Dams Cause Global Warming

Photo of Noel Sheppard.

Now here's a story the climate change obsessed media can really sink their teeth into: a Berkeley, California, based environmental group claims that dams all around the world are adding to global warming.

If you're keeping score, this means we can't use heating oil or coal to produce energy to heat and/or light our homes. They killed nuclear power. Now they want to ban all hydroelectric facilities.

Just how far back into the Stone Age must we go to save the planet?

While you ponder, Australia's News.com reported this astonishing claim Tuesday (emphasis added throughout):

Story Continues Below Ad ↓

International Rivers Network executive director Patrick McCully today told Brisbane's Riversymposium rotting vegetation and fish found in dams produced surprising amounts of methane - 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide.

"Often it's accepted that hydropower is a climate friendly technology but in fact probably all reservoirs around the world emit greenhouse gases and some of them, especially some of the ones in the tropics, emit very high quantities of greenhouse gases even comparable to, in some cases even much worse than, fossil fuels like coal and gas," Mr McCully said.

Now, please bear in mind that IRN has been around since 1985 trying to prevent the construction of dams. In fact, as reported by Le Mali Tuesday, IRN is against a proposed $2 billion dam on the Zambesi River in Mozambique (emphasis added):

Mini-floods from Mphanda Nkuwa are expected to destroy riverside fields, essential for ensuring food security during the dry season, according to the International Rivers Network (IRN), a US-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), which campaigns for the protection of rivers and defends the rights of communities that depend on them.

IRN said in statement received by APA that it has campaigned against the construction of dams on the Zambezi, which already has 30 large dams in its basin.

As such, is it possible IRN sees the power (pun intended!) in connecting its anti-dam cause to the new bogeyman of anthropogenic global warming?

"Basically they're factories for converting carbon into methane and methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas - it's less known than carbon dioxide but it's actually about 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide in terms of trapping heat in the atmosphere."

Mr McCully said global estimates blamed dams for about a third of all methane emissions worldwide.

How soon before America's media jump on this societal ill?

As a sidebar, I've been told by several people in the electricity business that many states such as California, Oregon, and Washington could completely power their populations with hydroelectric facilities thereby getting off the nation's power grid.

Unfortunately, groups like IRN have done a great job preventing the construction of dams throughout these states thereby guaranteeing huge numbers of Americans have to rely on fossil fuels to heat and power their homes.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the media actually reported that?

—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters.


Comments Policy

All comments are owned by whoever posted them and are subject to our terms of use. They should not be assumed to represent the views of NewsBusters.

Viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Noel...

"Just how far back into the Stone Age must we go to save the planet?"

Perhaps instead of Stone Age, we need to return to the Ice Age.

If conservatives are RIGHT, then liberals must be WRONG.
Thompson/Rice

Cow gas

Cow gas causes GW. Kill the cows and shut down the steak houses. NOW! 

NEVER,NEVER trust a "liberal"

Wait a minute

Plankton eats up carbon dioxide, right? Whales eat plankton. Should we be getting rid of the whales? Worms attribute to global warming. So shouldn't we be killing worms? We need to be using more worms to fish with.

 

A bonafided and certified member of the beer guzzling, NASCAR watching middle class.

This Global Warming stuff is getting out of hand

This is getting crazy...everything causes Global Warming. Next thing you know they will start blaming the SUN.

cannot be the sun's fault

No, the sun will be the last thing they blame because they haven't figured out how to tax the sun yet.......

 

No RINOs in '08

Rick...Plankton, There

Rick...Plankton,

There are a few companies out there that produce plankton by seeding the ocean with micron size peices of iron shavings. The shavings stimulate the growth of algea which in turn draws co2 out of the air.

If this really works our problems are solved. Leave it to mankind to save himself!  

Get Email updates from Fred http://socialnet.imwithfred.com/email_alert_july_26.html

What a one-size-fits-all

What a one-size-fits-all issue Global Warming has become. It's better than the four colored ink pen. You can fit any pet cause under the umbrella of "climate change."   

And they wonder why they are called the lunatic left.  

 

 

I told you ... While Pope

I told you ... While Pope Gore and the rest of the limo/lib/elite live in their poshness we, the "breeders", are to become  Neanderthals for them to guide and dictate to ...

Okay, let's do away with the human devices that hold back the natural course of waterways ... I say we start with New Orleans ... Damn the levees ... flood the city for good.

Global warming

This sounds a little like the congresswoman form Calif. who wanted to tax wine because of the CO2 it gave off durning the fermantation process  ---- No on told her that a can of Coke or Pepsi give of 2 ro 3 times as much CO2 as a bottle of wine -----

Lee

Now there's your problem if your a liberal --- you are not intelligent enough to realize how stupid you are

Question

 

Who are the "Morlocks" and who are the "Eloi" in this GW cult Time Machine scenario?

Get with the times

please rephrase this in the contemporary star wars or lord of the rings parlance if you want an answer anytime soon:) 

Protest Craig's conservative abandonment - vote Democrat in 08'

Come on, TM! There was a

Come on, TM!

There was a recent remake:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268695/

in the Time Machine

remember, the Morlocks *ate* the Eloi. The "pretty people" lounged around in luxury, while the engineers kept things running...and harvested 'em for chow!:)

Nothing like a nice rack of cornfed liberal, though ya gotta fatten em up, supermodels don't roast so well :P

The B factor

Those damn beavers are going to kill us all!!

}}---> Hydroelectric = bad

Like the Jackass so perfectly centered between sources of water he dies of thirst, we're again stymied by bad news.

I knew the Global Warming angle was the cause of all the world's ills when none of the flooding in the US this season was blamed on damming up the waterways.  It seems somehow natural that these dams would be neatly folded into the cakemix as another contributor to AGW.

~LYDSEXICS UNTIE!~

Hydro plants

 When my daughter was in middle school she brought home her science book. It stated that hydro plants damaged fish below the dam. Well I knew this to be BS. For 23 years I had worked for Duke Power performing maintenance on all types, fossils, nuclear, hydro, of plants. The fishermen were always up close to the dams. Any fisherman will tell you when the turbines are turning it stirs up the oxygen drawing the fish in. The big ones come to feast on the little ones.

All this is just bovine scatology or Barbara Striesand (?).

 

A bonafided and certified member of the beer guzzling, NASCAR watching middle class.

We're all doomed anyway -

Using his logic, we really don't have anymore time - What percentage of volume of all standing water, be it lakes, steams, oceans, etc., is emitting co2 or methane? With the current rate of GW (by its proponents) the ice will be melting, contributing to more co2 emissions, and there isn't anything we can do! 

So then, what did man do to make this worse? Using this distorted form of logic, this bonehead has just proven that anthropromorphic GW is a myth - he' should be careful hwo this gets reported - the GW crowd might get mad.

There is no sense in being stupid, if you can't prove it! - my dad V

Actually, flowing the first

Actually, flowing the first order of logic fallacy, if creating lakes increases methane, then if we drain lakes we will then reverse or lessen AGW.  Anyone for draining lake Superior to solve AGW???? LOL

dscott's postulate:  The degree to which someone exaggerates or deceives is inversely proportional to the merit of the advocated position.

I'm for that -

think of all the voters that would be found! Problem, they'd all be demolibs - never mind.

There is no sense in being stupid, if you can't prove it! - my dad V

Might be worth it

I think, when registering a dead guy to vote, taking a corpse along might hurt your credibility.

The enviromentalist who

The enviromentalist who demand we stop using oil are the same people who tried to stop the completion of the Tellico Dam. They used the snail darter, as the excuse. Only after the dam was completed and the gates closed was the snail darter moved from endangered to the threatened list. Because the fish existed in other areas of the Tennessee River system. To no ones supprise. No one mentioned this.

The people who want us to stop using oil. Who want us to use other renewable resources; will also stand in the way of using renewable resources.

"There is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition."
- Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology, MIT

WRONG HEADLINE!

Hey, don't you see that the HEADLINE was typed incorrectly.  Should have read, "DEMS CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING!"  What a difference one letter makes!!

Not exactly...

"As a sidebar, I've been told by several people in the electricity business that many states such as California, Oregon, and Washington could completely power their populations with hydroelectric facilities thereby getting off the nation's power grid."

That's a bit misleading...

Oregon & Washington, maybe. California, no.

California sucks a LOT of power from the BPA System in the Pacific Northwest. Take California off that teat, and the other two might do alright.

California shut down

California shut down several nuke plants in the past, due to environmentalists. They have cancelled dam projects, due to environmentalists. But they have sucked on the national welfare power teet untill they have no choice but to take the left overs, because now they are used to others doing for them. They cant do anything for themselves anymore.

Save a SeAL, club a liberal!!

I hope you realize that you

I hope you realize that you are 10000% right on!

You cannot

You cannot win.

http://alumni.berkel...

From Nathanael Johnson’s piece in the September/October 2007 California magazine (see above):

As policymakers consider removing dams to restore salmon runs, they should realize that doing so could release the carbon buried by erosion.  Many of the eligible dams are buried in eroded sediment; removing them would disturb this layer of mud and allow trapped carbon to escape.

Maggie

Maggie,

Tremendously fascinating. Thank you!

Roll on You Bears!!! ns

Isn't it ironic

Isn't it ironic that global warming is caused by the same dams that provide the lakes for us to cool off and swim in?  Sounds like the pros and cons cancel each other out.

If bodies of freshwater cause Global Warming

If bodies of freshwater cause Global Warming, does that mean the watermelon* libs are suggesting we drain all lakes?

 *green on the outside, red on the inside

NBF -

 

Re: *

Doesn't matter ... You said "watermelon" and "libs" in one breath ... That translates to "black, i.e., African-American" democrats ... which means you're a racist bigot ... The * afterward for further explanation is now a tree falling in the forest with nobody around to hear it, so to speak.

This is ESPN vs. Rush Limbaugh reasoning, you know.  :^ )

Credible scientists have

Credible scientists have already tried to "blame" the Sun (and rightly so). The global warming kooks had a fit and shouted down the scientists because they knew they couldn't get people to stop using the Sun.  It's all about control with them. 

Classic No nuke, no coal,

Classic

No nuke, no coal, no oil, no natural gas, no exploration for sources of energy and no dams (they have been moving to block construction and tear down dams for years now).

 

How the heck are we suppose to get electricity?

How the heck are we


How the heck are we suppose to get electricity?

We're not. We're supposed to all live in the stone age so as to protect the purity their god - the planet Earth

 

Fred Thompson and Ann Coulter walk into a bar. The bar is instantly destroyed because that much awesome cannot be contained in one building.

...or as the Amish do it to

...or as the Amish do it to honor our God...

As I always say someday we'll all catch up with the Amish....

Protest Craig's conservative abandonment - vote Democrat in 08'

TM , In this area

TM ,

In this area (Western Pa ) they don't seem adverse to Using cell phones , Generators or Vehicles (providing someone else owns ,and drives it). Most likely it is different in Your experience .

Yeah, they seem to like Taco

Yeah, they seem to like Taco Bell and Arbys too ...

Haha I still couldn't get

Haha I still couldn't get over the 'exercise causes global warming.' 

So we have government programs to keep people in shape, but now, oops we cant exercise, its killing mother earth.  If I was one for conspiracy theories, Id say this is quite the makings of one.  'Meat causes global warming.'  'A carnivorous diet without exercise will cause you to gain excess weight.'  'America has a weight issue problem that needs corrected by diet and exercise.'  'Well, exercise is out, it causes global warming, perhaps a vegitarian/vegan diet?'

And a little known fact is, the majority of Cults such as the one involved in Waco TX and the Heaven's Gate mass suicide, their members were often required to keep a strictly vegan diet, which is biologically proven to make people more succeptible to coercion and also more 'weak willed.'  Basically more succeptible to indoctrination or 'brainwashing.'  Perhaps their is some dark, brooding power waiting in the wings of the global warming movement that is slowly setting up the people for easy brain harvesting. 

 

haha, then again, I've never been much of one for conspiracies.

Actually you are half right,

Actually you are half right, they are forced to eat a high carb low protein diet, as the brain needs the protein to function properly. You can be a highly logical vegan.

Aha I see.  I always

Aha I see.  I always wondered since my boss is vegan but strangely very down to Earth and tough to influence.  Again though, my education on vegan lifestyle is at best, limited.  I just found it funny that meat causes global warming, AND makes us fat, but we arent allowed to exercise since it also causes global warming.  Only really leaves room for the 'rabbit food' diet. heh

Only Al Gore, Warmers and

Only Al Gore, Warmers and other assorted hypocrites are supposed to get electricity.  

"There is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition."
- Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology, MIT

As has been observed in the

As has been observed in the past, the Earth, left alone, without oversite from man, will self destruct. Example Yellowstone park. No forestry oversite and the park almost burnt to a crisp. If man had not interfered, it would only be a memory today. Arizona, New Mexico almost burnt completely. Southern California is almost a memory, and after Felix turns north and the rains come again, many will lose their home to land slides and mud. Fires rage and mud slides flow and people die in California because of environmentalists, not inspite of them. But its ok. After all, their intentions are good. Or are they?

Save a SeAL, club a liberal!!

Causes of Global

Causes of Global Warming:

  • CO2
  • Cars
  • Oil
  • Hydroelectric Dams
  • Green Energy
  • Americans
  • Atlantic Ocean
  • Birds
  • Whales
  • Typing
  • Thinking
  • Reasoning
  • Capitalism
  • Hapiness
  • Boosh
  • Cheney
  • Rove
  • Civilization
  • Christians
  • Race Traitors
  • Republicans
  • Freedom
  • Fox News
  • The Truth
  • Magic
  • Evil Corporations
  • The Circle of Life
  • Moose
  • Cows
  • The Internet
  • Eating
  • Using the Rest Facilities
  • Bathing (I'm just guessing on this one, since liberals never do it)
  • Non-gay sex

Things that don't cause Global Warming:

  • Giant balls of Gas generating massive amounts of heat
  • Natural climate cycles
  • Science

 

AtheistRepublican, how

AtheistRepublican, how could you put "Americans" on your list, only once? To be a proper list, you must have "Americans" listed as every tenth item.

Save a SeAL, club a liberal!!

update list

Causing Global Warming...Pam Anderson

Not...ICE

AR -

 

R-r-r-r-r U trying to say sumtin'?  (heh-heh)

  We have wished, we

 

We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster or for a social change
to come and bomb us into Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in
our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens,
our homemade religion—guilt-free at last!

—Stewart Brand (writing in the Whole Earth Catalogue).

Free Enterprise really means rich people get richer. They have the
freedom to exploit and psychologically rape their fellow human beings
in the process…. Capitalism is destroying the earth.

—Helen Caldicott, Union of Concerned Scientists

We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists
and their projects…. We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt
dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and
return to wilderness millions of tens of millions of acres of presently
settled land.

—David Foreman, Earth First!

Everything we have developed over the last 100 years should be destroyed.

—Pentti Linkola

If you ask me, it’d be a little short of disastrous for us to
discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we
would do with it. We ought to be looking for energy sources that are
adequate for our needs, but that won’t give us the excesses of
concentrated energy with which we could do mischief to the earth or to
each other.

—Amory Lovins in The Mother Earth–Plowboy Interview, Nov/Dec 1977, p.22

The only real good technology is no technology at all. Technology is
taxation without representation, imposed by our elitist species (man)
upon the rest of the natural world.

—John Shuttleworth

What we’ve got to do in energy conservation is try to ride the
global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to
have approached global warming as if it is real means energy
conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of
economic policy and environmental policy.

—Timothy Wirth, former U.S. Senator (D-Colorado)

Environuts are always

Environuts are always expousing contradictory proposals:

Half the enviros want more windmills to generate alternative electricity AND half want to remove the windmills because they kill birds.

They want to increase the CAFE standards to increase required gas mileage AND push ethanol in gas -- which lowers gas mileage.

They want to replace gas guzzlers with hybrids and electric cars but haven't thought about -- if cars get astronomical mileage -- won't that reduce the gas tax money needed to maintain the roads the eco cars would drive on. Not to mention the needed monies for infrastructure.

Tell It To The Swiss

For many decades, Switzerland has relied on hydroelectric dams for the majority of their electricity. 30 years ago, in fact, 90 percent of the Suisse power grid was fed by hydro. It's now at 58%, thanks to the recent increased use of (gasp) nuclear plants.

Here in my neck of the woods, our small town was one of the only towns in the state of New Hampshire that wasn't affected by the Great 1965 blackout. The reason? The Public Service Company hydroelectric dam located in our town. Of course, less than a decade later PSNH was run into bankruptcy by the anti-nuke leftists...

Karl Rove, environmental savior

I guess Karl Rove did the environment a favor when he sent Katrina to New Orleans and blew up the levees (a type of dam), which we now know to be sources of greenhouse gas.  Remember, when it comes to a choice between the environment and human life, humans are expendable.  </sarcasm>

When you put the clowns in charge, don't be surprised when a circus breaks out.

Let's all learn to make candles

 What these groups want to do is send us all back to the 1800's. Let's break out the paraffin and make candles.  All of us start raising a horse to ride to work on (to hell with the methane gas the horse gives off), start using the old wood stove, and dry our clothes on the clothesline.  Obviously, modern society is not for these people.

Never argue with an idiot.  They'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

I'm sorry pbthinker

Candles require burning, they use oxygen and let off a thick stream of global warming carbon without near constant proper trimming, sleep when it's dark like natural people. Horses have been exploited long enough, and need to run free, not be ridden, you animal slaver. Wood stoves burn trees you cut down - even as the trees screamed in pain, not to mention the rapeholes for ore you left in our Mother for your metal demon of fire. Tree remains you plan to burn into carbon deposits that ruin the environment, no way polluter !

 You may use a hemp clothesline, as long as only natural fiber clothes are dried with it, and you tie it to natural occuring stands, such as the tree limb on the tree you haven't plotted against and murdered yet.

All I can say for people so

All I can say for people so into nature, sure don't understand nature. Trapped water creates more green, thereby reduces CO2. Trapped water also cools. Hydro electric keeps us from burning fuel. As far as any dead material...guess what that is part of the circle of life...it allows for more nutrients for plants, which again less CO2.

Lakes also provide a place for camping and recreation...which means more funds to the forest service, which allow for more resources to be used to maintain and improve our wilderness.

Were any of these things used as offsets to the so called danger of methane?  ( something that occurs naturally? )  I doubt it. 

I hate these humans are virus types...hello the beaver created dams before man...only they do far more damage in the process.