Geoengineering Series #13 - Mining and Landfilling

We dig out something here and fill a hole with something poisonous somewhere else. Does this have anything to do with geoengineering and climate change or changed weather patterns? Maybe.  

Once I drove past a mountain that was strikingly barren. Every other mountain I've seen had at least some small patch of grass, or some small tree, or some flowers. Seeds sure have difficulties remaining on the steep mountain walls, but wherever the walls are not perpendicular to the ground there is a slight possibility for the tiny beings from the plant kingdom.  What was with the mountain I saw then? It was once a lead and zinc mine, from 15th century on. Nothing grows on it now, some 25 years from the closure. So rainwater streams down unobstructed. 

Sometimes the same dug out hole gets refilled, like some gravel pit I once knew. It had clear water, and people swam in it during summer. It was refilled with garbage and the top soil scrapped from the gardens after Chernobyl, and became a landfill that poisoned the underground water downstream. So humans living and gardening downstream got cancer, as well as animals. The other thing was that the landfill contents was rotting and thus creating heat and landfill gas, methane. It burst out in flames many times before the local authorities decided to use the created methane for fueling the nearby heating station of the nearby blocks of flats. The landfill was also covered with a layer of soil and grass. Before, I guess, the landfill created its own warm updraft as fire usually creates heat. 

We, the humans, we really are barbarians if one takes a look at 15 largest landfills around the planet. Creating an atlas of who does the worst things in this regard comes easy. If all humankind is truly producing 2.12 billion tons of waste annually and 99% of stuff we buy is trashed within 6 months, then we can estimate that approximately equal amount of resources like ore and oil is extracted somewhere else. Ouch, that was wrong. The number is 55 billion tons of extracted bio-mass, fossil energy, metal, and minerals from earth annually, what is almost 10 tons for every person in the world, but such an average is, of course, misleading, as some have practically nothing. The problem is not just in consumerism and squandering, but also that usually 5-30%, very rarely 60% of extracted material is used to produce a product, and now the attempts are made to raise it to 60%, and some try to make the product life-cycle a circular economy, so it is recycled or reused. But the World Bank predicts that humankind will produce 11 million tons of garbage daily somewhere after 2100. Now, this is a prediction, but production of 300 million tons of plastic each year doesn’t promise much change for the better. There is also a World Waste Atlas (I guess kids could learn this one along with geography so they maybe stop pestering their parents about the newest whatever item) – the site presents also the use of robots in waste management and recycling. Until then, you may also use the illegal trash report site where you can report the illegal trash on Let’s do it World Waste Map, which has been used for organizing the state-wide cleanup actions of illegally dumped waste. The only sad thing is that in a year’s time the new dosage of garbage is all over the place again. 

Air above the landfills is another thing. The air composition includes some gases unhealthy to breath.  Landfills usually produce landfill gases (LFG): 

•  ~50% methane (CH4) 
• ~50% carbon dioxide (CO2) 
• <1% non-methane organic compounds (NMOCs) 
• Hazardous air pollutants (HAP) 
• Greenhouse gases (GHG) 
• Volatile organic compounds (VOC) 
• Other non-organic compounds (e.g. hydrogen sulfide)   

More comprehensive list of landfill gases and what happens with them can be found here. In air those gases get diluted and carried away by the wind. Some say that the landfill gases are the major contributor to global warming (US); the only problem is that they are not measured but modelled, says the outdated EU report (2014). Even when plastic waste is incinerated with high temperatures, CO2 released: “The incineration of 1 Mg of municipal waste in MSW  (municipal solid waste) incinerators is associated with the production/release of about 0.7 to 1.2 Mg of carbon dioxide (CO2 output).”   

Ascribing all the guilt to landfills and waste, and the incineration of it is simply denying a whole range of other  human activities, like rocket launches which fuel causes ozone depletion, Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering (SAG) (cloud seeding, decreasing precipitation at airports), industrial pollution, deforestation, and wars, to name a few. Yes, we, the humans are the culprits, but not only by producing consumer waste and by producing more products then 1 person needs at a time at all, but by many other activities. There is a whole range of other activities contributing to small (and sometimes bigger) local changes in the environment. 

Excerpt from: The Fight Against Geoengineering by Andrew Calbery

 So, how many sick beings will this produce that will further poison other beings and the environment? How many overheated places on Earth that might ignite a fire or even wildfire? How many poisoned underground waters, rivers, lakes and oceans? How many harmless places will become harmful by becoming mines or landfills? And how many solutions that bring more harm instantly or in the long run?

 Leaving the Sky and the Oceans Intact 

This post is part of a series in Geoengineering Series in an effort to present idea that people should start understanding that the sky and the oceans should remain intact, as well as the Earth as a whole, thus also the mainland. But, because humans can’t just dismiss all the industry and construction, and all the rest, we can’t declare the whole Earth a national park, even if we would most probably be way better off by doing so. Even if it is already some 100 years or more too late it is still worth a try. The way I see it, is to give the sky and the oceans the legal status of a national park where chemical experiments with weather or anything else are officially not permitted and not-tolerated, including influencing tropospheric rivers by electromagnetic means. But to whom such a motion/demand in a petition form should be delivered to?  

Previous posts in Geonegineering Series:  

Geoengineering Series #12 – The Missing Sand 

Geoengineering Series #11 – The Missing Trees 

Geoengineering Series #10 - Agendas 

Geoengineering series #9 - Legislation Regarding 

Geoengineering Geoengineering Series #8 – Photographic Intermezzo for the 1 -10%

 Geoengineering Series #7 – The Abuse of Struck and Unstruck Sound  

Geoengineering Series #6 – Modern vs. Ancient Weather Weapons  

Geoengineering Series #5 – Trading Geoengineered Weather?  

Geoengineering Series #4 - Poisoning the Garden of Eden  

Geonegineering Series #3 – Using Frequencies  

Geoengineering Series #3a – Using Frequencies (a frequencies table) 

 Geoengineering Series #2 – Weather Modification Jobs  

Geoengineering Series #1 – Global Warming and Climate Change