Nadene Goldfoot
Alert 3:07am: 100,000 Californians are without power due to climate change- just announced on radio. Flood watch for 17 million people.
We need to combat climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions quickly, or in about 11 years we will have caused earth to be too hot for anyone to live on. So 2034 is our goal to have changed our ways and make things livable again.
Greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide or CO2; Methane; Nitrous Oxide; and water vapour. The group of gases detailed are naturally produced, but their increasing atmospheric concentration is man-made.
In contrast, the three industrial fluorinated gases – hydrofluorocarbons (HFC), perfluorocarbons (PFC) and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) – are solely man-made during industrial processes and do not occur in nature. Though they are present in very small concentrations in the atmosphere, they trap heat very effectively, meaning they are extremely potent.
SF6, which is used in high-voltage electricity equipment, has a ‘Global Warming Potential’ 23,000 times greater than CO2.
Air temperatures on Earth have been rising since the Industrial Revolution. While natural variability plays some part, the preponderance of evidence indicates that human activities—particularly emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases—are mostly responsible for making our planet warmer.
According to an ongoing temperature analysis led by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), the average global temperature on Earth has increased by at least 1.1° Celsius (1.9° Fahrenheit) since 1880. The majority of the warming has occurred since 1975, at a rate of roughly 0.15 to 0.20°C per decade.
Crystal Energy-Eastern Mediterranean Gas-- is stifled by Politics, Economics,
The discovery of natural gas fields in Israel’s Eastern Mediterranean offshore areas in 2020 has moderated the country’s total dependence on energy imports. Israel crude oil production is miniscule and there are no known coal reserves. Not everyone can afford to buy a car. They buy Fiats from Italy, nearby. We did when we lived in Israel and bought it in 1981. We had a German stove with 2 ovens; one electric and one gas. It was hot living in Israel. I passed out on my bed on my first day of arrival, and we lived in Safed which was high on top of a mountain with stunted fir trees, possibly the coolest city in Israel. In Safed, the summers are long, warm, arid, and clear and the winters are cold, wet, and mostly clear. Over the course of the year, the temperature typically varies from 40°F to 85°F and is rarely below 33°F or above 90°F. Usually we had a lovely breeze.
The new UN Climate Report for 2023 has just come out and shows that earth is now facing dire consequences . While the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels is still possible, the report noted, the pathway to achieving it is rapidly closing as global production of planet-heating pollution continues to increase – emissions grew by nearly 1% last year.
Concentrations of carbon pollution in the atmosphere are at their highest level for more than two million years and the rate of temperature rise over the last half a century is the highest in 2,000 years. The impacts of the climate crisis continue to fall hardest on poorer, vulnerable countries .
According to the National Academies of Sciences, 81 percent of the total energy used in the United States comes from coal, oil, and natural gas. This is the energy that is used to heat and provide electricity to homes and businesses and to run cars and factories. Unfortunately, fossil fuels are a nonrenewable resource and waiting millions of years for new coal, oil, and natural gas deposits to form is not a realistic solution.
Fossil fuels are also responsible for almost three-fourths of the emissions from human activities in the last 20 years. Now, scientists and engineers have been looking for ways to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and to make burning these fuels cleaner and healthier for the environment.
One solution is to use more natural gas, which emits 50 percent less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than coal does. The Stanford team is also trying to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it underground—a process called carbon capture and sequestration. Scientists at both Stanford and the University of Bath in the United Kingdom are trying something completely new by using carbon dioxide and sugar to make renewable plastic.
- The Biden administration approved a major and controversial oil drilling plan in Alaska, known as Willow, just one day after unveiling protections for more than 16 million acres of land and water in the region. The $8 billion plan, led by Alaska’s largest crude oil producer, would produce about 600 million barrels of oil over 30 years and generate around 278 million metric tons of carbon emissions, according to estimates from the U.S. Department of the Interior. Under the plan, ConocoPhillips will be allowed to develop three well pads within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a 23 million-acre area that is the largest expanse of public land in the U.S.
- Environmental groups have long condemned the plan, arguing it undermines the administration’s pledge to combat climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The project’s emissions would be about equivalent to what 66 new coal-fired power plants produce in a year. The project is in direct conflict with the administration’s climate obligations and the subsistence and wildlife values of the Western Arctic. It was struck down in the courts in 2021, but Biden just brought it out again.
Resource:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63625693
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-change/global-temperatures
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/fossil-fuels/
https://www.newsweek.com/what-willow-project-alaska-oil-drilling-backlash-1785420
Emissions grew by nearly 1% last year. Last year, Russia invaded Ukraine and there's been war; bombing, fires, explosions, building falling down, all these things cause the air to be polluted with fossil fuel. Russia is not only killing innocent people, he is killing the planet with polluting the air. We need to do our part, but just imagine how much is being destroyed by a war!
ReplyDeleteCOP27: War causing huge release of climate warming gas, claims Ukraine: Russia's invasion of Ukraine has caused a large amount of warming gases to be released into the atmosphere, Ukraine has claimed at the UN COP27 climate summit in Egypt.
ReplyDeleteThe amount is the equivalent of adding nearly 16 million cars to the UK's roads for two years.
Ukraine said it is collecting evidence of environmental crimes with which to sue Russia.
It also claimed precious animal and plant life has been destroyed.
The war has led directly to emissions of 33 million tons of greenhouse gases that warm the Earth's atmosphere, claimed Ruslan Strilets, Ukraine's environmental protection minister.