tagged w/ Greenhouse Gases
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Air quality regulators in the Bay Area have become the first in the nation to impose a tax on greenhouse gases emitted by local businesses.
The board of the Bay Area Quality Management District (BAAQMD) voted overwhelmingly (15 to 1) for the measure. The fees will be imposed on around 2,500 local businesses once the new rules come into effect on July 1.
The BAAQMD's jurisdiction covers nine districts that surround the San Francisco Bay, including Napa, Sonoma, San Mateo, and Marin County. The organization is charged with attaining and maintaining air quality standards "to protect the public's health and the environment."
The region’s seven biggest polluters are expected to have to pay more than $50,000 each in the first year of the scheme, however fees for the majority of businesses are expected to be less than $1 per year. With polluters being charged a nominal fee of 4.4 cents per ton of CO2, the measure is more symbolic than punitive.
Though the penalties are low, many local business leaders are concerned that reporting mechanism will add additional, unforeseen costs, since, like our tax system, the program will be honor-based, with businesses being expected to measure their own emissions.
The measure is expected to raise $1.1 million in the first year, which will be used to fund air quality programs. Meanwhile, officials hope the scheme will set a precedent and serve as a model for others across the nation.Air quality regulators in the Bay Area have become the first in the nation to impose a... more
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The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached a record high, according to new figures that renew fears that climate change could begin to slide out of control.
Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in the atmosphere now stand at 387 parts per million (ppm), up almost 40% since the industrial revolution and the highest for at least the last 650,000 years.
The figures, published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on its website, also confirm that carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than expected. The annual mean growth rate for 2007 was 2.14ppm – the fourth year in the past six to see an annual rise greater than 2ppm. From 1970 to 2000, the concentration rose by about 1.5ppm each year, but since 2000 the annual rise has leapt to an average 2.1ppm.
Scientists say the shift could indicate that the Earth is losing its natural ability to soak up billions of tons of carbon each year. Climate models assume that about half our future emissions will be re-absorbed by forests and oceans, but the new figures confirm this may be too optimistic. If more of our carbon pollution stays in the atmosphere, it means emissions will have to be cut by more than currently projected to prevent dangerous levels of global warming.
Martin Parry, co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's working group on impacts, said: "Despite all the talk, the situation is getting worse. Levels of greenhouse gases continue to rise in the atmosphere and the rate of that rise is accelerating. We are already seeing the impacts of climate change and the scale of those impacts will also accelerate, until we decide to do something about it."
· Martin Parry will be speaking at the Guardian Planning for Climate Adaptation conference on May 19
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached a record high,... more
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Before humans began burning fossil fuels, there was an eons-long balance between carbon dioxide emissions and Earth's ability to absorb them, but now the planet can't keep up, scientists said on Sunday.
The finding, reported in the journal Nature Geoscience, relies on ancient Antarctic ice bubbles that contain air samples going back 610,000 years.
Climate scientists for the last 25 years or so have suggested that some kind of natural mechanism regulates our planet's temperature and the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Those sceptical about human influence on global warming point to this as the cause for recent climate change.
This research is likely the first observable evidence for this natural mechanism.
This mechanism, known as "feedback," has been thrown out of whack by a steep rise in carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of coal and petroleum for the last 200 years or so, said Richard Zeebe, a co-author of the report.
"These feedbacks operate so slowly that they will not help us in terms of climate change ... that we're going to see in the next several hundred years," Zeebe said by telephone from the University of Hawaii. "Right now we have put the system entirely out of equilibrium."
In the ancient past, excess carbon dioxide came mostly from volcanoes, which spewed very little of the chemical compared to what humans activities do now, but it still had to be addressed.
This antique excess carbon dioxide -- a powerful greenhouse gas -- was removed from the atmosphere through the weathering of mountains, which take in the chemical. In the end, it was washed downhill into oceans and buried in deep sea sediments, Zeebe said.
14,000 TIMES FASTER THAN NATURE
Zeebe analysed carbon dioxide that had been captured in Antarctic ice, and by figuring out how much carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere at various points in time, he and his co-author determined that it waxed and waned along with the world's temperature.
"When the carbon dioxide was low, the temperature was low, and we had an ice age," he said. And while Earth's temperature fell during ice ages and rose during so-called interglacial periods between them, the planet's mean temperature has been going slowly down for about 600,000 years.
The average change in the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide over the last 600,000 years has been just 22 parts per million by volume, Zeebe said, which means that 22 molecules of carbon dioxide were added to, or removed from, every million molecules of air.
Since the Industrial Revolution began in the 18th century, ushering in the widespread human use of fossil fuels, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 100 parts per million.
That means human activities are putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere about 14,000 times as fast as natural processes do, Zeebe said.
And it appears to be speeding up: the US government reported last week that in 2007 alone, atmospheric carbon dioxide increased by 2.4 parts per million.
The natural mechanism will eventually absorb the excess carbon dioxide, Zeebe said, but not for hundreds of thousands of years.
"This is a time period that we can hardly imagine," he said. "They are way too slow to help us to restore the balance that we have now basically distorted in a very short period of time."
Before humans began burning fossil fuels, there was an eons-long balance between... more
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Ice cores are essential for climate research, because they represent the only archive which allows direct measurements of atmospheric composition and greenhouse gas concentrations in the past. Using novel isotopic studies, scientists from the European Project for Ice Coring In Antarctica (EPICA) were now able to identify the most important processes responsible for changes in natural methane concentrations over the transition from the last ice age into our warm period. The study now published in the scientific magazine nature shows that wetland regions emitted significantly less methane during glacial times. In contrast methane emissions by forest fire activity remained surprisingly constant from glacial to interglacial times.
In the current issue of Nature, members of the EPICA team publish new insights into natural changes in the atmospheric concentrations of the second most important greenhouse gas methane (CH4). The scientists present the first glacial/interglacial record of the carbon isotopic composition of methane (δ13CH4) providing essential information on the sources being responsible for the observed CH4 concentration changes.
The well known glacial/interglacial changes in atmospheric methane concentrations are quite drastic. Glacial concentration were on average 350 ppbv (part per billion by volume) and increased to approximately 700 ppbv during the last glacial/interglacial transition superimposed by rapid shifts of about 200 ppbv connected to rapid climate changes. During the last centuries human methane emissions artificially increased CH4 concentrations to approximately 1750 ppbv.
Ice cores are essential for climate research, because they represent the only archive... more
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Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has a plan to slash his city's planet-warming greenhouse gases to 35% below the 1990 level by 2030, and make L.A. the "cleanest and greenest city in the country."
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has a blueprint to cut his city's greenhouse gases to 20% below the 1990.
Today, the L.A. City Council will hold a public hearing and vote on Villaraigosa’s proposal to make private developers meet nationally-developed green building standards. Next month, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will act on Newsom’s proposed building ordinance.
Which is stricter? San Francisco's, by a long shot.
Which will remove more carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere? Los Angeles' -- but only because it's a bigger city, with a population approaching 4 million; San Francisco's population is under 800,000.
By and large, city governments can't control gas-guzzling SUVs, devastated forests and big industrial pollution, all of which are major causes of global warming. On the other hand, the built environment is their bailiwick. Buildings account for an estimated 43% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., compared with 32% from transportation and 25% from industry level by 2012, creating "the greenest large city in the United States of America."
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has a plan to slash his city's... more
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Researchers have found alarming evidence that the frozen Arctic floor has started to thaw and release long-stored methane gas. The results could be a catastrophic warming of the earth, since methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. But can the methane also be used as fuel?
It's always been a disturbing what-if scenario for climate researchers: Gas hydrates stored in the Arctic ocean floor -- hard clumps of ice and methane, conserved by freezing temperatures and high pressure -- could grow unstable and release massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Since methane is a potent greenhouse gas, more worrisome than carbon dioxide, the result would be a drastic acceleration of global warming. Until now this idea was mostly academic; scientists had warned that such a thing could happen. Now it seems more likely that it will.
Russian polar scientists have strong evidence that the first stages of melting are underway. They've studied largest shelf sea in the world, off the coast of Siberia, where the Asian continental shelf stretches across an underwater area six times the size of Germany, before falling off gently into the Arctic Ocean. The scientists are presenting their data from this remote, thinly-investigated region at the annual conference of the European Geosciences Union this week in Vienna.
In the permafrost bottom of the 200-meter-deep sea, enormous stores of gas hydrates lie dormant in mighty frozen layers of sediment. The carbon content of the ice-and-methane mixture here is estimated at 540 billion tons.Researchers have found alarming evidence that the frozen Arctic floor has started to... more
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Revising his stance on global warming, President Bush will propose a new target for stopping the growth of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions by 2025.
The president also will call for putting the brakes on greenhouse gas emissions from electric power plans within 10 to 15 years, according to a senior administration official familiar with the afternoon speech Bush will deliver in the Rose Garden.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the speech.
Bush is not going to outline a specific proposal, but he'll lay out a strategy for "realistic" emission reduction targets and "principles" he thinks Congress should follow in crafting global warming legislation.Revising his stance on global warming, President Bush will propose a new target for... more
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Environmental campaigners lock their sights on the role livestock plays in heating up the planet.
They're warning that the global impact from related emissions and land clearance could be dire if the sector continues to expand.
Reuters reporter Darcy Lambton has more.Environmental campaigners lock their sights on the role livestock plays in heating up... more
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China's total Co2 output by 2030 will equal the current Co2 global output unless an international treaty that recognizes the challenges China and other developing countries face in balancing economic development with climate change is forged by 2009. This treaty must set limits on Co2 emissions that fall in line with their economic output with a definite timeframe for transition to these alternate energies. Climate change seeks to totally forever change the landscape of China, and their rapacious use of coal and oil seeks to forever change the landscape of this planet. That is something we must as an international community come together to address before it is too late. It is then imperative that the international community come together to see solar, wind, and other alternate energies become prevalent means of China's production usage in lieu of coal simply because it is abundant and cheap.That is also why the United Stated must lead the way in setting the example for the world in reductions of GHGs and setting a price on carbon. Once alternate energies like solar, geothermal, biofuels, etc. are made available to developing countries at an affordable price within the next five years, that will also spur job growth and economic development and oil and coal will most assuredly not look as attractive as it does now out of expedience.China's total Co2 output by 2030 will equal the current Co2 global output unless... more
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This movie (not a clip) broadcast by Reason TV (not me) critiques the widespread and policitized doomsdayist viewpoint centered around the negative effects of global warming. The gist of the movie is that much of today's political motivation to reduce greenhouse emissions is based on poorly programmed computer modeling. The movie states that the models are flawed because those who programmed them had incomplete knowledge of how global climate change really works. Scientists in the movie take aim at the widely accepted "hockey stick" depiction of the recent spike in global temperature, claim that sea levels are actually dropping, not rising, and tell us that, when measured from the surrounding atmosphere, global temperature fluctuations are not as dramatic as those measured on the ground, where temperatures may be influenced by heat relfected by surrounding buildings and pavement.This movie (not a clip) broadcast by Reason TV (not me) critiques the widespread and... more
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The map tells the story. Climate change is here./////Excerpt:by Staff Writers/////
New York NY (SPX) Jan 17, 2008/////
Climatologists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City have found that 2007 tied with 1998 for Earth's second warmest year in a century. Goddard Institute researchers used temperature data from weather stations on land, satellite measurements of sea ice temperature since 1982 and data from ships for earlier years.
The greatest warming in 2007 occurred in the Arctic, and neighboring high latitude regions. Global warming has a larger affect in polar areas, as the loss of snow and ice leads to more open water, which absorbs more sunlight and warmth. Snow and ice reflect sunlight; when they disappear, so too does their ability to deflect warming rays. The large Arctic warm anomaly of 2007 is consistent with observations of record low geographic extent of Arctic sea ice in September 2007./////
"As we predicted last year, 2007 was warmer than 2006, continuing the strong warming trend of the past 30 years that has been confidently attributed to the effect of increasing human-made greenhouse gases," said James Hansen, director of NASA GISS./////
"It is unlikely that 2008 will be a year with truly exceptional global mean temperature," said Hansen. "Barring a large volcanic eruption, a record global temperature clearly exceeding that of 2005 can be expected within the next few years, at the time of the next El Nino, because of the background warming trend attributable to continuing increases of greenhouse gases."/////
The eight warmest years in the GISS record have all occurred since 1998, and the 14 warmest years in the record have all occurred since 1990.////End of excerpt////
The map tells the story. Climate change is here./////Excerpt:by Staff Writers/////... more
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Is there some glimmer of insight or intelligence in this, or is this just wasting the paper is was printed on?
"In 2008, a 100 Percent Chance of Our Heads in the Sand" Would this be a good substitute title?
What am I missing here? What are your thoughts?Is there some glimmer of insight or intelligence in this, or is this just wasting the... more
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lfm
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added this
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4 years ago
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This report sounds like something the German Parliament would issue during WW2 to tell the people that the Holocaust in not happening, and if it is the Nazis are not responsible for it. Personally, I have no political biases regarding my views on climate change. I don't support Al Gore's view because I am a "Democrat." I support his view on climate change and that of the PEER REVIEWED scientists across this globe who are actually posting the data and connecting the dots, because I have armed myself with the knowledge I need to see with my own eyes... the very thing this report aims to stop because of course, to those in Congress an enlightened and informed citizenry is indeed the biggest threat to them. And unlike them my wallet does not hold sway over my beliefs. Like Senators by the name of Inhofe and others who do nothing but issue reports at opportune moments to coincide with their own personal petty political grudges.The rate of ice melt in the Arctic and Greenland alone is three times faster than ever predicted. It is unprecedented. Again, unprecedented. It has been proven by PEER REVIEWED scientists (not weathermen or Senators with no scientific background) that CO2 forcings on this planet along with other gases and sources together with anthropogenic climate change are changing our relationship with this planet. Now, we can "debate" all day until we are blue in the face but it doesn't change the reality of what this planet is becoming regardless of what you may personally believe is responsible for it. It is as if this report is then telling the American people not to care about this planet or their responsibility as stewards to her or to try to understand what is now occurring. I suppose they also believe that air and water pollution are not caused by humans either? Poisoning our water and air thus leading to diseases is not human induced? How about poverty? How about war? We aren't responsible for that either? Water scarcity, deforestation... Who is cutting down all the trees thus exacerbating the effects of this crisis? God? To me, this report is nothing more than a timed trashing of a man they fear the most. The one man who came out with a movie that explained what is happening to our planet in a way those whom they wished to keep in the dark for their own selfish reasons understand, and they are more afraid of it hurting their financial bottomlines than anything else. And in my view, telling people that there is "nothing to worry about" regardless of your belief when we can see otherwise just to protect your wallet and political standing is not only morally bankrupt, it is criminal.This report sounds like something the German Parliament would issue during WW2 to tell... more
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This is an outrage. Now I know why Bush signed the bill that was just passed in the Congress to raise fuel standards to 35 mpg by 2020... because it isn't as stringent as what California and 12 other states would have enforced, which they cannot do now because of the waiver denial which is the first EPA waiver denial in 40 years. Once again, Bush cronies stand up for the corporations over the health and safety of the people and this planet. Perhaps Mr. Johnson needs to be reminded of what EPA stands for: Environmental PROTECTION Agency. I've already sent him my message. I hope you do too.This is an outrage. Now I know why Bush signed the bill that was just passed in the... more
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WASHINGTON -- Pared-down energy legislation cleared the Senate on Thursday by a wide margin after the oil industry and utilities succeeded in stripping out provisions that would have cost them billions of dollars.
The tax measure and the renewable electricity mandate were included in an energy bill that easily passed the House last week. But industry lobbyists focused their attention on Republican members of the Senate and on the White House, which repeatedly threatened to veto the bill if the offending sections were not removed.
Separately, Congress reached a tentative agreement on a major energy package that it plans to enact outside the energy bill, according to a Senate Democratic staff member. The agreement, to be included in a broad government spending bill, would authorize the Energy Department to guarantee loans for various energy projects, making financing far easier.
The agreement would guarantee loans of up to $25 billion for new nuclear plants and $2 billion for a uranium enrichment plant, something those industries had been avidly seeking. It would also provide guarantees of up to $10 billion for renewable energy projects, $10 billion for plants to turn coal into liquid vehicle fuel and $2 billion to turn coal into natural gas.
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In other news, as hand basket sales sky rocket, scientists are feverishly working on a family sized hand basket that would allow as many as 20 people to make the journey to hell together. O.k., I made that up, but if you can't afford a bomb shelter and you don't know Tom Cruise, you may want to buy a hand basket before you spend all your money on Christmas presents.
WASHINGTON -- Pared-down energy legislation cleared the Senate on Thursday by a wide... more
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NUSA DUA, Indonesia Amid growing frustration with the United States in deadlocked negotiations at a United Nations conference on global warming, the European Union threatened Thursday to boycott separate talks proposed by the Bush administration in Hawaii next month.
Humberto Rosa, the chief delegate from Portugal, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, said the talks to be hosted by the Bush Administration in Hawaii in January would be meaningless if there was no deal this week here at the conference on the resort island of Bali.
If we do not act now, climate change will increase the number of hungry people in the world, said Jacques Diouf, director general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, who is in Bali this week.
Gore on America:
Over the next two years the United States is going to be somewhere it is not now, Mr. Gore said to loud applause. You must anticipate that.NUSA DUA, Indonesia Amid growing frustration with the United States in deadlocked... more
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We drive our cars... a lot.
Except for not driving anymore, what actions can we take to help counteract the effect on our environment?
Here's One Idea.
If every American home replaced just one light bulb with a CFL - the savings could light over 3 million homes and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.
One small change. One big impact.We drive our cars... a lot.
Except for not driving anymore, what actions can we... more
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The United States could shave as much as 28 percent off the amount of greenhouse gases it emits at fairly modest cost and with only small technology innovations, according to a new report.
What the report calls out is the fact that the potential is so substantial for energy efficiency, said Ken Ostrowski, a leader of the report team. Not that we will do it, but the potential is just staggering here in the U.S. There is a lot of inertia, and a lot of barriers.
A broad public education program around wasteful energy consumption could be mounted, the report said. Modeled on the Keep America Beautiful campaign of the 1960s, it could promote reduction in carbon littering by increasing peoples awareness of the problem.
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I think we can do a lot better at conservation than this.
We need to think outside the box and consider alternatives such as off grid homes, hemp and organic community gardens. We need to shorten the work week and place more emphasis on family and volunteerism.
I wonder how much we could conserve by eliminating war?
This report seems so cookie cutter and light on any real help, what do you think?The United States could shave as much as 28 percent off the amount of greenhouse gases... more
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And we have at best eight years to make that window. Pre- Industrial Revolution concentration of CO2 was 280 ppm. If current trends continue and we do nothing to mitigate CO2 emissions but continue spewing the millions of tons in the air we spew daily, the level would rise within 50 years close to 600 ppm ( I think anything close to 400-450ppm is catastrophic) and that would be catastrophic ///// From the link: "The WMO said levels rose 0.53 percent from 2005 to 381.2 parts per million of the atmosphere, 36 percent above levels before the Industrial Revolution began in the 18th century."////end of excerpt./////Will we see anything useful come out of the Bali conference? We must.
And we have at best eight years to make that window. Pre- Industrial Revolution... more
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