THE HANDSTAND

FEBRUARY2007

ENVIRONMENT NEWS

THE SEA
Industrial and auto pollution could turn Earth’s oceans so acidic by the end of this century that the entire marine world will be threatened, a new report warns.

The study, issued today by the Royal Society in the U.K., documents the rise of carbon dioxide, or C02, which occurs naturally and is also emitted in the burning of fossil fuels like coal and gasoline.

“If CO2 from human activities continues to rise, the oceans will become so acidic by 2100 it could threaten marine life in ways we can’t anticipate,” said Ken Caldeira, co-author of the report.

“This report should sound the alarm bells around the world,” said Chris Field, director of the Carnegie Department of Global Ecology. “It provides compelling evidence for the need for a thorough understanding of the implications of ocean acidification. It also strengthens the case for rapid progress on reducing CO2 emissions.”

BIRDS

Millions of the birds are disappearing in a “sinister and astonishing” phenomenon that is baffling biologists.

In just six years their numbers have fallen from 600,000 to 420,000 in the Falkland Islands - one of its few remaining strongholds - according to the latest survey by Falklands Conservation.

The decline equates to a drop of about 30 per cent, although the Falklands population is thought to have dipped by about 85 per cent since 1932, when there were more than 1.5 million birds.


Earth’s Magnetic Field:

Earth’s magnetic field has been monitored carefully since the 1830s, when the German polymath Karl Friedrich Gauss invented a way to measure its intensity. Since then, the field has decayed at the ­startling rate of about 5 percent per century. Has Earth’s field been in a spiral of decay for longer than that? Or do we happen to live in a period when the decline is particularly striking?

Now British geophysicist David Gubbins and his colleagues have an answer from the most unlikely quarter: data hidden in the logbooks of ships that navigated the planet’s oceans in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The results have allowed Gubbins to build a remarkable picture of the behavior of Earth’s magnetic field in the centuries before detailed measurements were possible.

SOLAR CYCLE


Evidence is mounting: the next solar cycle is going to be a big one. Solar cycle 24, due to peak in 2010 or 2011 “looks like its going to be one of the most intense cycles since record-keeping began almost 400 years ago,” says solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.

Hathaway explains: “When a gust of solar wind hits Earth’s magnetic field, the impact causes the magnetic field to shake. If it shakes hard enough, we call it a geomagnetic storm.” In the extreme, these storms cause power outages and make compass needles swing in the wrong direction. Auroras are a beautiful side-effect.

Hathaway and Wilson looked at records of geomagnetic activity stretching back almost 150 years and noticed something useful:. “The amount of geomagnetic activity now tells us what the solar cycle is going to be like 6 to 8 years in the future,” says Hathaway. A picture is worth a lot of words:



According to their analysis, the next Solar Maximum should peak around 2010 with a sunspot number of 160 plus or minus 25. This would make it one of the strongest solar cycles of the past fifty years—which is to say, one of the strongest in recorded history.

Astronomers have been counting sunspots since the days of Galileo, watching solar activity rise and fall every 11 years. Curiously, four of the five biggest cycles on record have come in the past 50 years. “Cycle 24 should fit right into that pattern,” says Hathaway.

These results are just the latest signs pointing to a big Cycle 24. Most compelling of all, believes Hathaway, is the work of Mausumi Dikpati and colleagues at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. “They have combined observations of the sun’s ‘Great Conveyor Belt’ with a sophisticated computer model of the sun’s inner dynamo to produce a physics-based prediction of the next solar cycle.” In short, it’s going to be intense.

All the notices above are from http://www.brainsturbator.com/index.php/brainsturbation/about/

This website is dedicated to the expansion of the human mind, in all directions, in every sense, one brain at a time. Brainsturbation was founded as a public outreach program by the Backwoods Institute of Psychological Technology.

Brainsturbator was created, designed and coded by Back Brain Media. "Have you poisoned anyone today?  Yeah, me neither.  Is there any way to rationalize this into the background noise again?  Is there any way to look at this that doesn’t resemble long-term, mass-scale attempted murder?  Or, should we accept industrial pollution as a declaration of war, against us and against future generations? "


Brussels climbdown on car emissions

By George Parker and Andrew Bounds in Brussels and Hugh,Williamson in Berlin

Published: January 31 2007 02:00 | Last updated: January 31 2007 02:00

Europe's car industry last night scored a late victory in its battle to scale back tough new emissions standards, as Brussels switched the focus of its campaign against climate change from cleaner engines to greener fuels.

Ambitious new legislation to force oil companies to blend expensive biofuel into petrol is expected to be presented today, sending a message that carmakers will not take all the pain of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

The move came as Angela Merkel, German chancellor, warned Brussels against setting emissions targets that hit the motor industry, particularly companies such as DaimlerChrysler and BMW which produce larger models with higher emissions.In the face of fierce lobbying from Ms Merkel and the car sector, Stavros Dimas, the EU environment commissioner, has scaled back his most ambitious plans to cut car emissions.

Mr Dimas wanted the car industry to introduce new technology and cleaner engines to meet a CO2 emissions target of 120g per km by 2012; the rules would apply to any company selling cars in the EU.But Mr Dimas's allies said last night his bottom line was now a target of 130g/km for the car industry. Senior European Commission officials expect a final outcome to be close to that figure, which would still be lower than Japan's 138g/km target by 2015.

However, the officials insist the overall target of 120g/km should remain, and that other methods - especially the use of greener fuels - should be used to make up the shortfall.These also include fitting cars with indicators to tell drivers when they need to inflate their tyres or change gear.

An integral part will be the fuel quality directive, to be adopted by the Commission today, which has angered the petroleum industry, which believes Brussels has bowed to Ms Merkel and the German car industry.It will require petrol to comprise at least 5 per cent ethanol from 2011, reaching 10 per cent in 2020. Oil companies must also curb their carbon emissions in extracting and transporting fuel.The move is estimated to save 500m tonnes of carbon by 2020, almost three times that expected from including air transport in the EU's emissions trading scheme.

However, the car industry continues to battle for more leeway. "Even a 130g limit would be very difficult," said one representative.The industry looks almost certain to fail to fulfil its 1999 voluntary agreement to cut emissions to 140g/km by 2008.

Ms Merkel signalled her determination to defend -Germany's car industry when she told a Berlin business conference she "would certainly block" any binding regulation that did not -differentiate between car sizes.Ms Merkel said it was a "regrettable fact" that the European car industry was not fulfilling the voluntary agreement to cut emissions, but said a "general regulation for all [car] sizes" would be wrong.

The European Commission says the emissions limits were always intended tobe an average across the -sector.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007