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Because of their enormous body size, whales have been thought to contribute a considerable amount of carbon dioxide to the total greenhouse gas build-up whenever they exhale. However, Trish J. Lavery of Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia claims they – the sperms whales of Southern Ocean, at least – are falsely-accused and that they live quite a carbon-neutral life.

During the October 13 Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals in Quebec City, Canada, Lavery talked about earlier calculations overlooking the whales’ capacity to offset their carbon dioxide emissions. The 210,000 sperm whales in Southern Ocean should be declared carbon neutral, according to Lavery. The carbon neutral status is achieved by bringing iron from the depths of the ocean to the surface whenever they feed. This extra iron in the water induces plankton growth which in turn traps carbon and prevents it from being released into the atmosphere.

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Scientists say that currently we are at 350 parts per million which is the safe limit for humanity. Currently we are at 387 parts per million; of carbon dioxide that has entered into the atmosphere!

Today’s message is about taking action and sending a message. This December the world’s leaders will meet in Copenhagen to discuss the climate and amend the current climate treaty. It’s time to put pressure on our leaders to create a just climate treaty that meets the latest science. It’s time for us to recognize that our planet is in danger and needs our help!

I’m off to the local City Park with the kiddos where they plan to have a Pet Parade forSaving the Planet since our furry little friends are also affected by Global Warming.

So, let’s hear it! 350!! 350!!! 350!!

What are you doing on behalf of International Day of Climate Action?

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An analysis done by Biofuels Digest has come to the very surprising conclusion that an electric car will produce 30% more carbon dioxide emissions over its lifetime than a car powered by E85 corn ethanol. Not only that, the study also found that the same electric car will produce 21% more carbon dioxide than even a gasoline powered car.

These claims assume that 100% of the electricity for the EV comes from coal-fired power plants and that a comparable car would get 35 mpg—both of which seem like unrealistic assumptions. So I dug around the internet today to try and come up with more realistic numbers.

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I have taken on Big Coal.

OK–obviously I cannot win. In a cage match between Big Coal and me, Big Coal would be like the real Mean Joe Greene of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ “Steel Curtain” defense, and I would be…well, me–the other Mean Joe Green (although, I did play college football, for what it’s worth).

However, I am not attempting to take down Big Coal–a D2 wide receiver has little hope against a Hall of Fame defensive lineman. I am simply attempting to shine a small light on the corruption that surrounds a multi-billion dollar industry struggling to hold on to its inevitably diminishing wealth. An industry focused on profit at the expense of the health of air and water, thereby, the health of those who breathe and drink it–an industry on its way out.

Please enjoy my archive of 11 Big Coal cartoons, below (click on the cartoon titles to see the accompanying text for each cartoon):

“Clean Coal?!” from 3/29/2008

“CO2 Molecules for McCain”, from 9/11/2008

“Coal’s New Look” from 11/18/2008

“Naughty Mayors May Get Coal This Year” from 12/03/2008

“Want Coal? Expect Occassional Sludge” from 12/31/2008

“The Lights are on but Nobody’s Home” from 3/4/2009

“Rep. Rahall (D) Shows His Love for (getting money from) Coal (companies)” from 7/21/2009

“Big Coal Claims Climate Bill Unfair” from 8/7/2009

“Hunger Strike Protest for Coal and Oil” from 9/2/2009

“Old King Coal’s New Nursery Rhyme” from 9/24/2009

“CO2 Isn’t Good for You…It’s GREAT!!!” from 10/1/2009

Mean Joe Green Cartoon Archive, #’s 1-76

follow Mean Joe Green on Twitter at @GreenCartoons

It’s true! According to the very intelligent folks at CO2isgreen, who have direct ties to Oil and Coal industry big wigs, more CO2 is better for us!

The Oil and Coal industries both have unlimited amounts of money, the bulk of which–I am certain–goes to research and development to make this world a better, cleaner place. So if they start a campaign called CO2isgreen with ads stating well-researched facts such as, “Higher CO2 levels than we have today would help the earth’s ecosystems…” and “more CO2 results in a ‘greener’ earth.” then, doggummit, I believe them (and I’m sure Bill McKibben does as well)!

Scroll down please. This cartoon is two panels, one on top of the other.

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Mean Joe Green Cartoon Archive

follow Mean Joe Green on Twitter at @GreenCartoons

While carbon capture and sequestration technology remains controversial, studies to delve deeper into it are ongoing in hopes of presenting one way to alleviate emission levels. A team from MIT has been studying a carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technique called pressurized oxy-fuel combustion. This process converts the carbon dioxide emissions of a power plant into a pressurized liquid stream meant to be pumped underground. Team leader Ahmed Ghoniem of MIT claims that his team is the only one conducting an academic study of “pressurized combustion system for carbon dioxide capture.”

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19 projects will be funded by the DOE. John Litynski, sequestration division director at DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, explains:

These projects represent specific areas in monitoring CO2, both in the subsurface and at the surface, that helps to meet our goals to account for 99 percent of CO2 once it’s injected.  We’ve actually been doing monitoring for quite a while — ever since the program started 10 years ago, but we’ve been doing some field activities with the regional partnerships and now we want to make an effort to start looking at verification and accounting protocols after the field work. We’ve selected the new projects to fill in the gaps.

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This picture is a picture of the beautiful Monterey, California coastline. This is where I grew up. It is famous for it’s beautiful sea life. Sea otters, jelly fish, sea lions, kelp forests all populate the Monterey coast.  The Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean in the world. Yet, with all that mass of water, we humans are changing the chemical properties. The acid levels in the pacific ocean, as well as every ocean around the world, are rising. If things keep going this beautiful coastline, my home, will become a wasteland of acid. Habitable to only the most extremophiles.

Rewind our story. Fossil fuels are not just a problem for our atmosphere. When we burn fossil fuels carbon dioxide falls down into the sea. The carbon dioxide is quickly converted into carbonic acid. Carbonic acid has been known to be corrosive to corals and shellfish, and now scientists are discovering that rising acid levels in the ocean are effecting other animals as well.

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The conductor walks on to the stage and mounts the podium with applause from the crowd.  He bows to the audience, then turns to his orchestra and, with one fluid motion pulls music from the vast expanse of silence. Each musician moves, almost mechanically, in perfect time, in perfect concert. The violin section becomes one great body, no longer individual musicians. Together, as one, the orchestra ebbs and flows in crescendo and decrescendo. Melody. Harmony. Symphony.

But imagine with me for a moment that one violinist fell out of rhythm. The once fluid sound drips through the cracks of disarray. From there, another violinist. Next a cellist. Soon the entire string section has lost rhythm. The conductor struggles to pull the string section into concert with the rest of the orchestra. However, the chaos of the string section has spread to the brass and to the woodwind sections. Soon the entire orchestra is in conflict.

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With the fluctuating price of oil, a finite resource, and concerns over CO2 emissions, many energy companies and developers have turned to utilizing biomass as alternative fuel (biofuel). This trend is actually taking two pathways: using biomass to convert to ethanol to power automobiles (which has been around for awhile now), and, converting biomass to electricity to power electric (or hybrid) vehicles (a more recent alternative). The question of which path is most efficient, sustainable, and less carbon-intensive is a vitally important one in terms of this nation’s “energy future”.

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The Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef system comprising over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching more than 3,000 kilometres (1,600 miles) over an area of approximately 344,400 square kilometres (133,000 square miles).

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The discovery of a tiny bowl-shaped molecule which collects carbon dioxide right out of the air has beckoned some creative solutions to global warming.

By genetically engineering microbes to manufacture the handy molecule, scientists hope to make it useful as an industrial absorbent for CO2 capture. That could help clean up smokestacks from dirty coal-fired power plants, but it’s also possible that the molecules could be used for pulling carbon dioxide right out of the ambient air.

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Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) has the potential to cut global Co2 emissions dramatically. We’re talking huge cuts. It has been estimated that a plant implementing CCS can cut emissions by 80-90 percent compared with a plant that doesn’t use CCS. Sounds great, right? Well, there are some some problems.

Cost is the number one challenge that CCS faces. “Applying it would significantly increase the cost of electricity beyond what society is likely willing to pay,” said Sarah Forbes,  a World Resources Institute Senior Associate. Another challenge is that no fully integrated demonstrations have taken place. The pieces have been tested individually, but the entire puzzle is yet to be seen.

Forbes describes CCS and its current challenges in more detail:

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Coming in at second place in the world in energy consumption - second only to the United States - the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the world’s most populated nation, is looking for ways to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and shift to renewable energy. This desire to increase renewable energy sources and cut greenhouse gases has led the PRC to promote private investments in renewables.

Such promotion has led to a recent investment by The Asian Development Bank (ADB), which will partly finance a $73 million wind farm in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. ADB will be investing $24 US (164 million CNY) in Datang Sino-Japan (Chifeng) Renewable Power Corporation, a joint venture between state-owned China Datang Corporation and Japan’s Kyushu Electric Power Company, Sumitomo Corporation and Sumitomo Corporation (CHINA) Holdings. Such a venture will be ADB’s first private sector wind farm investment in the PRC.

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Environmental Protest or YouTube Stunt?

In New South Wales, Australia on 29th June, wood-chipping company, Eden says that an anti-logging protest was staged on its premises, for reasons that weren’t worthwhile.

Environmental protestors chained themselves to a conveyor belt, protesting that environmental legislation neglected the needs of local wildlife but a spokesman for the plant said ‘… It didn’t affect us in any way and we just left them there until they decided that they felt like going home and they did. These days it’s as much about the show as it is about the reasons, so I guess the show must go on and sometimes the reasons are worthwhile and sometimes they are not.’

If it was worth having, we wouldn’t be getting it, says Judge

In a mordant comment on where polluting substances end up, County Municipal Court Judge Julie Monnin expressed concerns about a plan to sequester carbon dioxide 3,000 feet under Greenville Ohio. She fears the likely decline in property values and pointed out that the plant could lead to people need, and failing to get, man-made earthquake insurance. In her own words, ‘Folks, if it were a good thing, Greenville wouldn’t be getting it.’

The carbon dioxide comes from a nearby ethanol plant and will be injected underground, but before this can happen, large trucks would need to travel local roads, creating seismic shockwaves to test the ground, but these tests have been postponed for fear they would damage local agricultural drainage systems.

Guilty of unlawful protest, campaigners believe they did nothing illegal

In the UK today, 22 environmental protestors have been found guilty of unlawful protest. In June 2008 they boarded a train carrying coal into Drax Coal-Fired Power Station in Yorkshire, after two of their number posed as railway staff to flag it down, allowing others to mount the train and prevent it moving for 16 hours.  During their protest they poured coal on the tracks to stop the train moving.  The campaigners claimed in court that they had not done anything illegal because they were trying to prevent climate change, but the judge—who has said they will not face a custodial sentence—decided that their actions, and the £30,000 clean up operation that followed the protest, were illegal.

Drax power station courtesy of leedsyorkshire at flickr under a creative commons licence

Permafrost, or permanently frozen ground - soil, sediment or rock that remains at or below 0° Celsius for at least two continuous years - makes up about 24 percent of the exposed land mass in the Northern Hemisphere: that’s approximately 22.79 million square kilometers. Permafrost can be thousands of years old, or it can be just beginning. Either way, as permafrost thaws, it jeopardizes both man-made structures and natural features. Thawing permafrost on mountain slopes can lead to landslides.

And it’s melting.

Besides posing threats to structures and landscapes on a local scale, melting permafrost emits carbon dioxide and methane, according to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), making permafrost a threat on a global scale.

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