Climate Change
| Climate Change is the single largest problem,
with the worst downside, and requiring the most difficult solutions, of
the many problems in this early part of the 21st Century.
Education and information are important priorities right now to get
enough people telling their governments and corporations and utilities
to solve this problem now. |
The Larsen B Glacier in Antarctica shortly after its collapse
due to man-made global warming
|
| Any doubts about the correlation between atmospheric
CO2 and global temperature should be put to rest by the following data.
And any doubts about where all this is heading should be put to rest
when you put your finger on the current atmospheric CO2 levels,
somewhere above of 450 ppmv. |
 |
My contribution to the education we need is this archive of good information
about climate change. And you may also be interested in reading my
information about my own self-installed photovoltaic
system for generating electricity.
Take Action Now. Join
Now!
My Articles in The Garden Island Newspaper
I write an ongoing series of articles about climate change for the local
newspaper, The Garden Island.
Archives
I've also archived, for my personal use, a few articles that I think are
especially useful. All these materials are copyright their respective
publishers and authors. Permission to reproduce is not granted by me.
First, the Bad News - Mounting Climate Change Evidence and Consequences
-
BBC
April 28th 2008 Nature's carbon balance confirmed
Explains the long term carbon balancing cycle of the Earth,
thousands of times to slow to heal human-caused climate change.
-
USA Today March 15th 2008 Climate now shifting on a continental scale, huge
study says
Correlated evidence across multiple continents and different
biospheres showing climate change impact.
-
Washington Post March 10 2008 - Carbon Output Must Near Zero To Avert
Danger, New Studies Say
The task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert
a dangerous rise in global temperatures may be far more difficult than
previous research suggested, say scientists who have just published studies
indicating that it would require the world to cease carbon emissions
altogether within a matter of decades.
-
CNN March 23, 2008 - Massive Ice Shelf on Verge of Breakup
Some 220 square miles (570 square kilometers) of ice has
collapsed in Antarctica and an ice shelf about the size of Connecticut is
"hanging by a thread," the British Antarctic Survey has said, blaming global
warming. As of mid-March, only a narrow strip of shelf ice was
protecting several thousand kilometers of potential further break-up.
-
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment - Climate Change
2007: Synthesis Report Summary for Policymakers
This Synthesis Report is based on the assessment carried out
by the three Working Groups of the IPCC. It provides an integrated view of
climate change as the final part of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report.
- BBC News Jan 25, 2008
- Climate 'clearly out of balance'
The world's climate is "clearly out of balance and is
warming", the world's largest society of Earth and space scientists has said
in a statement. The American Geophysical Union (AGU) warned that changes to
the Earth's climate system were "not natural". Changes in temperature, sea
level and rainfall were best explained by the increased concentration of
greenhouse gases from human activities, it added.
-
Scientific American Aug 2007 - The Physical Science behind Climate Change
Why are climatologists so highly confident that human
activities are dangerously warming the earth? Here some of the participants
in the most recent and comprehensive international review of the scientific
evidence summarize the arguments and discuss what uncertainties remain.
-
National Academies of Sciences March 2006 - Understanding and Responding to
Climate Change
Although the potential effects of climate change are widely
acknowledged, there is still legitimate debate regarding how large, how
fast, and where these effects will be. Climate science is just beginning to
project how climate change might affect regional weather. Estimating climate
change impacts also requires projecting society’s future actions,
particularly in the areas of population growth, economic growth, and energy
use.
Western US Water Issues
-
MSNBC March 28, 2008 - Warming Hits the West; Trees to Glaciers Suffer
A new calculation of government temperature data shows that
over the past five years, average annual temperatures in the Colorado River
basin — the heart of the West — have risen by 2.2 degrees, or about twice as
fast as the global rate.
- Los Angeles Times
Feb 1, 2008 - Water Troubles in the West May Worsen
Human-caused global warming has been shrinking the snowpack
across the mountain ranges of the West for five decades, suggesting that the
region's long battle for water will only get worse, according to a computer
analysis released Thursday. As temperatures have increased, more winter
precipitation has fallen as rain instead of snow, and the snow is melting
sooner, according to the study published in the journal Science.
- MSNBC (AP) Jan 31, 2008
West Water Woes Tied to Man's Warming
People driving their cars, cranking on their air conditioners
and switching on lights and dishwashers are responsible for most of the
climate changes that are gradually drying up water supplies in arid and
growing western states, a new study finds.
Overview of the Range and Magnitude of Solutions to Climate Change
Technical Solution Space
Utility Scale Solar Energy
Nuclear Solutions
Wind Power
Hydro
- IEEE Spectrum May
2007 - Thirst For Power
Excluding highly developed South Africa, sub-Saharan Africa
is the most energy-poor region in the world. But to spread the
benefits of microhydro would take a seismic shift in the continent's usual
electrification paradigms and - perhaps more ambitiously - a renunciation of
the crippling mix of politics and patronage that have left the continent
with some fo the worst electrification rates in the world.
Hydrogen "Fuel"
Coal
- Scientific
American Sept 2006 - What to Do about Coal
Cheap, plentiful coal is expected to fuel power plants for
the foreseeable future, but can we keep it from devastating the environment?
The world must begin implementing carbon capture and storage soon to stave
off global warming.
-
New York Times March 22, 2008 - Kansas Governor Vetoes Bill to Revive 2
Coal-Fired Plants
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas vetoed a measure on Friday
that would have forced the state to approve two coal-fired power plants
producing large amounts of carbon dioxide. The two proposed plants, to be
built by the Sunflower Electric Corporation in the southwest corner of the
state, would generate 1,400 megawatts of electricity and produce up to 11
million tons of carbon-dioxide emissions. Because of the large production of
greenhouse gases, the state’s secretary of health and the environment, Rod
Bremby, withheld approval for the plants.
Specific Solutions for the Transportation Sector
-
Scientific American Sept 2006 - Fueling Our Transportation Future
The massive use of petroleum-based fuels for transportation
releases immense amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere— 25 percent
of the total worldwide. Options for constraining and eventually reducing
these emissions include improving vehicle technology, reducing vehicle size,
developing different fuels, and changing the way vehicles are used.
Increasing Efficiency
- Scientific American
Sept 2006 - An Efficient Solution
Two thirds of all energy is lost during its conversion into
forms used in human activities; most of this energy comes from
carbon-emitting fossil fuels. The quickest, easiest way to reduce carbon
emissions is to avoid as many of these losses as possible. Improving the
energy efficiency of buildings, appliances and industrial processes offers
impressive savings.
- BBC
News March 3, 2008 - No impact from Energy Saving Day
The UK's first Energy Saving Day has ended with no noticeable
reduction in the country's electricity usage.
-
CIBC World Markets November 27, 2007 - The Efficiency Paradox
Much is being banked on the notion that improvements in
energy efficiency will be the answer to both oil depletion and greenhouse
gas emissions. But is it a realistic economic premise that technological
change can reduce energy usage, and by implication, its carbon trail?
-
New York Times Jan 10, 2008 - Digital Tools Help Users Save Energy, Study
Finds
Giving people the means to closely monitor and adjust their
electricity use lowers their monthly bills and could significantly reduce
the need to build new power plants, according to a yearlong government
study. The results of the research project by the Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory of the Energy Department, released Wednesday, suggest that if
households have digital tools to set temperature and price preferences, the
peak loads on utility grids could be trimmed by up to 15 percent a year.
Popular-Science-Magazine Style Solutions
Vegetarianism
Personal Solution Space
Political, International and Legislative Solution Space
-
New York Times Mar 20, 2008 - States' Battles Over Energy Grow Fiercer With
U.S. in a Policy Gridlock
Utility executives in Kansas were shocked last fall when a
state environmental official rejected two coal-fired power plants because of
the millions of tons of carbon-dioxide emissions they could produce. The
struggle over those plants is an example of a growing trend in
climate-change politics. In the absence of clear federal mandates for
emissions from smokestack industries, states that have been proving grounds
for new environmental approaches to energy are becoming battlegrounds as
well.
-
World Resource Institute - Comparison of Legislative Climate Change Targets
The World Resources Institute’s analysis of emissions targets
and cumulative emissions budgets attempts to fairly and accurately compare
explicit carbon caps in Congressional climate proposals. Emissions from
regulated sectors are calculated based on the text of the respective draft
legislation. And It has this really cool graph in it.
I
-
New York Times March 22, 2008 -Lofty Pledge to Cut Emissions Comes With
Caveat in Norway
By 2030 Norway pledged it would be “carbon neutral.”
Norway’s bold promise raised the bar for other nations, which were
mostly still struggling to figure out how to reduce emissions, by even a
fraction. But as the details of the plan have emerged,
environmental groups and politicians — who applaud Norway’s impulse —
say the feat relies too heavily on sleight-of-hand accounting and huge
donations to environmental projects abroad, rather than meaningful
emissions reductions.
-
Scientific American Nov 2007 - Sustainable Developments - Climate Change
and the Law
The obligation to limit greenhouse gas emissions is
therefore already the law of the land, and it’s high time we began
respecting those laws. We should do so not only because it is important
that we honor our legal commitments but because we made those
commitments for reasons of our own survival and well-being. Even an
administration that has dragged its feet for seven years is finally
beginning to face that reality.
-
ALM Law Journal Newsletters May 2007 - Climate Change: Why It Matters
for Your Business
Climate change? Sustainable development? Greenhouse
gases? Global warming? Traditionally, these concepts conjured up tree
hugger- led environmental activists’ warnings of the Earth’s doom
resulting from industrial fallout and natural resource use and misuse.
Today, these hotly debated, frequently misunderstood scientific theories
more often are the subject of critical analysis in corporate boardrooms,
among business management and between leading U.S. CEOs.
Biofuels Issues
-
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine Jan/Feb 2007 - Alternative Energy Sources in
the Amazon
Evaluating the energy potential of palm oil for the
generation of electricity in isolated communities.
- National Geographic Oct 2007 - Green
Dreams
Making fuel from crops could be good for the planet - after a
breakthrough or two. (Subsequent research has obviated
the positive conclusions of this article, however some of the data is still
relevant.)
-
New York Times Feb 8, 2008 - Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat
Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas
emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing
these “green” fuels are taken into account, two studies being published
Thursday have concluded.
-
Science Magazine Feb 7, 2008 Supporting Online Material for Use of U.S.
Croplands for Biofuels Increases GHG Through Emissions from Land Use Change
Nearly all lifecycle analyses of the greenhouse gas impacts
of substituting biofuels for fossil fuels leave out emissions from land use
change. This paper calculates emissions from worldwide land use change
resulting from the expansion of corn-based ethanol in the United States,
discusses the applicability of these calculations to other biofuels, and
provides qualitative and quantitative sensitivity analysis.
- Wall Street Journal Nov
28, 2007 - Ethanol Craze Cools As Doubts Multiply
Little over a year ago, ethanol was winning the hearts and
wallets of both Main Street and Wall Street, with promises of greater U.S.
energy independence, fewer greenhouse gases and help for the farm economy.
Today, the corn-based biofuel is under siege.
What's Wrong with Climate Change Skeptics (And the Psychology of Climate
Change)
-
New York Times March 4, 2008 - Cool View of Science at Meeting on Warming
Several hundred people sat in a fifth-floor ballroom at the
Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square on Monday eating pasta and trying
hard to prove that they had unraveled the established science showing that
humans are warming the world in potentially disruptive ways. The
meeting was largely framed around science, but after the luncheon, when an
organizer made an announcement asking all of the scientists in the large
hall to move to the front for a group picture, only 19 men did so.
-
Australian Physiotherapy Association - Climate change – What you can do
Climate change and other environmental problems are fast
becoming daily news items in the media. As our awareness of environmental
problems increases, many strong emotions can surface. But climate change
doesn’t need to be faced with dread. This tip sheet is aimed at helping
people cope with the many environmental threats facing us.
- How to Talk to a Climate
Skeptic
A series by Coby Beck containing responses to the most common
skeptical arguments on global warming.
email webmaster
Copyright 1998-2008, Walt & Anne Barnes
Page lasted updated
October 02, 2008
