Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Global warming issue needs to be addressed
Global warming is a serious issue that needs to be addressed with huge investments and latest technology, said Gerald Doucet, secretary-general of the World Energy Council, while addressing the Global Energy Forum here yesterday.
Nearly 200 decision-makers and major players of oil and gas companies from all over the globe explored technology solutions in oil and gas industry at the first Microsoft Middle East and Africa Global Energy Forum 2008.
The forum explored technology solutions in the oil and gas and discussed how to address the environmental issues.
Speaking at the forum, Doucet said, “A lot of progress is being made in fighting global warming. But the big issue is the carbon capture storage and that calls for much more rapid progress through investment.
“We need to create more efficient employees for software handling. We need clear rules in the UN organisations to deal with the environmental issues and the issues of the investments,” Doucet said.
Ali Faramawy, vice-president of Microsoft International, said, “Meeting the challenges of global energy supply and demand depends on integrated business processes, breakthrough innovations and rock-solid business relationships.”
He added: “The UAE is a very special country we are trying to bring here our best in terms of education and technology.”
Nearly 200 decision-makers and major players of oil and gas companies from all over the globe explored technology solutions in oil and gas industry at the first Microsoft Middle East and Africa Global Energy Forum 2008.
The forum explored technology solutions in the oil and gas and discussed how to address the environmental issues.
Speaking at the forum, Doucet said, “A lot of progress is being made in fighting global warming. But the big issue is the carbon capture storage and that calls for much more rapid progress through investment.
“We need to create more efficient employees for software handling. We need clear rules in the UN organisations to deal with the environmental issues and the issues of the investments,” Doucet said.
Ali Faramawy, vice-president of Microsoft International, said, “Meeting the challenges of global energy supply and demand depends on integrated business processes, breakthrough innovations and rock-solid business relationships.”
He added: “The UAE is a very special country we are trying to bring here our best in terms of education and technology.”
Global Warming, the carbon tax and the coming carbon tariff
British Columbia has been a leader in establishing climate-change policy, particularly with the creation of the carbon tax. It's a revenue neutral model to try and redistribute a tax on carbon to other parts of the economy and taxpayer, so that there's no net revenue game to government.
But B.C. is having a tougher time implementing the tough, greenhouse gas targets for the economy, as this column shows. Premier Gordon Campbell says that the targets won't likely get put in place until late 2009.
Meanwhile, however, the United States is getting ready for some major moves on the file. A made-in-the-USA carbon-trading system is likely coming and there's probably going to be the creation of what many are calling a carbon tariff. Here's my take on it. It's a likely scenario because Hilary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama have all signaled support for a move to carbon controls in the next administration
But B.C. is having a tougher time implementing the tough, greenhouse gas targets for the economy, as this column shows. Premier Gordon Campbell says that the targets won't likely get put in place until late 2009.
Meanwhile, however, the United States is getting ready for some major moves on the file. A made-in-the-USA carbon-trading system is likely coming and there's probably going to be the creation of what many are calling a carbon tariff. Here's my take on it. It's a likely scenario because Hilary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama have all signaled support for a move to carbon controls in the next administration
Curing global warming requires sacrifice
recent article in the Christian Science Monitor said that President Bush wants to end the growth of U.S. carbon emissions by 2025. This will happen if developing nations commit to lowering emissions and the U.S. economy is unharmed.
Waiting 17 years to fix the problem of global warming is not going to help our economy, which is far from healthy.
We are more than $9 trillion in debt, according to the U.S. Department of Treasury. A good chunk of that debt is the result of global warming - in fact, approximately a $138 billion chunk, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and Whitehouse.gov.
Global warming is expensive. Drought, warmer oceans and severe storms affect 33 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. Industries - including agriculture and fishing - contributed $4 trillion to the American economy in 2006 after a $6 billion to $8 billion loss due to drought.
Preliminary estimates for 2007 show that drought in the Great Plains and the eastern U.S. cost $5 billion in crop yields. That same year, millions of dollars were lost due to drought and high winds when wildfires consumed the California landscape.
But drought isn't our only concern. The oceans are getting warmer and our fragile fishing industry is at risk.
Fishing is a multi-billion dollar industry in the U.S. It's so important that the proposed 2009 budget includes $69.9 billion for ocean and fisheries conservation.
It's counterproductive to put all of that money into preserving the ocean's ecosystem if we are going to ignore the threat of global warming.
One of the most catastrophic and expensive events in U.S. history spawned from warmer oceans. Hurricane Katrina has cost the federal government $127 billion and she's still not done. The reconstruction phase is a work in progress.
The money can be replaced, but the loss of more than 1,000 lives is irreversible.
Putting the economy ahead of our well-being is unacceptable. If we don't act now, disasters like Katrina are not the only threats to our health. Greenhouse gases have been linked to asthma, heart disease and cancer.
A recent MIT study concluded that a modest cap-and-trade system will cost $20 per household annually. We will pay more in hospital bills if we don't change current emissions soon.
Events like the droughts and Katrina will continue to rack up tabs on our bill. Working through the initial costs of mandatory caps is the only way to achieve a healthy economy. If we start now - not 17 years from now - we may have a chance to minimize global warming's tab.
Developing countries probably have more to lose from global warming than we do. The severe weather, drought, rising sea levels and increases in disease could ravage these countries before they can adapt.
Bush needs to start worrying at global levels, rather than being U.S.-centric. The most important issues are future financial, environmental and societal impacts. The health of our economy and our biological well-being depends on it.
We can be a green economy and thrive. We will all need to make sacrifices, but in terms of what it has already cost, and what it will cost in the future, sacrifice is worth it.
Waiting 17 years to fix the problem of global warming is not going to help our economy, which is far from healthy.
We are more than $9 trillion in debt, according to the U.S. Department of Treasury. A good chunk of that debt is the result of global warming - in fact, approximately a $138 billion chunk, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and Whitehouse.gov.
Global warming is expensive. Drought, warmer oceans and severe storms affect 33 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. Industries - including agriculture and fishing - contributed $4 trillion to the American economy in 2006 after a $6 billion to $8 billion loss due to drought.
Preliminary estimates for 2007 show that drought in the Great Plains and the eastern U.S. cost $5 billion in crop yields. That same year, millions of dollars were lost due to drought and high winds when wildfires consumed the California landscape.
But drought isn't our only concern. The oceans are getting warmer and our fragile fishing industry is at risk.
Fishing is a multi-billion dollar industry in the U.S. It's so important that the proposed 2009 budget includes $69.9 billion for ocean and fisheries conservation.
It's counterproductive to put all of that money into preserving the ocean's ecosystem if we are going to ignore the threat of global warming.
One of the most catastrophic and expensive events in U.S. history spawned from warmer oceans. Hurricane Katrina has cost the federal government $127 billion and she's still not done. The reconstruction phase is a work in progress.
The money can be replaced, but the loss of more than 1,000 lives is irreversible.
Putting the economy ahead of our well-being is unacceptable. If we don't act now, disasters like Katrina are not the only threats to our health. Greenhouse gases have been linked to asthma, heart disease and cancer.
A recent MIT study concluded that a modest cap-and-trade system will cost $20 per household annually. We will pay more in hospital bills if we don't change current emissions soon.
Events like the droughts and Katrina will continue to rack up tabs on our bill. Working through the initial costs of mandatory caps is the only way to achieve a healthy economy. If we start now - not 17 years from now - we may have a chance to minimize global warming's tab.
Developing countries probably have more to lose from global warming than we do. The severe weather, drought, rising sea levels and increases in disease could ravage these countries before they can adapt.
Bush needs to start worrying at global levels, rather than being U.S.-centric. The most important issues are future financial, environmental and societal impacts. The health of our economy and our biological well-being depends on it.
We can be a green economy and thrive. We will all need to make sacrifices, but in terms of what it has already cost, and what it will cost in the future, sacrifice is worth it.
Hotel investment sector can reduce global warming
The fourth Arabian Hotel Investment Conference (AHIC 2008) takes place at the Madinat Jumeirah Convention Centre in Dubai from May 3 to 5. This year’s theme is Ever Increasing Circles – the Ripple Effect of Hotel Investment in the Middle East. TTN has highlights of the programme and comments from industry leaders.
Long distance swimmer Lewis Gordon Pugh will deliver a keynote address to tourism professionals about global warming at this year’s Arabian Hotel Investment Conference (AHIC 2008).
Pugh, also known as ‘Aqua Al Gore’, is the first person to complete a long distance swim in every ocean of the world. He will speak on the devastating affects of global climate change at the conference on May 5.
This comes in the wake of news that Dubai hoteliers in particular are being asked to implement energy saving measures as many properties clock up 225 per cent more energy usage than their European counterparts.
Says Pugh, “We stand at a critical point in the history of the planet. Climate change is the greatest threat to life as we know it. It is serious and it's been caused by man. Luckily, the end has yet to be written and this is where we come in. The hotel investment sector can help.
“The steps which we take over the next few years will determine the future of the natural world and the sustainability of mankind.”
Conference co-organiser, MEED’s Edmund O’Sullivan said that the conference will feature a session on “green development” which will look at how to develop a hotel in an eco friendly way.
“If we start outlining simple steps now, it will not be long before industry leaders implement measures en masse. This is what we need to ensure strict environmental standards are met.”
He said AHIC was committed to ‘doing it’s bit’ to help reduce global warming and had teamed up with NativeEnergy, one of the world’s leading providers of quality carbon offsets. He added that although IPCC (United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) estimates that the region’s contribution towards global emissions to be less than six percent, the UAE alone is on the top 50 countries list for carbon emissions.
“Pugh is on a journey to fight against climate change and as a recognised international ambassador we believe that AHIC 2008 provides a great platform to communicate this crisis to the 1,000 plus hotel, travel and tourism industry,” O’Sullivan said.
Global Warming May Take Ten Year Break
Climate change projections, as published in the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, only consider changes in future atmospheric composition. This strategy is appropriate for long-term changes in climate such as predictions for the end of the century. However, in order to predict short-term developments over the next decade, models need additional information on natural climate variations, in particular associated with ocean currents.
The lack of sufficient data has hampered such predictions in the past.
Scientists at The Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of Kiel (IFM-GEOMAR) and from the MPI for Meteorology have developed a method to derive ocean currents from measurements of sea surface temperature (SST). The latter are available in good quality and global coverage at least for the past 50 years.
The press release says that with this additional information, natural decadal climate variations, which are superimposed on the long-term anthropogenic warming trend, can be predicted. The improved predictions suggest that global warming will weaken slightly during the next decade.
“Just to make things clear: we are not stating that anthropogenic climate change won’t be as bad as previously thought”, explains Prof. Mojib Latif from IFM-GEOMAR.
“What we are saying is that on top of the warming trend there is a long-periodic oscillation that will probably lead to a to a lower temperature increase than we would expect from the current trend during the next years”, adds Latif.
“That is like driving from the coast to a mountainous area and crossing some hills and valleys before you reach the top”, explains Dr. Johann Jungclaus from the MPI for Meteorology. “In some years trends of phenomena, the anthropogenic climate change and the natural decadal variation will add leading to a much stronger temperature rise.”
Emmy-Noether1 fellow and lead author Dr. Noel Keenlyside from IFM-GEOMAR continues: “In addition to the greenhouse gas concentrations we are using observed SST’s of the past decades in our climate model simulations, a method which has already successfully been applied for seasonal predictions and El Niño forecasting. The SST’s influence the winds and the heat exchange between ocean and atmosphere, and both factors impact ocean currents. The results are very encouraging and show that at least for some regions around the world, it is possible to predict natural climate oscillations on decadal time scale. Europe and North America are two such regions because they are influenced by the North Atlantic and Tropical Pacific, respectively.”
Prof. Latif expands “Such forecasts will not enable us to tell you whether or not we will have a white Christmas in 2012 in northern Germany, but we will be able to provide a tendency as to whether or not some decades will be warmer or cooler than average. Of course, always with the assumption that no other unforeseen effects such as volcanic eruptions occur, which can have a substantial effect on our climate as well”.
Could felling and burying trees help fight global warming?
Could cutting down trees and burying them help fight global warming? An article in this week's issue of New Scientist suggests so.
Ning Zeng, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Maryland in College Park, tells New Scientist that thinning forests and burying "excess wood" in a manner in which its didn't decay could sequester enough carbon to offset all of our fossil-fuel emissions.
"Zeng gives an example of a plot of 1 square kilometre (100 hectares), with the excess wood from 1 hectare of woodland buried deeper than 5 metres and down to 20 metres," writes Richard Lovett of New Scientist, referring to Zeng's research published in Carbon Balance and Management. "He calculates that this could sequester 1 tonne of carbon per hectare — using that land to grow trees would sequester 1 to 5 tonnes, depending on the age of the forest and the type of tree."
"He estimates that offsetting all of the world's current emissions would be achievable with a workforce of one million people — substantially fewer than those already employed in the forestry industry in the US alone," Lovett continues. "Even so, to offset all our emissions, most of the world's forests would have to run a wood burial scheme."
New Scientist notes that Zeng's idea is not a new one — ancient indigenous groups used a similar approach known as biochar to enrich the nutrient-poor soils of the Amazon rainforest.
"More than 500 years ago Amazonian people were creating almost pure carbon by smouldering their domestic waste and letting it work its way into the soil. This earth, known as terra preta ('black earth') remains to this day," Lovett writes. "Ancient farmers had no idea that they were sequestering carbon, of course, but they did know that adding biochar to the soil hugely increased its quality."
Lovett cites a modern example in hydrothermal carbonization, a process which chars organic material under pressure. He says the technique could eventually be used on an industrial scale and may qualify for carbon credits, assuming it could avoid generating methane, another potent greenhouse gas.
Ning Zeng, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Maryland in College Park, tells New Scientist that thinning forests and burying "excess wood" in a manner in which its didn't decay could sequester enough carbon to offset all of our fossil-fuel emissions.
"Zeng gives an example of a plot of 1 square kilometre (100 hectares), with the excess wood from 1 hectare of woodland buried deeper than 5 metres and down to 20 metres," writes Richard Lovett of New Scientist, referring to Zeng's research published in Carbon Balance and Management. "He calculates that this could sequester 1 tonne of carbon per hectare — using that land to grow trees would sequester 1 to 5 tonnes, depending on the age of the forest and the type of tree."
"He estimates that offsetting all of the world's current emissions would be achievable with a workforce of one million people — substantially fewer than those already employed in the forestry industry in the US alone," Lovett continues. "Even so, to offset all our emissions, most of the world's forests would have to run a wood burial scheme."
New Scientist notes that Zeng's idea is not a new one — ancient indigenous groups used a similar approach known as biochar to enrich the nutrient-poor soils of the Amazon rainforest.
"More than 500 years ago Amazonian people were creating almost pure carbon by smouldering their domestic waste and letting it work its way into the soil. This earth, known as terra preta ('black earth') remains to this day," Lovett writes. "Ancient farmers had no idea that they were sequestering carbon, of course, but they did know that adding biochar to the soil hugely increased its quality."
Lovett cites a modern example in hydrothermal carbonization, a process which chars organic material under pressure. He says the technique could eventually be used on an industrial scale and may qualify for carbon credits, assuming it could avoid generating methane, another potent greenhouse gas.
Global warming? Scientist says Earth is cooling
Climate change is again in the spotlight, with a leading Australian scientist challenging dire predictions of global warming.
That follows the biggest single year temperature change on record - a drop of point seven degrees in the year to January.
Geophysicist Philip Chapman says he's not convinced by the current arguments on global warming - and says the drop is due to a slowdown in sun spot activity.
“If the sun spot cycle is delay, as it has been then the chances are excellent that the period of several decades of cooling.
Earth hour first step in 'global warming war'
From the Sydney Opera House to San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge went dark as people switched off lights in their homes and skylines dimmed around the world yesterday to show concern with global warming.
Up to 30 million people were expected to have turned off their lights for 60 minutes by the time "Earth Hour" -- which started in Suva in Fiji and Christchurch in New Zealand -- completed its cycle westward.
More than 380 towns and cities and 3,500 businesses in 35 countries signed up for the campaign that is in its second year after it began in 2007 in Sydney, Australia's largest city.
"Earth Hour shows that everyday people are prepared to pull together to find a solution to climate change. It can be done," said James Leape of WWF International, which was running the campaign.
Lights at Sydney's Opera House and Harbour Bridge were lowered as Australians held candle-lit beach parties, played poker by candlelight and floated candles down rivers.
"In the central square a lot of people were standing looking at the stars," said Ida Thuesen, spokeswoman for WWF Denmark.
"It's not often you can see the stars in a city."
In a tip of its virtual hat to the event, the background of Google's home page turned to black from white on more than a dozen country sites including Google.com.
A message on the site read: "We've turned the lights out. Now it's your turn." and directed visitors to conserve energy when using computers.
Buildings account for about one-third of the carbon emissions that scientists say will boost global average temperatures by between 1.4 and 4.0 degrees Celsius this century, bringing floods and famines and putting millions of lives at risk.
Organisers of Earth Hour said that while switching off a light for one hour would have little impact on carbon emissions, the fact that so many people were taking part showed how much interest and concern at the climate crisis had taken hold.
World's largest lake warming rapidly: Scientists
Siberia's Lake Baikal has warmed faster than global air temperatures over the past 60 years, which could put animals unique to the world's largest lake in jeopardy, US and Russian scientists said.
The lake has warmed 1.21 degrees Celsius since 1946 due to climate change, almost three times faster than global air temperatures, according to a paper by the scientists to be published next month in the journal Global Change Biology.
"The whole food web could shift," Marianne Moore, a biology professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and one of the authors of the paper, said in an interview. The frigid lake, which holds 20 per cent of the world's freshwater, boasts 2,500 species with most of them, such as the world's only freshwater seal, found nowhere else.
In potentially bad news for that animal, the paper found that the lake's annual days of ice cover had fallen an average of 18 days over the last 100 years and could drop a further two weeks to two months by the end of the century.
The findings could foreshadow the vulnerability of smaller lakes to global warming because Baikal's great volume of water had been thought to protect it from rising temperatures, the paper said.
Moore said Baikal's seal, which raises its pups on the ice, could suffer because the animal has several onshore predators. If ice caves the pups are raised in melt, Asian crows could also eat the pups, she said.
Changes in the food cycle have already been seen. Numbers of multicellular zooplankton, which normally live in warmer waters, have increased 335 per cent since 1946, while numbers of chlorophyll have risen 300 per cent since 1979, it said.
In addition, the number of diatoms, which live under the ice and later die and become food for tiny organisms living in the lake's depths, could fall, Moore said. "Ice recession may have a greater effect than the rising temperatures," she said.
Storm over global-warming sceptic hurricane man
Earlier this month we noted the controversy that greeted this year’s hurricane predictions from Colorado State University academic William Gray. Now it seems Gray’s future is in jeopardy.
According to a story in the Houston Chronicle, CSU feels all the media curfuffle around the annual predictions is taking too much staff time. Gray thinks otherwise.
“This is obviously a flimsy excuse and seems to me to be a cover for the Department’s capitulation to the desires of some (in their own interest) who want to reign [sic] in my global warming and global warming-hurricane criticisms,” said Gray in a memo written when he was informed of the decision last year (read the memo).
Wikipedia has a whole section on his climate change position, which he’s also outlined in a BBC opinion piece. And as the Chronicle’s science blog notes, CSU’s excuse is slightly strange:
I contacted a handful of public relations professionals who found that excuse to be, at best, questionable. University media offices exist to get press for their schools. Gray delivered that in spades with his hurricane forecasts.
CSU denies that Gray’s views on global warming have anything to do with it. Most of the forecasting work is currently done by Gray’s former student Phil Klotzbach and CSU says it will continue to support the forecasts as long as is involved.
Still, by the time the story had reached FoxNews, it had become “a pioneering expert on hurricane forecasting may be out of a job due to the debate over global warming”.
Gray has been semi-retired for some time now anyway. Still, here comes the outrage:
Kaos Radio sees parallels with Expelled:
Ben Stein is a genius. Not only that, but liberals can’t help themselves proving him right.
‘Enviro-Nuts attack Hurricane Pioneer’, says the Mark’s Soap Box blog:
They hate people who speak out against their Dogma, and they attack when you don’t bow down at the alter [sic] of “global warming”. Their target now is the founder of Hurricane prediction, Dr William Gray.
The Secondhand Smoke blog also sees it in terms of stifling scientific orthodoxy:
All around the country and the world, scientists who don't fall in line on human cloning, global warming, neo-Darwinism, and other issues in which the Science Establishment demands lockstep thinking, find themselves being pushed aside--ironically, by the very types who vociferously criticize the Catholic Church for its treatment of Galileo.
Global warming may 'stop', scientists predict
Researchers studying long-term changes in sea temperatures said they now expect a "lull" for up to a decade while natural variations in climate cancel out the increases caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions.
Melting icebergs: The study predicts the IPCC's 0.3ºC temperature rise for the next decade may not happen
The average temperature of the sea around Europe and North America is expected to cool slightly over the decade while the tropical Pacific remains unchanged.
This would mean that the 0.3°C global average temperature rise which has been predicted for the next decade by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may not happen, according to the paper published in the scientific journal Nature.
However, the effect of rising fossil fuel emissions will mean that warming will accelerate again after 2015 when natural trends in the oceans veer back towards warming, according to the computer model.
Noel Keenlyside of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, Kiel, Germany, said: "The IPCC would predict a 0.3°C warming over the next decade. Our prediction is that there will be no warming until 2015 but it will pick up after that."
advertisementHe stressed that the results were just the initial findings from a new computer model of how the oceans behave over decades and it would be wholly misleading to infer that global warming, in the sense of the enhanced greenhouse effect from increased carbon emissions, had gone away.
The IPCC currently does not include in its models actual records of such events as the strength of the Gulf Stream and the El Nino cyclical warming event in the Pacific, which are known to have been behind the warmest year ever recorded in 1998.
Today's paper in Nature tries to simulate the variability of these events and longer cycles, such as the giant ocean "conveyor belt" known as the meridional overturning circulation (MOC), which brings warm water north into the North East Atlantic.
This has a 70 to 80-year cycle and when the circulation is strong, it creates warmer temperatures in Europe. When it is weak, as it will be over the next decade, temperatures fall. Scientists think that variations of this kind could partly explain the cooling of global average temperatures between the 1940s and 1970s after which temperatures rose again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
