A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Saturday, May 13, 2017
A Global Fraud
By Ranil Senanayake –May 12, 2017
We are being made victims of a global fraud, one that ignores the
scientific and economic reality of the Carbon cycle. The fossil fuel
industry, be it, coal, oil or gas would have us believe that all Carbon
is equal. The recent arguments of the CEBEU (Ceylon Electricity Board
Engineers Union) suggesting that carbon dioxide emanated by burning coal
can be countered by growing trees is totally wrong ! It demonstrates a
very narrow understanding of the substances that they promote. Carbon
Dioxide that is emanated by Coal or any other fossil fuel cannot be
countered by growing trees !
Carbon comes in many forms, consider a Diamond, a lump of coal, and a
chunk of wood. One is a mineral form of carbon, the other a fossil and
the last a biological or biotic form. They are very different in quality
yet they are all made of Carbon. To understand the story of Carbon, we
need to understand the story of life.
Life on Earth learnt how to maintain gas and material flows, optimum for
the evolution of biodiversity. Carbon Dioxide, although essential to
the process of life, was always being introduced into the atmosphere by
volcanic processes at disruptive levels, throughout geologic history.
But the gas has not concentrated in the atmosphere, because it was
sequestered by living things and put away out of circulation from the
biosphere of living carbon. This store of carbon is what is fossilized
and accumulating over the last few hundred million years. This store is
what the fossil fuel industry is digging up to release that ancient,
locked up Carbon into the modern cycling atmosphere.
The difference is apparent when consider the example of a slice of bread
and a cup of petroleum. One is fossil and is poisonous to ingest the
other is biotic and nutritious to ingest. Both are carbon-based, both
came from living organisms, but one is a hydrocarbon that has been
fossilized for a long time kept away from the living biosphere and the
other is a carbohydrate that is an essential part of the active
biosphere. There is a real, discernable, difference between fossil
carbon and biotic carbon. For instance, biotic (living) carbon is
maintained in a solid (sequestrated) rate counted in thousands of years
while fossil carbon has sequestration rates counted in millions of
years. But we are told that both are equal…… an obvious lie.
What are these two pools of carbon biotic and fossil ?
Biotic carbon is created by the photosynthetic activity of plants which
takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and fixes (sequesters) it in a
solid state as organic matter. While all plants sequester and store
carbon, trees and woody plants are the most efficient as they produce
resistant compounds such as lignin. Consider the fate of two
photosynthetically derived objects of similar biomass – a large pile of
seaweed and a log lying on a beach. Both are plant products, but one
(the tree) is strengthened with lignin. The same biological, chemical
and physical forces will impact both. The seaweed will have disappeared
within a few weeks the log may remain more or less the same for years.
Fossil carbon too arose as a product of photosynthesis plants. But, in
the geological process of the planet, these products were removed from
the biosphere and changed by the action of heat and pressure to become
fossilized with sequestration times that are measured in millions of
years. It is not interactive with the living or biotic cycle. There is a
reasonable conjecture that this was a planetary mechanism for
maintaining a homeostatic atmosphere. Until the advent of industrial
society this fossil pool had very little input to atmospheric carbon.
Allowing this fossil carbon to enter the biotic cycle is the fundamental
reason as to why there is the accelerating greenhouse effect.
A tree plated to ‘absorb’ carbon emitted by burning fossil fuels may
last for a hundred or so years Thus paying for the growing of trees to
compensate for the carbon dioxide generated by the loss of a forest is
fine, but paying the same price for growing trees to compensate for
carbon dioxide generated by fossil carbon is tantamount to ‘carbon
laundering’. There is no way to compare the carbon from oil and coal
with the carbon from a forest. One has a space in the biotic cycle the
other does not. Fossil carbon.
Coal, Oil and LP gas are all sources of fossil Carbon. While the
arguments over the relative price of each type is conducted loudly,
there is little interest in developing the non-fossil, sustainable
sources of energy for this nation. The most basic consideration is that
sources like sunlight are free and therefore provide no way by which the
operators of the national grid can make money. No kickbacks from
whatever lobby is supplying, coal, oil or gas.
Fossil fuels are considered an ‘environmental toxin’ as they tend to
destroy the delicate carbon balance on the planet. They also produce
negative health issues in the areas where they are used. So now we are
ready to trade our land for ‘oil storage’?
Will we never learn ? It is with sorrow that an article written 1979 In the Sunday Observer is reproduced below:
“Oil is a commodity traded on the world market place. The sellers are
few and the customers are many. Anyone even remotely familiar with any
aspect of marketing will know that as an item of high demand becomes
scarce the price increases correspondently. Such is the nature of market
commodities. The old story of supply and demand. So, as oil becomes
scarce the price increase will become correspondingly larger. Its
development measured by increasing dependency in such a commodity?