Gases

[Homicidalheathen]

Warming gases rising faster than expected

Humans adding carbon to the atmosphere even quicker than in the 1990s

Study: Expect 1,000-year climate impacts

CHICAGO - Despite widespread concern over global warming, humans are adding carbon to the atmosphere even faster than in the 1990s, researchers warned Saturday.

Carbon dioxide and other gases added to the air by industrial and other activities have been blamed for rising temperatures, increasing worries about possible major changes in weather and climate.

Carbon emissions have been growing at 3.5 percent per year since 2000, up sharply from the 0.9 percent per year in the 1990s, Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution for Science told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Its now outside the entire envelope of possibilities" considered in the 2007 report of the International Panel on Climate Change, he said. The IPCC and former vice president Al Gore received the Nobel Prize for drawing attention to climate change.

The largest factor in this increase is the widespread adoption of coal as an energy source, Field said, "and without aggressive attention societies will continue to focus on the energy sources that are cheapest, and that means coal."

Past projections for declines in the emissions of greenhouse gases were too optimistic, he added. No part of the world had a decline in emissions from 2000 to 2008.

Rising oceans

Anny Cazenave of France's National Center for Space Studies told the meeting that improved satellite measurements show that sea levels are rising faster than had been expected.

Rising oceans can pose a threat to low level areas such as South Florida, New York and other coastal areas as the ocean warms and expands and as water is added from melting ice sheets.

And the rise is uneven, with the fastest rising areas at about 1 centimeter — 0.39 inch — per year in parts of the North Atlantic, western Pacific and the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica, she said.

Biofuel backfire

Also, highly promoted efforts to curb carbon emissions through the use of biofuels may even backfire, other researchers said.

Demand for biologically based fuels has led to the growing of more corn in the United States, but that means fields were switched from soybeans to corn, explained Michael Coe of the Woods Hole Research Center.

But there was no decline in the demand for soy, he said, meaning other countries, such as Brazil, increased their soy crops to make up for the deficit.

In turn, Brazil created more soy fields by destroying tropical forests, which tend to soak up carbon dioxide. Instead the forests were burned, releasing the gasses into the air.

The increased emissions from Brazil swamp any declines recorded by the United States, he said.

Tradeoffs on forests, fields

Holly Gibbs of Stanford University said that if crops like sugar and oil palm are planted after tropical forests are burned, the extra carbon released may be balanced by lower emissions from biofuel in 40 to 120 years, but for crops such as corn and cassava it can take hundreds of years to break even.

"If we run our cars on biofuels produced in the tropics, chances will be good that we are effectively burning rainforests in our gas tanks," she said.

However, there could be benefits from planting crops for biofuels on degraded land, such as fields that are not offering low productivity due to salinity, soil erosion or nutrient leaching.

"In a sense that would be restoring land to a higher potential," she said. But there would be costs in fertilizer and improved farming practices.

In some cases simply allowing the degraded land to return to forest might be the best answer, she said.

No shit. Did this lady go to the college of: Stating the most Obvious or what???

[SaGa]

"My body lies motionless

Upon the kitchen floor

The Earth has died, the world's at rest

2084"

the world is out of control,

our children are born knowing lights are on, and cars move people around.

it could be to late. we could blame ourselfs for burning to much and chopping the forestry down. or we could look and see this could be earths natural cycle. either way i believe it is to late, and no matter who or what we blame. us and our children will be seeing the changes of earth happen on a level we have not seen yet

[candyman]

Biofuels are largely produced from waste...not anything from the tropics...

I do believe in global warming...but not the Al Gore kind...

His people push ethanol...and they put down bio-diesel...however ethanol can't be made at home and requires fresh, clear resources and all that money links to the government...on the other hand biodiesel can be made at home for $0.70 a gallon from producs that were already used once which will not only keep money in your pocket, but will also reduce the amount of waste

Ethanol gives less gas mileage than biodiesel...and it has absolutely no pollution and no less polution than regular gasoline...it also requires a completely different engine and computer setup to run which means more money in making it work in all cars

Biodiesel...it works in ALL diesels...with either the same gas mileage as regular diesel or more than regular...it is also vastly cleaner than regular diesel...

Do we have a problem? Yes. Can it be fixed? Yes. Are we doing it right? NO!

Farms and large trucking companies and other fleets...all of them still run on mostly regular diesel...which is very expensive...but what if they all ran on biodiesel that they made in house with waste oil that would otherwise go to dumps?

Also, there are only a handful of farms that harvest methane from their animals to produce power. Every animal produces tons of methane...and to collect it...you need fans, some duct work, and and "shit" burning engine...the farms that are doing this make more than enough power to run their farms and many are selling the extra power BACK to the grid...

These two simple things are things that the common people CAN AFFORD! They are easy to install and they are cheap...they would bring more food to the table because they use waste instead of new crop...and since they power farms with virtually free power the farms run more efficiently...so...

why are we not doing this? why is everything "green" so expensive and time consuming?

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

I'll have to see if I can find the link to the story but... a few months ago one of the founders of Greenpeace put a a nice plan to get affordable housing and clean the atmosphere... it pissed a great many people off, mostly because it was backed my real science.

Cut down the Rain Forrest. How does this help?

you cant burn any of the wood or leaves. All the wood that can be used for lumber must be used as lumber. All "waste" from clearing the Forrest must be used to create ethanol.

How does this help with green house gases? Trees are great big carbon battery's. Once they reach full growth though they take in almost no carbon dioxide. We plant new trees, and they take in almost 1000% more CO2 from the atmosphere than the old growth that is there now.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Then again... these is this...

THE MANHATTAN DECLARATION ON CLIMATE CHANGE

“Global warming” is not a global crisis

We, the scientists and researchers in climate and related fields, economists, policymakers, and business leaders, assembled at Times Square, New York City, participating in the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change,

Resolving that scientific questions should be evaluated solely by the scientific method;

Affirming that global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life;

Recognising that the causes and extent of recently-observed climatic change are the subject of intense debates in the climate science community and that oft-repeated assertions of a supposed ‘consensus’ among climate experts are false;

Affirming that attempts by governments to legislate costly regulations on industry and individual citizens to encourage CO2 emission reduction will slow development while having no appreciable impact on the future trajectory of global climate change. Such policies will markedly diminish future prosperity and so reduce the ability of societies to adapt to inevitable climate change, thereby increasing, not decreasing human suffering;

Noting that warmer weather is generally less harmful to life on Earth than colder:

Hereby declare:

That current plans to restrict anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a dangerous misallocation of intellectual capital and resources that should be dedicated to solving humanity’s real and serious problems.

That there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change.

That attempts by governments to inflict taxes and costly regulations on industry and individual citizens with the aim of reducing emissions of CO2 will pointlessly curtail the prosperity of the West and progress of developing nations without affecting climate.

That adaptation as needed is massively more cost-effective than any attempted mitigation, and that a focus on such mitigation will divert the attention and resources of governments away from addressing the real problems of their peoples.

That human-caused climate change is not a global crisis.

Now, therefore, we recommend –

That world leaders reject the views expressed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as popular, but misguided works such as “An Inconvenient Truth”.

That all taxes, regulations, and other interventions intended to reduce emissions of CO2 be abandoned forthwith.

Agreed at New York, 4 March 2008.

It has become commonplace knowledge, and is unchallenged, that global average temperature has not increased since 1998. This corresponds to a 9-year period during which the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide, in contrast, did increase, and that by almost 5%

[candyman]

I'll have to see if I can find the link to the story but... a few months ago one of the founders of Greenpeace put a a nice plan to get affordable housing and clean the atmosphere... it pissed a great many people off, mostly because it was backed my real science.

Cut down the Rain Forrest. How does this help?

you cant burn any of the wood or leaves. All the wood that can be used for lumber must be used as lumber. All "waste" from clearing the Forrest must be used to create ethanol.

How does this help with green house gases? Trees are great big carbon battery's. Once they reach full growth though they take in almost no carbon dioxide. We plant new trees, and they take in almost 1000% more CO2 from the atmosphere than the old growth that is there now.

+1

We need to keep on logging...if we use the trees to their fullest potential and plant new ones in their place...we win...

although i do not agree with the ethanol part...