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What rewards can be gained through reducing your carbone foot print?

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What rewards can be gained through reducing your carbone foot print?

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Click the green boxes at the bottom and scroll down.

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Do we need to be concerd about these problems?

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Do we need to be concerd about these problems?

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Yesterday I was struck by a Forbes headline, ' 97% Of Climate Scientists Agree' Is 100% Wrong. The post questions the way Australian science popularizer John Cook arrived at this often-quoted number to illustrate the scientific consensus that human activity is contributing to global warming.

I agree with one statement in the post, which is the premise that in science, "logic and explanation" trump scientific opinion. I would have said logic and evidence, but that's close enough. And yet, the piece focuses primarily on the derivation of the 97% statistic, rather than on the "logic and explanation" behind the concern over human-generated global warming and the widespread fear among scientists that global warming will indeed prove dangerous and costly. I decided to expand on this post by giving some climate scientists a chance weigh in.

1: The oceans are getting warmer.

Measurements of global air temperatures show a long-term rise over recent decades, but the rise isn't steady. Like the stock market, it jumps up and down on shorter time scales. There was a spike in 1998, for example. If you measure global warming from that year onward, you get a distorted picture the overall trend, said Penn State climatologist Richard Alley. The trend over decades is what we should focus on.

What's even more worrisome, he explained, is that air temperatures only give part of the picture. The real concern with the buildup of greenhouse gases is that "we're getting more energy from the sun than we're sending back into space," he said. That energy, he said, is not only warming the atmosphere, it's also melting ice and warming the oceans.

The oceans have warmed by about .3 degrees F since 1969, according to NASA. How much greenhouse gas-related heating goes into the ocean depends on currents known as El Nino and La Nina, he said. Those currents affect the surface temperatures of the oceans, with warmer water coming to the surface during the El Nino phase. In 1998, El Nino switched to La Nina. That shift caused cooler water to come to the surface and allowed the oceans to absorb heat - like a big sponge.

During the years since, the measured air temperature rise has flattened. Some people have used that trend to argue that global warming has stopped. It hasn't. The currents have tended to oscillate, said Alley, so eventually the oceans will switch back to the El Nino pattern, after which that warmer water will come back to the surface and force more heat to go into the atmosphere.

2: There's experimental evidence showing that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere acts to direct heat back toward Earth - heat that would otherwise have been lost to space.

That's the greenhouse effect. And there's ample data showing that we've changed the composition of the atmosphere enough to alter the global climate.

In fact, h uman activity has nearly doubled our atmosphere's load of carbon dioxide since the Industrial Revolution started. "The basics behind this are the laws of physics," said Ben Horton a professor of marine and coastal sciences at Rutgers University.

"The reason we accept that fossil fuel burning is increasing CO2 and warming the planet comes down to basic physics and chemistry that's more than 100 years old," said Penn State University climatologist Michael Mann. "The fact that we're measuring the effects is validation of the prediction."

Indeed it was back in the 1800s that French mathematician Joseph Fourier realized that our planet should be frozen considering it orbits at a distance of 93 million miles from the sun. His theorized that the atmosphere held in some of the sun's heat. Irish scientist John Tyndall backed the theory with laboratory experiments. The Earth radiates the sun's energy back into space in the form of infrared light, so Tyndall shone infrared light through various gases. He discovered that oxygen and nitrogen have no heat-trapping effect, but carbon dioxide does. One good resource for the basic science is here at the American Institute of Physics.

By the early 20th Century, scientists began to calculate how much CO2 was being added to the atmosphere from coal burning and by mid-century, they learned to measure it directly. Scientists later tested their understanding of the heating effect of carbon dioxide and other atmospheric greenhouse gases by analyzing the atmospheres of Venus and Mars and making predictions about surface temperatures. NASA's planetary missions confirmed all those predictions.

That was enough to cause concern over fossil fuel burning decades ago. Now the trend is much clearer. And though there's basic physics behind the fact that atmospheric CO2 is changing the earth's energy balance, the effect on the climate is complicated because it's superimposed upon a background of natural variation. That variation is caused by the shifting ocean currents described in item 1, as well as changes in solar output and the effects of volcanic eruptions. Those factors have led to some ups and downs, but multiple analyses show the long-term trend is upward.

If you do any appropriately statistically sound analysis, it's clear the global warming trend continues unabated," said Penn State's Mann.

3: The sea level is rising.

Rutgers' Horton explains that global warming is causing the sea level to rise for two reasons: Ice is melting and the ocean water is expanding as it gets warming. The expansion is the primary driver of our current rate of sea level rise - about 3 mm/year. But in the second half of the century, melting glaciers and parts of the Greenland ice sheets will start to become important, he said.

The latest IPCC report on sea level rise reiterates the concern with melting ice:

Global mean sea level will continue to rise during the 21st century (see Figure SPM.9). Under all RCP scenarios, the rate of sea level rise will very likely exceed that observed during 1971 to 2010 due to increased ocean warming and increased loss of mass from glaciers and ice sheets.

The few millimeters per year sea level rise projected for many coastal areas might not sound like much, said Horton, but it can bring greater storm surges and more flooding. He adds that sea level rise is the best barometer of the effects of added greenhouse gases because it takes into account melting ice and ocean temperatures. There, the data show a trend that's hard to dispute.

4: Unlike some pollution problems, global warming is essentially irreversible.

I've made this point before because it's one of the most underappreciated factors in dealing with global warming. It would be a lot easier to take a wait and see attitude if greenhouse gases would just disappear after we figure out a way to move past fossil fuels. But these gases aren't going anywhere for a long time. The importance of this struck me after hearing Caltech chemist Nate Lewis give a talk at a recent meeting of the American Chemical Society. He calculated that even if the world stopped burning fossil fuel cold turkey, it would take 10,000 years for the atmosphere to revert to its pre-industrial composition. The oceans are also undergoing a chemical change that will take even longer to reverse.

Nobody can predict exactly how climate change will play out - only that it's likely to be much worse if there's no effort to address carbon emissions. As Lewis asked at the end of his talk, "Do you feel lucky?"

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Four Reasons To Worry About Global Warming: Beyond Scientific Consensus

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Yesterday I was struck by a Forbes headline, '97% Of Climate Scientists Agree' Is 100% Wrong. The post questions the wayAustralian science popularizer John Cook arrived at this often-quoted number to illustrate the scientific consensus that human activity is contributing to global warming.

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Do we even need  to worry about these many problems that are occur today in our world, a big one being global warming?

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Do we even need  to worry about these many problems that are occur today in our world, a big one being global warming?

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By Elmer Beauregard
The Senate voted this week on whether Climate Change is real or a hoax, I think it's a hoax and here's why.
I'm sure you've heard in the news that 2014 was supposed to be the hottest year ever. If it actually was "hottest year ever" you'd think all the terrible calamities that are supposed to happen would be happening now but instead the opposite is happening.
1. Record Ice
In 2014 there was record sea ice in Antarctica in fact a global warming expedition got stuck in it. Arctic sea ice has also made a nice comeback in 2014. The Great lakes had record ice Lake Superior only had 3 ice free months in 2014. You'd think that in the hottest year ever that ice would be melting like Al Gore said.
2. Record Snow
2014 saw record snowfall in many areas, remember when they said that global warming would cause snow to disappear and children won't know what snow is.
3. Record Cold
In 2014 we saw all kinds of cold records remember the Polar Vortex? You'd think that we'd be breaking all kinds of heat records in "the hottest year ever"
4. Oceans Are Rising Much Less Than Predicted

Al Gore predicted that oceans would rise 20 feet by 2100, it looks like were on track for about a foot. 80% of the tide gauges show less rise than the official "global average". Many tide gauges show no rise in sea level, and almost none show any acceleration over the past 20 years.
5. Polar Bears Are Thriving
You'd think that Polar Bears would really be in trouble in 2014 "the hottest year ever" but they are thriving.
6. Moose Are Making A Comeback
A few years ago the moose population in Minnesota dropped rapidly and they immediately blamed global warming, then they did a study and found out it was actually wolves that were killing the moose. Wolves have been taken off the endangered species list and are now endangering other species so they opened a wolf hunting season in Minnesota and the moose are coming back. It turns out it had nothing to do with global warming in fact the years when the moose population declined were some very cold ones.
7. 99% of Scientists don't believe in Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming

You've probably heard over and over that 99% of scientist believe in global warming well the opposite is true. That talking point came from a study where only 75 scientists said they believe in global warming on the other hand over 31,000 scientists have signed a petition saying they don't believe in Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming.
8. Nature produces much more CO2 than man

In 2014 NASA finally launched a satellite that measures CO2 levels around the globe. They assumed that most of the CO2 would be coming from the industrialized northern hemisphere but much to their surprise it was coming from the rainforests in South America, Africa and China.
9. It Isn't Actually the Warmest Year.

If you look at the satellite data 2014 was not the warmest year ever in fact there has been no global warming for over 18 years. The Reason they can say it's the warmest year is because they are using the ground weather station data which is heavily influenced by the Urban Heat Island effect, many of which are near pavement. Even still they had to cherry pick that data to get at the warmest year ever and it is only the warmest by only two-100ths of a degree within a dataset that has a variability of a half of a degree. The fact they they had to ignore accurate data and fudge sketchy data to push their agenda proves (IMHO) that climate change is a hoax.
10. The Hypocrisy of the Main Players

One of the main reasons you can tell that global warming is a hoax is that the main purveyors of global warming live lifestyles opposite of what they preach, they all own multiple large homes and yachts and they fly around the world in private jets pushing their propaganda. Not to mention some people such as Al Gore actually profit from Carbon Taxes and other green energy laws. If they actually believed what they preached they would be leading quite different lives.

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Top Ten Reasons Climate Change is a Hoax

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By Elmer Beauregard The Senate voted this week on whether Climate Change is real or a hoax, I think it's a hoax and here's why. I'm sure you've heard in the news that 2014 was supposed to be the hottest year ever.

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Will new upcoming solutions really help solve this huge predicamen?

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Will new upcoming solutions really help solve this huge predicamen?

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Some hypothetical   consquences           through human   dilemmas, and interactions.

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Some hypothetical   consquences           through human   dilemmas, and interactions.

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150 million tons of smoke in the stratosphere

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Following a large U.S.-Russian nuclear war, enormous fires created by nuclear explosions in cities and industrial areas cause 150 million tons of smoke to be lofted high into the stratosphere. The smoke is quickly spread around the world and forms a dense smoke layer around both Hemispheres; the smoke will remain in the stratosphere for many years and act to block sunlight from reaching the surface of the Earth.

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What are some upcoming solutions to these problems?

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What are some upcoming solutions to these problems?

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There is a potential solution, and possibly only one, to the global energy crisis. It will require a huge investment, several scientific breakthroughs and a little luck. But unless we give it the very highest priority, it will soon be too late.

That's the message that a highly respected professor of chemistry at the California Institute of Technology has been delivering for several years now, but it's not clear whether anyone is listening. Nate Lewis isn't your typical prophet of doom. He has won a list of awards as long as the beard he wore years ago as a young scientist when I first met him. And to hear him tell it, the solution to the energy crisis is as clear as the nose on your face, or at least the shadow it casts.

Lewis quips that he belongs to the "Willie Sutton school of energy management." When asked why he robbed banks, Sutton responded "because that's where the money is."

"I believe in that too," Lewis told an energy symposium at Caltech earlier this year.

In his case, however, Lewis is banking on the sun.

"More solar energy hits the earth in one hour than all the energy the world consumes in a year," he told the symposium. So if you want to solve the energy crisis, he argued, go to the bank where the energy is kept - the sun.

None of the other sources of energy, including fossil fuels that threaten our planet, or nuclear energy that has never lived up to its potential, can do the job, Lewis maintains. He isn't arguing in favor of those huge water bladders we are supposed to have atop our houses to capture heat from the sun. Lewis sees an entirely different solution. He sees cheap ways to convert solar energy directly into electricity, which can be used to convert water into fuel, like hydrogen, that can be turned back into electricity on demand.

What we need, he argues, is something as basic as paint that is engineered to capture electrons from the sun and make the electrons march into our utility lines. Go to your local home center, buy a bucket of paint and brush it on your roof to power all those gadgets and heat your domicile and create the fuel to run your scooter. Sounds pretty far out, but Lewis is dead serious.

There are, he readily admits, a few problems. Current technology can convert sunlight directly into electricity, and generate hydrogen, but it isn't scalable. One such device towers over nearby structures and it works, but it produces only a kilogram of hydrogen in an entire day, the energy equivalent to one gallon of gasoline.

"We need to find a better way to make fuel from sunlight directly so that we can bring energy to whoever wants it whenever they want it - day or night, summer or winter," Lewis told the Caltech symposium. "My lab and other labs at Caltech are working on that, too."

The answers need to come soon, he adds, to avoid disaster by about the year 2050.

But why only solar? Isn't a new generation of nuclear power plants on the horizon? Isn't the oil industry hiding huge reserves that will buy a few hundred years? Surely somebody out there is working on a new widget that will make our cars run on air. Why only solar?

Lewis ticks off the reasons:

A bunch of other potential sources, such as wind and biomass, are useful on a limited scale, but they are not going to solve global problems. Conservation is important, he adds, but "no amount of saving energy ever turned on a light bulb."

OK, so we've got a problem. But what's the rush? Don't we have a few decades to work things out?

Lewis is part of a growing number of scientists who believe we've overlooked a few things when it comes to estimating just how quickly the globe's climate is likely to change.

He cites permafrost, the upper latitude soils that are supposed to remain permanently frozen, as one example.

"As the ice crystals in it melt, it reflects less light and turns darker, absorbing more light, and that melts more permafrost. Helium dating of trapped bubbles in the permafrost shows that we're melting permafrost now that hasn't been melted in 40,000 years. And there's enough CO2 and methane trapped in the permafrost to have the greenhouse gas levels not go up by a factor of two, but by a factor of 10."

So if we stay on the current course, the problem could be much worse than current projections.

My guess is nobody has ever accused Lewis of sounding like a preacher. But there is something messianic in his comments these days. He began his talk to the Caltech symposium with these words:

"Energy is the single most important technological challenge facing humanity today. Nothing else in science or technology comes close in comparison. ... "

"With energy, we are in the middle of doing the biggest experiment that humans will have ever done. And there is no tomorrow, because in 20 years that experiment will be cast in stone. If we don't get this right, we can say as students of physics and chemistry that we know that the world will, on a time scale comparable to modern human history, never be the same."

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Scientist: Solar Is Solution to Energy Crisis

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There is a potential solution, and possibly only one, to the global energy crisis. It will require a huge investment, several scientific breakthroughs and a little luck. But unless we give it the very highest priority, it will soon be too late. That's the message that a highly respected professor...

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What problems do we face today that drive the fact that our world might be dying?

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What problems do we face today that drive the fact that our world might be dying?

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Is the "death" of our world really caused by our choices, or are these problems just another natrul phase in our earths life cycle?

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Is the "death" of our world really caused by our choices, or are these problems just another natrul phase in our earths life cycle?

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Climate Change & Global Warming: Interview w/ George Taylor

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Oregon State Climatologist, George Taylor, has a very different view on global warming and the degree to which human activity is altering our climate.

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What simple precautionms can communties, and citizens, take to help our world?

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What simple precautionms can communties, and citizens, take to help our world?

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As a species, how will we be able to sustain ourselves in the future?

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As a species, how will we be able to sustain ourselves in the future?

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Sustainability living sustainable to protect Earth's resources

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Sustainability: Living a sustainable life to extend Earth's resources. Sustainable development to lower costs for future generations. A sustainable environment for all, for us and our children. Get personal advice!