jason's blog
Australia does not currently have a national waste management program, nor does it belong to any international community with minimum waste management requirements (such as the EU). This is likely to have been a large factor in the 28% increase in national waste from 2003-2007 (Department of the Environment, 2009).
You may remember the recent news that republicans were somewhat more skeptical of Anthropological Global Warming Theories (I pointed out that the same people were also receiving healthy paychecks from oil multinationals). This seems to have been the last straw for scientists of the American Geophysical Union, the largest association of climate scientists in the US, who, faced with a republican congress, have announced that 700 researchers will speak out on the issue.
With growing pessimism over the future in a world of global warming, rising greenhouse gas emissions and dwindling oil supplies, we seem to have forgotten one of the big environmental success stories of the 20th century. I think everyone reading this will have heard of terms like Ozone Layer and CFCs. What some of you might not know, is that CFCs have been almost completely phased out, and that the damage their use has caused is on the road to reversal.
Think of this story the next time you let yourself think that humanity is doomed to self-destruction, and that we cannot possibly solve the current global warming crisis before there's no turning back.
A candidate for the Pennsylvania Senate, Pat Toomey, literally stated that anthropological global warming is still "very much disputed" and "debated". I found this interesting, and real evidence of the source of the persistent skepticism towards Anthropological Global Warming (AGW) theory in the US. This isn't new either; earlier in Mr Tommey said that "There is much debate in the scientific community as to the precise sources of global warming," in a June interview.
The real kicker is that Opensecrets.org discovered that, among others, Koch Industries and Murray Energy were each paying $15,000 and $16,655 respectively to Toomey's campaign. Known climate skepctic Sen. Inhofe enjoyed a comfortable $45,500 and $30,600 from the two companies.
Having just written an article on Cap and Trade, I'd like to reflect on another potential economic solution to growing greenhouse gas emissions; the Carbon Tax.
A Carbon Tax is basically a simple tax levied on fossil fuels as a percentage of total cost (as is the case with most taxes). The reason it is called a carbon tax is that the combustion of fossil fuels causes the infamous carbon compound called CO2 (aka Carbon Dioxide) to be released into the air. By taxing the sale of fossil fuels that increase carbon emissions, one would expect a reduction in the use of these types of fuels, thus artificially inflating the demand for energy sources that do not cause/cause less CO2 to be emitted.
About a year ago, I was more than 6 months into my Masters degree, and still had absolutely no idea what Cap and Trade really meant. I had heard of Emissions Trading (a synonym for Cap and Trade), so I knew it had something to do with markets, I also heard that Cap and Trade was "better" than Carbon taxes, at least among Canadian bloggers...
Source: Infoscape research Lab
Since my Masters degree is in Sustainable Resource Management, I found my obliviousness (I know, I didn't think that was a word either: obliviousness) towards Cap and Trade unacceptable. So I did some research and enlightened myself.
In light of a recent media buzz around H2O and global warming, I thought it might be helpful to go back to basics and try to explain just what role H2O (also known as water vapor when in the atmosphere) plays in global warming, as well as how we affect those H2O concentrations. It's not as straightforward as you might think, and H2O is certainly unique as far as its role when compared to other GHGs goes.
The IPCC's H2O conspiracy (??)
In order to quantify the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions, the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) created a term called Global Warming Potential (or GWP). This term is used to specify exactly how much a given chemical tends to warm the climate (usually over a 100 year timescale) in comparison to CO2.
The Renewable Energy Sources Act of Germany (Das Gesetz für den Vorrang Erneuerbarer Energien, or EEG for short), is a piece of legislation that has almost single-handedly catapulted Germany to one of the highest investors in renewable energy production, since its inception on 29 March 2000, all within a few short decades. It has created per capita revenue from renewable energies unseen in the rest of the first world, certainly in the United States. The Renewable Energy Sources Act basically encourages the use and deployment of renewable source of energy (mainly electricity) through a feed-in tariff.
Taking a step back from global warming politics and debate, I'm going to provide a simple, unbiased look at the relationship between CO2 and Temperature. Skeptics and believers alike will agree that CO2 and temperature have been strongly linked for the past half a million years. What they do not agree on, is whether CO2 has been the cause of those changes. This article will shed light on the relationships between CO2 and temperature, drawing on both recorded CO2 levels, and projections based on the EPICA ice coring effort.
Temperature and CO2, an Overview
A simple place to start to get a good idea of what temperature against CO2 levels look like, is this very famous plot, reproduced here in Matlab.
Between the release of Apple's iPad and BP's big blunder, the scientific/technology news sector seems to have been too busy to focus on climate change. Something which only recently struck my attention is an April 15th article by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), which stated that:
Quote:
The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for March 2010 was the warmest on record at 56.3°F (13.5°C), which is 1.39°F (0.77°C) above the 20th century average of 54.9°F (12.7°C).
