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Human exhalations are contributing to the ongoing increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels that are driving climate change, according to a new study released today from the University of Northwest Florida (UNWF).
The four-year-long study by atmospheric scientist Lawrence Meany concluded that human respiration and conversation could be responsible for up to 12 percent of the greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere every year. And, Meany discovered, that percentage appears to be growing.
By Mark Seall •
February 28, 2008
In an excellent post, Andrew Revkin of the New York Times dot Earth blog poses the question - “Where would carbon dioxide emissions be if everyone on Earth was using fossil fuels at the same pace, per capita, as the United States is now?”
Using some simple math, Revkin presents some not so surprising facts:
It’s simple multiplication. Right now, the sum of global emissions of carbon dioxide by 6.6 billion very-unequal humans is about 29 billion tons a year. (An excellent database is here on historic and current emissions, from energy and cement making.)
If everyone was emitting at the British level, it’d be 66 billion tons a year. Okay, let’s try the United States. That would be 132 billion tons of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere each year, if everyone on Earth had an equal carbon footing.
We spent a couple of minutes with Excel and a global emissions database to put some of these figures into a global perspective:
Got some bad news for all those countries trying to hammer out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol: aiming for carbon dioxide emissions reductions of 25, 50, even 75 percent in the coming decades ain’t gonna cut it.
The only way to stabilize Earth’s climate, according to new research, is to cut carbon emissions to zero … and to do it quick.
Climate [...]
Fellow blogger Joshua Hill has already expressed his aggravation with the U.S.’s efforts to water down the latest climate change assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but things might be even worse than they already sound.
A new report from The Climate Institute in Australia examines the latest research on climate change and concludes the IPCC’s most recent assessment is [...]
By Maria Surma Manka •
September 24, 2007
There have been some major wake-up calls in the fight against global warming, starting with the United Nations scolding the U.S. for not doing enough to mitigate its contributions to the problem.
U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer told the Associated Press that it’s "very clear" the U.S. is not on the right track, despite the Bush administration’s recent openness to even discussing the problem and the series of meetings President Bush has scheduled with
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Last week's release of the IPCC's Summary for Policymakers on climate change mitigation sparked backlash from several environmental groups. In a joint press release, Biofuelwatch, Global Forest Coalition, Global Justice Ecology Project, and several others stated they are "deeply concerned" about the inclusion of "large-scale expansion of biofuels from monoculture", including Genetically Modified (GM) crops, as
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As Maria reported this morning, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change did release the findings of Working Group III today, which focuses on the steps the global community must take to mitigate the worst effects of climate change.
On one hand, the report was hopeful: we can lessen the effects of global warming with quick, substantive, mandatory action by the world's governments. Furthermore, the costs of such actions would be relatively low, and
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Today the fourth and final assessment from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “Mitigation of Climate Change,” will be released. More than 400 scientists and experts from 120 countries are in Bangkok, Thailand this week to finalize the report. The summary of Mitigation of Climate Change will be posted here; go here for a live webcast around 1PM local time. The full report will be released in September.
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Yesterday the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its second report of the year on global warming. Back in February, the IPCC explained the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change. This time, we learn the impacts.
For increases in global mean temperature of less than 1-3 degrees Celsius above 1990 levels, impacts may produce benefits in some places and some sectors, and produce costs in other places and sectors. However, some low latitude
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By Ryan Thibodaux •
February 27, 2007
Last year, several major oil companies got together and produced two commercials that tried to convince Americans that the more CO2 we produce, the merrier. We breathe it out. Plants breathe it in. It's part of the circle of life. Just like that Elton John song! CO2 is our life-supporting friend, they said. We need as much of it as we can get. Thankfully, those ads were laughed off the air.
They did,
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ExxonMobil was recently scorched in the spotlight when an article in the UK newspaper the Guardian tied the planet’s largest corporation to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a vehemently free-market, right-leaning organization that tried to pay scientists and economists to author articles casting doubt on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) global warming report. This didn’t surprise many people, as Exxon has never had a reputation of being green or
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