Clipmarks | Silkweaver's 'global warming' clips

Top 10: Outrageous Dubai Construction Projects

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 18:15:10 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.askmen.com

No.10 - Hydropolis

Clip Source: www.askmen.com

No.9 - Burj Dubai

This skyscraper is currently the tallest man-made structure on the face of the planet.

Clip Source: www.askmen.com

No.8 - Dubai Sports City

Clip Source: www.askmen.com

No.7 - Dubailand

Clip Source: www.askmen.com

No.6 - Burj Al Alam

Clip Source: www.askmen.com

No.5 - Al Maktoum International Airport

Take the largest commuter airport in the world, combine it with the largest freight hub in the world, and then triple it.

Clip Source: www.askmen.com

No.4 - Falconcity of Wonders

They've decided to make replicas of the Seven Wonders of the World and throw in landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and the Leaning Tower of Pisa for good measure.

Clip Source: www.askmen.com

No.3 - Mall of Arabia

The Mall of Arabia will have 10,000,000 square feet of leasable shop space, surpassing the previous title holder for Largest Mall in the World.

Clip Source: www.askmen.com

No.2 - Business Bay

Clip Source: www.askmen.com

No.1 - The World Islands

Global warming may drown Florida and most coastlines

Dubai's answer? Build its own islands rising out of an ever-rising sea. The World Islands make up the only man-made archipelago, consisting of 300 islands. You can own the last one for $250 million.

Tags: architecture, dubai, urban design

Blue skies, scorched Earth? What is Global Dimming?

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 23:17:00 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: If we were to eliminate global dimming all together without addressing global warming the increase in temperature and extreme weather might be more significant than previously predicted. This has been recorded with one full degree temperature change in just a few days of decreased pollution in the days following the 9/11 attacks [Nature]. This reverse effect of dimming has been has been blamed along with global warming for increasing temperatures, appropriately called global brightening [Geophysical Research Letters]. No one wants smoggy skies but it could be smog and particulates that may be shielding us from the full consequences of the greenhouse gases we pump into our air daily. Clear blue skies are something many folks thinks of when they think of “going green” but those clear blue skies may hold more heat than we can handle.

Clip Source: azsustainability.com

With fierce storm after storm hitting the Caribbean and threatening our coasts this hurricane season seems to illuminate the ever more apparent effects of climate change

It is clearly necessary to work to decrease emissions that are contributing to climate change but what we may unknowingly be doing is exacerbating the problem by not fully understanding the complexity of the system.

Over the past 4 decades scientists have watched the global incoming solar radiation decrease by 12%

That is huge! Breaking it down for each continent the drops in sunlight recorded between the 1950s and 1990s are staggering.

With that you would expect that we should be cooling down, right?

but we are not cooling down, we continue to get warmer

With this in mind it may be that global dimming is masking or delaying the potentially far more extreme effects of global warming.

Particle pollution, like ash, soot, and sulfur dioxide, in the atmosphere is believed to be the culprit for global dimming.

[Video]

Tags: climate change

Is Planet-scale Geo-Engineering Needed to Reverse Global Warming?

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:48:40 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: "This puts a special responsibility on us to stay civilized and give refuge to the unimaginably large influx of climate refugees,' he said, adding that carrying on with 'business as usual' would probably kill most of us this century.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

James Lovelock,the controversial environmental scientist and Oxford professor who developed the Gaia hypothesis of the Earth as a self-regulating organism, warns humans may have to attempt planet-scale engineering of the climate because global warming is happening faster than experts have been predicting.

"Safe forms of 'geo-engineering' should be used if they can buy us a little time to adapt to a rapidly changing climate."

The startling new ideas Lovelock proposes range from artificially altering the climate range from using a constellation of trillions of space craft as a sun-shade or dust particles in the stratosphere to reflect solar energy to 'seeding' the oceans with iron particles to stimulate algae, which absorb CO2.

Scientists at Stanford University reported that a 2 per cent reduction in the amount of sunlight warming the Earth is more than enough to offset a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere, and suggested it would be possible to deflect sunlight from the Arctic

Tags: climate change, geo engineering

Is a "Little Ice Age" Imminent? -Maverick Scientists Say "Yes"

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:59:38 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: The idea is especially intriguing considering that most of the world is in preparation for global warming. Could we be preparing for the wrong scenario?

Geophysicist Phil Chapman, the first Australian to become an astronaut with NASA, notes that pictures from the US Solar and Heliospheric Observatory show that there are currently no spots on the sun. He believes this is the reason why the world cooled rapidly between January last year and January this year, by about 0.7C.

"This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record, and it puts us back to where we were in 1930," Dr Chapman writes in The Australian today. "If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over."

Sorokhtin believes that, in spite of the results of certain recent studies, lack of sunspots does indicate a coming cooling period. In fact, he calls manmade climate change "a drop in the bucket" compared to the cold brought on by inactive solar phases.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Evidence has mounted that global warming began in the last century and that humans are, at least in part, responsible.

The concern is that the warming of our climate will greatly affect its habitability for many species, including humans.

Evidence for abrupt climate change is readily found in ice cores taken from Greenland and Antarctica.

One of the best known examples of such an event is the Younger Dryas cooling of about 12,000 years ago

This event began and ended rather abruptly, and for its entire 1000 year duration the North Atlantic region was about 5°C colder.

Could something like this happen again? It sure could, and because the changes can happen all within one decade—we might not even see it coming.

Now an 11-year low in Sunspot activity has raised fears among a small number of scientists that rather than getting warmer, the Earth could possibly be about to return to another cooling period.

Tags: climate chnge, ice age

The cost of saving the planet: $190 Billion

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:12:22 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Make no mistake about it...

Clip Source: weirdandinteresting.blogspot.com

What would it cost to wipe out world poverty, guarantee universal health care, stabilise population growth and roll back the ravages of global warming?

About $190 billion a year, or the equivalent of a third of U.S. annual military expenditure, a prominent environmental economist says in a new book.

"Once you accept that climate change, population growth, spreading water shortages, rising food prices etcetera are threats to our security, it changes your whole way of thinking about how you use public resources," Lester Brown told Reuters in an interview.

From eradicating adult illiteracy to restoring fisheries and stabilising water tables, the head of the Earth Policy Institute think tank in Washington calculates the cost of saving civilisation in a new edition of his best-selling "Plan B".

The $190 billion price tag compares with $1.2 trillion that world governments spent on military budgets in 2006. The United States splurged the most with $560 billion.

Tags: planet, humanity, budget

Environmental Engineers Use Algae To Capture Carbon Dioxide

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:56:03 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Engineers have designed a simple, sustainable and natural carbon sequestration solution using algae.

A team at Ohio University created a photo bioreactor that uses photosynthesis to grow algae, passing carbon dioxide over large membranes, placed vertically to save space.

The carbon dioxide produced by the algae is harvested by dissolving into the surrounding water. The algae can be harvested and made into biodiesel fuel and feed for animals.

A reactor with 1.25 million square meters of algae screens could be up and running by 2010.

The latest international report says carbon dioxide responsible for 60 percent of the greenhouse gases.

Now engineers say a simple, sustainable and natural solution may come from algae.

"If this sort of technology can be developed, it can be deployed anywhere there's sunlight,"

Tags: global warming, environment

500 Billion Tons of Prehistoric Organic Matter May Massively Accelerate ‘Global Warming’

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:28:07 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: While some dismiss the 52-year-old as an alarmist crank, his theory is steadily gaining credibility in the scientific community. "There's quite a bit of truth in it," Julian Murton, member of the International Permafrost Association, told Reuters. "The methane and carbon dioxide levels will increase as a result of permafrost degradation."

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

For thousands of years animal waste, and other organic matter left behind on the Arctic tundra, have been sealed off from the environment by permafrost.

Now climate change is melting the permafrost and freeing mass quantities of prehistoric “ooze” from its state of suspended animation.

Russian scientist, Sergei Zimov, has been studying climate change in Russia's Arctic for 30 years now. He is worried that as this organic matter becomes exposed to the air it will drastically accelerate global warming predictions even beyond some of the most pessimistic forecasts.

"This will lead to a type of global warming which will be impossible to stop,"

microbes that have been dormant for thousands of years will spring back into action. They’ll begin once again to emit carbon dioxide and methane gas as a by-product.

"Permafrost areas hold 500 billion tons of carbon, which can fast turn into greenhouse gases

Tags: climate change, global warming, greenhouse gas

Global Warming Talks Leave Few Concrete Goals

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:33:50 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: I think I remain speechless about that

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Nearly everyone had something to cheer about on Wednesday after the major industrial powers and a big group of emerging nations pledged to pursue “deep cuts” in emissions of heat-trapping gases in coming decades

President Bush, who had insisted that any commitment to combat global warming must involve growing economies as well as the rich nations, recruited China and India to the table and received rare accolades from some environmentalists for doing so

But behind the congratulatory speeches on Wednesday, some experts said, was a more sobering reality

The documents issued by the participating countries had very few of the concrete goals needed to keep greenhouse gases from growing at their torrid pace

Group of 8 pledged to “move toward a carbon-free society” by seeking to cut worldwide emissions of heat-trapping gases in half by 2050

statement did not say whether that baseline would be emissions at 1990 levels, or the less ambitious baseline of current levels, already 25 percent higher

Tags: global warming, climate change, g8

The coming famine

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 01:27:23 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: "In light of all these hurdles, as I see it, the challenge is to double world food output by 2050 using less land, far less water and fewer nutrients – all in the teeth of increasing rates of drought. And we need to do it sustainably."

"I believe we are quite capable of solving these issues through good science and good policy. In the first instance, we need to massively increase global public investment in agricultural research and development. Then we need to make sure the fruits of that research reach farmers everywhere. I also think that commercial wild harvests, such as fishing and forestry, should be phased out in favour of sustainable farming that dovetails with the local environment."

Clip Source: www.cosmosmagazine.com

What's even scarier than global warming?

feeding the global appetite in an overpopulated, affluent and resource-scarce world could be the scientific challenge of the era

BARRING NUCLEAR WARS, pandemics and cosmic accidents, there will be about 9.1 billion people living in the world in 2050

Yet they will eat as much food as 13 billion people at today's nutritional levels.

The problem is that humanity is consuming more food, year-on-year, than it produces, especially as demand for high-protein food increases in high population developing countries like China and India.

cities are now taking up to half of the water that was once used to grow food

We're also losing land; we are building on it, eroding and degrading it

we lose

n estimated 1.1 billion tonnes of nutrients – through soil erosion and leaching

And if you thought those figures weren't alarming enough, then there's the issue thrown up by climate change

Tags: food crisis, sustainable resources

Louisiana passes first antievolution "academic freedom" law

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 00:00:51 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Ignorance now reigns again, in the name of "critical thinking", and "logical analysis". I tried hard, but I could not find an appropriate picture for this. Instead, just close your eyes, and see Darkness...

Clip Source: arstechnica.com

a number of states have been considering laws that, under the guise of "academic freedom," single out evolution for special criticism.

Most of them haven't made it out of the state legislatures, and one that did was promptly vetoed.

But the last of these bills under consideration, the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), was enacted by the signature of Governor Bobby Jindal yesterday.

The text of the LSEA suggests that it's intended to foster critical thinking, calling on the state Board of Education to "assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories."

Unfortunately, it's remarkably selective in its suggestion of topics that need critical thinking, as it cites scientific subjects "including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning."

Tags: evolution, creationism

Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:42:09 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

Hansen will use the symbolically charged 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking speech (pdf) to the US Congress - in which he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming - to argue that radical steps need to be taken immediately if the "perfect storm" of irreversible climate change is not to become inevitable.

Speaking before Congress again, he will accuse the chief executive officers of companies such as ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy of being fully aware of the disinformation about climate change they are spreading.

Tags: climate change, politics

Closing Ozone Hole Will Have Major Impact On Global Warming, And Probably Not For The Better

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:36:58 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: "Our results suggest that stratospheric ozone is important for the Southern Hemisphere climate change, and ought to be more carefully considered in the next set of IPCC model integrations," said Seok-Woo Son, lead-author of the study and a postdoctoral research scientist at Columbia's Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS).

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

A new study led by Columbia University researchers has found that the closing of the ozone hole, which is projected to occur sometime in the second half of the 21st century, may significantly affect climate change in the Southern Hemisphere, and therefore, the global climate.

The Earth's ozone layer is located in the lower stratosphere, which lies just above the troposphere (which begins at the planet's surface and reaches up to about 12 km), catching harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun.

Observations in the last few years indicate that ozone depletion has largely halted and is expected to fully reverse. As a consequence, the new study finds, the Southern Hemisphere climate change may also reverse. This would be a very tangible outcome of the Montreal Protocol, which has been called the single most successful international agreement to date, and would demonstrate how international treaties are able to make positive changes to the climate system.

Tags: climate change, ozone

Geo-Engineering for a Tailor-Made Planet

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 12:18:13 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Interesting. I have no doubt that some kind of weather control lays in our future.

Clip Source: cleantechnica.com

Geo-Engineering is “the deliberate modification of Earth’s environment on a large scale “to suit human needs and promote habitability”‘ (via Wikipedia). Until recently it was the stuff of science fiction, a god-like power regulated to unseen aliens or super-futuristic societies.

Yet with climate change and global warming sparking alarm across the globe, some scientists have started to explore the possibility of altering the natural environment on a global scale. Several strategies are outlined below:

geo-engineering scientists do not propose this as solutions to global warming, but as emergency measures to avert large-scale human suffering. The only reason it has been suggested that we consider implementing these strategies in the near future is because, in the view of Dr. Paul Crutzen, “there is little reason to be optimistic.” He was referring to current international political efforts to reduce greenhouse gasses.

Tags: climate change, geo-engineering

Large methane release could cause abrupt climate change

Thu, 29 May 2008 12:00:56 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: “This is a major concern because it’s possible that only a little warming can unleash this trapped methane. Unzippering the methane reservoir could potentially warm the Earth tens of degrees, and the mechanism could be geologically very rapid. Such a violent, zipper-like opening of the clathrates could have triggered a catastrophic climate and biogeochemical reorganization of the ocean and atmosphere around 635 million years ago.”

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

An abrupt release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, about 635 million years ago from ice sheets that then extended to Earth’s low latitudes caused a dramatic shift in climate, triggering a series of events that resulted in global warming and effectively ended the last “snowball” ice age, a UC Riverside-led study reports.

The researchers posit that the methane was released gradually at first and then in abundance from clathrates – methane ice that forms and stabilizes beneath ice sheets under specific temperatures and pressures.

“Our findings document an abrupt and catastrophic means of global warming that abruptly led from a very cold, seemingly stable climate state to a very warm also stable climate state with no pause in between,” said Martin Kennedy, a professor of geology in the Department of Earth Sciences, who led the research team.

Tags: global warming, climate change

Who gets to determine the "right" climate for the Earth?

Wed, 28 May 2008 22:32:36 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: As technology evolves, if we are to dodge global disaster(s), there comes a time when, as a specie, we will have to assume greater and greater responsibility regarding issues that till lately were decided for us by the arbitrary forces of nature. We stand no chance of a sane future unless we accept total responsibility for this planet and all its sentient and sub sentient inhabitants. This is to my mind the greatest challenge of the future.

Clip Source: www.openthefuture.com

We may broadly agree that the current climate -- warming, with chances of apocalypse -- is decidedly not the right one. After abundant political posturing and nationalist histrionics, we'll eventually get to the heavy lifting involved in dramatically reducing our carbon footprints, slowing and stopping the warming.

But as I've argued before, the politics of geoengineering will be at least as tricky as the science.

It's important to recognize that, because the climate is a complex system, even seemingly simple adjustments can have surprising (and even counter-intuitive) results, results that can and will vary significantly around the world. And if those results aren't as good for some regions as they are for others, you can be certain that -- in a world already riven by environmental and resource collapses -- we'll see arguments and potentially even conflict over the matter.

Tags: climate, global policy, politics of the future