These visuals of the planet changes over the last 30 or 40 years are impressive, to say the least.
http://nbcnews.to/1uxF6ZM
Here are some cool time lapse photography using satellite imagery over the last few decades.
Check out the Amazon!
Check out the glaciers!
Ouch!
Double ouch!
Category: climate change
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Visuals of the planet changes
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Our planet is at a point of crisis – Leonard Pitts – Newsday
Our planet is at a point of crisis – Leonard Pitts – Newsday:
Leonard Pitts is going to get some hate mail out of this article. But, sadly, its all true.
The only are that could be clarified a bit is the 97% of scientist agree. I think the agreement is that there is global warming, it drops way off to 80% or so of those scientists who believe that humans are primarily the cause.
The controversy is well discussed in Wikipedia’s Global Warming Controversy.
The idea that taking action now is not even thinkable because it would destroy the economy, jobs, etc., etc., is not a sound one. That was the argument against doing anything related to auto emissions and mileage standards.
Fortunately coal is a good place for government intervention. The costs of coal in health and safety are massively higher than the $.04 per KWH from the past. Although we do a better job of cleaning coal, that doesn’t help if we ship it all off to China and India where they burn it without the same scrubbers that we use. Also, there’s the dirty little secret of coal: coal ash!. See our discussion here on: Pain in the ash!
As well, coal produces huge amounts of CO2 emissions: twice the pollution and emission of oil or nat gas.
Hey, here’s an idea. We are flaring about 50% of the nat gas produced in the USA, why not pipe it to power plants and use the fuel for “free”. Or, why not build small power plants near the frank wells and run the power lines to the grid… and have power for “free”.
We, at SBP, like projects that save emissions and save money and save the environment. Things like Energy Efficiency (EE) and telecommuting… Projects that will save trillions of dollars every 3 years, en perpetuity. Projects that are — I hate to say it — “no brainer” decisions. Projects that require no government “help”.
Sadly, these projects are hard areas to gain traction.
‘via Blog this’ -
13 of 14 warmest years on record occurred in 21st century – UN | Environment
13 of 14 warmest years on record occurred in 21st century – UN | Environment | theguardian.com:
Ouch. As you look at the clock, you will see that we are only 14 years into the 21st Century. Yet we have 13 of the hottest 14 years in recorded history.
You do have to take the whole of the earth into account, obviously, not just the USA, where we were ?fortunate? enough to have a exceptionally cold and blizzardy Winter. (Polar Vortex is now in our daily vernacular.)
If you are interested in the science go here to look at the 11 or 12 major indicators (based on several data sources each) that would indicate global warming. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record
If you want a composite graphic that shows the robustness of the evidence, go here. There are several data sources overlaid in each graphic. Note that the stratosphere is decreasing (cooler), that is consistent with a depletion of the ozone layer.
The recent UN report talks about the trends in costs associated with climate effects, like typhoons. A draft report talks about $1.45T costs associated with climate change over the next decade. (See here http://www.livescience.com/43891-global-warming-economic-damage.html.)
The costs are expected to reach $70 to $100B per year for adaptation by 2050. (See here: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/03/31/will-the-uns-new-report-shift-the-global-warming-debate)
NASA has lots of interesting graphics, including time-series that will show the world temperature changes over the last couple hundred years. (Or just recently if you want since 1970).(The science visualization study at NASA is awesome, no mater what your interests: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/Gallery/index.html or if you want to draw your own graphs based on the underlying data, go here: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land_ocean/3/2/1880-2014).
As we come up on Earth Day (EarthDay.org or EarthDay in Wikipedia) the impacts of business as usual (BAS) really revolves around whether you think something should be done to be much more sustainable NOW!, in decades or in centuries to come.
The degree of urgency really depends on how much you believe in global warming, and how fast you think that warming may take place.
Look at the graphs and make your own call on this.
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Natural gas, the media’s failures, and you « The Cost of Energy
Natural gas, the media’s failures, and you « The Cost of Energy:
Ouch!
“The Cost of Energy” Lou Grinzo blogs (and reblogs) about how unclear NatGas really is. It all has to do with the Methane released from the fracking.
See the reprint of the blog at EthicsAndClimate.org from Dr. Brown.
Sadly NatGas may really not be cleaner than Coal. How dirty is that!
Here’s my comments over to Lou’s post.
Okay, as always, your blogs are extremely informative, with lots of facts that are well substantiated. The Dr. Brown article is a real eye opener on fracking.Ouch! This is ugly. So we really don’t gain anything from NatGas except maybe fuel independence — and a wonderful improvement to our US trade (im)balance!:-(
The question I have for all of this NatGas is here and now. Half of the NatGas in the US is flared. So when we say that NatGas is 50% cleaner than coal, do we count the other 100% that is flared in the making? Oh, wait, we aren’t saying that NatGas is actually cleaner than coal. It may not be!
Don’t get me wrong, there’s a safety and a transport issue here with flaring…
Good news is that much of the flaring is probably methane, right? So it could be worse, there might not be as much flaring. Simply releasing the methane would be a hefty magnitude worse?
And, of course, the point is that there should be no (short-term) plan to switch to NatGas without some follow-on plan to switch completely to sustainable fuel/power.
Much like our US energy policy, if there is one, the short-term plan is the only plan, even though it is based on exhaustible resources. That is, the plan is broken as designed.
Non-sustainability, over time, has a way of giving a wicked whiplash effect. And somehow, everyone with this broken short-term plan feel warm and cuddly about it.
Double ouch!
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US energy use dropped in 2012 as renewables, natural gas rose | Ars Technica
US energy use dropped in 2012 as renewables, natural gas rose | Ars Technica:
Yes, the US has backed off a little with energy use during the recession, especially.
That would be a good thing if not for the emissions from China and India.
This is an AMAZING chart of the energy in and the energy out within the USofA. This has been an interesting chart to watch over the years.
~95.1 Quads
That is Quadrillion BTUs. (British Thermal Unit). If you think a Quadrillion is a LOT, you are right.
Double interesting in this picture is the the “rejected energy”. That is 58.1, estimated to be the same as that used. Therefore the right side is about 116.2 (58.1 + 58.1). I guess the left side is the 95.1
It takes some time to fully understand this diag, over time it is very interesting.
Note the drop in Coal in the US. Nat gas is so clean and cheap it is likely to put coal out of business. In the USA anyway.
We’ll send it to China? By now China must have exceeded half of the worlds coal consumption.
Want to look at forecasts of the future, go to US Energy Information Administration Annual Energy Outlook 2013.