Archive for the ‘Deep ecology’ Category

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The Acid Ocean

Monday, January 25th, 2010

The next consequence of supposedly increased CO2 content in the air is acidification of the oceans.

Again there is complete disagreement among scientists – the next fraud or the complete truth? What is going on?

IPCC says that pH of the seas has decreased a in few places by 0.1 making the way for an acid ocean.

Tom V. Segalstad: This is not dramatic as the natural pH of the seas varies between 7.8 and 8.5 depending on temperature and prevailing currents. Further the oceans have an unlimited buffer capacity, and the oceans are playing a vital role in stabilizing conditions for organic life on the Earth.

Gary Novak: Acid in the Oceans Fraud – the pH of the oceans is 8.1, which is alkaline, and there has been no measured acidification. Scientists have no method available to survey ocean acidity, as Argo does for temperature, yet they recently claimed oceans are becoming more acidic. They measured acidity in a few estuaries to come up with that fraud.

Scientific American also has an article about ocean acidity – drawing comments about scientific bullshit!

What are we to believe? Sound scepticism must be appropriate now!

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Engineering the Earth (and governing it too)

Monday, January 18th, 2010

Technically we could manipulate the Earth to control the climate by controlling solar radiation, increase CO2 absorption by engineering solutions.

We could remove CO2 directly from the air, inject particles into the atmosphere to change the cloud colors, do enhanced weathering like making stones/earth absorb more CO2, fertilize the seas to increase CO2 absorption, provoke volcanic eruptions, put solar reflectors into space, plant massive forests….

Lots of research is advised, as well as debates about the chances of improving or damaging the Earth. It appears we do not know what the processes are and we could risk creating unbalances far removed from the matter of CO2.

The ethics of this is formidable: Who will be in charge of controlling the Earth’s climate? This can not be left to private companies. Do we see a world government coming up?

First of all we have to agree that the CO2 problem is real. Is this just a ploy to get funding for research?

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Environmentalism – back to basics

Monday, January 18th, 2010

CO2 emissions are the big thing – so we forget everything else?

Many European cities have had / have problems with air pollution this winter. Some cities have forbidden cars entering the city centers as the air quality have gone below minimum levels set. People with breathing disorders have had real trouble.

The pollution is caused by burning heating oils, wood fires and cars working below optimal conditions.

WHO contends that small particles  and gases in the air  is causing chronic lung diseases, circulatory illnesses. The air also contains PAH(polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) and metals.

Diesel cars also produce more soot than petrol driven cars. Some cities in Germany forbid diesel cars from entering certain central city zones.

Let us get back to clearing up this mess!

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Climate machine: the moving Earth

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

The climate of the Earth changes due to the way it moves – we are talking about seasonal changes in tens of thousand years.

The Earth wavers slightly in it’s elliptical rotation around the Sun. This is caused by the forces of attraction between the planets. The wavering is periodical and can cause climate change both locally and globally as the incidence of solar rays falling on the Earth changes with the relative position of the Earth. There is research going on to quantify these changes. The Jugoslav Milutin  Milankovic in 1941 was the first to describe these changes.

The are three types of wavering or movement:

1. The elongation of the Earth’s elliptical path changes over about 100.000 years. The energy the Earth receives varies with about 30% due to this effect, and with maximum elongation of the ellipse the solar incidence over the year will vary most giving extreme weather.

2. The angle of the Earth’s axis changes between 21.8 and 24.4 degrees (axial ties). A low value of angle means there is less difference between the seasons and less violent weather, whereas a high value gives more extreme weather. A fuul change of angle takes about 41.000 years.

3. When the The Earth rotates around its own axis the axis describes a circle taking about 22.000 years to complete (axial precession). This make the seasons move relatively to a fixed calender.

Other changes that matters are changes in the Earth’s surface that will lead to changes in the ocean currents and the flow of air. This takes millions of years. Earthquakes and volcanoes can have big influence on climate for a long time. Man-made changes also matters: deforestation, big rivers being led in new directions, lakes drying up.

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Climate treaty edging forward

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Emission targets are to be set by all this month.

BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) are having a meeting soon to coordinate their CO2 numbers and to discuss other matters. The countries are both large and fast growing, although their emissions per inhabitant is well below the big Western emitters.

To build a trustworthy system among nations we need regular reporting so that we can know what is going on. The BASICs are good!

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Climate basics

Monday, January 11th, 2010

Wikipedia: The law of conservation of energy is an empirical law of physics. It states that the total amount of energy in an isolated system remains constant over time (is said to be conserved over time). A consequence of this law is that energy cannot be created nor destroyed. The only thing that can happen to energy in a closed system is that it can change form, for instance chemical energy can become thermal energy.

The Earth, the atmosphere and the Sun can be thought of as an isolated system. So the energy coming from the Sun (visible light and invisible radiation) to the Earth is equal to the energy reflected back (via the the atmosphere, troposphere, through clouds) into space, plus energy emitted as invisible radiation, plus energy stored as heat in the atmosphere, land and plants and the oceans. (Remember the Albedo of the Earth.)

So the big question is: Where does the CO2 fit in – all 0.003% of it of atmospheric gases? As the human emissions of CO2 supposedly lead to higher temperatures where does the energy for this come from? Is there a CO2 layer that traps the heat? Does CO2 have a thermal capacity?

Keep following this space – we have have scientists working on these questions.

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The politics of climate

Saturday, January 9th, 2010

Al Gore, Norwegian Foreign Minister Støre helped by the Director of the Norwegian Polar Institute Winther presented a report in Copenhagen (Dec. 14.) claiming a rise in sea level of up to 2 meters in this century.

Media pushed it to the front.

It appears now that the figures are estimates based on probabilities only and that we can’t say for sure what it will be.

Who needs this kind of publishing of doubtful information?

Scientists must be allowed to work as scientists do and not be pushed around by politicians and the media.

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Posted in Deep ecology | 5 Comments »

The great CO2 swindle ?

Saturday, January 9th, 2010

Martin Durkin has made a film – The Global Warming Swindle – where he has assembled people that disagree rather violently with the current dogma that global warming is caused by humans through their emission of CO2 into the atmosphere.

The increase in temperature in the last century is about 0.5 degree C. and Durkin’s people say that it is completely caused by an increase in solar activity, and that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere always closely follows solar activity.

The atmosphere consists of 99% nitrogen and oxygen, and CO2 is about 0.003 % of the atmospheric gases, or 350 ppm. Water vapour is the most important climate gas with about 1000 ppm. The CO2 is mostly derived from natural processes like volcano eruptions, animals and bacteria, dying plants, oceans. The human element is less than 10% of this.

Al Gore uses evidence that there is a lot of CO2 in the atmosphere when the temperature is high, meaning that the temperature will rise as we empty CO2 into the atmosphere. The Durkin people challenge this saying the correct way of looking at this is that when the solar activity is high and the temperarture is rising the CO2 level rises after a while – many years after – the temperature is leading the CO2 increase by several hundred years.

There is an almost complete correlation between the sunspot activity and temperature changes for very long time series. The rise in sea level also has to do with expansion of the water mass of the sea, and relative changes in local land levels. The polar icecaps are continually moving back and forth over the years, there is no dramatic effect expected.
The IPCC is said to be political, the evidence is not used the correct way, environmetalists have other agendas, media need dramatic even apocalyptic scenarios to write about, the debate about what is right is strangely enough raging rather shrilly and not in the fashion of deliberate scientists.
There is also the question of who bears the burden. Should the developing nations hold back in their development and not use oil and coal it means they can forget about their economic dreams for their people. If the international community holds these nations back due to the CO2 play, we have a possible conflict coming up.
Durkin’s conclusion is that CO2 is irrelevant in relation to global warming – that is completely controlled by the solar activity.
The origin of the CO2 scenario seems to be Swedish professor Bert Bolin – see link: http://www.bbcc.su.se/about-bert-bolin.html – but he never knew the answer to what CO2 could do.

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Consumer climate action

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

We are all polluters you know!

Some people are starting to do something about this – they buy climate quotas to offset the pollution they are causing. Their money is invested in projects of many kinds that improve the emission situation in the world: new sustainable energy schemes, energy intensity improvements or research into new green technology.

Flying is seen to be the most emissive way of moving about. For a family of four a flight from southern Norway to Bangkok has emissions similar to 10 medium cars for a whole year. Airlines are now busy offering quotas that passengers can buy before flying. Sales are so far slack and prices vary widely, some say inconsistently.

There are many companies and even state agencies offering quotas: German Atmosfair/Germanwatch, Australian Climate Friendly, Norwegian Mitt Klima, Greenseat, Norwegian State Pollution Agency….

Many companies are offering projects to invest in: The Carbon Neutral Company, My Climate….

There are also web-sites offering tools where you can calculate your household emissions so that you know how much to buy. The results vary, so do take care not to buy too much.

This system is clearly in its infancy and much has to be clarified: Emission numbers used, should this continue to be voluntary or compulsory, certification of companies, UN project confirmation, transparency, tracking of projects.

Yes, it is a start and we will surely hear more about these practices.

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Transition Towns (or village/city/forest/island)?

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

Peak oil is coming – inevitably.

A new concept is coming up: creating transition communities to respond to the combined challenges of peak oil and climate change.

The process is this: Form an initiating group, adopt the transition model, engage many, start a transition initiative. Building resilience to the coming changes necessary when quitting the carbon economy is essential.

See link: http://www.transitiontowns.org/

No politics or fuzz – just practical work to get transition going.

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