Scripps Institute of Oceanography projects that next month its monitoring station will for the first time measure CO2 at
400 parts per million. Atmospheric CO2 has risen from 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution. 400 ppm is an arbitrary milestone that we'll blow right past on our way to 450 ppm within a few decades. This is an unprecedentedly fast rate of increase and it's getting faster. Not all measuring stations are exactly the same: A NOAA station in the Arctic measured
CO2 at 400 ppm last year. [more inside]
posted by Sleeper
on Apr 25, 2013 -
127 comments
Have you ever been in a room with lots of people and not great ventilation. Or even a room with normal ventilation. You may be cognitively impaired due to elevated levels of CO2 once considered safe now thought enough to
make you a little dumb. 600ppm is now thought too much, but “there are plenty of buildings where you could easily see 2,500 ppm of CO2 — or close to it — even with ventilation designs that are fully compliant with current standards.. classrooms frequently exceed 1,000ppm."
[more inside]
posted by stbalbach
on Oct 18, 2012 -
50 comments
While the
2007 IPCC report showed Arctic sea-ice still present in 2100, it is now an
unfolding "global disaster" according to Cambridge Professor
Peter Wadhams. Climate Code Red summarizes the science, saying the sea-ice is "in a 'death spiral' and likely to be gone in summer within a few years" ... "The sea-ice volume is now down to just one-fifth of what it was in 1979", and paints a newly emerging, rapidly worsening
climate picture, urging climate scientists to sound the alarm on new data showing a world on the brink of dramatic tipping points, far sooner than anyone anticipated
posted by crayz
on Sep 18, 2012 -
215 comments
Alain Goeppert, G. K. Surya Prakash, chemistry Nobel Laureate George A. Olah and colleagues have co-authored a paper (doi:
10.1021/ja2100005) in the
Journal of the American Chemical Society describing a novel, cheap material that scrubs CO2 from ambient air, even at the very low concentrations of the atmosphere. The material is easily manufactured, and carbon captured is readily removed from the polymer, allowing recycling of the polymer and sequestration of the carbon. The researchers, co-authors of
Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy regard this as more than simply a technique for decreasing the carbon emissions of industrial processes and fossil-fuel burning machines, but as possibly an energy-carrier, by using the "catalytic hydrogenation of CO2 with H2 where the hydrogen has been obtained from water electrolysis (
wiki).
Articles:
ScienceDaily,
SciAm.
posted by bumpkin
on Jan 6, 2012 -
29 comments
80 percent of Americans say global warming is real and poses a threat to humanity. Which is good because if the global temperature raises by
4 degrees we're all dead. However only 44 percent would be willing to face any financial hardship in the name of a solution.
posted by Artw
on Aug 10, 2008 -
89 comments
Want to know what actions can have the biggest impact on your carbon emissions?
Bloom helps you choose actions tailored to your home and lifestyle, then lets you compare them by how much CO2 they save and how cheap they are. With
background guides for recycling, organic foods, energy ratings, and emissions. From the BBC.
posted by netbros
on Jul 13, 2008 -
15 comments
Sucking CO2 out of the air has long been a holy grail for solving global warming; Richard Branson has promised $25m to anyone who succeeds. Of course it's already been done, but the amount of energy required doesn't make it net carbon positive. Now a team in Arizona, led by
Klaus Lacknet under the company of
Global Research Technologies, says it has made a
significant breakthrough that massively reduces the amount of energy required - the "project has reached the stage where it is quite clear we can do it." The planned prototype, which will be finished in two years, will cost $200,000 USD, be smaller than a shipping container and be capable of eliminating around 1 ton of CO2. Even if it works many hurdles remain but it portends a cooler future for air-capture technology.
posted by stbalbach
on Jun 9, 2008 -
76 comments
Livestock's Long Shadow, a new UN FAO report (
full report) says livestock (cows, pig, sheep, etc.) generate more CO2 than all forms of transportation (cars, planes, etc) combined, with the worlds live stock expected to double by 2050.
posted by stbalbach
on Dec 11, 2006 -
34 comments
Will algae defeat global warming? "Fed a generous helping of CO2-laden emissions, courtesy of the power plant's exhaust stack, the algae grow quickly... The cleansed exhaust bubbles skyward, but with 40 percent less CO2... The algae is harvested daily and a combustible vegetable oil is squeezed out: biodiesel".
posted by reklaw
on Apr 14, 2006 -
55 comments
CO2 'highest for 650,000 years' Current levels of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere are higher now than at any time in the past 650,000 years. (Found via
Treehugger)
Sounds like it's time to buy that lovely oceanfront property in Kansas.
posted by Mr Bluesky
on Nov 26, 2005 -
38 comments
Cool! Toronto's Deep Lake Water Cooling System was launched today. The system cuts electricity consumption in commercial buildings by 75 per cent by drawing near-freezing water through pipes extending five kilometres out into Lake Ontario. According to the
city, the system will save enough power to service more than 100 Toronto office towers or 4,200 homes per year, and it will eliminate 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Here's a public television segment explaining the process. Seems like it makes a nice complement to the lakeshore
windmill.
posted by stonerose
on Aug 17, 2004 -
48 comments
China pops back a collective Beano. (NY Times link. Free registration required.)
One of Bush's main objections to the Kyoto protocol is China's exemption from regulation, but it seems they're doing their collective best to cut down on CO2 emissions, with success.
Even with China's rapid rate of expansion, this weakens our administration's argument a bit by setting forward the number of years it will take China to match our own emissions. At what point do we start to play nice with the other kids?
posted by dong_resin
on Jun 16, 2001 -
8 comments
