Greenhouse gas emissions and data collection
August 11, 2008
The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) is an independent not-for-profit organization which seeks information on the business risks and opportunities presented by climate change and greenhouse gas emissions data from the world’s largest companies:
The CDP teamed up with the Greenhouse Gas Management Institute (GHGMI) to offer a wealth of information to help corporations and also local cities gather accurate date on greenhouse gas emissions for reporting purposes. They have over 3,000 voluntary corporate entries in their databases already.
Get more information or download reports from their website.
Thoughts on McCain’s Environmental plan
May 13, 2008
McCain has long had a hot and cold relationship with the green movement, but maybe he’s taking a page from the California governator’s book about how to suddenly be seen as green as though it’s been a life goal.
Or maybe it was just the moment. In a wind power generation plant.
In any case, now he’s said it he’s going to have to get behind it for the rest of the election at least.
Dave Roberts points out that while better than expected, McCain’s proposals still have a long way to go.
McCain has always supported cap and trade programs and his goals are pretty much what everybody else has proposed. He looks to reduce greenhouse gas emission levels to 60% below 1990 levels by 2050. Obama’s plan of reducing emissions by 80% by 2050 .
He also wants to give away carbon offest permits (rather than auctioning them off) to get corporations with the program. What’s wrong with that idea? Well the whole idea of auctioning off permits is to limit the supply and so make it more expensive to get the permits, encouraging corporations to decrease their need for the permit. If they get them for free what exactly is the motivation? Oh, and of course they could just SELL some of them and make a boatload of money on the credits they got free from the guvmint. How very Republican.
McCain isn’t afraid to take a poke at Bush’s lack of policy though. He said “I will not permit eight long years to pass without serious action on serious challenges” in a direct stab at Bush’s open denial then sudden revelation that global warming even exists, and McCain says he plans for the US to lead the post-Kyoto UN process and offer incentives for other countries to sign on.
Interestingly, McCain has really pushed for nuclear power in the past as a way to reduce greenhouse gasses and Ethanol, not so much to save the world, but to reduce our dependencies on foreign oil which “Makes us to vulnerable to the vagaries of foreign nations”.
Bottom line, we’ll wait and see how McCain develops his policies and really puts his policies into action. Who knows, maybe we’ll get a president who listens to the scientists instead of suppressing them.
Naaah. I’m still voting for. Obama.
Moose methane
April 24, 2008
Researchers in Norway claim that a grown moose can produce 2,100 kilos of methane a year — equivalent to the CO2 output resulting from a 13,000 kilometer car journey.
Now, at last, we know the biggest contributors to global warming!
Norway is apparently concerned that its national animal, the moose, is harming the climate through its belching and farting…
Actually it’s not nearly as much as good ol’ bessie.
Cows emit signiifcant amounts of methane and there are a LOT more of them. North America has more than 100 million cattle, hundreds of millions of hogs and feeder pigs, and more than 2 billion chickens, together emitting billions of tons of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gasses every year.
The 2004 State of the World stated “Belching, flatulent livestock emit 16 percent of the world’s annual production of methane.”
The July 2005 issue of Physics World states: “The animals we eat emit 21 percent of all the CO2 that can be attributed to human activity.”
What to do?
A study in Canada found 20 different ways to reduce methane and nitrous oxide emissions from livestock—each of them capable of cutting these emissions by one-third.
The Canadian authors, Karin Wittinberg and Dinah Boadi of the University of Manitoba, say that such methane reduction strategies should be a top priority in any greenhouse gas reduction effort.
Simply grinding and pelleting the feeds for confinement animals reduced methane by 20 to 40 percent, because it makes the feed more fully digestible.
Steers grazing on high-quality alfalfa-grass pastures emit 50 percent less methane than steers grazing on mature grass-only pastures. Rotational grazing—changing where the cows graze every few days—also cuts methane emissions. It would cost only a few dollars per acre to encourage farmers to rotatationally graze, replant their pastures more often, and use higher-quality forages because the better pastures also produce more meat and milk for the farmer’s profit.
Methane emissions in feedlot cattle were reduced by one-third when 4 percent canola oil was added to cattle feedlot rations. The canola oil costs only slightly more than comparable grain calories.
Genetically engineered bovine growth hormone reduces methane emissions by 10 percent in dairy cattle. The growth hormone hasn’t even been legalized in Canada, thanks largely to opposition from activist groups such as Greenpeace!
Keeping young pigs and poultry separated by age groups, and phasing their feeds by growth stages can cut greenhouse emissions by 50 percent and sharply reduce bad smells too. Again, farmers would need only modest encouragement to use the system because it also increases feed efficiency.
Or you could just stop eating meat….
Glacial melting
April 16, 2008
There’s no question that Global Warming is a real thing. The question is : is there anything we can do to slow it down? What are the real impacts on the environment and on current and future world populations? 
There’s no question that Global Warming is a real thing.
These two images of Glacier bay, taken just over 60 years apart, show the effects dramatically.
In 1941. William Field photographed the Muir and Riggs Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park.
In 2004, USGS glaciologist Bruce Molnia photographed it from almost exactly the same place.
Going further back in history, in 1794, The glacier in Glacier Bay was more than 4000 ft. thick, up to 20 miles or more wide, and extended more than 100 miles to the St.Elias Range of mountains.
- If the current warming trend continues, all glaciers in Glacier National Park could be gone by 2030.
- Grinnell Glacier is already 90% gone.
- Bering Glacier-North America’s largest-has lost 7 miles of its length, while losing 20-25% of it’s volume.
- According to the multinational Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report, average temperatures in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia have risen at twice the global average.
It’s not just the arctic glaciers that are melting either, and glaciers in mountain regions may have catastrophic impact on the population below them.
As the mountain glaciers melt huge lakes form in pockets of the glacier. These pocket expand until there is little more holding the water back than fragile ice dams.
When these dams finally give way, millions of tons of water cascade down the mountain, decimating everything in it’s path.
Himalayan glacier lakes are filling up with more and more melted ice and 24 of them are now poised to burst their banks in Bhutan, with a similar number at risk in Nepal.
It is estimated that by 2010 a glacial lake catastrophe will happen every year. The loss of life and property could be staggering.
The short-term danger is obvious, but the long term danger, that of having less and less runoff every year and the resulting water shortage could make living in these areas impossible in the fairly near future.
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