Global Warming or Climate Change

I n July,  UN Secretary Ban Ki-Moon highlighted  the role of hydropower in boosting the use of renewable energy globally, when he visited a nonprofit institute in China that helps emerging nations develop and build hydropower plants. Many countries consider hydroelectricity a clean source of power because it doesn’t involve burning dirty fossil fuels. But that’s far from true. Hydropower is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions: a new study shows that the world’s hydroelectric dams are responsible for as much methane emissions as Canada. Hoover Dam near Las Vegas. Hydroelectric dams are a rich source of greenhouse gas emissions, but the emissions aren’t part of global greenhouse gas inventories. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo The  study  from Washington State University finds that methane, which is  at least 34 times more potent  than another greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, makes up 80% of the emissions from water storage reservoirs cr...

Surcharges of 40% on beef and 20% on milk would compensate for climate damage and deter people from consuming as much unhealthy food Food production causes a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions, largely from the raising of cattle and other livestock. Photograph: Mike Kemp/Getty Images Climate taxes on meat and milk would lead to huge and vital cuts in carbon emissions as well as saving half a million lives a year via healthier diets, according to the first global analysis of the issue. Surcharges of 40% on beef and 20% on milk would account for the damage their production causes people via climate change, an Oxford University team has calculated. These taxes would then deter people from consuming as much of these foods, reducing both emissions and illness, the team said. Food  production causes a quarter of all the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving global warming, largely from the raising of cattle and other livestock. These emissions are increasing as peopl...

Natural vegetation absorbs about a quarter of the carbon emissions created by burning fossil fuels. Photograph: Kuni Takahashi/Getty Images A global “greening” of the planet has significantly slowed the rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since the start of the century, according to new research. More plants have been growing due to higher CO2 levels in the air and warming temperatures that cut the CO2 emitted by plants via respiration. The effects led the proportion of annual carbon emissions remaining in the air to fall from about 50% to 40% in the last decade. However, this greening is only offsetting a small amount of the billions of tonnes of CO2 emitted from fossil fuel burning and other human activities and will not halt dangerous global warming. “Unfortunately, this increase is nowhere near enough to stop climate change,” said Dr Trevor Keenan, at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the US, who led the new work. The absolute level of CO2 in the atm...

(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) Could Antarctica become habitable in the next two centuries?  originally appeared on  Quora :  the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights . Answer  by  Dave Consiglio , Chemistry and Physics High School Teacher and Community College Professor, on  Quora : Could Antarctica become habitable in the next two centuries? Amazingly, the answer is yes! First, to be clear, we can live there now, but only with food shipped in. And no matter how intense global warming gets, Antarctica will always have one enemy: darkness. It’s conceivable that the temperatures on Antarctica, particularly on the coast, could be warm enough for “normal” people to live there, but the maximum solar angle is still so low for the entirety of the continent that plants would really struggle to survive. The maximum angle of the sun on the summer solstice is given by: A = 90 – L + 2...

Flickr/Mario Hoppmann (CC BY 2.0) Today’s study is a new piece in this massive, complex puzzle by  Rachel Becker    Nov 3, 2016, 2:10pm EDT http://www.theverge.com/ The carbon dioxide emissions I produce as an average American destroy about 650 square feet of Arctic sea ice every year. That’s according to a new study that directly links the amount of annual CO2 released in the atmosphere to the amount of disappearing sea ice in the Arctic. “THEY’RE GOING TO HAVE TO BE MORE AGGRESSIVE IN REDUCING CO2 EMISSIONS.” The findings,  published today in the journal Science ,  could help scientists make better predictions about when exactly  we’ll start seeing ice-free Arctic summers . The new calculations also show that previous climate models underestimated how much ice is lost — and that could have catastrophic consequences for our planet. Every summer, the Arctic experiences some natural ice loss, but on average  between 2.7 to 3.5 millio...