Is this really about the Paris Agreement or more to do with the fact that they are unable to manufacture any 1/2 decent vehicles
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...vehicles-2040/
Mark
Is this really about the Paris Agreement or more to do with the fact that they are unable to manufacture any 1/2 decent vehicles
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...vehicles-2040/
Mark
And here I thought the beach was bad . . .
'. . . The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an enormous collection of marine debris stretching across the North Pacific Ocean, is one of the biggest – both literally and figuratively – frightful reminders that we need to rethink every single aspect of how much waste we produce and how we deal with it. Its very existence proves that we have to do everything in our power to stop the proliferation of plastic trash. And that necessity has just become even more critical – since scientists have just confirmed that there is another huge plastic garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean. And it is bigger than Texas.
While experts have long believed that it was very much the case, the confirmation of the second patch’s existence in the South Pacific comes just now. The garbage patch may cover as much as 2.6 million square kilometers, that is 1.5 times the size of Texas. Similarly to the patch in the North Pacific, the one in the South was formed due to a mix of swirling currents and winds called a gyre which concentrates plastic waste into one area.
The patch has been uncovered by Captain Charles Moore and his team of volunteer researchers. Together, they have set off on a six-month voyage which led to the huge discovery. “We discovered tremendous quantities of plastic,” Moore told Research Gate.
The South Pacific garbage patch proved to be comprised mostly of tiny plastic pieces, smaller even than the grains of rice. Moore’s team found some larger items as well, but most of it was broken into little bits. The fact may mean that plastic in the patch has a longer journey to make before accumulating in the spot. Once the little plastic particles are in the gyre, it is pretty much impossible to clean them up – and so, the best way of dealing with the problem is, of course, preventing the issue at the very source.
It is far past time for us to start taking care of our plastic addiction and the problem of plastic waste disposal. Every year, we dump into the oceans around 8.8 million tons of plastic into the oceans, where it endangers around 700 marine species with extinction. Unless we stop being nonchalant about our unrecycled plastic waste, news like this will only become more frequent. As Moore explained, stopping this problem starts with you and me – so to learn how to limit your use of plastics, check out One Green Planet’s #CrushPlastic campaign! . . .'
http://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/g...south-pacific/
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'. . . The world saw headlines about one of the largest icebergs ever calved a few weeks ago. But a smaller one on the other end of the globe might have bigger consequences.
The chunk of ice, which broke free in the Arctic last week, is more worrisome to climate scientists who are watching one of Earth's largest glaciers shed pieces in a way that stands to raise sea levels.
Compared with the Delaware-sized iceberg that split off of West Antarctica earlier this month, this one is almost paltry — the size of three Manhattans or so. It came off the ice shelf that buttresses the Petermann Glacier at the height of seasonal warming in the Arctic region.
By contrast, the recent Antarctic iceberg, while massive, did not have a clear connection to climate. Even if it foreshadows the split-up of the ice sheet to which it was attached, it would not raise sea levels noticeably. The Arctic calving has a much clearer link to climate change.
Movement of the Petermann Glacier has sped up in recent years, dumping land-based ice into the ocean at a faster rate and drawing more ice down from the center of Greenland, said Laurence Dyke, a researcher at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. Meanwhile, the ice shelf that braces it and slows the rate of flow is disintegrating as climate change transforms the region.
“You could call it the canary in the coal mine. If that big glacier there is changing quickly, and it is, it's a worrying sign for what's happening in the rest of Greenland,” he said.
The iceberg itself is not particularly notable, according to Dyke. But it could lead to an expansion of major cracks upstream in the ice shelf, causing it to break up more quickly. Most troubling to researchers is a crack at the center of the shelf. It's an unusual place for cracks to form, and it could connect to separate cracks forming at the sides.
The loss of the iceberg also brings the shelf to a state not observed in the 150 years of tracking the glacier — and potentially much longer, Dyke said. The ice shelf bracing the glacier lost major pieces in 2010 and 2012. Both those icebergs were the size of several Manhattans.
Land-based glaciers in Greenland are a primary contributor to global sea-level rise, and they're expected to increasingly lose their mass in the future. Petermann accounts for almost 10 percent of the Greenland ice sheet; it alone could raise sea levels by a foot.
As Petermann retreats, it will draw down ice from the center of Greenland, all of which will have a direct effect on sea-level increase. Researchers have cautioned that sea levels could rise by 3 feet at the end of the century, but a more rapid disintegration of Arctic glaciers would make that number larger. A study published earlier this year in Nature showed that the rate of melting in Greenland has increased fivefold in the last 25 years.
Surface temperatures in the region have risen, and that has spurred a greater rate of melting. There are other links to climate change. As the seas warm, they erode ice shelves from underneath.
“When you've got this double whammy effect of the ocean warming from beneath and atmosphere warming from the surface, it's really chewing at this glacier,” Dyke said. “Ultimately, it's why it's having this big retreat.”
Greenland has lost two ice shelves in the last few decades, and it only has two left, said Andreas Muenchow, a researcher at the University of Delaware. He said the drama of a new iceberg is the culmination of years of melting.
Muenchow, who gets daily updates from equipment underneath the ice shelf, said ocean temperatures are steadily rising. As sea ice melts, warm water is flowing in from the Arctic ocean. That increases circulation as wind moves the open water around more freely.
“It's a small, steady, measurable drip, and it's this drip, drip, drip that is eroding these glaciers,” Muenchow said. “It's not always what you see and what's a dramatic event, like an iceberg breaking up. It's this year-round drip, drip, drip by the ocean underneath that really determines what's happening by weakening the ice shelf from below.” . . .'
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News. E&E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...ore-troubling/
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'. . . Scientists first discovered a soup-like rubbish patch of plastic floating between Hawaii and California in the 1980s.
But decades on and it appears that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch might not be unique.
Scientists have spotted yet another collection of marine debris — and they reckon it’s about the same size as Mexico.
Nestled between Chile and Easter Island in the South Pacific, the new patch is a collection of small plastic fragments that are tricky to spot with the naked eye.
It comes as seafood lovers were warned that they eat 11,000 pieces of toxic plastic every year.
The South Pacific patch was uncovered by a team of researchers and volunteers led by Captain Charles Moore during a six-month voyage aboard the ORV Alguita ship.
“We discovered tremendous quantities of plastic,” Moore told Research Gate.
“My initial impression is that our samples compared to what we were seeing in the North Pacific in 2007, so it’s about ten years behind,” said Moore.
Moore, who has spent years raising awareness of plastic pollution since he saw the North Pacific patch while captaining a racing yacht in the 1990s, believes the patch could be over 380,000 square miles.
Patches like this form around rotating ocean currents which are called gyres.
Five gyres are known to exist in our oceans, of which the North Pacific Gyre – where a garbage patch was first spotted – is the largest.
Moore’s expedition is the second team to collect samples of plastic pollution in the South Pacific Gyre.
The ORV Alguita criss-crossed between Chile and Easter Island to collect samples of the new garbage patch.
The first team to notice the “patch” was led by Dr. Markus Eriksen in 2011, who said he saw “very little debris” at that time.
Moore said it is likely that huge amounts of rubbish have entered the sea since and that this particular patch is distributed unevenly – so boats may sail through empty spots.
“We found a few larger items, occasionally a buoy and some fishing gear, but most of it was broken into bits,” Moore added.
Moore and his team are currently cleaning the samples they’ve collected and will analyze them before publishing the results . . .'
http://nypost.com/2017/08/02/theres-...ize-of-mexico/
Pass the tartar sauce
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'. . . In case you missed it, yesterday marked Earth Overshoot Day for the year of 2017. If you're unfamiliar with Earth Overshoot Day, it is the day whereby humans have used up their allowance of natural resources that Earth can replenish in one year.
Those resources are specifically, clean water, soil, clean air, carbon sequestration, etc. For 2017, that day was Aug. 2 according to the Global Footprint Network, which not surprisingly comes earlier than it did last year. That means from Aug. 2 until Dec. 31 humans are using resources that will not be replenished.
Of course, this is a bookkeeping way of representing the disparity between human consumption and renewed global resources. In coming up with the date of Aug. 2, 2017 the Global Footprint Network (GFN) first calculated how much the planet renews essential resources in one year. Then, they compare this to human consumption and determine at what point have humans used the equivalent of resources that the planet regenerates in one year.
Earth Overshoot Day has been calculated since 1986 and in the 1980s the day landed in November. Jump forward a decade and the overshoot day was in October, then September a little after 2000 and now August.
According to GFN humans require 1.7 planets to offset our use of natural resources each year. Granted, this does not take into account the fact that humans are pretty clever. We've engineered ways to get higher crop yields, become more energy efficient, and artificially treat water for human consumption.
At some point, however, human ingenuity will come head to head with the incredible rise in our species population. Take a moment to look at the figure below and let it settle in how transformative the past few hundred years has been in the history of the humans.
It is evident that the planet can and will produce a finite amount of natural resources for all of its inhabitants per year. There are instances where the productivity of the Earth could change, for instance, periods of high C02 leading to more plant growth. As the human population continues to grow exponentially, we will reach the hard reality whereby the planet we call home cannot keep up.
Several things could happen at that point, let's take a look at those possible scenarios.
- Humans engineer our way into more efficiency and creatively reduce the amount of resources each human needs while sustaining the comforts we're accustomed to.
- Warring causes an artificial reduction in human population. Not a scenario that anyone in their right minds would like to come to fruition.
- We inhabit another planet such as Mars, expanding human's allotment of natural resources and decreasing pressure on Earth.
- Famine and/or disease wipes out large swaths of the human population. For an example of this scenario, scientists often refer to the rapid decline of Rapa Nui populations on Easter Island.
Humans have been able to get ourselves out of quite uncomfortable positions in the past and we are likely to do so in the future. However, it will no doubt strain our civilization and require step changes in technological advancement . . .'
https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorn.../#46af912459a4
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"To anyone who believes environmental regulation is poison for profits, California must be infuriating. The state’s pollution policies rarely wilt its perennially blooming economy. For the past nine years, a Golden State-centric think tank Next 10 has been releasing its California Green Innovation Index. The results this year show a continuing trend: For two and a half decades, California’s GDP and population have continued to rise, while per capita carbon dioxide emissions have stayed flat"
https://www.wired.com/story/californ...-kill-profits/
Thought this might be appropriate: http://www.dezeen.com/2017/09/13/tra...ns-foundation/
THAT.Originally Posted by doigthom
is.
HILARIOUS!
. . .
https://www.strawlessocean.org/
Most commonly found piece of trash --- anywhere on the planet? (including sea-turtle snouts) . . .
. . . = plastic drinking straws
Imagine . . .
. . . 500 million straws get used/discarded --- every day!
This one's sooooo eeeeeeeeeeasy to do, too!
Climate/schmimate
. . .
'. . . If we don’t act now, by 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish . . .'
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I think BBC's The Blue Planet should be a part of the school programme or something. I feel so overwhelmed everytime I watch it, it's too beautiful and makes me ashamed he humanity lives like this
Hitch your wagon to a star
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