The amount of carbon dioxide piling up in Earth’s atmosphere set a record last month, once again reaching the highest levels in human history despite a temporary dip in the burning of fossil fuels worldwide caused by the coronavirus pandemic, scientists said Monday.
Many scientists have long been skeptical of biomass’s climate benefits. Wood releases more carbon dioxide per unit of electricity produced than coal or gas, and a newly planted tree can take decades to reabsorb the carbon dioxide emitted by burning. “Wood is a sucky fuel,” said Tim Searchinger, a researcher at Princeton. In 2009, a group he led wrote in the journal Science protesting what they called a “critical climate accounting error.”
Occidental Petroleum is seeking to sell credits in California’s transportation carbon market to help finance the construction of what would be the world’s largest industrial carbon dioxide removal plant.
Persuading Iowa farmers to let workers dig a 1,300-mile liquified carbon dioxide pipeline network through their land was never going to be easy, but executives from Navigator CO2 Ventures gave it their best shot. Ethanol refineries in the state release tens of millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year as they ferment corn into fuel, and Navigator had seen a business opportunity in capturing those emissions and burying them underground hundreds of miles away in Illinois. But before they could build the project, they had to try to get locals on board.
Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in May were 50 percent higher than during the pre-industrial era, reaching levels not seen on Earth for about four million years, the main US climate agency said on Friday.
Persuading Iowa farmers to let workers dig a 1,300-mile liquified carbon dioxide pipeline network through their land was never going to be easy, but executives from Navigator CO2 Ventures gave it their best shot. Ethanol refineries in the state release tens of millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year as they ferment corn into fuel, and Navigator had seen a business opportunity in capturing those emissions and burying them underground hundreds of miles away in Illinois. But before they could build the project, they had to try to get locals on board.
The production of cement, the binding element in concrete, accounted for 7 percent of total global carbon dioxide emissions in 2018. Concrete is one of the most-used resources on Earth, with an estimated 26 billion tons produced annually worldwide. That production isn’t expected to slow down for at least two more decades.
Passenger vehicles contribute about a quarter of the state’s total greenhouse gas emissions — more than any other single source, according to the air board. The program is one part of California’s efforts to drastically reduce carbon emissions. Between 2026 and 2040, state experts estimate the program would lower emissions by nearly 384 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually. That’s a little less than all emissions across California’s economy in a single year.
Trees store carbon dioxide and oxygenate the air, making them “the best and only thing we have right now to fight climate change and do it fast,” she said.
Coal is the number-one single source for increasing global temperatures, with coal-fired electricity generation accounting for 30% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. And yet, scores of banks and institutional investors continue to pump money into supporting and expanding this fossil fuel industry, new research finds
Wilder winds are altering currents. The sea is releasing carbon dioxide. Ice is melting from below. While the potential magnitude of all these effects remains unclear, oceanographers and climate scientists say that it is increasingly urgent to understand this interplay of powerful forces and how human activity is transforming them. “There’s lots of questions left,” said Lynne Talley, an oceanographer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif.
California’s clean-air regulators on Tuesday unveiled a highly anticipated roadmap packed with strategies for tackling the climate crisis. But it falls short on a key component: the role that its signature environmental policy — cap and trade — will have in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The California Air Resources Board’s draft of its ambitious proposal, called a scoping plan, outlines policies that focus on reducing reliance on oil, capturing carbon dioxide emitted by industries and increasing dependence on renewable power sources, such as wind, solar and electric cars. The plan makes a bold commitment to eliminate 91% of oil used in the state by 2045.
Last year, Mr. Xi made two signature commitments on climate. China’s emissions of carbon dioxide would peak before 2030, he vowed. It would also achieve carbon neutrality before 2060, he said, meaning the amount of carbon dioxide gas China releases into the atmosphere would be offset through methods like planting forests. Mr. Xi’s pledges, if realized, could make a significant difference to the world’s efforts to fight climate change.
The Carbon Chronicles: Who owns the air? The Carbon Chronicles is an experimental animated visualisation of the build-up of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses has radically altered the Earth’s atmosphere. It is a collaboration between artists from the Manifest Data Lab and scientists from the British Antarctic Survey. The animation maps from the industrial revolution to the present day the regions contributing most to the climate crisis, which can be traced through the stalagmite growths representing CO2 emissions growing out from the different countries. Beginning with the UK in the 1750s, emissions from coal start enveloping the planet, other regions soon follow. By the late 1800s through to the current period, growing industrial and extraction activity in the Global North is responsible for 92% of CO2 with 8% coming from the Global South. The spread of CO2 described in the animation mirrors the wider historic processes of power distribution visited on poorer countries and shows that the atmosphere is as contested a space as the territories beneath it. The work describes a living breathing planet, under the pressure of human produced exhalations of CO2. It attributes responsibility in ways that can inform the need for equitable solutions to the climate crisis that are mindful of the historic consequences of carbon exploitation and its impacts. The Carbon Chronicles informs the need for equitable solutions to the climate crisis that are mindful of the historic consequences of carbon exploitation to ask: Who Owns the Air? Now Playing
If the world is going to make a dent in emissions of methane, a potent planet-warming gas, targeting the largest emitters would likely be the most cost-effective. But there’s a basic problem: How to find them. A new study has shown one way. Using data from a European satellite, researchers have identified sites around the world where large amounts of methane are pouring into the air. Most of these “ultra emitters” are part of the petroleum industry, and are in major oil and gas producing basins in the United States, Russia, Central Asia and other regions. “We were not surprised to see leaks,” said Thomas Lauvaux, a researcher at the Laboratory for Sciences of Climate and Environment near Paris and lead author of the study, published in Science. “But these were giant leaks. It’s quite a systemic problem.” Among gases released through human activities, methane is more potent in its effect on warming than carbon dioxide, although emissions of it are lower and it breaks down in the atmosphere sooner. Over 20 years it can result in 80 times the warming of the same amount of CO2.
China’s economic development and rapid urbanization has led to a dramatic rise in energy consumption due to excessive heating and air-conditioning causing carbon emissions of immense proportions. China’s government has set the ambitious target of reducing CO2 emissions by 40–45% by 2020 against the 2005 baseline. A UK/China-funded team working on how to solve the problem in some of the most extreme climate regions in China. The team discovers groundbreaking solutions using computational-fluid-dynamics simulations. Now Playing
A film about our love affair with carbon. Past Presentation
Joep van Dijk is a passionate climate scientist. He likes to search for extreme examples that show how life can be lived sustainably. This documentary follows Joep on his CO2-neutral journey from Amsterdam to the United States of America and shows how this choice inspires himself and others to live a climate conscious life. Now Playing
We know that soil feeds plants, but do we know how it got there in the first place? Soil forms via the interaction of five factors: parent material, climate, living beings, a land’s topography, and a “cooking” time that occurs on a geologic scale. Variations in these 5 factors make the world’s soils unique and extremely diverse. Soil acts as a carbon sink in the global carbon cycle because it locks away decomposed organic matter. But deforestation, various agricultural practices, and a changing climate are releasing it back into the atmosphere and oceans as carbon dioxide, resulting in an imbalance in global carbon budgets.
Permafrost, an icy expanse of frozen ground covering one-quarter of the Northern Hemisphere, is thawing. As it does, microscopic animals are waking up and feeding on the previously frozen carbon stored in plant and animal remains, releasing heat-trapping gases as a byproduct. These gases warm the atmosphere further, melting more permafrost in a dangerous feedback loop. With permafrost containing twice as much carbon as the atmosphere, its thaw could release 150 billion tons of carbon by the end of the century. Subtitled in 23 languages and narrated by Richard Gere, Climate Emergency: Feedback Loops is a series of five short films, featuring twelve leading climate scientists, that explores how human-caused emissions are triggering nature’s own warming loops. We submit the five shorts to your festival (total 57:44) for screening of any or all of the films. The film series had its official launch with the Dalai Lama, Greta Thunberg and world-renowned scientists in a webcast, “The Dalai Lama with Greta Thunberg and Leading Scientists: A Conversation on the Crisis of Climate Feedback Loops. ”While scientists stay up worrying about this most dangerous aspect of climate change, the public has little awareness or understanding of feedback loops. Climate change discussion at all levels of society largely leaves out the most critical dynamic of climate change itself. It is urgent we remedy this. The first film in the series, Introduction (13:09), provides an overview of the feedback loop problem. The four other short films explore important climate feedback mechanisms: Forests (14:10), Permafrost (10:55), Atmosphere (8:45) and Albedo (10:35).Greenhouse gases from fossil fuels, such as carbon dioxide and methane, are warming the planet. This warming is then setting in motion dozens of feedback mechanisms, which then feed upon themselves, as well as interact with each other and spiral further out of control. These processes are rapidly accelerating climate change. An example of a climate feedback loop is the melting of the permafrost. In the Northern Hemisphere, permafrost makes up nearly 25% of the landmass. As heat-trapping emissions warm the Earth, this frozen tundra is melting. As it does, large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane are released, which further warm the planet, melting more permafrost in a self-perpetuating loop. Human activity kicks off these feedback loops, but once set in motion, they become self-sustaining. The danger is that this process reaches a tipping point beyond which it is extremely difficult to recover. This is why it is urgent to reduce greenhouse gas emissions so we can slow, halt and even reverse these feedbacks and cool the planet. Past Presentation
The world’s forests are responsible for removing a quarter of all human carbon emissions from the atmosphere and are essential for cooling the planet. But that fraction is shrinking as the three major forests of the world—tropical, boreal, and temperate—succumb to the effects of climate feedback loops. The resulting tree dieback threatens to tip forests from net carbon absorbers to net carbon emitters, heating rather than cooling the planet. Subtitled in 23 languages and narrated by Richard Gere, Climate Emergency: Feedback Loops is a series of five short films, featuring twelve leading climate scientists, that explores how human-caused emissions are triggering nature’s own warming loops. We submit the five shorts to your festival (total 57:44) for screening of any or all of the films. The film series had its official launch with the Dalai Lama, Greta Thunberg and world-renowned scientists in a webcast, “The Dalai Lama with Greta Thunberg and Leading Scientists: A Conversation on the Crisis of Climate Feedback Loops.” While scientists stay up worrying about this most dangerous aspect of climate change, the public has little awareness or understanding of feedback loops. Climate change discussion at all levels of society largely leaves out the most critical dynamic of climate change itself. It is urgent we remedy this. The first film in the series, Introduction (13:09), provides an overview of the feedback loop problem. The four other short films explore important climate feedback mechanisms: Forests (14:10), Permafrost (10:55), Atmosphere (8:45) and Albedo (10:35).Greenhouse gases from fossil fuels, such as carbon dioxide and methane, are warming the planet. This warming is then setting in motion dozens of feedback mechanisms, which then feed upon themselves, as well as interact with each other and spiral further out of control. These processes are rapidly accelerating climate change. An example of a climate feedback loop is the melting of the permafrost. In the Northern Hemisphere, permafrost makes up nearly 25% of the landmass. As heat-trapping emissions warm the Earth, this frozen tundra is melting. As it does, large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane are released, which further warm the planet, melting more permafrost in a self-perpetuating loop. Human activity kicks off these feedback loops, but once set in motion, they become self-sustaining. The danger is that this process reaches a tipping point beyond which it is extremely difficult to recover. This is why it is urgent to reduce greenhouse gas emissions so we can slow, halt and even reverse these feedbacks and cool the planet. Past Presentation
Human activity and wildfires have turned highly protected forests into net sources of carbon, a study suggests. 10 protected forests had emitted more carbon than they locked away over the past 20 years.
Questions such as whether a meaningful amount of carbon can be captured, how long it stays in the ground and how to measure sequestration remain unanswered.
"The administration established a multi-agency target of deploying 30 gigawatts, or 30,000 megawatts, of wind energy by 2030, enough to power 10 million homes for a year and slash 78 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions."
Meanwhile, the federal government is taking the first steps to vastly increase the size of the nation’s carbon dioxide pipeline network as a way of fighting climate change. Our investigation reveals that such pipelines pose threats that few are aware of and even fewer know how to handle.
Global warming is altering Earth’s weather patterns dramatically. A warmer atmosphere absorbs more water vapor, which in turn traps more heat and warms the planet further in an accelerating feedback loop. Climate change is also disrupting the jet stream, triggering a feedback loop that brings warm air northward, and causes weather patterns to stall in place for longer. Subtitled in 23 languages and narrated by Richard Gere, Climate Emergency: Feedback Loops is a series of five short films, featuring twelve leading climate scientists, that explores how human-caused emissions are triggering nature’s own warming loops. We submit the five shorts to your festival (total 57:44) for screening of any or all of the films. The film series had its official launch with the Dalai Lama, Greta Thunberg and world-renowned scientists in a webcast, “The Dalai Lama with Greta Thunberg and Leading Scientists: A Conversation on the Crisis of Climate Feedback Loops. ”While scientists stay up worrying about this most dangerous aspect of climate change, the public has little awareness or understanding of feedback loops. Climate change discussion at all levels of society largely leaves out the most critical dynamic of climate change itself. It is urgent we remedy this. The first film in the series, Introduction (13:09), provides an overview of the feedback loop problem. The four other short films explore important climate feedback mechanisms: Forests (14:10), Permafrost (10:55), Atmosphere (8:45) and Albedo (10:35).Greenhouse gases from fossil fuels, such as carbon dioxide and methane, are warming the planet. This warming is then setting in motion dozens of feedback mechanisms, which then feed upon themselves, as well as interact with each other and spiral further out of control. These processes are rapidly accelerating climate change. An example of a climate feedback loop is the melting of the permafrost. In the Northern Hemisphere, permafrost makes up nearly 25% of the landmass. As heat-trapping emissions warm the Earth, this frozen tundra is melting. As it does, large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane are released, which further warm the planet, melting more permafrost in a self-perpetuating loop. Human activity kicks off these feedback loops, but once set in motion, they become self-sustaining. The danger is that this process reaches a tipping point beyond which it is extremely difficult to recover. This is why it is urgent to reduce greenhouse gas emissions so we can slow, halt and even reverse these feedbacks and cool the planet. Past Presentation
Fossil fuel emissions from human activity are driving up Earth’s temperature—yet something else is at work. The warming has set in motion nature’s own feedback loops which are raising temperatures even higher. The urgent question is: Are we approaching a point of no return, leading to an uninhabitable Earth, or do we have the vision and will to slow, halt, and reverse them? Subtitled in 23 languages and narrated by Richard Gere, Climate Emergency: Feedback Loops is a series of five short films, featuring twelve leading climate scientists, that explores how human-caused emissions are triggering nature’s own warming loops. We submit the five shorts to your festival (total 57:44) for screening of any or all of the films. The film series had its official launch with the Dalai Lama, Greta Thunberg and world-renowned scientists in a webcast, “The Dalai Lama with Greta Thunberg and Leading Scientists: A Conversation on the Crisis of Climate Feedback Loops. ”While scientists stay up worrying about this most dangerous aspect of climate change, the public has little awareness or understanding of feedback loops. Climate change discussion at all levels of society largely leaves out the most critical dynamic of climate change itself. It is urgent we remedy this. The first film in the series, Introduction (13:09), provides an overview of the feedback loop problem. The four other short films explore important climate feedback mechanisms: Forests (14:10), Permafrost (10:55), Atmosphere (8:45) and Albedo (10:35).Greenhouse gases from fossil fuels, such as carbon dioxide and methane, are warming the planet. This warming is then setting in motion dozens of feedback mechanisms, which then feed upon themselves, as well as interact with each other and spiral further out of control. These processes are rapidly accelerating climate change. An example of a climate feedback loop is the melting of the permafrost. In the Northern Hemisphere, permafrost makes up nearly 25% of the landmass. As heat-trapping emissions warm the Earth, this frozen tundra is melting. As it does, large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane are released, which further warm the planet, melting more permafrost in a self-perpetuating loop. Human activity kicks off these feedback loops, but once set in motion, they become self-sustaining. The danger is that this process reaches a tipping point beyond which it is extremely difficult to recover. This is why it is urgent to reduce greenhouse gas emissions so we can slow, halt and even reverse these feedbacks and cool the planet. Past Presentation
Emissions need to be cut by 45% this decade, if the world is to limit global heating to 1.5C (2.7F), scientists have warned. That means the 2020s must be the decade when the world changes course, before the level of carbon in the atmosphere rises too high to avoid dangerous levels of heating. But the scale of the current emissions rebound from the Covid-19 crisis means “our starting point is definitely not a good one”, said Birol.
For now, the world remains off course. Last month, the agency warned that global carbon dioxide emissions were expected to rise at their second-fastest pace ever in 2021 as countries recovered from the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic and global coal burning neared a high, led by a surge of industrial activity in Asia.
In 1994, John Elkington coined the phrase 'Triple Bottom Line, referring to Profit, People, and Planet'. The importance of all three together seemed more of a prophecy than a reality when it was written.
The conclusions are broadly described and inherently conservative, the result of a consensus process between 270 top scientists from 67 countries whose competing political interests are perhaps best illustrated by the omission of clear language about such issues as fossil fuels, nuclear power, carbon dioxide removal technology and methane gas. A study from another of the IPCC’s working groups, focusing on solutions, is due out next month, and will likely tackle more of those thorny topics.
The reflectivity of snow and ice at the poles, known as the albedo effect, is one of Earth’s most important cooling mechanisms. But global warming has reduced this reflectivity drastically, setting off a dangerous warming loop: as more Arctic ice and snow melt, the albedo effect decreases, warming the Arctic further, and melting more ice and snow. The volume of Arctic ice has already shrunk 75% In the past 40 years, and scientists predict that the Arctic Ocean will be completely ice-free during the summer months by the end of the century. Subtitled in 23 languages and narrated by Richard Gere, Climate Emergency: Feedback Loops is a series of five short films, featuring twelve leading climate scientists, that explores how human-caused emissions are triggering nature’s own warming loops. We submit the five shorts to your festival (total 57:44) for screening of any or all of the films. The film series had its official launch with the Dalai Lama, Greta Thunberg and world-renowned scientists in a webcast, “The Dalai Lama with Greta Thunberg and Leading Scientists: A Conversation on the Crisis of Climate Feedback Loops. ”While scientists stay up worrying about this most dangerous aspect of climate change, the public has little awareness or understanding of feedback loops. Climate change discussion at all levels of society largely leaves out the most critical dynamic of climate change itself. It is urgent we remedy this. The first film in the series, Introduction (13:09), provides an overview of the feedback loop problem. The four other short films explore important climate feedback mechanisms: Forests (14:10), Permafrost (10:55), Atmosphere (8:45) and Albedo (10:35).Greenhouse gases from fossil fuels, such as carbon dioxide and methane, are warming the planet. This warming is then setting in motion dozens of feedback mechanisms, which then feed upon themselves, as well as interact with each other and spiral further out of control. These processes are rapidly accelerating climate change. An example of a climate feedback loop is the melting of the permafrost. In the Northern Hemisphere, permafrost makes up nearly 25% of the landmass. As heat-trapping emissions warm the Earth, this frozen tundra is melting. As it does, large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane are released, which further warm the planet, melting more permafrost in a self-perpetuating loop. Human activity kicks off these feedback loops, but once set in motion, they become self-sustaining. The danger is that this process reaches a tipping point beyond which it is extremely difficult to recover. This is why it is urgent to reduce greenhouse gas emissions so we can slow, halt and even reverse these feedbacks and cool the planet. Past Presentation
Planet Earth - a brief history - depicting the evolution of the planet from the Hadean period to the Anthropocene period. An evolutionary history of life on Earth. The Earth has undergone constant change in its 4.54 Billion year history with life evolving in response to those changes - in particular to the changing atmospheric compositions of carbon dioxide and oxygen. Species extinction has been a natural part of the evolutionary process of the planet however there are now thought to have been at least 8 mass extinction events in the history of the Earth - each of major consequence to life on the planet and of import to our modern understandings of climate change. This 6 minute animation has been created by paleoartist Bruce Currie and has been commissioned by the Australian Fossil and Mineral Museum – Bathurst. Now Playing
Activists have long warned that cap and trade would jeopardize states’ efforts to reduce carbon emissions and increase pollution in communities of color. New reports back up those assertions.In a report released earlier this month, a state-appointed panel of experts, known as the Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee, warned that California could miss its legally binding target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, largely as a result of the design of the state’s complex “cap-and-trade” market.
A short documentary about the 2009-2010 Miss South Pacific Pageant in Suva, Fiji that tackles climate change, rising sea levels, and a beauty pageant. Contestants from all the major Pacific Island Nations implore audiences to reduce global carbon emission lest their island homes will be lost to rising seas. Past Presentation
"Peatland is so important for carbon sequestration and for wildlife. And, currently, we're wrapping it in plastic and selling it in garden centres," said Elliot Chapman-Jones.
Corporations have never been under more pressure to follow through and make meaningful progress on carbon emissions from regulators and amid greater scrutiny around “greenwashing” from environmentalists – and their own employees.
The Global Ocean Explorers Survey Foundation (GOES) warns that the bits of plastic filling the seas are merging with toxic chemicals from sunscreens, fire retardants (PBDE), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), tin and mercury, bonding together and being mistaken for food by plankton and other inhabitants of the sea. These poisonous cocktails have already wiped out an enormous amount of the plankton population on Earth, and GOES says we have only ten years to correct this death spiral. Plankton eat a significant amount of carbon dioxide and produce an astounding 75 percent of the Earth’s oxygen. That’s more than the Amazon rainforest. If all the planet’s plankton are killed off, it spells doom for all life on Earth.
Governments must halve emissions by 2030 if they intend the Earth to stay within the 1.5C “safe” threshold. But the latest set of national policies submitted to the UN shows emissions will merely be stabilised by 2030.
Deforestation has devastating impacts on biodiversity, food security, and global heating. A recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)warned about catastrophic consequences humanity faces with rising temperatures.
While the IPCC opus doesn’t drill down into emissions from food production per se, it does contain rich information about its impacts. Carbon dioxide, now prevalent in the atmosphere at it highest rate in 2 million years, gets most of the ink, but two other heat-trapping gases, methane and nitrous oxide, also contribute mightily to the greenhouse effect. These gases now waft about at their highest levels in 800,000 years, the report states—and are spewed in large quantities by industrial-scale farms, mostly related to the mass production of meat. Overall, a 2021 report from the United Nations Environment Program and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition found, fossil fuel production accounts for 35 percent of global methane emissions, vs. 32 percent for agriculture.
The world can still hope to stave off the worst ravages of climate breakdown but only through a “now or never” dash to a low-carbon economy and society, scientists have said in what is in effect a final warning for governments on the climate.
Critics warn that carbon markets incentivize countries and corporations to offset – rather than cut – emissions responsible for global heating by investing in so-called green energy projects like biofuel monocrops and hydroelectric dams, which are linked to environmental destruction, forced displacement, arbitrary arrests and even murder.
The 37-year-old service technician from Zurich spent nine years working in the aviation and marine industries before joining Climeworks, a Swiss start-up that is trying to undo the damage caused by such heavily polluting industries.“It does give you extra satisfaction to know that you’re helping the planet instead of damaging it,” he said.
I saw seemingly endless fields of the trees’ scorched and tortured carcasses. This was a terrible harbinger of things to come: a 2019 Ecosphere journal study determined that, if carbon emissions stay at current levels, just 0.02% of the species would survive.
Adding a further 4m metric tons above last year’s level, produced by the average US coal plant, will cost 904 lives worldwide by the end of the century, the research found. On a grander scale, eliminating planet-heating emissions by 2050 would save an expected 74 million lives around the world this century.
Carbon Nation is an optimistic, solutions-based, non-preachy, non-partisan, big tent film that shows tackling climate change boosts the economy, increases national & energy security and promotes health and a clean environment. Past Presentation
American schools are the second-largest public infrastructure investment. But what most people don’t know is that they are also among the biggest energy consumers in the public sector. K-12 schools consume about 8% of all the energy used in commercial buildings. In turn, they emit as much carbon dioxide as 18 coal-powered power plants. This not only burdens the environment, but children themselves – students suffer from heatstroke, affected hormone and sleep cycles, as well as respiratory issues. Many schools have started redesigning their infrastructure with the climate crisis in mind. From installing more solar panels to replacing old heating, cooling and ventilation systems, or HVAC systems, with more sustainable ones, school districts are increasingly transitioning to cheaper and greener options. But old building habits and funding constraints can pose a challenge.
“Carbon markets provide cover for empty greenwashing schemes, and are thus a way to distract from the real action people and the planet need, urgently,” said Rachel Rose Jackson, the climate research and policy director at the watchdog Corporate Accountability, over email Wednesday. “Article 6 is one of the battlegrounds where we are seeing the interests of polluting countries and corporations be pitted against the people’s and the planet’s.”
A study published last yearfound that California’s forest carbon offsets program was likely to have overstated its emission reductions by 80 percent or more. In a 2016 study, the European Union Commission concluded that 85 percent of the projects it examined were unlikely to achieve their reduction claims. And a 2019 ProPublica investigation found that, overwhelmingly, forest preservation projects “hadn’t offset the amount of pollution they were supposed to, or they had brought gains that were quickly reversed or that couldn’t be accurately measured to begin with.”
“What is the return for us?” said Scott Osteen, a farmer living in the proposed path of M-CORES. “You’re asking us to give up land, you’re asking us to give up our current way of life, but currently I don’t see the upside to it.” / And then there are the environmental costs of the project. The transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gases in the U.S., making up 28 percent of emissions. Oscar Psychas, founder of the Young Leaders for Wild Florida, says highways invite more cars onto the road, a well documented phenomenon known as “induced demand.” Those cars emit carbon dioxide, driving climate change in a state that’s among the most vulnerable to its effects. Without proper protections for the environment, the roads could also bring more urban sprawl — which leads to yet more driving — and disturb some of the state’s natural barriers against sea level rise, such as wetlands. The southwestern leg of the highway could slice through some of the last remaining habitat of the endangered Florida panther.
In the Contra Costa County town of Oakley, the restored Dutch Slough wetlands are bordered by housing developments and dairy farms, with Mount Diablo towering in the distance. When completed, the $63 million restoration will be the largest of its kind in California, creating habitat for endangered salmon and other wildlife in a blueprint for how the state can become more resilient to climate change. The state Department of Water Resources, which leads the Dutch Slough Tidal Marsh Restoration Project, hopes it will be a model for many other restorations, with a goal to restore 30,000 acres of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta’s original 360,000 acres of wetlands long lost to farms and housing. At a time when worldwide greenhouse emission-reduction targets aren’t being met, scientists are looking at ways to adapt to global warming; wetland restoration in San Francisco Bay and the sprawling delta holds a key strategy. Wetlands lessen destruction from flooding caused by storms and sea level rise, and also can recharge drought-starved aquifers, since they hold and release water gradually. They also perform a key role in absorbing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it long term. “You can put carbon in forests, where it can get burned,” said Dennis Baldocchi, professor at UC Berkeley’s Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management. “But if you put it in wetlands, it can stay a very long time. The limitation is we have a limited amount of land area we can convert.”
A compelling documentary about the collision of climate change, the desperate search for firewood, dirty water, and the burdens placed on women and girls. The film has provoked environmental and green film audiences in Durban, South Africa at the COP-17 meetings, to the Planet in Focus Film Festival in Toronto, where it won "Best International Short." It has also been selected to screen at the Colorado Environmental Film Festival and is being considered to become part of the program at Rio+20 Past Presentation
Meet Allen Williams, Gabe Brown and Neil Dennis - heroes and innovators! These ranchers now know how to regenerate their soils while making their animals healthier and their operations more profitable. They are turning ON their soils, enabling rainwater to sink into the earth rather than run off. And these turned ON soils retain that water, so the ranches are much more resilient in drought. It’s an amazing story that has just begun. Past Presentation
KIRKWALL, Scotland — Ocean boosters like to compare the kinetic energy stored in the sea to a ginormous oil reserve that’s never going to run dry. In Scotland, they want to plug this ocean energy into shoreside electrolyzers, which separate water (good old H20) into oxygen and green hydrogen, and use the gas bubbles to power … whisky distilleries. The idea is simple; execution, less so. These devices — and their computers, turbines and hydraulics — must survive in some of the harshest conditions on Earth. Neil Kermode, managing director of the European Marine Energy Center (EMEC), says tidal energy is poised to help Britain deliver on its promise to go net-zero on carbon emissions. “The R&D has shown it works and industry has shown it can do this,” he wrote in an appeal to the electricity regulators to adapt to new technologies like ocean power.
In a deal struck in late 2020, Marathon, a bitcoin “mining” company, became the sole recipient of the power station’s electricity. It established an elongated data center on 20 acres of land beside the facility that is packed with more than 30,000 Antminer S19 units, a specialized computer that mines for bitcoin. Such thirst for power is common in crypto – globally bitcoin mining consumes more electricity than Norway, a country of 5.3 million people.
But the most promising concrete technologies utilize very little energy to incorporate CO2. That’s because when CO2 is incorporated into concrete, it’s literally piped into the mix. The natural tumbling motion of churning concrete is all the energy that’s needed to transform the CO2 into a calcium carbonate, a substance that doesn’t just act as filler but also actively strengthens the concrete mix. All of this tough calcium carbonate means the concrete needs less cement in its mix, which is another environmental savings, since cement is the worst polluting component of concrete.
Carbon offsets are allowing the world's biggest polluters to forge ahead with business plans that are threatening global climate goals, the head of Greenpeace International said in an interview.
US climate change envoy John Kerry has urged the world's top 20 polluters which create 81% of emissions between them to reduce CO2 immediately.
Touting natural gas and biomass fuel as renewable doesn't fly. - tr* "Our community needs to step up efforts to cut carbon emissions, but do so in a way that gets widespread support and spreads costs equitably. The world's countries have little hope of working together to combat climate change if Gainesville can’t even figure it out."
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