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Going veggie can slash your carbon footprint: study Tue Aug 26, 11:19 AM ET BERLIN (AFP) - Giving up meat could drastically reduce your carbon footprint, with meat-eaters' diets responsible for almost twice the emissions of those of vegetarians, a German study said on Tuesday. A diet with meat is responsible for producing in a year the same amount of greenhouse gases as driving a mid-sized car 4,758 kilometres (2,956 miles), the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IOeW) said. But the food a vegetarian consumes in 12 months is responsible for generating the same emissions as driving 2,427 kilometres, the IOeW said in a study commissioned by independent consumer protection group Foodwatch. The calculations are based on emissions of greenhouse gases, including methane produced by the animals themselves, as well as emissions from food production including manufacturing feed and fertiliser and the use of farmland. Going vegan -- giving up meat and dairy products -- would cut the emissions released in making what you eat more than seven-fold, to the equivalent of driving 629 kilometres, it said. And if it is all organic, your food footprint is almost a 17th of that of a meat-eater -- the equivalent of driving 281 kilometres. Beef is particularly environmentally unfriendly, it said, with producing a kilo (2.2 pounds) the same as driving 71 kilometres compared with 26 kilometres for pork. Switching to organic farming can cut emissions dramatically, "but what counts is the way we feed ourselves ... production and consumption first and foremost of beef and milk must be cut drastically," the study said. Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080826/sc_afp/lifestylegermanyclimateagriculture
Aug. 1, 2008 ScienceDaily— In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine. Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy. Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. "This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years," said MIT's Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. "Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon." Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's lab, have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night. The key component in Nocera and Kanan's new process is a new catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water; another catalyst produces valuable hydrogen gas. The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity — whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source — runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced. Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis. The new catalyst works at room temperature, in neutral pH water, and it's easy to set up, Nocera said. "That's why I know this is going to work. It's so easy to implement," he said. Giant leap for clean energy Sunlight has the greatest potential of any power source to solve the world's energy problems, said Nocera. In one hour, enough sunlight strikes the Earth to provide the entire planet's energy needs for one year. James Barber, a leader in the study of photosynthesis who was not involved in this research, called the discovery by Nocera and Kanan a "giant leap" toward generating clean, carbon-free energy on a massive scale. "This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind," said Barber, the Ernst Chain Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College London. "The importance of their discovery cannot be overstated since it opens up the door for developing new technologies for energy production thus reducing our dependence for fossil fuels and addressing the global climate change problem." Just the beginning Currently available electrolyzers, which split water with electricity and are often used industrially, are not suited for artificial photosynthesis because they are very expensive and require a highly basic (non-benign) environment that has little to do with the conditions under which photosynthesis operates. More engineering work needs to be done to integrate the new scientific discovery into existing photovoltaic systems, but Nocera said he is confident that such systems will become a reality. "This is just the beginning," said Nocera, principal investigator for the Solar Revolution Project funded by the Chesonis Family Foundation and co-Director of the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center. "The scientific community is really going to run with this." Nocera hopes that within 10 years, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power their own household fuel cell. Electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past. This project was funded by the National Science Foundation and by the Chesonis Family Foundation, which gave MIT $10 million this spring to launch the Solar Revolution Project, with a goal to make the large scale deployment of solar energy within 10 years.
Huge chunk snaps off storied Arctic ice shelf Break marks latest in erosion that has whittled 9,000 square kilometres down to 1,000 over past century July 29, 2008 David Hutton; Sources: Jessica Leeder, Parks Canada A four-square-kilometre chunk has broken off Ward Hunt Ice Shelf - the largest remaining ice shelf in the Arctic - threatening the future of the giant frozen mass that northern explorers have used for years as the starting point for their treks. Scientists say the break, the largest on record since 2005, is the latest indication that climate change is forcing the drastic reshaping of the Arctic coastline, where 9,000 square kilometres of ice have been whittled down to less than 1,000 over the past century, and are only showing signs of decreasing further. "Once you unleash this process by cracking the ice shelf in multiple spots, of course we're going to see this continuing," said Derek Mueller, a leading expert on the North who discovered the ice shelf's first major crack in 2002. Dr. Mueller was part of a team monitoring ice along the northern coast of Ellesmere Island last April that discovered deep new cracks - 18 kilometres long and 40 metres wide - on the edge of Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, a 350-square-kilometre mass of ice that joins tiny Ward Hunt Island to the bigger Ellesmere. The cracks indicated a split was likely coming. Warwick Vincent, director of Laval University's Centre for Northern Studies, has had students monitoring conditions on the ice shelf for years. He called the ice break "a significant event" that the shelf has been building toward since it began gradually thinning during the 1950s. Since then, over a 40-year period, the shelf thinned from 70 metres in the early 1950s to about 35 metres in the 1990s, Dr. Vincent said. In 2002, when his then-student Dr. Mueller discovered that the shelf had cracked in two, continuing changes to the structural integrity of the shelf seemed inevitable. "Over the last five years or so, there's been an acceleration of change in this area," Dr. Vincent said. "We see this in a variety of indicators, including ... a gradual increase in air temperatures in this area. Each year it seems we're crossing a new threshold of environmental change in this area of the world." Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080729.ICE29/TPStory/Environment
The missing link in the Garnaut report Geoff Russell, Peter Singer and Barry Brook July 10, 2008 The real climate change culprit is methane gas from cows and sheep. PROFESSOR Ross Garnaut has managed to write a 548-report on climate change in which he mentions Australia's largest current contribution to climate change precisely once — in the glossary, where we find a definition of "enteric fermentation". Never heard of it? It's what goes on in the digestive systems of ruminants, like cattle and sheep. It produces methane, Australia's largest but also most under-appreciated contribution to climate change over the next few decades. The second-largest current contribution is coal. It gets mentioned 272 times in the report — as it should. Why is methane so under-appreciated? There's a political reason and a technical reason. The political reason is that if telling Australians that they need to pay more for petrol and electricity is tough, telling them they need to consume less beef, lamb and dairy products is going to be tougher still. As for the technical reason, maybe the best way to explain it is like this: Suppose I offer you $1000 if you let me hold a blowtorch to your leg for 10 seconds. When you decline, I explain that you should not focus on just that 10 seconds when the torch is applied to your leg. I have calculated that the average temperature applied to your leg over the 20-minute period that starts when I apply the blowtorch, will be only 48 degrees, which is hot, but quite bearable. That, in effect, is the approach Garnaut takes to methane in his draft report. Just like the crazy guy with the blowtorch, Garnaut underestimates the heating impact of methane by averaging it over 100 years. Methane is mostly switched off after just a decade, and almost entirely gone after 20 years, so averaging it over a century dramatically reduces its apparent impact. The problem is that during the decade in which it is doing its damage, it has had a much larger impact than talk about its average impact over a century would lead you to believe. The source of Garnaut's methane howler becomes clear when he introduces the climate scientist's term "radiative forcing" in his report but soon shows that he does not really understand what it means and why it is so important. Radiative forcing refers to factors that change the difference between incoming and outgoing energy in a climate system. Positive forcings warm the system, negative forcings cool it down. There are two ways in which Garnaut misunderstands forcing. The first, as we have already seen, is the use of relative forcing averaged over 100 years. That would be reasonable if there were no urgency about dealing with climate change, but we don't have 100 years before tipping points are crossed, so we should not be averaging methane's forcing over 100 years. This mistake leads Garnaut to rate methane as 25 times more potent, per tonne, than carbon dioxide in causing global warming, whereas the correct figure, if we average over 20 years, is that it is 72 times more potent. That's a hugely significant difference. The second misunderstanding is the opposite of looking a century ahead. Garnaut includes in his report a chart of contributions to climate radiative forcing. It's an accurate historical description of what has heated up the planet. It includes the full impact not only of our recent activities, but of those of our parents, grandparents and more distant ancestors all the way back to 1750. Carbon dioxide dominates this picture. No surprise there. Some of the carbon dioxide currently heating up the planet, and shown in Garnaut's chart, was put into the atmosphere by the pioneers who cleared 1 million square kilometres of the US forests more than a century ago. More of it came out of the exhaust pipes of all the T-model Fords that came off Henry Ford's assembly lines. On the other hand, the methane in the chart is all ours. Almost every bit of it was put there in the past 20 years. The historical chart is interesting if you want a historical picture, but it is irrelevant if we are interested in what we are doing now, and how we might get out of this mess. If that is our concern, we need to focus most attention on the impacts of current forcings during the next 20 years. These are the forcings we are causing now and can do something about. If we were to chart them, methane and carbon dioxide would be almost equal in significance. That is what Garnaut seems to miss. The practical implication is that his draft report recommends against including methane emissions from cattle and sheep in his proposed emission trading scheme. To ignore Australia's biggest contribution to climate forcing is just plain silly. Australia's methane emissions come primarily from 28 million cattle, 88 million sheep and a bunch of leaky coal mines. The livestock emissions, on their own, will cause significantly more warming in the next 20 years than all our coal-fired power stations. The good news is that methane is easy to deal with. We don't have to wait for engineers to solve a bunch of really tough infrastructural problems. We can do it now. Just stop breeding so many sheep and cattle in Australia. And because methane is such a huge contributor to climate change, this is not just an "earth hour" stunt. This is the real deal. Geoff Russell is a mathematician and computer programmer. Peter Singer is professor of bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne. Barry Brook is Sir Hubert Wilkins professor of climate change at the University of Adelaide.
World might have already reached the tipping point of climate change June 28th, 2008 - 5:07 pm ICT by ANI
Washington, June 28 (ANI): Climate experts have warned that the world might have already reached the tipping point of climate change, where immediate actions needed to be done to avert the effects of global warming. According to a report in Discovery News, the scientist who first put forward this theory is NASA climate scientist James Hansen. Though Hansen had earlier warned about the dangers of climate change in 1988, his latest theory determines that we have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb. Hansens message painted a stark and urgent picture of a world already past the point where significant damage would occur. According to Hansen, the safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide should be no more than 350 ppm (parts per million), and it may be less. This recommended level is less than the amount currently in the atmosphere - 385 ppm. Already, arid lands are expanding, glaciers are receding, and Arctic sea ice is shrinking, driven by cycles of positive feedback, where melting leads to more warming of the exposed dark ocean water, which leads to more melting, according to Hansen. As a result, without any additional greenhouse gases, the Arctic soon will be ice-free in the summer, he added. When Discovery News got in touch with other scientists, they more or less agreed with Hansen on his hypothesis. While other scientists agree that 350 ppm is a safer target that increases the likelihood we will avoid many of the negative effects of climate change, some also think its unrealistic. Three hundred and fifty is impossible. Were going to overshoot 350 and 450 and probably 550, though I sure hope not, according to climatologist Stephen Schneider of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. My cynical scenario is that there will be more Katrinas, massive fires, melting of the Arctic, and people will say, Oh my God, what have we done. Wed better undo this, he said. Such catastrophes could finally spark the dramatic change thats needed, if we dont take action sooner of our own accord, he added. My view is that weve probably passed some tipping points. Weve entered some realms of irreversibility. There are probably many more, but we dont know where they are, said John Harte of the University of California, Berkeley. Many scientists have agreed that the problem is urgent and that not doing anything will lead to disaster, which includes rising sea levels, food shortages, spread of infectious diseases and extinctions.
We
know that if we dont take action, it will be a disaster. Thats all we need to
know, said Harte. (ANI) Source: http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal
JOINT STATEMENT: Last call on Climate Change On global warming from scientists, politicians and commentators 13 June 2008 This joint statement is a ‘call to arms’ from some of the country’s leading scientists, plus several commentators and politicians. The statement describes the urgent need for an effective response to global warming. It was written following the 2008 Manning Clark House Conference on Climate Change which concluded on Thursday June 12 in Canberra.
It has
been approved by over 200 conference delegates, which included: A statement from the 2008 Manning Clark House Conference: “Imagining the Real Life on a Greenhouse Earth”, 11-12 June, Australian National University, Canberra. Global warming is accelerating. The Arctic summer sea ice is expected to melt entirely within the next five years, - decades earlier than predicted in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 4th Assessment Report. Scientists judge the risks to humanity of dangerous global warming to be high. The Great Barrier Reef faces devastation. Extreme weather events, such as storm surges adding to rising sea levels and threatening coastal cities, will become increasingly frequent. There is a real danger that we have reached or will soon reach critical tipping points and the future will be taken out of our hands. The melting Arctic sea ice could be the first such tipping point. Beyond 2ºC of warming, seemingly inevitable unless greenhouse gas reduction targets are tightened, we risk huge human and societal costs and perhaps even the effective end of industrial civilisation. We need to cease our assault on our own life support system, and that of millions of species. Global warming is only one of many symptoms of that assault. Peak oil, global warming and long term sustainability pressures all require that we reduce energy needs and switch to alternative energy sources. Many credible studies show that Australia can quickly and cost-effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions through dramatic improvements in energy efficiency and by increasing our investment in solar, wind and other renewable sources. The need for action is extremely urgent and our window of opportunity for avoiding severe impacts is rapidly closing. Yet the obstacles to change are not technical or economic, they are political and social. We know democratic societies have responded successfully to dire and immediate threats, as was demonstrated in World War II. This is a last call for an effective response to global warming. [Approved by the delegates of the conference, 12 June 2008] Source: http://www.aussmc.org/Climate_joint_statement.php
'No return' fears on climate change
June 12, 2008 THE world could be tracking towards irreversible climate change as warming takes place much quicker than previously thought, an Adelaide academic has warned. Climate change expert Barry Brook, of Adelaide University, told a Canberra conference — Imagining the Real Life on a Greenhouse Earth — atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were headed towards 600 parts a million, and forecast global temperature increases of up to six degrees. Professor Brook said a global temperature increase of three degrees might result in the collapse of the Amazon rainforest, a four-degree increase would lead to the displacement of hundreds of million of people and the extinction of up to half the world's species, and a five-degree increase would create an ice-free planet and sea-level increases of 80 metres. "We're seeing events predicted for the end of the 21st century happening already," Professor Brook said. He cautioned that even the most ambitious international greenhouse gas reduction targets might not prevent a catastrophic increase in temperatures. "Two degrees has the potential to lead to three or four degrees because of carbon-cycle feedbacks," Professor Brook said. The Australian National University's Janette Lindesay warned that the earth was moving towards "tipping points", where climate change would become irreversible. Barrie Pittock, of the CSIRO, said the amount of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere had overtaken even the worst-case scenario included in last year's bench-mark report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "We are at or exceeding the fossil-fuel-intensive scenario, which the latest IPCC report didn't cover because they thought it was too much," Dr Pittock said. Source: http://www.theage.com.au/environment/no-return-fears-on-climate-change-20080611-2p53.html International Energy Agency report: Act now with clean energy or face 6 degrees C warming; cost is not high key messages of the stunning new IEA report, "Energy Technology Perspectives, 2008" (executive summary here). The real news from the global energy agency is 1. Failing to act very quickly to transform the planet's energy system puts us on a path to catastrophic outcomes. 2. The investment required is "an average of some 1.1 percent of global GDP each year from now until 2050. This expenditure reflects a re-direction of economic activity and employment, and not necessarily a reduction of GDP." In fact, this investment partly pays for itself in reduced energy costs alone (not even counting the pollution reduction benefits)! 3. The world is on the brink of a renewables (and efficiency) revolution. Source: http://www.iea.org/Textbase/npsum/ETP2008SUM.pdf
World Bank prices first U.N. carbon offset bond-lead Mon Jun 9, 2008 12:53pm BST
LONDON (Reuters) - The World Bank on Monday priced a $25 million bond linked to United Nations-approved carbon emission offset credits, the market's first such bond, lead manager Daiwa Securities SMBC Europe said. Payments on the bond are linked to Certified Emissions Reduction credits (CERs), which are issued under the Clean Development Mechanism, a trading scheme that allows rich nations to invest in clean energy projects in developing countries. Trade in CERs, which holders can either sell for profit or use to meet emissions targets under the Kyoto Protocol, more than doubled to $13 billion last year, according to a World Bank report published in May. The five-year bond initially pays a coupon of 3 percent, but then switches to a coupon linked to the future performance of CER market prices and the actual versus estimated delivery of CERs generated by a hydropower plant in China's Guizhou province, Daiwa SMBC said. "Investors in this bond will be able to indirectly participate in the market for greenhouse gas emission reductions and support demand for CERs generated from a specific UNFCCC-registered clean energy project," it said. UNFCCC is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. "The market for CERs contributes to a reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions and the transition to a low carbon growth economy," Daiwa SMBC said. Source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKL091939920080609
Nanosolar Price Barrier Breakthrough Makes Solar Electricity Cheaper Than Coal
(NaturalNews)
A new combination of nano and solar technology has made it possible for solar
electric generation to be cheaper than burning coal. Nanosolar, Inc. has
developed a way to produce a type of ink that absorbs solar radiation and
converts into electric current. Photovoltaic (PV) sheets are produced by a
machine similar to a printing press, which rolls out the PV ink onto sheets approximately
the width of aluminum foil. These PV sheets can be produced at a rate of
hundreds of feet per minute.
Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/023389.html http://www.nanosolar.com/products.htm June 3rd, 2008 Shocking News: My Husband and Oprah Did it! Last week my husband, who was raised on the hearty East Coast, went vegan! Now Oprah goes vegan; coincidence??? Well Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay also did it, and so have lots of other SMART Americans, so maybe there is more to it... and they aren't running off to an ashram. Now, I do eat meat, albeit free-range and hormone free, but there's just no ignoring that pesky UN report, which explicitly states that raising animals for food is a key contributor to the most serious environmental problems - i.e. climate change, land degradation, air and water pollution, loss of biodiversity and water shortages. Look at it this way: Eating a single pound of meat emits the same greenhouse gases as driving a Hummer 40 miles! So a diet change for climate change is HUGE. I'm not suggesting you give it all up, but consuming a lot less is a good idea for the planet and for you! Ecofabulous editor Andrea has been sipping soy chai lattes and savoring vegan quesadillas since they were hard to find. My unbelievably fit mother hasn't eaten meat since the eighties. If you're like me and you want that summer body, read on: For shifting your diet, many resources are available. Oprah has some delicious recipes available on her website. Another excellent site is GoVeg.com: After you sign their Pledge to Be Veg for Seven Days, they'll send you all the info you need to get started. Yum! Source Large methane release could cause abrupt climate change as happened 635 million years ago An abrupt release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, about 635 million years ago from ice sheets that then extended to Earth’s low latitudes caused a dramatic shift in climate, triggering a series of events that resulted in global warming and effectively ended the last “snowball” ice age, a UC Riverside-led study reports. When released into the ocean-atmosphere system, methane reacts with oxygen to form carbon dioxide and can cause marine dysoxia, which kills oxygen-using animals, and has been proposed as an explanation for major oceanic extinctions. "One way to look at the present human influence on global warming is that we are conducting a global-scale experiment with Earth’s climate system", Kennedy said. "We are witnessing an unprecedented rate of warming, with little or no knowledge of what instabilities lurk in the climate system and how they can influence life on Earth. But much the same experiment has already been conducted 635 million years ago, and the outcome is preserved in the geologic record. We see that strong forcing on the climate, not unlike the current carbon dioxide forcing, results in the activation of latent controls in the climate system that, once initiated, change the climate to a wholly different state". http://www.physorg.com/ New vegetarian food with several benefits A new vegetarian food that boosts the uptake of iron and offers a good set of proteins. This could be the result of a doctoral dissertation by Charlotte Eklund-Jonsson at the Department of Food Science, Chalmers University of Technology, in Sweden. The food, called tempe, is moreover a whole-grain product with high folate content. It is generally accepted in medicine that whole-grains reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases, and it is also believed that it protects against age-related diabetes and certain forms of cancer. The B vitamin folate is the natural form of folic acid and, among other things, is necessary for normal fetal development. "Tempe is designed for vegetarians, but also for people who want to eat less meat for environmental reasons, for example", says Charlotte Eklund-Jonsson. “We also had the environment in mind when we chose to base it on barley and oats, which are suitable to cultivate in Sweden and therefore do not require long transports". http://www.physorg.com/ BREAKING NEWS  |