Global and Local Environmental Issues

[Orion]

This thread will be used to post any news, stories and discussions pertaining to global or local environmental issues.

The thread is aimed to raise awareness about the environment so let us keep it educational and informative.

Remember to always include sources when posting articles or news stories. And if possible highlight the most important/interesting parts of the article to make it easier for members to read and understand the point behind it.

[Orion]

I will start with this alarming article about the Arctic Ice.

Arctic ice getting thinner, fading fast

Ice in the ocean surrounding the Arctic is thinner than it's been in 30 years, and there's much less of it, say scientists who are monitoring the effects of climate change.

At the same time, another team of climate scientists is predicting from earlier data that the Arctic's ice cover has been melting so rapidly over the past few years that much of it could be gone within another three decades.

"Ice extent is an important measure of the health of the Arctic," said Walter Fowler of the University of California's Snow and Ice Data Center. "It is critical for animals that live on the ice and for the humans who use its resources for subsistence."

The 31st annual end-of-winter survey of Arctic sea ice conditions was reported Monday during a teleconference by researchers from NASA and the Snow and Ice Data Center, who monitor the ice continuously by satellite. Their assessment was not reassuring.

The ice that begins freezing every autumn over the vast ocean surrounding the pole is so thin it may last only a year. By contrast, ice that doesn't thaw during the spring and summer becomes perennial ice that grows thicker and thicker year by year.

By the end of February, the survey team found that ice cover over the far north had reached 5.85 million square miles this winter, representing the fifth-lowest area of ice cover since satellite surveys began in 1979, according to Walter Meier of the Snow and Ice Data Center.

This year, though, the cover is mostly thinner than normal and will not last the summer season, said Ronald Kwok of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Thin ice made up more than 70 percent of the total cover this winter, compared to 4o to 50 percent in the 1980s, according to Fowler.

The older thick ice - ice that lasts two years or longer - made up 30 to 40 percent of the Arctic ice cover in the 1980s, Kwok said, while this year it amounts to only 10 percent of the total.

The severity of the problem is underscored by the fact that all ice cover - thick or thin - reflects the sun's radiation back into space and keeps the ocean surface water cold, just the way white clothing on a sunny summer day keeps a human body cool.

But when the ice melts - as it is doing more and more each year in the Arctic - it opens up more stretches of the ocean's surface to absorb the sun's radiation. The result is a warmer ocean, which creates a "feedback loop" that speeds up the pace of global warming.

In the earlier report published in the current issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Muyin Wang of the University of Washington and James E. Overland of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle predicted that the entire Arctic could become nearly ice-free in less than 30 years.

The Arctic, they said, is losing sea ice far more rapidly than the world's experts had predicted in the last report from the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the agency whose members provide crucial data for government policy actions on global warming.

The rapid loss of Arctic sea ice over the three years from 2005 to 2008 marked "a new milestone," Wang and Overland said, and the warming ocean has caused summer air temperatures across the Arctic to rise by as much as 9 degrees Fahrenheit more than the IPCC had predicted, they said.

"We predict a nearly sea-ice-free Arctic in September (at the end of the melting season and the beginning of the next year's freeze) by the year 2037," the two climate scientists said.


Click to watch Video

Source

[Faithful]

A Critical Link: Biodiversity and Climate Change

According to the most recent UN assessment, 20-30 percent of the Earth's plant and animal species face extinction if global warming boosts average temperatures between 1.5 and 2.5 degrees Celsius. Most climate scientists think such warming is probable. We could lose countless species of plants, insects, and smaller animals, as well as some of our favorite mammals, including polar bears, whose habitats are literally melting away.

Scientists are only beginning to learn about the impact of global warming on the world's biodiversity hotspots - rainforests, wetlands, and coral reefs. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) says much of the Amazon rainforest and Australian Great Barrier Reef could be destroyed by unchecked global warming in the coming decades. Wetlands, coastal marshes, low-lying islands, mangroves, and coniferous forests are also sensitive to global warming.

"The reality is that we are already seeing ripples of change, not just terrestrial, but also in the oceans, because of coral bleaching and ocean acidification," says Thomas E. Lovejoy, president of the Washington D.C.-based Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment. "These are just now coming to light because nobody was looking for them before."

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a study by over a thousand international scientists released in 2005, found that climate change will also effect basic environmental "services" provided by nature. Forests and marshes are vital for air purification, fresh water, and regulation of the climate. Coral reefs are important breeding grounds for fish. Once they are gone, quality of life declines.

Biodiversity as a bulwark

Biodiversity and various ecosystems act as a natural defenses against the impacts of climate change. Drought-resistant crops can reduce the likelihood of famines triggered by lack of rainfall. Mangroves like the Sunderbans between India and Bangladesh provide shelter against an increasing number of typhoons and floods. According to the UN Environment Programme, ecosystems with more biodiversity are simply more persistent, and more likely to adapt to climate change.


Who's Next?

A Costa Rican blue jeans dart frog. Global warming is thought responsible for the disappearance of 17 amphibian species from Costa Rican jungles

One of the quickest ways to destroy biodiversity is deforestation. Cutting down forests also accounts for about 20 percent of all man-made carbon dioxide emissions, so slowing down the rate of deforestation could help contain runaway climate change and preserve ecosystems vital to the earth's carbon cycle.

Scientists have also found that once a forest has been cut down, precipitation decreases dramatically. Reforestation helps to stabilize the natural water cycle and subtract CO2 from the atmosphere, but once a virgin forest is destroyed, it can never return to its original splendor.

Financial incentives could be an important tool to prevent the loss of forests in places like Brazil and Indonesia. Without subsidisies, growing palm oil is more profitable for a local farmer than leaving the forest untouched. Once the soil is exhausted, he moves on to clear another patch of trees.



Avoided deforestation - money for nothing?

One solution is called avoided deforestation. Sean Southey, director of the UN's Equator Initiative, sees it as a good example of the interaction between climate change mitigation, biodiversity preservation, and poverty reduction. When local communities profit from sustainable practices, it makes economic sense for them to stop cutting down trees. International policies still largely ignore the connection between preserving biologically diverse forests and meeting climate objectives and the Millennium Development Goals.

"They're not letting people not cut down trees and get the benefit," says Southey of current international climate protection schemes. "So, you have cases of beautiful, largely untouched biodiversity being wiped out in Asia to grow new palm oil, which doesn't help meet any of the [Millennium Development] Goals." Southey is trying to promote a change of perspective. Preserving rainforest is a valuable service. Farmers who participate should be rewarded.

Source: A Critical Link: Biodiversity And Climate Change*|* Climate Impacts*|*Allianz Knowledge

[Orion]

Mediterranean pollution remains largely ignored
Lebanon among biggest polluters
By Dalila Mahdawi
Daily Star staff
Saturday, April 04, 2009


BEIRUT:Despite linking 21 countries and attracting a third of the world's annual tourism, the problems of pollution and overfishing in the Mediterranean Sea have remained largely overlooked, with environmentalists in Lebanon saying their government has not shown sufficient commitment to protecting the body of water.

Campaigners have long called for policies to combat pollution in the Mediterranean, but it was only after Israel's bombing of Lebanon's Jiyyeh power station during a 34-day conflict in 2006, which released 15,000 tons of unrefined fuel oil into the sea, that major efforts to clean up Lebanon's coastline began.

The oil spill, often referred to as Lebanon's biggest environmental disaster, affected approximately 150 kilometers of coastline, as well as Syria and Cyprus. But rather than sparking a sustained clean-up effort, the burdens of the Mediterranean were quickly forgotten again, campaigners say.

Decades of unsustainable coastal urbanization and unregulated dumping of untreated domestic and industrial waste have transformed the Mediterranean into one of the world's most polluted seas.

Some 57 percent of Lebanon's sewage water is "directly disposed of on the shores without any treatment whatsoever," the country's Green Party has said, noting some 28 industries also dumped their waste into the sea without treatment. It is unclear how accurate the figures are, however, as no national water management body exists.

"Lebanon is one of a few countries where nearly all sewage goes into the sea," said Ali Darwish, general secretary of environmental organization Greenline. An average Lebanese citizen consumes 80-100 liters of water every day, he said, meaning some 200,000 cubic meters of untreated sewage water found its way into the Mediterranean daily. These levels lead "the Center of Water Resources to consider the level of pollution of most beaches to be above the permissible level set by the World Health Organization," Greenpeace Lebanon has noted.

Aside from sewage, dumpsites dotting Lebanon's coastline also contribute to the Mediterranean's woes. The most notorious of these is the Sidon dump, which regularly collapses, sending tons of plastic bags and hospital and animal waste into the water. "Addressing the problems associated with dumpsites, and providing suitable alternatives through an integrated waste management strategy, including a network of sanitary landfill sites, waste recycling and composting, should clearly be a national priority," a 2007 UN Environment Program report, "Lebanon post-conflict Assessment," remarked.

Pollution also placed a burden on the national coffers. A 2005 report by the World Bank found pollution and degradation of Lebanon's coastlines and natural resources cost the country about $565 million every year. But according to Darwish, "the governments of Lebanon, since 1991, have rejected civil-society efforts to initiate plans to construct sewage treatment facilities" along the coast. "Lebanon has laws ensuring a minimum protection of the environment, so the government is clearly not fulfilling its duties."

Lebanon is party to the Convention for the Protection of the Mediterranean Sea against Pollution, which strives to eliminate land-based pollution sources and establish marine reserves, as well as the Convention for Biological Diversity, which stipulates that "marine and coastal protected areas should be part of a wider marine and coastal management framework."

However, little attention has been paid to the conventions. The country only has one marine reserve, instigated not by the government, but Greenpeace.

The reserve, a pilot project in Byblos, was initiated after extensive consultation with the local municipality and fishermen, said Greenpeace Lebanon's Ocean campaigner, Yasmin al-Helwe.

No fishing or dumping is allowed in the area: only swimming, environmentally friendly boating and diving. The reserve, encompassing 1.2 kilometers of sea, provides a clean and safe haven for fish to reproduce. Marine reserves are especially important at a time when over-fishing threatens to kill off hundreds of marine species, Helwe, said.

"If you talk to fishermen, they say that a decade ago, they would catch tons of fish." Today fishermen are lucky to catch even a fraction of that, she said, forcing many fishermen to employ destructive fishing techniques like dynamiting. The project has met with enthusiasm from the area's fishermen, who are keen to safeguard their livelihoods.

But a marine reserve had to be preceded by proper enforcement of environmental laws and the introduction of a national fresh and waste-water management strategy, said Darwish.

"What's the use [of marine reserves] when you have untreated and chemical waste being pumped into them?" he asked.

Daily Star

[Hye4Lebanon]

Lebanon is not the biggest polluter, the Lebanese are the biggest polluters and abusers of Lebanon's environment.

The question is...

What are YOU [the Lebanese citizen] going to do about it?

[Hye4Lebanon]

Here are 3 easy steps...

Reuse (possible in Lebanon), Reduce (absolutely possible in Lebanon) and Recycle (on its way to become a possibility).

Remember, you can always WALK and you don't have to park IN FRONT of a store.

Useful reading

[fado]

How about STOP THROWING GARBAGE OUT OF YOUR WINDOWS WHILE DRIVING YOUR CAR God that makes me so mad

[fado]

From The Times
March 12, 2009

Solar panels in the Sahara 'could power the whole of Europe'(Solar Systems/AP)


A solar power plant in the Mojave Desert

Lewis Smith, Environment Reporter, in Copenhagen:
All of Europe’s energy needs could be supplied by building an array of solar panels in the Sahara, the climate change conference has been told.

Technological advances combined with falling costs have made it realistic to consider North Africa as Europe’s main source of imported energy. By harnessing the power of the Sun, possibly in tandem with wind farms along the North African coastline, Europe could easily meet its 2020 target of generating at least 20 per cent of its energy from renewable sources.

“It [North Africa] could supply Europe with all the energy it needs,” Anthony Patt, of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, in Austria, told scientists. “The Sun is very strong there and it is very reliable.

“There is a growing number of cost estimates of both wind and concentrated solar power for North Africa that start to compare favourably with alternative technologies. The cost of moving \ long distances has really come down.”

Dr Patt said only a fraction of the Sahara, probably the size of a small country, needed to be covered to extract enough energy to supply the whole of Europe. He told the conference that calculations show that a £50 billion investment by governments over the next ten years would be enough to make Saharan solar power an attractive and viable prospect for private investors.

Solar power uses mirrors to focus the Sun’s rays at a thin pipe containing either water or salt. The rays boil the water or turn the salt molten and the energy is extracted by using the heat to power turbines.

Trials of concentrated solar power are being planned for Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Dubai. Libya and Tunisia could also be considered as sources of European electricity.

Receiving energy from North Africa would, the conference heard, reduce dependence on fossil fuels, which drive climate change by emitting carbon dioxide. The renewable source of energy would also mean that Europe relied less on Russia and the Middle East for fuel.

Attractive as Saharan solar power is, Dr Patt said, there remained the challenge of overcoming political hurdles, such as opposition from residents across Europe to having transmission cables installed near their homes. Piecemeal transmission networks were a further problem.
However, he was enthusiastic about the “fantastic wind resource” and the potential of putting wind farms along the North African coast. Winds created by the Sun heating the air are especially strong during the summer, when European wind turbines, including those in Britain, are at their least productive.

Source: Solar panels in the Sahara 'could power the whole of Europe' - Times Online


So what do you guys think about this new idea???

[Orion]

Beirut marathon aims to boost awareness of climate change

Lebanon's long-distance runners will compete in a half-marathon in Beirut next month- but they will be running for seeds rather than medals. Ten thousand runners are expected to take part in the HSBC sponsored Earthrace on the 26th April in an event designed to raise awareness of the climate change problem facing the planet. This is the first time that Beirut's annual half marathon has been dedicated to the issue....

Daily Star

[Orion]

Humans Halfway to Causing Dangerous Climate Change

When human injection of carbon into the atmosphere reaches 1 trillion tons, dangerous climate change with average global warming of more than 2 Celsius degrees will likely occur, a new analysis finds.

And humans are hurrying toward that 1 trillion mark. So far, We’ve added about 520 billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere. With the addition of an estimated 9 billion tons of carbon a year — a number that’s been growing since 1850 — dangerous warming is likely to occur within half a century.

That’s the message from a new paper in the journal Nature, which — along with half a dozen other papers in the issue — provides a simpler way of looking at the climate change problem. What matters is the total amount of carbon that we release into the atmosphere, and focusing on that number as a budget can shape the way policymakers look at the problem, argues Myles Allen, lead author of one of the papers and a climatologist at the University of Oxford.

“The important thing about the cumulative budget is that a ton of carbon is a ton of carbon. If we release it now, it’s a ton we can’t release in 40 years’ time. Every ton we put out is using up a ton of that atmospheric capacity,” Allen told Wired.com. “Reducing emissions steadily over 50 years is much cheaper and easier and less traumatic than allowing them to rise for 15 years and then reducing them violently for 35 years.”

Previous climate change efforts have tried to find the correct “stabilization level” for which to aim. Policymakers would try to craft scenarios showing that the world’s people should aim to peg the concentration of carbon dioxide at 350 or 450 or 550 parts per million. Beyond the scientific complexity of finding what that number should be — which Myles called “a nightmare” — the esoteric nature of those numbers made the climate problem difficult to communicate to populations across the world.

Allen hopes his team’s new analysis, along with a similar paper lead-authored by Malte Meinshausen of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, will let people look at the problem square on.

The numbers presented in their research are probabilistic. They look at different levels of carbon and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and try to assign the likelihood that a certain emissions level would equate to a temperature change across the Earth. The two papers use different periods of analysis and base cases, but they are broadly consistent in their findings that it’s the total amount of carbon added to the atmosphere that will determine the peak warming of the globe.

Where Allen’s team found that adding 480 billion tons of carbon from here on out would push the risk of 2 degrees of warming to over 50 percent, Meinshausen’s team found even more alarming results. The German team estimates that 310 billion tons is all that would be needed. Without policy changes, that means humans would hit dangerous warming levels in 20 years (Meinshausen) to 40 years (Allen) .

“The bottom line? Dangerous change, even loosely defined, is going to be hard to avoid,” write Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Science and David Archer, a geoscientist at the University of Chicago, in an accompanying commentary in Nature. “Unless emissions begin to decline very soon, severe disruption to the climate system will entail expensive adaptation measures and may eventually require cleaning up the mess by actively removing CO2 from the atmosphere.”

Forcing emissions to decline will require changing the way the world uses fossil fuels. In Allen’s view, humans can pull a trillion tons of carbon-rich fossil fuels out of the ground and burn them with risks that have been deemed acceptable by most people. But it’s the second trillion tons of fossil fuels, largely in the form of coal and oil shale, that will determine how recklessly humans play with the climate system.

“From all the incredible arcane arguments that go on, in the end, it’s really a very simple question: what are we going to do with the second trillion tons?” Allen asked.

Fossil-fuel–reserve estimates vary. While it’s clear that there is a lot of coal and oil shale on Earth, there is intense debate over how much of that fossil fuel will be economical to mine. Allen’s group used the World Energy Council’s estimates, which show nearly 6 trillion tons of fossil fuels still left to be mined. Other scientists believe that fossil fuel reserves could be much lower.

Source