[Terrapreta] Dams & wetter air (Off topic, or not off topic. That is the question.)

[Michael Bailes]

I found a better article on the topic
http://www.rivernet.org/general/dams/greenhouse.htm

> In June, the World Commission on Dams warned that the problem extended
> beyond rainforest reservoirs. It told UN climate-change negotiators that
> greenhouse gases bubble up from "all 30 reservoirs for which measurements
> have been made." The message was clear: "There is no justification for
> claiming that hydroelectricity does not contribute significantly to global
> warming."




The Commission is a blue-chip assembly of scientists, engineers and
> environmentalists, and is supported by the World Bank, the world's biggest
> funder of large dams.




Its findings have been corroborated by researchers from Canada, home of some
> of the world's largest hydroelectric projects. Vincent St Louis, of the
> University of Alberta, has made the first ever calculation of the total
> contribution of the thousands of reservoirs round the world to global
> warming.




In the September issue of the journal BioScience, he says that they produce
> a fifth of all the man-made methane in the atmosphere. Add in their
> emissions of carbon dioxide, and they make up 7 per cent of the man-made
> greenhouse effect. That is a bigger impact than, for instance, aircraft
> emissions.
>

I doubt that they take into account countless thousands of little farm dams.
When it used to rain here you could fly over parts of Australia and see
hundreds of round, silver, glistening farm-dams that looked like shiny coins
on the ground.
Many wetlands are drying up.Certainly here. One reason- many believe -for
methane levels dropping over the last eight years.
*   *   *
A little study for the GW sceptics( I was one too. Read "The Weather
Makers")
 http://www.moorlandschool.co.uk/earth/greenhou.htmOn 09/11/2007,
*   *   *
Natural lakes help too:-

 Rwanda's underwater powerhouse
     By Adam Mynott
 BBC News, Rwanda

   [image: Boat on Lake Kivu] The calm, blue waters of Lake Kivu hold huge
amounts of 'green' energy

*Africa is the continent which will suffer the worst effects of climate
change. *

It also has some of the answers.

The calm, blue waters of Lake Kivu in the west of Rwanda belie the energy
powerhouse it stores deep underwater.

Hundreds of metres down in the inky blackness, the lake is holding enough
unexploited energy to meet Rwanda's needs for 200 years.

Rotting vegetation which has been deposited for millions of years at the
bottom of the lake is giving off a constant regenerating supply of methane
gas.

Some of that gas bubbles to the surface where it is carried away and
dispersed on the wind, but much of it, under massive pressure, is dissolved
in the water at the bottom of the lake, which is in places more than 600m
deep.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6624395.stm
*   *   *
 Duane Pendergast <still.thinking at computare.org> wrote:
>
>  These articles all seem to emphasize the down side of dams. Terra Preta
> enthusiasts need to keep their eyes on the fact water on land via irrigation
> or rain is an essential input to the production of the plant material needed
> to produce the charcoal that will build the soil – while sequestering carbon
> dioxide.
>
>
>
> Duane
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I am sorry I can't find the total square miles kilometres of extra water
> that dams present to evaporation.
>
> However here are a few articles that will give you a bit of the flavour of
> what has been happening in the last 50-100 years.but here is the
> evaporation in a small corner of Queensland for exampl
>


-- 
Michael the Archangel

"You can fix all the world's problems in a garden. . . .
Most people don't know that"
FROM
http://www.blog.thesietch.org/wp-content/permaculture.swf
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