Small Tornado in London

[Robert Vermaat]

A single volcano produces more pollutants than all of mankind does in 10 years.

You're wrong. A volcano produces ceratin pollutants, sure, like sulphur and tat sort of stuff that gets into the atmosphere, which may indeed be more than mankind does in 10 years.

BUT:

a) these pollutants are washed our of the atmosphere over c. 2 years and
b) these are not the pollutants that cause global warming. To the contrary, volcanic ash causes high clouds that cause the sunlight to be reflected back, and thus cause cooling of the earth.

It's the massive burning of fossil fuels that releases carbon into the atmosphere, which causes global warming. That carbon has been trapped in trees, etc., and transformed into coal and oil, and is now released on a scale never seen before in the history of the earth.

Sure, temperatures do vary. You mentioned a mini Ice Age during the Middle Ages (very mini!), the temperatures during Roman times were also higher. During the 3rd c. and after this changed, summers became wetter and cooler, sea levels rose (aka Dunkirk II), all due to unknown causes. Yes, we don't know how Ice Ages started or (more important), how they end. But what we've been doing over the past century or so is also clear, and the graphs speak volumes. So does the melting of the North Pole ice.

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Goffredo, totally agree!! (thats why i am still hoping for an alien invasion)

Humanity should not think for one moment they matter one bit in the universe.

M.VIB.M.

[TITVS SABATINVS AQVILIVS]

Gentlemen, sorry to be irritant just before Saturnalia and Dies Natalis Soli Inuicti feasts, but you seem to forget the core problem: the critical mass of the asian monster nations.

It's clear that we Humans are helping the degenerative process by our consumptions and you can use anything like wind farms, corn plastics, hybrid engines, solar panels and all the loads of nice eco-stuff that can deceive us for a while, BUT about the Asians:

a) they are billions,
b) due to their mind state and culture they don't take care so much about environment
c) they WANT to live exactly at the same our rate of resources consumption
d) they want cars, air conditioning, freezers, shopping, vacations, travels, fashion, delicious food, entertainment, etc.
e) they are clever, able and astute,
f) they can and want to work harder than us
g) they are able to sacrifice themselves to get some goals yet
h) they have already begun to do all that above (do the word Deepeeka tell you anything?)
i) when THEY will understand the real situation, it will be too late

My brother did a first long travel in Asia about fifteen years ago and was surprised to see in Indonesia a lot of millions of people cities that we never heard in our life, and see them from the plane was very impressive and upsetting (a sort of Blade runner stuff). He came back recently to Asia to get Japan and passed through the monster nations (mainly India, China, Indonesia, not to mention the african ones) and what he saw was the confirmation of his early suspicion: they go ahead too much quickly.

Now, what can we (Occidentals) REALLY do? Will the asians become the masters of the world, no doubt about it, but can (or want) we isolate our way of life and preserve our share of envinronment or not? And our culture? Will it annihilated in a monstrous "cultural" milk-shake? Unfortunately we cannot do so much I think. I just hope that we "Occidentals" and our sons will not become the waiters and servants of the Asians.

The only help could be to wake-up quickly our Youth, beginning by a more appropriate education within the families and the schools, to tell them the REAL situation and explain to them that we could pay hard our stupid frivolousness.

Just a pray: please, avoid to start some of those old fossil accusatory motions about a presumed racism because this is absolutely NOT a racism, nor religious, nor political matter. Better a honest egoism matter, yes, because I'd simply like that our occidental civilization can save itself and continue for centuries, but in this case it's "safe" egoism, or not? Even if totally useless, I guess.

Ah, BTW, what the Romans should do to face a problem like this?

Valete, and sorry for the momentary pessimism folks!

[size=150:dkfx5l2l]IO SATUVRNALIA![/size]

[Tarbicus]

Gentlemen, sorry to be irritant just before Saturnalia and Dies Natalis Soli Inuicti feasts, but you seem to forget the core problem: the critical mass of the asian monster nations...

Actually Danielle, it seems to me that those nations are just as willing be environmentally friendly as some Western nations, and seem far more progressive in terms of accepting there is a problem than some.

Another thing to consider is that at least one African nation's farmers are trying to grow trees that would help accelerate the carbon reduction process at a micro level in villages to raise money to help financially in terms of carbon sales, but the EU vetoed their efforts (New Scientist report).

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I thought it was colder in the Roman times? Ergo wheat fields in Libya....?

And can well imagine the bad influences certain? oil companies have on progress..... I have worked almost my entire life in the oil industry, and find myself "waiting" for work after daring to confront their so called safety attitude! They are great at talking the talk............

Unfortunately, as long as there are a steady stream of eager beavers to play their game, things will only go so far! Now, in the name of safety, we cannot even take our leathermen offshore, because they are "unsafe"

The same will be true in their environmental fforts as well! All fluff and bluster, but no real substance unless it accrues them a profi

But perhaps I am just a BAT person! :lol: :lol: :lol:

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

the critical mass of the asian monster nations...............

YESSSSSSSSSS

the samurai are marching on Rome!

BANZAIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

M.VIB.M.


Now, what can we (Occidentals) REALLY do? Will the asians become the masters of the world, no doubt about it, but can (or want) we isolate our way of life and preserve our share of envinronment or not? And our culture? Will it annihilated in a monstrous "cultural" milk-shake? Unfortunately we cannot do so much I think. I just hope that we "Occidentals" and our sons will not become the waiters and servants of the Asians.


WELL........... after the centuries of abuse, exploitation, robbing and criminal behaviour by the so called OCCIDENTAL nations of these countries.......

ie China, Indonesia, India,
ETHIOPIA! (helloooooooo Italy! wake-up.... MUSSOLINI)
and a lot of others............. remember who invented the borders in Africa........

I dont think that its very strange or terrible............!!

[SELF-EDIT] i do not like your remarks daniele.....

(understatement of the year)

M.VIB.M.

PSII: this topic is about climate change, not about Asia vs the West

[Primvs Pavlvs]

...and this is where I step off this emotional rollercoster.

[Tarbicus]

To get back on topic, this is the real worry, and this is only Greenland:

[url:3rzafj7t]http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0004F545-037C-13F5-837C83414B7F0000[/url]

[url:3rzafj7t]http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn9717&feedId=online-news_rss20[/url]

[url:3rzafj7t]http://www.nsidc.org/news/press/20021207_seaice.html[/url]

[url:3rzafj7t]http://cires.colorado.edu/science/groups/steffen/greenland/melt2005/[/url]

[url:3rzafj7t]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3922579.stm[/url]

The less ice there is to reflect radiation from the Sun, the hotter it gets (five times hotter at the Poles than the equator), the more ice melts,.... blah, blah.

[TITVS SABATINVS AQVILIVS]

Are not we talking about the future climate changing due to the human behaviour too?

Jim, yes, you're right. That is surely happening in Asia and Africa, but its scale is too limited in my opinion. Will their present efforts resist to their quickly growing wish of consumerism? What I'm trying to say is that is a matter of time, few time: we must run now.
Imagine for example any asian and african family: father, mother, and teen sons driving a car.... Ok, a hybrid car (diffusion of really functional and cheap hydrogen cars could be too slow)... Just like us... That should be terrible even if they should drive just a car per family. Now, I've specified that's an egoist subject, because Asians and Africans are not guilty about it: they just want to live like us. While we are surely and criminally culprit.

I'd like to talk about it serenely (no racism, no religion, no politics, no emotionally), among the intelligent people that abound in RAT, maybe for finding constructive ideas and discussing them.

Ah, incidentally, I've heard a sort umbecoming and isolated squawking somewhere in Germany, maybe I've spoiled some solo-chickens party there...

Valete,

[Tarbicus]

The carbon footprint of these countries is tiny compared to other parts of the world. If anything, they're in the best position of all to keep carbon emissions at a minimum, and when their major financial and industrial centres are being flooded (Beijing is on the hit list) I dare say they will make more of an effort than those nations embedded in high carbon output.
[url:2f6mtusb]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:CO2_per_capita_per_country.png[/url]

[Cornelius Quintus]

The less ice there is to reflect radiation from the Sun, the hotter it gets (five times hotter at the Poles than the equator), the more ice melts,.... blah, blah.

Ave Jim,

the good news: During the Colosseum’s bi-millennium-anniversary in 2080 A.D. there will be naval battles performed again .
The bad news: tickets are few, expensive and only standing places in the top rows available. All seats strictly reserved to scuba divers... :wink:

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Hahahahaha brilliant Heiko!!!!!!!

LAUDES!!!

btw:

I've heard a sort umbecoming and isolated squawking somewhere in Germany, maybe I've spoiled some solo-chickens party there...

Thank god i live in Holland.........

wellllllll in a few years there wont be any Holland anymore.... cuz of the sea-level rise........

M.VIB.M.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Considering the long use of catalytic converters in Canada and the USA,
I find it totally fantastic, in the literal meaning, that Canada has a higher carbon emission level than higher populated, European countries! true the only way to get around is motor vehicle, as horses and dog sleds would put Canada on an unlevel playing field, considering the distances we have to travel to do ANYTHING! But I have been here for 32 years and don't remember choking on fumes there like I have frequently in European cities!

Canada has always followed an environmentally forward thinking course, so I wonder how this is possible? What changed?

Sincerely

[TITVS SABATINVS AQVILIVS]

Just for a general overview, from Scientific American magazine, September 2006 issue:

A Climate Repair Manual
Global warming is a reality. Innovation in energy technology and policy are sorely needed if we are to cope
By Gary Stix


Carbon emissions are heating the earth.

Explorers attempted and mostly failed over the centuries to establish a pathway from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the icebound North, a quest often punctuated by starvation and scurvy. Yet within just 40 years, and maybe many fewer, an ascending thermometer will likely mean that the maritime dream of Sir Francis Drake and Captain James Cook will turn into an actual route of commerce that competes with the Panama Canal.
The term "glacial change" has taken on a meaning opposite to its common usage. Yet in reality, Arctic shipping lanes would count as one of the more benign effects of accelerated climate change. The repercussions of melting glaciers, disruptions in the Gulf Stream and record heat waves edge toward the apocalyptic: floods, pestilence, hurricanes, droughts--even itchier cases of poison ivy. Month after month, reports mount of the deleterious effects of rising carbon levels. One recent study chronicled threats to coral and other marine organisms, another a big upswing in major wildfires in the western U.S. that have resulted because of warming.

The debate on global warming is over. Present levels of carbon dioxide--nearing 400 parts per million (ppm) in the earth's atmosphere--are higher than they have been at any time in the past 650,000 years and could easily surpass 500 ppm by the year 2050 without radical intervention.
The earth requires greenhouse gases, including water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane, to prevent some of the heat from the received solar radiation from escaping back into space, thus keeping the planet hospitable for protozoa, Shetland ponies and Lindsay Lohan. But too much of a good thing--in particular, carbon dioxide from SUVs and local coal-fired utilities--is causing a steady uptick in the thermometer. Almost all of the 20 hottest years on record have occurred since the 1980s.

No one knows exactly what will happen if things are left unchecked the exact date when a polar ice sheet will complete a phase change from solid to liquid cannot be foreseen with precision, which is why the Bush administration and warming-skeptical public-interest groups still carry on about the uncertainties of climate change. But no climatologist wants to test what will arise if carbon dioxide levels drift much higher than 500 ppm.

A League of Rations

Preventing the transformation of the earth's atmosphere from greenhouse to unconstrained hothouse represents arguably the most imposing scientific and technical challenge that humanity has ever faced. Sustained marshaling of cross-border engineering and political resources over the course of a century or more to check the rise of carbon emissions makes a moon mission or a Manhattan Project appear comparatively straightforward.
Climate change compels a massive restructuring of the world's energy economy. Worries over fossil-fuel supplies reach crisis proportions only when safeguarding the climate is taken into account. Even if oil production peaks soon--a debatable contention given Canada's oil sands, Venezuela's heavy oil and other reserves coal and its derivatives could tide the earth over for more than a century. But fossil fuels, which account for 80 percent of the world's energy usage, become a liability if a global carbon budget has to be set.

Translation of scientific consensus on climate change into a consensus on what should be done about it carries the debate into the type of political minefield that has often undercut attempts at international governance since the League of Nations. The U.S. holds less than 5 percent of the world's population but produces nearly 25 percent of carbon emissions and has played the role of saboteur by failing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels.

Yet one of the main sticking points for the U.S. the absence from that accord of a requirement that developing countries agree to firm emission limits looms as even more of an obstacle as a successor agreement is contemplated to take effect when Kyoto expires in 2012. The torrid economic growth of China and India will elicit calls from industrial nations for restraints on emissions, which will again be met by even more adamant retorts that citizens of Shenzhen and Hyderabad should have the same opportunities to build their economies that those of Detroit and Frankfurt once did.

Kyoto may have been a necessary first step, if only because it lit up the pitted road that lies ahead. But stabilization of carbon emissions will require a more tangible blueprint for nurturing further economic growth while building a decarbonized energy infrastructure. An oil company's "Beyond Petroleum" slogans will not suffice.

Industry groups advocating nuclear power and clean coal have stepped forward to offer single-solution visions of clean energy. But too much devoted too early to any one technology could yield the wrong fix and derail momentum toward a sustainable agenda for decarbonization. Portfolio diversification underlies a plan laid out by Robert H. Socolow and Stephen W. Pacala in this single-topic edition of Scientific American. The two Princeton University professors describe how deployment of a basket of technologies and strategies can stabilize carbon emissions by midcentury.

Perhaps a solar cell breakthrough will usher in the photovoltaic age, allowing both a steel plant and a cell phone user to derive all needed watts from a single source. But if that does not happen--and it probably won't--many technologies (biofuels, solar, hydrogen and nuclear) will be required to achieve a low-carbon energy supply. All these approaches are profiled by leading experts in this special issue, as are more radical ideas, such as solar power plants in outer space and fusion generators, which may come into play should today's seers prove myopic 50 years hence.
No More Business as Usual.

Planning in 50- or 100-year increments is perhaps an impossible dream. The slim hope for keeping atmospheric carbon below 500 ppm hinges on aggressive programs of energy efficiency instituted by national governments. To go beyond what climate specialists call the "business as usual" scenario, the U.S. must follow Europe and even some of its own state governments in instituting new policies that affix a price on carbon--whether in the form of a tax on emissions or in a cap-and-trade system (emission allowances that are capped in aggregate at a certain level and then traded in open markets). These steps can furnish the breathing space to establish the defense-scale research programs needed to cultivate fossil fuel alternatives. The current federal policy vacuum has prompted a group of eastern states to develop their own cap-and-trade program under the banner of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

Then and now: Sunset Glacier in Alaska's Denali National Park, shown covering a mountainside in August 1939, had all but vanished 65 years later when photographed during the same month.
Fifty-year time frames are planning horizons for futurists, not pragmatic policymakers. Maybe a miraculous new energy technology will simultaneously solve our energy and climate problems during that time, but another scenario is at least as likely: a perceived failure of Kyoto or international bickering over climate ques-tions could foster the burning of abundant coal for electricity and synthetic fuels for transportation, both without meaningful checks on carbon emissions.

A steady chorus of skeptics continues to cast doubt on the massive peer-reviewed scientific literature that forms the cornerstone for a consensus on global warming. "They call it pollution; we call it life," intones a Competitive Enterprise Institute advertisement on the merits of carbon dioxide. Uncertainties about the extent and pace of warming will undoubtedly persist. But the consequences of inaction could be worse than the feared economic damage that has bred overcaution. If we wait for an ice cap to vanish, it will simply be too late.


And then, more details from TIME magazine, March 2006 issue:

The Impact of Asia's Giants
How China and India could save the planet--or destroy it
By BRYAN WALSH

If everyone lived like the average Chinese or Indian, you wouldn't be reading about global warming. On a per capita basis, China and India emit far less greenhouse gas than energy-efficient Japan, environmentally scrupulous Sweden--and especially the gas-guzzling U.S. (The average American is responsible for 20 times as much CO2 emission annually as the average Indian.) There's only one problem: 2.4 billion people live in China and India, a great many of whom aspire to an American-style energy-intensive life. And thanks to the breakneck growth of the two countries' economies, they just might get there--with potentially disastrous results for the world's climate.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that the increase in greenhouse-gas emissions from 2000 to 2030 from China alone will nearly equal the increase from the entire industrialized world. India, though behind its Asian rival, could see greenhouse-gas emissions that rise 70% by 2025, according to the World Resources Institute. But the nearly double-digit growth rates that are responsible for those nightmare projections also present an environmental opportunity. "Anything you want to do about clean energy is easier to do from the outset," says David Moskowitz, an energy consultant who has advised Chinese officials. "Every time they add a power plant or factory, they can add one cleaner and better than before." If China and India can muster the will and resources to leapfrog the West's energy-heavy development path, dangerous climate change might be averted. "China and India have to demonstrate to other countries that it is possible to develop in a sustainable way," says Yang Fuqiang, vice president of the Energy Foundation in Beijing. "We can't fail."

The Kyoto accord on climate change did nothing to slow growth in China and India because as developing countries they are not required under the protocol to make cuts in carbon emissions--and that is not likely to change after the agreement expires in 2012. Both countries are desperate for energy to fuel the economic expansion that is pulling their citizens out of poverty, and despite bold investments in renewables, much of that energy will have to come from coal, the only traditional energy source they have in abundance.
Barbara Finamore, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's China Clean Energy Program, estimates that China's total electricity demand will increase by 2,600 gigawatts by 2050, which is the equivalent of adding four 300-megawatt power plants every week for the next 45 years. India's energy consumption rose 208% from 1980 to 2001, even faster than China's, but nearly half the population still lacks regular access to electricity--a fact the government is working to change. "They'll do what they can, but overall emissions are likely to rise much higher than they are now," says Jonathan Sinton, China analyst for the IEA.

Environmentalism inevitably takes a backseat to development in China and India, but even among many green advocates there, climate change is seen as a less pressing problem than air and water pollution. There is also a widespread feeling that the developed world, which grew rich while freely spewing carbon, should take most of the responsibility for climate change. "Our issue is that, first and foremost, the U.S. needs to reduce its emissions," says Sunita Narain, director of the Center for Science and Environment in New Delhi. "It is unacceptable and immoral that the U.S. doesn't take the lead on climate change." The Bush Administration, in turn, has rejected Kyoto partly because developing countries were exempt from emissions cuts.

The standoff between the U.S. and the Asian giants has stymied international climate-change efforts for years, but that is beginning to change--and some of the push is coming from Beijing. For most of the recent Montreal climate conference, the U.S. resisted any serious discussion of what should be done after Kyoto expires. But several major developing countries, including China as a quiet but present force, supported further talks and helped break down U.S. opposition. "At the moment, China seems more interested in engaging on this issue internationally than the U.S. does," says Elliot Diringer, director of international strategies for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

That's because China and India increasingly see climate-change policy as a way to address some of their immediate problems--such as energy shortages and local environmental ills--while getting the international community to help foot the bill. Thanks to poorly run plants and antiquated power grids, China and India are extremely energy inefficient. China uses three times as much energy as the U.S. to produce $1 of economic output. But that means there is a lot of room for improvement, and saving energy by cutting waste is less expensive than building new coal plants. It also reduces dependence on foreign energy and comes carbon and pollutant free. "Efficiency really is the sweet spot," says Dan Dudek, a chief economist at Environmental Defense. Beijing agrees: the government aims to reduce energy intensity--the amount of energy used relative to the size of the economy--20% by 2010.

Making ambitious pledges is easy that is what five-year plans are for but finding the will and the funds to make them stick is trickier. One source of funding is the Clean Development Mechanism, a part of the Kyoto Protocol that allows developed countries to sponsor greenhouse-cutting projects in developing countries in exchange for carbon credits that can be used for meeting emissions targets. Those projects don't require any technological breakthroughs. A 2003 study by the consulting firm CRA International found that if China and India invested fully in technology already in use in the U.S., the total carbon savings by 2012 would be comparable to what could be achieved if every country under the Kyoto Protocol actually met its targets

But that window of opportunity is closing rapidly. Every step forward that these countries take today (such as China's move to make its auto-emission regulations stricter than the U.S.'s) risks being swamped by growth tomorrow (for example, China could have 140 million cars on the road by 2020). What China and India really need to ensure green development is what the world needs: a broadly accepted post-Kyoto pact that is strict enough to make it economically worthwhile to eliminate carbon emissions. Though actual cuts are off the table for now, Beijing and New Delhi seem willing to discuss softer targets, such as lowering carbon intensity. But they feel that Washington must take the lead. "It is possible for these countries to achieve the growth they deserve without wrecking the climate," says Diringer. "They just can't do it on their own. It has to go through the U.S."

Maybe we can begin by living a bit more like the average Chinese or Indian before they start living like us.

Valete,

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Hiya Daniele,

good article! of course if every person living in an asiatic country would have the resources we have the world would be in more trouble, however, it is well known that its also the people in Asia who generally have a better understanding about the environmental issue due to their filosofy and cultural background than us...

of course we should remain watchful and keep an eye out for the economic growth/industrialisation/pollution factor, however to think that we would at any time become servants etcetera like you wrote in a previous posting is a bit over the top....

M.VIB.M.