When it comes to major human causes for global warming, one need look no further than mine fires in India and China reports Lyric Wallwork Winik in the August 26 Parade magazine.:
Coal-mine fires in China and India could be huge culprits in global warming. In China alone, up to 200 million tons of coal go up in flames each year—which may be equivalent to America’s total carbon-dioxide emissions from gasoline. India’s mine fires waste up to 10 million tons of coal annually. The pollution has made land in both countries uninhabitable. And the problem is expected to worsen.
Now experts are asking if controlling mine fires in Asia might be a key to reducing global warming. Economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth, for one, argues that it would likely be more efficient than offsets like planting trees or cleaning the ocean.
Sounds like an interesting twist in the arena of global warming reporting, but I'm not holding my breath for the mainstream media to make Kyoto-exempt China and India the villains in the media's pre-determined narrative on climate change.
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Quick! Get this article to
August 26, 2007 - 21:02 ET by NortonalecQuick! Get this article to Sheryl Crow and Laurie David stat! Maybe they will take their bus over to China and lecture the Chi-Coms about the damage they are doing! After that, over to India and more nagging. Get going girls! You still have time to save the world!
Nortonalec
These fires are only part of the dirty coal picture
August 26, 2007 - 23:02 ET by RJChina has been purchasing mineral rights to soft coal (read: dirty coal) deposits around the world.
They are about to turn large parts of the globe into a repeat of the sooty, dirty-coal "Industrial Age."
But not a word from the AGW crowd....
Yes, and how does the GW
August 26, 2007 - 23:23 ET by drillanwrYes, and how does the GW Cult address the fact that all those cows are left to run about freely and reproduce uneaten all over India? Think of the methane levels abounding over there ... eh?
coal mine fires.
August 27, 2007 - 01:05 ET by PKare these open pit mines or under ground mines?
both are real b@#$@#^s to put out. there was one in pennsylvania that burned for many many years.
this is a thing that prevention is the best course of action.
C
Ken, great post. But are you suggesting that we DO something,
August 27, 2007 - 06:05 ET by TokyoTomor simply want to point out shallow coverage by the MSM?
Furchtgott-Roth, BTW, makes good points in her article last month at the NY Sun: http://www.nysun.com/article/58374, but she implies that we should be paying China and India to fix their own problems before we focus on what we can do at home - how would that make any sense, unless you also concede that we should do something about AGW? And isn't the concept of finding least cost reductions something that we insisted be included in Kyoto, before we decided not to ratify it?
In addition, given our own experience with our still significant but many times smalller persistent coal fires, we've essentially thrown our hands up at the difficulties and expense and decided that the only practical thing to do is to hope they will burn themselves out. Have you heard anything about Centralia, PA (aka "Helltown USA")? We have more success with smaller fires in commercial mines, but those are orders of magnitude smaller, and there's a private owner with pocketbook interests in limiting damages and the loss of valuable assets.
We see none of that in China and India, but rather a lack of property rights and government ownership, corruption, irresponsibility and interference run rampant, as today's big story on China's horrible environmental problems in the NYT notes, as well as this earlier post story on coal mines: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/world/asia/26china.html?em&ex=1188360000&en=3a0d26098171c368&ei=5087%0A. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/23/AR2005122301472.html?referrer=email
The fires in China and India are huge, and certainly deserve attention:
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/~prakash/coalfires/faq.html
http://www.itc.nl/personal/coalfire/problem/overview.html
http://myblogscience.blogspot.com/2007/07/coal-fires-major-pollution-source-jack.html
But there are no easy solutions, and the US hardly can tell either China or India what to do, or make them spend money on it. Of course there is the possiblity that other countries could underwrite the costs and provide the technology, but what incentives does anyone have to do such a thing? Oh, perhaps maybe some countries actually DO have an incentive to provide assistance to China and India, as one scholarly paper on the subject notes: "Thus an attempt to extinguish the burning coal seams in China can now be accredited in the framework of the "Clean Development Mechanism" and the reduction of gas emissions can be traded as "Certified Emission Reductions" (UNFCCC 2005)." http://www.coalfire.caf.dlr.de/media/download/results/Diplomarbeit-Litschke.pdf. Perhaps that explains why the Germans and Dutch have technical teams over there? (Those suckers!).
I look forward to hearing more thoughts from you that seem to be moving to some common ground with Gore (and his crazies and the rich socialist supporters who want to kill the goose that laid the golden eg by turning our economy over to the UN).
Sincerely,
Tom
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool."
Richard Feynman
but I'm not holding my
August 27, 2007 - 06:31 ET by Jack BauerActually Ken, I think I might try holding my breath if I had to breathe the air in China.
But seriously, you'll note how reporters are either ignorant or mendacious on this subject. They confuse and conflate two different by-products from the burning of carbon based substances like coal and gasoline.
Doesn't the burning of coal produce massive amounts of CARBON MONOXIDE? Which I have not seen claimed to be a "greenhouse gas" but which IS a toxic substance that will kill you.
As far as I know, conservatives, who don't happened to believe man's activities can have any effect on the natural and cyclical fluctuations in the planet's climate, like me, are not against reducing the proven pollution from carbon MONOXIDE.