Posts tagged CO2 emissions
America spends over $20bn per year on fossil fuel subsidies
Aug 1st
America spends over $20bn per year on fossil fuel subsidies. Abolish them
While we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground, America is giving the fossil fuel industry billions to extract more
Dana Nuccitelli
Mon 30 Jul 2018
“The OCI report noted that the Obama administration actually proposed to eliminate 60% of federal fossil fuel industry subsidies, but that proposal went nowhere for one obvious reason:
In the 2015-2016 election cycle oil, gas, and coal companies spent $354 million in campaign contributions and lobbying and received $29.4 billion in federal subsidies in total over those same years – an 8,200% return on investment.”
Scientists understood the climate 150 years ago better than the EPA head today
Apr 1st
Scientists understood the climate 150 years ago better than the EPA head today
Posted on 31 March 2017 by John Abraham
https://www.skepticalscience.com/scientists-understood-climate-150-yr-ago-better-than-pruitt.html
Recently he (Scott Pruitt) claimed on CNBC that carbon dioxide is not a primary contributor to global warming:
I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do, and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact. So, no, I would not agree that’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see. But we don’t know that yet. We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis.
“There are two undeniable ironies in this statement. First, taken at face value it would suggest that we actually need to do more analysis – but the current administration is proposing draconian cuts in our climate science research budget. They are doing just the opposite of what he recommends.
The second irony is that scientists have known about the importance of carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas for well over 100 years. There is no debate among any reputable scientists that carbon dioxide is the most important human emitted greenhouse gas. Furthermore, humans have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 43%. These are facts.”
“The final stop on our way-back trip brings us to 1896 and Swedish researcher Svante Arrhenius. He became the first person (that I know of) to make predictions about how much the Earth temperature would change as we add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The title of his work, “On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground” says it all.
Using measurements of the energy incoming from the moon, Arrhenius showed that changes to trace gases in the atmosphere can dramatically affect the temperature of the planet. He also discussed how gases are able to absorb specific wavelengths of light. Using experimental data from other preceding studies, he predicted global temperatures would rise approximately 5–6C in response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide.”
CO2 and Climate Change
May 9th
CO2 and Climate Change
Comments on At the Edge of the Roof by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
“In 2012 the world crossed an ominous threshold. A reading of 400 parts per million [ppm] of atmospheric carbon dioxide was recorded by monitoring stations across the arctic. That is at least 50ppm higher than the maximum concentration during the last 12,000 years, a period that allowed us to develop agriculture and civilization.” At the Edge of the Roof: The Evolutionary Crisis of the Human Spirit
From Spiritual Ecology Edited by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Quote from loc 574 on Kindle Edition
“On May 9, the daily mean concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Mauna Loa, Hawaii, surpassed 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time since measurements began in 1958.”
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/news/2013/CO2400.html
I am saddened by what appears to be either a misprint [“during the last 12,000 years…”] or a misunderstanding of how CO2 and temperature varies profoundly [at least over the last million years] in an approximately 100k year cycle of around 90% massive glaciation and low average atmospheric temperature and a 10% is the interglacial period of approximately 12,000 years. Up until the present interglacial period, human population has had from very little to no effect on these cycles. These cycles have been authenticated by several research projects of which the Russian Vostok station in East Antarctica is arguably the most well known.
Also well documented and validated is the behaviour of the atmospheric temperature and CO2 ppm which varies with much the same pattern. Thus, we can observe from a graphical presentation that both temperature and CO2 rises sharply to a sharp peak and then almost as quickly plunge. Details may be found here: https://www.google.gr/search?q=vostok+core+samples&espv=210&es_sm=122&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=bPzLUtG1G
So my point here is that all recorded cycles reveal high CO2 content during the peak of the interglacial warm part of the cycle. CO2ppm will always be the highest during the peak of the interglacial part of the cycle.
What then is the point?
What I suggest IS the point, however, is that the graphs of various ice core drillings reveal that CO2 has never been this high in at least a 800,000 years. Average temperature have been this high or higher before but never CO2ppm.
It has been 3.6 million years since CO2 has been this high. http://www.skepticalscience.com/pliocene-snapshot.html
I don’t need to reiterate just why CO2 is a problem. Both common sense and overwhelming scientific research and scientist’s consensus point to anthropogenic factors involved here. Just what are they? The most well known factor is, of course, the human industrial infrastructure that burns such huge quantities of fossil fuels at a rate exceeding what Gaia can balance out and/or absorb. Thus the greenhouse effect is driving average global temperature up. I won’t repeat the well known details of what has been driving temperatures in the past. See: http://www.earthenspirituality.com/glogal-warming/
The Gaia Theory
There is another factor which is seldom cited. It seems to only come to mind when the obvious question is asked. I admit, the question appears to only be obvious to a few, myself included.
What has driven the temperature down sharply at the end of previous interglacial warming periods?
So much talk and media exposure is spent on what is causing the warming. However, we may be overdue for the temperature drop. The details of our present Holocene period reveal that the temperature did level off around two thousand years or so and began to drop. Painfully obvious is the fact that it is now rising.
Now let me be clear. As I mentioned above, all the cycles are different and our present one cannot be predicted to any extensive degree of accuracy. Not only do we not have historical details to compare with, but after all we are dealing with a living being and living organisms do not behave like a machine in preciseness. Why we expect this and how well funded climate change deniers capitalise on lack of preciseness is the subject for another paper at some other time.
Let me answer the question above. We have a lot of scientific evidence to support the analysis of what starts the warming for the rapid temperature increase and ensuing start of an interglacial period. Not much has been documented about how the tail end, the cooling is forced. Melankovitch cycles are a major part of it, but I suggest that they need augmentation. The juxtaposition of the planet’s angle to the sun’s radiation and the sun’s distance do decrease, but these factors don’t appear to be able in themselves decrease the CO2 content and thus decrease the greenhouse effect. So what does?
- Yes, billions of trees, bushes and tall grass that slowly follow the melting glaciers northward in the northern hemisphere and southward in the southern hemisphere. This vegetation not only sucks up tons of CO2 but from transpiration helps form significant cloud cover whose overall effect is to increase the deflection of the sun’s radiation more than their addition to the greenhouse effect. Could we look back at the endings of previous interglacial periods, we would see these billions of trees and miles of long grass and savannah constantly pulling CO2 from the atmosphere; reducing the greenhouse effect adding to the decreased insolation and thereby causing a sudden tipping point for the temperature decline. The complete halt in forest harvesting and massive planting is simply the least expensive and most overall beneficial action that could be taken to mitigate the effects of the greenhouse effect. There are now sacred cows in India; there could be sacred trees worldwide.
Use Trains and Ferries
Mar 10th
A lot of us despair realizing that one person can do so little about CO2 emissions. However, one thing we can do is switch to trains and ferries. Yes, they are more expensive, but with an increase in market share, costs will go down. There must be exceptions such as “love miles” when loved ones live overseas, but leisure travel could be by train and ferry. It costs more but what is the health of our Earth worth?
10 March 2014, 6.03am GMT
Morphing is one way to make aircrafts more efficient
“The transport sector as a whole is increasing CO2 emissions at such a rate that it has cancelled out two decades’ worth of green gains made across the manufacturing, power generation, district heating, residential, services and agriculture sectors combined. This devastating disparity is forecast to grow.”
“…the annual growth rate of the number of flights within Europe has remained consistent at 3.9%. The rise of Asia and cheap flight carriers, like Ryanair, making weekend trips away affordable to the masses have pushed the rate up. This is expected to level out at 5.3%.”
“The goal set by the EU to reduce aircraft CO2 emissions by 75% by 2050 is totally unrealistic. Even if Europe were to meet these goals, its aircraft industry will at the very least double its greenhouse emissions by 2050. The bleak reality is that we will probably see a quadrupling in the aircraft industry CO2 emissions by then – unless it totally reinvents the concept of the commercial aircraft.”
Eurostar on fast track to success after a slow start
By: Interview by Philip Waller Published: Sat, April 21, 2012
http://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/315656/Eurostar-on-fast-track-to-success-after-a-slow-start
“Eurostar plans a £700million over- haul in 2014, including 10 new trains and a refurbished existing fleet.”