D.I.Y Planet Cooling

[Michaelangelica]

Re terra preta thread.

This was part of the the last post.

An especially interesting article in nature on carbon sequestration.

HOT DAMN!!!!!........We made it into Nature!!

 

If this doesn't get Terra Preta some real traction , I don't know what will.

 

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v442/n7103/full/442624a.html

Good article.

This was especially interesting re global warming

According to Glaser's research, a hectare of metre-deep terra preta can contain 250 tonnes of carbon, as opposed to 100 tonnes in unimproved soils from similar parent material.

The extra carbon is not just in the char — it's also in the organic carbon and enhanced bacterial biomass that the char sustains.

 

That difference of 150 tonnes is greater than the amount of carbon in a hectare's worth of plants. That means turning unimproved soil into terra preta can store away more carbon than growing a tropical forest from scratch on the same piece of land, before you even start to make use of its enhanced fertility.

and

further on

The remarkable thing about this process is that, even after the fuel has been burned, more carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere than is put back. Traditional biofuels claim to be 'carbon neutral', because the carbon dioxide assimilated by the growing biomass makes up for the carbon dioxide given off by the burning of the fuel. But as Lehmann points out, systems such as Day's go one step further: "They are the only way to make a fuel that is actually carbon negative".

. . .

Then he discovered that his employees were reaping the culinary benefits of the enormous turnips that had sprung up on the piles of char lying around at the plant. Combining this char with ammonium bicarbonate, made using steam-recovered hydrogen, creates a soil additive that is now one of his process's selling points; the ammonium bicarbonate is a nitrogen-based fertilizer.

. . .

Brown thinks a 250-hectare farm on a char-and-ammonium-nitrate system can sequester 1,900 tonnes of carbon a year.

[Little Bang]

Yeah, reduce the population on this planet by 99.9 percent and 99.9 percent of all our problems will disappear.

[Michaelangelica]

a lot of talk

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/27/science/earth/27cool.html?ex=1309060800&en=d0d351a5cf6b48d1&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

but not a lot of practical ideas that could empower us all

So lets have some vision and far-out ideas (apart from genocide)

Some scientists noted that the earth reflected about 30 percent of incoming sunlight back into space and absorbed the rest. Slight increases of reflectivity, they reasoned, could easily counteract heat-trapping gases, thereby cooling the planet.

 

Dr. Broecker of Columbia proposed doing so by lacing the stratosphere with tons of sulfur dioxide, as erupting volcanoes occasionally do. The injections, he calculated in the 80's, would require a fleet of hundreds of jumbo jets and, as a byproduct, would increase acid rain.

 

By 1997, such futuristic visions found a prominent advocate in Edward Teller, a main inventor of the hydrogen bomb. "Injecting sunlight-scattering particles into the stratosphere appears to be a promising approach," Dr. Teller wrote in The Wall Street Journal. "Why not do that?"

 

But government agencies usually balked at paying researchers to study such far-out ideas, and even ones that were more down to earth.

 

Another idea was to fertilize the sea with iron, creating vast blooms of plants that would gulp down tons of carbon dioxide and, as the plants died, drag the carbon into the abyss.

 

The general reaction to such ideas, said Alvia Gaskill, president of Environmental Reference Materials Inc., a consulting firm in North Carolina that advocates geoengineering, "has been dismissive and sometimes frightened — afraid that we don't know what the consequences will be of making large-scale changes to the environment."

 

Dr. Gaskill said small experiments would let researchers quickly pull the plug if such tinkering started to go awry.

 

Scientists estimate that the earth's surface temperature this century may rise as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

"This could engage a whole generation," he said in an interview. "All I'm saying is, let's start thinking about these kinds of things in case we need them one day." Such visionary plans are still far from winning universal acclaim. James E. Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, who attended the talk and strongly advocates curbing emissions, belittled the orbital sunshade as "incredibly difficult and impractical."

 

Dr. Crutzen, the Nobel laureate from the Max Planck Institute, has also drawn fire for his paper about injecting sulfur into the stratosphere. "There was a passionate outcry by several prominent scientists claiming that it is irresponsible," recalled Mark G. Lawrence, an American scientist who is also at the institute.

 

[Little Bang]

Mich, I was not advocating genoside but I am suggesting that all humans on this planet be allowed only one child until we get the population down to a level that will allow the earth to clean up the pollution that we produce.

[Boerseun]

Hey - here's a quick 'n easy DIY planet-cooling technique for y'all:

 

Whenever you boil a kettle, make sure that you ONLY use as much water in the kettle as needed.

 

For instance, if you wanna make only one cup 'o tea, have the water in the kettle only cover the element, so that it don't boil dry.

 

There's no point in boiling a full kettle for only one cup.

 

I've been doing this consciously for years, now, and I must say that my hometown is at least three degrees cooler because of this.

[Michaelangelica]

For instance, if you wanna make only one cup 'o tea, have the water in the kettle only cover the element, so that it don't boil dry.

 

There's no point in boiling a full kettle for only one cup.

 

I've been doing this consciously for years, now, and I must say that my hometown is at least three degrees cooler because of this.

It might sound trivial buy multiply that by a million or so people and you have then got something important happening. "Act Locally Think Globally" as they say.

 

If you invested in one of these:-

http://www.abc.net.au/newinventors/txt/s1740164.htm

You could have all your hot water for tea free!

:naughty:

[Michaelangelica]

.

 

I’d never considered this. I hope that this effect is confined to costal waters, and that these DDT films break up, poisoning only a small area of phytoplankton, before reaching the open ocean.

See

http://www.hancock.forests.org.au/docs/chlorine.htm

or seach in google scholar Many Australian articles strangely

3.3.10 Plankton. Suppression of photosynthesis in phytoplankton exposed to low levels of PCBs has been reported.

98 Chronic exposure to PCBs has the ability to alter populations of the marine microlayer through the disruption of egg and larvae development.99

The microlayer is a film of natural fats and oils on the surface of the ocean - it is a highly productive ecosystem and under extreme threat of long term damage due to the fat-loving nature of organochlorines.

See also

http://hypography.com/forums/medical-science/7705-ddt-should-used.html

[Turtle]

Let us suppose for a moment the worm turns and Earth abruptly cycles into another ice age :) ; what means may we employ for D.I.Y planet warming? :shrug:

[Michaelangelica]

Let us suppose for a moment the worm turns and Earth abruptly cycles into another ice age :) ; what means may we employ for D.I.Y planet warming? :shrug:

Some say, in the long term, we may be going into a planetry cooling phase.

But we seem to know all there is about planet warming

[Turtle]

Some say, in the long term, we may be going into a planetry cooling phase.

But we seem to know all there is about planet warming

 

Really!? :) You could've fooled me. :shrug:

[Michaelangelica]

The Swindon Borough Council Debating Chamber??

 

My audio is on the blink so I didn't listen to this.

Is there anything there more than hot air?

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/09/351533.html?c=on#c157333

After the formal part of the event, tea and coffee was served, and some of the local politicians took the opportunity to talk to the climate campaigners.

Roderick Bluh surprised us by offering Swindon Climate Action Network the use, free of charge, of the Swindon Borough Council debating chamber, should we want it to hold a similar event in future.

The blog at the end about E=MC2 was interesting (but useless??)

[Zythryn]

Let us suppose for a moment the worm turns and Earth abruptly cycles into another ice age :) ; what means may we employ for D.I.Y planet warming? :hihi:

 

If it had not already happened we could find and release the larger stores of methane trapped in the ocean floor.

 

However, doing anything on this scale holds HUGE risk as we really would have little idea about what we were doing. It could very well be like lighting a haybale in a barn:doh:

[Michaelangelica]

THE SCIENCE SHOW - Your PC - worth ten times its weight in carbon Saturday September 30, 12.10pm & Monday October 2, 7.10pm, RN Each lap top computer takes ten times its weight in carbon to manufacture.

As 208 million of them were sold last year alone, that's some hefty contribution to the atmospheric load. What can be done? Stewart Hickey from the University of Limerick in Ireland has a practical suggestion that could make a huge difference.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/

[Valhalla]

Michaelangelica -

 

"There must be lots of things we can do on an individual level to slow Global Warming.

There are lots of clever people here so any ideas?"

 

 

What about wind turbines? I think in some european countries they pay their people to keep a wind turbine on their land. It's a clean way of producing power. Some people say they are un-sightly, but I don't think they are that bad. I read something about off-shore wind turbines, and the UK gets enough wind off the atlantic, so the only real reason I can think of why it isn't done is because there is less money in it, compared with other power sources. Denmark has about 1/4 of their electricity generated by wind power though - good on them!

[Michaelangelica]

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061008/LIFE02/610080317/1006/LIFE

GET PLUGGED IN

 

Educate yourself about

environmentally responsible travel.

 

Subscribe to the digital version of the newsletter of the International Ecotourism Society; (202) 347-9203.

 

Get ideas for your next trip from Lonely Planet's "Code Green." The book offers advice ranging from taking your used batteries home when you travel in developing countries, to vacationing on a windjammer up in Maine. These historic wind-powered schooners only use their back-up engines when coming in and out of harbors; a few have no engines and rely on small motor boats to tug them along.

 

Or join the Google Groups discussion on green travel. The same Web site also profiles "green" attractions in five cities — Las Vegas; Los Angeles; New York City; Orlando, Fla.; and San Francisco — such as L.A.'s Audubon Center at Debs Park, which is considered one of the country's most environmentally friendly buildings.

 

ON THE WEB: Visit our Web site, http://www.app.com, and click on this story in Jersey Life for links to Climate Care and Google Groups discussion on green travel.

[Michaelangelica]

http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_94288.asp

According to Mr. Mazria, buildings and their construction account for nearly half of all the greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumed annually in the United States. Globally, the percentage is even higher.

 

Taking gas guzzlers off the road and replacing them with hybrids would have only a minimal effect on energy use and global warming, he said. Designing and constructing buildings that use less energy would have a far greater effect.

 

That�s because we drive our vehicles only about 12 years before they are replaced by more efficient vehicles, he said. Buildings, on the other hand, have lifespans of at least 50 to 100 years.

 

Architects already know that buildings can be designed to require less than half the energy of today's average U.S. building, he said.

 

This is achieved � at no additional cost � through strategies such as proper siting, improved design, selection of building materials and incorporating natural heating, cooling and ventilation.

[CraigD]

Taking gas guzzlers off the road and replacing them with hybrids would have only a minimal effect on energy use and global warming, he said. Designing and constructing buildings that use less energy would have a far greater effect.

 

That’s because we drive our vehicles only about 12 years before they are replaced by more efficient vehicles, he said. Buildings, on the other hand, have lifespans of at least 50 to 100 years.

Mazria makes a good point about the relative importance of energy efficiency in buildings and vehicles, but distorts, I think, in describing the effect of hybrid vehicles as “minimal”, and building improvements as “far greater”. In high-energy consumer nations like the US and UK, vehicles use about 36% of total artificially produced energy, while buildings, including such things as lighting and appliances, which are replaceable, with typical lifespans similar to vehicles, use about 43%. Both are significant targets for efficiency improvements.

 

There’s also data disproving that in the past, and casting doubt that in the future, vehicles “are replaced by more efficient vehicles”. Although this was true in the US from 1975 to 1987, when average non-comercial vehicle efficiency increased from 16 to 28 MPG, from 1987 to 2000, it decreased to 24 MPG (see http://www.aceee.org/energy/effact.htm). Other sources (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Average_Fuel_Economy#Current_standards) put the peak effieciency in 1987, but at 22.1 MPG, decreasing to 20.8 in 2004.

 

Although consumer concerns with cost of gasoline has made such high efficiency (about 50 MPG) vehicles as the Toyota Prius a sales success, manufacturers appear to be increasinging focusing on the use of hybrid power systems in lower efficiency (typically 30 MPG), more traditionally attractive vehicles, such as the Mercury Mariner and the Toyota Camry. Even lower emission alternatives, such as electric vehicles, while offering dramatic environmental and health benefits, are not certain to result in significantly lower total energy consumption, as consumers may continue to opt for lower efficiency vehicles over higher.