Half the world could become unliveable

Global warming could make half the world’s inhabited areas too hot to live in and southern Europe may be turned into semi-desert, climate experts warned at a scientific congress in Copenhagen.

Marianne Bom:

The human body is unable to sweat as much as may be needed in half the world’s inhabited areas at the end of the century. If pollution by greenhouse gases continues to rise huge areas will become 'unliveable', Steven Sherwood, a climate expert at Yale University, said at a scientific climate congress in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The human body will simply reach its physiological limits if the average temperature rises by 7 degrees Celsius in some places of the Earth, said Sherwood, on Thursday, according to The Guardian.
There will be some places on Earth where it would simply be impossible to lose heat," Sherwood said. "This is quite imaginable if we continue burning fossil fuels. I don't see any reason why we wouldn't end up there.

According to the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) the average temperature could rise by 6 degrees Celsius this century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at current rates.Climate change could also lead to severe droughts every other year and semi-desert in Europe at the end of the century, if temperature rises by four degrees Celsius, said climate expert at the University of East Anglia Rachel Warren. Climate change could turn off rainfall in Spain, Portugal, southern Italy, Greece and numerous other countries, leaving large areas of land from Portugal to Ukraine, as well as southern England, severely affected.

At the congress Rachel Warren was asked what life would be like in those areas. Hell, I should think. It is incomprehensible to imagine adapting to that level of drought,« Warren replied according to The Guardian.

European leadership on the road to Copenhagen

The financial and economic crisis continues to dominate the news, and understandably so. In the short term we all face a painful reduction in global prosperity. But in the long term perhaps the greatest threat of all – not only to our prosperity but also to the survival of millions of people in vulnerable areas of the globe – comes from climate change. by Stavros Dimas, European Commissioner for the Environment

The Lincoln Plan about climate change

Climate change is a complex issue, but it can be summarized rather simply: the consensus of science is that global warming is a threat (1); the consensus of economics is that a carbon tax would be a cost-effective remedy (2). A carbon tax is a charge for emitting carbon dioxide (CO2), the main heat-trapping culprit.

For the last several years Ecological Internet has proposed a small U.S. government federal charge initially of $5 per ton of carbon emitted as CO2, which for gasoline is about 1 cent per gallon. Since Lincoln's portrait appears on both the penny and the $5 bill, the plan goes under his name - the "Lincoln Plan". A fundamental question in addressing climate change is whether cap-and-trade or a carbon tax would be more cost-effective. For a discussion of this matter, please see the following articles: Limiting Carbon Dioxide Emissions: Prices Versus Caps and After Kyoto: Alternative Mechanisms to Control Global Warming.

$5/ton is a very good starting point for a carbon charge - it would allow implementation mechanisms to be developed, and is modest enough to be politically achievable. Most of the revenue from the tax would be used to pay for measures to reduce CO2 emissions such as conserving forests, increasing energy efficiency, and adopting cleaner energy supplies.

As a stepping-stone to a $5 carbon tax, the U.S. Congress could give the public discounts on such things as compact fluorescent lights and 100 mpg vehicles. The cost would be about $1.5 billion. Congress could also announce that once a tax (or cap) was passed the discounts would be tripled. So most households could easily make more money on rebates and energy savings than the tax would cost them.

The size of the charge could then be increased as needed. Extra revenue from a charge over $5/ton would be used mostly to lower other taxes -- the plan would tax pollution rather than employment and savings.

From $5/ton, the carbon price could rise $10 a year for six or seven years, and $5 a year after that. By 2015 the charge would reach $75/ton of carbon, or about $20/ton of CO2. This is around 20 cents per gallon of gasoline and 2 cents per kWh of electricity from traditional coal-fired plants. A price trajectory such as this would appear to be reasonable. And it would greatly speed up the adoption of current low-carbon technologies and the development of new ones.

Further boosting the plan's attractiveness would be its considerable side benefits. Saving forests, particularly tropical forests (3) would help safeguard the majority of Earth's species; efficiency gains could save us a lot of money (4) while reducing dependence upon overseas sources of energy; and moving to cleaner energy supplies would reduce harmful pollutants of many kinds. Indeed, these ancillary benefits are so large that the plan would be worth trying even apart from its core benefit of climate protection.

Sensible climate protection should, indeed, be profitable. As Amory Lovins writes, "If properly done, climate protection would actually reduce costs, not raise them. Using energy more efficiently offers an economic bonanza...because saving fossil fuel is a lot cheaper than buying it."

In short, the Lincoln Plan could handle a serious problem with great effectiveness and at low, even negative, cost. Those who would like to contact a legislator or write a letter to the editor in support of the plan may forward this page or quote from it as they wish.

UPDATE, 2008
It now seems advisable to ramp up the carbon price more quickly than was envisioned above--perhaps $5 per metric ton of CO2 (about 5 cents a gallon of gas) for the first year; $10 for the second and third years; and $5 for the fourth. This builds on British Columbia, Canada's schedule of $10,5,5,5, and 5.

Indonesia to sell carbon credits to conserve forests

Indonesia has applied to join a World Bank programme intended to help developing nations fight deforestation by selling traceable carbon credits. International climate negotiators are working to allow developing nations the right to sell some carbon credits if they clamp down on deforestation, which is responsible for roughly 20% of global greenhouse-gas emissions.

The World Bank's US$300-million Forest Carbon Partnership Facility is designed to lay the groundwork for such an international agreement.

The programme already includes 25 countries, but Indonesia, the world's third-largest greenhouse-gas emitter, had remained on the sidelines until it applied in February. The bank estimates that the country could earn between US$ 400 million and $2 billion selling credits for protecting forests.

Is there a technological solution for global warming?

A German research ship, the Polarstern, is steaming towards a region off the coast of Argentina in the South Atlantic, where it intends to release six tons of iron sulphate over an area of 115 square miles. The scientists point out that this supports the idea that iron-rich seas result in greater amounts of carbon being sequestered in deep layers, because atmospheric carbon dioxide is drawn into the sea by the vast blooms of plankton at the surface.

The flood due to Global Warming risks California

Sea level rise compelled by global warming could flood parts of the California coast in coming decades. The report by an independent Oakland research group, the Pacific Institute, says that nearly half a million people statewide and 110,000 in Orange County could be at risk by the year 2100 under some climate change scenarios. In Orange County which means a 55 percent increase over those already known to be at risk for a 100-year flood.

The level of risk is going to increase in the future and there are folks already in the flood plain who are going to experience increased risk. It will reach higher and reach further inland in some cases. The strategy is to look at different sectors of the economy -agriculture, energy, water supply, forestry, parks, transportation. It helps the climate action team focus priorities for informed policy. The study says that the rise in sea level of four to five feet would place an additional 220,000 people statewide at risk in a 100-year flood event from 260,000 estimated to be at risk in 2000 to 480,000.Nearly a quarter of those would be in Orange County, the study says, although Los Angeles, Monterey, San Mateo, Sonoma and Ventura counties would have significant populations at risk as well.

In all, some $100 billion in buildings would be placed at risk along the California coast. The flooding could affect roads, hospitals, schools, emergency facilities and railroads. Wetlands and natural ecosystems also could be destroyed by changes in sea level.

Potential costs in Orange County, part of the estimated $17 billion total, include $14 billion in residential costs, $2.3 billion for commercial facilities, $610 million for industrial facilities, and $110 million each for educational and religious facilities. Because of these the actual market costs could be several times higher. Even places that are not directly subject to flooding could suffer erosion because of sea level rise. And sea level rise in Northern California could have troubling effects in the south. Increased salinity in the California delta could reduce supplies of drinking water piped to Southern California.

The report draws a distinction between mitigation measures to reduce the effects of global warming, such as reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and “adaptations” to coming changes along the coast -changes that will be inevitable, even if we reduced greenhouse gas emissions to zero tomorrow.

California is already moving to cut greenhouse gas emissions. But a variety of stakeholders, including those involved in everything from shipping, boating and recreation to habitat conservation, must come together. The choices we make in the next few years are going to have a big bearing on whether this plays itself out or not, both in terms of mitigation- greenhouse gas reduction -and in terms of adaptation.

Environment: Algae Against Climate Change?

ntil very recently, the proliferation algae was interpreted as an undesirable consequence of the overuse of agro-chemicals, whose immediate results included skin irritation in humans and the death of aquatic fauna from lack of oxygen.

But their potential for absorbing one of the principal greenhouse gases - which cause global climate change - could be crucial for avoiding environmental catastrophes. Like terrestrial plants, the algae consume carbon during photosynthesis.

"We took algae from the ocean, we put it in plastic containers in greenhouses, where we fed it with carbon dioxide produced by conventional electric generators," explained Laurenz Thomsen, a bio-geologist from Jacobs University in the northern German city of Bremen.

"Exposed to solar light, the algae transform the carbon dioxide into biomass that can later be used as biodiesel, whose combustion doesn't emit greenhouse gases," he added. The Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Project (GGMP) is coordinated by Thomsen, with cooperation from the Bremen polytechnic university, the Alfred Wegener Institute for Marine Research, and several companies, including the European electricity supplier E.ON.

Thomsen has dubbed the small greenhouse "Algenreactor", set up at Jacobs University, where the algae transform carbon dioxide into organic fuel. The project is operating at the experimental phase, producing just a half-litre of biofuel. "The diesel that we refine here is absolutely organic. It satisfies the European standards. I'm confident that we will be able to move on to an industrial phase in the coming months," he added.

Fritz Henken-Mellier, director of the Farge thermoelectric plant just outside Bremen, agrees with that prediction. Some of the carbon dioxide emissions from this coal-fired generator were captured by GGMP. "Surely we need to build a much bigger greenhouse, covering hundreds of square metres, so that the capture of carbon dioxide and the production of biofuel correspond to the scope of a commercial energy plant," he said in an interview for this report.

Henken-Mellier calculates that "the capture of just 10 percent of the gases emitted by the Farge plant means a reduction of 600 tonnes daily of carbon dioxide." According to Thomsen, the area of a greenhouse capable of absorbing the carbon dioxide from a 350-megawatt electrical plant and transforming it into biofuel would have to be 25 square kilometres and would cost some 480 million dollars.

The sum is small compared to the cost of conventional crops to produce biofuel and reduce toxic gases at a scale similar to that of the "algae-based reactor." An equivalent planting of rapeseed, for example, could cost as much as 25 times more.

But Thomsen's project doesn't convince everyone. "Those calculations are very ingenuous," said Karl-Herrman Steinberg, director of one of Europe's leading algae producers, located in the northern German city of Kloetze.

"The costs of growing algae, the elimination of the water and distillation of the combustible oil are very high for this to be profitable on an industrial scale," said Steinberg.

Thomsen admits that the location of the greenhouses should be decided based on available sunshine. In northern Germany, with relatively few hours of sunlight, the model would not work. "The greenhouses would have to be built in the south and southeast of Europe," he said.

"We are already negotiating with German and foreign firms, from Brazil and India, which manage large algae crops," he added. The GGMP is not the only project of its kind. During the first global oil crisis, in the 1970s, U.S. scientists came up with a similar process for transforming algae into bio fuel. But the attempt was abandoned in 1996, when low oil prices erased the incentives to study organic fuels.

Now, with the current energy and environmental crisis, the U.S. company Green Fuel, in the north-eastern state of Massachusetts, is planning a greenhouse to cover at least one square kilometer for 2009. Isaac Berzin, of Green Fuel, says that to capture the carbon dioxide released by a 1,000 gigawatt generate would require an algae greenhouse between eight and 16 square km, which could produce more than 150 million liters of bio-diesel and 190 million liters of ethanol.