Climate Files 54 / Sound the Alarm
MOVING on with news and politics about global warming in the new year. Let’s forget COP15 even happened. Look ahead, what else can we do? Today Climate Files includes a recent short interview with climate scientist James Hansen largely about his book Storms of my Grandchildren.
Remember: sounding the alarm is not alarmism — it’s realism and a hope that people will listen and act on climate change. It’s our job to educate, because not everyone knows about climate change, and they may not “believe in it” for all the wrong reasons. An email exchange regarding a denier’s claims is something everyone can do (and I read mine). We have to keep educating the deniers and maybe one of these days they’ll give up the Dark Side.
News covered in this episode includes:
U.S. Car Fleet Shrinks For First Time in 50 Years, Report Says. It might be bad for business, but it’s good for the climate when people drive less and own less vehicles. Sorry, GM.
Climate Pledge Tracker Compares Nations’ CO2 Emissions Limits. You can see the new climate pledge tracker site here.
EPA is working with the Spruce No. 1 mine on their new permit, but there are a lot of problems and the mine may threaten water and over 2,000 acres of forest. Bad news, but it’s not likely to be approved. Read more here.
Storing CO2 in basalt is a new idea but not a very practical one, at least not now. Read the article here at Futurism Now. The study I mentioned is actually two studies. Here is an excerpt from FN news:
A July 2008 study by the same researchers found that 208 billion metric tons could be stored in the offshore basalt formations of the U.S. Northwest’s Juan de Fuca tectonic plate — that is as much as 150 years’ worth of U.S. emissions. . . . . In a study released Monday, ABI Research predicted that new CCS projects will keep 146 million tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Their estimates are based on markets for carbon emissions allowances encouraging firms to seek out technologies like CCS to limit their emissions.
The problem with that claim is that the U.S. emits about 7.1 billion metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) of greenhouse gases per year, (my estimate of 5.7 billion metric tons in the podcast was low) and that means only about 34 years of U.S. emissions could be forced into basalt, if the procedure even works.
The CIA is sharing data with climate scientists. Australia is baking hot this summer! All of this and more is discussed in this episode.
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Tags: activism, australia bakes, car fleet, cia shares data, Climate Change, Climate Files Podcast, climate pledge tracker, climate science, global warming, james hansen, politics, storms of my grandchildren
ST
There is a fun video on LFTRs at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHdRJqi__Z8
SCNRs are at an earlier stage of development but they are starting to look interesting owing to the falling cost of neutrons. Currently the cheapest are in Tennessee: http://neutrons.ornl.gov/facilities/facilities_sns.shtml
Not far away, Virginia Tech has teamed with the ADNA Corporation (Charlie Bowman):
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=%22Charles+Bowman%22%2C+Virginia+Tech&aq=f&aqi=&oq=&fp=292ac4760832f3c4
These technologies are decades away from full scale implementation but the potential is huge. Think what the “Teapot Dome” meant to the petrochemical industry that currently supports our civilisation. US Senator Peter Domenici fought for the very modest funding that maintains SCNR technology but he decided not to seek re-election.
Thanks, I will definitely look all of that up and probably will be using the info. soon.
Small point, Shelley, but I thought I heard you say that North America is the only unusually cold place right now. I live in the UK, and I can tell you that the UK and Europe have been hit by exceptionally cold conditions. There was snow and ice around my house for more than two weeks — very unusual for this country. It brought out our own rash of climate change skeptics.
Happy to say I know the difference between weather and climate. Sad to say, the earth keeps getting warmer.
Yeah, I don’t remember exactly what I said either, but it certainly isn’t only over North America. I heard about your cold and snow and China’s too. Our weather is affected by Arctic low fronts and el Nino, so the cold comes and goes. I’m sure you have weather patterns like that which come and go too. It’s just winter weather, which can change pretty quickly.