenges.

They state; "The world food production has increased substantially in the past century, as has calorie intake per capita. However, in spite of a decrease in the proportion of undernourished people, the absolute number has in fact increased during the current food crisis, to over 963 million. By 2050, population growth by an estimated 3 billion more people will increase food demand". They elucidate that a heavier use of water through irrigation and increased fertilizer application have been responsible in the past for about 70% of crop yield increases. They go on to suggest; ". Yields, however, have nearly stabilized for cereals, partly as a result of low and declining investments in agriculture". In a startling comment this report outlines that only about 43% of the cereal produced is available for use by humans. This is presumably due to harvest and post-harvest loss during distribution, use of these for animal feed and bio-fuel production. By introducing food energy efficiencies, like waste recycling, together with new technology and using waste recovered along the human food chain as a substitute for present animal feed the report suggests that the additional 3 billion people alive by 2050 could be fed.

My comment would be that if even if this proves true for this time interval of less than 40 years hence what can we expect in much longer intervals which must be considered that must be broached if sustainability of mankind on this planet is to be assured. Again we note the problem of short term thinking having limited relevance to long term problems.

This same report goes on to discuss meat as a food. Accordingly it states that per-capita meat consumption rose from 27kg in 1074/1976 to 36kg in 1997/1999 and problems related to this trend are commonly pointed out here and elsewhere. These include energy inefficiencies when live stock is fed grain food supplies, the need for use of of 1/3 of all farmland and wide ranging deforestation for land to be used as pasture(60-70% of previously forested Amazonia has thus disappeared) , overgrazing damage erosion and land compaction. All this exists even when less than 10% of the world caloric supply is satisfied with meat consumption.

Many environmentalists have also long decried eating meat since raising livestock is felt to be a serious misuse of arable land. Additionally domestic livestock is responsible for 17% of the anthropogenic sourced greenhouse gases which are implicated in adverse climate change. Most meat consumption occurs in the industrialized nations. The 30% of the earth's surface not covered by ice and now used for livestock production could serve much larger portions of the world for direct food production and for growth of trees for air born carbon dioxide removal. So must we give up eating meat to alleviate this problem?

The journal Scientific American in the May17, 2011 edition records a laboratory approach to growing beef that involves stem cells from cattle. If this promising approach can be commercialized just one cow could result in enough beef to feed a nation.

Stem cells in contrast to other types have the remarkable property that they can be made to develop into many different species of cells. For this reason researchers have a great interest in these substances for a variety of purposes. For example stem cells can be made to differentiate into red blood cells, they can be used to produce tissue to repair vital organs and other tissue and as will be shown they have the potential for the production of muscle tissue.

In general terms 2 classifications of stem cells exist, embryonic and adult. Research involving these entities has been controversial, particularly in the case of embryonic stem cells. In this case ethical implications involving use of human embryonic stem cells has spilled over to affect work with embryonic stem cells in general. The argument involves the contention that in the act of harvesting embryonic cells of human origin, human life is actually being destroyed. This point is the subject of much conjecture. The issue is important since the general sentiment is that embryonic stem cells have greatest potential for research purposes and that research using such material must be allowed to proceed.

Adult stem cells are less abundant per unit of tissue and hence harder to harvest in large numbers. Sources include umbilical cord blood, bone marrow and even muscle tissue. These stem cells can differentiate into any type of cell that comprises the tissue in which they are discovered.

To grow beef in the lab embryonic stem cells available in abundance, are accumulated from cattle embryos. They are then prompted to proliferate and differentiate into muscle cells which in turn are stimulated to form large amounts of muscle tissue (meat). Or adult stem cells, which however are difficult to grow, are harvested from a tiny amount of cattle muscle tissue and caused to proliferate into large amounts of muscle tissue. The muscle tissue cells, placed in many spots spaced over a large scaffold like structure are allowed to grow into sheets of bulk muscle tissue. This meat is then removed and put through a grinder to form hamburger. Research has not yet proceeded to the stage of yielding steaks and roasts.

In a closely related manner other types of animal tissue cells can be worked with in the laboratory. Specimens of fish and pig flesh have been thusly produced.

A number of problems still exist with meat production in this manner. For example the present laboratory methodology is expensive and to some degree technically inefficient. Then adapting this approach for commercial production has not yet successfully been broached. The degree of acceptance of such meat by the general public is also in question.

However meat obtained in the above manner if successfully produced on a commercial scale would reduce to near zero the numbers of domesticated animals occupying and utilizing valuable arable land and would also reduce almost entirely animal sources of greenhouse gas emissions. For these reasons alone this type of stem cell research is of great importance. It goes without saying that this eminence becomes particularly magnified considering the present high level and continuing rapid growth of world human population.

On the other hand schemes such as described above very frequently fade from view on the basis that the required technology to initiate large scale production is very complex and expensive. Since technology does not exist in any related commercial process and will have to be developed through a many level prototyping scheme, the likelihood that before the commercial production level is reached some unforeseen impediment will arise is very probable. Thus readers should rate such proposals reaching the commercial stage as highly unlikely, but due to the important implications worth including in this book.

### Hydroponics

Growing of plants in nutrient solutions often in an inert substrate but free from soil constitutes the process of pant culture known as hydroponics. This process occurs mainly in greenhouses under carefully controlled conditions of atmospheric moisture, temperature and light exposure. There are a plethora of variations on the basic process, often dictated by the nature of the crop(s) being grown. Cost effectiveness, impact on the environment, pesticide practices and implications relating to population growth are of greatest concern in this book.

Advances in hydroponic technology, higher quality of the produce in many cases and the acceptance of this type of cultured crops by grocers are some of the reasons that have resulted in an in the industry becoming cost effective for some types of fruits and vegetables compared to their soil growth counterparts. For example while cucumbers and tomatoes are hydroponically profitable crops lettuce is generally less likely to be so.

The Environmental impact of hydroponics is relatively low. Culture solutions containing plant nutrients are recyclable. Thus serious nutrient pollutants such as phosphorus are contained within the system and do not contaminate local waterways as is the case with use of fertilizer in soil based market gardening. Soil degradation a very harmful effect of poorly practiced conventional market gardening is avoided. Yet hydroponics is limited in crops that are amenable and thus for example cereal grains and corn crops must still be gown with conventional soil based methods.

Pesticides are required to a much lesser degree than with soil grown crops. Incidence of pest attack is at a lower level and less frequently encountered. Biological control using predator insects such as lady bugs, is often employed. Hydroponics does not necessarily constitute "organic" gardening even when pesticides are not employed. Definitions of organic gardening sometimes strangely require that the production of produce occur in soils.

Hydroponics will have little impact on feeding the millions of new humans that are yearly arriving to an already over populated the world. Most widely consumed fruits and vegetables and cereal crops must be grown in soils.

### World Fishery and Aquaculture

Figures from a variety of sources suggest that between 146 and 150 million tons of fish was caught or raised through aquaculture worldwide in 2011. Of this as much as half was probably produced through aqua culture. Data from China particularly in the area of aquaculture having been hard to interpret makes these figures hard to estimate. Of the total nearly 90% was consumed by humans with the largest consumption being in Asia.

Aquaculture, commonly termed fish farming, refers to fish and other aquatic species such as mollusks and crustaceans being raised under controlled conditions. This practice has grown from spotty practices in the 1940's and 50's to a widespread essential aquatic species production system worldwide. To date roughly 450 aquatic species have been domesticated.

Over fishing, growing ocean pollution and use of fish capture equipment which destroys sea floor habitat are very serious and are particularly worrisome problems that are increasing rapidly worldwide. For example in Canada the once seemingly unlimited cod population fell so precipitously in recent years that a commercial fishing ban was instituted. Also in Canada pollution problems and manmade obstructions in salmon spawning rivers seriously denuded the wild caught salmon fishery. Strict regulations governing and remediation in, these rivers have now resulted in large improvements in the salmon spawning success.

As in other areas of food production rapid population growth in an already overpopulated world coupled with increasing aquatic pollution and rapidly increased harvesting of aquatic species often using habit destroying harvesting techniques is threatening the stability of aquatic ecosystems and hence the food source being obtained there-from. Aquaculture although crucially important cannot become the total solution to the rapid destruction of natural aquatic ecosystems.

### Bio-fuel Production

As the stable availability of petroleum products obtained by relatively low pollution producing methods diminishes, the interest in alternate methods of producing fuels for use in internal combustion engines increases. Presently 2 bio-fuels are at the top of this list, ethanol and biodiesel.

The most widely employed methods for the production of both of these require crop production and hence farmland land in unsustainable quantities. Farm land use for other than food production cannot be tolerated just on the growing requirements of this space for feeding a quickly expanding population alone. Exacerbating problems related to the now widespread use of ethanol as a gasoline additive is the issue of whether the energy required for ethanol production is too excessive to make sense. Even the more modest estimates of the energy balance in this procedure indicate that 30% more energy is consumed in ethanol production than is realized from its use as a fuel ingredient.

### Growing Crops from Genetically Modified Plants

Food crops most commonly grown from processes involving genetic modification include, corn, canola, cotton seed oil and soya. In these cases the procedure has been used most commonly for increased yields, faster growth, disease and pathogen resistance and increased nutrient content of the crop. On the surface this sounds like a positive step in feeding a fast growing human population.

Genetic modification (GM) is generally effected by trans or cisgenesis processes. Cisgenic plants the least controversial of the two, result from the use of genes found within a same or closely related species. On the other hand transgenic plants are produced from genes derived from another plant species. The products of these modifications are laboratory tested for the desired characteristics before being licensed for testing in the field.

While there would seem to be an overriding advantage for the use of (GM) foods, many of which carry a higher yield on a given unit of farm land, in the need to feed the rapidly growing population there are the following concerns. The safety of (GM) foods is not yet fully confirmed. While harmful effects would seem on the surface unlikely, the recent proliferation in food allergies is the type of phenomena that concern consumers as having been with certainty not linked to these modified foods. Consumers believe that products containing (GM) constituents have not received extensive enough safety testing. Contamination of non (GM) crops is of particular concern and indeed may be out of control already.

Genetic modification and other human induced alterations such as cloning of existing plants and animals remains a highly controversial topic. Considering the potential advantages herein for the feeding of our burgeoning world population, this is an area that deserves careful but immediate increased attention.

# Chapter: 9

## Urban Environments

Growing at the rate of half a million a year Chongqing is the earth's fastest growing urban area. But if you make a Google search for lists of the world's largest urban areas it is seldom even listed, a factor that is due to its general unfamiliarity outside Asia. Its current population of 31 million is exceeded only by Tokyo/Yokohama at 37 million. The location in the upper Yangtze covers an area of approximately 82,300 square km as compared to New York , the second largest urban area at about 15,000 square km, Tokyo/Yokohama at about 8,000 square km and the GTA of just 2,300 square km. Thus on a population density basis Chongqing's value is low.

Urban centers already have approximately 50% of the world's population, a figure that is growing steadily. In North America many large cities are closely surrounded by other cities or large population related communities. Mergers particularly along major highways result in huge metropolitan areas. Megacities are generally defined as containing greater than a 10 million population. Although only 7 world cities fall into this category, counting urban areas there are a total of 20. Cities are the sites of large quantity energy and resource consumption. This means that cities are centers of large point source household, business and industrial wastes. This contrasts with agriculture which is fraught mainly with broad ranging non-point sources of pollutants. Point source pollution is potentially more readily remediated which means that given the will based on constituent pressure, the existence of the required and innovative insight urban governments have an opportunity to control or regulate control over many of the pollutants. On the other hand cities also have a few debilitating large non point source pollution problems such as vehicular exhaust and heating system emissions.

Based largely upon what boils down to ease of ability to control and ameliorating point source pollutants, assuming the relevant technology exists and the easier adaption of electrical vehicles and other electrical devices to transportation requirements, a number of proponents have trumpeted the planed growth of Mega-cities as a benefit in solving the long term sustainability of the world's biosphere problem. While some of the arguments are appealing the plans always seem to break down in my estimation on the energy consumption requirements particularly for the recovery of resources from waste streams, problematic applicability of some of the essential technologies in cities like New York and other colder climate cities and the problem of available sufficient fresh water.

Few environmental budgets are available for mega cities but although they contain only 4% of the world population they have a disproportionately large percentage of the environmental problematic issues. Maintaining an adequate supply of fresh water is the single most serious problem for mega urban areas. Cities in developed countries have a better control on ensuring a required fresh water supply, generally originating from nearby reservoirs and lakes. Cities such as Mexico City obtaining water from underground aquifers commonly withdraw water faster than the aquifers can recharge. Mexico city as a result has subsided 9 m in the past 100 years. Most input fresh water is expelled from a city as highly polluted waste water. Most of the larger cities abut rivers, lakes or oceans. Thus the polluted water discharges into these waterways. Adverse effect is certain to be imposed on the local aquatic biosphere. Most common problems consist of nutrient enrichment pollution by phosphorous and nitrogen compounds which in turn cause unsightly growths of algae and an accompanied seasonal lowering of dissolved oxygen content. The latter has a particularly serious effect on increasing the ratio of undesirable coarse fish to game fish.

Urban air pollution from fuels include high levels of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane and ozone as well as other poisonous gases such as sulfuric aid mist and non methane hydrocarbons and fluorocarbons. Air pollutants from industry are a complex soup of poisonous substances their identities depend on the type of industry. A familiar example of an extreme case of air pollution is the ozone mist that envelops Mexico City that is so dominant it is visible from satellites in space.

Solid waste disposal is an ever growing problem due to the vanishing sites available for land fill. In the Tokyo/Yokohama region despite a reported 60% recycling figure no land based landfill sites being available solid waste piles are beginning to build up in the bordering ocean.

Urban areas are now becoming the biggest social, economic, ecological and energy sustaining challenge worldwide. The problem is particularly daunting in the developing world Megacity areas.

The complex challenges that we face in integrating cities worldwide into a global program to achieve long term sustainability are immense wide ranging and cover a prolific variety of scientific, economic and social disciplines. The failure of many initiatives occurs before the deliberations even begin. In the face of the need for such a large number of individual disciplinary experts a compromise is made whereby a perceived expert on the basic overall problem is chosen to form the head of a select small group of what are assumed to be the main essential disciplines. Failure is almost assured since input from a missing discipline will be essential and even if some guidance is obtained in this area the missing experts presence throughout the total process would be essential to guarantee a viable plan is developed that can be executed.

Even accepting the proposition that we have the existing capability and technology to achieve such a solution, which unfortunately it is only too obvious that we do not, could we keep up with the complex demands inherent in rapid population growth in an urban area with slum, middleclass and privileged class ramifications? The answer despite the growing number of programs, such as IDHP, the International Human Dimensions Program on Environmental Change which is attempting to grapple with this problem is again in the negative.

One might ask how in the face of such relevant activity I could already presume an ultimate negative result. What follows is not a direct criticism of any one program but is symbolic of most. Most importantly the reason is that I myself as a disciplinary expert have been involved in complex challenges and am able to state; that due to the melting pot of discipline experts that must be involved in planning a realistic solution to these multi pronged problems that just communications between individual experts, never mind planning an agreed upon integrated program and finally settling on a course of actions is a major stumbling block in itself. Again assuming a miracle should occur and a viable comprehensive program of action results, what are the chances first, that principals within the many city bureaucracies will agree that the program is viable economically and secondly that the tax payers will support the inevitable high cost even of individual components?

Trying to outline the multitude of individual environmental problems that pertain to cities and that vary considerably depending on component makeup, country of location and weather and other physical realities would unlike the case with agriculture, be too complex for a book this type. Thus I intend to document typical case studies which although narrow in perspective are illustrative of the difficulties in dealing with pollution problems in cities. Herein we will see, the difficulties encountered after discovering specific problems, obstruction in achieving recognition of these discoveries as issues that must be dealt with, the complexity of the required investigation and the frustrating and often lack of proper remediation that results. For this purpose I will reiterate 2 cases that in which I was the principal protagonist and therefore can use with a degree of authority not inherent in describing studies regurgitated from the literature.

### A Sewage Disposal Fiasco

Research in 1972 that was completed in my laboratory led to the discovery that the sewage sludge from Toronto's sewage treatment plant contained extremely high levels of toxic heavy metals such as lead and mercury. Much of this contaminated sewage before this discovery was being disposed of as a free fertilizer on local agricultural land. As a means of exposing this problem and achieving the quickest possible reaction the results were used in an exposé article in the publication Water and Pollution Control August 1972.

The implications that arose from this discovery related to the possible adulteration of food and cereal crops through uptake or surface contamination by the toxic metals contained in the sludge. As a result of this disclosure the Ontario Government, Ministry of the Environment funded a program that included work in my laboratory to determine the extent of toxic metal contamination of the affected land and the food crops growing thereon. The program lasted three years during which time the sludging practice was allowed to continue. Research involved work with sewage sludge throughout key areas of the province in Southern Ontario. Of added concern was the discovery of 2 sewage sludge based widely available commercial lawn and garden fertilizers that also contained high levels of toxic metals.

The basic results were published in refereed journals and in a series of government publications. Our results showed surface contamination of vegetation by the metals that could only be removed by washing with a mild detergent. Actual uptake of metals was found for mercury by tomatoes. The land itself was slightly alkaline and this was fortunate since metals are more mobile in acid soils. Since these lands were ploughed the metals would become mixed into the soil to the depth of the plough furrows. Unknowns include the effect of weather over long periods of time on the mobility of these metals in sludged lands and thus any changes in possible plant contamination. Another imponderable not covered by the government approved mandate was the fate of bacterial and other potentially harmful organic and biological materials contained in the sewage sludge. Additionally nothing was done to ascertain the effect of sludge on the natural soil microbiology and the original physical and chemical state of the soil?

This problematic sewage sludge discovery and subsequent research under government funding was done in the mid 1970's. There have since been many more research studies, which frequently suggested that metal uptake and surface contamination does occur. Imagine my shock to see a local newspaper series done in 2011 outlining that sludging of land in Ontario was still continuing.

Can research on one small environmental problem studied locally such as reported here have any relevance to my view that Mankind is ultimately doomed worldwide? The main point that is relevant to this study that has wide ranging implications is the nature of government reaction and ultimate inaction. Although a potential serious health hazard was discovered 35 years ago and confirmed by research funded through government support; a potentially hazardous practice was allowed to continue up to the present. Worse, this demonstrates government propensity to undertake an initiative without proper input as to the ramifications of such an action simply on the basis of expediency. The reader may well think in this time of heightened environmental awareness could such uniformed shortsighted behavior still be possible. The following illustration of local government response to a potentially serious environmental/health issue will serve to answer this question **.**

#### The Astonishing Degradation of Goose Lake Water Quality

The following is an approximate word for word account of the report together with an account of the struggle that actually occurred. I am changing the name of the lake and not identifying the principal government to protect the guilty. This is in main part because the motive for presenting this case in such detail is that it is illustrative not simply of a single jurisdictions distressing behavior but in fact is the typical foot-dragging protracted response to be expected in many North American urban areas.

A very small urban lake, we will call Goose Lake, located in parkland in an outer suburb in the GTA I will call (X) is frequented by many locals as a recreation area. After my move to this area 6 years ago I supposed this wildlife rich area a potentially pleasant area in which to take my traditional morning walks.

Prior to becoming urbanized several decades ago the lake did not exist, the area that now contains Goose Lake having existed as a large privately owned stone quarry. As the quarry extended deeper an aquifer was intersected and as a result almost overnight the quarry filled with water thus forming the present lake. No more quarrying was possible and eventually the lake came under municipal ownership. The lake has been used for recreational purposes with the only activities directly involving use of the water were fishing, ice skating and minimal boating.

The area during the time it was still in the country side was difficult to police and a few unapproved episodes of dumping of rubbish into the lake occurred. Amongst these was an unknown quantity of old lead acid car batteries. Although the general location of this potentially dangerous material was always well-known it still remains in this underwater location to this day.

From an esthetic point of view from late spring to midsummer a filamentatious green algal bloom of immense unsightly proportions covered a large part of this lake. Despite placing a report replete with pictures with the municipality no interest of any consequence was shown to remediate this worsening mess.

Thus prior to a recent election I prepared the following report to be sent to the municipality and then after receiving an unsatisfactory no proposed action response, it was sent to all election candidates.

I have read the numerous reports by Consultants spanning the interval 1993 to 2008 as provided at my request and released to me by The Town of X Clerks Office. I was astounded to find over 14 important detailed Consultant Studies since 1993 on Chemical and Physical problems in the Goose Lake Watershed containing important conclusions that beg action. These reports were not commissioned voluntarily because of any farsighted monitoring initiative within the local municipal government, but were done in compliance with provincial regulations. Despite reports that that should have occasioned action on several fronts; in large part there is little evidence in this literature of effective measures having been taken to ameliorate any of the problem. The following is mu report.

PURPOSE of PRESENT DOCUMENT  
In this short initial response I wish to address the astounding rising levels of total phosphorous (P) in Goose Lake water as illustrative of the failure of officials in charge to provide an effective strategy to control this problematic substance despite consistent warnings from their Consultants.

PHOSPHORUS DETAILS   
Phosphorous is the so-called limiting nutrient in aquatic systems. This is because levels of (P) alone that are consistently higher than about 20ug/l result in an increase in the primary vegetative production of the system since all the other required nutrients for this production are in almost all cases naturally present in levels that will support such excess production. Sources of (P) that result in excessive levels are largely due to human activity and by 2010 procedures exist for controlling this crucial pollutant from nearly all these sources. For example an important item lacking in the literature available to me was any in-depth study of the modern range of available methods for dissolved and particulate phosphorous removal from storm sewer run off. A quick internet review of the literature covering this subject demonstrated to me that relatively new attractive, cost effective, methods for this purpose now exist, some being used by enlightened Canadian Municipalities.

"Many ecological effects can arise from stimulating primary production, and the attendant seasonal lowering of dissolved oxygen content but there are three particularly troubling ecological impacts: decreased biodiversity, changes in species composition and dominance, and toxicity effects" (Eutrophication, Wikipedia last modified Jan. 11/13).

The changes in species composition and diversity category include the excessive periodic algal, weed growth and turbidity. (The evidence was shown in a series of attached pictures).

Very qualitatively speaking lakes are classified as Oligotrophic- having very low (P), Mesotrophic- having (P) levels consistently near the 20ug/l guideline, eutrophic- having (P) levels consistently considerably above the 20ug/l guideline and hyper eutrophic- having (P) levels which consistently greatly exceed the 20ug/l guideline. Lakes classified in the latter 2 categories are prone to the problems described from the above Wikipedia reference.

Obviously hyper eutrophic lakes can become an especially serious problem.

THE DATA

A December 1993 report records a single unsubstantiated and undated value for (P) as "about 5 ug/l (Oligotrophic) as ambient for Goose Lake; 20 ug/l is the guideline limit above which algal blooms can be expected. They conclude that the likelihood of periodic algal blooms is unlikely.

Fast forward to the most recent report to which I am privy that being a 2008 report. They note an average level of 82 ug/l was reported from an unidentified source in 1996. This is 4 times above the 20 ug/l guideline level. They speculate without evidence that the 1993 reported levels may have been erroneously low.

What is startling is that from water samples taken on October 28, 2007 from Goose Lake the consultants report (P) levels of 197 ug/l at the surface and 221 ug/l 1m above the bottom, both approximately 10 times higher than the 20 ug/l guide line. This prompted this consultant to emphasize that levels of this magnitude place Goose Lake in the hyper-eutrophic range according to Federal Government guidelines.

Besides storm-water receiving ponds which are dredged from time to time of phosphorus rich sediment and installation of one aerating fountain at the south end of the lake there is little evidence of other phosphorous control being evoked in the Goose Lake/Goose Creek watersheds. No matter what is being or not being done the fact remains, assuming the 1993 5ug/l (P) value is correct, that Goose Lake water has gone in the short space of 14 years from clean Oligotrophic condition to the worse possible condition of hyper eutrophic!

Goose Lake is the dominating feature of a large X park. This park is frequented daily by large numbers of citizens. A few of these individuals fish here-in, some bagging their catch and hence may be consuming these fish. In the case of the fish I could not find any recent evidence in the documentation provided to me showing that these have been tested and found fit for human consumption. Considering the toxic factor related to excess primary production mentioned in the above Wikipedia quote consumption of unanalysed fish from Goose Lake should certainly be of concern. A heavily used water park exists nearby.

The purpose of this communication is to ask why with all these many Consultants' Reports spanning this 14 year interval nothing of a substantive nature has been done by The Town of X Environment Department to prevent this gross deterioration in the water quality related to the important constituent (P)? More importantly what now can be done to return these waters from hyper eutrophic (P) levels to something approaching the guideline levels and ensure that levels remain in this range.

I made a decision part way through my study of the Consultant reports that I would prefer not to deal with such matters as are contained in this document in the public venue. Despite the evidence found and presented above of a very critical problem having developed and been well documented by at least 14 consultants over a 14 year period without effective action by the Town of X Environmental Department, I would still like see the issue proceed in-house. It was important therefore to see a note from those concerned in the Town of M that effective action will be pursued on this issue.

Something demonstrating this magnitude of pollution and lack of action from a Municipality that prides itself on being among the municipal leaders in environmental action could well be considered an election issue and perhaps the above material should really be in the purview of at least all candidates concerned with concerned. Some of these candidates indeed might provide a new energy and dedication to dealing with issues such as this. But I certainly had no axe to grind in this regard, having faith that existing elected officials could deal effectively with this concern, possessing the will and having been presented with the stark results of past deficiencies. This faith has not been justified to this date hence it was necessary for me to come up forward and divulge this problem openly to the election candidates.

This election was held in October 2010 and despite my campaign on this issue no remedial action of importance except a ban on fishing was forthcoming. However after more badgering and my involvement of a Provincial Ministry in the affair the Municipality in will begin treating the lake in 2013 to reduce and inactivate the removed phosphorus.

##### RESULTS

This is a corrective step that will slow and in time likely prevent the growth of green and blue green algae (cyanobacteria). The removal of the latter a potential toxin is of particular importance. What was totally lacking was any investigation into possible health hazards presented by the fish prior to the recent fishing ban, particularly relating to toxic heavy metal content. The latter can cause critical problems if contaminated and then is consumed in quantity by pregnant women and children.

What does this chronicle demonstrate with regard to my contention that mankind is marching relentlessly to oblivion. The solution that was achieved has little or no implications relating to standard of living alterations, thus nothing of imposing economic relevancy has changed. However toxins were involved, toxic heavy metals from the lead acid batteries that were dumped and cyanobacteria being over 50% of the time toxic. In particular banning of fishing a result of this report and follow-up pressure occurred only relatively recently and the governments concerned refused my request that testing of the fish for the presence of toxins be undertaken. This story although involving a tiny area in a rapidly growing urban area of 5 million population demonstrates in vivid detail the relative lack of unprovoked willingness by governments to respond to problems of a well-known serious nature. There are hundreds of small water bodies similar to Goose Lake in this large urban area and there are hundreds of similar urban areas. Does anyone know whether problems found in this one instance may not exist in many others or even worse? There appears to be a serious disconnect between individual municipalities that have powerful jurisdiction over their own territory in matters such as I have pursued as above. Stewardship of environmental matters cannot be piecemeal and occur only after protracted periods of external pressure induced goading as has been demonstrated to be the case here. Environmental problems require timely reactions to problem solving. The type of mechanism for such action is not available in municipal politics where studies by committees, consultant reports, discussion by council and then often referral back to committees, require long intervals before appropriate action can be expected from council.

Despite a variety of commendable environmental initiatives having been enacted in many urban areas such areas as waste disposal innovations and advanced sewage treatment, these have resulted only after protracted periods of study and discussion and are often due to imposed initiatives from higher levels of government. Delayed behaviour in dealing with critical issues such as climate change has moved such issues into a fast track category that has no political mechanism for proceeding. These issues will reach the point of no return unless political mechanisms change drastically. I cannot see this occurring.

Chapter: 10

Population Revisited

How to feed the human population which will likely reach 9 billion by 2050 while also dealing with climate change, poverty, dead zones and loss of biodiversity is known as the Malthusian Dilemma. This being a recent paraphrase of a statement resulting from an essay published by Thomas Malthus, an English clergyman entitled An Essay on the Principal of Population written 2 centuries ago in 1798. In this far projecting essay Malthus wrote "The power of population is so superior to the earth to produce subsistence for man that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race". His proposal is based on the premise that without more humane checks on population that famine, disease and war would result in returning the population into some form of balance with food resources.

### War and Terrorism

We have and still are seeing the effects of war as a population regulator in local areas. War is a still persistent problem that seems to have existed throughout the ages as a natural phenomenon related to the human character. Historically wars emanated most frequently from religious extremists, sectarian groups antagonism, other ideological differences and all manner of racial discord.

Up until the Second World War the technology (nuclear) for destruction has not threatened to, within a period of few seconds, cause havoc over extensive areas and hence represent the almost instant capability of destruction of millions of people. Delivery system technology is also under development in many nuclear nations. The testing of long range missiles is a not uncommon item in today's news reports.

With the arrival of the nuclear age such almost instantaneous reduction in population is now possible. Of particular concern in this regard is the rapid proliferation of such technology to numerous nations, some of which are prone to rash behavior. We must in particular be concerned with the possible ultimate possession of such devices by terrorist groups.

Another particularly frightening potential instrument of modern warfare is the development of biological weapons. There are 3 target areas that can be attacked with biologicals, human beings, agricultural crops and livestock. Offensive biological substances of course must be effective and to be so they must be easily manufactured in quantity, stable over long periods of storage, they must be deliverable in a manner that to which the target is vulnerable and users must have protection there-from. Anthrax is a common example of such a substance.

After the Second World War conflicts have largely involved weaker nations. With the more widespread availability of modern highly destructive weapons and missile delivery systems such conflicts present an increasingly greater threat to the world as a whole.

### Pandemics

Throughout history a series of pandemics have been recorded that killed appreciable percentages of the Human population and were thus an example of population control. Pandemics are infectious diseases that spread through large regions of the population. These diseases include many that although today are treatable with vaccines or medications were in earlier times the cause of severe illness and death around the world. Examples of these are influenza, cholera, typhoid fever, smallpox and tuberculosis. The most recent was the HIV 1918 flu that killed more persons than the total that perished in the closely preceding World War One. A more recent example threat of this type, H1N1 flu, occurred in 2009 but thankfully for which a vaccine was developed early on. Most virologists that work in this discipline predict that other pandemics of unknown type will develop. The effects cannot be predicted and such depend on their nature and on our ability to mount a quick and effective response.

### Famine

A widespread scarcity of food results in famine and is accompanied by starvation, epidemics, malnutrition and of course a greater than normal incidence of death. This problem is not uncommon now in Africa, parts of Asia and here and there in Lain America.

From the point of view of agriculture in order to feed a growing population the only practical hope is to increase yields on existing land. This was achieved during the Green Revolution of the 1960's and 70's by Norman Borlaug and his associates and for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1970. In his acceptance speech he noted that man is using his capability for increasing the quantity and rate of production of food but he is not yet, using adequately, any capability for decreasing the rate of human reproduction. Thus the rate of population increase exceeds the rate of food production rise in some areas.

The effort to feed more from yields of crops on existing land of course has intensified today and is attended by off shoots of the genetic revolution. Problems which have worsened since Borlaug's time are the continuing loss of arable land both from soil degradation and expansion of urban areas. The rate of population increase has also accelerated.

The severe famine problems in some locales at present are commonly related to war both civil and international.

Increases in incidence of famine and area affected are expected due to the rapid population increase and the limitations discussed in detail above under the topic of agriculture.

# Chapter: 11

## Comments from My Experiences Executing Worldwide Consultancies

The following are just 3 typical examples of institutions including governments slow and tedious often impediment filled actions in dealing with critical environmental programs and issues. In this day of an already overpopulated world facing critical issues that threaten the sustainability of life, reactions as typified below could be catastrophic.

Exciting, challenging, eye-opening, sometimes fulfilling but often frustrating are some of the terms that describe my summed feelings after 20 years of intermittent work and life in a variety of countries and jurisdiction within these countries. Many times I was involved with lower tier government officials and the incidents of corruption that were encountered relating to requests for handouts and other favors were most prevalent in developing countries but by no means limited thereto. The problems in procedures for enacting my recommendations were strangely similar in both left and rightwing political climates.

The following is a transcription of a paragraph of a letter I receive from the Chairman of an International advisory Panel for which I was a Consultant.

"Up to this point in the Project, My International Advisory Panel has been responsible for sending 150 Specialists to China under the project. I have no hesitation in saying that in terms of its long term impact your visit is likely to turn out to have been the most successful in meeting the goals of the Specialist Program. There has been happy coincidence of having yourself the right person with the right expertise and the right insight into the needs of the Chinese universities, combined with an unusually receptive Chinese institution...."

Sounds wonderful don't you think? The result however a few months later was a total collapse of all that I had put in place! This is illustrative of the frustration that often occurs in attempting to implement a critically needed program in this case, for environmental research and education, in an atmosphere where the genuine will to carry out such a program was lacking. Despite the initial enthusiastic acceptance, when the effort to actually proceed was required the program was abandoned.

A similar type program at a University in Latin America was resisted at many junctures. One of the stumbling blocks was when an expensive piece of scientific equipment that I wanted to donate for free was rejected first on the grounds that the government collaborators wanted to receive the donation in cash after which they would purchase the item. Of course I rejected this ploy on the basis of the money being tampered with and a much lesser amount being used to buy inferior equipment. The next move was that the collaborators stated that the equipment was locally manufactured and hence my US made equipment by law could not be purchased for use in their country. This was indeed the case but the locally made equipment was of very poor quality and would not have fit this need. I happened to make a complaint over this problem to the International Agency with for which I was consulting. An official responded by asking where my US made equipment could be picked up and I told him the location. When 1 week later I reached the Latin American University to begin with what I might save of the program in the absence of this equipment; there sat the exact US equipment that I had wanted to donate on the Latin American University laboratory bench ready for use. My gratitude at this important happening closely approximated the enjoyment I received upon learning how this very unlikely event was pulled off. Because of diplomatic immunity of the International Agency with which I was a Consultant they brought it through customs in a Diplomatic "Pouch".

Despite other incidents of disagreement with what appeared to be an ill fated program it was instituted and is still in operation today.

Lest the reader suppose that the above examples are typical only of what could happen in developing countries I will recount one more that occurred right here in Canada. I was a member of a team that was investigating the gradual loss of an aboriginal fishery which constituted their main food source. We were able to determine that it was occurring due to acid and heavy metal air pollution of a smelter up wind. A million dollar law suit was launched against the offending and unrepentive company. After several weeks of presentations in the court room the decision it seemed would be based on the court's decision on which to believe, the results I had obtained or the results proffered by company experts that were over 10 times lower than mine and within regulations. Things were looking pretty doubtful that the court would accept my results, when out of nowhere a new set of results on paper bearing company letterhead were handed to the judge. These results agreed with mine and it turned out had been smuggled out of the company files by a very brave and concerned employee. The result was the Company settled immediately for the full amount, but avoided further legal consequences.

## A Tiny Ray of Hope-An Important Program through Which Individuals can Make a Direct Contributions the Welfare of Mankind

Presuming that warnings such as those contained in this book and related information from other sources will engender in some a personal desire to defeat my prediction of humankind's relatively rapid destruction of conditions that allow biosphere sustainability on our planet. Happily those of you need not remain disenfranchised in making a substantial contribution to helping to find solutions to major health and environmental long term bio-sustainability problems.

Want to help find cures for Childhood Cancers? Perhaps you would rather participate in AIDS research. Then again your interest may lie in Solutions to Climate Change. Many may wish to participate in all these 3 and the numerous other similarly urgent dilemmas facing Mankind and the World today.

You might well ask how you would be able to contribute to such work considering that you probably have absolutely no expert knowledge of any of these scientifically complex issues. Almost certainly most of you have no idea how to perform high level scientific research.

The University of California at Berkeley California, one of the World's top ranked universities, offers a virus free, safe, freeware program for use with an assemblage of personal computers, about 1, 000,000, that combine to form the world's largest (quasi) supercomputer. The program denoted BOINC is powered by IBM and supported by the National Science Foundation.

All right you are willing and wish to begin on projects; a wide ranging listing of providers of worldwide research ventures can be found at (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/projects.php). One of the most popular choices and the network I largely utilize is "World Community Grid" consisting of humanitarian research on natural disasters, diseases and world thirst and hunger. Tabs and sidebar menus appear on the software's main page that answer many of your questions and allow you to fine-tune your contribution. Also the unofficial web site "BOINC wiki" has a wealth of information and manuals.

To participate with BOINC simply download and install World Community Grid software at (www.worldcommunitygrid.org/) on your computer(s). This in no way results in any loss of control that you have over your own computer. BOINC simply makes use of your computers spare processor time, a valuable asset that otherwise goes to waste. Through "Preferences" you set the maximum Processor time available to BOINC, my recommendation for the average computer user being 20 to 25%. A few MB of hard drive capacity is also used. Since computers typically have 100 GB or more hard drive capacity this BOINC usage amounts to less than a percent of your total compliment. As one impressive testament to BOINC's high regard, Sony will bundle the BOINC software with all its new computers.

Modern computers commonly contain processors with 2 to 4 cores (my own have 6 or 8 cores). Each core operates as a separate unit to expedite your capacity to do multiple tasks (multitasking) simultaneously without serious degradation of your computers performance. BOINC assigns a different project to each core. Thus with a dual (2) core computer 2 unique projects are being researched simultaneously.

One question that must come to mind in connecting your computer to such a widespread project is whether virus problems might come as an unwelcome side effect. The answer is that in 4 years of 24/7 operation on this grid with 16 (8 during the day and 8 at night) computers with 6 or 8 core processors and using freeware antivirus AVG software I have not experienced any difficulty traceable to this work.

A second concern that must be considered is overheating related to high percentage processor utilization. Laptops are more prone to problems in this regard. My desktops all run at the 50% processor usage level of designated BIONIC project commitment and again in the interval mentioned above I have had no processor or other overheating related problem. Although many computers have built in temperature limits at which automatic shut down occurs, there is a software add on to Bionic called TThrottle (efmer.eu/boinc/) that will monitor the processor and graphics sensor temperatures and prevent operation under overheated conditions.

On a daily basis your own contribution to the projects is carefully time monitored and a full page of your own statistics is provided for each project under the heading "My Grid". Medallions are awarded at the bronze, silver, gold and platinum and sapphire levels of contribution. These appear next to your project listing, automatically in icon like format at the appropriate moment. From time to time someone's computer on this vast grid will be responsible for a major discovery and in some disciplines these are made public with the participant's permission. As an example, last summer a couple belonging to an astronomy program in the grid received worldwide recognition for being responsible for being part of discovering the rare occurrence of a Supernova.

As stated above, to this date my 16 computers have run BIONIC problem free.

Disclaimer-Jon Van Loon takes no responsibility for damage to equipment incurred using any of the above or related software.

I wish to emphasize that until recently the average citizen has been relegated to being a frustrated often depressed observer of news reports outlining the disasters enveloping our Planet. Now these same people like you and I can actually participate through BOINC in critical cutting edge solutions. What a wonderful feeling to become a participant in programs that have such future crucial meaning to the world population including ourselves and our progeny.

# Chapter: 12

## Conclusions

The Major Problems facing the world have been left on the back burner much too long.

Environmental issues instead of being always at the top of the list of voter priority when elections are called are frequently replaced by concerns for the economy and other lesser important related issues. I presume this means that voters assume there is not a problem in low rating environmental issues even if there is no human population remaining to benefit by a strong economy. Or perhaps put in less exigent terms it is more likely yet another indication that retaining the existing standard of living even at the cost of further delays in dealing with the major environmental problems already at or near the point of no return, is more important.

The interval that exists between a long term solution and the inevitable point of no return may already have been passed for many issues, including Over Population and subsets such as global warming, resource depletion of critical substances and fresh water deficits.

Technological solutions for amelioration of many critical problems still remain inadequate or don't even exist. This means that reducing the commercial demand that drives much of the problem must drop appreciably, which would lower the present standard of living.

The reason for our procrastination is many fold. Governments have relatively fixed agendas and priorities. Mechanisms for defining, prioritizing and acting upon problems depend on the ruling party's politics. Policies are enacted by elected individuals often under pressure exerted by short term concerns of vested commercial concerns and on constituent's major interests. In the latter, Nimbyism rules supreme and in the process frequently negates an installation that makes abundant sense in the longer term. National Governments policies and actions are based on relatively short term needs often motivated by the effect on the economy. Many give lip service to long range planning and then provide only band aid solutions. Most politicians themselves have no demonstrable long term interest in problem solving. Commercial interests generally triumph over ecological concerns.

Long term problems that threaten our existence, having ballooned rapidly through protracted inaction are rapidly becoming much shorter term. Blame has in large part been apportioned to lack of government will to act and on outdated government procedures. Yet in democratic countries when boiled down to the true source, it is you and I who are ultimately to blame. We elect our representatives that form our governments. We establish lifestyle expectations. Our elected representatives act or appoint representatives to act on our behalf on multinational environmental groups. Democratic countries encompass a large portion of the world's major problem causing population. Large Developing Countries act in accord with our interests, being our largest economic benefactors. Until recently citizens of these latter jurisdictions have remained on average at a relatively low standard of living. This situation is changing rapidly under our example.

As an immense new population of consumers strives to reach a standard of living near ours and our own population increases, the need for energy skyrockets and the depletion of natural resources, even factoring in savings through recycling, follows in lockstep; so how long can we continue at this pace?

Alternate energy sources cannot begin to fulfill increased demand for energy so the increased burning of fossil fuels causes increased greenhouse gas emissions and climate change continues virtually unabated.

Our individual and collective priorities are also only in lip service when they should be deeply embedded in environmental issues.

Humankinds most pressing concerns relate to the health and economic wellbeing of our present families and friends. On the surface this approach to life seems to make sense. But what about making plans for these priorities within a structure that includes dealing with environmental consequences on a long term basis?

Think of our days and how each hour unfolds. Whether it be at work, at home, at school, at play or even maybe at church, synagogue, mosque, temple etc.; how much time do we really spent thinking about and working on the critical problems that must be solved to ensure a long term sustainable environment for the biosphere and mankind therein?

Consumerism prevails. Sit in any coffee shop and have a listen and a quick look around. How few young patrons are not deeply engrossed in using or discussing the merits and/or planned purchase of portable communication, computing or gaming devices that dominate the present technology revolution?

We an overpopulated 21st century world with all its attendant critical problems are also living in a manner that economically, politically and socially is stuck back in a 19th early 20th century suitability framework.

The next few years could be the most pivotal in putting the seal on mankind's fate; worse in some critical areas that seal may already be in place.

This fate is a relentless march to mankind's oblivion.

# References

Worldometers Real time world statistics "run by an international team of developers researchers and volunteers" owned by Dadax an independent company, Chief project Coordinator Sir Thomasson.

Freshwater Crisis National Geographic- undated e-statement.

Sick Water? E. Corcoran (Editor in Chief) UNEP UN-Habitat, compiled by GRID-Arendal, 2010.

UNEP/GRID-Arendal Environment and Poverty Times #1, WSSD Issue Feb 2012

D.K. Ray, N.D. Mueler, P.C. West, and J.A. Foley, Nature Communications 3, Article 1293 2012.

UNEP/G.R.I.D- Arendal, Environmental Knowledge for Change, 2012 World Food Supply From Nellemann, C., MacDevette, M., Manders, T., Eickhout, B.,Svihus, B., Prins, A. G., Kaltenborn, B. P. (Eds). February2009. The environmental food crisis – The environment's role inaverting future food crises. A UNEP rapid response assessment.

World Heath Organization, International Agency fro Research on Cancer Press Release #208 31 May 2011.

