Studies have been done that show how biofuels will actually increase carbon emissions because of deforestation for growing land and fertilizers (http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N2225048.htm).
We don't need any kind of biofuels. For more information, please see www.terrahumanafoundation.org.
Showing posts with label no-emissions energy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label no-emissions energy. Show all posts
Monday, October 26, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Climate Policy Change
"'Time to ditch climate policies'
By Roger Harrabin
Environment analyst, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8138429.stm
An international group of academics is urging world leaders to abandon their current policies on climate change.
The authors of How to Get Climate Policy Back on Course say the strategy based on overall emissions cuts has failed and will continue to fail.
They want G8 nations and emerging economies to focus on an approach based on improving energy efficiency and decarbonising energy supply.
Critics of the report's recommendations say they are a dangerous diversion.
The report is published by the London School of Economics' (LSE) Mackinder Programme and the University of Oxford's Institute for Science, Innovation & Society.
LSE Mackinder programme director Gwyn Prins said the current system of attempting to cap carbon emissions then allow trading in emissions permits had led to emissions continuing to rise.
He said world proposals to expand carbon trading schemes and channel billions of dollars into clean energy technologies would not work.
"The world has been recarbonising, not decarbonising," Professor Prins said.
"The evidence is that the Kyoto Protocol and its underlying approach have had and are having no meaningful effect whatsoever.
"Worthwhile policy builds upon what we know works and upon what is feasible rather than trying to deploy never-before implemented policies through complex institutions requiring a hitherto unprecedented and never achieved degree of global political alignment."
The report has drawn an angry response from some environmentalists, who acknowledge the problems it highlights but fear that the solutions it proposes will not work.
Tom Burke, from Imperial College London and a former government adviser, said: "The authors are right to be concerned about the lack of urgency in the political response to climate change.
"They are also right to identify significant weaknesses in the major policy instrument currently being negotiated.
"But nothing could be more harmful than to propose that the world stop what it is doing on climate change and start again working in a different way," Professor Burke contested.
"This is neither practical nor analytically defensible - and it seems to have been born more out of frustration than understanding of the nature of the political processes involved.
"This is a far more complex, and urgent, diplomatic task than the strategic arms control negotiations and will require an even more sophisticated and multi-channel approach to its solution. Stop-go is not sophisticated."
G8 leaders will discuss climate change on Wednesday before joining leaders of emerging economies on Thursday for a meeting chaired by President Obama.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/8138429.stm
Published: 2009/07/07 13:46:39 GMT
© BBC MMIX"
I've never liked the cap 'n trade rationale or practice. I agree with the people in the article who said that cap ' trade just makes things worse. There is another way, though, and for information, please see www.terrahumanafoundation.org.
By Roger Harrabin
Environment analyst, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8138429.stm
An international group of academics is urging world leaders to abandon their current policies on climate change.
The authors of How to Get Climate Policy Back on Course say the strategy based on overall emissions cuts has failed and will continue to fail.
They want G8 nations and emerging economies to focus on an approach based on improving energy efficiency and decarbonising energy supply.
Critics of the report's recommendations say they are a dangerous diversion.
The report is published by the London School of Economics' (LSE) Mackinder Programme and the University of Oxford's Institute for Science, Innovation & Society.
LSE Mackinder programme director Gwyn Prins said the current system of attempting to cap carbon emissions then allow trading in emissions permits had led to emissions continuing to rise.
He said world proposals to expand carbon trading schemes and channel billions of dollars into clean energy technologies would not work.
"The world has been recarbonising, not decarbonising," Professor Prins said.
"The evidence is that the Kyoto Protocol and its underlying approach have had and are having no meaningful effect whatsoever.
"Worthwhile policy builds upon what we know works and upon what is feasible rather than trying to deploy never-before implemented policies through complex institutions requiring a hitherto unprecedented and never achieved degree of global political alignment."
The report has drawn an angry response from some environmentalists, who acknowledge the problems it highlights but fear that the solutions it proposes will not work.
Tom Burke, from Imperial College London and a former government adviser, said: "The authors are right to be concerned about the lack of urgency in the political response to climate change.
"They are also right to identify significant weaknesses in the major policy instrument currently being negotiated.
"But nothing could be more harmful than to propose that the world stop what it is doing on climate change and start again working in a different way," Professor Burke contested.
"This is neither practical nor analytically defensible - and it seems to have been born more out of frustration than understanding of the nature of the political processes involved.
"This is a far more complex, and urgent, diplomatic task than the strategic arms control negotiations and will require an even more sophisticated and multi-channel approach to its solution. Stop-go is not sophisticated."
G8 leaders will discuss climate change on Wednesday before joining leaders of emerging economies on Thursday for a meeting chaired by President Obama.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/8138429.stm
Published: 2009/07/07 13:46:39 GMT
© BBC MMIX"
I've never liked the cap 'n trade rationale or practice. I agree with the people in the article who said that cap ' trade just makes things worse. There is another way, though, and for information, please see www.terrahumanafoundation.org.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Air Pollution, Health, and Emissions-Free Energy
"http://www.npca.org/cleanair/agenda/
National Parks Conservation Association
NPCA Press Releases
Court Rejects Air Pollution Rules as Inadequate -- 02/24/09
Protect the Air We Breathe: An Agenda for Clean Air
It’s Time to Act on Air Pollution
Air pollution is among the most serious and wide-ranging problems facing the parks today. Of the 391 parks within the National Park System, 150 are located in parts of the country that fail to meet one or more national healthy air standards. Fine particulate pollution has cut summertime visibility at Blue Ridge Parkway by 80 percent. And Acadia National Park’s estimated natural visibility is 110 miles, but particulate pollution reduces the visibility to about 33 miles.
Air pollution also causes widespread harm to the environment. It threatens the health of plants, animals and visitors, and damages buildings and cultural resources. Outside the parks, millions live in areas where air pollution increases their risk of serious, even life-threatening health effects, including asthma attacks, heart attacks and strokes."
Think about how difficult it is when people have respiratory and cardiac problems--it's difficult for them personally and for their families, they lose work time and money, people without insurance have problems, etc. And then think about how things would be if there were no emissions, if we still had the same access to energy but simply with a no-emissions energy source that didn't have unreliability and storage problems like solar and wind energy. It is possible. For more information, please see www. campaignforgreen.com.
National Parks Conservation Association
NPCA Press Releases
Court Rejects Air Pollution Rules as Inadequate -- 02/24/09
Protect the Air We Breathe: An Agenda for Clean Air
It’s Time to Act on Air Pollution
Air pollution is among the most serious and wide-ranging problems facing the parks today. Of the 391 parks within the National Park System, 150 are located in parts of the country that fail to meet one or more national healthy air standards. Fine particulate pollution has cut summertime visibility at Blue Ridge Parkway by 80 percent. And Acadia National Park’s estimated natural visibility is 110 miles, but particulate pollution reduces the visibility to about 33 miles.
Air pollution also causes widespread harm to the environment. It threatens the health of plants, animals and visitors, and damages buildings and cultural resources. Outside the parks, millions live in areas where air pollution increases their risk of serious, even life-threatening health effects, including asthma attacks, heart attacks and strokes."
Think about how difficult it is when people have respiratory and cardiac problems--it's difficult for them personally and for their families, they lose work time and money, people without insurance have problems, etc. And then think about how things would be if there were no emissions, if we still had the same access to energy but simply with a no-emissions energy source that didn't have unreliability and storage problems like solar and wind energy. It is possible. For more information, please see www. campaignforgreen.com.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Specific Solution
Apparently the recent climate change conference in Copenhagen did not yield any specific solutions. Here's a link to something specific: www.campaignforgreen.com.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Ice and Global Warming . . . But There's A Solution
New evidence on Antarctic warming
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website
The continent of Antarctica is warming up in step with the rest of the world, according to a new analysis.
Scientists say data from satellites and weather stations indicate a warming of about 0.6C over the last 50 years.
Writing in the journal Nature, they say the trend is "difficult to explain" without the effect of rising greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.
Meanwhile, scientists in Antarctica say a major ice shelf is about to break away from the continent.
The Wilkins Ice Shelf is said to be "hanging by a thread" from the Antarctic Peninsula, the strip of land pointing from the white continent towards the southern tip of South America.
In isolation
Most of Antarctica's scientific stations are located along the peninsula, and scientists have known for many years that this portion of the continent is getting warmer.
But trends across the bulk of the continent have been much harder to discern, mainly because data from land stations is scarce.
It is somewhat insulated from the rest of the world's weather systems by winds and ocean currents that circulate around the perimeter.
In the new analysis, a team of US scientists combined data from land stations with satellite readings
"We have at least 25 years of data from satellites, and satellites have the huge advantage that they can see the whole continent," said Eric Steig from the University of Washington in Seattle.
"But the [land] stations have the advantage that they go back much further in time.
"So we combined the two; and what we found, in a nutshell, is that there is warming across the whole continent, it's stronger in winter and spring but it is there in all seasons."
They conclude that the eastern region of the continent, which is larger and colder than the western portion, is warming at 0.1C per decade, and the west at 0.17C per decade - faster than the global average.
The 2007 assessment of the global climate by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded: "It is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic (human-induced) warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent except Antarctica", with the word "likely" in this context meaning "at least 66% probability".
The scientists said this study did not change that picture, with natural climatic cycles probably involved as well as elevated greenhouse gas concentrations.
"It's hard to think of any situation where increased greenhouse gases would not lead to warming in Antarctica," said Drew Shindell from Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss) in New York.
"We're almost certain that greenhouse gas increases are contributing to this warming, but what's difficult is to attribute this warming and so say how much is down to natural warming and how much down to anthropogenic causes."
Last year, scientists from the UK Met Office used climate models to attribute trends at the poles, and concluded that human emissions of greenhouse gases were largely responsible for the observed warming.
Gareth Marshall from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), who was not involved in the analysis, commented: "This study shows that, similar to the other six continents, Antarctica has undergone a significant warming over the past 50 years.
"The magnitude of this warming is similar to the rest of the southern hemisphere, where we believe it is likely that human activity has played some role in the temperature increase, and therefore it is also likely that this is the case regarding an Antarctic warming."
Cool analysis
Over the last 30 years, satellites have also shown that sea ice is slowly growing in extent around Antarctica, which some observers say indicates a cooling across the continent or at least in the surrounding seas.
But Walt Meier from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, which follows ice trends at the poles, said wind patterns were probably the main reason.
"Around Antarctica, the winds play a much bigger role than they do in the Arctic," he said.
"If they're blowing northwards you can grow ice quite quickly and in contrast if they blow southwards the ice can contract quickly, whereas in the Arctic it's much more constrained (by land masses).
"So this positive trend in the Antarctic is certainly not an indication of any cooling trend."
One region that has seen spectacular losses of ice in recent years is the peninsula.
A BAS team currently on site is reporting that the Wilkins shelf, about 15,000 sq km in area, is probably about to break free.
"It really could go at any minute, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the final cracks started to appear very soon," said BAS's David Vaughan.
If it does, it will follow the course of other shelves that have made breakaways in recent years, such as the Larsen B in 2002.
Although spectacular, such events are not necessarily due to man-made climate change.
A much bigger question is whether the new analysis of Antarctic warming heralds any major melting in the West Antarctic ice sheet, which could led to big changes in sea level and global impacts.
"The vulnerability is higher than we thought, but still we face uncertainties in understanding these processes that make it very difficult to forecast when these changes would occur," said Drew Shindell.
Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
The Antartic is one of many ecosystems on earth. When one is hurt or destroyed, all are affected. But this doesn't have to happen. There's an answer: no-emissions energy.
No-emissions energy means no global warming, no ecosystems change.
For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website
The continent of Antarctica is warming up in step with the rest of the world, according to a new analysis.
Scientists say data from satellites and weather stations indicate a warming of about 0.6C over the last 50 years.
Writing in the journal Nature, they say the trend is "difficult to explain" without the effect of rising greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.
Meanwhile, scientists in Antarctica say a major ice shelf is about to break away from the continent.
The Wilkins Ice Shelf is said to be "hanging by a thread" from the Antarctic Peninsula, the strip of land pointing from the white continent towards the southern tip of South America.
In isolation
Most of Antarctica's scientific stations are located along the peninsula, and scientists have known for many years that this portion of the continent is getting warmer.
But trends across the bulk of the continent have been much harder to discern, mainly because data from land stations is scarce.
It is somewhat insulated from the rest of the world's weather systems by winds and ocean currents that circulate around the perimeter.
In the new analysis, a team of US scientists combined data from land stations with satellite readings
"We have at least 25 years of data from satellites, and satellites have the huge advantage that they can see the whole continent," said Eric Steig from the University of Washington in Seattle.
"But the [land] stations have the advantage that they go back much further in time.
"So we combined the two; and what we found, in a nutshell, is that there is warming across the whole continent, it's stronger in winter and spring but it is there in all seasons."
They conclude that the eastern region of the continent, which is larger and colder than the western portion, is warming at 0.1C per decade, and the west at 0.17C per decade - faster than the global average.
The 2007 assessment of the global climate by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded: "It is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic (human-induced) warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent except Antarctica", with the word "likely" in this context meaning "at least 66% probability".
The scientists said this study did not change that picture, with natural climatic cycles probably involved as well as elevated greenhouse gas concentrations.
"It's hard to think of any situation where increased greenhouse gases would not lead to warming in Antarctica," said Drew Shindell from Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss) in New York.
"We're almost certain that greenhouse gas increases are contributing to this warming, but what's difficult is to attribute this warming and so say how much is down to natural warming and how much down to anthropogenic causes."
Last year, scientists from the UK Met Office used climate models to attribute trends at the poles, and concluded that human emissions of greenhouse gases were largely responsible for the observed warming.
Gareth Marshall from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), who was not involved in the analysis, commented: "This study shows that, similar to the other six continents, Antarctica has undergone a significant warming over the past 50 years.
"The magnitude of this warming is similar to the rest of the southern hemisphere, where we believe it is likely that human activity has played some role in the temperature increase, and therefore it is also likely that this is the case regarding an Antarctic warming."
Cool analysis
Over the last 30 years, satellites have also shown that sea ice is slowly growing in extent around Antarctica, which some observers say indicates a cooling across the continent or at least in the surrounding seas.
But Walt Meier from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, which follows ice trends at the poles, said wind patterns were probably the main reason.
"Around Antarctica, the winds play a much bigger role than they do in the Arctic," he said.
"If they're blowing northwards you can grow ice quite quickly and in contrast if they blow southwards the ice can contract quickly, whereas in the Arctic it's much more constrained (by land masses).
"So this positive trend in the Antarctic is certainly not an indication of any cooling trend."
One region that has seen spectacular losses of ice in recent years is the peninsula.
A BAS team currently on site is reporting that the Wilkins shelf, about 15,000 sq km in area, is probably about to break free.
"It really could go at any minute, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the final cracks started to appear very soon," said BAS's David Vaughan.
If it does, it will follow the course of other shelves that have made breakaways in recent years, such as the Larsen B in 2002.
Although spectacular, such events are not necessarily due to man-made climate change.
A much bigger question is whether the new analysis of Antarctic warming heralds any major melting in the West Antarctic ice sheet, which could led to big changes in sea level and global impacts.
"The vulnerability is higher than we thought, but still we face uncertainties in understanding these processes that make it very difficult to forecast when these changes would occur," said Drew Shindell.
Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
The Antartic is one of many ecosystems on earth. When one is hurt or destroyed, all are affected. But this doesn't have to happen. There's an answer: no-emissions energy.
No-emissions energy means no global warming, no ecosystems change.
For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)