Our Oceans are Under Attack

myark · Dec 3, 2014

Why Vegan? Environment climate change global warming pollution PETA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QqOsgQu54

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

pdwiley · Dec 3, 2014

ImaginaryNumber said: ↑

The Next Big Climate Question: Will India Follow China? | New York Times
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"But as climate negotiators meet in Lima, Peru, this week and next, and news reports are full of gloomy predictions that the negotiations will produce little, there are increasing signs that this stalemate may have been broken. This emerging shift is due in large part to China and its decision to break ranks and join the United States in making commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

Is the NY Times incompetent or merely pushing an agenda?

China has NOT made any commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In fact they have committed to INCREASING them until 2030 (IIRC) and only then will their increase taper off IF AND ONLY IF their industrialisation program is complete.

With utter rubbish like this being presented as fact, is it any wonder that the level of cynicism is so high?

I'm hoping India starts building a thorium plant or 2. That would be interesting, scientifically challenging, an engineering triumph and a positive step in GHG reduction combined. Wonder why none of the usual suspects are behind such a program?

PDW

myark · Dec 3, 2014

The hottest year ever around the world – in pictures

http://www.theguardian.com/environm...03/hottest-year-ever-around-world-in-pictures

These striking images capture the effects of extreme weather around the world in 2014, a year that saw record average temperatures from Australia to Europe

ImaginaryNumber · Dec 4, 2014

Climate change could create more stable grassland in Wyoming | Star Tribune

The effects of climate change could lead to more stable grasslands in Wyoming, according to a recent study conducted northwest of Cheyenne...

“Understanding that across dry years that the production is going to remain fairly stable and that other species are going to produce most of the biomass is going to be helpful when thinking about the digestibility and productivity of different grasses,” Zelikova said.

Under exposure to high temperatures and high levels of CO2, dominant grass species gave way to less dominant species, creating a uniform ecosystem, according to the study.

Researchers found that the most resistant grasslands were those subjected to elevated CO2 conditions.

Dana Blumenthal, a USDA ecologist, said elevated CO2 levels boost plants' water-use efficiency. He said that finding could be the most important of the group’s work. “It does quite a bit to improve water-use efficiency of the species here and counteract the drying effects of warming,” he said.

The eight-year experiment also found a heightened prevalence of invasive plant species under elevated CO2 conditions. Blumenthal said not all changes in grassland composition would be positive for wildlife managers and ranchers.

The group did not directly test the effects of grazing on grasslands competing with climate change. Introducing livestock would have a significant impact on the dynamic of grasslands, Zelikova said..
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ImaginaryNumber · Dec 4, 2014

This West Antarctic region sheds a Mount Everest-sized amount of ice every two years, study says | Washington Post

...Things, however, are beginning to change — and change faster than anyone anticipated, according to a new study published in the Geophysical Research Letters. Despite its formidable lineage, the Amundsen Sea is widely recognized as the weakest link in the West Antarctic’s splintering chain of ice sheets. But only now is it becoming clear just how fast change is coming.

There, the melting rate tripled in the past decade. Since 1992, the researchers found, the loss rate accelerated by 6.1 gigatons per year. Between 2003 and 2009, that rate nearly tripled to 16.3 gigatons per year. That surge in the melt rate, according to scientists at the University of California at Irvine, means the region, in the past 21 years, shed a Mount Everest-sized amount of ice every two years...

The reason it’s so vulnerable: Ocean currents circulate in substantially warmer water, which thins the “grounding lines” holding glaciers to a sub-sea bed, which keeps them from escaping into the sea. A rupture in that grounding line would unleash a “chain reaction” leading to the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, a NASA release recently said. “[As] ocean heat eats away at the ice, the grounding line retreats inland and ice shelves lose mass. When ice shelves lose mass, they lose the ability to hold back inland glaciers from their march to the sea. … In this equation, more ice flows to sea every year and sea level rises.”

Scientists now have warned there’s no stopping the ice sheet’s collapse. “We feel it is at the point that it is … a chain reaction that’s unstoppable,” a separate University of California Irvine scientist, Eric Rignot, said in May. ” Another researcher added: “That idea that this is unstoppable has been around since the 1970s. We’ve finally hit this point where we have enough observation to put this together.”...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz8_wv7DHv4

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myark · Dec 4, 2014

Want to combat climate change? Eat less meat
"Preventing catastrophic warming is dependent on tackling meat and dairy consumption"

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/04/want_to_combat_climate_change_eat_less_meat/

A new report from English think tank Chatham House indicates that limiting meat consumption is a vital aspect of any plan to stop climate change, but governments and NGOs are too scared of angry consumers to start advocating the move.
“Preventing catastrophic warming is dependent on tackling meat and dairy consumption, but the world is doing very little,

ImaginaryNumber · Dec 5, 2014

CO2 Takes Just 10 Years to Reach Planet’s Peak Heat |

In a study that could have important ramifications on estimating the impacts, costs and benefits of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, new research shows that CO2 brings peak heat within a decade of being emitted, with the effects then lingering 100 years or more into the future.

The research, published Wednesday in Environmental Research Letters, provides policymakers and economists with a new perspective on how fast human carbon emissions heat the planet. Back-of-the-envelope estimates for how long it takes for a given puff of CO2 to crank up the heat have generally been from 40-50 years. But the new study shows that the timeframe for CO2 emissions to reach their maximum warming potential is likely closer to 10 years.

“The way we talk about climate change is often, ‘oh, we’re really making emissions cuts for the sake of our children or grandchildren because the effects won’t be felt for decades. But the implications are that there’s certainly benefits that can be reaped by people making decisions today,” Katharine Ricke, a research fellow from Stanford who led the study, said. “The difference for an economist or a policymaker between something that happens 10 years from now or 40 years from now is a big deal.”...

But the maximum warming impact of CO2 is only a single note in an otherwise long symphony of climate change. Ricke and her collaborator, Ken Caldeira, created 6,000 projections using advanced climate models to test when CO2 emissions increased warming and to see how long those impacts lasted. Their results confirm something scientists have long said: that the warming effects of CO2 emissions will linger for decades and even centuries...

He also warned that low probability/high impact events such as a rapid release of methane currently stored in permafrost provide as much, if not a greater, urgency to reduce emissions...

“It takes only a few years for the climate to respond to emissions, but it takes a generation, at least, to change the emissions. We are slow, not the climate,” he said.

The warming impact of CO2 after it's emitted through 100 years.
Credit: Ricke and Caldeira, 2014
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ImaginaryNumber · Dec 5, 2014

Household Carbon Footprint Calculator | Carbon Credit Capital

Welcome to the Household Carbon Footprint Calculator

This advanced carbon foot print calculator can determine the greenhouse gas emissions for you and your household. It is accurate, comprehensive and up-to-date. It covers emissions from air travel, car, public transportation, home energy use, diet, goods and services and waste. You can do each section in any order.

Put your zipcode

Zipcode:
State you live in: -

This zipcode is used to calculate your greenhouse gas emissions in some sections.

Next ››
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myark · Dec 5, 2014

When Will Earth Run Out of Food?

Left unchecked, climate change aligned with population explosion and low agricultural yields will drastically increase global poverty and hunger over the next two decades, warns the international aid organization Oxfam in a report released today (May 31).

The prices of staple foods such as corn and rice will speed up their ascent, Oxfam predicts, and will climb by 180 percent and 130 percent, respectively, by the year 2030

In a world where the poorest people now spend as much as 80 percent of their incomes on food the average Filipino spends proportionally four times more on sustenance than the average British person, for example drastic food scarcities and price hikes will likely push many struggling populations into hunger and, potentially, starvation.

http://www.livescience.com/33311-food-prices-global-hunger-skyrocket-2030-oxfam-warns.html

ImaginaryNumber · Dec 6, 2014

Understand faulty thinking to tackle climate change | New Scientist

DANIEL KAHNEMAN is not hopeful. "I am very sorry," he told me, "but I am deeply pessimistic. I really see no path to success on climate change."

Kahneman won the 2002 Nobel prize in economics for his research on the psychological biases that distort rational decision- making. One of these is "loss aversion", which means that people are far more sensitive to losses than gains. He regards climate change as a perfect trigger: a distant problem that requires sacrifices now to avoid uncertain losses far in the future. This combination is exceptionally hard for us to accept, he told me.

Kahneman's views are widely shared by cognitive psychologists. As Daniel Gilbert of Harvard University says: "A psychologist could barely dream up a better scenario for paralysis."...

Which points to the real problem: climate change is exceptionally amorphous. It provides us with no defining qualities that would give it a clear identity: no deadlines, no geographic location, no single cause or solution and, critically, no obvious enemy. Our brains scan it for the usual cues that we use to process and evaluate information about the world, but find none. And so we impose our own. This is a perilous situation, leaving climate change wide open to another of Kahneman's biases – an "assimilation bias" that bends information to fit people's existing values and prejudices...

There is a great deal of research showing that people respond to reminders of death with aggressive assertion of their own group identity. Dickinson argues that political polarisation and angry denial found around climate change is consistent with this "terror management theory". Again, there is a complex relationship between our psychology and the narratives that we construct to make sense of climate change.

For all of these reasons, it is a mistake to assume that the scientific evidence of climate change will flow directly into action – or, conversely, that climate denial can be dismissed as mere misinformation. The systems that govern our attitudes are just as complex as those that govern energy and carbon, and just as subject to feedbacks that exaggerate small differences between people. The problem itself is far from perfect and the situation is not hopeless, but dealing with it will require a more sophisticated analysis of human cognition and the role of socially shared values in building conviction.
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ImaginaryNumber · Dec 6, 2014

Obama Wants Kids to Learn About Global Warming | US News & World Report

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy on Wednesday announced it will launch a new initiative aimed at climate education and literacy that will distribute science-based information – in line with the administration's position on the issue – to students, teachers and the broader public.

Educators, government officials, philanthropic leaders and those from the private sector will participate in a roundtable discussion at the White House Wednesday. The participants will focus on how to spread more resources to teachers and increase professional development and training related to climate change for educators, federal employees and informal educators, such as those working in national parks, museums, aquariums or botanic gardens. ...

With many states transitioning to the Next Generation Science Standards, opposition to issues such as climate change and evolution has resurfaced with a new intensity. At least 12 states and the District of Columbia have adopted the standards, which place an increased emphasis on the controversial topics and were developed by a group of national science and education organizations – including one also involved in developing the Common Core State Standards. ...
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Yobarnacle · Dec 6, 2014

I promised this photo couple months ago.
Foot isn't quite in my mouth. Hurried picture shooter wouldn't wait till my foot reached my chin.
Nearly there though.
Good health from balanced diet.

Yobarnacle · Dec 6, 2014

Combat climate change? hahahahaha
Been occurring since the world was made.
Man can't even forecast weather accurately.
You're kidding, right?

myark · Dec 6, 2014

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/05/cru...of_untreated_waste_into_the_oceans_this_year/

Cruise ships dumped over 1 billion gallons of untreated waste into the oceans this year.

The 2014 Cruise Ship Report Card has sobering information about cruise ships and the environment

Federal law requires that cruise ships only dump treated wastewater if they are within three nautical miles of shore. But beyond that point, it’s essentially a free-for-all.

FOE also cites data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which shows “an average cruise ship with 3,000 passengers and crew produces about 21,000 gallons of sewage a day — enough to fill 10 backyard swimming pools in a week. That adds up to more than one billion gallons a year for the industry.” FOE also acknowledges this is likely “a conservative estimate,” because newer ships can carry up to 8,000 passengers and crew members, and because their analysis does not cover all ships and fleets worldwide.

hoytedow · Dec 6, 2014

Every time a volcano farts the climate changes. Try to fight that.

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Our Oceans are Under Attack

myark Senior Member

pdwiley Senior Member

myark Senior Member

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ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

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Yobarnacle Senior Member holding true course

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Yobarnacle Senior Member holding true course

myark Senior Member

hoytedow Fly on the Wall - Miss ddt yet?

Kids facing the Oceans Plastic Cleanup Problem

what if I got stuck in a thunderstorm ?

Any RIB owner/operators willing help an undergraduate engineering team?

There's a Depreciation Schedule for Underwear...

Russia sees huge arctic oil fields under the sea.

painted battery box and underwater extensions

Understanding Wave Height, Swell height and Fetch.

Question for friends down under.

Underwater logging?

Benelli lift theory under question