Uni Eropa Sangat Kawatir Pada Negosiasi Iklim

PITTSBURGH, KOMPAS.com - Uni Eropa pada menyuarakan keprihatinan mendalam tentang negosiasi perubahan iklim, memperingatkan mereka sedang menuju ke arah yang salah dengan minggu-minggu sebelum membuat atau putusnya konferensi Kopenhagen .

Perdana Menteri Swedia Fredrik Reinfeldt, kepala Uni Eropa saat ini, datang ke kota AS Pittsburgh untuk KTT ekonomi kelompok 20-negara setelah pembicaraan tingkat atas di Perserikatan Bangsa-Bangsa tentang perubahan iklim.

"Kami berdua sangat khawatir tentang situasi," kata Reinfeldt dalam jumpa pers bersama dengan Kepala Komisi Eropa Jose Manuel Barroso.

"Ketika datang ke perundingan, mereka sebenarnya memperlambat; mereka tidak akan ke arah yang benar," kata Reinfeldt. "Kami sangat khawatir bahwa kita perlu untuk mempercepat negosiasi."

Sedikit lebih dari dua bulan tersisa hingga konferensi di Kopenhagen, yang dimaksudkan untuk menyetujui kerangka pengganti Protokol Kyoto, perjanjian yang mengharuskan pengurangan emisi disalahkan atas pemanasan global.

Uni Eropa dan Jepang telah menjadi juara terkemuka Protokol Kyoto, yang tidak membuat persyaratan pada negara-negara berkembang untuk mengurangi emisi karbon.

Namun, negara-negara kaya termasuk Amerika Serikat bersatu dalam bersikeras bahwa perjanjian berikutnya juga memerlukan tindakan oleh negara-negara berkembang.

Presiden China Hu Jintao mengatakan hari Selasa bahwa negara berkembang terbesar di dunia itu siap untuk memperlambat pertumbuhan emisi karbon sepertidi negara maju, tapi ia tidak menetapkan angka.

Es Kutub Utara Kondisinya Sangat Mengkawatirkan

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Rebecca Woodgate tidak mempunyai waktu untuk ngobrol sementara tim oceanografi bergerak cepat di dek kapal penelitian mereka di Bering strait, wilayah penting bagi studi dampak pemanasan global.

Woodgate, dari Polar Science Center di University of Washington, menghadapi banyak pekerjaan dalam waktu singkat, untuk secara tepat menunjukkan lokasi bawah laut delapan alat pengumpul data di wilayah AS dan Rusia di selat tersebut.

Ia secara elektronik mengangkat alat itu ke permukaan dan menenggelamkan alat baru yang akan ditambatkan di sana selama satu tahun.

Itu adalah pekerjaan yang harus dilakukan secara cepat guna membaca data yang bermanfaat buat dia dan rekannya di dalam ekspedisi gabungan Rusia-AS untuk menaksir dampak perubahan iklim di perairan utara-jauh antara bekas musuh era Perang Dingin tersebut.

Ketika seseorang yang melihatkan kegiatan itu dan berada terlalu dekat selama penggelaran di perairan yang berombak kecil di lepas pantai Siberia, ilmuwan kelahiran Inggris tersebut secara tergesa-gesa menyerahkan satu paket sepotong gigi besi dan berkata, "Ini, kerjakan sesuatu dengan ini."

Alat penambat tersebut, yang mirip benang bola pantai, menyediakan pengukuran tepat mengenai arus, temperatur dan kandungan garam. Sebagian bahkan mencatat suara ikan paus bagi misi itu, yang disebut RUSALCA, atau Russian-American Long-term Census of the Arctic.

RUSALCA, yang dalam bahasa daerah di Rusia adalah nama dewi laut, telah mengungkap bukti yang meningkat mengenai pemanasan dan dampaknya di tempat samudera Pasifik dan Arcktik bertemu.

RUSALCA melakukan itu sementara menyeimbangkan sasaran dua negara dengan kepentingan yang berkembang dalam menjamin wilayah Kutub Utara mereka, yang kaya akan sumber daya, saat perairan terbuka membuat wilayah itu lebih mudah dimasuki.

Kegiatan tersebut diselenggarakan oleh U.S. National Administration dan Rusian Academy of Sciences. "Daerah itu adalah bagian penting dari teka-teki perubahan iklim," demikian laporan kantor resmi Inggris, Reuters.

"Saya melihat Bering Strait berpotensi menjadi pemicu bagi pencairan es," kata Woodgate, sewaktu menaikkan (uploading) data dari alat penambat di kapal penelitian rusia, Professor Khromov.

Perlunya keterangan lengkap, dari pantai Alaska sampai ujung timur Rusia, membuat kerja sama bilateral jadi pentin. Tanpa itu, "Anda berada dalam masalah," katanya.

Woodgate termasuk di antara sebanyak 50 ilmuwan dari Amerika Serikat, Rusia dan negara lain di kapal Professor Khromov selama enam pekan pada Agustus dan September, untuk mempelajari kehidupan laut dan air di Laut Bering dan Chukchi dan di perairan Kutub Utara jauh di sebelh utara Wrangel Island di lepas pantai timur-laut Rusia.

Sulit untuk membayangkan ketika angin dingin dan sangat kuat serta laut ganas mengombang-ambingkan kapal itu pada akhir musim panas, Air yang lebih segar dan lebih hangat yang mengalir melalui selat tersebut menuju Kutub Utara barangkali mendorong ujung es laut ke belakang.

Pada 2007, es itu mencapai rekor yang belum pernah terjadi sebelumnya sehingga mengejutkan para ilmuwan. Musim panas tahun ini, es trsebut berkurang jadi daerah paling kecil ketiganya dalam caratan sejarah, demikian laporan U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Sekjen PBB: Atasi Segera Kenaikan Temperatur Global

NEW YORK, KOMPAS.com — PBB mengakhiri pertemuan tingkat tinggi satu hari mengenai perubahan iklim dan Sekretaris Jenderal PBB Ban Ki-moon mendesak para pemimpin dunia agar bertindak cepat guna menjamin keberhasilan dalam konferensi mendatang PBB mengenai iklim di Copenhagen, Desember.

"Saya berbesar hati mendengar bahwa makin banyak pemimpin siap bertindak di luar perspektif nasional guna mengikuti kepemimpinan global," kata Sekjen PBB Ban Ki-moon kepada para pemimpin dunia saat penutupan sidang tersebut.

"Anda telah melakukan tindakan untuk tetap terlibat sampai satu persetujuan ditandatangani di Copenhagen. Dan Anda telah sepakat memberi panduan kepada para perunding Anda untuk bekerja ke arah kesepakatan yang ambisius, efektif, dan adil di Copenhagen," kata Ban.

Hampir 100 kepala negara dan pemerintahan ikut dalam pertemuan tingkat tinggi itu, pertemuan terbesar para pemimpin dunia guna membahas perubahan iklim.

Dengan membicarakan masalah tersebut, Sekjen berharap dapat menggerakkan keinginan politik serta momentum yang diperlukan guna mencapai satu kesepakatan ambisius dalam konferensi Copenhagen.

Perubahan iklim adalah masalah ekonomi dan geopolitik abad ke-21. Namun Ban, yang mengunjungi wilayah Kutub Utara awal bulan ini dan menyaksikan sendiri dampak cepat perubahan iklim, menyampaikan penyesalan mengenai perundingan dan mendesak para pemimpin untuk melakukan pandangan jauh guna memenuhi kebutuhan rakyat mereka.

Sekjen PBB tersebut membantah pendapat bahwa penanganan pemanasan global itu dilakukan dengan tebusan sangat tinggi. "Mereka keliru. Yang benar adalah sebaliknya. Kita tidak akan mampu membayar jika kita tak bertindak sekarang," kata Ban.

Keberhasilan di Copenhagen, Denmark, akan memerlukan semua negara bekerja secara beriringan guna membatasi kenaikan temperatur global, serta mendorong kemampuan dunia untuk menangani perubahan yang terjadi melalui perubahan iklim.

Stop Global Warming, G20 Sepakat Hapus Subsidi BBM Bertahap

Pittsburgh - Negara-negara yang terhimpun dalam G20 sepakat untuk menghapus subsidi bahan bakar fosil dan penghasil karbon dioksida lainnya secara bertahap. Ini sebagai upaya untuk memerangi pemanasan global (global warming).

Draf kesepakatan G20 menunjukkan negara-negara seperti Rusia, India, dan China akan kembali mengurangi serta menghapus anggaran yang membuat harga minyak rendah sekalipun tanpa kepastian mengenai waktu.

G20 juga akan menjaga upaya mereka itu hingga terjadinya kesepakatan tingkat PBB mengenai perubahan iklim setelah tahun ini. Demikian salah satu hasil pertemuan G20 yang berlangsung dua hari di Pittsburgh, Amerika Serikat (AS) seperti dikutip dari reuters, Sabtu (26/9/2009).

Untuk kepentingan penghapusan subsidi bahan bakar, para pemimpin negara G20 akan berbicara dengan menteri keuangan negara mereka masing-masing.

Negara-negara di luar G20 juga akan diimbau untuk mengikuti langkah tersebut. Beberapa kalkulasi menunjukkan jumlah subsidi minyak di seluruh dunia mencapai US$ 300 triliun.

Penghapusan subsidi bahan bakar diperkirakan akan mampu mengurangi afek rumah kaca 10 persen pada 2050. Hal itu berdasarkan data dari International Energy Agency and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Pernyataan G20, yang terdiri dari negara kaya dan berkembang itu, juga menyebutkan, para menteri energi dan keuangan negara anggota akan segera menyusun strategi. Hasilnya akan dilaporkan pada pertemuan G20 berikutnya.

Inside Sheryl Crow's 'Stop Global Warming' Tour

"There's no sleeping in the nude on the tour bus!" Crow, 45, joked to PEOPLE on the first day of her "Stop Global Warming College Tour," which kicked off Monday at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Crow and An Inconvenient Truth producer Laurie David are touring 11 campuses to inform college students about the climate crisis and how they can help stop it. (They also have a documentary team with them filming the tour.)

"Laurie and I just met in November, and now we're sleeping together," Crow said with a laugh. "On a bus in separate bunks!"

On a more serious note, Crow told PEOPLE: "When I learned how serious global warming is, I wanted to do something to help. So when [Laurie] and I were talking about what we could do, well, my answer to everything is to get on the bus and take it to the people, in true troubadour fashion."

And what is Crow doing to be eco-friendly? "I try to wash my clothes in cold water as much as I can," she said. "I turn off lights in rooms that I'm not using. I drive a hybrid. I'm getting solar panels for my house." Joking with her guitarist, Tim Smith, she added, "To save water, I'm only going to shower once a week, like I did when I was a kid – on Saturdays."

Also, Crow's tour bus is running on eco-friendly biodiesel fuel. "We're in a bus powered by vegetable oil, so we're craving French fries the whole tour," she said.

She began the tour by rocking SMU's packed McFarlin Auditorium, where she also urged students to join the virtual march at Stopglobalwarming.org. "At the end of our journey, we hope to be taking a million marchers with us to Congress to let them know that we demand a change," she told audience members, who were each given an energy-efficient Philips compact fluorescent light bulb.

At a Q&A session after the concert, students asked what they could do to help. Among the tips from Crow and David: Reuse plastic bags, inflate your tires and don't idle your car.

But one hunky student had more pressing matters on his mind: "Are you going to be in Dallas long?" he asked. Laughing, Crow told her longtime guitarist, Tim Smith: "Can you get his number? I don't have any homework to do!"

As the bus pulled away from the SMU campus and headed to Texas A&M in College Station, the group sat around talking about the day's events and munching on Doritos and pizza. "You would think that being on tour with a rock star that there would be a lot of drinking," David said. "Instead there's a lot of eating."

Drowning states ask world to stop global warming

THE world has fallen well behind in the race to find a formula to deal with global warming in time for December's Copenhagen summit, regional leaders have warned.

After their two-day summit in Cairns, 15 Pacific Islands Forum leaders issued a statement saying the threat was grave and a strong global agreement was vital.

"With 122 days to go, the international community is not on track to achieve the outcome we need unless we see a renewed mandate across all participating nations," the leaders said.

Chaired by the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, the forum urged all nations to redouble their efforts to secure an agreement.

The leaders called for a program that would set the world on a path to limit the increase in global temperatures to 2 degrees or less and to cut global emissions to at least 50 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050.

The forum nations are part of the Alliance of Small Island States, 39 nations in the Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean that are likely to be the first - and worst - affected, by global warming.

The alliance was set up in 1990 to provide a voice for small nations, and it says that unless the increase in temperature is kept below 1.5 degrees the result will be disastrous for millions of people on those islands.

Grenada's representative to the United Nations and the alliance leader, Dessima Williams, told the Herald the impact on dozens of low-lying nations would be disastrous.

"We are going to have more devastation of all sorts from sea level rise and hurricanes," Ms Williams said.

"We are going to lose our jobs, our food supply.

"The world is going to see disruption that starts from the small island states. It will be disruption of every sort, more health problems, economic dislocation and more migration."

As well as the climate change plea, the 16 nations are to pool their experiences with energy sources including solar, wind and wave power generation, with Australia putting $25 million into the initiative.

The forum leaders also agreed to pursue common development strategies fostered by growth in the private sector, better state services and governance and investment in infrastructure, and to get aid-donating countries and organisations to co-ordinate their programs with these strategies.

The Pacific Island countries receive the highest amount of foreign aid in the developing world per capita, but Mr Rudd said many were not showing progress towards the Millennium goals of greater welfare by 2015 and some were regressing.

"It is a sobering fact that across our region some 2.7 million people are living in poverty," he said.

Governments in the Pacific were frustrated at the "spaghetti bowl" of aid programs, Mr Rudd said, with half of their officials "offshore running around in various programs being offered by dozens of competing and occasionally conflicting development assistance programs".

He hoped China would also align its aid programs in the Pacific - put at $US208 million ($247 million) in pledges last year.

Get Rich Quick! (And Stop Global Warming in the Process)

Despite all of the rhetoric, a recently published series of studies demonstrates that the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions probably won’t be very harsh, and there might even be a net economic benefit to such cuts. The studies, published in a special issue of The Energy Journal under the umbrella of the Innovation Modeling Comparison Project, analyze various models that explore the economics of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, taking into account the effects of policies that induce technological change. You can access the entire special issue for free via the University of Cambridge.

This week’s issue of Nature features a news story (subscription required) that serves as a basic overview of the project and a good starting point for exploring it further:

Transforming the world's energy industry to stop the flood of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere might actually be quite cheap.

Figures of tens of trillions of dollars are often cited, and used to question whether measures such as the Kyoto Protocol, which attempts to limit carbon emissions, are too expensive. But according to a suite of economic models released late last month, the costs of stabilizing carbon dioxide levels could be tiny — equivalent to setting back the growth of global GDP (gross domestic product) by less than 1% over 100 years; global GDP generally grows 2–3% each year. In some cases, the right policies for limiting carbon emissions could even create a surprising win–win situation, leading to the stabilization of greenhouse gases and an increase in global wealth.

It is a controversial conclusion with which not everyone agrees, but which the modellers say should be food for thought for policy-makers. "If we prepare properly and acknowledge that carbon will be constrained, it will be relatively cheap," says Michael Grubb, a climate-policy expert at Imperial College London. "But only if we do the right things."…

…The results are striking. Nine of the models predict that stabilizing carbon dioxide levels at 450 parts per million, widely seen as the most ambitious target worth discussing, would set back global GDP by less than 0.5% or so by 2100 (the other two produced figures of 2.1% and 6.2%). In each scenario, the regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions persuades the private sector to shift investment into low-carbon technologies, which then become competitive with traditional energy sources.

In some cases, this shift in investment stimulates growth and actually boosts overall wealth. At least, that's the conclusion of two of the models — one developed at the University of Cambridge, UK, and the other at the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, a centre for sustainable-development research in Italy. These models suggest that stabilization policies would give an added boost to global GDP of up to 1.7% over 100 years. They assume such climate policies will bring about side benefits, such as increased investment in new technologies.

Although the results sound convincing, I hope to go through the findings myself to get a better idea of how compelling they really are. The article in Nature already addresses some of the naysayers coming from an economics perspective, but I imagine that the harshest critics will be those from the industries that have fought so consistently against change and regulation (and in effect innovation). Although some models predict economic benefits to come from decreasing carbon dioxide emissions, major shifts in energy usage and production threaten the current system that has benefited the current dinosaurs so well.

In addition to the basic findings in economics, the authors of the introductory paper to the series offer their own policy recommendations based on the project's findings. In short, they stress the necessity of both regulation from government and research-driven technology innovations from industry. An optimal strategy from a governmental perspective, then, would involve both emissions caps and policies that stimulate the desired types of research:

Taken as a whole, the analyses give good grounds for believing that the atmosphere can be stabilized (or brought close to stabilization), at or significantly below a doubling of CO₂-equivalent concentrations (below 500ppm CO₂) at long-term macroeconomic costs that seem relatively modest—unlikely to exceed one year’s foregone economic growth. However, this broad figure over a century hides many distributional impacts, across sectors, across countries and across generations. In particular, stabilization may require big changes in investment patterns in the short run, which would obviously provoke resistance to the implementation of effective climate policies. Whether or not the costs are actually small, will be a function of policy, and in particular, whether or not the policies adopted send the right signals and get the right mix of investment in R&D at one end, diffusion at the other—and of no lesser importance—all that lies between….

…The policy implications are thus far more subtle than choosing between ‘technology led’ versus ‘cap-and-trade’ led approaches. Even with a strong role for ITC, future rounds of the Kyoto Protocol which duplicate the structure of sequential 5-year limits, without any clear and credible signals about the longer term evolution of the system, are unlikely to deliver the depth of innovation and adjustment to infrastructural investments required to minimize long-term costs. On the other hand, a purely supply-driven R&D strategy may generate ideas but not technology-based industries with the capacity to solve the problem, and with no signal at all to redirect ongoing investment and promote prior adjustment of infrastructure appropriate to a carbon constrained world. Thus both R&D, and carbon cap/pricing, appear necessary but in isolation insufficient instruments to deliver stabilization at low costs. What really matters may be combinations of these policies and all that lies between—together with the critical role of framing expectations that really influence the scale and direction of corporate investment in low-carbon knowledge, in learning-by-doing in the nascent technologies and industries, and in the infrastructure appropriate to low-carbon economies.

The idea that curbing greenhouse gas emissions won’t be disastrous for the economy isn’t a new one, and I’ve even written about it before. Still, it is important in these types of discussions not to lose site of the big picture. The most immediate goal needs to be halting global warming, by reducing carbon dioxide emissions, something that will require action that is both decisive and soon. If the economy benefits, that’s an added bonus, but if climate change is allowed to spin out of control, these matters of money will begin to appear increasingly trivial.

21 Solutions to Save the World: 450 Ways to Stop Global Warming

The most important number on Earth is almost certainly 450. And just as certainly, it’s not a number that means much to most policymakers. Not yet, anyway.

Everyone without a severe ideological kink knows by now that global warming is a looming problem. Even in the United States, two decades of energy industry disinformation is finally wearing off: Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Gore have finally blown most doubt away. But many fewer people realize either the real magnitude of the problem or the speed with which it may be bearing down on us.

Here’s the short course. Before the Industrial Revolution, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide was roughly 280 parts per million. CO2, by virtue of its molecular structure, regulates how much of the sun’s energy stays trapped in our narrow envelope of atmosphere—Mars, which has very little, is cold; Venus, with a lot, is hellish. We were in a sweet spot, where human civilization developed and thrived. But as we burned coal, gas, and oil, the extra carbon dioxide that combustion produced began to accumulate in the atmosphere. By the late 1950s, when people first started to measure it, atmospheric concentrations were already above 315 parts per million. Now, that number has reached 380 parts per million, and its rise has accelerated: In recent years, we’ve been adding about 2 parts per million annually to the atmosphere. And, predictably, the temperature has begun to rise.

Twenty years ago, when global warming first came to public consciousness, no one knew precisely how much carbon dioxide was too much. The early computer climate models made a number of predictions about what would happen if we doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to 550 parts per million. But, in recent years, as the science has gotten more robust, scientists have tended to put the red line right...

Dari Rumah Menahan Pemanasan Global

KOMPAS. Denmark adalah negeri dengan penduduk paling bahagia di dunia. Awal Juni empat wartawan Indonesia diundang untuk melihat dari dekat bagaimana Pemerintah Denmark memberikan pelayanan prima kepada warganya, termasuk isu lingkungan.

Di Denmark juga ada pernyataan: Bersatu Kita Tegak Mengalahkan Tantangan Iklim (United We Stand in Tackling the Climate Challenge). Mirip slogan pemerintahan Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono? Memang. Namun, dalam praktiknya sungguh berbeda. Di Denmark, kebijakan menahan laju pemanasan global dilakukan hingga tingkat grass root, tingkat rumahan.

Lebih dari separuh emisi karbon Denmark berasal dari konsumsi pribadi untuk pemanas, listrik, transportasi, dan barang- barang konsumsi. Warga Denmark pada umumnya sadar dan tahu akan pemanasan global, perubahan iklim, dan perlunya penghematan energi. Namun tidak semua menerapkannya dalam hidup kesehariannya. Kampanye lalu dilakukan oleh Kementerian Lingkungan dan Kementerian Transportasi dan Energi secara nasional. Akhirnya sekitar dua tahun lalu muncul ide yang sungguh pintar dan luar biasa dengan membentuk Kementerian Iklim dan Energi—dua kubu yang biasanya bertegangan tinggi soal lingkungan dan emisi karbon!

Kampanye yang dilakukan berisi hal keseharian yang menyentuh langsung kegiatan kehidupan sehari-hari, yang dengan itu warga juga dapat langsung menghitungnya dalam bentuk berapa pengeluaran dan berapa besar investasi jangka panjang yang menyertainya jika mereka mengurangi emisi karbon. Mengurangi emisi karbon lantas menjadi topik keseharian di ”warung kopi”.

Contoh yang amat nyata adalah ketika Pemerintah Denmark mengeluarkan peraturan tentang aturan membuat rumah, semacam syarat-syarat izin mendirikan bangunan (IMB) di Jakarta. Agar semua bergerak ke arah yang dikehendaki—hanya jika pemerintah benar-benar menghendaki(!)—maka harus keluar peraturan yang ditegakkan, bukan hanya dituliskan yang proses pembuatannya pun mahal. Maka, keluarlah peraturan tentang Kode Etik Bangunan.

”Rakyat tidak akan bisa melihat apa keuntungan dari efisiensi energi. Pemerintah yang bisa. Harus mulai dari pemerintah, jadi masyarakat lalu tahu, dan kemudian semua baru bisa berjalan. Tidak bisa diserahkan ke publik begitu saja,” ujar Konselor Menteri pada Kementerian Luar Negeri Denmark Claus Hermansen dalam perjumpaan dengan sejumlah wartawan Indonesia awal Juni lalu.

Prinsip pertama yang diterapkan yaitu prinsip hukuman dan ganjaran (stick and carrot) menyangkut penggunaan energi. Mereka yang boros energi dikenai biaya tinggi dan sebaliknya mereka yang menggunakan energi dengan amat efisien mendapatkan insentif.

”Kami menerapkan pajak energi yang amat tinggi. Kalau energi tidak ada harganya, orang tak akan menghargainya. Mereka akan membuangnya begitu saja dari jendela,” ujar Hermansen mengibaratkan. Dengan cara itu, orang mulai selalu ingat untuk mematikan lampu, memasang AC di suhu sedang sekitar 25° celsius, dan dengan itu mereka bisa menghemat pengeluaran secara signifikan,” ujarnya. Sebagai contoh, harga listrik di Denmark untuk 1 kilowatt jam (kWh) yaitu 250 krone atau sekitar Rp 450.000.

Dengan Kode Etik Bangunan yang baru, pemerintah menargetkan pengurangan penggunaan energi—dikonversi ke minyak bumi—hingga 25 persen-30 persen ketimbang tahun 2006. Bangunan yang ada rata-rata butuh 14 liter minyak per meter persegi (lt/m2). Tahun 2006 penggunaan energi untuk rumah setara 5,5 lt/m2 Target tahun 2010 adalah 3 lt/m2. ”Setelah tahun 2010 peraturan akan kami perketat,” tutur Hermansen. Peraturan itu bersifat wajib. Berangsur semua bangunan harus memiliki sertifikat ”rumah hijau” atau bangunan ”hijau”. Sertifikat diterbitkan oleh Danish Energy Authority.

Bangunan yang bersertifikat dengan berbagai tingkatan harganya memang lebih tinggi daripada bangunan tua yang tidak mengikuti kaidah-kaidah efisiensi energi. Namun, biaya operasionalnya lebih rendah. Tujuan akhirnya, tegas Hermansen adalah, ”Rumah pasif (passive house) yaitu rumah yang tidak menggunakan bahan bakar fosil, rumah tanpa emisi gas rumah kaca (GRK). Suatu saat di masa depan nanti. Kami belum tetapkan kapan.”

Rumah hijau Charlotte

Menyusul kode etik tersebut, pemerintah menunjuk perumahan di daerah Stenløse, kira-kira 30 menit dari Kopenhagen, ibu kota Denmark, untuk menerapkan kaidah-kaidah rumah hijau. Di antaranya yaitu rumah kediaman keluarga Peter Hans Jensen-Charlotte Hjelm. Keluarga muda ini membangun rumah pertamanya sesuai dengan arahan pemerintah. Pasangan ini didampingi penasihat teknis dari pemerintah setempat. Mereka, Mona Dates dan Jens Lemche, mendampingi kami saat mengunjungi rumah Charlotte.

Keluarga dengan dua anak ini memasang insulasi yang menjadi bagian penting dari sebuah rumah dengan efisiensi energi. Insulasi berfungsi menyerap udara panas dan udara dingin dari luar sehingga suhu di dalam rumah tidak terlalu panas atau dingin. ”Kami tidak membutuhkan banyak gas untuk memanaskan rumah,” tutur Charlotte. Gas pemanas rumah pada bangunan baru telah ditanam sebagai instalasi di bawah rumah sehingga tak ada lagi batang-batang besi di dalam rumah.

Selain itu, penempatan jendela dengan kaca besar-besar juga menyebabkan penggunaan listrik bisa ditekan karena rumah selalu terang. Insulasi dari jendela dibuat maksimal dengan import kaca jendela dengan daya insulasi tinggi dari Swiss.

Penghematan air tanah dilakukan dengan menampung air hujan dengan penampung di bagian bawah halaman rumah. ”Air itu kami gunakan untuk mencuci baju, menggelontor WC, dan mencuci piring. Karena tak ada chlor-nya, hanya perlu detergen sedikit, mencuci juga lebih cepat sehingga listrik yang digunakan lebih sedikit,” jelas ibu dari Andrea dan Jonas ini.

Dengan membangun rumah sesuai standar pemerintah seperti itu, Charlotte dan Mona mengakui biaya pembangunannya lebih tinggi sekitar 5 persen daripada membangun rumah biasa. Dia menghabiskan dana sekitar 3,15 juta krone (sekitar Rp 6,3 miliar) untuk rumah di atas lahan sekitar 400 m2 itu. Untuk biaya pemanas dia hanya membayar 6.000 krone per tahun (sekitar Rp 12 juta), lebih murah 25 persen dari bangunan biasa. Demikian juga untuk penggunaan listrik.

”Kalau kita mau bumi kita tetap lestari ini harus kita jalani. Ini semua untuk kepentingan kehidupan di masa depan, kita harus mempertahankan bumi,” tegas Charlotte, potret wajah Denmark itu, tanpa ragu.

PEMANASAN GLOBAL ANCAM 900 SPESIES TERUMBU KARANG

Pemanasan global akan mengancam keberlangsungan hidup sedikitnya 900 spesies terumbu karang di segitiga terumbu karang terbesar di dunia. ''Ini bukan masalah lautnya yang parah. Kalau kena global warming suhu air laut akan naik dan terumbu karang bisa mati,'' ujar Ketua Panitia Nasional World Ocean Conference 2009, Indroyono Soesilo, di Jakarta, pekan lalu.

Indroyono mengatakan, keberlangsungan segitiga terumbu karang terbesar dunia atau coral triangle merupakan hal penting. Ini karena lokasi tersebut dapat dikatakan sebagai 'Hutan Amazon' dasar laut terbesar di dunia.

Badan-badan dunia dan LSM dunia pun menyadari bahwa inisiasi Indonesia untuk menyelenggarakan WOC 2009 pada 11 hingga 15 Mei mendatang di Manado merupakan event penting. Bahkan, United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) akan mengawal pelaksanaan konfrensi kelautan pertama di dunia tersebut sehingga menghasilkan draft kebijakan terkait kelautan.

''UNEP bahkan akan membuat 'Ocean Day pada Pertemuan Tingkat Tinggi terkait Pemanasan Global, Teknologi, dan Penghijauan di Copenhagen bulan September 2009,'' ujar Indroyono. Matinya terumbu karang di kawasan segitiga terumbu karang terbesar di dunia, akan mengancam sumber daya ikan dunia. Negara-negara yang termasuk dalam kawasan ini adalah Indonesia, Malaysia, Filipina, Papua Nugini, Timor Leste, dan Kepulauan Solomon.

Karena itu, WOC 2009 yang mengambil tema Ocean and Climate Change dengan topik 'Ocean Impact to Climate Change and The Role of Ocean to Climate Change' diharapkan mampu menghasilkan rancangan strategi yang akan tertuang dalam Manado Ocean Declaration(MOD). Hasil dari WOC 2009 akan ditindaklanjuti dengan Rencana Aksi dan Implementasi, yang akan diusulkan pembentukan World Ocean Forum.

Untuk pelestarian terumbu karang di kawasan segitiga terumbu karang, telah terkumbul dana hibah senilai 250 juta dolar AS. Dari hibah tersebut berasal dari negara maju termasuk Amerika dan Australia serta Global Environment Fund (GEF). Dari total dana hibah tersebut, Indonesia berharap bisa mendapatkan proporsi terbesar yakni lebih dari 50 persen. Hibah tersebut nantinya sebagai modal bagi rencana aksi nasional penyelamatan terumbu karang di kawasan Nusantara. ''Kami berharap bisa mendapat proporsi cukup besar,'' ujar Menteri Kelautan dan Perikanan, Freddy Numberi.

Indonesia memiliki luas total kawasan terumbu karang sebesar 85.707 kilometer persegi. Jumlah tersebut terdiri dari jenis penghalang 50.223 kilometer persegi, jenis atol 19.540 kilometer persegi, jenis tepi seluas 14.542 kilometer persegi, dan jenis landas oseanik 1.402 kilometer persegi.

Hasil penelitian Pusat Penelitian Oeseanografi LIPI pada 841 lokasi kawasan terumbu karang di Indonesia, dari jumlah tersebut, sekitar 33,17 persen mengalami kerusakan parah. Dari penelitian tersebut, diketahui pula bahwa 37,34 persen dari total terumbu karang itu juga mengalami kerusakan dengan kondisi buruk. Sedangkan kawasan terumbu karang yang masih dalam kondisi baik tercacat 24,26 persen dan kondisi sangat baik tinggal 5,32 persen saja.

Perancis Danai Program Perubahan Iklim

Badan Perancis untuk Pembangunan (Agence Francaise de Development/AFD) memberikan pinjaman kepada Indonesia sebesar 300 juta dolar AS yang merupakan pembayaran tahap kedua Program Pinjaman Perubahan Iklim (Climat Change Program Loan/CCPL).

Keterangan tertulis Departemen Keuangan (Depkeu) di Jakarta, Selasa, menyebutkan, Dirjen Pengelolaan Utang Depkeu Rahmat Waluyanto dan Country Director AFD di Indonesia, Joel Daligault, menandatangani perjanjian pinjaman itu pada Senin kemarin.

Pinjaman lunak itu ditujukan untuk mendukung Indonesia dalam program melawan perubahan iklim. Pinjaman lunak jangka panjang ini akan sepenuhnya dicairkan dalam beberapa pekan mendatang sebagai anggaran pendukung dalam anggaran Pemerintah Indonesia.

Dalam kerangka CCPL, pada tahun 2008 AFD telah mengucurkan pinjaman tahap pertama sebesar 200 juta dolar AS kepada Pemerintah Indonesia. Hal itu dalam kerangka pembiayaan bersama dengan Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

CCPL merupakan pinjaman tiga tahun (2007-2009) yang bertujuan untuk mendukung reformasi kebijakan yang sedang berjalan untuk menghadapi berbagai perubahan iklim. Matriks kebijakan tersebut mencakup bidang mitigasi (kehutanan, energi), adaptasi (pertanian, air), dan isu-isu lintas sektoral.

Indonesia Termasuk Rentan Bencana Akibat Perubahan Iklim

Perubahan iklim global yang terjadi dewasa ini, membuat negara-negara di belahan dunia ini termasuk Indonesia rentan terhadap bencana, kata pengamat Lingkungan di Papua, Yunus Paelo, kepada wartawan di Jayapura, Selasa.

Yunus yang juga seorang pengajar di Stiper Jayapura, menjelaskan, kemungkinan pemanasan global itu akan menimbulkan kekeringan dan curah hujan ekstrim yang pada gilirannya akan menimbulkan risiko bencana.

Ia mengungkapkan, selama periode 2003-2005 di Indonesia telah terjadi 1.429 bencana. Sekitar 53,3 persen adalah bencana terkait dengan hidro-meteorologi yakni banjir.

Banjir adalah bencana yang sering terjadi atau sebanyak 34 persen dan diikuti bencana longsor 16 persen.

"Pemanasan global ditandai dengan meningkatnya suhu rata-rata permukaan bumi, sebagai akibat peristiwa efek rumah kaca yaitu terperangkapnya radiasi matahari yang seharusnya dipancarkan kembali ke angkasa luar namun tertahan oleh lapisan akumulasi Gas Rumah Kaca (GRK) di atmosfer,".

Ditambahkannya, tindakan aktif yang dapat dilakukan untuk mencegah terjadinya perubahan iklim dan mengurangi dampak pemanasan global, yakni dengan dilakukannya upaya penurunan emisi GRK.

"Juga telah dilakukan berbagai kebijakan seperti di bidang kehutanan dengan rehabilitasi hutan dan lahan, serta konservasi, penanggulangan ilegal loging, restrukturisasi sektor kehutanan, pemberdayaan masyarakat di sekitar hutan, penanggulangan dan pencegahan kebakaran hutan, reboisasi sekitar daerah resapan air, dan sebagainya

30 Jenis Penyakit Yang Muncul Akibat Pemanasan Global

Staf Khusus Menteri Lingkungan Hidup, Amanda Katil Niode di sela-sela penganugerahan Raksaniyata 2008 di Jakarta, Jumat mengatakan, munculnya penyakit ini karena temperatur suhu panas bumi yang terus meningkat.

"Yang paling jelas kelihatan penyakit demam berdarah, kolera, diare, disusul virus ebola yang sangat mematikan," katanya.

Menurut dia, masalah kesehatan akibat pemanasan global memang sangat dirasakan parahnya oleh negara-negara berkembang yang sebagian masih miskin, karena minimnya dana sehingga tak mampu lagi melaksanakan berbagai program persiapan dan tanggap darurat.

Untuk mengatasi dampak buruk perubahan iklim terhadap kesehatan manusia itu, tidak bisa dilakukan sendiri oleh masing-masing negara.

Upaya itu baru akan berhasil jika dilakukan melalui kerjasama global, seperti misalnya meningkatkan pengawasan dan pengendalian penyakit-penyakit infeksi, memastikan penggunaan air tanah yang kian surut, dan mengkoordinasikan tindakan kesehatan darurat.

"Itu semua penting dilakukan, karena perubahan iklim jelas-jelas akibat dari kegiatan manusia yang tak peduli terhadap keseimbangan alam, yang kemudian berimplikasi serius terhadap kesehatan publik," ujarnya.

Selain menyebabkan gangguan kesehatan, perubahan iklim juga mengakibatkan berbagai bencana alam yang sangat besar. Sepanjang tahun 2006 telah terjadi 390 bencana besar di dunia yang banyak menelan korban.

"Amerika Serikat paling banyak terjadi bencana dibanding negara-negara lain, tetapi untuk jumlah korban paling banyak saat tsunami terjadi di Aceh pada 2004 lalu," jelasnya.

Di Indonesia sendiri, kata dia, bencana alam banyak terjadi akibat kesadaran masyarakat yang lemah, seperti pembalakan liar, kebakaran hutan, dan pembuangan karbon dioksida (CO2). Agar bencana alam dapat diminimalisir diperlukan sinkronisasi antara pemerintah, dunia usaha dan individu.

Stopping Global Warming Pollution

More than 100 members of Congress have already cosponsored the Safe Climate Act, a science-based bill to dramatically reduce U.S. global warming pollution. Introduced in late June by Congressman Henry Waxman, the bill requires the U.S. to reduce its global warming pollution by about 15% by 2020 and by 80% by 2050. To achieve these targets, the bill calls for improved energy efficiency and a greater reliance on clean, renewable energy sources.

A recent U.S. PIRG report, called Rising to the Challenge, provides a blueprint for reducing U.S. global warming emissions by nearly 20% by 2020 by taking six steps to boost energy efficiency and renewable energy. More.

How You Can Help
Call your representative urging him or her to cosponsor the Safe Climate Act, legislation that will reduce global warming pollution nationwide to levels necessary to prevent the worst impacts of global warming.

Summary
More and more Americans are becoming concerned about global warming. As power plants and cars spew out more global warming pollution, we will see rising sea levels along the Eastern seaboard, more intense storms in the Gulf, droughts in the West, and more dangerous heat waves across the country.

The good news is that if we act now and act decisively we can stop global warming and protect our children and future generations.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration is refusing to act, but we don’t have time to waste. The longer we wait, the more global warming pollution builds up in the atmosphere – and the worse the effects will be.

That is why PIRG is urging Congress to reject ineffectual proposals and set science-based targets for reducing global warming pollution from power plants, cars, and other sources

Geoengineering could stop global warming but carries big risks

Using radical techniques to "engineer" Earth's climate by blocking sunlight could cool Earth but presents great risks that could well worsen global warming should they fail or be discontinued, reports a new study published in the June 4 early online edition of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Using computer simulations to model the impact of proposed experiments using a solar filter to block sunlight instead of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, an international team of scientists conclude that geoengineering a risky strategy.

"Given current political and economic trends, it is easy to become pessimistic about the prospect that needed cuts in carbon dioxide emissions will come soon enough or be deep enough to avoid irreversibly damaging our climate," said co-author Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology. "If we want to consider more dramatic options, such as deliberately altering the Earth's climate, it's important to understand how these strategies might play out."

Photo by Rhett A. Butler

Scientists have put forward several proposals to reduce the amount of solar radiation that reaches the planet's surface, including the use of light-reflecting sulfate particles in the atmosphere and installing mirrors in orbit around the planet.

The PNAS study shows that geoengineering schemes, even under a scenario of increasing emissions, could cool Earth within a few decades to pre-Industrial Revolution levels, but that failure of the system would result in "a catastrophic, decade-long spike in global temperatures... with rates of warming 20 times greater than we are experiencing today" as carbon sequestered in plants and soils would be quickly released into the atmosphere."

"If we become addicted to a planetary sunshade, we could experience a painful withdrawal if our fix was suddenly cut off," said Caldeira. "This needs to be taken into consideration if we ever think seriously about implementing a geoengineering strategy."

Caldeira and lead author Damon Matthews of Concordia University in Montreal say that their models also show geoengineering would affect global rainfall patterns, with lower levels of precipitation over tropical forests. In their models run with no simulated geoengineering, warmer temperatures resulted in more rainfall over the oceans and less over tropical forests

"Many people argue that we need to prevent climate change. Others argue that we need to keep emitting greenhouse gases," Caldeira said. "Geoengineering schemes have been proposed as a cheap fix that could let us have our cake and eat it, too. But geoengineering schemes are not well understood. Our study shows that planet-sized geoengineering means planet-sized risks."

Caldeira said that proposed geoengineering schemes need to be better understood before they are implemented but that the quick-acting nature of the projects mean that can put off geoengineering decisions until they become absolutely necessary.

"I hope I never need a parachute, but if my plane is going down in flames, I sure hope I have a parachute handy," Caldeira said. "I hope we'll never need geoengineering schemes, but if a climate catastrophe occurs, I sure hope we will have thought through our options carefully.

Sekjen PBB Minta Langkah Praktis Hadapi Pemanasan Global

Markas Besar PBB, New York (ANTARA News) - Sekretaris Jenderal Ban Ki-moon meminta semua negara, baik negara kaya maupun negara miskin, untuk melakukan langkah-langkah praktis dalam menghadapi dampak pemanasan global.

Pada saat yang sama, Sekjen PBB juga mendesak negara-negara maju untuk memberikan sumbangan bagi program pendanaan dan program lainnya untuk membantu masyarakat di negara-negara yang harus menanggung dampak perubahan iklim.

Seperti dikutip oleh salah satu juru bicaranya, Farhan Haq, dalam jumpa pers di Markas Besar PBB, New York, Senin, Ban menekankan bahwa adaptasi terhadap dampak pemanasan global merupakan investasi penting bagi masa depan semua pihak.

"Adaptasi harus kita lihat sebagai hal yang serius. Adaptasi merupakan kebutuhan praktis dan juga kewajiban moral," kata Ban dalam pidato yang disampaikannya di Ulaabaatar, ibukota negara Mongolia, Senin.

Berbagai langkah praktis, ujarnya, harus diambil oleh semua negara.

Upaya itu, menurutnya, bisa dimulai dengan mengumpulkan data ilmiah secara rinci tentang dampak perubahan iklim sehingga negara yang bersangkutan dapat mengarahkan berbagai sumber daya mereka untuk melakukan langkah-langkah terbaik.

Ia juga mengimbau agar negara-negara yang rentan terhadap pemanasan global melakukan berbagai upaya untuk mengurangi resiko bencana.

Menanam pohon bakau di daerah pesisir serta meningkatkan pendidikan masyarakat dan menyusun rencana evakuasi, disebut Sekjen sebagai contoh langkah praktis dan cenderung tidak mahal yang dapat dilakukan sebuah negara dalam mengantisipasi dampak pemanasan global.

Ban mengingatkan, kesepakatan dalam pembicaraan global soal kelanjutan Protokol Kyoto yang akan berlangsung di Kopenhagen, Denmark, pada Desember 2009 mendatang, harus membuat ketentuan bagi negara-negara makmur untuk menyediakan bantuan bagi negara-negara miskin dan rentan terhadap perubahan iklim agar mereka dapat menghadapi dampak pemanasan global.

"Miliaran (dolar, red) dana akan diperlukan. Harus ada dana baru, bukan berbentuk bantuan pembangunan resmi yang dirancang ulang," katanya.

Untuk mendorong negara-negara dalam upaya menyelesaikan kesepakatan kelanjutan Protokol Kyoto --yang periode pertamanya akan berakhir pada tahun 2012, Sekjen Ban Ki-moon akan menggelar pertemuan tingkat tinggi di New York pada 22 September 2009.

Pertemuan di New York itu disebut-sebut sebagai pertemuan tingkat tinggi terbesar tahun ini yang membahas masalah perubahan iklim.

Climate Control Self Storage in California filed under Global Warming

For people who like living in California, it can become very hot very fast and there may be items in your home, business or elsewhere that cannot stand that type of heat. This is part of why California storage centers tend to have climate control storage. Businesses can have food, wine and other items that are delicate to climate turn from priceless treasures into items that have gone bad and have no worth. Wine can turn to vinegar and other food items can melt or even go bad. Storage rental storage unit that is climate controlled your items can be safe guarded through the toughest of heats.

When you think about storage you may have your first thoughts be about boat storage, vehicle storage and RV storage but in all actuality one of the types of storages that are most needed in California are climate controlled. Whether they are long term storage, self storage or mini storage climates being at a specific level can be fairly common and very much needed. California is full on restaurants, wineries, vineyards and all types of other businesses and restaurants. You can find sushi restaurants, Mexican restaurants, Chinese restaurants, family restaurants, specialty restaurants and so much more.

For all of these businesses, they may have supplies that will not stay good overnight if they are left inside due to the heat. This is part of why having a climate controlled storage unit be self storage can be very helpful. This means that you can come and go and put your items in or take items out without having to worry about other people or having to worry about what time you go along with other factors. These factors can even include not having to pay for the help with storage each time that you go for a deposit or withdrawal.

For vineyards, these types of storage can e essential to staying in business. Many vineyards have extensive storage areas on their property but not all of them. In addition, there are factors such as while you are trying to have an item reach its destination if your drivers have to stop for the night and it con not be shipped. Or what would happen if you have a batch that you wanted separate from the rest or even if your storage were to become filled. These are only some of the possibilities that make climate controlled self storage necessary for some businesses.

While climate controlled self storage can be wonderful for businesses, it can also be very helpful for individuals and residents of California. There are many reasons for this all of which any wine collector would be able to understand in an instant. Wine is able to turn into vinegar if it does not stay t the proper temperature whereas if t stays at the correct temperature there is nothing stopping it from lasting longer then any person could. Many people may pass their collections on to their children, to other collectors or simply on to someone that they care about.

When passing on a private collection you will want to have a storage unit for your wine for while the contracts are signed and much more so that you will know that your wine is safe and able to get to who you would lie to have it be in the hands of. When a person passes on everything that they give out in their will needs to be legalized so if your property was going to a different individual then your wine collection having it still be on that property could cause issues for the person who was trying to get it or for legalizing the transaction. In addition, in the mean time while it was being legalized you would not be there to check the temperature and make sure that your wine was safe.

To some wine is simply a drink that you have in a restaurant or in your home. To others wine is a priceless item filled with memories and devotion of makers, collectors and more. Self storage that is climate controlled can help you store your entire collection or even just your most prized wines. Some people enjoy having their favorite wines or most loved ones in storage for a later date. Such as having the wine you had at your wedding on your anniversary years later. This shows a devotion to the piece but more importantly a devotion to the person who you love and the wonderful day that your unity began.

What is Green Tea Extract?

Green Tea Extract is made from green tea leaves. The leaves contain many antioxidant ingredients, mainly green tea catechins. Green Tea has become very popular lately by those looking to prevent free radical damage to their bodies to help them look and feel young and healthy. Green Tea Extract is used for four primary reasons, as an antioxidant, anti-cancer, anti-inflammation, and anti-radiation.

Will Green Tea Extract be used for treating cancer?

The anti-cancer properties of Green Tea Extract have made it very popular among scientific researchers. Green Tea Extract showed inhibitory effects on cancer cells, as well as the ability to block the cell cycle of cancer cells and induce programmed cell death. Green Tea Extract has also seems to have anti-radiation properties. Although Green Tea Extract shows great potential for anticancer capacity it is not used alone as a chemotherapy agent for cancer treatment.



Green Tea Extract as a preservative?

Because Green Tea Extract is so high in antioxidants, scientists have been working on ways of using it as a food additive for preserving a wide variety of foods. Green Tea Extract is already being used as a preservative for what is called a Moon Cake. Green Tea Extract seems to not only increase the shelf life of the cake but also improve the flavor! In other experiments, Green Tea Extract is being tested on its ability to prevent apple juice and other foods from microbial contamination.

What else is Green Tea Extract good for?

Green Tea Extract contains a wide-range of anti-inflammation characteristics, so it may be helpful in treating chronic inflammatory states. Green Tea Extract may also be effective in oral hygiene maintenance.



How much Green Tea should I take?

Green Tea Extract supplements are available by just about everyone now days. Typical supplementation is 300-400mg which is equivalent to about 5 cups of Green Tea. Potency varies quite a bit amongst Green Tea Extract manufactures with some being about half as potent as others, so it is a good idea to check for the percentage of polyphenols it contains. It is also said to be better to take Green Tea Extract between meals rather than during the meal in order to avoid the decrease of iron absorption.

Is Green Tea Extract safe?

Excessive intake of Green Tea Extract containing caffeine has side effects; a too high concentration may act as a pro-oxidant to damage DNA. Caffeine may be excluded in Green Tea extract supplements in order to avoid side-effects; “caffeine-free” Green Tea Extract supplements are available nowadays.

21 Solutions to Save the World: 450 Ways to Stop Global Warming

The most important number on Earth is almost certainly 450. And just as certainly, it’s not a number that means much to most policymakers. Not yet, anyway.

Everyone without a severe ideological kink knows by now that global warming is a looming problem. Even in the United States, two decades of energy industry disinformation is finally wearing off: Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Gore have finally blown most doubt away. But many fewer people realize either the real magnitude of the problem or the speed with which it may be bearing down on us.

Here’s the short course. Before the Industrial Revolution, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide was roughly 280 parts per million. CO2, by virtue of its molecular structure, regulates how much of the sun’s energy stays trapped in our narrow envelope of atmosphere—Mars, which has very little, is cold; Venus, with a lot, is hellish. We were in a sweet spot, where human civilization developed and thrived. But as we burned coal, gas, and oil, the extra carbon dioxide that combustion produced began to accumulate in the atmosphere. By the late 1950s, when people first started to measure it, atmospheric concentrations were already above 315 parts per million. Now, that number has reached 380 parts per million, and its rise has accelerated: In recent years, we’ve been adding about 2 parts per million annually to the atmosphere. And, predictably, the temperature has begun to rise.

Twenty years ago, when global warming first came to public consciousness, no one knew precisely how much carbon dioxide was too much. The early computer climate models made a number of predictions about what would happen if we doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to 550 parts per million. But, in recent years, as the science has gotten more robust, scientists have tended to put the red line right...

Biofuel production 'is harming the poor'

The production of biofuels is fuelling poverty, human rights abuses and damage to the environment, Christian Aid warned today.

The charity said huge subsidies and targets in developed countries for boosting the production of fuels from plants such as maize and oil palm are exacerbating environmental and social problems in poor nations.

And rather than being a "silver bullet" to tackle climate change, the carbon emissions of some of the fuels are higher than fossil fuels because of deforestation driven by the need for land for them to grow.

According to a report, Growing Pains, by Christian Aid, industrial scale production of biofuels is worsening problems such as food price hikes in central America, forced displacement of small farmers for plantations and pollution of local water sources.

But with 2.4 billion people worldwide currently without secure sources of energy for cooking and heating, Christian Aid believes the renewable fuels do have the potential to help the poor.

The charity highlights schemes such as the growing of jatropha in Mali, where the plant is raised between food crops and the oil from the seeds is used to run village generators which can power appliances such as stoves and lights.

The report argues that talking about "good" or "bad" biofuels is oversimplifying the situation, and the problem is not with the crop or fuel - but the policies surrounding them.

Developed countries have poured subsidies into biofuel production - for example in the US where between 9.2 billion dollars and 11 billion dollars went to supporting maize-based ethanol in 2008 - when there are cheaper and more effective ways to cut emissions from transport, the report said.

The charity said biofuels production needed a "new vision" - a switch from supplying significant quantities of transport fuel for industrial markets to helping poor people have access to clean energy.

The report's author Eliot Whittington, climate advocacy specialist for Christian Aid, said: "Vast sums of European and American taxpayers' money are being used to prop up industries which are fuelling hunger, severe human rights abuses and environmental destruction - and failing to deliver the benefits claimed for them."

He said the current approach to biofuels had been "disastrous".

"Policymakers should urgently rethink their entire approach to biofuels, to ensure that only crops and fuels which will achieve their social and environmental goals receive government backing."

He added: "Christian Aid believes that the best approach to biofuels is to grow them on a small scale and process them locally to provide energy for people in the surrounding countryside.

"This can also increase rural people's incomes and has the potential to actually increase soil fertility and moisture retention, without compromising people's food security."

Soot reduction 'could help to stop global warming'

Governments could slow global warming dramatically, and buy time to avert disastrous climate change, by slashing emissions of one of humanity's most familiar pollutants – soot – according to Nasa scientists. A study by the space agency shows that cutting down on the pollutant, which has so far been largely ignored by climate scientists, can have an immediate cooling effect – and prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths from air pollution at the same time.

At the beginning of the make-or-break year in international attempts to negotiate a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, the soot removal proposal – which is being taken seriously by experts close to the Obama administration – offers hope of a rapid new way of tackling global warming. Governments have long experience in acting against soot.

In simple terms, global warming refers to an overabundance of carbon dioxide, methane and ozone in our atmosphere. These gases and a few other atmospheric components are known as greenhouse gases. These gases trap heat and act like a blanket warming the earth. Some greenhouse gases occur naturally or at lower concentrations than currently observed and measured. Human activities contribute to the excess amounts of greenhouse gases present in our atmosphere and are expediting their dangerous effects on our environment.

• The emissions from the cars we drive
  
  
• The pollution emitted from factories used to make everyday items
  
  
• The power plants that produce non-renewable electricity for our every day lives
  
  
• The massive landfills overflowing with our garbage
  
  
• The conversion of forest land into pasture, urban or wasteland areas

All of these things that we rely on and typically take for granted are making the earth a less friendly environment for us... for our children.

Global Warming is not a question of if, but when? How long will it take for the effects of the excess carbon and other greenhouse gases to change the world we know today into something we wouldn't recognize? It is happening now and our actions today have an enormous effect on the answer to that question. Every decision, every purchase, every action you make will either help or hurt the future of life on our planet.

Space Ring Could Shade Earth and Stop Global Warming

A wild idea to combat global warming suggests creating an artificial ring of small particles or spacecrafts around Earth to shade the tropics and moderate climate extremes.

There would be side effects, proponents admit. An effective sunlight-scattering particle ring would illuminate our night sky as much as the full Moon, for example.

And the price tag would knock the socks off even a big-budget agency like NASA: $6 trillion to $200 trillion for the particle approach. Deploying tiny spacecraft would come at a relative bargain: a mere $500 billion tops.

But the idea, detailed today in the online version of the journal Acta Astronautica, illustrates that climate change can be battled with new technologies, according to one scientist not involved in the new work.

Mimic a volcano

All scientists agree that Earth gets warmer and colder across the eons. A delicate and ever-changing balance between solar radiation, cloud cover, and heat-trapping greenhouse gases controls long-term swings from ice ages to warmer conditions like today.

Earth's Atmosphere An illustration of the ring of particles or spacecraft casting a shadow on equatorial Earth. To keep the particles in place, gravitationally significant shepherding spacecraft might be employed. They would herd the particle much like small moons keep Saturns rings in place. Credit: Star Technology and Research, Inc.

Those who are often called experts admit to glaring gaps in their knowledge of how all this works. A study last month revealed that scientists can't pin down one of the most critical keys: how much sunlight our planet absorbs versus how much is reflected back into space.

Nonetheless, most scientists think our climate has warmed significantly over the past century and will grow warmer over the next hundred years. Various studies claim the planet is destined to warm by anywhere from 1 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit over the next few centuries. Seas will rise dramatically, the scenario goes, inundating coastal cities. But another group of scientists argue that the temperature data supporting a warming planet is not firm and that projections, based on computer modeling, might be wildly off the mark.

Either way, perhaps our fate is more in our hands than we might have imagined.

"Reducing solar insolation by 1.6 percent should overcome a 1.75 K [3 degrees Fahrenheit] temperature rise," contends a group led by Jerome Pearson, president of Star Technology and Research, Inc. "This might be accomplished by a variety of terrestrial or space systems."

The power of scattering sunlight has been illustrated naturally, the scientists note. Volcanic eruptions, such as that of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991, pumped aerosols into the atmosphere and cooled the global climate by about a degree. Other researchers have suggested such schemes as adding metallic dust to smoke stacks, to flood the atmosphere and reflect more sunlight back into space.

In the newly outlined approach, reflective particles might come from the mining of Earth, the Moon or asteroids. They'd be put into orbit around the equator. Alternately, tiny micro-spacecraft could be deployed with reflective umbrellas.

A ring created by a batch of either "shades the tropics primarily, providing maximum effectiveness in cooling the warmest parts of our planet," the scientists write. An early version of their idea was presented but not widely noticed in 2002.

Eccentric but reassuring

Those researchers who don't buy the argument that global warming is occurring at any significant rate nor that humans are largely to blame may warm up quickly to the new idea.

Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist at Liverpool John Moores University in the UK, tracks climate research and the resulting media coverage. He's among the small but vocal group that goes against mainstream thought on the topic of global warming.

"I don't think that the modest warming trend we are currently experiencing poses any significant or long-term threat," Peiser told LiveScience. "Nevertheless, what the paper does show quite impressively is that our hyper-complex civilization is theoretically and technologically capable of dealing with any significant climate change we may potentially face in the future."

Peiser also notes that the Kyoto Protocol, a global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, is estimated to cost the world economy some $150 billion a year. He also sees a broader rationale for supporting the seemingly bizarre manner of managing Earth's temperature budget.

"I believe that this mindset, despite its apparent eccentricity, is actually rather reassuring," Peiser said. "It provides concerned people with ample evidence of the extraordinary human ingenuity that, as so often in the past, has helped to overcome many predicaments that were regarded as impenetrable in previous times."

He also sees an ultimate big-picture reasoning to look favorably on the notion of controlling Earth's climate.

"Whatever the cost and regardless of whether there is any major risk due to global warming," Peiser said, "it would appear to me that such a space-based infrastructure will evolve sooner or later, thus forming additional stepping stones of our emerging migration towards outer space."

Stop coal, stop global warming, says architect

"The only fossil fuel that can fuel global warming is coal. If you stop coal, you stop global warming. End of story," he said. Architecture 2030 is a non-profit that encourages builders, suppliers and architects to move toward making carbon neutral buildings by 2030.

The problem with coal is two fold: it spews a lot of carbon dioxide, among other materials into the air, and the world has a lot of it, making it tempting to use. In the U.S. alone, there are 151 coal plants in the planning and construction phase.

The emissions from a single coal-fired power plant for one month will negate the efforts Wal-Mart is putting forth to curb its emissions. Wal-Mart wants to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent in seven years, he said.

Home Depot has announced it will plant 300,000 trees to offset is carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, those 300,000 trees will have to live 100 years before they offset the fumes from ten days from a coal-fired plant, he said. Replace every incandescent bulb in America with compact fluorescents? The benefits are eradicated by the carbon dioxide from two coal-fired plants over a year, he said.

"The silver bullet is no more coal," he said.

The coal question is the big question in the green industry. Coal plants do put a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but getting rid of them rapidly, say many, is economically unfeasible. Some have begun to advocate erecting more nuclear power plants to offset coal use. Several companies have also put forward ideas for cleaning up coal.

Of course, that won't be easy, but there are technologies and ideas that can help right now, said Mazria. Designing buildings to take advantage of passive cooling and natural lighting will cut energy use. Solar panels will reduce fossil fuels, he said. Architecture 2030's goal is to make the building sector carbon neutral by that year. According to stats from Oak Ridge National Laboratories, buildings consume approximately 48 percent of the energy in the U.S. (43 percent goes to operations, 8 percent goes to construction) and account for 43 percent of the greenhouse gases. 76 percent of the electricity generated in the U.S. goes to operating buildings.

And the U.S. has conserved before. Energy use between 1973 and 1983 stayed relatively flat, according to stats from the Energy Information Agency, he said. But in that time period, 35 million new cars got on the road.

Mazria also showed off some very scary simulations of what will happen if sea levels rise to a meter or more. A lot of coastal Florida will vanish at 1 meter. Galveston, Texas goes under at 1.5 meters.

Climate change may become irreversible if the atmosphere hits 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide, he said, citing studies. Right now, the earth is at 385 parts per million and the figure is currently rising at 2.2 parts every year. Without changes, we will hit the 450 level by 2035, he asserted.

How Will Climate Refugees Impact National Security?

BHOMRA, Bangladesh – A high, heavily reinforced barbed wire fence cuts a jagged line through an otherwise empty field of tall grass and tamarind plants here. Climate change didn't bring this fence, but it is providing a fresh reason for its existence and ongoing expansion.

On this side of the fence, rising sea levels caused by climate change are beginning to inundate low-lying Bangladesh. Scientists estimate that by midcentury as many as 15 million people could be displaced.

On the other side of the fence, India isn't taking any chances. Already alarmed about illegal immigration, it is nearing completion of about 2,100 miles worth of high-tech fencing along its long and porous border with Bangladesh.

"Bangladesh is a country that could provide more climate refugees than anywhere else on earth," said Isabel Hilton, an environmental commentator whose London-based nonprofit promotes climate change dialogue in China and throughout Asia.

"What that fence says to me is, wherever those people are going to go, they're not going to India," Hilton said.

The prospect of international migration is a touchy subject in Bangladesh. But for national security experts, it's the most feared global consequence of climate change. As warming temperatures deplete water supplies and alter land use, military analysts warn, already-vulnerable communities in Asia and Africa could descend into conflicts and even wars as more people clamor for increasingly scarce resources.

A distant issue, or today's problem?

Research on how climate change might spark conflict is still in its infancy, and it often tends to be thin and speculative. Indeed, a growing body of international conflict experts say the threat is greatly overblown. Nevertheless, the international security argument has become a sharp weapon in the arsenal of climate change activists who want a global emissions treaty.

Just last month, Lord Nicholas Stern, the eminent climate change economist, warned that failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could bring "an extended world war."

But in Bangladesh, where most of the country is less than 20 feet above sea level, many analysts say leaders appear caught between wanting to ring alarm bells about climate change and a desire to avoid the touchy and seemingly unresolvable issue of migration.

India claims that about 5 million Bangladeshis already are living there illegally, while Bangladesh officials say the numbers are wildly exaggerated. The issue is a constant source of tension between the nations. Climate change isn't helping.

"This question of migration to India is one of the topics that is a heated debate in our country, because we believe people are not moving to India," said Abdul Kalam Azad, a senior research fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies. He and others describe climate migration as a distant issue earning an inordinate amount of media hype.

Rabab Fatima, South Asia representative for the International Organization for Migration, said the political sensitivity has led to a dearth of studies on what climate change will mean for migration patterns in Bangladesh.

"The country is not yet prepared to know how to deal with it," she said. The prevailing attitude, she said, is that "climate change is a big problem. Migration is a big problem. Let's not link it. Let it happen in the next generation."

'We are in trouble here'

In the border village of Harinagar, on the other hand, cross-border climate migration is an everyday cause of stress and concern. Almost every person in this cluster of mud and thatch homes has a relative who has illegally crossed the Ichamati River to find work in India.

Reef Warns Of Sea Level Rise

A fossil coral reef, lying several metres above today’s high tide mark at Foul Bay near Margaret River, points to the high point of the last major sea level rise.

Investigators from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) consider the reef – the most southerly coral reef yet known – is a harbinger of what could happen again as global CO2 levels and temperatures rise during the 21st century.

“We’ve dated the reef to about 128-125,000 years ago, right in the middle of the last interglacial, or the last period of global warming before our most recent ice age,” says Professor Malcolm McCulloch, deputy director of CoECRS and an earth scientist at The Australian National University.

“The reef lies about 2.5 metres above the current high tide zone, which means that for it to survive and grow, sea levels would have had to be at least 3 to 4 metres higher than at present.

“There is some evidence – still controversial – that sea levels may briefly have been as much as 6 metres higher.”

The coastline of WA, being geologically stable, has a number of both living and fossil coral reefs along it, the results of the Leeuwin current bringing coral larvae down from Indonesia and northern Australia over many tens of thousands of years. Together these reefs indicate what occurred during the last big sea level rise.

“At the time when this reef grew we know that atmospheric CO2 levels were high, climate had warmed, that the northern icesheets had melted significantly and that sea levels rose - before dropping by around 130 metres again as the ice-age returned and locked up water,” Prof. McCulloch says.

“Water temperatures off Margaret River would then have been more like water temperatures off Geraldton today, allowing the corals to flourish and reefs to form. The discovery is of particular importance as it shows that sea levels rose not only because of the expansion of the oceans due to warming, which can account for ~1/2 metre of sea level rise, but also because it indicates that relatively large scale melting of landbased icesheets occurred in Greenland or the Antarctic. It is the very rapid rise in sea level from catastrophic melting of landbased icesheets where there the greatest uncertainty and concern lies. Now from the Margaret River corals we have evidence of not only unusually warm ocean temperatures, but that that this was associated with rapid melting of icesheets contributing to an additional 3 to 4 metres of sea level rise. ”

The cause of the sudden global warming leading to the end of the ice-ages is thought to be due to changes in the elliptical nature of the Earth’s orbit combining with other factors, such as variations in its tilt or wobble. During the ice ages atmospheric CO2 was around 180 parts per million, compared to 280 parts per million during interglacials. We don’t know quite why CO2 levels rose so much during the last interglacial, but it may have been partly due to a reduction in the ocean’s ability to take up atmospheric carbon, as the seas warmed.

Today CO2 levels are even higher, at 380 parts per million with the additional 100 ppm being mainly due to human activities. Prof. McCulloch says the oceans currently removed around 40 per cent of the anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere and it would be a matter of concern if their ability to do this decreased under global warming. If levels continue to increase, to above 500 – 600 parts per million as many scientists expect to be the case by 2050, then the climate shifts and warming effects and will become even more dramatic and surpass those of the Last Interglacial warm period”

“Sea level rises and falls have occurred throughout geological history and are all slightly different from one another. However what took place in the last period of global warming 125,000 years ago gives us an idea of what to expect under the current phase,” he said.

“We should certainly be paying attention to what the corals are telling us.”

Climate Uncertainty With CO2 Rise Due To Uncertainty About Aerosols

In a paper to be published in the November issue of the Journal of the Air and Waste Management Association, Stephen Schwartz, an atmospheric scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, argues that much of the reason for the present uncertainty in the climatic effect of increased CO2 arises from uncertainty about the influence of atmospheric aerosols, tiny particles in the air. Schwartz, who is also chief scientist of the Department of Energy’s Atmospheric Science Program, points out that aerosols scatter and absorb light and modify the properties of clouds, making them brighter and thus able to reflect more incoming solar radiation before it reaches Earth’s surface.

“Because these aerosol particles, like CO2, are introduced into the atmosphere as a consequence of industrial processes such as fossil fuel combustion,” says Schwartz, “they have been exerting an influence on climate over the same period of time as the increase in CO2, and could thus very well be masking much of the influence of that greenhouse gas.” However, he emphasizes, the influence of aerosols is not nearly so well understood as the influence of greenhouse gases.

As Schwartz documents, the uncertainty in the climate influence of atmospheric aerosols limits any inference that can be drawn about future climate sensitivity — how much the temperature would rise due to CO2 doubling alone — from the increase in global mean temperature already observed over the industrial period.

The global warming of 0.5 degrees Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) that has taken place since 1900 suggests that, if there were no aerosol influence, the effect of CO2 doubling on mean global temperature would be rather low — a rise of 0.9 degrees Celsius (1.6 degrees Fahrenheit). But, the likelihood that aerosols have been offsetting some of the warming caused by CO2 all along, says Schwartz, means that the observed 0.5-degree-Celsius temperature rise is just the part of the CO2 effect we can “see” — the tip of the greenhouse “iceberg.” So the effect of doubling CO2, holding everything else constant, he says, might be three or more times as great.

“Knowledge of Earth’s climate sensitivity is central to informed decision-making regarding future carbon dioxide emissions and developing strategies to cope with a greenhouse-warmed world,” Schwartz says. However, as he points out, not knowing how much aerosols offset greenhouse warming makes it impossible to refine estimates of climate sensitivity. Right now, climate models with low sensitivity to CO2 and those with high sensitivity are able to reproduce the temperature change observed over the industrial period equally well by using different values of the aerosol influence, all of which lie within the uncertainty of present estimates.

“In order to appreciably reduce uncertainty in Earth’s climate sensitivity the uncertainty in aerosol influences on climate must be reduced at least threefold,” Schwartz concludes. He acknowledges that such a reduction in uncertainty presents an enormous challenge to the aerosol research community.

An editorial accompanying the paper credits Schwartz with presenting “a unique argument challenging the research community to reduce the uncertainty in aerosol forcing of climate change in order to reduce the uncertainty in climate sensitivity to an extent that would be more useful to decision makers.” The editorial also suggests that, “Schwartz’s calculations are not only of interest for the issue of climate change but may serve as a paradigm for environmental issues in general.”

This research was funded by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research within the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

Researchers Improve Predictions Of Cloud Formation For Better Global Climate Modeling

The National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded researchers, led by scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology, also have developed a new instrument for measuring the conditions and time needed for a particle to become a cloud droplet. This will help scientists determine how various types of emissions affect cloud formation.

Georgia Tech scientist Athanasios Nenes will present a lecture on the work at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting in San Francisco on Dec. 17. The session is titled “Tropospheric Aerosol Processes: The Physical and Chemical Aging of Aerosol Particles and Their Impacts.”

Clouds play a critical role in climate, Nenes explained. Low, thick clouds cool the earth by reflecting solar radiation whereas high, thin clouds have warming properties by trapping infrared radiation emitted by the earth.

Scientists have learned that human activities influence cloud formation. Airborne particles released by smokestacks, charcoal grills and car exhaust restrict the growth of cloud droplets, causing condensing water to spread out among a larger number of smaller droplets. Known as the “indirect aerosol effect,” it gives clouds more surface area and reflectivity, which translates into greater cooling power. The clouds may also have less chance of forming rain, which allows cloud to remain longer for cooling.

“Of all the components of climate change, the aerosol indirect effect has the greatest potential cooling effect, yet quantitative estimates are highly uncertain,” said Nenes. “We need to get more rigorous and accurate representation of how particles modify cloud properties. Until the aerosol indirect effect is well understood, society is incapable of assessing its impact on future climate.”

Current computer climate models can’t accurately predict cloud formation, which, in turn, hinders their ability to forecast climate change from human activities. “Because of their coarse resolution, computer models produce values on large spatial scales (hundreds of kilometers) and can only represent large cloud systems,” Nenes said.

Aerosol particles, however, are extremely small and measured in micrometers. This means predictive models must address processes taking place on a very broad range of scale. “Equations that describe cloud formation simply cannot be implemented in climate models,” Nenes said. “We don’t have enough computing power -- and probably won’t for another 50 years. Yet somehow we still need to describe cloud formation accurately if we want to understand how humans are affecting climate.”

To address the lack of computer power and shortcomings of existing parameterization, Nenes and his research team have developed simple, physics-based equations that link aerosol particles and cloud droplets. Then these equations can be scaled up to a global level, providing accurate predictions thousands of times faster than more detailed models.

This modeling method has proven successful in two field tests. Data was collected from aircraft flying through from cumulus clouds off the coast of Key West, Fla., in 2002, and from stratocumulus clouds near Monterey, Calif., in 2003. Compared with this real-world data, predictions from Nenes’ model were accurate within 10 to 20 percent.

“We never expected to capture the physics to that degree,” Nenes explained. “We were hoping for a 50 percent accuracy rate.”

Another challenge in predicting climate change is to understand how aerosols’ chemistry affects cloud formation. Each particle has a different potential for forming a cloud droplet, which depends on its composition, location and how long it has been in the atmosphere. Until now, people have measured and averaged properties over long periods of time. “Yet particles are mixing and changing quickly,” Nenes said. “If you don’t factor in the chemical aging of the aerosol, you can easily have a large error when predicting cloud droplet number.”

Working with Gregory Roberts at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Nenes developed a new type of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) counter. This instrument exposes different aerosol particles to supersaturation, which enables researchers to determine: 1) how many droplets form and 2) how long they take to form.

Providing fast, reliable measurements, the CCN counter can be used on the ground or in an aircraft. “It gives us a much needed link for determining how different types of emissions will affect clouds formation,” Nenes explained.

Nenes and Roberts have patented the CCN instrument, and a paper describing the technology will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Aerosol Science and Technology.

The new modeling method and CCN instrument have far-reaching applications for predicting climate change and precipitation patterns, the scientists believe.

The indirect aerosol effect is counteracting greenhouse warming now, but will stop at some point, Nenes explained. “One of our goals is to figure out how long we’ll have this cooling effect so we can respond to changes.”

NASA Studies How Airborne Particles Affect Climate Change

"The majority of aerosols form a layer of haze near the Earth's surface, which can cause either a cooling or warming effect, depending on aerosol type and location," said Jens Redemann, lead author of the science paper at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.

Different types of aerosol particles can influence visible light and other kinds of radiation, affecting climate and temperatures, the scientists reported. "Changing the flow of radiation – including light – above and within the atmosphere changes the energy available for driving Earth's climate," said Phil Russell, also a NASA Ames scientist.

"Our study measured how aerosols change the flow of solar energy," Russell said. This solar energy includes visible light and also radiation at shorter and longer wavelengths in the ultraviolet and infrared ranges.

To find out the extent to which tiny particles in the air could affect climate, NASA scientists flew in a low-flying aircraft over the dark waters of the Gulf of Maine. Two types of instruments on the aircraft measured radiation from the sun.

Radiometers – devices that measure the intensity of radiant energy – measured total solar energy coming from all directions. At the same time, a sun photometer – an instrument that measures the intensity of the sun’s light – measured sunlight coming directly, straight from the sun through the atmosphere. The quantity of aerosols in the atmosphere between the sun photometer and the sun is proportional to the difference between the light intensity measured by the sun photometer and the amount of light that would pass through an aerosol-free atmosphere.

Combining measurements of total solar light intensity from all directions, solar light intensity directly, straight from the sun, and the amount of aerosols in the atmospheric column, scientists can estimate how much of the sun’s energy is scattered (redirected) and absorbed (causes heating) by atmospheric aerosols. These measurements are useful to climate scientists as a reality check for computer climate models.

Role Of Solar Radiation In Climate Change

Special instruments have been recording the solar radiation that reaches the Earth’s surface since 1923. However, it wasn’t until the International Geophysical Year in 1957/58 that a global measurement network began to take shape. The data thus obtained reveal that the energy provided by the sun at the Earth’s surface has undergone considerable variations over the past decades, with associated impacts on climate.

Investigating which factors reduce or intensify solar radiation and thus cause “global dimming” or “global brightening” is still very much a nascent field of research. The American Geophysical Union (AGU) has now published a special volume on the subject which presents the current state of knowledge in detail and makes a considerable contribution to climate science. “Only now, especially with the help of this volume, is research in this field really taking off”, stresses Martin Wild, senior scientist at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science of ETH Zurich, who is a specialist on the subject.

Decrease in solar radiation discovered

The initial findings, which revealed that solar radiation at the Earth’s surface is not constant over time but rather varies considerably over decades, were published in the late 1980s and early 1990s for specific regions of the Earth. Atsumu Ohmura, emeritus professor at ETH Zurich, for example, discovered at the time that the amount of solar radiation over Europe decreased considerably between the 1950s and the 1980s. It wasn’t until 1998 that the first global study was conducted for larger areas, like the continents Africa, Asia, North America and Europe for instance. The results showed that on average the surface solar radiation decreased by two percent per decade between the 1950s and 1990.

In analyzing more recently compiled data, however, Wild and his team discovered that solar radiation has gradually been increasing again since 1985. In a paper published in “Science” in 2005, they coined the phrase “global brightening” to describe this new trend and to oppose to the term “global dimming” used since 2001 for the previously established decrease in solar radiation.

Only recently, an article in the journal Nature, which Wild was also involved in, brought additional attention to the topic of global dimming/brightening.

Air pollution favors photosynthesis

In this study, for the first time, the scientists examined the connection between global dimming/brightening and the carbon cycle. They demonstrated that more scattered light is present during periods of global dimming due to the increased aerosol- and cloud-amounts, enabling plants to absorb CO₂ more efficiently than when the air is cleaner and thus clearer. According to the scientists, this is because scattered light penetrates deeper into the vegetation canopy than direct sunlight, which means the plants can use the light more effectively for photosynthesis. Consequently, there was around 10 percent more carbon stored in the terrestrial biosphere between 1960 and 1999.

The special volume, which appears in the AGU’s Journal of Geophysical Research, provides an overview of the current state of knowledge. Almost half of the publications in the volume were either completely or partially written by ETH Zurich scientists. Wild is the guest editor, and author or co-author of ten of these articles.

The articles provide the first indication of the magnitude of these effects, how they vary in terms of time and space and what the possible consequences might be for climate change. They also discuss in detail the underlying causes and mechanisms, which are still under debate.

Many questions left open

It is particularly unclear as to whether it is the clouds or the aerosols that trigger global dimming/brightening, or even interactions between clouds and aerosols, as aerosols can influence the “brightness” and lifetime of the clouds. The investigation of these relations is complicated by the fact that insufficient – if any – observational data are available on how clouds and aerosol loadings have been changing over the past decades. The recently launched satellite measurement programs should help to close this gap for the future from space, however.

“There is still an enormous amount of research to be done as many questions are still open”, explains Wild. This includes the magnitude of the dimming and brightening effects on a global level and how greatly the effects differ between urban and rural areas, where fewer aerosols are released into the atmosphere. Another unresolved question is what happens over the oceans, as barely any measurement data are available from these areas.

A further challenge for the researchers is to incorporate the effects of global dimming/brightening more effectively in climate models, to understand their impact on climate change better. After all, studies indicate that global dimming masked the actual temperature rise – and therefore climate change – until well into the 1980s. Moreover, the studies published also show that the models used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) fourth Assessment Report do not reproduce global dimming/brightening adequately: neither the dimming nor the subsequent brightening is simulated realistically by the models. According to the scientists, this is probably due to the fact that the processes causing global dimming/brightening were not taken into account adequately and that the historical anthropogenic emissions used as model input are afflicted with considerable uncertainties.

“This is why at ETH Zurich we are working with a research version of a global climate model, which contains much more detailed aerosol and cloud microphysics and can reproduce global dimming/brightening more effectively”, says Wild. For him, the studies so far constitute “initial” estimates that need to be followed up with further research.