Ramanisblog

Tag: global warming

  • Floating Hotel!

    Another way to pollute the sea as well?

    Story:

    The rising sea waters caused by global warming have inspired a Russian architect to design a hotel that could be built on water as well as land. The eco-friendly “Ark” could be constructed in just a few months anywhere in the world, the designer says.

    It’s called “The Ark”, but looks more like a ship sitting upside down on the water. A new design by Russian architect Alexander Remizov challenges the tradition of land-based hotel living and would provide a refuge in the future — should the world face a modern-day flood of Biblical proportions.

    Remizov designed the hotel as part of a program on architecture and disaster relief through the International Union of Architects (UIA). He collaborated with a German design and engineering firm and the Moscow-based scientist Lev Britvin, who, according to Remizov, has developed energy-saving solutions for space stations. They are now searching for investors to make the design a reality.

    http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,737887,00.html

    Related:

    According to the Associated Press, Moscow-based Orbital Technologies announced its bid to help drive tourism to outer space by building an orbiting hotel in space.

    http://www.gadling.com/2010/09/29/moscow-based-company-to-create-an-orbiting-hotel-for-space-touri/

     

  • Confidential document reveals industrialized countries cheating the world on climate.

    COPENHAGEN: The industrialized countries are cheating the world. A confidential document of the UN Frame Convention on Climate Change secretariat
    prepared on December 15 shows, contrary to what the rich nations might claim, even if they come true on their current pledges to reduce emissions the world is headed towards a 3 degree temperature rise by 2050, not two degree Celsius – the tipping point. ( Read confidential initial draft )

    The document, an authoritative assessment by the UN itself, still kept a secret from the 192 country delegates presently at Copenhagen says, “Unless the remaining gap (of the emissions required to be reduced) is closed and parties (countries) commit themselves to strong action prior and after 2020, global emissions will remain on an unsustainable pathway that could lead to concentrations equal or above 550 ppm (parts per million of carbon dioxide in air) with the related temperature raise around 3 degree Celsius.

    The UN global group of scientists – IPCC – has long ago warned that if the global temperatures go more than 2 degrees above pre-industrial era the world would tip over into irreversible natural calamities.

    The 2 degree target is considered the beacon for how much emission cuts the industrialized countries and others should undertake. The industrialized countries, such as US and Europe have made some offers and claimed it is enough to prevent disaster. The UN secret document now shows that the targets the rich countries have unofficially claimed they could take are just not enough.

    The rich countries have even 12 hours before the heads of the states meet at Copenhagen, refused to put even these numbers as part of their official positions.

    The rich countries have taken commitments under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce their emissions to keep temperatures stable. While the rich countries are not on track to meet their targets even in the first phase that ends in 2012 they have so far refused to commit to deeper action as required by science in the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol starting 2013. They, instead, want the Kyoto Protocol to be killed completely.
    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Confidential-document-reveals-industrialized-countries-cheating-the-world-on-climate/articleshow/5349838.cms

  • The Web Discloses Inconvenient Climate Truths-WSJ.

    Shocking , to say the least.

    Story:
    For anyone who doubts the power of the Internet to shine light on darkness, the news of the month is how digital technology helped uncover a secretive group of scientists who suppressed data, froze others out of the debate, and flouted freedom-of-information laws. Their behavior was brought to light when more than 1,000 emails,and some 3,500 additional files were published online, many of which boasted about how they suppressed hard questions about their data.

    The emails, released by an apparent whistle-blower who used the name “FOI,” were written by scientists at the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in England. Its scientists are high-profile campaigners for the theory of global warming.

    The findings from East Anglia have been at the core of policy reports by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC does not do its own research but compiles information relating to climate change. It has declared the evidence that the globe is warming to be “unequivocal,” a claim routinely cited by lawmakers in the U.S. and elsewhere as authoritative.

    The IPCC stresses honest science. According to its Web site, its goal is to “assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.”

    The panel, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, now faces the inconvenient truth that it relied on scientists who violated scientific process. In one email, the Climate Research Unit’s director, Phil Jones, wrote Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, promising to spike studies that cast doubt on the relationship between human activity and global warming. “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report,” he said. He pledged to “keep them out somehow—even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”

    In another email exhange, Mr. Mann wrote to Mr. Jones: “This was the danger of always criticizing the skeptics for not publishing in the ‘peer-reviewed literature.’ Obviously, they found a solution to that—take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering ‘Climate Research’ as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.”

    Other emails include one in which Keith Briffa of the Climate Research Unit told Mr. Mann that “I tried hard to balance the needs of the science and the IPCC, which were not always the same,” and in which Mr. Jones said he had employed Mr. Mann’s “trick” to “hide the decline” in temperatures. A May 2008 email from Mr. Jones with the subject line “IPCC & FOI” asked recipients to “delete any emails you may have had” about data submitted for an IPCC report. The British Freedom of Information Act makes it a crime to delete material subject to an FOI request; such a request had been made earlier that month.

    Over the weekend, East Anglia officials disclosed they had disposed years ago of the historic weather data underlying their analysis. This may be one reason they’ve fought information requests. They say they’ll release the data they still have some time next year.

    The emails showed how the global-warming group stifled dissent. They controlled the peer-review process, keeping opposing views unpublished, then cited “peer review” as evidence of their “consensus.” One of the dissident scientists, Roger Pielke of the University of Colorado, wrote on his blog that the emails show the “collusion to suppress other scientifically supported views of the climate system, and the human role within it, is a systemic problem with the climate assessment process.”

    These disclosures have led to some soul-searching. “Opaqueness and secrecy are the enemies of science,” wrote George Monbriot, a leading British environmentalist. “There is a word for the apparent repeated attempts to prevent disclosure revealed in these emails: unscientific.” Demetris Koutsoyiannis, a hydraulic engineer who has written on climate change, wrote that scientists who suppressed others “must have felt that this secrecy was their best weapon: to censor differing opinions, to develop ‘trick’ procedures, to ‘balance’ the needs of the IPCC, and even to ‘redefine’ peer review.”

    This unseemly business reveals another flaw. Why are scholars who review papers allowed to remain anonymous? Reforming scientists and lawmakers might put the question more concretely: How many of the anonymous reviewers who spiked skeptical scientific papers over the years are the people who wrote these emails detailing how they abused peer review to block contrary evidence?

    Science was one of the first disciplines to insist on transparency in order to foster competition in data and ideas. In the case of global warming, transparency is better late than never, as policy makers now have the chance to review the facts. Facing up to high-profile flaws is hard for any profession, but honest scientists will cheer how in our digital era eventually the truth will out, and will accept that no scientific hypothesis can be viewed as sacred or can be proved in secret.
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703499404574564291187747578.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

  • Major cities at risk from rising sea level threat-Times UK.

    No number of summits can solve global warming unless we consume less of products that are manufactured with pollutants as a consequence.
    Story:
    Sea levels will rise by twice as much as previously predicted as a result of global warming, an important international study has concluded.

    The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) calculated that if temperatures continued to increase at the present rate, by 2100 the sea level would rise by up to 1.4 metres — twice that predicted two years ago.

    Such a rise in sea levels would engulf island nations such as the Maldives in the Indian Ocean and Tuvalu in the Pacific, devastate coastal cities such as Calcutta and Dhaka and force London, New York and Shanghai to spend billions on flood defences.

    Even if the average global temperature increases by only 2C — the target set for next week’s Copenhagen summit — sea levels could still rise by 50cm, double previous forecasts, according to the report.
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6938356.ece?&EMC-Bltn=DHQ9E1F

  • Can cloud ships and space sun shades fix the planet? CNN

    Well thought out ,may be, would it not be better if we cut down felling of trees,use less of chemicals and plant more trees and ban toxic industries?
    Again for making these products, we are going to cost the environment dear.
    Story:
    CNN) — In order to stop dangerous climate change we may be forced to construct giant solar shades and cover great swathes of land with artificial trees that suck up carbon dioxide.

    These are the conclusions of a year-long scientific survey of “geo-engineering” technologies by the UK’s Royal Academy published earlier this year. From fake trees to cloud making ships, the ideas are designed to provide planet-scale alterations to our climate if efforts to cut emissions fail.

    But while the Royal Society believes some of the technologies show promise, such as firing tiny reflective particles into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight, the report sounds a strong note of caution about the potential unintended consequences of geo-engineering.

    Its authors are concerned that excitement about new technology might distract from efforts to cut emissions.

    “Geo-engineering is not a magic bullet and nothing we now know about any of these technologies suggests that they will be able to cancel out emissions in the near future,” Professor John Shepherd, an oceanographer at Southampton University, and chair of the Royal Society working group, told CNN.

    “We are not arguing for the development of these technologies, but for research that will enable us to make a sensible decision about them in the future.

    “We were concerned that, particularly in the run up to Copenhagen in December, some of the hype about geo-engineering could have a negative effect on efforts to reduce emissions, which is still absolutely critical.”

    Bold solutions but with a high price?

    But while the Royal Society argues for research rather than action, there is a growing interest in geo-engineering technology and others are much more forthright in their endorsement, even arguing that it offers an alternative to cutting emissions.

    We need to end our fixation on cutting carbon, because experience shows us that it just isn’t working

    –Bjorn Lomborg
    “We need to end our fixation on cutting carbon through deals like Kyoto and Copenhagen, because experience shows us that those just aren’t working,” Bjorn Lomborg, director of the think-tank the Copenhagen Consensus Center and author of “Cool It” and “The Skeptical Environmentalist”, told CNN.

    Research by Lomborg’s own Copenhagen Consensus Center has suggested that spending $9 billion developing cloud whitening technology to reflect solar radiation might be able to cancel out this century’s global warming in a relatively short timeframe, while in contrast, he argues, the shift to a low-carbon economy based on green energy could take much longer.

    “Consider that electrification of the global economy is still incomplete after more than a century of effort,” said Lomborg.

    Any attempt at geo-engineering the Earth’s climate would require massive industrial projects, and professional engineering institutions point to the potential economic, as well as environmental, benefits.

    “We estimate that up to two million new jobs will be created in this sector by 2050,” said Dr Tim Fox, Head of Environment and Climate Change at the UK’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers, which recently issued a report arguing that geo-engineering technology could pave the way to a greener future.

    “At the moment no-one is taking greenhouses gases out of the air and no-one is trying to reflect back solar radiation. If we were to do either of these they would develop into billions of tonnes of gases per year or thousands of square miles of reflective devices. That equates to probably millions not thousands of jobs worldwide.”

    The Institution is calling for the British Government funding of up to £20 million ($33 million) to help establish a new research center for geo-engineering, and believes both the UK and USA would be well-placed to take advantage of the new industries.

    “[Geo-engineering] could operate tomorrow, but it is a double question of scale and cost. We have not done this before, and whilst we don’t need any technological inventions to help us succeed, we do need to go up a learning curve,” said Fox.

    Russian roulette with the future of the planet

    But in sharp contrast to this enthusiasm many environmental groups are strongly opposed to geo-engineering,. They argue that it is a dangerous distraction from what they see as the key issue: reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

    “Geo-engineering is not a plan B for the climate,” Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist, Dr Doug Parr, said in a press statement.

    Geo-engineering is not a plan B for the climate

    –Doug Parr, Greenpeace
    “It should be used only in desperation, [could have] widespread undesirable impacts, and raises major ethical and political issues of its own. It may be very expensive, and it may well never work.

    “Many of these proposals still have risks – there is no simple global thermostat that can be turned up and down and proposals that reflect sunlight can still… have impacts on weather and precipitation leading to exactly the sorts of problems we are trying to avoid by averting climate change.

    “Geo-engineering is now being investigated because we have collectively, as a society, failed to take on the fossil fuel interests.”

    Mike Childs, Head of Climate at Friends of the Earth also remains wary of the impact of many geo-engineering concepts.

    “The benefits of geo-engineering are unproven,” he told CNN.

    “We haven’t got time to play Russian roulette with the future of the planet. Science tells us we need to make quick and substantial cuts in global carbon emissions if we have any hope of avoiding runaway climate change.”

    There is even the risk that even if some geo-engineering projects work, they may draw humanity into further difficulties that we will struggle to manage over the long-term.

    “We are not sure that some of the solar technologies are at all sustainable,” said Shepherd.

    “They are based on balancing one human intervention against another, and we would have to keep maintaining that balance as long as the greenhouse gasses are in the atmosphere, and that could be hundreds of years.

    “We shouldn’t begin something like that without understanding our exit strategy.”
    http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/11/05/eco.geoengineering/index.html