Post Comments like this:
1. Your Name
2. A Title
3. A short personal commentary what you learned from it or what made you curious about it given the week's class content. However, it doesn't have to be about the week's content, only something related to human-environmental interactions.
4. Then put a long line ('-------------------)'.
5. Then cut/paste the article or topic you found.
6. Then a small line '---'.
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This is a test comment of what to do.
ReplyDelete1. Mark Whitaker
2. My Comment's Title
3. There is something about the following article that interests me, fascinates me, and/or makes me wonder what the article leaves out, etc. I can write as much as I want on this blog about my view on the article and the issues that it discusses. I can write about personal experiences that the article reminded me about. I can write about a different view of the same issues that the article mentions. I can convince people of something, express my intelligence, and express my emotion in this comment.
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[repost article here]
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[URL / web location of the article]
ghjhgh
ReplyDelete⒈Li Yu
ReplyDelete⒉Climate change crisis for rainforests
⒊The word that shocks me is the “Climate change”,somebody may know that, during the whole February,the North China suffers a lot due to the drought which is the most series one since 1951 in China.The experts in China say that the drought is caused by the “global warming”.After seeing this article, I am really worried about the future of the earth as well as my motherland.I know that many people in my country cut down trees,destroy farmlands and fill lakes to build high-rise buildings.But when the climate changes,we will lost much more than what we can get such as so-called modernization. Please,every citizen in the world,don't harm our environment any more for economic-development.
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Published online 5 March 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.136
News: Briefing
Climate change crisis for rainforests
Drought could turn carbon sinks into sources.
Quirin Schiermeier
Will rainforests still absorb CO2 in future?PunchstockThe tropical forests of South America, Africa and Asia take up and release huge amounts of carbon each year. On the whole, they are a significant 'sink' for atmospheric carbon dioxide, but their future role in sequestering the greenhouse gas is uncertain. If rainforests are hit by serious drought, as they were in the Amazon basin during 2005, they could turn into a carbon 'source' sooner than we thought. So, are we in danger of losing our closest allies in the fight against climate change?
How is climate change affecting the growth of the forests?
Atmospheric CO2 levels are now 40% above what plants were experiencing just a century or so ago. Plants may have benefited from the availability of extra CO2, which they convert, through photosynthesis, into biomass. But plant growth benefits from elevated CO2 levels only up to a point, and more negative aspects of climate warming may still be ahead.
The biggest worry is drought. Scientists who have for the first time determined the drought sensitivity of a tropical forest report in Science1 today alarming results from the Amazon basin: the unusual 2005 drought there has apparently turned some of the affected areas of the Amazon from a carbon sink to a carbon source.
A comparison of plots that were monitored regularly before and after the drought revealed that forest patches subjected to a 100-milimetre decrease in rainfall released on average 5.3 tonnes of carbon per hectare as trees in the area died.
Basin-wide, between 1.2 billion and 1.6 billion tonnes of carbon were released as a result of the intense dry season and weakened wet season during 2005, the team estimates. The exceptional growth in atmospheric CO2 concentrations in 2005 may actually have been caused by these releases.
So does climate change mean that rainforests will not be carbon sinks in the future?
That's not clear, because current climate models are not very good at simulating rainfall. The formation and distribution of clouds and precipitation are controlled by atmospheric processes that occur on smaller scales than existing climate models can resolve. As a result, climate models reproduce observed temperatures reasonably well but diverge rather wildly when it comes to rainfall, and particularly so in the tropics. Projections of rainfall must therefore be taken with a pinch of salt.
Nonetheless, many scientists do strongly suspect that, in a warmer climate, dry conditions such as those of 2005 will become more frequent in the Amazon region and around the tropics. If they are right, tropical forests could gradually cease to act as a solid buffer against climate change.
How large a carbon sink are the world's tropical forests at the moment?
Scientists estimate that mature tropical forests, which cover about 10% of Earth's land, take up as much as 1.3 billion tonnes of carbon per year. This is a substantial amount, equivalent to almost 20% of carbon emissions from fossil-fuel burning. Tropical forest thus accounts for around 40% of the global terrestrial carbon sink.
Leaf from a young sapling, dying after the 2005 drought in Columbian Amazonia.Peter VitzthumThe good news is that undisturbed old forests keep getting better at sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. Over the past couple of decades, mature tropical forests in Africa and South America seem to have taken up an extra 0.6 tonnes of carbon per hectare each year on average2,3. Tropical forests in Asia are likely to have improved their carbon uptake as well, although probably at a lower rate.
How reliable are these figures?
Measuring tree growth is notoriously difficult, not least because tropical observation networks are pitifully few, particularly in Africa. Problems related to plot selection, comparability and converting tree-diameter measurements to carbon content have led to an intense debate about the size and fate of the tropical (and global) terrestrial carbon sink. Given the many uncertainties, forests have been excluded from national carbon budgets under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change.
However, data gathered over the past decade suggest that undisturbed old-growth forests — in and outside the tropics — do indeed continue to grow and accumulate carbon. There is little doubt that tropical forests have acted as a substantial carbon sink for at least the past couple of decades. Old-growth boreal forests, which were long suspected to be carbon-neutral, have recently been found to keep accumulating carbon as well4.
How long will old forests continue to get better at taking up CO2?
That is a key question. Deforestation and forest degradation, through logging, clearing and fire, are only the most obvious problems. Between 2000 and 2005, South America and Africa have each lost around 4,000 square kilometres of forest annually. But even undisturbed forests cannot continue to grow for ever. Their accelerated growth in recent decades is probably a temporary phenomenon, explained either by the fertilization effect of elevated CO2 levels or by the fact that they are still in the process of growing back from major disturbances in past centuries.
What does all this mean for forest management and the politics of climate change?
Climate change and deforestation pose a double threat to rainforests. Keeping alive large amounts of forest will require big areas to remain undisturbed from logging and clearing. Fragmented forest areas are more vulnerable and more likely to be overrun by climate change.
"These forests have given us a subsidy for a long time, but this cannot be taken for granted," says Oliver Phillips, an ecologist at the University of Leeds, UK, who coordinates the Amazon Forest Inventory Network, which was responsible for the latest study. "So when putting a carbon value on them we'd rather be conservative."
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http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090305/full/news.2009.136.html
March 7
Ju Hyun, Park
ReplyDeleteCalifornia on the lead for better environment
It is not so surprising to hear that Barack Obama, the new president of the U.S., is planning for a national emission standard. However, automakers of California and California officials' trying to adopt emission regulation suggested by the Environmental Protection Agency, instead of the more lose national standard, is indeed astonishing. Regardless of the Californian officials' effort, there is a clash with the car industry supporters. Actually, the officials' stance is somewhat understandable but the automakers' is indeed interesting. Apart from their economic benefit, they are trying to limit themselves to a more strict regulations. It seems great how the automakers and the state officials actually in pursuit of a more environment-friendly policies and taking the lead in the process of better environment. I would like to keep an eye on the conflict regarding the issue in California. (I should keep the class posted on the issue :P)
-------------------------------------------------
From the Los Angeles Times
A clash over auto emission standards
California wants its own limits, saying carmakers can hit the mark. Others support a national standard.
By Jim Tankersley and Ken Bensinger
March 6, 2009
Reporting from Los Angeles and Arlington, Va. — California officials told the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday that major automakers are already on track to meet the state's strict proposed limits on greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles.
But they clashed again with auto industry supporters at a daylong hearing over whether the EPA should grant California's request to allow it and 13 other states to set their own emission standards.
Automakers and dealers raised concerns over several points of California's plan and said they would welcome a nationwide standard for emission limits. California officials said they wouldn't accept any national standard that fell short of their state's.
Listening to the arguments was the Obama administration, which has expressed strong interest in crafting a national emission standard that satisfies the recession-rocked domestic auto industry and California.
The Clean Air Act allows California to seek permission to set its own air pollution standards, which the state did by passing the nation's first law regulating greenhouse gas emissions from vehicle tailpipes earlier this decade.
The state has been unable to implement the regulation because of a series of legal challenges from the auto industry and a decision by the Bush administration in late 2007 denying the state's request for a required EPA waiver.
A week into his term, President Obama ordered the EPA to reconsider that move. The EPA scheduled a hearing Thursday at its office in Arlington, Va., to solicit public comments on California's request.
California officials emphasized the dangers a warming climate poses to the state's air quality, water supply and agriculture.
"As the temperature gets hotter, many places in California become increasingly difficult places to live," said state Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills), the original author of California's tailpipe emission standards.
State officials also said they believed General Motors Corp. would meet their standards for this model year and 2010. Their opinion was based on information from the troubled automaker's recovery plan filed with the Obama administration this year.
"The technology is ready" to make more efficient cars and trucks, said Tom Cackette, the deputy executive officer of the California Air Resources Board. "The manufacturers are exceeding our expectations."
But Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who has been a supporter of automakers, said California's regulations would handicap the industry.
"Global warming is not unique to California," he said. "And to suggest that it is actually undermines the argument that it is a global threat that knows no boundaries."
Levin and industry representatives argued for emission controls on a national level, rather than on the state level. They noted the sagging economy's effect on auto sales and said granting the California request would force automakers to comply with different standards in different states.
GM has argued against the state-by-state approach in the past. But as the troubled automaker waits for the White House to decide whether to give it $16.6 billion in additional bailout funding, the company has taken a quieter role in the debate.
The company did not speak directly at the hearing and has been reserved in its criticism of California's proposed rule.
Deciding how to regulate emissions is "a process that we plan to be engaged in," said GM spokesman Greg Martin. "We continue to work vigorously on the new technologies and cars that will offer meaningful solutions to the nation's energy crisis."
California officials said although they would not accept a national standard lower than their state's, they too would ultimately like U.S. auto emission regulations under one policy, as is the case in the European Union and Japan.
"Our hope is that there would be a federal [standard] that we could sign onto and support," said Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the Air Resources Board. "That would be the best for the world."
jtankersley@tribune.com
ken.bensinger@latimes.com
---
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-na-emissions6-2009mar06,0,2898775.story
1. Martin Weiser
ReplyDelete2. Plankton and Plastic Waste
3. All that massive information about plastic substituting plankton, hypotoxic areas and plastic pollution in general made me kind of interested in that topic. Just meaning I had a look what else is out there in the internet about that.
First of all, google lead me to the wikipedia entry for plankton. Interestingly it says there is plankton even smaller than the 3mm diameter of Charles Moore's net in that alphabet soup video we saw. It goes on with arguing that plankton is assumed to make up the largest proportion in size and - how I assume here - in weight of plankton. So the 1:9 ratio seems doubtable. Although micro particles of plastic haven't been taken into account as well. Additionally, zooplankton (that plankton not using photosynthese but eating other plankton) like Krill normally does not stay at the surface (according to the encyclopedia of earth article on plankton). It's going down during daytime to be less visible for predators. Making it a victim of discrimination due to absence in Moore's project. Taking into account that the weight of plastic molecules is said to be high in the gyrecleanup article, I wonder why Moore had to take a weight-based measurement for his plastic project. Leading me to the conclusion that this ratio might be scary (which actually is a 1:1 already) but manipulatively exaggerated if it comes to the actual ecosystem.
By the way, try to search for fish and gyre with any search engine. You will get surprisingly many results related to plastic pollution and the so called garbage patch. Making me unable to find any results about real fish or plastic in fish. Except the general assumption fish might swallow the plastic compounts and thereby also accumulate heavy metals.
I also found an article by the British Independent citing someone that the garbage patch might be twice the size of the USA. Seems like a hot debate with some people trying to even stir it up.
Then I found an article by Charles Moore. I did not read it but saw a picture that caught my attention. A carcass of an albatross stuffed with plastic waste. It really looked shocking to me. I guess that's the reason why you can find it on many other pages, too. However, I am wondering how a bird can eat plastic until it makes up the whole inside. And think this photo is a fake. I have seen another video in German television which smaller birds but much less plastics inside. Unfortunately I couldn't get a copy of that yet to upload a subtitled version. For those who can't wait you can find it here some where in the mid of the video:
http://schampi.com/space/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=283:abenteuer-wissen-fluch-der-bunten-plastikwelt&catid=8:wissenschaftforschung&Itemid=9
The small plastic bag the longhaired guy is holding in his hand in the end would be the average amount of plastic a human-sized bird would have eaten (before dying in 93% of all cases due to digestion problems).
-------------------
Wikipedia:
The existence and importance of nano- and even smaller plankton was only discovered during the 1980s, but they are thought to make up the largest proportion of all plankton in number and diversity.
Encyclopedia of Earth:
Diel vertical migrations by zooplankton consist of moving up in the water at night and down in the day time. Being in deeper water during the daylight provides protection from predators that use vision to capture prey. This behavior is seen in animals from all different phyla that are in the plankton, so it must have enormous survival value.
Independent:
Marcus Eriksen, a research director of the US-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which Mr Moore founded, said yesterday: "The original idea that people had was that it was an island of plastic garbage that you could almost walk on. It is not quite like that. It is almost like a plastic soup. It is endless for an area that is maybe twice the size as continental United States."
---
http://www.gyrecleanup.org/articles/gyretrouble.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankton
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/the-worlds-rubbish-dump-a-garbage-tip-that-stretches-from-hawaii-to-japan-778016.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/the-worlds-rubbish-dump-a-garbage-tip-that-stretches-from-hawaii-to-japan-778016.html?action=Popup
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Moore-Trashed-PacificNov03.htm
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Moore-Trashed-PacificNov03.htm
Just forgot the link to the picture of the dead bird...
ReplyDelete(http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Moore-Trashed-PacificNov03.htm)
Young Hui Na
ReplyDeleteThe Environment Worry of a optimist
Despite running the risk of newspaper columns not being considered as a proper 'newspaper article', the recent column written by the famous Thomas L. Friedman instantly caught my attention while searching for an interesting article. It turns out, his article did not let my expectation down, and prooved how universal the environment agenda has become.
When a free-market believer like Friedman himself writes a worrisome article on the environment, it seems as an assurance of how, despite such massive financial crisis going on, we cannot put 'mother nature' on hold no longer. The introductory anecdote of a Chinese man is genuinely humorous, but at the same time illustrates how reckless our civilization has become used to useless, cheap junks. Since the Chinese man was employed at a plastics industry, perhaps some of his creation has wound up somewhere in the 'alphabet soup', waiting until mankind
redigests it through the food chain. At this stage, we can only say, 'what has the world come to?'
The definitely interesting factor that Friedman notes is about the innate limitation of a capitalist system. As it has prospered on the production system of excessive goods, we have come to the stage in which we are saturated with goods and junks. The only difference would be that goods are not distributed evenly through the 'free market', while the 'common bad' is the universal burden that we all have to figure out some day. I guess the best way to start is to stop the process of denial, and start processing the 'most effective' way of dealing with the problem. If the market has taught us one good thing, it would be effectiveness, wouldn't it? :)
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5. The Inflection Is Near?
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: March 7, 2009
Sometimes the satirical newspaper The Onion is so right on, I can’t resist quoting from it. Consider this faux article from June 2005 about America’s addiction to Chinese exports:
»FENGHUA, China — Chen Hsien, an employee of Fenghua Ningbo Plastic Works Ltd., a plastics factory that manufactures lightweight household items for Western markets, expressed his disbelief Monday over the “sheer amount of [garbage] Americans will buy. Often, when we’re assigned a new order for, say, ‘salad shooters,’ I will say to myself, ‘There’s no way that anyone will ever buy these.’ ... One month later, we will receive an order for the same product, but three times the quantity. How can anyone have a need for such useless [garbage]? I hear that Americans can buy anything they want, and I believe it, judging from the things I’ve made for them,” Chen said. “And I also hear that, when they no longer want an item, they simply throw it away. So wasteful and contemptible.”
Let’s today step out of the normal boundaries of analysis of our economic crisis and ask a radical question: What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said: “No more.”
We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China, powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills so America would have more and more money to build more and more stores and sell more and more stuff that would employ more and more Chinese ...
We can’t do this anymore.
“We created a way of raising standards of living that we can’t possibly pass on to our children,” said Joe Romm, a physicist and climate expert who writes the indispensable blog climateprogress.org. We have been getting rich by depleting all our natural stocks — water, hydrocarbons, forests, rivers, fish and arable land — and not by generating renewable flows.
“You can get this burst of wealth that we have created from this rapacious behavior,” added Romm. “But it has to collapse, unless adults stand up and say, ‘This is a Ponzi scheme. We have not generated real wealth, and we are destroying a livable climate ...’ Real wealth is something you can pass on in a way that others can enjoy.”
Over a billion people today suffer from water scarcity; deforestation in the tropics destroys an area the size of Greece every year — more than 25 million acres; more than half of the world’s fisheries are over-fished or fished at their limit.
“Just as a few lonely economists warned us we were living beyond our financial means and overdrawing our financial assets, scientists are warning us that we’re living beyond our ecological means and overdrawing our natural assets,” argues Glenn Prickett, senior vice president at Conservation International. But, he cautioned, as environmentalists have pointed out: “Mother Nature doesn’t do bailouts.”
One of those who has been warning me of this for a long time is Paul Gilding, the Australian environmental business expert. He has a name for this moment — when both Mother Nature and Father Greed have hit the wall at once — “The Great Disruption.”
“We are taking a system operating past its capacity and driving it faster and harder,” he wrote me. “No matter how wonderful the system is, the laws of physics and biology still apply.” We must have growth, but we must grow in a different way. For starters, economies need to transition to the concept of net-zero, whereby buildings, cars, factories and homes are designed not only to generate as much energy as they use but to be infinitely recyclable in as many parts as possible. Let’s grow by creating flows rather than plundering more stocks.
Gilding says he’s actually an optimist. So am I. People are already using this economic slowdown to retool and reorient economies. Germany, Britain, China and the U.S. have all used stimulus bills to make huge new investments in clean power. South Korea’s new national paradigm for development is called: “Low carbon, green growth.” Who knew? People are realizing we need more than incremental changes — and we’re seeing the first stirrings of growth in smarter, more efficient, more responsible ways.
In the meantime, says Gilding, take notes: “When we look back, 2008 will be a momentous year in human history. Our children and grandchildren will ask us, ‘What was it like? What were you doing when it started to fall apart? What did you think? What did you do?’ ” Often in the middle of something momentous, we can’t see its significance. But for me there is no doubt: 2008 will be the marker — the year when ‘The Great Disruption’ began.
---
URL : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/opinion/08friedman.html?_r=1
Young Hui Na
ReplyDeleteThe Environment Worry of a optimist
Despite running the risk of newspaper columns not being considered as a proper 'newspaper article', the recent column written by the famous Thomas L. Friedman instantly caught my attention while searching for an interesting article. It turns out, his article did not let my expectation down, and prooved how universal the environment agenda has become.
When a free-market believer like Friedman himself writes a worrisome article on the environment, it seems as an assurance of how, despite such massive financial crisis going on, we cannot put 'mother nature' on hold no longer. The introductory anecdote of a Chinese man is genuinely humorous, but at the same time illustrates how reckless our civilization has become used to useless, cheap junks. Since the Chinese man was employed at a plastics industry, perhaps some of his creation has wound up somewhere in the 'alphabet soup', waiting until mankind
redigests it through the food chain. At this stage, we can only say, 'what has the world come to?'
The definitely interesting factor that Friedman notes is about the innate limitation of a capitalist system. As it has prospered on the production system of excessive goods, we have come to the stage in which we are saturated with goods and junks. The only difference would be that goods are not distributed evenly through the 'free market', while the 'common bad' is the universal burden that we all have to figure out some day. I guess the best way to start is to stop the process of denial, and start processing the 'most effective' way of dealing with the problem. If the market has taught us one good thing, it would be effectiveness, wouldn't it? :)
---
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/opinion/08friedman.html?_r=1
1. Anne Severe
ReplyDelete2. Economic Recession & Climate
3. As an American, I have felt the impact of the economic recession in the United States. I tend to notice obvious effects: rapid store closings, people cutting back on groceries, mass job-cuts. These are difficult to over look. However, I rarely consider the impact that the economic crisis has on the environment. If people are cutting back on spending, this includes electricity, driving, and in turn, greenhouse gas emissions. Since the recession has a global impact, the result can be tremendous. I find this article interesting because it studies the relationship of the recession and declining greenhouse gas emissions. It questions what this temporary climate shift will mean for the future of climate control.
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Recession may help on the climate front -- for a while
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By PETER BEHR, ClimateWire
Published: March 6, 2009
The global recession will provide a short respite from climate challenges, shrinking greenhouse gas emissions from industry, offices, homes and vehicles this year. When the economy resumes growing, so will the planet's carbon footprint, unless business-as-usual practices change.
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More News From ClimateWire
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* Europeans urge Obama to adopt medium-term climate targets
* Preparing to confront the unknowable
* Facing the specter of the globe's biggest and harshest mass journeys
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U.S. greenhouse gas emissions totaled 7.3 billion metric tons in carbon dioxide equivalents in 2007, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration reported last year. Using EIA's most recent forecast for CO2 emissions from major fuels, U.S. emissions could drop to 6.98 billion tons this year. Even if a recovery begins in 2010, as Federal Reserve governors predict, emissions next year could total 7.15 billion tons, less than in 2007. The carbon reduction would be greater, to be sure, if the more pessimistic economic forecasts prove true.
The United States has lost 3.6 million payroll jobs since the recession began in December 2007, and no major part of the economy has escaped. The gross domestic product fell 6 percent between the third and fourth quarters of last year, and industrial production in January was down 10 percent from January the year before. Manufacturing declined by 13 percent, and the empty factories, idled power plants, cold furnaces and fewer worker commutes are giving the atmosphere a brief break.
The recession's accelerating toll on factories and utilities led the research firm Point Carbon to lower its latest projection of European C02 emissions for 2008-12 by 4.4 percent from December's forecast. Japan and Australia have also reported cuts in power generation.
More time to perfect a new global treaty?
Harvard University economist Robert Stavins said the impact of the worldwide recession is "extremely unfortunate," but added, "I think there is a silver lining." Because the downturn approximates efforts by European nations to trim their emissions by about 2 percent a year, it will give policymakers and diplomats more time to perfect a treaty that is an improvement on the Kyoto Protocol. The current timetable calls for the treaty to be renegotiated in December in Copenhagen.
"What this says to me is that with regard to Copenhagen, it would be fully appropriate for nations of the world to sit back and take a deep breath." While he remains "bullish" on the prospects of a new treaty, Stavins said he thinks the lull in economic activity and accompanying drop in emissions mean that the negotiations should be less driven by "handwringing" over whether nations will meet a deadline imposed by accumulating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Negotiators and the Obama administration, he said, can now take more time to perfect a treaty that works, so that they "don't make the mistakes of Kyoto, of countries signing a treaty whose targets they can't meet or that they can't ratify. So here's the opportunity that this terrible tragedy [the economic crash] presents."
Carbon intensity must shrink faster than the economy grows
The amount of greenhouse gases produced in this country for every dollar of economic growth -- called carbon intensity -- has been trending downward slightly. In 2007, each million dollars of GDP produced 632 million tons of CO2 equivalent, in constant dollars based on 2000 prices.
Changes in the makeup of the economy play a part in the trend. "We make different things than we used to," said Chris Fields, global ecology director at the Carnegie Institution for Science and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "It's [more] health care versus [less] aluminum. And the way we generate power has gotten more efficient."
But improvement must accelerate tenfold over the next four decades if levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are to be stabilized by 2050, notes a study by the McKinsey Global Institute.
"If we're going to shrink emissions and grow the economy, somehow we have to shrink carbon intensity faster than we grow," Fields said.
Pieter Tans, a senior scientist at the U.S. Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., said the carbon reduction gains from even a severe recession won't make a lasting difference in the concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere.
"Suppose the economy really slows down. How much will emissions decrease? Let's say 6 percent over a year," Tans said. "If you put that amount less carbon in atmosphere ... the reduction is just one-quarter of 1 part CO2 per million parts atmosphere."
"That's less than the year-to-year variability in measurements of atmospheric CO2," he added. "There is no sign of a slowdown in 2008" in C02 concentrations.
Copyright 2009 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserved.
For more news on energy and the environment, visit www.climatewire.net.
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http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/03/06/06climatewire-recession-may-help-on-the-climate-front--for-10012.html
Thank for this information.It is nice trick for the enthusiastic readers and bloggers.
ReplyDeletebildschirmschoner aquarium