Climate research nearly unanimous on human causes, survey finds.

May 16, 2013 By Leave a Comment

images-3A survey of thousands of per-reviewed papers in scientific journals has found 97.1% agreed that climate change is caused by human activity.

Authors of the survey, published on Thursday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, said the finding of near unanimity provided a powerful rebuttal to climate contrarians who insist the science of climate change remains unsettled.

The survey considered the work of some 29,000 scientists published in 11,994 academic papers. Of the 4,000-plus papers that took a position on the causes of climate change only 0.7% or 83 of those thousands of academic articles, disputed the scientific consensus that climate change is the result of human activity, with the view of the remaining 2.2% unclear.

The study described the dissent as a “vanishingly small proportion” of published research.

“Our findings prove that there is a strong scientific agreement about the cause of climate change, despite public perceptions to the contrary,” said John Cook of the University of Queensland, who led the survey.

Public opinion continues to lag behind the science. Though a majority of Americans accept the climate is changing, just 42% believed human activity was the main driver, in a poll conducted by the Pew Research Centre last October.

“There is a gaping chasm between the actual consensus and the public perception,” Cook said in a statement.

The study blamed strenuous lobbying efforts by industry to undermine the science behind climate change for the gap in perception. The resulting confusion has blocked efforts to act on climate change.

The survey was the most ambitious effort to date to demonstrate the broad agreement on the causes of climate change, covering 20 years of academic publications from 1991-2011.

In 2004, Naomi Oreskes, an historian at the University of California, San Diego,surveyed published literature, releasing her results in the journal Science. She too came up with a similar finding that 97% of climate scientists agreed on the causes of climate change.

She wrote of the new survey in an email: “It is a nice, independent confirmation, using a somewhat different methodology than I used, that comes to the same result. It also refutes the claim, sometimes made by contrarians, that the consensus has broken down, much less ‘shattered’.”

The Cook survey was broader in its scope, deploying volunteers from the SkepticalScience.com website to review scientific abstracts. The volunteers also asked authors to rate their own views on the causes of climate change, in another departure from Oreskes’s methods.

The authors said the findings could help close the gap between scientific opinion and the public on the causes of climate change, or anthropogenic global warming, and so create favourable conditions for political action on climate.

“The public perception of a scientific consensus on AGW [anthropogenic, ie man-made, global warming] is a necessary element in public support for climate policy,” the study said.

However, Prof Robert Brulle, a sociologist at Drexel University who studies the forces underlying attitudes towards climate change, disputed the idea that educating the public about the broad scientific agreement on the causes of climate change would have an effect on public opinion – or on the political conditions for climate action.

He said he was doubtful that convincing the public of a scientific consensus on climate change would help advance the prospects for political action. Having elite leaders call for climate action would be far more powerful, he said.

“I don’t think people really want to come around to grips with the fact that climate change is a highly ideological issue and it is not amenable to the information deficit model,” he said.

“The information deficit model, this idea that if you just pile on more information people will get convinced, is just completely inadequate, he said. “It strengthens the people who actually read and pay attention but it is certainly not going to change or shift the opinions of others.”

Jon Krosnick, professor in humanities and social sciences at Stanford university and an expert on public opinion on climate change, said: “I assume that sceptics would say that there is bias in the editorial process so that the papers ultimately published are not an accurate reflection of the opinions of scientists.”

via Climate research nearly unanimous on human causes, survey finds | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

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Bad News: The North Pole Could Be Open to Shipping Very, Very Soon

March 18, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Courtesy by: Kristina Chew. Care 2

images-3By the middle of this century, the North Pole could be open for routine shipping traffic. It’s yet another sign of how global warming is changing the world.

The melting of the sea ice in the arctic at a faster rate than forecast has meant that people have already been developing routes through Canada’s Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route above the coast of Russia. Such routes would significantly lessen the amount of time and fuel — as much as 18 days and 580 tons of bunker fuel — currently needed to transport goods between Asia and both Europe and North America. Shipowners could save hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Emphasizing how much the thickness and extent of late summer has shrunk in just the past seven years, UCLA geographers Laurence C. Smith and Scott R. Stephenson predict (via computer modeling) that, by 2050, ordinary vessels and some that are only moderately ice-strengthened — equipped to break through the ice — should be able to pass over the North Pole and most likely in September, when the sea ice is at its smallest extent.

Last year, 46 ships went through the trans-Arctic passage. To do so, they had to be accompanied by ice-strengthened ships from Russia at a considerable cost. The moderately ice-strengthened ships are known as Polar Class 6 or PC6 vessels. As John Timmer explains on Ars Technica, PC6 vessels are specifically built to “withstand transit through first-year ice (ice that froze during the previous winter).”

Under current climate prediction models, the sea ice will have melted so much that, by mid-century, PC6 vessels can use the Northern Sea Route in any year. Ships will be able to go directly over the pole from Europe to Asia annually, on a route that is shorter from those going through the Suez or Panama canals.

As Wired UK points out, this is a fabulous develop for commercial shipping and for companies wanting to explore and harness the yet-untapped natural resources — oil — of the Arctic.

But there’s no question that all this could spell simple disaster for the unique ecosystems of the Arctic and the rich wildlife, animal and plant, that lives there. Earlier studies have already shown that an increase in arctic shipping poses a risk to marine mammals and would also affect the local communities who rely on these animals for food security and cultural identity.

In addition, Smith and Stephenson note that the opening of the Arctic for shipping could spell geopolitical conflict among Russia, Canada, the U.S. and other countries, reopening disputes about boundaries and territory.

The scientists emphasize that we need to start now to develop “comprehensive international regulations that provide adequate environmental protections, vessel safety standards and search-and-rescue capability.” Rampant development of industries using fossil fuels has already warmed up our planet by degrees never imagined. Knowing how human activity has destroyed and is damaging wildlife and the environment, we need to start now to create responsible regulations to preserve the resources, beauty and life of the Arctic, which is, as Smith says, “a fragile and dangerous place.”

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Cool New Sponges Can Recycle CO2 Into Fuel

March 15, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Courtesy by: Care 2. Beth Buczynski

UnknownWhen your ice tea overflows the cup, forming a puddle on the counter, how do you clean it up? A sponge of course. Now scientists are working to see if the same idea will work with all that excess carbon dioxide that’s swirling around in our atmosphere.

Researchers at Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, are developing a smart material called a MOF (metal organic framework) that could make it possible to capture C02 without using further coal-based energy. Using only the power of sunlight, these ‘solar sponges’ could be a new way to recycle carbon emissions without creating more in the process.

Traditionally, carbon dioxide capture has been accomplished through the use of liquid absorbers to catch flue gases at a coal-fired power plant before they escape into the atmosphere. The gases must then be heated to release the CO2 which is then stored and can be re-used. While slightly better than letting pollutants fly free, this process can consume as a much as 30 percent of a power plant’s production capacity. Not exactly efficient, especially when talking about power from fossil fuels.

In comparison, the CSIRO team uses a process called dynamic photo-switching, which refers to the reversible light-induced switching of floor or intensity. Instead of using liquid absorbers, the team used MOFs to absorb as much as a liter of nitrogen gas in just one gram of material. The unique material only requires UV light to trigger the release of CO2 after it has been captured from the mixture of exhaust gases. When exposed to concentrated UV light the MOF sponge instantaneously releases up to 64 percent of absorbed CO2, which can then be recycled into usable fuel.

“The capture and release process can be compared to soaking up water with a sponge and then wringing it out. When UV light hits the material its structure bends and twists and stored gas is released,” said Dr Matthew Hill, who was awarded a 2012 Eureka Prize for his MOF research and led the CSIRO group conducting this research. ”This is an exciting development for carbon capture because concentrated solar energy can be used instead of further coal-based energy to driv

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Storks Stop Migrating in Order to Live on Junk Food

March 11, 2013 By 1 Comment

Courtesy by: Kristina Chew. Care 2

ciguenyas vertederaoSince the mid-1980s, the number of storks migrating from Europe to northern Africa has fallen drastically. While thousands of storks once made their way to Africa to spend the winter, the number doing so has dwindled since the 1980s. Scientists suspect the white-winged birds have changed their iconic migratory behavior because of growing mounds of garbage.

That is, scientists think that storks have ceased their centuries-old practice of migrating — the reason of the great birds being said to deliver babies according to folklore — is that they have found an easily acquired food source, discarded food from dumps in Spain and Portugal. Storks are “opportunistic and adaptable” and — does it not sound familiar? — have readily made the switch to eating the “junk food” (containing who knows what chemicals and other substances) in landfill heaps.

Aldina Franco, from the University of East Anglia‘s school of Environmental Sciences, notes that the storks’ migratory patterns have changed “radically” and that many storks are now living year-round in Spain and Portugal. Some 1,180 birds wintered in Portugal in 1995, but those numbers grew to over 10,000 in 2008 and have only been going up.

Franco and other scientists from the University of East Anglia are seeking to find out why storks have, in such a short time, changed their behavior. To that end, they have tagged 15 storks caught in Portugal and will be able to track their movements four times during the day and once at night, to learn more about their roosting and feeding habits and the length of their flights. The researchers will be able to know when the storks are feeding because they put their heads down when foraging for food.

The garbage dumps provide an “abundant and reliable food supply ,” says Franco, though some of the birds seem to be feeding in them more than others. Understanding why so many storks are staying in one place is also key to predicting their long-term future.

Researchers will be looking at how climate change could be playing a role in their changing migratory habits. The birds have been breeding in new parts of northern Portugal, possibly because the climate there has become more suitable. The birds’ locations can be tracked daily via the British Trust for Ornithology.

Another factor that is beyond the storks’ control and could play a role in their future feeding is their continued “easy access” to humans’ discards. As Nathalie Gilbert, a doctoral student who is assisting in the research, says many of the landfill sites in Portugal that have been serving as the storks’ food source are “scheduled to be gradually replaced by new facilities where food waste is handled under cover.” It’s a change that could indeed influence the storks’ “breeding location, chick fledging success and migratory decision.”

In the absence of too readily available “free” food, will the white stocks be able to return to their centuries-old ways?

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Can the new EPA chief stop Obama approving the Keystone XL pipeline?

March 10, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Courtesy by: Richard Schiffman. The Guardian. 

images-1Environmentalists got some bad news when the State Department released a report on Friday – a full month earlier than had been anticipated – saying that there are no convincing environmental reasons that the Keystone XL pipeline should not be built.

This just two weeks after thousands of demonstrators gathered at the National Mall for what has been called the largest climate rally ever. Environmental groups have joined in a rare united front to block the pipeline. If built, activists predict that the pipeline will hugely increase greenhouse gas emissions and reverse the progress that has been made in recent years toward switching to renewable sources of energy.

The usually measured Sierra Club president, Michael Brune, called last week’s State Department report “nothing short of malpractice”, and suggested that the president toss it in the garbage. In an email interview, 350.org spokesperson Daniel Kessler characterized the pipeline as “a boondoggle perpetuated by monied interests” whose impact on the climate would be “horrific”.

But there has been a lot of pressure on the administration from the fossil fuel industry to ratify the pipeline. According to Marty Durbin, executive vice-president of the American Petroleum Institute:

“The latest impact statement from the State Department puts this important, job-creating project one step closer to reality.”

A little over a month ago, Nebraska’s Republican governor, Dave Heineman, removed a major hurdle to the construction of Keystone when he approved a new path for the pipeline – one that avoids the environmentally sensitive Sand Hills region. President Obama had rejected an earlier route because of the state’s objections, and the dangers of a spill to underground water in the critical Ogallala aquifer.

Obama’s decision on the pipeline will be seen as a litmus test of the direction which he will take on the environment in his second term. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (Democrat, Rhode Island) said that last month’s historic climate rally was intended to “get the fellow in the White House to follow up on the wonderful things he’s said in speeches recently and put a really strong regulatory regime in.”

But if Friday’s report is any indication of the administration thinking, the president may be preparing to give the controversial pipeline the green light. While the 2,000-word document makes no policy recommendations, it does give Obama a degree of political cover should he decide – as seems increasingly likely – to approve the project: the pipeline that would bring 800,000 barrels a day of crude oil from the tar sands of northern Alberta to refineries on the US Gulf coast.

The State Department document claims that “the proposed project is unlikely to have a substantial impact on the rate of development in the oil sands.” Many outside observers disagree, saying that if Keystone were nixed by the administration, it would significantly slow the exploitation of the Canadian tar sand reserves. Alternate pipeline routes, which would take the oil to ports in Canada, have faced fierce opposition in British Columbia, and would undoubtedly be challenged in court.

Some environmentalists were encouraged by the president’s nomination Monday of Gina McCarthy for the post of EPA administrator, to replace the outgoing Lisa Jackson. McCarthy served as a top official in charge of air quality at the EPA and has the reputation of being a fighter for tougher environmental standards.

She is expected to face resistance from congressional Republicans and the coal industry, which have consistently opposed regulations. Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s energy program, told me:

“The Gina McCarthy pick is outstanding. The question is: what support the president will give her.”

Some observers believe that Lisa Jackson decided to leave her post as head of the EPA because the administration failed to back her efforts to draft stronger ozone limits and emissions standards for power plants. As I reported in the Guardian in January, there was also speculation that Jackson, an opponent of the Keystone XL pipeline, resigned because the president had already decided to approve the project.

The president is expected to announce his final decision on Keystone XL pipeline in the Spring. If it is true that his mind is already made up – to approve it – there may be little that Gina McCarthy, or Secretary of State John Kerry (who is known as a “climate hawk”), can do to change the administration’s course.

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Shell faces damages over Nigeria oil spill

March 9, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Courtesy by: Al Jazeera

2012101153834415734_20Dutch court upholds just one out of five allegations by Niger Delta farmers against the oil company.

A court in the Netherlands has ruled that Royal Dutch Shell can be held partially responsible for pollution in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region and ordered it to pay damages to one farmer.

The court dismissed on Wednesday 30th of January  four out of five allegations against the oil company. The amount of damages to be paid was to be announced at a later date.

Activists say the case could set a precedent for damage claims related to the foreign activities of multinational companies.

Four Nigerians and interest group Friends of the Earth filed the suit in 2008 in The Hague, where Shell has its joint global headquarters, seeking unspecified reparations for lost income from contaminated land and waterways in the Niger Delta.

The Nigerians – fishermen and farmers – said they could no longer feed their families because the region had been polluted by oil from Shell’s pipelines and production facilities.

The pollution is a result of oil spills in 2004, 2005 and 2007, they said.

“The significance of the case is that at least there is an international agreement, if you like, in an international space where money and corruption do not come to play the way it does in Nigeria,” Annkio Briggs, a Niger Delta activist, told Al Jazeera’s Yvonne Ndege in Port Harcourt.

“This is a great victory even though we still have the issues of the other ones that have been thrown out. It is very important for us and very encouraging that we will have to take these cases outside of Nigeria for Nigerians to have justice.

“Ironically we have to take the cases out to the counties where these oil companies come from. So it shows what we’ve been saying for years – that oil companies are doing [things in Nigeria] illegally what they will never dare to do anywhere else in the world.”

Corporate fears

Al Jazeera’s Simon McGregor-Wood, reporting from the Hague, said: “There will be a bit of a shiver going through the corporate world because all along the environmental companies have been arguing that companies like Shell do not necessarily act with the same level of responsibility in places like Nigeria which are a long way from home.

“When things go wrong, when there are these catastrophic pollutions or these systematic pollutions occur, they are not as quick to clear up as if a tanker would spill its oil off the channel for the coast of Netherlands,” he added.

“It was the idea of this case to set the precedent that these big companies have to take care wherever they are operating in the world,” McGregor-Wood said.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Channa Samkalden, a lawyer acting on behalf of the Nigerian farmers, said:  “Overall it’s actually quite a good outcome for us.

“At least Shell was held liable for one of the cases. That’s a good start. Also, a very important fact is that the court has said that Shell has a duty to take measures to prevent sabotage, which is of course a principal issue.”

It is the first time a Dutch-registered company has been sued in a domestic court for offences allegedly carried out by a foreign subsidiary.

The suit targets Shell’s parent company in the Netherlands and its Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Co (SPDC). It is the largest oil and gas company in Nigeria, Africa’s top energy producer, with an output of more than one million barrels of oil or equivalent per day.

Filed Under: Climate Change, Energy & Transportation, Natural World, Politics & Economics, WHAT'S NEW IN THE NEWS, World News Tagged With: , , , ,

Health Study Articles on the Effects of Coal Mining

February 6, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Courtesy of ovec.org

OVEC Fact Sheets

Health Study Articles on the Effects of Coal Mining

 

Filed Under: Climate Change, Energy & Transportation, Featured, World News

Wind Beats Out Natural Gas To Become Top Source Of New Electricity Capacity For 2012 | ThinkProgress

February 1, 2013 By Leave a Comment

By Jeff Spross on Jan 22, 2013 at 4:30 pm Thinkprogress.org

Through June of 2012, renewable energywas right behind natural gas in terms of the most new energy generating capacity being installed in the United States, with wind making up most of the renewables push. And now Business Insider has flagged the numbers for the remainder of the year.

Last week, they reported that wind ultimately pulled ahead of natural gas to become the leading installer of new capacity in 2012, at 10,689 total megawatts.

Those numbers came from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s report on the trends and highlights in U.S. energy for the past year. According to FERC’s update, natural gas installed 8,746 megawatts of new capacity, coal installed 4,510 new megawatts, and solar came in fourth with 1,476 new megawatts. Here’s the relevant table from the report, conveniently highlighted by Business Insider:

One thing to note here is the issue of capacity factor: That’s how much power an installation actually produces as a percentage of its theoretical capacity. (Which is what’s listed in the table.) Natural gas plants do quite well in this regard: Their median performance tends to come out to at least 80 percent, and they max out at 93 percent, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s cost database.

Unfortunately, wind power doesn’t perform as well, due to the intermittency of, well, wind. Its median tends to be around 40 percent offshore. Onshore it’s been at 30 percent, though arguably onshore performance is pulling alongside offshore. And both max out at 50 to 54 percent. So even though wind beat out natural gas for new capacity in 2012, the new natural gas installation will almost certainly wind up generating more total electricity.

The good news for wind is that it’s still a relatively young technology, with lots of room to improve. The energy it does deliver is produced much more efficiently in comparison to natural gas — the former loses less than one percent of its energy as waste heat, while the latter can lose as much as 54 percent. Natural gas production in the U.S. may be on track to plateau, leading to predictions of rising prices, which will give wind power a further economic opening.

And, of course, there’s the fact that, while cleaner than coal, natural gas remains a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions both through leaks and combustion.

UPDATE

As it turns out, this post’s math was unjustly critical of wind energy. The numbers for capacity are theoretical, but as as an email commenter pointed out, the numbers for capacity utilization are theoretical as well.

So how have wind and natural gas actually performed? Well, in 2010, nameplate capacity for natural gas was 467.2 gigawatts, and 39.5 gigawatts for wind. That same year, natural gas generated 987,700 gigawatthours and wind generated 94,700 gigawatthours. Multiply the capacities by the 8760 hours in a year, and what you get is natural gas produced 24.1 percent of its nameplate capacity in 2010, and wind produced 27.4 percent.

Now, a lot of “peaker” power plants — ones intended to only operate during hours of peak electricity demand — are gas-fired. Around half the natural gas plants in the country probably fall into this camp, which will dramatically skew natural gas’ capacity utilization to the low end. So factor in peakers and natural gas still probably beats out wind, but by less than our piece implied.

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Scam Artist Swindling Amazon’s Tribes Into Giving Away All Their Lands

January 20, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Courtesy by: Beth Buczynski. Care 2

 Deforestation. Palm oil. Mining. Oil and gas drilling. Although the tribes that call the Amazon home have lived in peace with the planet for centuries, first world problems have been delivered to their doorstep. In what seems like a cruel joke, scam artists operating under the guide of carbon offset salesmen are targeting the Amazon’s most primitive tribes in an attempt to exploit its natural resource.

An Australian “businessman” named David Nilsson is wanted by the Peruvian court under suspicion of swindling tribes into giving away the rights to their ancient lands. His hustle? Pretending to be a trader of carbon offset credits, worth top dollar to the world’s largest polluters, Nilsson convinces tribal leaders to sign contracts that actually grant Nilsson rights to the land and all of its resources, carbon-related and otherwise.

It didn’t take long for profit-hungry corporations, out of resources to exploit in their own countries, to turn their greedy eyes on the vastly untouched Amazon. Together they have decimated acres of pristine rain forest to make room for commercial agriculture and mining operations, dammed rivers and dumped billions of gallons of toxic wastewater. Somehow, Nilsson’s scheme seems even more sinister, since it facilitates environmental destruction under the guise of preventing it.

In an undercover investigation by Australian 60 minutes, Nilsson claims to have three million hectares of forest in Peru under a 200 year contract. The carbon contract runs for 25 years, after which, Nilsson explains, “people can come through and harvest the rainforest there.” Once the trees are out of the way, “they can plant palm oil.”

Isolated tribes living in primitive villages are not-surprisingly dazzled by Nilsson’s promises of wealth, good jobs and protection of the forest. Many have signed his contracts, even though they can’t read or write. If they could, they might have noticed a curious clause that forbids the tribes from showing the contract to any outside parties, like a lawyer.

In the few cases when a community member has sensed that something is fishy, the potential shame and loss has forced tribal leaders into denial. Those who acknowledge the scam are shunned by the community, left to seek assistance from the distant government on their own.

Recently, efforts of the people’s defender in Iquitos have yielded some progress. Nilsson has left Peru and cannot return thanks to a court-issued warrant. Sadly, this does little for the tribes that have already fallen for his tactics. Many have yet to see a penny in payment for their land, and the promised construction jobs never materialized

If there is a silver lining, it may be that Nilsson’s scheme puts a much-needed spotlight on the dubious nature of the international carbon credit system.

Lizbeth Castro, the local ombudsman, says the carbon market is not well regulated in Peru. Her institution has sent the case to the Committee for Indigenous People in Peru’s congress to push for strong legislation that will protect the land and their owners.

The committee’s president, Congressman Victor Grandez, has asked the Ministries of Environment and Culture to fight against Nilsson. “Nilsson is only one of many carbon cowboys that will arrive in the Amazon rainforest, looking for riches while damaging the environment,” he says.

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Oil, Global Food and New Community Systems: Michael Lewis – YouTube

January 19, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Michael Lewis is executive director of the Canadian Centre for Community Renewal in Vancouver and the author of The Resilience Imperative, published this last summer.

Mr. Lewis will come to Salt Spring this March. He’ll share information that we can all use to move forward in this transitional times.

WATCH VIDEO HERE

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