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Living within a living, loving planet
Pollution
Can we Afford the Green New Deal?
Apr 6th
Can we afford the Green New Deal? Can there be a doubt?
How Large Are Global Fossil Fuel Subsidies?
“$5.3 trillion in 2015 (6.5% of global GDP)”
Volume 91, March 2017, Pages 11-27
Author links open overlay panel: DavidCoady, IanParry, LouisSears, BaopingShang
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2016.10.004
Summary
“This paper estimates fossil fuel subsidies and the economic and environmental benefits from reforming them, focusing mostly on a broad notion of subsidies arising when consumer prices are below supply costs plus environmental costs and general consumption taxes.
Estimated subsidies are $4.9 trillion worldwide in 2013 and $5.3 trillion in 2015 (6.5% of global GDP in both years). Undercharging for global warming accounts for 22% of the subsidy in 2013, air pollution 46%, broader vehicle externalities 13%, supply costs 11%, and general consumer taxes 8%. China was the biggest subsidizer in 2013 ($1.8 trillion), followed by the United States ($0.6 trillion), and Russia, the European Union, and India (each with about $0.3 trillion). Eliminating subsidies would have reduced global carbon emissions in 2013 by 21% and fossil fuel air pollution deaths 55%, while raising revenue of 4%, and social welfare by 2.2%, of global GDP.”
Photo from Pixabay
Fracking in the US
Aug 23rd
Fracking in the US
Daily Kos Staff
Friday August 17, 2018 · 9:23 AM PDT
A new study out of Duke University shows that fracking operations in the United States have boomed in their use of water over the past five years. The researchers found that between 2011 and 2016, the amount of water being used, per well, increased 770 percent. On top of that—during the same time—the amount of “brine-laden” wastewater generated by those wells increased 1,440 percent.
Society as Ecosystem in a Time of Collapse, Part I
Aug 1st
Society as Ecosystem in a Time of Collapse, Part I
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-07-30/human-predators-human-prey/
By Richard Heinberg, July 30, 2018
First of three parts
Richard Heinberg is the author of thirteen books including: – Our Renewable Future: Laying the Path for One Hundred Percent Clean Energy, co-authored with David Fridley (2016) – Afterburn (2015) – Snake Oil (July 2013) – The End of Growth (August 2011) – The Post Carbon Reader (2010) (editor) – Blackout: Coal, Climate, and the Last…
Negative Impacts of Tropospheric Ozone
Jan 12th
Negative Impacts of Tropospheric Ozone
http://www.ucar.edu/learn/1_7_1.htm
“With increasing populations, more automobiles, and more industry, there’s more ozone in the lower atmosphere. Since 1900 the amount of ozone near the earth’s surface has more than doubled.
…Tropospheric ozone is formed by the interaction of sunlight, particularly ultraviolet light, with hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides, which are emitted by automobiles, gasoline vapors, fossil fuel power plants, refineries, and certain other industries.
While stratospheric ozone shields us from ultraviolet radiation, in the troposphere this irritating, reactive molecule damages forests and crops; destroys nylon, rubber, and other materials; and injures or destroys living tissue. It is a particular threat to people who exercise outdoors or who already have respiratory problems.
Ozone affects plants in several ways. High concentrations of ozone cause plants to close their stomata. These are the cells on the underside of the plant that allow carbon dioxide and water to diffuse into the plant tissue. This slows down photosynthesis and plant growth. Ozone may also enter the plants through the stomata and directly damage internal cells.”
Thank goodness we live in Hartland, Devon. The ozone from New York City has to travel all the way across the Atlantic. It may do so, but I cannot smell it!