Group items tagged

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are those who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will.                                                                                                                         --Frederick Douglass 1857

on September 4th, give up food for a day, And Send a powerful message on global warming.

Register for the fast>> Find a faster near you>> ESSAY: No Time for Activism as Usual>>

The 12 tipping points are: 1. Amazon Rainforest 2. North Atlantic Current 3. Greenland Ice Sheet 4. Ozone Hole 5. Antarctic Circumpolar Current 6. Sahara Desert 7. Tibetan Plateau 8. Asian Monsoon 9. Methane Clathrates 10. Salinity Valves 11. El Nino 12. West Antarctic Ice Sheet

A 2005 study by Anthony Leiserowitz, published in Risk Analysis, found that while most Americans are moderately concerned about global warming, the majority—68 percent—believe the greatest threats are to people far away or to nonhuman nature. Only 13 percent perceive any real risk to themselves, their families, or their communities. As Leiserowitz points out, this perception is critical, since Americans constitute only 5 percent of the global population yet produce nearly 25 percent of the global carbon dioxide emissions.

12 ASTEROIDS AND EVOLVING INTO WISDOM IN 2004, JOHN SCHELLNHUBER, distinguished science adviser at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the United Kingdom, identified 12 global-warming tipping points, any one of which, if triggered, will likely initiate sudden, catastrophic changes across the planet. Odds are you've never heard of most of these tipping points, even though your entire genetic legacy—your children, your grandchildren, and beyond—may survive or not depending on their status.

In addition to having high global warming potentials, SF6 and PFCs have extremely long atmospheric lifetimes, resulting in their essentially irreversible accumulation in the atmosphere once emitted (see below).

The definition of a GWP for a particular greenhouse gas is the ratio of heat trapped by one unit mass of the greenhouse gas to that of one unit mass of CO2 over a specified time period.

While the most current estimates for GWPs are listed in the IPCC's Third Assessment Report (TAR), EPA analyses use the 100-year GWPs listed in the IPCC's Second Assessment Report (SAR) to be consistent with the international standards under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (IPCC, 1996

Governor to sign global-warming bill Why Sept. 27, 2006 will be a day to remember Daniel M. Kammen

More important than the target, which is itself dramatic, is the fact that California will establish emission controls on the largest industrial sectors, including utilities, oil refineries and cement manufacturing, and will use market mechanisms -- emissions trading -- to find the economically most-efficient ways to reduce global warming.

AB32, introduced by Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles, calls for a cap on greenhouse-gas emissions statewide, and a 25 percent reduction by 2020.

Thursday, January 31st, 2008KPFA brings you a day-long broadcast from the largest teach-in in US history, from the campus of San Francisco State University.

Thursday, January 31st, 2008KPFA continues its day-long broadcast from the campus of San Francisco State University. Focus the Nation is the largest teach-in in US history.

Thursday, January 31st, 2008KPFA continues its day-long broadcast from the campus of San Francisco State University. Focus the Nation is the largest teach-in in US history

What is happening here is a vision that many in rural America see as their salvation: high-performance moonshine from amber fields of grain, and a “grass station” in every town. It may be a chimera. It may drain precious water from the arid plains and produce less energy that it uses. But it has the undeniable power of an idea in ascendancy.

The vision of a decentralized ethanol industry is taking shape, albeit an industry aided by tax breaks and government mandates. There are now 113 American ethanol plants and an additional 77 under construction, according to the Renewable Fuels Association, the industry trade group. Most of them are right in the middle of the Farm Belt, in counties that have been losing people since the Depression.

Archer Daniels Midland, once the dominant force, is less of a player, controlling about 22 percent of the market. But roughly 40 percent of the new biorefineries are locally owned, representing the sweat and capital of farmers, retired schoolteachers and small-town bankers.

a decade-long partnership between the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development

Designing a Customized Greenhouse Gas Calculation Tool

The GHG Protocol provides the accounting framework for nearly every GHG standard and program in the world - from the International Standards Organization to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme to the California Climate Registry - as well as hundreds of GHG inventories prepared by individual companies.

Many plants have been the source for medicine that cures disease. Take the rosy periwinkle, which is native to Madigascar. Before its properties were discovered, only 10 percent of children with leukemia lived. But from the plant, scientists created a compound that helped increase the survival rate. "With the compound, the rate has now gone up to 95 percent,” Raven says. “Who knows what else is out there in nature's pharmacy.”

"We will have 10 percent of the world’s seeds by 2010 and we would like to go on and have a quarter of the world’s species by 2020,” says Paul Smith, director of the Millennium Seed Bank Project.

One in six of all wild plants are used for medicine. One in 10 are used for food, especially in developing countries.

Landfilling, the most common waste management practice, results in the release of methane from the anaerobic decomposition of organic materials. Methane is 21 times more potent a GHG than carbon dioxide. However, landfill methane is also a source of energy, and some landfills capture and use it for energy. In addition, many materials in landfills do not decompose fully, and the carbon that remains is sequestered in the landfill and not released into the atmosphere.

The image above illustrates the four main stages of product life-cycles, all of which provide opportunities for GHG emissions and/or offsets. These stages are: raw material acquisition, manufacturing, recycling, and waste management.

Call it the networked environment. Picture tiny - we're talking small as a dime - wireless sensors lining lake beds and ocean floors, buried in the ground, and floating in the sky. All the time they are sniffing the air, water, and soil for pollutants and detecting changes in temperature and pressure.

The payoff: real-time data on a variety of phenomena that affect the economy and society - climate change, hurricanes, air and water pollution.