The ocean has proved to be an exceptionally selfless and dependable planetary companion.
With no benefit to itself, Earth’s vast sea has gulped up around 30 percent of the carbon dioxide humans emitted into Earth’s atmosphere over the last cent…
Category: Carbon Dioxide
Trump’s climate expert is wrong: The world’s plants don’t need more CO2
Plants on Earth have flourished for hundreds of millions of years, yet President Donald Trump’s pick to lead his new climate team insists that they need more carbon dioxide to thrive.
Princeton physicist and carbon dioxide-advocate William Happer has been selected to head the brand new Presidential Committee on Climate Security, reports The Washington Post. The atomic scientist — who achieved recognition for his work on atomic collisions and telescope optics, not climate science — maintains that the planet’s atmosphere needs significantly more CO2, the potent greenhouse gas that U.S. government scientists — and a bevy of independent scientists — have repeatedly underscored is stoking accelerating climate change. Read more…
More about Science, Global Warming, Carbon Dioxide, Plants, and Climate Change
View More Trump’s climate expert is wrong: The world’s plants don’t need more CO2Oil and gas giants Chevron and Occidental are backing tech to combat carbon emissions
Carbon Engineering, a Canadian company developing technology to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and process it for use in enhanced oil recovery or in the creation of new synthetic fuels, has locked in financing from two big industry backers — Chevron and Occidental Petroleum — to bring its products to market. The undisclosed amount […]
View More Oil and gas giants Chevron and Occidental are backing tech to combat carbon emissionsGuess what? U.S. carbon emissions popped back up in a big way
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For three straight years, carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. dropped. But in 2018, emissions of the potent greenhouse gas shot back up.
A new report by the Rhodium Group — a research institution that analyzes global economic and environmental trends — found that in 2018 carbon dioxide emissions rose 3.4 percent from the prior year. That’s the second largest gain in the last two decades.
This rise comes at a time when global scientists have repeatedly urged nations to ambitiously cut their carbon emissions, as rising temperatures have stoked prolonged droughts and heat waves while boosting the odds of record-breaking storms. Read more…
More about Science, Global Warming, Carbon Dioxide, Climate Change, and Science
This algae ‘curtain’ could make city buildings into urban trees — Sharp Science
Photo.Synth.Etica may look like an abstract art piece, but really it might be a glimpse into the future of smarter, greener cities. The “curtain” is made of modules that have algae which suck in carbon dioxide and other air pollutants, and then spit …
View More This algae ‘curtain’ could make city buildings into urban trees — Sharp ScienceEarth’s carbon dioxide levels are likely the highest they’ve been in 15 million years
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We’ve entered some profoundly unfamiliar planetary territory.
Amid a backdrop of U.S. politicians still questioning whether the changing climate is attributable to humans (it is), it’s quite likely that we’ve actually boosted Earth’s carbon dioxide — a potent greenhouse gas — to the highest levels they’ve been in some 15 million years.
The number 15 million is dramatically higher than a statistic frequently cited by geologists and climate scientists: That today’s carbon levels are the highest they’ve been on Earth in at least 800,000 years — as there’s irrefutable proof trapped in the planet’s ancient ice. Read more…
More about Science, Global Warming, Carbon Dioxide, Greenhouse Gases, and Climate Change
Climate deniers love to repeat this dead wrong talking point. Here’s how to refute it.
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On Sunday morning, CNN anchor Jake Tapper asked U.S. Senator Marco Rubio whether he thought the changing climate on Earth today was “at least in part” caused by humans.
On live television, Rubio acknowledged that humans were partly responsible, and then immediately sowed some doubt into his answer.
“I think many scientists would debate what percentage is attributable to man versus normal fluctuations,” Rubio said.
This is misleading, at best, because there is no plausible debate.
In a variety of ways, scientists globally have repeatedly shown that the modern-day warming of our oceans and atmosphere is specifically attributed human activity — not volcanoes nor the sun. We’ve simply loaded the atmosphere with carbon-based gases that physically trap heat. Read more…
More about Global Warming, Carbon Dioxide, Marco Rubio, Climate Change, and Carbon Emissions
Trapping carbon pollution underground for thousands of years is key to fighting climate change
Trapping carbon emissions deep within Earth’s crust may be a clever way to keep warming greenhouse gases from amassing in the planet’s atmosphere.
Giant wind turbines and solar-paneled roofs are almost certainly the energy future, but until the…
Earth just soared past yet another climate change milestone
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The Earth’s atmosphere is more saturated with greenhouse gases now than at any other time in human history. For the first time on record, the average amount of carbon dioxide — the main long-lived gas responsible for global warming — in the air passed 410 parts per million (ppm) for an entire month.
Data collected at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii had already shown carbon dioxide readings that temporarily exceeded that threshold for a time in 2017 but not for a whole month. The new data collected for the month of April and released on May 2, underscore how quickly carbon dioxide levels continue to rise despite global attempts to reduce emissions. Read more…
More about Climate, Global Warming, Extreme Weather, Carbon Dioxide, and Sea Level Rise
Acidifying oceans could hit the very base of the ocean’s food web
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The bedrock of the ocean’s food chain, on which whales, sharks, and octopi ultimately rely, are tiny bits of photosynthetic algae called diatoms. They come in thousands of shapes and are imperceptible to the human eye.
If their populations collapse or shrink, there could be dramatic reverberations throughout the vast marine food web.
Scientists have now identified a climate change-related threat to diatoms, and it comes from a known and growing threat: Ocean acidification.
SEE ALSO: Scientists intentionally acidify sea water to show just how screwed coral reefs really are
In a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, scientists collected a species of diatom from the ocean and exposed it to increased seawater acidity — akin to the projected ocean acidity levels by the end of the century. They found that more acidic waters hindered diatoms from getting the nutrition they need, specifically iron, for their numbers to grow. Read more…
More about Science, Carbon Dioxide, Climate Change, Ocean Acidification, and Plankton
View More Acidifying oceans could hit the very base of the ocean’s food webEarth to overshoot global warming targets, U.N. warns in blunt report
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Nations around the world still aren’t doing nearly enough to limit greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, a new report warns.
While progress is being made, a new United Nations report says that collectively countries aren’t on track to contain global warming to the level set by leaders in the Paris Climate Agreement. We are currently on course to see between 3 and 3.2 degrees Celsius, or about 5.8 degrees Fahrenheit, of warming by the year 2100.
To put this another way, countries have only committed to about one-third of the emissions reductions needed to meet the Paris Agreement’s temperature target, the report found. Read more…
More about Climate, Science, United Nations, Extreme Weather, and Carbon Dioxide
View More Earth to overshoot global warming targets, U.N. warns in blunt report