Our Oceans are Under Attack

Breakthrough in hydrogen-powered cars may spell end for petrol stations

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...y-spell-end-for-petrol-stations-10158400.html
100 per cent of the sugar stored in corn stover can be converted into hydrogen gas with no overall increase in carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere

Scientists have dramatically increased the efficiency of producing clean hydrogen fuel from plant waste in a breakthrough that could one day lead to petrol stations being replaced by a network of roadside “bioreactors” for refuelling cars.

A study funded by Shell Oil has shown that it is possible to convert all 100 per cent of the sugar stored in corn stover – the stalks, cobs and husks leftover in a harvested maize field – into hydrogen gas with no overall increase in carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere.

The researchers perfected the process by mixing the raw biomass with a watery solution containing a cocktail of ten enzymes that turned the plant sugars xylose and glucose into hydrogen and carbon dioxide, said Professor Percival Zhang of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Previously it has only been possible to convert between 30 per cent and 60 per cent of the plant’s sugars into hydrogen using either fermenting microbes or industrial catalysts. However, the latest technique converts 100 per cent of the plant sugars into hydrogen, Professor Zhang said.

 

Global warming, over fishing, polluting the oceans and atmosphere destruction are not the only worry human have, living beyond the means of earths resources or earthlings fragile pockets for the imminent economic crisis.

14 Signs That Most Americans Are Flat Broke And Totally Unprepared For The Coming Economic Crisis

http://www.talkmarkets.com/content/...red-for-the-coming-economic-crisis?post=59472

 

Are we reaching a positive climate change tipping point?

http://www.theguardian.com/environm...ching-a-positive-climate-change-tipping-point

A quiet revolution? China is planning to have more than double the wind power capacity of the whole of Europe within the next five years. Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters

It is hard enough to identify tipping or “inflection” points when you are consciously looking, like monitoring the so-called known unknowns of future forest die-back, deep-sea methane release, ice melt and sea level rise. Worse, in complex systems, are the unknown unknowns. All you have is nebulous worry. It’s why we are supposed to obey the precautionary principle relating to any activity which at scale is capable of altering whole systems.

But this is only half the story, because when something tips, it might well fall to the floor and smash but it might also fall comfortably into your lap. It’s possible we have become so hypnotised by real and serious negative tipping points, that we’ve forgotten that things can turn out unexpectedly well too.

While fish populations and financial markets might suddenly collapse around their complacent human overseers, iron curtains and regimes can fall with just as little warning. Societies can dramatically change course to take collective responsibility, cancel each others’ debts, care for each other and pull together in the face of great challenges. All the political parties in the UK election are fighting over the future of the NHS. It emerged dramatically as a bold new social commitment to mutual care in the immediate shadow of financial market failure and years of brutal conflict. At its weakest point the UK took its boldest step. Beneath the surface, the experience of those years had changed people, making big change possible, acceptable and desirable.

Now, in spite of everything, are we approaching just such a positive inflection point in the face of climate change?

 

http://www.wired.com/2015/04/us-cities-follow-paris-160m-plan-boost-cycling/

Paris has a pollution problem. Instead of the smoke from Gauloise cigarettes and the aroma of freshly baked bread, the air is packed with smog, an issue that got so bad one day last month, the city forcibly halved traffic by allowing only cars with odd-number plates to drive.

Paris is working toward less authoritarian, more considered solutions, including a program that gives drivers up to $11,400 if they trade in an old diesel for an electric car. It changed its public transit fare system to charge passengers equally, whether they’re staying in the city center or commuting in from the far suburbs.

And this week, the City of Lights unveiled a bold, $164 million plan to make itself “the cycling capital of the world” by 2020. The goal of the plan, which goes to the city council for approval April 13, is to triple the share of all trips made by bike from 5 to 15 percent. To get there, in the next five years, it wants to double its network of bike lanes to 870 miles (partly by making many lanes two-way) and drop speed limits on many streets to 18 mph. It would create 10,000 secure bike parking spaces and offer financial incentives for those buying electric and conventional bikes.

Becoming the cycling capital of the world may be out of reach—cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen are well ahead of Paris when it comes to share of trips made by bike—but the plan deserves credit for both for its scale and its scope. And there’s plenty American cities can learn from it, says Evan Corey, a senior associate at transportation planning firm

 

I can not see any reason why there should be any debate if the climate is changing,nothing can remain static, the climate and everything has, and always will change and so will the whole Universes how many there may be.

Humans must have some influence (very likely) in climate change so must all evolving creatures and plants. Humans can recognize what they do as damaging to the environment and there is no need to continue wasteful activities.

If Humans do nothing nature will do it with horrible certainty.
No Politician is going to suggest population control for fear of becoming very unpopular
with the Religious and Cultural fanatics so we will have to suffer the consequences no doubt.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/apr/08/can-world-economy-survive-without-fossil-fuels

The past three centuries of progress have been powered by coal, oil and gas. Burning much of what’s left will lead to environmental and economic catastrophe. Here’s how to save the earth without giving up on growth

The final chapters of The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell’s 2014 novel, describe a future in which progress has gone into reverse. In 2043, the fossil fuel age is over: nuclear power stations ar e melting down, there is no access to the electricity grid and solar panels are so prized that they are looted. Catastrophic climate change has become a reality. Rising sea levels have caused floods on the New York City subway, killing thousands. Internet coverage is patchy, food and consumer goods are scarce, and life‑saving drugs such as insulin are hard to come by.

The argument for divesting from fossil fuels is becoming overwhelming

It is a dystopian vision that looks like a brutal, dangerous version of the past – one not at all like the future that was promised when the cold war ended with victory for the western capitalist model. If it comes to pass, it will be because, despite all the warnings, climate change has not been taken seriously enough.

Here is one such warning: “For generations, we have assumed that the efforts of mankind would leave the fundamental equilibrium of the world’s systems and atmosphere stable. But it is possible that with all these enormous changes – population, agricultural, use of fossil fuels – concentrated into such a short period of time, we have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of this planet itself.” That was Margaret Thatcher, in a speech to Britain’s scientific elite in 1988. Thatcher was no climate change denier. She told the Royal Society that her government supported the idea of sustainable economic development, and concluded: “Stable prosperity can be achieved throughout the world, provided the environment is nurtured and safeguarded. Protecting this balance of nature is therefore one of the great challenges of the late 20th century.”

 

Exposing the Meat Industry's Major Role in Causing California's Water Crisis

http://www.alternet.org/environment...s-major-role-causing-californias-water-crisis

A documentary contends livestock is the leading cause of deforestation, water consumption and pollution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV04zyfLyN4

As California experiences a massive drought, we examine the overlooked link between water shortages, climate change and meat consumption. With some 98 percent of the state suffering from a water crisis, California Gov. Jerry Brown ordered residents and businesses to cut water use by 25 percent. It is the first mandatory statewide reduction in California’s history. One group not facing restrictions is big agriculture, which uses about 80 percent of California’s water. According to The Pacific Institute, 47 percent of a Californians’ water footprint is in meat and dairy products. We are joined by Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn, directors of the documentary, "Cowspiracy: the Sustainability Secret." The film contends livestock is the leading cause of deforestation, water consumption and pollution despite many environmental organizations’ relative silence on the issue.

 

More bad news for polar bears, and it’s not climate change | TreeHugger.com

 

Warming is over

more data

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/J...arming-carbon-emissions/2015/04/09/id/637524/

 

Sanford blames warming sea for Christchurch plant closure

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/ind...es-warming-sea-for-christchurch-plant-closure

Seafood processor Sanford has linked warmer sea to the likely closure of its mussel plant employing 232 people in Christchurch.

Chief executive Volker Kuntzsch said higher ocean temperatures had affected the growth of its farmed mussels in the Marlborough Sounds and its supply of wild, young mussel spats that it harvests from other places for future stock.

All fishing companies operating along the northern South Island coastline were finding and growing fewer mussels and it seemed to be linked to different weather, he said.

Recent El Nino and La Nina weather cycles had warmed the ocean and made the loss of mussels "much more pronounced than usual".

Normally weather-related problems did not get "worse and worse" like this, Kuntzch said.The long-term outlook for consistently high spat-growth in the wild was " a little grim", he said.

Sanford staff shucking mussels at the threatened Matipo St, Riccarton plant in Christchurch had been on unpredictable shifts of two to five days a week for "a long time", he said.

The listed company could no longer be sure whether it would be "open every single week for the next six months" and was no longer prepared to ride out this much uncertainty.

The seafood industry was seeing the effect of warmer seas, from Kingfish being found around Stewart Island to an unusual number of salmon dying at a New Zealand King Salmon farm in the Marlborough Sounds.

 

Western Canada to lose 70 per cent of glaciers by 2100 | University of British Columbia

 

How much fossil fuel has been extracted since you arrived at this page? Or since you were born? The numbers below highlight the staggering amount of oil, coal and gas we take out of the ground – and how quickly change is needed

http://www.theguardian.com/environm...0/how-much-fossil-fuel-are-we-using-right-now

 

Thailand needs to act as Bangkok sinks faster

http://www.dw.de/thailand-needs-to-act-as-bangkok-sinks-faster/a-16739739

Thailand's capital Bangkok has been sinking for years and time is running out to tackle the problem. As the ground continues to subside by 3 centimeters (1.2 inches) a year, scientists say action is urgent.

According to Sanitwong, more than 50 percent of the sinking has been caused by the tapping of groundwater by industry. Although the practice has been banned, it still goes on. The sheer weight of all the modern buildings that fill the Bangkok skyline are also contributing to the problem.

"Nobody is taking the lead in the government. They are only looking at the next election. And people don't like to hear this. The government has to consider business interests, it also wants to attract more tourists. So they don't want people to talk about anything that is negative."

Created and undone by climate change?

"A thousands years ago, all of Bangkok was flood land," Sanitwong explains, pointing out that the 230-year-old city itself only exists because of historic climate change.

"Somehow over a certain period, we had more than average strong winds and waves. Those strong winds and waves from the sea moved the sand and soil and accumulated in this area and it became Bangkok."

The city is therefore particularly sensitive to any alterations in the climate and seriously at risk should anything change again.

"We believe we are in the phase where we have less strong winds and storms in this particular area. So thus no more mechanism to bring in the sediments and the clay from the sea, the ocean," Sanitwong warns.

And that means Bangkok is also threatened by the rising sea level.

 

“..Earth’s worst mass extinction solved – and it’s scary for us now..”

http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/67688888/Earths-worst-mass-extinction-solved-and-its-scary-for-us-now

It is one of science's enduring mysteries: what caused the worst mass extinction in Earth's history. And, no, it is not the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.

Scientists said on Thursday that huge amounts of carbon dioxide spewed from colossal volcanic eruptions in Siberia may have turned the world's oceans dangerously acidic 252 million years ago, helping to drive a global environmental calamity that killed most land and sea creatures.

The researchers studied rocks in the United Arab Emirates that were on the seafloor at the time and contained a detailed record of the changing ocean conditions at the end of the Permian period.
"This is one of the few cases where we have been able to show that an ocean acidification event happened in deep time," said University of Edinburgh geoscientist Rachel Wood, one of the researchers in the study published in the journal Science.

"This is significant because we believe our modern oceans are becoming similarly acidic," Wood added. "These findings may help us understand the threat posed to marine life by modern-day ocean acidification."

Various hypotheses have been offered to explain the mass extinction that exceeded even the one 65 million years ago caused by an asteroid impact that erased the dinosaurs and many other animals. The researchers said ocean acidification had long been suspected but no direct evidence had been found until now.

 

Power to the people: bring on the superbattery

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/11/super-battery-elon-musk-tesla-renewable-energy

Efficient storage of electricity, especially from renewable sources, is the holy grail of the energy industry. And Elon Musk could have a gamechanger up his sleeve…

For some time, Musk has been building a huge factory to make such batteries and he is widely believed to be planning a major announcement on 30 April. Until recently, most people assumed that his new factory would be making improved batteries merely for powering electric vehicles.

But if the rumour mill is correct, Musk has set his sights higher – on new battery technology that would make it possible efficiently to store the quantities of electric power needed to run modern homes. If he has indeed managed to do something like that, then it would be a game-changer on an epochal scale.

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand why. Our global future depends on finding a way of generating electricity without burning ever more fossil fuel or building nuclear power stations at an improbable rate. We know how to generate electricity with so-called renewable sources – wind power and solar cells, for example. The problem is that renewable sources have variable outputs and presently don’t provide the stable, baseline electrical supply on which society depends. (Harnessing tidal power or nuclear fusion might do it but they’re still a long way off.) But what if we had a way of storing the power that flows from renewables when they are generating so that we could have it available when they aren’t?

The rational response to the rumours about Musk’s announcement is to be sceptical. There’s no pure technological fix for global warming. And a lot of smart people have been trying to design better batteries for decades and progress to date has been agonisingly slow, but maybe things are suddenly changing. Last week, for example, researchers at Stanford reported that they had developed a rechargeable aluminium-based battery that can safely charge a smartphone in one minute, which is good news to this columnist, whose phone ran out of juice the other day when he was using it to navigate the wilds of Scotland. If Musk can do this kind of thing on a larger scale, then things really will be looking up.

I say that with feeling because, just as I was typing that sentence, my laptop ran out of charge.