Community Activism and the Capital Region Energy Forum (Part 4)

Isn't Jatropha ntaive to the new world, and has just been transplanted all over the world in places like India and Africa?

Hi RCE,

Your correction reminds me of the old adage, "always take the wonderful, free bounty of information you see on the Internet with a grain of salt":

I re-checked my sources, and according to what I see at this moment in Wikipedia's updated entry and on the BBC News web site, Jatropha is native to Central America and was spread to other parts of the world (including India) in the 1500's by Portuguese settlers.

Many thanks for your correction.

-april05

Resources:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6278140.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jatropha#cite_note-Fairless-0

Yeah, I didn't remember where in the americas it was from exactly, but it just goes to show how the prevalence of one species in an area where it is more notable and observed for a long enough period of time tends to lead people into the misconception that it is a native species, and they then start communicating this to others. To a vast degree much of the information on the internet is more like a rumor being spread rapidly then factual, and it seems like news agencies just report anything from the internet they come accross, further amplifying the persistence of misinformation amongst people. (No wonder so many people seem to have serious problems on that show "are you smarter than a 5th grader".) In the past such was isolated by limited communication, but now one guys can spread his beliefs, true or false, to billions in seconds. It is common for people native to one area to think that some species they have grown up and are familiar with is native. Just look at all the Eucalyptus trees they planted in California after 1900, many people fight to preserve those groves even though it is actually a invasive non-native species, and have used arguments about preserving our natural habitat in attempts to protet these groves (it is a good way to stall a project even without scientific foundation, since public perception is more important usually anyways to the CEQA/NEPA processes). Or the one i like is when people try to inform me that tomatoes, potatoes, or corn are a native staple food of some place in africa, asia, or europe, e.g. Tomatoes association with italian food, even though they weren't imported and used for cooking until sometime after 1540. I have met many people who swear potatoes come from Europe, and use the irish potato famine as an example of its prevalence in ireland the 1840s, therefore it must have always been there. I guess in the end though what this indicates is that it may not really matter what we transplant any longer, as we have been transplanting so many species for so long we have troubles amongst the general population recognizing what is natural habitat and what was anthropogenic. It is more about perception of natural versus anthropogenic. And, with our current technology all that wealth of information in peoples misconceptions, as you noted, is now available on line, along with a few true facts.

Some of my favorite plants are deemed invasive by the state of Illinois. Purple Loosestrife, canebrake, Shasta daisies, and many others.

I like the old saying " If you like it, it is a flower, if you don't like it it is a weed".

My vision for the world includes human designed productive farms and gardens that are beautiful and productive. Maximizing biomass and transforming deserts into productive land through desalination, massive irrigation projects, introduction of deep rooted plants that need less water etc. This does not mean to invade all areas, especially national parks an monuments etc.

Hi ronwagn - While I realize invasive species of plants and animals (e.g. the Northern Snakehead fish) are wreaking havoc here in NY's Hudson River Valley, I've got some sympathy for them, as I'm personally an invasive (non-indigenous) species to my geographic area, since my ancestors came from Europe within the past couple hundred years (meaningless on the evolutionary timescale) and I don't have a drop of Native American (at least as far as I know) blood in me. So my view on the Shasta daisies is much like yours. :) -april05

Well such would be true of all humans in the new world, as no human being is native to the American continents. Some non-indigenous species are not invasive, as they do not dominate the habitat and thrive better than native species might. Also, some invasive species are not a problem as they serve to fulfill a niche in the environment where we may have destroyed the existings species for other reasons, dangerous plants, etc.. However, many unintentional invasive species are very destructive to the environment, and eventually the productivity, health and welfare of man, such as fire ants, zebra mussels, africanized bees, kudzu, yellow star thistle, etc..

Regarding large scale water conveyance and irrigation projects, the water must come from somewhere. Here in california, we have the CVP. As it turns out, once you start making deliveries, farmers just want more government subsidized water, and demand increases more as water becomes available in previously nonviable regions. However, the water taken must come from some environment that has developed based on the water availability, such as the salmon fisheries. Now the salmon disappear from some spawning grounds because the water was diverted, and the farmers grow more cotton than we need and the government has to subsidize them not to grow in order to keep the market prices up. Thus you end up with the governemnt subsizing the delivery of very expensive water to newly created farm lands that the government must then subsidize the grower not to grow crops on, and the only guy benefitting is the land owner who is getting paid by the government not to grow and sells his water apportionment to Municipal Water District.

Desalination, now that has potential, but currently we do not deal with the issues relating to desalination properly. The two main issues that seem to get overlooked by the proponents are safe long-term brine disposal, and the huge energy demands of desal projects. The brine from desal projects is so concentrated that is will kill local aquatic species, including plants, if improperly disposed of. Also improper land disposal leads to future contaminantion of local aquifers. In addition, desalination requires huge amounts of energy, currently the best source of energy for desalination on large scale appears to be nuclear (though israel is developing a project that supplements some of its energy needs through wind also). You could end up with a relatively low carbon footprint for Desalination by building with a nuclear power plant and supplementing with wind or solar power sources.

I share your concern about the salmon and related wildlife concerns. I think that we can beat those problems though, with added efforts.

1. Put the desalination plant far enough out in the ocean. Let the tides carry the brine to the seven seas.

2. Use wind and ocean currents to make the electricity, run the equipment and pump the water to where it is needed. The topography of California is very amenable to this. Most of it was under ancient seas. I spent most of my life in various parts of it. You could run your pipes right into Stockton, and distribute the water from the existing canal systems into extended areas.

Let the farmers and cities pay the true cost of the water, and more for further development.

However, something else to consider with desalinated water is that if we charged our farmers the true cost for the water, we would be impairing their ability to be competitive on the world markets. Some european countries subsidize the hell out of water for agriculture, Spain provides desalinated water at about a 90% subsized cost for agriculture. Also the dominant drive for desalination now in the US is to desalinate saline inland aquifer sources in places such as Texas. You definitely would not want to desalinate surface water near Stockton, CA as the SF Bay/Delta has enough problems. Additionally, I often wonder why desalination plants do not make any effort to bring in a salt processor company to utilize the Brine and recover the salt. I realize they are concerned about the brine being contaminated with the cleaning agents they use to keep the membranes clear, but maybe they could use more environmentally friendly cleaning agents, something like concentrated acetic acid, citric acid, or something else. Why do we devote huge sections of land to recovering salt from the Sea, and then dispose of the recovered Brine from desalination back into the Sea. If we are spending the energy to remove salt from water, why not use both of the end products rathert than treat one as a useless waste product.