Johannesburg Facing Pollution Nightmare

[Wikkelspies]

Speaking at a briefing for the South African Parliament's Water Affairs Committee, Mariette Liefferink, from the Federation for a Sustainable Environment, said rising mine water under the Witwatersrand posed an "enormous threat" to the city of Johannesburg, a threat which would become only worse if remedial actions were further delayed.

"This environmental problem is second [in South Africa] only to global warming in terms of its impact, and poses a serious risk to the Witwatersrand as a whole. At the rate it is rising, the basin [under Johannesburg] will be fully flooded in about 18 months".

"[It] can have catastrophic consequences for the Johannesburg central business district if not stopped in time. "

http://openforum.mweb.co.za/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=1802461354
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-07-21-johannesburg-on-acidic-water-time-bomb

 

[Bosvark@]

gosh - glad I am in Durban...

 

[Fudzy]

gosh - glad I am in Durban...

Yeah until we have millions of Vaalie refugees coming down the N2, think its time we setup borders

 

[McSack]

Yeah until we have millions of Vaalie refugees coming down the N2, think its time we setup borders

we won't be able to ... global warming will have more of an impact (in South Africa) ... with ice caps melting, durbs will be under the sea

This environmental problem is second [in South Africa] only to global warming in terms of its impact

 

[Fudzy]

we won't be able to ... global warming will have more of an impact (in South Africa) ... with ice caps melting, durbs will be under the sea

That might be the case but just keep clear of my beachfront cottage in the Northern 'berg okay?

 

[SirFooK'nG]

we won't be able to ... global warming will have more of an impact (in South Africa) ... with ice caps melting, durbs will be under the sea

lol... I'm in Pinetown, the new beachfront !!! waiting for my sea view!

 

[Alan]

So how exactly is global warming's effects going to be worse than this in 18months time?

 

[RoCkFoRdGuN]

They have been warned AGES ago about this like always Gauteng will only work on the issue whens its close to the explosion it was the same with Eskom and the electricity

 

[LazyLion]

be patient guys... the ANC is just trying to find a way to enrich themselves out of this whole business and then the draining can start.

 

[Nod]

be patient guys... the ANC is just trying to find a way to enrich themselves out of this whole business and then the draining can start.

Draining to where, I wonder?
From what I understand, they will have to treat the water, not just drain it.

 

[Ancalagon]

They are going to drain the mine water and give it to the underprivileged masses who should already have water by now.

Pollution problem solved, water problem solved, lets hope the birth defects are minimal.

 

[LazyLion]

Draining to where, I wonder?
From what I understand, they will have to treat the water, not just drain it.

um, that will cost too much money. Oh, they will charge us for it ... as if they are treating it. But that extra money will be "diverted" for revolutionary purposes. The untreated water will end up in one of our spruits and there will be hundreds of Media articles about the poisoning effects and damage to the environment... that is... if the Media isn't gagged by then.

 

[UnUnOctium]

Eventually, this whole province will sink in incompetence and mismanagement unless someone who does their job takes over (which they won't, ANC won't pass up an opportunity to put the greediest of the greediest in the province with the largest cash flow). Will be a lot of emmigration from there to (mainly) WC as is happening now.

 

[Wikkelspies]

we won't be able to ... global warming will have more of an impact (in South Africa) ... with ice caps melting, durbs will be under the sea

In the past, climate change has never been driven by CO2. Why should it be now driven by CO2 when the atmospheric CO2 content is low? The main greenhouse gas has always been water vapour. Once there is natural global warming, then CO2 in the atmosphere increases. CO2 is plant food, it is not a pollutant and it is misleading non-scientific spin to talk of carbon pollution. If we had carbon pollution, the skies would be black with fine particles of carbon. We couldn't see or breathe. Climate Change Minister Penny Wong appeals to science yet demonstrates she does not have a primary school understanding of science.

The atmosphere contains 800 billion tonnes of carbon in CO2. Soils and plants contain 2000 billion tonnes, the oceans 39,000 billion tonnes and rocks in the top few kilometres of the crust contain 65,000,000 billion tonnes of carbon in carbon compounds. The atmosphere only contains 0.001 per cent of the total carbon in the top few kilometres of the Earth.

If all the fossil fuel on Earth were burned, the atmospheric CO2 would double. The Earth has been there before and high atmospheric CO2 has accelerated plant growth and increased biodiversity. It is the sun, water vapour, rocks and oceans that have stopped a runaway greenhouse or a permanent snowball Earth.

I would like to see some fundamental questions answered by the climate catastrophists. If CO2 drives temperature, why were there past ice ages when the atmospheric CO2 content was many times greater than at present? Why has the role of clouds been ignored, especially as a 1per cent change in the amount of cloudiness could account for all the changes measured in the past 150 years? If natural forces drove warmings in Roman and medieval times, how do we know that the same natural forces did not drive the late 20th-century warming? Why didn't Earth have acid oceans and a runaway greenhouse when the atmospheric CO2 was hundreds of times higher than now? Is the present increase in atmospheric CO2 due to the medieval warming?

It is human arrogance to think that we can control climate, a process that transfers huge amounts of energy. Once we control the smaller amount of energy transferred by volcanoes and earthquakes, then we can try to control climate.

Until then, climate politics is just a load of ideological hot air.

To argue that human additions to atmospheric CO2, a trace gas in the atmosphere, changes climate requires an abandonment of all we know about history, archaeology, geology, solar physics, chemistry and astronomy. We ignore history at our peril.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/hot-air-doomsayers/story-e6frg6zo-1225708547192

 

[dlk001]

Draining to where, I wonder?
From what I understand, they will have to treat the water, not just drain it.

Indeed. They need to pump the water, treat it and pump back the effluent into the river streams. Anglo (in Witbank) already has a plant to treat contaminated water from their waste dumps.

Unfortunately acid mine drainage is a highly debated and political issue. As an example, the mines will do everything to avoid paying for the negative environmental consequences of mining especially post mine closure rehabilitation. However, government has tightened mineral legislation to make sure mines are more accountable than before.

In the mean time, government will have to find ways to pump water from abandoned mine workings. Government will also need to develop technology to treat the water. The Tax payer will have to pay for this.

 

[LazyLion]

Unfortunately acid mine drainage is a highly debated and political issue. As an example, the mines will do everything to avoid paying for the negative environmental consequences of mining especially post mine closure rehabilitation. However, government has tightened mineral legislation to make sure mines are more accountable than before.

Kinda hard to make them pay when most of those mining companies don't even exist anymore.

 

[BCO]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/hot-air-doomsayers/story-e6frg6zo-1225708547192

LOL, Ian Plimer. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ian_Plimer

 

[dlk001]

They have been warned AGES ago about this like always Gauteng will only work on the issue whens its close to the explosion it was the same with Eskom and the electricity

As early as 1950's, it was evident that as mines closed in the central witwatersrand area, the burden of pumping would fall on the remaining mines.

 

[Wikkelspies]

I know what you are saying, but ...

LOL, Ian Plimer. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ian_Plimer

Professor Plimer, a geologist by training and an historian by inclination, has copped it every which way ... perhaps deservedly.

It should be understood that he is not denying climate change. He accepts the reality of climate change, and provides historical evidence that - in the past - the planet has undergone changes more extreme and severe than anything 'civilized' humans are capable of contemplating, let alone surviving.

Plimer points out that, in spite of the massive amounts of data available from every branch of science, we do not understand past climate changes. There is, inter alia, no correlation either with human activity or with the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere at the time.

The foundation of Plimer's argument is that, if we cannot understand or explain past climate changes, what hope do we have of predicting future climate variations using very limited and highly selective data sets based on samples taken during what is - given the age of the Earth - a very, very short period of our most recent history.

Plimer's book is an historical narrative written by a geologist. He is not an historian, an archaeologist or a paelaentologist by training. The evidence he presents is drawn from all fields of inquiry encompassing every aspect of past changes to the Earth's climate. It is a work of history, not of science. He is not proposing any theories or models. He is simply asking questions of the current generation of climate scientists. If they cannot explain our past, how can they hope to predict the future?

As I see it, Plimer is not denying the reality of climate change. He is not arguing against the need to radically reduce the quantity of pollutants which human activity is spewing into the biosphere. He is not pretending that human beings have not caused irreversible damage to the environment and brought about the extinction of numerous species of flora and fauna.

All that Plimer is really saying is that, given the cosmic scale on which factors responsible for extreme climate changes operated at various times during the past, to imagine that human activity is either causative of, or capable of controlling, current changes is sheer fantasy. Accepting that does not absolve us of the responsibility to protect and preserve our biosphere and all its life forms in every way possible.

In all of this we should not overlook the fact that fossil fuels are a major problem. Our use of them, and our use of the machines fuelled by them, is a massive cause of environmental degradation and a threat not only to human health but to all living creatures.

CO2 is the least of our worries when we look at our use of chemicals generally, and the high levels of human produced chemical pollutants in the air we breathe, the ground we walk on and the water we drink ... not to mention the bodies we live in.

Climate change, regardless of its causes, may yet prove to be the means by which the planet cleanses itself. :erm:

 

[BCO]

Professor Plimer, a geologist by training and an historian by inclination, has copped it every which way ... perhaps deservedly.

It should be understood that he is not denying climate change. He accepts the reality of climate change, and provides historical evidence that - in the past - the planet has undergone changes more extreme and severe than anything 'civilized' humans are capable of contemplating, let alone surviving.

Plimer points out that, in spite of the massive amounts of data available from every branch of science, we do not understand past climate changes. There is, inter alia, no correlation either with human activity or with the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere at the time.

The foundation of Plimer's argument is that, if we cannot understand or explain past climate changes, what hope do we have of predicting future climate variations using very limited and highly selective data sets based on samples taken during what is - given the age of the Earth - a very, very short period of our most recent history.

Plimer's book is an historical narrative written by a geologist. He is not an historian, an archaeologist or a paelaentologist by training. The evidence he presents is drawn from all fields of inquiry encompassing every aspect of past changes to the Earth's climate. It is a work of history, not of science. He is not proposing any theories or models. He is simply asking questions of the current generation of climate scientists. If they cannot explain our past, how can they hope to predict the future?

As I see it, Plimer is not denying the reality of climate change. He is not arguing against the need to radically reduce the quantity of pollutants which human activity is spewing into the biosphere. He is not pretending that human beings have not caused irreversible damage to the environment and brought about the extinction of numerous species of flora and fauna.

All that Plimer is really saying is that, given the cosmic scale on which factors responsible for extreme climate changes operated at various times during the past, to imagine that human activity is either causative of, or capable of controlling, current changes is sheer fantasy. Accepting that does not absolve us of the responsibility to protect and preserve our biosphere and all its life forms in every way possible.

In all of this we should not overlook the fact that fossil fuels are a major problem. Our use of them, and our use of the machines fuelled by them, is a massive cause of environmental degradation and a threat not only to human health but to all living creatures.

CO2 is the least of our worries when we look at our use of chemicals generally, and the high levels of human produced chemical pollutants in the air we breathe, the ground we walk on and the water we drink ... not to mention the bodies we live in.

Climate change, regardless of its causes, may yet prove to be the means by which the planet cleanses itself. :erm:

Straw man in bold.

We have a good understanding of what caused past climate change:

http://www.ipcc.unibe.ch/publications/wg1-ar4/faq/wg1_faq-6.1.html

http://www.ipcc.unibe.ch/publications/wg1-ar4/faq/wg1_faq-6.2.html