Fires get worse

There’s nothing that could be worse than a forest fire right? Wrong.

Scientists have discovered a new class of chemicals being emitted from burning pine trees. A team of researchers from the Pcaific Northwest National Laboratory have discovered close to 100 different alkaloids in microscopic smoke particles coming up from laboratory stimulated forest fires. Between 10 percent and 30 percent of the smoke was made up of tiny particles of nitrogen-containing organic compounds, or NOCs, a large group of chemicals to which alkaloids belong.

It is said that if enough of this alkaline is present it can start to make serious climate changes. So if we try to prevent forest fires, we not only help the climate problem by saving the trees, but we also help it by not emitting more toxic chemicals into the air.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30503774/

Climate change especially affecting women

I found this article to be very interesting ocnsidering that fact that I am a woman. So it caught my eye and forced me to read it.

In this article it talks about how in Nicaragua there have been so many droughts recently that women now have to go farther and farther to get water because it is their job to get the water. This causes them , especially young women, to miss a lot of school becuase they have to travel so far to find the water. This is also true in Mozambique.

If we start to use more renewable energy sources and help to cut down on the climate change these women will be able to stop travling so far to get their water and will be able to go to school continuously.

 

source: http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/005915.html

No More Meat for Germany

Eating less meat is a definite way to reduce our carbon emissions. It is also a quick and easy way to do so. But for some countries it may seem almost impossible. Especially for countries that  make a living off of meat and are known for the foods they make. Like Germany. However, Germany’s government is asking them to eat less meat in an attempt to curb the effects of climate change. The government’s environmental advisor is telling citizens to have a more Mediterranean diet and limit meat consumption to once a week or special occasions, reports the Guardian. The Federal Environmental Agency said agriculture makes up 15 percent of Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions, and meat production is a huge part of that.

Vegetarianism is not really practiced and meatless dishes are “frowned upon” according to a Germany vegetarian association. One critic said the decision should be left to individuals, but advocates say a reduction in meat-eating is more effective in fighting climate change than reducing transportation use.

If Germany takes this small step to help lower their carbon emissions other countries will follow. This way we will be able to cut our carbon emissions down greatly and finally make a difference.

Picture: http://apimages.ap.org/Search.aspx?kw=german+sausage&intv=None&sh=14&st=k&remem=x

Source: http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/005821.html

Alternative Energy Sources

Again we know that there is a problem with the amount of fossil fuels that we use. So what would be a reasonable solution to this problem? One that has been popular lately is renewable enerrgey and alternative energy.

Renewable energy projects spread quickly across the United States last year before economic recession stopped many of these plans. But the country needs much more than an economic stimulus to fulfill Obama’s goal of providing 25 percent of U.S. energy needs with clean energy by 2025, according to a panel of political experts.

A  national grid would be the most dramatic overhaul of U.S. energy infrastructure in decades. Political and industry leaders agree that the move is necessary to connect coastal cities with the abundant solar, wind, and geothermal energy sources that are currently located too far from electricity lines to be economical.

“We have the greatest wind capability of anywhere in our country, but we’re stranded,” said North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan. “The wind is over here and the need is over there.”

“Smart grid” technology provides utilities with greater control over power source selection. Automakers and utility companies say that the technology is also crucial for transmission lines to handle the extra demands of plug in hybrid vehicles.

Many areas of the U.S. have great resources to use theses alternative energy sources. We need to take advantage of these so we can help solve our dependence of fossi fuels.

 

 

source: http://www.enn.com/energy/article/39376

pictures: http://apimages.ap.org/default.aspx

Time to suck it up

This problem of pollution has been at the back of everyone’s mind for awhile now. We all know that there is a problem, but we really haven’t stopped and seriously tried to solve it. However politicians are willing to take drastic measures in order to fix this problem.

For example, taxes. No body likes this word, but it might be a necessary step to stopping this pollution. A carbon tax is one of two approaches that might be used to make it more expensive to pollute, adding an increase to anything that causes carbon dioxide emissions, whether from fuel, natural gas or electricity.

The second option is “cap and trade.” Under this method, total allowable CO2 emission, for example, would be capped at current levels. But this ceiling on emissions would drop every year, and everyone would have to reduce their emissions or be forced to pay by buying pollution permits. If a polluting enterprise can’t effectively reduce its emissions, it would simply have to buy more permits. This could turn out to be extremely expensive.

However this second solution causes a problem. Cap and trade requires that major polluters such as electric utilities and big industries measure and report their emissions. In huge multinational corporations or in massive utilities, it’s quite difficult to figure out how much you’re emitting.

If we look into either of these two methods and way out the pros and the cons we will be able to effectively reduce our pollution. Something needs to be done, and these idea may help lead the way.

 

source:http://www.hcn.org/wotr/time-to-cowboy-up

Cost of Inaction

We always hear about how there are negative effects to global warming. But what exactly are they? Not many people know that this problem will not only affect the world they live in, but how they live in that world. This problem will also be affecting their wallets. A recently released report says, “Washington, Oregon and New Mexico will probably face associated annual costs of $3.8 billion, $3.3 billion and $3.2 billion by 2020.”  That would mean about $1250 per household in Washington. It’s almost unbelievable. People are coonstantly hearing about how the earth will be effected but we don’t stop to think about how personally our lives will change. If peope were more informed and realized that this will literally cost them,  they would feel more inclined to change their life styles. I believe we still neeed to do more to reach out to people. That way we can help to stop and solve this problem before we have to pay the price.

Source: http://www.enn.com/top_stories/commentary/39347

Fishing; not just an old past time anymore

Fishing seems like a harmless activity right? Wrong. Fishing actually negatively affects some species. For example in the Northeast Atlantic ocean a quarter of sharks and rays are threatened to be fished out of existence. The International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said “This is That is far above the threat level globally, reflecting the activity of fishing nations such as Spain, Portugal, France and Britain.”

The IUCN hopes that its research will bring about tougher fishing controls in the European Union. Extremely endangered sharks in the Northeast Atlantic included the gulper shark, prized in the cosmetics industry for its liver oil, and the spiny dogfish and porbeagle sharks which are prized for their meat. The report found that 26 percent of sharks and rays in the Northeast Atlantic region were classified as threatened, compared to 18 percent for the same species globally. The report also said, “Deepwater sharks are faring worse in this region than globally, due to loosely regulated, targeted fishing by European vessels.” 

If we do not act and regulate the fishing laws then soon tons of species in those waters will become extinct. And as we have seen many times once you remove a top predator from its ecosystem, he entire ecosystem is effected in a negative way. The lower species become over populated and soon there is little to no food. There may also be nothing left to fish. The harming of these sharks and rays, if not stopped, will have a terrible effect on the whole ecosystem.

  

 

source: http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/38608

images: http://apimages.ap.org

Global Warming?

We’ve all heard this word thousands of times. It’s almost as common as the word “the” in our everday conversations. We talk about what causes it and what we can do to prevent it. But do we even know what causes it exaclty?

Scientist say that  main cause of global warming comes from human activities. These human activities add excessive amounts of green house gases, such as carbon dioxide, to the air. The green house gases compound in the air and trap heat that normally exist in outer space.

When we drive cars, using electricity from coal-fired power plants, or heat our homes with oil or natural gas, we release carbon dioxide and green house gases into the atmosphere. Deforestation is another significant source of greenhouse gases, because since there are fewer trees there is less carbon dioxide onverting into oxygen.

During the past 150 years of the industrial age the amount of carbon dioxide in the air has increased by 31 percent. During the same amount of time the level of atmospheric methane has risen by 151 percent, mainly from agricultural activities.

So what you might say. Well there are many dire consequence from global warming including changes in the climate and weather patterns. This may lead to species extinction, changing the length of seasons, coastal flooding, and more frequent and severe storms.

Global warming has a huge impact on all of us, even if you may not think so. This is why we must act now so we can keep our planet as beautiful as possbile. We can start by doing little things to cut down on our emission of green house gases. Such as car pooling and using more energy efficient light bulbs. It will not only will it help our planet, but save us a lot of money as well.  If we do somehing about it now we will all be better off in the long run.

Source: http://environment.about.com/od/faqglobalwarming/f/globalwarming.htm

Climate change: it affects us all

Lately we have all been hearing about the drastic climate change. Researchers say that this climate change has come from global warming and the outstanding amounts of carbon emission. The climate change effects more than just the people living on earth. It also effects the animal.

This is true for the swans that usually spend their winter in the UK. Instead they are going to stay in Siberia because of the climate change. It has made the region in Siberia these birds stay in warm enough for them to survive in the winter. Bewick’s swans are usually found in the wetlands around England in late October however flocks have been arriving later every year. This year it is feared that these endangered birds, which are the smallest species of swan found in the UK, will come back to the UK at all since it is now warm enough to stay in Siberia.

Bewick’s swans can also be seen the Severn estuary at Nene Washes in Cambridgeshire, and Martin Mere in Lancashire. The breed is already on the amber list, due to their loss of habitat. A Greenpeace spokesman said the species are just the latest birds to be affected by this growing climate change. He also said: “Temperatures have risen dramatically in the Arctic with profound implications for everyone on Earth. We’ve already seen the ice melting up there. Now we’ve got more evidence that something very peculiar is happening. Britain has a big part to play in fighting climate change. Over the next few months the Government should block plans for new coal-fired power stations and the expansion of Heathrow airport.”

I think that it is very important the we act now and do something about this progressvie climate change. If we do not it will not only harm the people living in this world, but also the animals. It can negatively effect species of animals that are already endangered. And it might also cause mroe species to become endangered. If we don’t do something about it now there may not be any animals left.

Pictures: http://apimages.ap.org/default.aspx

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/10/28/easwans128.xml

Heat

Issue #1: Carbon Capture and Sequestration

a)What happens during carbon capture and sequestration?

  Carbon sequestration technologies capture and store CO₂ that would otherwise reside in the atmosphere for long periods of time. This process begins with the separation and capture of CO₂ from power plant gas and other CO2 sources.  Currently this process is costly and energy intensive.  However, further study shows the potential for cost reductions of 30–45 percent for CO₂ capture.  Post-combustion, pre-combustion, and oxy-combustion capture systems that are being developed are expected to be able to capture more than 90 percent of CO₂ gas.

The next step is to store the CO₂.  The main source for carbon storage is injection of CO₂ into the land.  Geologic storage involves taking the CO₂ that has been captured from the power plants and other sources and storing it in deep underground land formations in such a way that CO₂ will remain permanently stored.  Geologic formations such as oil and gas reservoirs, unmineable coal mines, and underground saline formations are viable options for storing CO₂.  Storage in basalt formations and organic rich shales is also being investigated.

b) Why has there been a delay in implementing this technology and what are some of the problems foreseen in developing this solution to carbon dioxide emissions?

There has been a delay in implementing this technology for three reasons

1. Scale – For carbon capture and storage to make an actual contribution to reducing global warming pollution requires processing and transportation structures that could handle a volume of liquid carbon dioxide challenging that of the oil consumed in the U.S. today. In other words, the Department of Energy estimates the annual storage space needed for a typical 600-megawatt power plant’s emissions would be about four times the volume of the Empire State Building.

2. Safety – Demonstration projects are needed to determine if carbon dioxide can be stored permanently and in what type of underground geologic formations. Slow carbon leaks could destroy the technology’s effectiveness as a global warming solution and contaminate groundwater. Fast leaks from a storage site or a pipeline could threaten the lives of local residents.

3. Cost – Current plant designs cannot cost-effectively capture carbon dioxide. Studies estimate that adding the technology to a conventional coal plant would increase drastically the cost and reduce the energy output. Although there is advanced coal plant designs that are better suited for carbon capture, it still would be very expensive to add the technology.

 

c) Power companies have stated that fossil fuel plants provide base-load energy and for this reason, they will be necessary far into the future. What does base load mean? (Optional: This issue was discussed at Notre Dame’s Energy Forum. Discuss how problems with base load could be overcome as alternatives are put into the grid.)

Base load is the minimum amount of power that a utility or distribution company must make available to its customers, or the amount of power required to meet minimum demands based on reasonable expectations of customer requirements. Base load values typically vary from hour to hour in most commercial and industrial areas.

d) They mentioned China’s and India’s rapid development and huge reliance on coal. Will anything the U.S. does to reduce emissions from coal burning power plants be outweighed by China’s and India’s huge increases in coal use? What do you believe would be an international solution?

China is now the leader in carbon emissions and that amount carbon emissions from China is only expected to increase. The same is true for India. As these developing nations continue to develop and grow their reliance on coal will inevitably increase and their carbon emissions will increase as well. These huge increases in coal use will outweigh everything the U.S will be doing to reduce emissions form coal burning power plants. Even though the U.S. will be reducing their emissions the over use of coal and excessive amount of emission from China and India their reductions will be futile. Also China and India are still growing. China has a larger population than the U.S. and it is predicted that India’s population will be larger then China in 2030. Also India is making it easier for all it’s natives to buy cars. An international solution might be making a world wide emission standard. The United Nations could regulate it and if we all make an effort to reduce our emissions it won’t matter that other countries have much larger populations. That way one nation’s drastic reduction of emissions won’t be offset by other nations over emission. If we work together we can truly make the world a better place.

 

    

 

Sources: Frontline movie Heat and http://wvgazette.com/News/200810290849 ,

http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/carbon_seq/index.html

Pictures: http://apimages.com