Global CO2 Emissions Reach All-Time High, Rising More Than 5% in 2010 to Close Out Past 20 Years

Global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reached an all-time high in 2010, rising 45% in the past 20 years. Rising rapidly between 1990 and 2010, global atmospheric CO2 levels totaled 33 billion metric tons last year, according to a report published by the European Commission’s Joint Research Center and PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. Global CO2 emissions fell 1% in 2009, during the Great Recession, but rose at an unprecedented 5% rate in 2010. That was similar to the drop and greater emissions growth in 1975 and 1976, when the global economy suffered through the first oil crisis, a subsequent stock market crash and began a recovery in 1976, the report authors note.

Plants and CO2

Plants absorb carbon dioxide and exhale Oxygen. They are a major part of the global cycle. The global uptake of carbon by land plants may be up to 45 per cent more than previously thought. This is the conclusion of an international team of scientists, based on the variability of heavy oxygen atoms in the carbon dioxide of the atmosphere driven by the El Niño effect. As the oxygen atoms in carbon dioxide were converted faster than expected during the El Niño years, current estimates for the uptake of carbon by plants are probably too low. These should be corrected upwards, say the researchers in the current issue of the scientific journal NATURE. Instead of 120 petagrams of carbon, the annual global vegetation uptake probably lies between 150 and 175 petagrams of carbon. This value is a kind of gross national product for land plants and indicates how productive the biosphere of the Earth is. The reworking of this so-called global primary productivity would have significant consequences for the coupled carbon cycle-climate model used in climate research to predict future climate change.

New Zealand adjusts its CO2 trading program to address market distortions

New Zealand is looking to exclude the use of U.N. offsets from industrial gas projects in its emissions trading scheme from as soon as 2012, as these offsets threaten to distort the market, the government said on Friday.

CO2 Up in the World

Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2)increased by 45 % between 1990 and 2010, and reached an all-time high of 33 billion tons in 2010. Increased energy efficiency, nuclear energy and the growing contribution of renewable energy are not compensating for the globally increasing demand for power and transport, which is strongest in developing countries. This increase took place despite emission reductions in industrialized countries during the same period. Even though different countries show widely variable emission trends, industrialized countries are likely to meet the collective Kyoto target of a 5.2 % reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2012 as a group, partly thanks to large emission reductions from economies in transition in the early nineties and more recent reductions due to the 2008-2009 recession. These figures were published today in the report "Long-term trend in global CO2 emissions", prepared by the European Commission's Joint Research Center and PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.

Waste Water + Bacteria = Clean Energy

For the first time, researchers have sustainably produced hydrogen gas, a potential source of clean energy, using only water and bacteria. The challenge now, scientists say, is to scale up the process to provide large amounts of hydrogen for various purposes, such as fueling vehicles or small generators.

World Atlas ice loss claim exaggerated

The Times Atlas of the World exaggerated the rate of Greenland's ice loss in its thirteenth edition last week, scientists said on Monday. The atlas, published by HarperCollins, showed that Greenland lost 15 percent of its ice cover over the past 12 years, based on information from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado in the United States.

Temporali e sul nord e centro Italia: Quarantenne ucciso da un fulmine

MILANO - Una perturbazione di origine atlantica è arrivata da sabato sera sull'Italia, provocando un peggioramento delle condizioni meteo a partire dalle regioni nord-occidentali, che si estenderà poi al resto del nord e del centro. VITTIMA - La perturbazione ha scatenato violenti temporali e causato una vittima a Morengo, nel Bergamasco. Un milanese di 40 anni, Cristiano Toscano, è morto folgorato nella tarda serata di sabato, dopo essere stato colpito da un fulmine durante un temporale. La tragedia si è consumata poco dopo le 21, in un parco comunale.

A Dash of Cold Water

Newly formulated laundry detergents can wash most clothes perfectly well in cold water, manufacturers say, but customers are stubbornly refusing to turn down the temperature. Although some of these detergents have been available for several years, customers cling to mom’s age-old advice that hot water washes best — squandering energy and contributing to greenhouse gas emissions.

Water Evaporated from Trees Cools Global Climate, Researchers Find

ScienceDaily (Sep. 14, 2011) — Scientists have long debated about the impact on global climate of water evaporated from vegetation. New research from Carnegie's Global Ecology department concludes that evaporated water helps cool Earth as a whole, not just the local area of evaporation, demonstrating that evaporation of water from trees and lakes could have a cooling effect on the entire atmosphere. These findings, published Sept. 14 in Environmental Research Letters, have major implications for land-use decision making.

Drinking Milk Can Lower Risk of Type 2 Diabetes

Diabetes is a metabolic disease in which the body does not produce enough insulin, or cells to not respond to insulin that is produced. Type 2 diabetes refers to the condition in which the cells do not respond to insulin, sometimes known as adult-onset diabetes. A new study from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has found that milk-drinking teenagers often become milk-drinking adults. As a lifelong habit, drinking milk is associated with a 43 percent lower risk of type 2 diabetes compared to non-milk drinkers.

Summer Arctic sea ice melt at or near record

Arctic sea ice this summer melted to a record low extent or will come a close second, two different research institutes said on Tuesday, confirming a trend which could yield an ice-free summer within a decade. The five biggest melts in a 32-year satellite record have all happened in the past five years, likely a result of both manmade climate change and natural weather patterns.

Wind Mills, Bans, and Possible Ill Effects

Wind mills are a clean alternative energy supply but not everyone agrees. The Rhode Island General Assembly’s newly enacted laws facilitating the siting, construction and power-purchase agreements for commercial-grade renewable energy projects took a big hit yesterday. On September 12th, the town of Charlestown Rhode Island became a U.S. trendsetter in the renewable-energy sector when the Town Council voted to pass the first-in-the-country ban on any size or type of electricity-generating wind turbines. The sweeping prohibition applies to large commercial turbines as well as smaller, residential models.

Abuse of Xanax Leads a Clinic to Halt Supply

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Gayle Mink, a nurse practitioner at a community mental health center here, had tired of the constant stream of patients seeking Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug coveted for its swift calming effect.
“It is such a drain on resources,” said Ms. Mink, whose employer, Seven Counties Services, serves some 30,000 patients in Louisville and the surrounding region. “You’re funneling a great deal of your energy into pacifying, educating, bumping heads with people over Xanax.”

Coal or Natural Gas, Climate Effects

Although the burning of natural gas emits far less carbon dioxide than coal, a new study concludes that a greater reliance on natural gas would fail to significantly slow down climate change. The study by Tom Wigley, who is a senior research associate at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), underscores the complex and sometimes conflicting ways in which fossil fuel burning affects Earth’s climate. While coal use causes warming through emission of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, it also releases comparatively large amounts of sulfates and other particles that, although detrimental to the environment, cool the planet by blocking incoming sunlight. As always the final picture of climate effect is very complicated to put together.

Crab Invasion from Antarctica?

King crabs and other crushing predators are thought to have been absent from cold Antarctic shelf waters for millions of years. Scientists speculate that the long absence of crushing predators has allowed the evolution of a unique Antarctic seafloor fauna with little resistance to predatory crabs. A recent study by researchers from the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, Duke University, Ghent University, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and Hamilton College, indicates that one species of king crab has moved 120 km across the continental shelf in West Antarctica and established a large, reproductive population in the Palmer Deep along the west Antarctic Peninsula.

Weather disasters costing U.S. billions

Blizzards. Tornadoes. Floods. Record heat and drought, followed by wildfires. The first eight months of 2011 have brought strange and destructive weather to the United States. From the blizzard that dumped almost two feet of snow on Chicago, to killer tornadoes and heat waves in the south, to record flooding, to wildfires that have burned more than 1,000 homes in Texas in the last few days, Mother Nature has been in a vile and costly mood.

How Salty the Ocean

On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5%. This means that every kilogram (roughly one liter by volume) of seawater has approximately 35 grams of dissolved salts (predominantly sodium chloride. The average density of seawater at the ocean surface is 1.025 g/ml. Seawater is denser than both fresh water and pure water because the dissolved salts add mass without contributing significantly to the volume. The freezing point of seawater decreases as salt concentration increases. NASA's Aquarius satellite has successfully completed its commissioning phase and is now tasting the saltiness of Earth's ocean surface, making measurements from its perch in near-polar orbit. Aquarius will make NASA's first space observations of the salinity, or concentration of salt, at the ocean surface, a key variable in satellite studies of Earth. Variations in salinity influence the ocean's deep circulation, outline the path freshwater takes around our planet and help drive Earth's climate.

China Benefits as U.S. Solar Industry Withers

The bankruptcies of three American solar power companies in the last month, including Solyndra of California on Wednesday, have left China’s industry with a dominant sales position — almost three-fifths of the world’s production capacity — and rapidly declining costs. Some American, Japanese and European solar companies still have a technological edge over Chinese rivals, but seldom a cost advantage, according to industry analysts.

Peterson Glacier Breakup Continues

In August 2010, part of the Petermann Glacier about four times the size of Manhattan island broke off. This is a huge island which would take years to melt and move south. Researcher Alun Hubbard, of the Centre for Glaciology at Aberystwyth University, U.K.has indicated that another section of the glacier, about twice the size of Manhattan, appeared close to breaking off. Alun Hubbard: "Although I knew what to expect in terms of ice loss from satellite imagery, I was still completely unprepared for the gob-smacking scale of the breakup, which rendered me speechless." ... "What the breakup means in terms of inland ice acceleration and draw-down of the ice sheet remains to be seen, but will be revealed by the GPS data recovered, which we are now processing at Aberystwyth."

China Buys 27 Million Electric Bikes Annually

While I think no piece about electric bikes is really complete without touching on the Optibike electric mountain bike I had the thrill of taking on a week-long test drive two years ago, this piece by energyNOW!'s Josh Zepps about the trajectory of the e-bike industry in a changing world economy and transportation landscape really puts things into perspective. As Zepps points out, electric bikes may be gaining a small foothold in the U.S. market, with 80,000 purchased last year, the Chinese market is responsible for 27 million of the 28 million e-bikes sold annually.