Is the planet doomed?

[Concerned]

I have just read an interesting article in the UK’s Independent newspaper, by James Lovelock, who thirty years ago developed the Gaia Theory, which became widely accepted, whereby the earth contols and regulates itself no matter what abuse is thrown at it.

Worryingly, even Dr. Lovelock believes that mankind’s abuse of the environment is making that mechanism work against us, and that climate change is already insoluble, such that life on earth will never be the same again.

He argues that although we will do our best to survive, he cannot see the major sources of greenhouse emmissions- the USA, China and India- cutting back in time, so that the earth will essentially be doomed by the end of the century.

What do the environmentallists in the minerals industry have to say on this? Is there any point in recycling, retreatment of tailings, pollution control etc. Should we forget all this and just accept our fate, which looks inevitable?

[Amanda Wills]

Surely that's the same as saying "we're all going to die one day, so let's just give up and commit suicide now"?

[G Buckley Australia]

Sustainability seems to be the buzz word these days in papers and meetings.

What do the people involved in research in these areas have to say. Can we sustain development etc at current (and increasing) rates, without choking the planet?

[feralmet]

The looming shortage of easy liquid hydrocarbon energy may yet pull us up, but will it be in time? Deprived of our faithful genie, do we have the will to re-make a society which has gone so far off the rails that it accepts economics as science?

During my tenure as a gold metallurgist, I ran an efficient and happy ship. Being in control of all the knobs and levers, I dealt myself a good salary. Yet in retrospect, all I did was burn countless truckloads of diesel and coal to produce countless thimblefuls of gold.

Maybe the long-haired people who used to gather around the perimeter fence with flags and banners were right after all.

Retired now, I have the luxury of objectivity. Maybe my five granddaughters have given me pause for thought.

Chris Shaw
Feral Metallurgist
Australia

[Concerned guest]

Hellom me again. Just read an interesting article in the UK's Daily Telegraph.
A Government think tank, Foresight has forecast an apocalyptic scenario in this century following an energy crisis.

They predict that most Britos could face a future in which most people travel by bicycle or horse and cart, and air travel becomes a distant memory, the last commercial flight taking place around mid-century.

Lets have some involvement from the people in our industry working on recycling, sustainability etc. Why are you so quiet- what do you think?

[David Barr]

In the interests of fellow pedants, the Gaia Hypothesis is by definition not a theory. Theory requires scientific experimentation to be both possible and carried out, and for subsequent results to be largely supportive.

A self-regulating earth is seductive but discussing whether such regulation is to maintain (any?) equilibrium, or a specific equilibrium favouring life, risks going of on a tangent as to why life was formed (and by "whom") in the first place eg is it something "hardwired" into this planet? (See various works by Paul Davies, Richard Dawkins on the origins of life).

Definitions for Gaia itself have now been stretched across a continuum, depending in part on whether it is more believable (or conceptually more provable) that life influences the planet or whether life controls the planet. We can probably accept at least the first part, and as proven, and move on in the context of mining.

Second piece of pedantry is whether the "environmental movement" including Friends of the Earth - of which I am a 20(?) year member - would allow that environmentalists (ie people who by definition work to protect the environment from destruction or pollution) work in the minerals industry. As a practioner of environmental technologies within those extractive industries, I would suggest that stricto sensu they do not.

Which leads to a third bit of pedantry. By my definition, mining is not sustainable because it targets finite resources. However, a senior exploration geologist, in business development, qualified that "finite" in this case only truly refers to a given set of economic factors ie today's uneconomic (low grade) tailings are potentially tomorrow's resources. Unfortunately, there is a suspicion that this can be used by the industry as an excuse not to consider more rigorous environmental practices, on closure, that might otherwise risk "sterilising future resources".

The fourth bit of pedantry is to support that mining is a part of sustainable development (SD), as separate from sustainability, and to then define it. Using Natural Capitalism's definition, SD requires that we increase productivity but consume less resources in the process. Here resources means land, energy, water. Need for increased productivity is a given, as demonstrated by our Feral Metallurgist who at five grandchildren has already surpassed the four grandparents involved.

A fifth piece of related pedantry is that it is fossil liquid hydrocarbon that faces shortage. (And even then, the same economic argument as above will apply re what can be done with coal conversion as the economics change.) However, more importanly the use of biomass stocks for ethanol and biodiesel can provide significant replacement transport fuels in the short to intemediary term. Starting immediately. (Although use of resources eg land, water, will be vexed on this one).

Having set the context, and to now address some specifics in this discussion string, yes, there is a point to recycling minerals and retreating tailings, especially when both require less resource use (water, energy) to do so than primary minerals, and to control pollution where that also ensures less resources (land) are disturbed or degraded.

As to developing sustainably, that by definition means doing so without choking the planet. There is a problem however in that this requires far more recycling than is currently the case, and the production of consumer goods that can in fact be recycled (eg from computer cathode ray tubes). There is also an argument that we need to significantly increase our existing materialisation before we have a sufficient pool of materials lying on the surface of planet Earth to do this recycling (see good paper by Hollitt and Batterham (?) on this painful concept).

The role of the minerals industry in this has to be Product Stewardship. A somewhat nebulous (tempting to say nefarious) concept. But, consider the Pb operation of Doe Run that 20(?) years ago would not sell you product unless you already had a lead-acid car battery recycle programme in place. This then leads on to Industrial Ecology which (like Gaia) suggests that production/wste/recycling wise everything is linked to everything else.

As to whether the 20 tonnes of mining and processing waste generated per gold wedding ring product is a good thing, there is definitely a case there. Gold (and even less so, diamonds) is not a commodity. If it were it would be worth far less, and we wouldn't be having this debate. But if you take Rio Tinto as a mining company, and a broader example, it produces less than 2.5 t stored waste per tonne product (here defined as contained Au, Cu, Al, but raw iron ore, coal, industrial minerals etc) because it backfills more than half its waste (which on a tangent ironically sterilises those voids and/or any low grade ore therein). As an industry "standard" that doesn't seem too bad to me.

Which finally comes to the point of my uncertainty as to the concerns actually being raised in this string. (I think I have sufficiently and anally addressed the issues of the terms and definitions to be used in the process!). In the end, we have to think globally (in terms of Gaia if you will) and act locally. If we all switched to bicycles tomorrow, we could probably create a market for recycled cars (and go back to steel bikes incidentally, with far less embodied energy than aluminium frames) and save enough fuel to run our computers. Hell, we could go back to the future, a la the Australian outback, and use the bicycle to run the computer in the first place!

Final definition might be that "development" probably ensures that things will never be the same as they were. Whether that turns out to be a Doomsday scenario is probably up to you. And me.

Now, what was the question again?

[barrywills]

I would advise anyone who is interested in this discussion (should be everyone!) to read Ken Sutherland's sobering article on sustainable development in the April 2006 issue of Filtration+Separation (pps. 40-42)

[wildbill]

Dear Others,

Although the following url has some amatuer content, it has some good references and
articles. www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Index.html. Best wishes.

[feralmet]

Greetings fellow metallurgists - after some lapse of time.

Wildbill, this link should work:
www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

This one uses math, and further food for thought:
dieoff.org/

No math required for these:

tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/weblog/comments/george-the-axe-and-the-cherry-tree/

www.energybulletin.net/5558.html


Question:

Having received our training in the laws of natural abundance and diminishing returns, isn't it incumbent upon us to make our knowledge available to the public? Why are we so timid and conservative?

[wildbill]

Hello All,

Time has passed. Nobody has posted. But, more evidence of peak oil surfaces.
There will be projects to do in the future. It will take very creative engineering.
Forget automated DCS sytems. You won't be able to get control cards for the
infernal contraptions. And, their programmers will be............unavailable. WB

[barrywills]

Interesting article at min-eng.blogspot.com/2009/03/ageologist-opens-up-debate-on-climate.html

[barrywills]

I have had an exchange of emails with Prof. Ian Plimer of University of Adelaide (see March 6th entry above).

His controversial views on carbon dioxide emissions are shortly to be published in a book - Heaven and Earth (www.connorcourt.com)

As editor of a peer-reviewed scientific journal for the past 21 years, I have seen quite a bit of bad science, and have developed a high degree of scepticism towards unsubstantiated theories and conclusions. I have always suspected that the claim that climate change is man-made is dubious, and not based on solid evidence, and Prof. Plimer's article in Materials World seems to provide clear evidence to counter this claim.

I remember when I was at University in the ‘60s that we were about to enter a new ice age, as the world had been cooling since the beginning of the century. Temperatures started to rise shortly after that, but as Prof. Plimer points out, there has been only a 0.75C rise in temperature since the start of the industrial revolution (although I am also sceptical about the consistency of measurement of these temperatures over such a long period).

The media love climate change and carbon footprints, researchers love it because of the highly lucrative grants available and politicians equally love it as it provides good reasons to impose green taxes and restrictions on just about everything, as highlighted by the UK’s plans to turn off lighting on hundreds of miles of motorway despite an admission from the Highways Agency that a small increase in crashes is likely to result! The measure is being introduced primarily to reduce carbon emissions but it will also save the agency several million pounds a year in electricity cost (The Times March 13th). I wonder if the latter could really be the primary reason?

To challenge what are considered to be generally accepted views is tantamount to heresy but carbon emission controls are highly expensive and damaging to industries such as ours. A great website for the pros and cons is at climatedebatedaily.com/ and I invite the views of mineral processors and others in the mining industry.

[wildbill]

Dear Readers,

It is now public record that IEA suppressed dire reports to avoid panic. You all better think
of projects that have their own energy supply. Here is a link to links on IEA whistleblowers:

www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Archives2009/GovernmentAgenciesPanic.html

Good Luck, WildBill

[barrywills]

See also min-eng.blogspot.com/search/label/Climate%20Change

[bslbatt]

Although the following url has some amatuer content, it has some good references and
articles. www.lithium-battery-factory.com/news/. Best wishes.