#carbon emissions
Animal production is the leading cause of climate change today.
The world is facing a pivotal moment in its history. Humans are on the brink of a “game over” situation, as NASA scientists have said if the US government moves forward on the Keystone pipeline. There is no going back and the world as we know it cannot be saved if drilling the Canadian tar sands goes forward. Part of me believes that…
Video: Is Plastic Sustainable? - By The British Plastics Federation
By Shardell Joseph
The British Plastics Federation (BPF) has released two videos to to help tackle some of the public misunderstandings around plastic, addressing its role in society and the best ways to prevent plastic waste.
The video’s were released after an international debate on plastic waste at the World Economic Forum last week, in support of the BPF’s recent document Understanding the Debate about Plastic, which outlines why plastic is important for modern life and the evidence on effective ways to reduce waste.
Video: Improving Plastic Recycling in the UK - By The British Plastics Federation
YouGov findings recently revealed over two-thirds of the public believe that plastic packaging is the most damaging material for producing carbon emissions during its lifecycle. Research into the environmental impact of plastic, however, disproved this, and indicated that that replacing plastic with other materials is not necessarily better for the environment. Academics have also cautioned against swapping plastic for other materials due to the unforeseen negative consequences it may have for the planet.
‘We hope that through widely sharing content such as these videos, we can help clear up public misunderstanding about plastic,’ said British Plastics Federation Director General, Philip Law. ‘The recent YouGov poll results show the issue clearly - most do not appreciate plastic’s role in helping us reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
‘Policymakers and the media need to take note. By turning away from plastics we may do a lot more harm to our environment than good. We must ensure we work together to make the best choices for our planet, and plastic has an important role to play in fighting climate change.’
Credit - All photos: Snøhetta
By Shardell Joseph
In an effort to combat the building industry’s contribution to global emissions, architecture studio, Snøhetta, has completed the sustainable powerhouse Brattørkaia office in Trondheim, Norway. Snøhetta claims that the building produces more than double the amount of electricity it consumes daily.
The purpose of this energy-positive architecture is to make it capable of generating renewable energy through a local microgrid, which can then be supplied to itself, neighbouring buildings, electric buses, cars and boats.
Solar panels that stretch across almost 3,000m2are cladded on the roof and the upper part of the façade. These are placed to harvest the most amount of solar energy possible, with maximum exposure to the sun. The building also includes aluminium cladding.
The company hopes that its efforts will set precedent for future standards within the building industry, showcasing that the architecture has not been compromised for its green agenda.
‘Energy-positive buildings are the buildings of the future. The mantra of the design industry should not be ‘form follows function’ but ‘form follows environment’. This means that the design thinking of today should focus on environmental considerations and reducing our footprint first, and have the design follow this premise,’ said Snøhetta Founder, Kjetil Trædal Thorsen.
In effect, the building dually functions as a small power plant in the middle of the city. Ample space for energy storage is built into the building footprint, allowing it to store surplus energy in the summer months of near total daylight, to then use it in the winter months when daylight is at a minimum.
The building is made to be energy efficient by using technologies that can reduce energy use in its day to day operations. These include insulating the building for maximum efficiency, installing intelligent solutions for air flow to reduce the need for heating, heat recovery solutions for ventilating air, using seawater for heating and cooling and implementing only energy efficient electrical appliances. Daylight conditions are optimised throughout the building design and artificial light use is kept at a minimum.
COP26 Summit Underway
About 120 global leaders are meeting in Glasgow, Scotland for the COP26 conference, in what many are calling a last ditch effort by world leaders to combat the climate crisis. World leaders will be giving speeches and engaging in talks on how to mitigate the effects of climate change. The conference will last until November 12.
Conference topics will address rising sea levels, slashing greenhouse gas emissions, and transitioning to sustainable economies. Many leaders have already expressed low expectations and disappointment with the conference, asserting no major climate agreement will be reached because many countries have not yet committed to adequate environmental goals. The map depicts global CO2 emissions per capita.
Further Reading: The New York Times,Reuters,NBC News,ABC News, American Geographical Society.
Graphic Source:Phys.org.
Post link
AMAZON BASIN: No longer a carbon sink, now a carbon source
According to a new study in Nature, parts of the Amazon, home to the world’s largest tropical rainforest, are now emitting more CO2 than they absorb. Historically, the Amazon has played a crucial role in absorbing and storing large amounts of carbon but the combination of deforestation and climate change have dramatically altered the rainforest’s ability to absorb carbon.
The new study estimates the Amazon is emitting a billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually, accelerating climate change, causing dramatic environmental impacts on the planet, and indicating emissions cuts are increasingly critical. This map depicts spatial distributions of aboveground biomass (AGB) and (FAF) from a study in Nature of the Amazon’s CO2 emissions.
Further Reading:The Guardian,BBC,Mongabay,NPR, American Geographical Society (AGS)
Graphic Source:Nature
Post link
Everything, from workplaces to parks, could be within 15 minutes of walking for Parisians.
The city is working hard in making itself as independent from cars as possible, investing over 300 million euros in its projects. Car parking lots are replaced with parks while bicycle lanes become more common.
Such a move will drastically improve Paris’s carbon emissions which not only helps in the fight against climate change but also makes the city a better place to live.
Yup. Mining Bitcoin sure is bad for the planet with an estimated 37 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year.
To put into perspective how much CO2 that is, we’d need to let grow 155 million mature trees for 10 years to suck out the carbon dioxide emissions caused by Bitcoin mining alone for only one year.
Half of all the crypto mining in the world is done in southwest China where power is provided through the burning of coal. The rest aren’t innocent either as most of the world still gets most of its energy from non-renewable sources that emit powerful greenhouse gases.
The fact that crypto mining is so energy intensive combined with the sources of this energy are what makes it a terrible choice for our planet. This could be prevented if renewables were used for meeting the energy demands.
Sources:
https://www.icos-cp.eu/science-and-impact/global-carbon-budget/2020
https://www.instagram.com/p/CKrCLRnFc6y/?igshid=1ce9kl0wf3ryu
https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2015/03/17/power-one-tree-very-air-we-breathe
President Joe Biden just signed “an executive order to supercharge our administration’s ambitious plan to confront the existential threat of climate change.”
He is pledging a million new jobs in the US automobile industry which will be generated by the federal government switching its entire fleet to electric vehicles.
This all is amazing but he then stated again that he will not ban fracking…
Switching to electric cars is great if your (or in this case the government’s) cars are old and need to be changed anyways. It’s also important that the energy they run on doesn’t come from non-renewable sources.
Is this move doing more harm than good by replacing functional vehicles with new electric cars? This executive order seems at best symbolic and at worst damaging.
It’s amazing that he tries to tackle climate change (unlike Trump who refused to acknowledge its existence), but if he truly wants to help he must do it in an effective way that goes beyond his public image.
G'day. Here’s a medium article of 4 min reading time written by yours truly.
Please drop a follow as well :>
Thank
The research, supported by the National Geographic Society and published today in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, estimates that atmospheric warming from all of these sources combined now appears to swamp the forest’s natural cooling effect.
The effect can still be combated and reversed through the halting of deforestation as well as rebuilding the destroyed ecosystems.
It is a dark day for the climate.
(Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
MIA on planet Earth
Where President Donald Trump has truly been missing in action is on climate change, even as last month was the hottest in recorded history.Not only has he ignored what has become an existential threat to the United States and the world as global temperatures rise, but under the vaunted rubric of deregulation, Trump has all but worked to promote global warming. Our view.Opposing view.
Post link
(Photo: Peter Dejong/AP)
Burn, baby, burn
Fossil fuels have had large societal benefits and indeed represent a great wealth in the ground. But for both people and planets, wealth without health is a losing proposition. Our view.Opposing view.
Post link
real tired of hearing the vegan vs. omnivore arguments when the real superior diet in terms of both cruelty and ecosystem is locally sourced
beef and pork from a farm 10 minutes away from you is more ethical and less detrimental to the environment than quinoa grown in ecuador. the future is food forests. the green revolution is food forests. if we manage to survive this apocalyptic hellscape all of your food, plant and animal, is going to come from within half an hour of where you live. plant a vegetable garden in the meantime
As a trained conservation biologist this is the most important step we can take. You do not understand how many issues we could solve if people bought most of their food from local sources.
