Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3665 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 8:38 am Post subject: Re: Global Warming News links
Tundra by definition is a treeless region so if trees that burn in forest fires migrate into what is now the 'tundra' biome it will by defenition be boreal forest zone, not tundra!
Couple that with the fact that boreal forests are a carbon sink for 30-140 years between forest fires and I think this article is rather bizarly slanted. For that entire 30-140 years between forest fires a boreal forest is a net carbon sink compared to Tundra! _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2646 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 5:40 pm Post subject: Re: Global Warming News links
Alarming growth in expected CO2 emissions in China
Quote:
The growth in China's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is far outpacing previous estimates, making the goal of stabilizing atmospheric greenhouse gases even more difficult, according to a new analysis by economists at the University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Diego.
Previous estimates, including those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, say the region that includes China will see a 2.5 to 5 percent annual increase in CO2 emissions, the largest contributor to atmospheric greenhouse gases, between 2004 and 2010. The new UC analysis puts that annual growth rate for China to at least 11 percent for the same time period.
physorg _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2646 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 1:20 am Post subject: Re: Global Warming News links
National Research Council Report: Climate Change Will Have a Significant Impact on US Transportation Infrastructure and Operations
Quote:
While every mode of transportation in the US will be affected as the climate changes, potentially the greatest impact on transportation systems will be flooding of roads, railways, transit systems, and airport runways in coastal areas because of rising sea levels and surges brought on by more intense storms, according to a new report from the National Research Council.
Although the impacts of climate change will vary by region, it is certain they will be widespread and costly in human and economic terms, and will require significant changes in the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of transportation systems, according to the report, The Potential Impacts of Climate Change on US Transportation.
The committee identified five climate changes of particular importance to US transportation:
greencarcongress _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2646 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 12:59 am Post subject: Re: Global Warming News links
Report: Climate Change a Potential “Threat Multiplier” for European Security and Foreign Policy
Quote:
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana Madariaga has released a report that assesses future effects of climate change on the European Union’s relations with other countries. According to the report’s findings, the EU could face increased competition over dwindling resources, influx waves of environmental refugees, and energy wars.
The report, which is entitled Climate change and International Security, is now online, and is scheduled to be presented to European leaders during the Spring European Council, which opens on Thursday.
greencarcongress _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2646 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 3:17 pm Post subject: Re: Global Warming News links
EU agrees climate plan deadline
Quote:
EU leaders have agreed to finish talks by the end of the year on an ambitious plan to fight climate change.
After a two-day summit in Brussels, leaders for the 27 nations said they hoped new legislation would be enacted in early 2009.
The bloc aims to implement a 20% cut in greenhouse gases by 2020, compared with 1990 levels.
BBC _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2646 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 2:49 am Post subject: Re: Global Warming News links
Green Buildings May Be Cheapest Way to Slow Global Warming
Quote:
North American homes, offices and other buildings contribute an estimated 2.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year—more than one third of the continent's greenhouse gas pollution output. Simply constructing more energy-efficient buildings—and upgrading the insulation and windows in the existing ones—could save a whopping 1.7 billion tons annually, says a new report from the Montreal-based Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), an international organization established by Canada, Mexico and the U.S. under the North American Free Trade Agreement to address continent-wide environmental issues.
"This is the cheapest, quickest, most significant way to make a dent in greenhouse gas emissions," says Jonathan Westeinde, chief executive of green developer Windmill Development Group in Ottawa, Ontario, and chair of the CEC report (who admits that green building regulations would be good for his business). But "buildings are not on the radar of any governments … despite being an industry that represents 35 percent of greenhouse gas emissions."
Amidst increasingly dire news about the economy and climate change, Architecture 2030 released good news that could help turn the US economic crisis around while dealing a much-needed blow to climate change. At the Good Jobs Green Jobs Conference in Pittsburgh, PA, Edward Mazria, founder of Architecture 2030, illustrated how a small investment of only $21.6 billion in the Building Sector would produce 216,000 permanent jobs and save 86.7 Million Metric Tons (MMT) of CO2 in a single year. This same amount invested each year for five years would net over one million permanent jobs and save 433.5 MMT. “Although difficult, the economic and global warming crises are the motivation we need as a nation to retool our thinking. If we’re smart enough to jump on this opportunity, we will not only solve global warming, we will set the US up for unprecedented economic success,” Mazria said.
ewire _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2646 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 8:33 pm Post subject: Re: Global Warming News links
Black carbon pollution emerges as major player in global warming
Quote:
Black carbon, a form of particulate air pollution most often produced from biomass burning, cooking with solid fuels and diesel exhaust, has a warming effect in the atmosphere three to four times greater than prevailing estimates, according to scientists in an upcoming review article in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego atmospheric scientist V. Ramanathan and University of Iowa chemical engineer Greg Carmichael, said that soot and other forms of black carbon could have as much as 60 percent of the current global warming effect of carbon dioxide, more than that of any greenhouse gas besides CO2. The researchers also noted, however, that mitigation would have immediate societal benefits in addition to the long term effect of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
physorg _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2646 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 11:46 pm Post subject: Re: Global Warming News links
Climate change 'is accelerating'
Quote:
The growth of developing economies in Africa, Asia and South America has accelerated global warming far beyond official predictions and it is developed nations that must act to halt the potentially catastrophic consequences, according to a new study from the world's leading temporary power supplier, Aggreko.
'There are about 8,000 power stations in the world and the vast majority are highly polluting coal-fired things,' he said. 'If the world is serious about making an impact against global warming, then just turn the worst 150 polluters around the world into clean nuclear stations and the effect would be the same as if you immediately took every single car in the world off the road. It'd be that dramatic.'
guardian _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Jul 21, 2004 Posts: 1288 Location: Suburban tar sands
Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 11:48 pm Post subject: Giant Wilkins Antarctic Ice Shelf collapses
March 25, 2008—New satellite images reveal what scientists call the "runaway" collapse of an enormous ice shelf in Antarctica as the result of global warming.
The chunk of coastal ice was some 160 square miles (415 square kilometers) in area—about seven times the size of Manhattan.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2646 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 11:12 pm Post subject: Re: Global Warming News links
Is the World Making Progress on Fighting Global Warming?
Quote:
The international climate negotiations that took place in Bali, Indonesia, in December brought us to a new and more difficult level in the climate game that we'll be playing for the rest of our lives. We knew going into Bali that if the old routine continued we'd be in trouble. The skeptics had been discredited; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had delivered clear and unequivocal warnings; Al Gore and the IPCC had won the Nobel Prize.
So it's with great relief that I can say that although Bali wasn't the breakthrough that we need, the game has indeed changed. The critical next two years of negotiations have begun in earnest.The most important change was the new stance taken by the countries of the global South, the Group of 77, or G77.
That's why it's so important that China, South Africa, and Brazil stepped forward from self-defeating unity to signal a new willingness to make binding commitments to limit emissions.
This was a real breakthrough, not least because the attached condition -- measurable, reportable, and verifiable assistance from the industrialized to the developing countries -- was widely understood as being both just and inevitable.
And that takes us to the second major development at Bali. The once radical idea that rich countries have responsibilities to the poor has now emerged as a near-consensus position.
Just as rich-world politics are finally acknowledging the need for sharp domestic emissions reductions, the international community is moving ahead to an even more difficult truth. The rich cannot simply act within their own borders. They are also responsible for financing parallel reductions and the large-scale efforts to adapt to now inevitable climate change impacts in the developing world. What does this mean in practice?
Technology transfer, for one thing, and this time it has to mean the best of the new technologies, not the worst of the old.
alternet _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2646 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008 4:21 am Post subject: Re: Global Warming News links
Earth Hour turns spotlight on emissions
Quote:
Earth Hour may see people switch off their lights for just one hour on Saturday night, but organisers believe the environmental message will be everlasting.
The event, in which some of the world's major cities will be temporarily plunged into darkness, is hoped to spotlight the global need to reduce carbon emissions.
Organisers say the initiative, which started in Sydney last year, will be observed in 35 nations and across 370 cities, towns and councils worldwide.
It will see lights switched off in major buildings and public places for an hour from 8pm on March 29, while householders are urged to break out low-carbon emitting candles.
Cities outside the Australian capitals expected to take part this year include Christchurch, Bangkok, Seoul, Dubai, Antarctica's Casey Base, Manila, Copenhagen, Rome, Dublin, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco and Mexico City.
smh _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2646 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008 10:55 pm Post subject: Re: Global Warming News links
Climate change now a UN human rights issue
Quote:
Climate change is now officially a human rights issue, as the UN Human Rights Council on Friday passed a resolution on the subject, recognising that the world's poor are particularly vulnerable.
The council also gave the green light for a study into the impact of climate change on human rights, describing climate change as a "global problem .. that requires a global solution".
The resolution, submitted by the Maldives and passed without a vote, also noted that the poor tend to have limited resources to cope with the impact of global warming.
The country's Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid told AFP that climate change "violates all human rights" -- from the basic to the fundamental.
Greenpeace political adviser Daniel Mittler welcomed the resolution, saying that it "points to the right direction".
"We have always maintained that climate change is way more than an environment issue, it is a security issue, an economic issue - in fact it is the most important economic issue of our time, and indeed a human rights issue.
AFP _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
With the specter of global warming seared into our national consciousness, reducing carbon dioxide emissions has become a priority. Now, researchers have invented a phone-booth-size device that can take back those emissions we can’t prevent—the ones that have already reached the atmosphere.
The Atmospheric Carbon CapturE SystemS (ACCESS) Air-Capture System, developed by Global Research Technologies in Tucson, Ariz., holds sheets of material capable of capturing CO2 molecules directly from open air. (The chemical makeup of the fabriclike sorbent is being kept under wraps.) While that may sound tricky enough, "the hard part," says Klaus Lackner, a geophysicist at Columbia University, "is prying the carbon dioxide loose once you absorb it." Lackner worked with Global Research to create the technology.
To remove the molecules, the sheets are sprayed with a chemical solution that bonds to the carbon dioxide. The solution is then drained off to a separation unit, where the CO2 is isolated as pure gas through electrodialysis. A design goal was to avoid using toxic or corrosive chemicals that would require special handling, so ordinary PVC pipe is used to transfer the solution back to a collection unit so that it can be recycled.
The current prototype captures less than 100 kilograms of CO2 per day, but Lackner predicts future models will capture 1 ton per day—several hundred times the amount saved by an equal-size windmill. New versions of ACCESS could capture carbon at a rate of about 3 kg per second, the same amount an average tree absorbs in a year. Still, millions of these devices would be needed to significantly cut global emissions. The Department of Energy estimates that the United States alone released 7075.6 million tons of CO2 in 2006.
The price of capturing the CO2 is also high, predicted to cost several hundred dollars per ton once commercially developed. "In the long term, the price will come down to $30 per ton," Lackner says, "but this will not happen overnight."
The usefulness of carbon-capture technology hinges on the development of practical methods for storing carbon, which the industry does not predict to be commercially viable before 2020 or later. Lackner says the ACCESS system could be paired with any form of carbon sequestration being developed, including underground or underwater storage. His preferred method is to pack carbon away Han Solo-style with mineral carbonation, a process that turns CO2 into a solid by mixing it with other compounds.
popularmechanics _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
"A polar bear wandering around the outskirts of a village 250 miles from the coast was killed over safety concerns.
The village of Fort Yukon is in Interior Alaska. The polar bear, which is a coastal bear, was spotted eating lynx carcasses Thursday morning. Zeb Cadzow killed it later in the day."
_________________ "When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." --Sinclair Lewis
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