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Written by Enviroadmin
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Thursday, 08 July 2010 21:01 |
You don’t have to become a nerd to understand how wind energy works
Wind is caused by the uneven heating of the Earth by the sun and the fact that temperatures will always be trying to reach an equilibrium (heat is always moving to a cooler area). With the rising price of energy and the destruction of the environment from non-renewable fuels, it is starting to be equitable to harvest this renewable resource.
The advantages of wind energy are that it's virtually free (in case you purchase the equipment) and there is no pollution. The disadvantages include the fact it's not a continuing source (the velocity varies and many times it is insufficient to produce electricity) and it typically requires about one acre of land.
How Wind Energy Works
The amount of power that is available varies by wind speed. The amount available is named it's power density which is measured in watts per square meter. For that reason, the U.S. Department of Energy has separated wind energy into classes from 1 to 7. The typical wind speed for class 1 is 9.8 mph or less while the average for a class 7 is 21.1 or more. For effective power production, class 2 winds (11.5 mph average speed) are usually required.
Generally, wind speeds increase as you get higher above the Earth. For that reason, the standard wind turbine comes with a tower at least 30 feet above obstructions. That there are two basic different kinds of towers useful for residential wind power systems (free standing and guyed). Free standing towers are self supporting and are usually heavier meaning they take special equipment (cranes) to place them. Guyed towers are supported on a concrete base and anchored by wires for support. They typically are not as heavy and most manufacturer's produce tilt down models which can be easily raised and lowered for maintenance.
The kinetic (moving energy) from the winds is harnessed by a device called a turbine. This turbine includes airfoils (blades) that capture the energy of the wind and use it to turn the shaft of an alternator (like you have on a car only bigger).
That there are two basic types of blades (drag style and lifting style). We all have seen pictures of traditional windmills with the large flat blades which are a good example of the drag style of airfoil. Lifting style blades are twisted instead of flat and resemble the propellor of a small airplane.
A turbine is classified as to whether it is designed to be installed with the rotor in a vertical or horizontal position and whether the wind strikes the blades or the tower first. A vertical turbine typically requires less land for it's installation and is a much better option for the more urban areas around the globe. An upwind turbine is designed for the wind to impact the airfoils before it does the tower. 
These units normally have a tail on the turbine which is needed to maintain the unit pointed into the wind. A downwind turbine doesn't need a tail as the wind acting on the blades tends to keep it oriented properly.
These turbine systems would be damaged if they were to be allowed to turn at excessive speeds. Therefore, units should have automatic over-speed governing systems. Some systems use electrical braking systems while some use mechanical type brakes.
The output electricity from the alternator is sent to a controller which conditions it for use in the home. Using residential wind power systems requires the home to either remain tied to the utility grid or store electricity in a battery for use when the wind will not blow sufficiently.
When the home is linked with the grid, the surplus electricity that is created by the residential wind power system can be sold to the utility company in order to reduce or even eliminate your utility bill. During times with not enough wind, the home is supplied power from the utility company.  The Cost of Wind Energy
Small residential wind power turbines can be an attractive alternative, or addition, to those people needing more than 100-200 watts of power for their home, business, or remote facility. Unlike PV's, which remain at basically a similar cost per watt independent of array size, wind generators get more affordable with increasing system size. At the 50 watt size level, for instance, a small residential power wind generator would cost about $8.00/watt when compared with approximately $6.00/watt for a Photo voltaic module.
That's why, everything being equal, Photo voltaic is more affordable for very small loads. As the system size gets larger, however, this "rule-of-thumb" reverses itself.
At 300 watts the wind turbine costs are down to $2.50/watt, while the PV costs are still at $6.00/watt. For a 1,500 watt wind system the cost is down to $2.00/watt and at 10,000 watts the cost of a wind generator (excluding electronics) is down to $1.50/watt.
About the Author - Mary Jones writes for the residential wind power systems web log, her personal hobby blog focused entirely on ideas to reduce Carbon dioxide and lower energy costs using alternative power sources. If you wish to read my complete Bio
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Last Updated on Thursday, 08 July 2010 19:07 |
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Written by Enviroadmin
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Saturday, 22 May 2010 14:08 |
Spate of attacks on 4x4 vehicles in Manchester
By James Mann
Saturday, 23 May 2009
Police are searching for a gang of radical environmental activists after a series of attacks on 4x4 vehicles.
The gang, who claim to have targeted up to 80 vehicles across South Manchester, let down tyres and leave notes accusing the owners of adding to global warming and increasing the chances of road deaths.
In the last week tyres on 20 vehicles were slashed or deflated in the Ladybarn and Withington of the city. This follows similar attacks on 11 cars last month. Police classify the deliberate acts as criminal damage.
A statement from the activists said tyres were deflated rather than slashed. It added: "Given the threat of climate change and the Government's inaction, direct action such as this is, unfortunately, necessary. Large SUVs (Sports Utility Vehicles) emit substantially more greenhouse gases."
The statement also said accident victims were six times more likely to die if hit by an SUV rather than a smaller car.
Owners of SUVs – dubbed Chelsea tractors – have been branded irresponsible by environmentalists, for their vehicles' size and fuel consumption. Critics say the large four-wheel drive vehicles were originally intended for use by farmers on rough terrain in the countryside. But they have become popular with middle-class families living in cities and are used for school runs and shopping trips.
Patricia and Waris Ashraf had a tyre let down on their Mercedes ML outside their house in Whalley Range, making their daughter Natasha, 16, late for an A-level exam. A victim from Chorlton, who would not be named, said: "What concerns me most is that we have a child seat in the back of the car. They must have seen that, which suggests they don't care who they affect."
Doug McMillan, whose tyres were attacked in Parrs Wood, Didsbury, last week, said: "If they ever did have a noble, credible cause, they have blown it because they have reduced themselves to the status of common criminals. They are vandals, nothing else."
A member of the group calling himself James said: "These vehicles are totally unsuitable for the city, they're dangerous, polluting and an unnecessary status symbol. They should not be on our city roads."
Detective Inspector Damian Moran, from Greater Manchester Police, said: "Those responsible might believe they are making a point, but this behaviour is criminal.
"It is mindless vandalism with no regard for the distress and nuisance caused to decent members of our community and will not be tolerated.
"If anyone knows anything or has seen anything suspicious during those two nights that might help us catch those responsible, please contact me."
Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/
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Written by Morne de Jager
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Saturday, 22 May 2010 14:03 |
Hi. In the next two years I plan on changing processes in my house to minimize dependency on municipal services. I already do composting, have a nice earthworm farm (mainly for my fishing needs :)) and recycle paper, tins and plastics. Both me and my wife work from home, and when we drive we drive with cars that are older than 8 years, so where possible we limit our impact on the environment.
However, in the next two years I plan to make some changes in my house, but would like to document everything for the benefit of others. I have been searching the net for information regarding "turning to solar energy for household use", but apart from the normal articles, I have not been able to find alot on potential economic savings and other information I was looking for.
This Topic is therefore to log my experience, process, costs etc. for others.
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Written by Enviroadmin
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Saturday, 22 May 2010 14:02 |
June 22, 2005 - By John Yeld
http://capeargus.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=49&fArticleId=2575275
The number of intense wildfires in the Western Cape will increase substantially because of global warming, with "high-risk" fire conditions projected to almost triple in the west of the province and increase by up to 40% in the east.
This is one of a number of likely consequences of global climate change - often simply called global warming - for the province, outlined in a report just handed to the Western Cape government.
The report, co-ordinated by the SA Biodiversity Institute at Kirstenbosch, is a broad assessment of the province's vulnerability to climate change impacts, and follows the South African Country Study on Climate Change in the late 1990s which identified the Western Cape and Northern Cape provinces as being most at risk from climate change-induced warming and rainfall change.
A summary of the main findings of the report was presented at the Western Cape Sustainable Development Conference yesterday by Guy Midgley, who headed the research team.
The province had an extraordinarily accurate set of records from the past 40 years, and these showed an average temperature increase of close to 20C in the past 30 years.
"This is probably double the global increase in temperature recorded by the (United Nations) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."
"There is a very strong warming trend - it's happening," he said.
The projections were also for a strong drying trend for the province over the next 50 years, particularly in the west.
Midgley said the report highlighted concern about changing wildfire regimes in the province.
The first people to suffer the consequences of climate change were the poor who generally had to live in risk-prone areas.
The report stresses that climate change has moved from being a side issue to a "mainstream concern" for the province, its people, economy and biodiversity.
"Climate change poses a real threat to the sustainable development of the Western Cape," Midgley said.
"A broad-based commitment and holistic planning will be needed to cope with this threat and its impacts." - Environment Writer.
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Written by Enviroadmin
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Saturday, 22 May 2010 14:01 |
The climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame. Why the crisis will hit so soon--and what we can do about it
By JEFFREY KLUGER (Time Magazine)
March 28, 2006
No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth.
Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us.
It certainly looked that way last week as the atmospheric bomb that was Cyclone Larry--a Category 5 storm with wind bursts that reached 180 m.p.h.--exploded through northeastern Australia. It certainly looked that way last year as curtains of fire and dust turned the skies of Indonesia orange, thanks to drought-fueled blazes sweeping the island nation. It certainly looks that way as sections of ice the size of small states calve from the disintegrating Arctic and Antarctic. And it certainly looks that way as the sodden wreckage of New Orleans continues to molder, while the waters of the Atlantic gather themselves for a new hurricane season just two months away. Disasters have always been with us and surely always will be. But when they hit this hard and come this fast--when the emergency becomes commonplace--something has gone grievously wrong. That something is global warming.
The image of Earth as organism--famously dubbed Gaia by environmentalist James Lovelock--has probably been overworked, but that's not to say the planet can't behave like a living thing, and these days, it's a living thing fighting a fever. From heat waves to storms to floods to fires to massive glacial melts, the global climate seems to be crashing around us. Scientists have been calling this shot for decades. This is precisely what they have been warning would happen if we continued pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, trapping the heat that flows in from the sun and raising global temperatures.
Environmentalists and lawmakers spent years shouting at one another about whether the grim forecasts were true, but in the past five years or so, the serious debate has quietly ended. Global warming, even most skeptics have concluded, is the real deal, and human activity has been causing it. If there was any consolation, it was that the glacial pace of nature would give us decades or even centuries to sort out the problem.
But glaciers, it turns out, can move with surprising speed, and so can nature. What few people reckoned on was that global climate systems are booby-trapped with tipping points and feedback loops, thresholds past which the slow creep of environmental decay gives way to sudden and self-perpetuating collapse. Pump enough CO2 into the sky, and that last part per million of greenhouse gas behaves like the 212th degree Fahrenheit that turns a pot of hot water into a plume of billowing steam. Melt enough Greenland ice, and you reach the point at which you're not simply dripping meltwater into the sea but dumping whole glaciers. By one recent measure, several Greenland ice sheets have doubled their rate of slide, and just last week the journal Science published a study suggesting that by the end of the century, the world could be locked in to an eventual rise in sea levels of as much as 20 ft. Nature, it seems, has finally got a bellyful of us.
"Things are happening a lot faster than anyone predicted," says Bill Chameides, chief scientist for the advocacy group Environmental Defense and a former professor of atmospheric chemistry. "The last 12 months have been alarming." Adds Ruth Curry of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts: "The ripple through the scientific community is palpable."
And it's not just scientists who are taking notice. Even as nature crosses its tipping points, the public seems to have reached its own. For years, popular skepticism about climatological science stood in the way of addressing the problem, but the naysayers--many of whom were on the payroll of energy companies--have become an increasingly marginalized breed. In a new Time/ ABC News/ Stanford University poll, 85% of respondents agree that global warming probably is happening. Moreover, most respondents say they want some action taken. Of those polled, 87% believe the government should either encourage or require lowering of power-plant emissions, and 85% think something should be done to get cars to use less gasoline. Even Evangelical Christians, once one of the most reliable columns in the conservative base, are demanding action, most notably in February, when 86 Christian leaders formed the Evangelical Climate Initiative, demanding that Congress regulate greenhouse gases.
A collection of new global-warming books is hitting the shelves in response to that awakening interest, followed closely by TV and theatrical documentaries. The most notable of them is An Inconvenient Truth, due out in May, a profile of former Vice President Al Gore and his climate-change work, which is generating a lot of prerelease buzz over an unlikely topic and an equally unlikely star. For all its lack of Hollywood flash, the film compensates by conveying both the hard science of global warming and Gore's particular passion.
Such public stirrings are at last getting the attention of politicians and business leaders, who may not always respond to science but have a keen nose for where votes and profits lie. State and local lawmakers have started taking action to curb emissions, and major corporations are doing the same. Wal-Mart has begun installing wind turbines on its stores to generate electricity and is talking about putting solar reflectors over its parking lots. HSBC, the world's second largest bank, has pledged to neutralize its carbon output by investing in wind farms and other green projects. Even President Bush, hardly a favorite of greens, now acknowledges climate change and boasts of the steps he is taking to fight it. Most of those steps, however, involve research and voluntary emissions controls, not exactly the laws with teeth scientists are calling for.
Is it too late to reverse the changes global warming has wrought? That's still not clear. Reducing our emissions output year to year is hard enough. Getting it low enough so that the atmosphere can heal is a multigenerational commitment. "Ecosystems are usually able to maintain themselves," says Terry Chapin, a biologist and professor of ecology at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. "But eventually they get pushed to the limit of tolerance."
CO2 AND THE POLES
As a tiny component of our atmosphere, carbon dioxide helped warm Earth to comfort levels we are all used to. But too much of it does an awful lot of damage. The gas represents just a few hundred parts per million (p.p.m.) in the overall air blanket, but they're powerful parts because they allow sunlight to stream in but prevent much of the heat from radiating back out. During the last ice age, the atmosphere's CO2 concentration was just 180 p.p.m., putting Earth into a deep freeze. After the glaciers retreated but before the dawn of the modern era, the total had risen to a comfortable 280 p.p.m. In just the past century and a half, we have pushed the level to 381 p.p.m., and we're feeling the effects. Of the 20 hottest years on record, 19 occurred in the 1980s or later. According to nasa scientists, 2005 was one of the hottest years in more than a century. It's at the North and South poles that those steambath conditions are felt particularly acutely, with glaciers and ice caps crumbling to slush. Once the thaw begins, a number of mechanisms kick in to keep it going.
Greenland is a vivid example. Late last year, glaciologist Eric Rignot of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and Pannir Kanagaratnam, a research assistant professor at the University of Kansas, analyzed data from Canadian and European satellites and found that Greenland ice is not just melting but doing so more than twice as fast, with 53 cu. mi. draining away into the sea last year alone, compared with 22 cu. mi. in 1996. A cubic mile of water is about five times the amount Los Angeles uses in a year.
Dumping that much water into the ocean is a very dangerous thing. Icebergs don't raise sea levels when they melt because they're floating, which means they have displaced all the water they're ever going to. But ice on land, like Greenland's, is a different matter. Pour that into oceans that are already rising (because warm water expands), and you deluge shorelines. By some estimates, the entire Greenland ice sheet would be enough to raise global sea levels 23 ft., swallowing up large parts of coastal Florida and most of Bangladesh. The Antarctic holds enough ice to raise sea levels more than 215 ft.
FEEDBACK LOOPS
One of the reasons the loss of the planet's ice cover is accelerating is that as the poles' bright white surface shrinks, it changes the relationship of Earth and the sun. Polar ice is so reflective that 90% of the sunlight that strikes it simply bounces back into space, taking much of its energy with it. Ocean water does just the opposite, absorbing 90% of the energy it receives. The more energy it retains, the warmer it gets, with the result that each mile of ice that melts vanishes faster than the mile that preceded it. That is what scientists call a feedback loop, and it's a nasty one, since once you uncap the Arctic Ocean, you unleash another beast: the comparatively warm layer of water about 600 ft. deep that circulates in and out of the Atlantic. "Remove the ice," says Woods Hole's Curry, "and the water starts talking to the atmosphere, releasing its heat. This is not a good thing."
A similar feedback loop is melting permafrost, usually defined as land that has been continuously frozen for two years or more. There's a lot of earthly real estate that qualifies, and much of it has been frozen much longer than two years--since the end of the last ice age, or at least 8,000 years ago. Sealed inside that cryonic time capsule are layers of partially decayed organic matter, rich in carbon. In high-altitude regions of Alaska, Canada and Siberia, the soil is warming and decomposing, releasing gases that will turn into methane and CO2. That, in turn, could lead to more warming and permafrost thaw, says research scientist David Lawrence of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (ncar) in Boulder, Colo. And how much carbon is socked away in Arctic soils? Lawrence puts the figure at 200 gigatons to 800 gigatons. The total human carbon output is only 7 gigatons a year.
One result of all that is warmer oceans, and a result of warmer oceans can be, paradoxically, colder continents within a hotter globe. Ocean currents running between warm and cold regions serve as natural thermoregulators, distributing heat from the equator toward the poles. The Gulf Stream, carrying warmth up from the tropics, is what keeps Europe's climate relatively mild. Whenever Europe is cut off from the Gulf Stream, temperatures plummet. At the end of the last ice age, the warm current was temporarily blocked, and temperatures in Europe fell as much as 10(degree)F, locking the continent in glaciers. What usually keeps the Gulf Stream running is that warm water is lighter than cold water, so it floats on the surface. As it reaches Europe and releases its heat, the current grows denser and sinks, flowing back to the south and crossing under the northbound Gulf Stream until it reaches the tropics and starts to warm again. The cycle works splendidly, provided the water remains salty enough. But if it becomes diluted by freshwater, the salt concentration drops, and the water gets lighter, idling on top and stalling the current.
Last December, researchers associated with Britain's National Oceanography Center reported that one component of the system that drives the Gulf Stream has slowed about 30% since 1957. It's the increased release of Arctic and Greenland meltwater that appears to be causing the problem, introducing a gush of freshwater that's overwhelming the natural cycle. In a global-warming world, it's unlikely that any amount of cooling that resulted from this would be sufficient to support glaciers, but it could make things awfully uncomfortable.
"The big worry is that the whole climate of Europe will change," says Adrian Luckman, senior lecturer in geography at the University of Wales, Swansea. "We in the U.K. are on the same latitude as Alaska. The reason we can live here is the Gulf Stream."
DROUGHT
As fast as global warming is transforming the oceans and the ice caps, it's having an even more immediate effect on land. People, animals and plants living in dry, mountainous regions like the western U.S. make it through summer thanks to snowpack that collects on peaks all winter and slowly melts off in warm months. Lately the early arrival of spring and the unusually blistering summers have caused the snowpack to melt too early, so that by the time it's needed, it's largely gone. Climatologist Philip Mote of the University of Washington has compared decades of snowpack levels in Washington, Oregon and California and found that they are a fraction of what they were in the 1940s, and some snowpacks have vanished entirely.
Global warming is tipping other regions of the world into drought in different ways. Higher temperatures bake moisture out of soil faster, causing dry regions that live at the margins to cross the line into full-blown crisis. Meanwhile, El Nino events--the warm pooling of Pacific waters that periodically drives worldwide climate patterns and has been occurring more frequently in global-warming years--further inhibit precipitation in dry areas of Africa and East Asia. According to a recent study by ncar, the percentage of Earth's surface suffering drought has more than doubled since the 1970s.
FLORA AND FAUNA
Hot, dry land can be murder on flora and fauna, and both are taking a bad hit. Wildfires in such regions as Indonesia, the western U.S. and even inland Alaska have been increasing as timberlands and forest floors grow more parched. The blazes create a feedback loop of their own, pouring more carbon into the atmosphere and reducing the number of trees, which inhale CO2 and release oxygen. Those forests that don't succumb to fire die in other, slower ways. Connie Millar, a paleoecologist for the U.S. Forest Service, studies the history of vegetation in the Sierra Nevada. Over the past 100 years, she has found, the forests have shifted their tree lines as much as 100 ft. upslope, trying to escape the heat and drought of the lowlands. Such slow-motion evacuation may seem like a sensible strategy, but when you're on a mountain, you can go only so far before you run out of room. "Sometimes we say the trees are going to heaven because they're walking off the mountaintops," Millar says.
Across North America, warming-related changes are mowing down other flora too. Manzanita bushes in the West are dying back; some prickly pear cacti have lost their signature green and are instead a sickly pink; pine beetles in western Canada and the U.S. are chewing their way through tens of millions of acres of forest, thanks to warmer winters. The beetles may even breach the once insurmountable Rocky Mountain divide, opening up a path into the rich timbering lands of the American Southeast.
With habitats crashing, animals that live there are succumbing too. Environmental groups can tick off scores of species that have been determined to be at risk as a result of global warming. Last year, researchers in Costa Rica announced that two-thirds of 110 species of colorful harlequin frogs have vanished in the past 30 years, with the severity of each season's die-off following in lockstep with the severity of that year's warming. In Alaska, salmon populations are at risk as melting permafrost pours mud into rivers, burying the gravel the fish need for spawning. Small animals such as bushy-tailed wood rats, alpine chipmunks and pinon mice are being chased upslope by rising temperatures, following the path of the fleeing trees. And with sea ice vanishing, polar bears--prodigious swimmers but not inexhaustible ones--are starting to turn up drowned. "There will be no polar ice by 2060," says Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation. "Somewhere along that path, the polar bear drops out."
WHAT ABOUT US?
It is fitting, perhaps, that as the species causing all the problems, we're suffering the destruction of our habitat too, and we have experienced that loss in terrible ways. Ocean waters have warmed by a full degree Fahrenheit since 1970, and warmer water is like rocket fuel for typhoons and hurricanes. Two studies last year found that in the past 35 years the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide has doubled while the wind speed and duration of all hurricanes has jumped 50%. Since atmospheric heat is not choosy about the water it warms, tropical storms could start turning up in some decidedly nontropical places."There's a school of thought that sea surface temperatures are warming up toward Canada," says Greg Holland, senior scientist for ncar in Boulder. "If so, you're likely to get tropical cyclones there, but we honestly don't know."
So much environmental collapse happening in so many places at once has at last awakened much of the world, particularly the 141 nations that have ratified the Kyoto treaty to reduce emissions--an imperfect accord, to be sure, but an accord all the same. The U.S., however, which is home to less than 5% of Earth's population but produces 25% of CO2 emissions, remains intransigent. Many environmentalists declared the Bush Administration hopeless from the start, and while that may have been premature, it's undeniable that the White House's environmental record--from the abandonment of Kyoto to the President's broken campaign pledge to control carbon output to the relaxation of emission standards--has been dismal. George W. Bush's recent rhetorical nods to America's oil addiction and his praise of such alternative fuel sources as switchgrass have yet to be followed by real initiatives.
The anger surrounding all that exploded recently when NASA researcher Jim Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a longtime leader in climate-change research, complained that he had been harassed by White House appointees as he tried to sound the global-warming alarm. "The way democracy is supposed to work, the presumption is that the public is well informed," he told Time. "They're trying to deny the science."
Up against such resistance, many environmental groups have resolved simply to wait out this Administration and hope for something better in 2009. The Republican-dominated Congress has not been much more encouraging. Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman have twice been unable to get through the Senate even mild measures to limit carbon. Senators Pete Domenici and Jeff Bingaman, both of New Mexico and both ranking members of the chamber's Energy Committee, have made global warming a high-profile matter. A white paper issued in February will be the subject of an investigatory Senate conference next week. A House delegation recently traveled to Antarctica, Australia and New Zealand to visit researchers studying climate change. "Of the 10 of us, only three were believers," says Representative Sherwood Boehlert of New York. "Every one of the others said this opened their eyes."Boehlert himself has long fought the environmental fight, but if the best that can be said for most lawmakers is that they are finally recognizing the global-warming problem, there's reason to wonder whether they will have the courage to reverse it.
Increasingly, state and local governments are filling the void. The mayors of more than 200 cities have signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, pledging, among other things, that they will meet the Kyoto goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in their cities to 1990 levels by 2012. Nine eastern states have established the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative for the purpose of developing a cap-and-trade program that would set ceilings on industrial emissions and allow companies that overperform to sell pollution credits to those that underperform--the same smart, incentive-based strategy that got sulfur dioxide under control and reduced acid rain. And California passed the nation's toughest automobile- emissions law last summer.
"There are a whole series of things that demonstrate that people want to act and want their government to act," says Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense. Krupp and others believe that we should probably accept that it's too late to prevent CO2 concentrations from climbing to 450 p.p.m. (or 70 p.p.m. higher than where they are now). From there, however, we should be able to stabilize them and start to dial them back down. That goal should be attainable.
Curbing global warming may be an order of magnitude harder than, say, eradicating smallpox or putting a man on the moon. But is it moral not to try? We did not so much march toward the environmental precipice as drunkenly reel there, snapping at the scientific scolds who told us we had a problem. The scolds, however, knew what they were talking about. In a solar system crowded with sister worlds that either emerged stillborn like Mercury and Venus or died in infancy like Mars, we're finally coming to appreciate the knife-blade margins within which life can thrive. For more than a century we've been monkeying with those margins. It's long past time we set them right.
By JEFFREY KLUGER (Time Magazine)
March 28, 2006 --With reporting by David Bjerklie and Andrea Dorfman/ New York, Dan Cray/ Los Angeles, Greg Fulton/ Atlanta, Andrea Gerlin/ London, Rita Healy/ Denver and Eric Roston/ Washington
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Written by Enviroadmin
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Saturday, 22 May 2010 14:00 |
Cool it - is global warming a myth?
Cool It, the latest book from global warming sceptic Bjorn Lomborg, is out this month. And already his arguments - that many of the predicted effects of climate change, from melting icecaps to drought and flood, are "vastly exaggerated and emotional claims that are simply not founded in data" - have triggered heated debate.
Lomborg's decision to attack polar bears, the "poster animals" for climate change, drew criticism from international animal experts last weekend.
Lomborg says the story of the polar bears encapsulates the problems with many climate change scares: "Once you take a look at the supporting data the narrative falls apart," he writes.
Lomborg, an adjunct professor (ie not permanent) at Copenhagen business school, is no stranger to controversy. He made his name in 2001 with a book The Sceptical Environmentalist, which claimed that fears about man-made climate change were overstated. He faced accusations of scientific dishonesty and was attacked by environmental groups. His next book, Global Crises, Global Solutions, featured economists assessing the best way to spend $50bn to improve people's lives, with tackling global warming coming low on the list.
In Cool It, Lomborg sets about exploding climate change "myths". He says it's too soon to say that Greenland's ice is melting fast and that threats of catastrophic sea-level rise, extreme weather, drought and flooding have all been over-hyped.
"We hear a lot from people who argue that we are heading for catastrophe," Lomborg writes in a column7 in today's SocietyGuardian. "We also hear from those who maintain climate change is a hoax. Neither of these extremes is right. The Earth is warming, and we are causing it, but that is not the whole story. Predictions of impending disaster don't stack up."
Lomborg says that by focusing on solving climate change through cuts in carbon emissions, we are losing sight of the real problem, ignoring more effective solutions.
"Wherever you look, the conclusion is the same: reducing carbon emissions is not the best way to help the world. We do need to fix global warming in the long run. But I'm frustrated at our blinkered focus on policies that won't achieve it.
"I think we need to find a smarter way than spending enormous sums of money doing very little good for the planet 100 years from now."
Lomborg says that the Kyoto protocol would only postpone the effects of global warming by seven days by the end of the century. "Even if the US and Australia had signed on and everyone stuck to Kyoto for this entire century, we would postpone the effects of global warming by only five years," he writes.
He says the first step to stopping global warming in the long run is to start focusing resources on making carbon-emissions cuts much easier. "We need to reduce the cost of cutting emissions from $20 a tonne to, say, $2," he writes. "The way to achieve this is to dramatically increase spending on research and development of low-carbon energy."
Lomborg's book comes at a time of great debate on climate change. Last week, Nobel peace prize winner Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, was criticised by a British high court judge, who found nine scientific errors in the film.
So what do you think? Are fears of climate change exaggerated? Is Lomborg a climate-change denier, or do his views make sense?
Read more at: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/2007/10/cool_it_global_warmings_a_myth.html
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Written by Enviroadmin
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Saturday, 22 May 2010 13:59 |
Climate change risks tend to be underestimated - survey
By: Christy van der Merwe
Published: 22 May 08 - 15:58
Article Source: http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article.php?a_id=133980
Professional services organisation KPMG identified the six most prevalent sectors in danger of risks from climate change, and these were transport, tourism, aviation, healthcare, the financial sector, and the oil and gas sector.
These sectors scored high on the risks facing the sector (either physical, regulatory, reputational, or litigious), and yet they scored poorly in terms of preparedness to face these risks.
This emerged from the ‘Climate Changes Your Business' survey - KPMG's review of the risks and economic impacts of climate change at a sectoral level.
"When considering how businesses report on climate change risks, it is striking that businesses consistently appear to gloss over certain climate risks, even where they have well established management techniques for dealing with other forms of risk," explained KPMG sustainability services associate director Chi Mun Woo.
The three sectors that fell in the "relatively safe zone" were the telecommunications sector, the food and beverage sector, and the chemicals sector. Although, further analysis of the results by KPMG suggested that these sectors might not be as safe as they would like to think, for example, the food and beverages industry was highly vulnerable to climate-related risks such as increases in agricultural input costs.
"There is almost a universal ‘underperception' of risk regarding climate change," noted Woo.
Over all, the business risks and economic impacts of climate change remain underestimated.
"There are huge differences between sectors in terms of the relation between climate change risks, and risk preparedness. Industries may be relatively safe, they may be in the danger zone, or the may be in between, but wherever they are, risks tend to be underestimated," he added.
It was also noted that even though companies may recognise risks, there was still very little "adaptation thinking" going on throughout the various sectors.
The survey had a European and North American focus, and KPMG South Africa would be working towards localising the survey.
"Companies in South Africa need to go on a journey of awareness and learning, and the development of strategic responses that take account of evolving regulations and consumer expectations, carbon footprints and reduction opportunities, and of course physical risks flowing from climate change," said Woo.
He added that climate change was recognised as a greater threat to Africa, owing to the continent's lower capacity to mitigate and adapt to this challenge in relation to richer nations. "We are also more dependent on agricultural industries, which are very exposed to the risks mentioned in the report. South Africa in particular will come against strong international pressure because of its high-emissions intensity."
DANGER ZONE SECTORS
Climate change risks to the transport sector have been recognised for some time, however it still attracted attention for its low preparedness as a sector. "The transport sector as a whole is probably the least prepared sector," indicated Woo.
The transport sector was a significant contributor to greenhouse-gas emissions, owing to the heavy consumption of fossil fuels, and as a result it was targeted by policymakers to reduce its emissions.
The main risks to the sector were cited as regulation in the form of government initiatives to make transport more expensive, by means of fuel taxes, road pricing, emissions trading, and a fiscal burden on air transport. The transport sector was also subject to physical risks, such as risks of delays, cancellations and accidents.
The reports analysed in the survey hardly mentioned any risks beyond the regulatory for the transport sector though, indicating that the risk for the transport sector was largely underestimated. The effects of climate change, such as floods and storms, on transport infrastructure like roads was not mentioned.
The consequences of climate change on the financial sector were said to be mostly indirect, as financial institutions were indirectly exposed to climate risks through their investment portfolios. Risk to reputation was increasing as consumer awareness grew.
The level of awareness in the financial sector was said to be reasonably high, although there was a wide variation of preparedness among banks. The investment community has responded by setting up ‘sustainable' investment funds and increasing investments in renewable energy.
Climate change could have huge impacts on human health as both global warming and extreme weather events are connected to the outbreak and spread of disease. In countries with public health financing, the ability to cope with increases in various diseases, such as malaria, could be limited.
In some reports analysed by KPMG it was stated that the health care sector had been largely unresponsive to the financial risks brought about by climate change.
The aviation sector was largely affected by emerging regulation, and risks to reputation. Physical risks, and risks of litigation, which should not be ignored by the aviation sector, were largely unmentioned and not widely viewed as risks by the sector.
The physical effects of climate change could lead to significant reductions in tourism in certain areas. For example, with a two to three degree increase in ocean temperature, the coral of Australia's Great Barrier reef could be bleached, which would have a huge impact on tourism in that country, which generates some $29-billion ordinarily. The world tourism organisation was said to promote sustainable tourism, but "companies in the sector appear to lag behind on preparedness", the KPMG survey stated.
The oil and gas sector was exposed to a high level of regulatory risk, as well as physical risk, and risk to reputation. "As for preparedness ... a few European companies are showing initiative, whereas American companies lag behind," the survey found.
MIDDLE OF THE ROAD SECTORS
The sectors nestled between the danger zone and the safe haven offered a few surprises in some cases. They were the automotive sector, the building and real estate sector, the insurance sector, the construction and materials sector, the manufacturing sector, the mining and metals sector, the pharmaceuticals sector, the retail sector, and utilities.
Of course this did not mean that these sectors were not as affected by climate change, but perhaps in some cases, the sectors were more aware of and prepared to face the risks.
Article Source: http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article.php?a_id=133980
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Written by Enviroadmin
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Saturday, 22 May 2010 13:58 |
Source: http://www.greenbiz.com/
Why do some people bluster when you talk about sustainability while others get excited?
Consider the question: "How’s your marriage?"
Answer: "Fine, it's sustainable."
Huh?
The terms and concepts of sustainability, and corporate social responsibility seem to have entered our everyday vocabulary and lifestyle, but these terms are packed with contextual meaning -- and not everyone can have a conversation with a common understanding of these issues.
It’s important to pursue the objectives of sustainability without using the term explicitly or excessively, according to Peter Senge, author of “The Necessary Revolution” and director of the Center for Organizational Learning at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Senge delivered a keynote address two weeks ago in Albuquerque at the National Association of EHS (Environment, Health and Safety) Management Forum, which covered a range of strategic and tactical practices used by EHS and sustainability managers today. Five hundred attendees from some of the most recognized brands and industries studied and discussed these concepts of systemic thinking and a variety of other strategic business issues.
Senge's recent work on these issues is fascinating, with core messages focused on innovation, challenging assumptions and redefining objectives.
Sure, we know everything is connected -- our use of energy here creates polar ice cap melting. Our purchase of tennis shoes here, creates a job in a Chinese factory thousands of miles away. But our cherished planet’s natural resources and ecosystem services, upon which we depend, are being overused by 30 percent annually, and data compiled by National Center for Health Statistics indicate that, despite world-record healthcare costs, some in our country are facing shorter lifespan than that of their elders. Whoa?!
We often frame boundaries and our behaviors around the issues we control without recognizing the impact to the larger system, Senge explained. As we set objectives for our organization, we sometimes limit our recognition of what we can impact. We develop products and services -- and sometimes are slow to acknowledge the load we place on the larger system. So how is the energy produced that I use, and where are my new shoes from and what’s the impact of these everyday decisions and behaviors I make?
When we think about the risks and opportunities associated with sustainability, let’s not limit our thinking to just our behaviors, or our organization, but let’s think broadly about our species and our planet.
Sound wacky? Let yourself believe that thinking bigger allows us to do more. We can aspire to a larger good beyond the limits where we currently focus, we can discuss and learn together about new models of impact -- and we can have a positive impact on the complexity and interconnectedness that surrounds us.
A noteworthy example spotlighted by Senge is Coca Cola. Despite their compliant operations and appropriate business objectives, they’ve realized the vital and strategic importance of addressing and responding to the water resource issue more broadly. They have realized it’s an issue challenging mankind -- and it’s inextricably linked to their business.
Coke’s goal of neutral-water usage focuses on "returning to communities and to nature an amount of water equivalent to what we use in all of our beverages and their production." Coke is focused on water minimization in their processes, recycling water wherever possible, returning it to the environment effectively, and partnering with NGOs like World Wildlife Fund and other local organizations to make a difference for communities and the natural environment through locally relevant projects.
Are they perfect? No. Do they have all the answers? No. But they’re focusing and improving -- and recognizing their larger role. They have broadened their boundaries and they are responding to the risks and opportunities of sustainability.
That's an example all of us can reflect upon.
Roberto Piccioni provides sustainability and environmental management consulting services and teaches Sustainable Operations Management in the Green MBA program at Dominican University, which also offers focused workshops with international thought leaders on applying and practicing various concepts of systemic thinking.
Source: http://www.greenbiz.com/
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Written by Enviroadmin
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Saturday, 22 May 2010 13:57 |
In 2009 hundreds of millions of people around the world showed their support by turning off their lights for one hour.
Earth Hour 2010 will continue to be a global call to action to every individual, every business and every community. A call to stand up, to show leadership and be responsible for our future.
Pledge your support here and turn off your lights for one hour, Earth Hour, 8.30pm, Saturday 27th March 2010.
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Written by Enviroadmin
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Saturday, 22 May 2010 13:56 |
Read the full article at: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2010/03/10/rwanda-turns-trapped-methane-energy-growth
As natural disasters go, the limnic eruption -- an explosion of gas from beneath a lake -- of Lake Nyos in Cameroon in 1986 ranks among the most horrifying and bizarre: About 1,700 people and 3,500 livestock were suffocated when a large cloud of CO2 descended silently on their villages.
Lake Kivu, one of Africa's great lakes, which lies on the border of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, poses a similar danger because vast amounts of methane gas and CO2 are buried in its depths. At the same time, rural Rwanda desperately needs more electricity -- only about 6 percent of the nation's 9.7 million people are connected to the electricity grid, according to the government.
To Contour Global, a private company that specializes in power-generation projects in the global south, this is a business opportunity. The company has embarked on an ambitious $325 million plan to extract the methane gas from the lake to provide about 100 megawatts of gas-fired electricity to Rwanda.
To put that in context, total generating capacity in Rwanda is now just 69 megawatts -- about 10 percent of the capacity of a single coal-fired power plant in the U.S.
Recently, I spoke will Bill Fox, senior vice president of Contour Global, who is overseeing the Lake Kivu project. The company, he told me, was founded in 2005 by Joe Brandt, a former executive with the global power generation company AES, and funded by Reservoir Capital, a $4 billion investment fund. Contour Global and Reservoir Capital are based in New York.
Fox, who is 62, spent most of his career in the U.S. before joining Contour Global two years ago. Since then, he has managed a hydroelectric project in Brazil and made four trips to Lake Kivu.
"The country, under President Kagame, has a very ambitious goal to increase the electrification rate," Fox told me. "They're going about it in a major way, building transmission and generation."
The technology behind the Lake Kivu project is a bit of a mystery to me but, as Fox explained it, Contour Global will build a gas extraction facility that will be mounted on a big barge. It will then siphon gases to the surface from a depth of about 350 meters.
"If you can picture a champagne bottle that's open, where the bubbles rise to the surface and they drag the liquid with it, that's what's happening in the lake," Fox said.
Read the full article at: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2010/03/10/rwanda-turns-trapped-methane-energy-growth
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