Unexpected threats to the health of global systems keep emerging. Twenty years ago we didn't recognize global warming. Ten years ago we didn't know about ocean acidification. This might be the landmark week in which a broad public recognized a new threat to the global climate -- black carbon.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has just published a science-based analysis of the climate forcing effects of black carbon. The findings are that cutting black carbon and troposperhic ozone now could halve regional warming for 30 to 60 years and reduce global warming by half a degree. It turns out that reducing black carbon emissions needs to become a priority. According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), greenhouse gas reductions alone will not avert further destruction of the arctic; black carbon and ozone reductions are needed.
Black carbon is made up of fine particles. It is colloquially known as soot. It comes from diesel engines as well as burning wood, waste and gas. The health effects of black carbon are well known. In London, for example, the soot from our beloved taxis and other sources leads to the early death of 4,500 people a year according to the government.
But black carbon's effects on the climate are just beginning to gain prominence. Recently, black carbon appeared in proposed climate legislation in the US (the Waxman-Markley Bill and the Kerry-Boxer Bill). In January the European Parliament called for the European Commission to acknowledge black carbon as a threat and include it in laws that protect against climate change. No action, however, has yet been taken on either side of the Atlantic.
I established ClientEarth as Europe's first public interest environmental law organization to provide the legal expertise needed to drive such action forward, and our team have been investigating what needs to be done. The EU could act now and impose black carbon specific monitoring and reporting obligations; move to retrofit or scrap old diesel engines; move away from diesel as a fuel source for engines in cars; create black carbon obligations for ships calling at EU ports; and it could seriously examine measures to reduce the emissions from residential burning of wood and implement better controls for open land burning.
Estimates are that black carbon may be the second or third biggest contributor to global warming after CO2. It is a short term "climate forcer" which means that we could make an instant impact on global warming -- this is crucial, the arctic is a key 'tipping point' for global warming.
It's a good thing that black carbon is increasingly being talked about in environmental and policy circles. Here in Europe ClientEarth and others will be working to ensure that talk becomes action as quickly as possible.
Almost all of the carbon, including soot, is a result of combustion. Combustion requires O2, and that binds with C, S, and N to create GHGe.
TAG systems capture the carbon as a solid material. It doesn't ever get into the flue. WAIT - TAG plants don't have flue stacks. They don't need them.
I believe that the people "discussing" black carbon, looking for regulatory solutions will be confronted with operating TAG technology soon. The TAG plants will be eliminating carbon long before the conversation currently being tendered comes up with any viable solution to the situation.
And in intellectual ghettos such as these, the best you can do is make a factual statement backed up with an argument based on data you can provide a link to. That provides context for 50 more people to post their arguments and their scientific data to engage in an online debate based on credible information as it were.
But then again, that is precisely what higher education distance learning online chat rooms are all about. Thus we just pop off our opinion and let it go at that as being factual. Hrrrrmph.
Or the soot that is dispersed into the troposphere from say a line of 8 diesel locomotives hauling 2 miles of freight cars through Cheyenne WY to Seattle WA?
Or the soot settled down in a campfire pit? And to what degree is the singular or delineated collective dose response impacts going to be in measured amount on the health effects to the planets living systems?
How do you do.
An unpublicized National Security threat can open a new path that might garner broad political support.
See Green Light at www.aesopinstitute.org for an overview and some of the new possibilities for accelerating wise action.
Diesel engines may be modified to run on water. Many experiments are under way to convert existing engines to utilize some water which results in reduced emissions.
Future engines can be designed to run on fractional Hydrogen using only water as fuel. One gallon of ordinary H2O might power a hybrid car or truck 1,000 miles.
See Running on Water on the same web site.
The game is over for the very simple reason that there will never be any changes coming from political leadership because there is no incentive to given they rely on the political economy and that means status quo for bottom-line profit statements for the fossil fuel framework (FFF)for nearly every human activity we are engaged in. Add to that outside of what you saw in Seattle in 1999 and expand that response a hundred fold meaning it comes from the bottom.
But ultimately its over for the very simple reason we do not have anything now or even on the horizon unless someone has a rabbit to pull out of their hat at the last minute, but given that the planets entire economic existence is built on a framework of fossil fuel; production and add to that the average compound economic growth of 3% per year; and BTW look around the world and ask, "3% of everything I see around me in a FFF " then add Asia into the growth model of expanding their industrial base also built on fossil fuel and the inescapable truth smacks you in the face.
This is a very hopeful technology. See Moving Beyond Oil on the Aesop Institute website and google them for more information.
That said, if we went to court to settle the global warming issue, who would the deniers call as their expert witnesses?
The deniers would call James "Mountain Jim" Inhofe.
We'd bring the National Academy of Science of the United States of America.
As a matter of fact, we could pick any one of 32 National Science Academies.
The deniers would call Patrick Michaels.
We'd counter with the American Geophysical Union and its 58,287 members.
The AGU was established over 90 years ago, and for more than 50 years has operated as an unincorporated affiliate of the National Academy of Sciences. These aren’t “NOBODIES”. The National Academy of Sciences is like the Supreme Court of science; they are the best of the best when it comes to science, of an entire nation.
The deniers would call Khabibullo Abdusamatov, a 70 yr old Russian astrophysicist.
We'd bring Stephen Hawking.
The deniers would call 87 year old Fred Singer.
We'd bring the American Institute of Physics.
The AIP has been publishing scientific journals for almost 80 years.
The deniers would bring Henrik Svensmark a physicist at the Danish National Space Center.
We'd bring NASA.
We'd could bring every scientific organization in the world because they all agree with the conclusions of the IPCC.
Glad I could help.
If it isn't good for Big energy companies bottom line, then it is bad science and the mere mention of the existence of a problem is not covered in what some say is MSM - which they try to say is liberal...and if these liberal media outlets don't cover it then it doesn't exist. Sad, but that is how the deniers have punked the public in US into believing that there is no such thing as climate change, etc.
With stringent federal disclosure guidelines in place we can factually state that unions (by example rather than scapegoating) are donating more at an exponential rate to their favorite party than do the brothers mentioned.To fully understand the global carbon emittance situation you need to look at China and India as well as ourselves,of course. To distill: how is a Chinese person making 1$ an hour going to afford a Prius. Progress to this real problem of warming will be done by businesses who pay top dollar for great minds.
That's odd, Al Gore was taught about it in college, in the '60s. If by "we" you mean the US public - the majority of them still don't recognize it.
All countries in the United Nations have now ratified the original agreement and three of the many noteworthy scientists who worked hard to solve the problem were awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their efforts. Their names are Mario Molina, Paul Crutzen, and Frank Rowland.
In the 1980's, scientists were concerned about the ozone layer when most of the world didn't have the slightest clue about what ozone was. Scientists were saying that a compound best known by the DuPont brand name "Freon" was harming the planet. They said that certain chemicals were destroying part of the atmosphere that is essential for human life because it blocks out harmful ultraviolet radiation that causes cancer.
The first step was The Vienna Conference; the first international conference on ozone layer depletion.
Next came The Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer; a multilateral environmental agreement.
Soon after, came The Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer; an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of a number of substances believed to be responsible for ozone depletion.
At that time, one of today’s most vocal global warming deniers, Fred Singer, upheld the minority view that the case against these harmful chemicals was exaggerated and proposed rolling back the ban on them until the year 2000 instead of 1996.
The ozone problem was solved by Cap and Trade.
Actually, it was in the 70's. By the mid 70's the atmospheric chemistry was very well known. But CFC manufacturers were well armed in fighting the obvious (EXACTLY like today) and kept the science out of political action until the ozone hole of the mid 80's turned the tide. Ten years of pure obstruction.. Now with a dilemma with a 100-1000 year time constant, rather than 30 years like CFC/O3, the deniers will fight even harder.