Friends of Sebago Lake is proud to announce the publication of the book, “Blue Deserts” by Steve Kasprzak, FOSL’s founder.

Headline news is telling us:

The Arctic is the fastest warming place on the planet, Siberia is burning, the Arctic icepack will disappear soon, Greenland’s glaciers are rapidly melting, sea levels are rising higher than predicted, the permafrost is thawing at a unprecedented rate, weather events are intensifying, ocean fish species are disappearing. 

The book, “Blue Deserts” expands the discussion of climate change by providing answers to a main contributing cause of these headlines. If you want to understand and participate in this new discussion read “Blue Deserts.” This book explains how mega hydro dams with drastic flow regulation, alter the salt and freshwater balance of coastal waters, stagnate ocean currents, and heat the Arctic with full global warming implications.  These large dams and their summer solar energy trapping reservoirs generate year-round heat pollution that is melting the Arctic at an unprecedented rate. The flow regulation and impeding of nutrients by dams have converted ocean “rain forests” into blue deserts. The devastation of our Gulf of Maine fisheries is just one of many consequential examples.  We have been warned about the impacts of these dams by scientists.  The author recognizes the pioneering leadership of the late Hans Neu, a Canadian oceanographer, and Russian fisheries expert Michael Rozengurt who had the conviction and courage to warn us about the impacts of these dams. [ Read about Neu and Rozengurt and their efforts to warn us at [ https://friendsofsebago.org/2019/03/30/research-collection/ ]     

A couple of chilling quotes are: Ottawa Journal 1966  “Mr. Neu has carried out water studies in the Lower St. Lawrence Valley and said findings show that water dams and power utilities holding back large quantities of water have actually changed climatic conditions since the turn of the century.”

In 1978 in the Canadian Bedford Institute of Oceanography Journal, Neu wrote ,” The energy crisis is accelerating the demand for more storage schemes. In view of the strong indication that freshwater regulation is one of the most significant changes man can impose on nature, the wisdom of increasing artificial storage is highly questionable.” 

Michael Rozengurt wrote in 2003 in regard to dam impacts including stopping and storing the spring runoff, “All other perceived ills: pollution, overfishing: and, yes, even global warming are secondary in importance to fundamental change brought by dewatering our global rivers.” 

“Blue Deserts” is a motivator to bring the full brunt of scientific efforts toward the cause and effect relationships of the massive damming and flow regulation of northern rivers.  

The collapse of the Cod fishery, the threatened extinction of the Right Whale, the demise of polar bears and the continued diminishment of diatom populations which are the key foundation of the marine food chain are all related to these dams.

“Blue Deserts” is a warning to everyone to be ready for accelerating changes in CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere and oceans, the flooding of low lying coastal regions due to rising  sea levels, and the continued demise of valuable land and marine ecosystems. None of the Arctic ice melting prediction models appear to include significant heat pollution generated in multiple ways by large dams. The recent temperature records of near one hundred degree days we are seeing in Siberian regions under the climatic influence of multiple heat polluting mega dams spell doom for the Arctic Ocean icepack. The consequential Arctic Heat Amplification from the loss of this ice can only increase the melting of Greenland’s glaciers. Thus, sea level rise may now occur much faster than governments tell us.

“Blue Deserts” clearly shows how this mega dam hydropower energy is not “clean.” In fact it may be ultimately the most killing and planet wrecking energy ever created.  

“Blue Deserts” can be purchased from the following 2 non profit organization in the US:

1. Friends of Merrymeeting Bay

Order page info:  

http://www.friendsofmerrymeetingbay.org/pages/get_involved/fund%20raising/blue%20deserts.htm