Category: Climate chaos
The atmosphere is to the earth as a layer of varnish is to a desktop globe. It is thin, fragile and essential for preserving the items on the surface.150 years of burning fossil fuel have overloaded the atmosphere to the point where the earth is ill. It now has a fever. Read the detailed article, Soothing Gaia’s Fever for an evocative account of that analogy. The items listed here detail progress on coordinating 6.5 billion people in the most critical project undertaken by humanity.Â
admin /5 April, 2009
The Labor government announced last week that it will continue to invest billions in burying liquid carbon dioxide underground despite scientific advice that it is impossible to do so safely and effectively. Energy Minister Martin Ferguson opened the bidding for ten areas under the sea off Cape Otway in Western Victoria in which companies can store carbon dioxide. He said the commercial development of geosequestration is an integral part of the government’s strategy to reduce greenhouse emissions while maintaining economic growth through mining coal. Liquid CO2 occupies about five times the space as the coal burned to generate it, resulting in a global requirement to bury 80,000 tonnes of CO2 each minute for ever. The Otway project has stored 30,000 tonnes in 18 months.
admin /5 April, 2009
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology predicted a global temperature rise of at two three degrees last week.
An analysis of the likely outcomes of the current political situation and the impact on greenhouse gas emissions and therefore global warming led researchers at the institute to develop two scenarios depicted as roulette wheels labeled the Greenhouse Gamble.
One wheel presents the probability of different temperature rises under a No Policy scenario, the other roulette wheel representing a strong agreement at Copenhagen this year and then follow through by national governments. If agreement is not reached this December, the probability of temperature rise being less than two degrees is zero, if agreement is reached that probability rises to around 30%. A temperature rise of more than two degrees will make most of the world’s major cities uninhabitable, either through sea-level rise, drought or a combination of both.
admin /29 March, 2009
UK columnist George Monbiot has lashed out at a group of scientists promoting biochar as a solution to global warming. As The Generator discussed last week in response to the news story that a New Zealand company is proposing industrial scale biochar plants to assist fossil fuel companies offset their emissions, it is not sustainable to grow forests and turn them into charcoal simply so that we can continue to mine and burn coal. Although the carbon equation may stack up, it is not a viable use of the planet’s resources given the large scale depletion of water, food, soil and energy.
Here’s Monbiot’s article.
admin /29 March, 2009
The Sisters on the Planet project sponsored by Oxfam has released a DVD that features six women from around the world discussing the action they have taken on climate change. Four of the six women featured come from poor countries dramatically affected by climate change, Helen Henry is an Australian farmer living in Hamilton, a town in western Victoria that was almost closed due to lack of water and Melissa Davies Oliveck is a primary school teacher in the London suburb of Hackney. Oxfam has provided a range of activities and resources to promote the use of the DVD as a catalyst for action.
admin /28 March, 2009
Two billion Asians who depend on regular monsoon rainfalls face catastrophe as a result of the rapid melting of the arctic permafrost, according to an Alaskan ecologist. Katey Walker wrote in last week’s New Scientist that new lakes in Siberia have grown five times larger in the last two years and are releasing vast amounts of methane. The methane bubbles to the surface of these new lakes from plant material on the lake beds which has been frozen for thousands of years and is now thawed out and rotting. She is concerned that the recently measured rise in atmospheric methane is the first sign of this dramatic new development and will rapidly increase warming, altering ocean currents and switching off the tropical monsoons over Asia. “More than two billion people rely on those monsoons for drinking water and food,” she said.
admin /25 March, 2009
From the CSIRO
A combination of climate-change-induced temperature rises and increasing levels of air pollution could exacerbate the harmful effects of heat stress experienced by people living in Sydney, according to new research by CSIRO scientist, Dr Martin Cope.
In an address today to the GREENHOUSE 2009 conference in Perth, Dr Cope said the number of days Sydney experiences temperatures of 30°C or more is projected to increase significantly in the future.
“This, in turn, will increase fire risk and associated levels of air pollution,” Dr Cope said.
