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Hernando Today

Returning To An Age Of Responsibility

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By CHUCK MORTON Guest columnist

The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 2, 2009

To divert the water's of the Weeki Wachee or any other river for human consumption has been proposed, but it would upset the ecology irrevocably as many species of saltwater fish require freshwater to spawn in.

We are already experiencing over-fishing and part of the reason is the spawn rates are dramatically reduced.

We've messed up the salmon out west by damming the rivers to the point we are farm raising them now.

In short, it is not advisable. It would be necessary to build dams that would prevent manatees and fish from coming into the fresh water.

We can solve a lot of the water problem by utilizing a three-pipe system and plantings that do not require as much water. Fifty-one percent of our potable water in Hernando County is used for irrigation.
White pipe - potable water.
Black Pipe - sewage.

Purple pipe - treated wastewater to be used for irrigation.

Also, if you want to create a desert, cut down the trees so the sun can beat on the ground and dry it up. This also breaks up a surface biosphere and allows the evaporation to go higher, quicker and result in reduced rainfall. Remember when it used to rain every day in the afternoon in the tropics like Florida? We've cut the trees and the water vapor goes higher, and we don't get those afternoon showers anymore. The more we pave over, the greater the heat absorption of the land, which increases the uplift of the water vapor from the uncovered soil.

Another problem is air-conditioning. Do you realize to cool a given volume of air by so many degrees it is necessary to heat up an equivalent volume the same number of degrees? Add to that the heat generated to produce the electricity, the waste heat of the motors within the AC system and you will see that we are altering our environment in order to stay cool.

Also, consider the increased carbon dioxide produced to generate the electricity if it is from coal, oil or gas. Now guess what neutralized the carbon dioxide - yep it's trees, but we cut them down and the trees could have shaded your home to keep it cool.

Of course, the oceans also absorb a lot of the carbon dioxide and it is used by aquatic plants, which in turn are eaten by sea animals, which in turn are eaten by fish that you would reduce the spawning rate of by using their freshwater. The repercussions of our actions go way beyond what is readily apparent.

Do you remember when your mom hung clothes on the line to dry? Now we use an electric dryer that creates heat in order to dry the clothes and uses electricity and in some cases gas. Those clothes on the line dried by evaporation without wasting the resources of electric or gas.

What I am saying is we must take individual responsibility for our actions and what it does to the world. God gave us brains, let's use them.

I read a book in 1960 named the "Population Dilemma," and it indicated the sustainable carrying capacity of the earth is around 4.8 billion people. We are well past that, more than 6 billion people worldwide, so we are continually degrading our ecology at this point. It called for taking individual responsibility and limiting your offspring to one per person - that's two per family - but recognize way back then divorce was not as prevalent and living together was virtually unheard of. To be brutally frank, we forced ourselves into this dilemma and without serious family planning we will only get out with a huge disaster, be it famine, disease, war or natural disaster.

Maybe the Mayans were right: The world will enter into a new phase in 2012. Hopefully it will be an age of responsibility!

Chuck Morton is president of Hernando Environmental Land Protectors.

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