Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Is there a game afoot!
Some scientists are warning that the world needs to prepare for a 4 degree rise in global temperatures. This is the warning Bob Watson, chief scientific adviser to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs issued August 7, 2008.
Watson thinks there is little doubt that limiting global surface temperatures to 2C above pre-industrial temperatures needs to be the global aim, but without knowing how to limit those temperatures…”we need to be prepared to adapt to 4C.” [rise]
Sir David King, the UK’s former chief scientific adviser thinks…Even with the best efforts made to keep temperatures at just a 2C rise there is a 20% risk that temperatures will rise by 4 degrees.
Moriarty: This is not danger. It is inevitable destruction…
King said, “My own feeling is that if we get a 4 degree rise it is quite possible that we would begin to see a runaway[temperature] increase.”
Prof. Neil Adger, an expert on adaptation to climate change at Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research says, “At 4 degrees we are basically into a different climate regime.” “There is no science on how we are going to adapt to 4 degrees warming. It is actually pretty alarming.”
The game is afoot.
Watson is the ex-chief scientist at the World Bank. Not odd then that he would recommend that the “Uk should take a lead in research on carbon capture and storage (CSS).
The World’s biggest carbon offset market, the CDM, is administered by the World Bank.
Watson figures the UK should launch 10 to 20 CCS pilot projects. Of course he is correct. Carbon needs to be kept from, or at least limited, from the atmosphere. He uses the 1960’s effort to put a man on the moon by the U.S. as an analogy of what can be accomplished in a relatively short time when determination prevails. The U.S. had a singularly myopic mind set toward a manned moon mission.
Why isn’t the same determination being focused on pulling the world off the engorged CO2 teat?
You stand in the way not merely of an individual but of a might organization, the full extent of which, even you, with all your cleverness, have been unable to realize…
The energy industry stands to make over $21 Billion in the next 5 years. The windfall profits coming from emissions trading.
You must stand clear, Mr. Holmes, or be trodden under foot…
According to David Victor, carbon trading analyst at Stanford University, …”under the CDM, there will be no global climate benefit because the polluter that buys the offset avoids the obligation to reduce its own emissions.
Analysts estimate that two thirds, 2/3 of the emission reduction obligations may be met through buying offsets rather than by decarbonising…
The CDM scheme will actually increase the net amount of carbon going into the atmosphere. International Rivers report titled ‘Failed Mechanism’ says that hydro firms will earn millions of dollars by selling ‘fake carbon credits to companies and governments which can use those carbon credits to justify an increase in emissions.
Why oh why doesn’t it make more sense to turn our intellectual capital towards new sources of power rather than watching the hole planet go to hell in a hand basket?
No one will convince me it is easier to find ways to capture, transport and then store the captured pollution than to figure out how not to generate it in the first place.
The whole cap and trade scheme is just that; a scheme.
Even the language is offensive. Scheme. Long associated with crafty and secret plans. One rarely finds scheme not associated with conniving.
Yes, the game is afoot and to quote Moriarty again: This is not danger, it is inevitable destruction. You stand in the way not merely of an individual but of a mighty organization, the full extent of which, even you, with all your cleverness, have been unable to realize…
You must stand clear, Mr. Holmes, or be trodden under foot…
Photo by T.Scott Williams
Petrified wood in Blue Mesa badlands
Labels: CCS, CDM, Carbon Capture, Carbon-credit, Global Warming, U.N., World Bank, carbon-trading market
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
UK should take the lead in research on carbon capture and storage.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Just like Yogi Berra Said, “It’s like deja-vu, all over again”.
California based Planktos has postponed its ocean “iron-fertilization” plans indefinitely. Planktos failed to find sufficient funding for its efforts.
Batter up.
Climos. Climos has raised $3.5 million in Marchto conduct the same “ocean iron fertilization” plan. Climos, like Planktos was founded in California.
Dan Whaley, a self-taught computer programmer and Richard Whilden,a wildly successful money raiser. Whilden is also very familiar with the banking industry. You’ll want to have a look at his experience in that industry.
The Climos website has listed as a co-founder and Chief Science Officer Dr. Margaret Leinen. In addition to being Chief Science Officer, Dr. Leinen is also Dan whaley’s mother.
Studies show that the North Atlantic Ocean is only absorbing half of the CO2 it once did and that the Southern Oceans have stopped absorbing it at all, and are now in fact releasing CO2 back into the atmosphere. Emissions of carbon dioxide from the oceans have increased by 40% since 1981.
Enter the catcher.
Emissions trading is being hyped as a $30 billion market already that could grow to $1 trillion within the next 10 years. Where oh where would there be a vault large enough to hold 1 trillion dollars worth of emissions? Maybe the ocean? Maybe that why Dan Whaley, came up with a business plan that involved selling ‘carbon offsets’.
Whaley’s light bulb moment came after talking to his oceanographer mother about ocean iron fertilization. She had known John Martin, who is apparently the father of the whole ocean iron fertilization concept,known as the “iron hypothesis”. Martin said in 1991 “Give me half a tankerload of iron, and I’ll give you an Ice Age. He died in 1993. shortly after his death his theory was proven to be correct by Moss Landing Marine Laboratories after they spread an iron solution into the ocean near the Galapagos Islands and algae bloomed.
The Umpire calls, “stee rike”.
Never mind that algae blooms are also responsible for ‘dead zones’ in the oceans. The proliferation of plankton is what depletes oxygen in the waters creating dead zones in which some fish can flee, but many slow moving creatures are less able to escape. Oxygen levels in Dead Zones are too low to support marine life.
Rob Fujita, Environmental Defense Fund marine ecologist thinks Dead Zones are already hard enough to control. “It’s not a great time to increase the risk to oceans ecosystems”, says Fujita.
Russ George, of the shut down Planktos said, “This isn’t rocket science, it’s ocean farming.” George believed there wasn’t any reason a profit couldn’t be made while still helping the environment.
Foul ball.
There is a line between fertilization and pollution. Nether side of the line looks to be territory where the iron “ball” should be played as fair.
Whaley says, “Basically, the business model hinges on the price of carbon and the efficacy of sequestration.”
Isn’t all of this really a means to generate wealth for a wealth generating machine? A New York Times article called carbon trading one of the fastest-growing ’specialties in financial services’. Have we learned nothing from the past ‘financial services’ hatched from thin air?
CCX, the Chicago Climate Exchange, ECO.L EcoSecurities or how about the EU ETS. The government backed trading program in Europe called European Emission Trading Scheme. I don’t happen to like anything with Scheme in its official title and there are plenty.
Game called on account of rain.
Some estimates have fertilizing the entire Southern Ocean with iron for 100 years would only reduce atmospheric CO2 levels by 20-30%. This providing the organism decay isn’t released back into at shallow or intermediate depths creating an unnatural decomposing leading to more devastating Dead Zones
Patient: It hurts when I poke my eye.
Doctor: Stop poking your eye.
Labels: Carbon-credit, Climos, Frankenplankton, Galapagos, Iron fertilization, Ocean, Planktos, Sequestration, carbon dioxide, carbon-trading market, ocean dead zone
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Planktos out, Climos at bat. Frankenplankton lives.
Friday, May 9, 2008
If the treatment is more deadly than the cure, then find another cure. That’s the Canadian motto.
Canadians are working on a project that would store, underground, a billion tonnes of CO2. The Redwater reef could soak up all greenhouse gas emissions for 20 years if their plan can be implemented. What’s the plan?
$50 billion and 7 oilsands bitumen upgrader projects in Alberta Industrial Heartland district. $500 million to be spent on capturing carbon-dioxide emissions from nearby could be turned into liquefied C02 and pumped into Redwater wells to revive the old oil field. 130 million to 180 million barrels of light premium oil could be pumped out at a rate of 10,000 to 15,000 barrels a day.
The U.S. has taken the position that it won’t buy fuel from Alberta’s tar sands, on the grounds that, it is too environmentally tainted. That’s the pot calling the kettle black, but a good decision none the less.
The U.S. can’t sign contracts to buy gasoline and other fuels whose production releases more global warming pollution than conventional petroleum.
Neil Shelly, executive director of Alberta Industrial Heartland Association says, this project could make Edmonton area’s oilsands upgrader ally one of the very few heavy industrial areas in the world able to comply with emerging controls of greenhouse gas emissions.
It seems to me carbon capture is a modern-day C02 distillery; of a sort. Capturing something that would normally rise up, mix with the air and become lost is the same principle Bootleggers use to make moonshine.
Some industrial operations put off C02 gases that simply rise up and mix with the air and become lost, or at least out of our control; of course they aren’t really lost.
Carbon capture will trap those gases transform them into something magical, or so it would seem. The CO2 will get pumped into the ground for a time yet to be determined and with an outcome yet to be determined.
Bootlegging Moonshine has been going on in nearly every country on the globe, in nearly every generation. Man usually finds a way to alter his perceptions, hide what he doesn’t want to face and often times bury the problems he creates; hoping they simply disappear, or at least stay buried until he is long.
At Redwater reef, the intent is to send the CO2 about 1,000 metres under a hard rock cap where it will be stored. How long, how well, and how safely is yet to be determined.
Carbon capture and sequestration, like Moonshine, could be hazardous to your health.
As as luck would have it, carbon credits are becoming a valuable commodity. Now, with worth to them, everyone will be trying to capture, trade and cash in on greenhouse gases.
Photo Thanks: A Wilkes County copper moonshine still
Courtesy of Applachian Cultural Museum
Applachian State University
Boone, North Carolina
Illustration Thanks: co2capture project
Labels: Alberta, CCS, Canada, Carbon, Carbon-credit, Geosequestration, Oil Sands, Oil shale, Oil tar, carbon dioxide, carbon-trading market
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Turning CO2 Into Liquid Gold or Corn Into Moonshine; one man’s trash is another one’s treasure.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, National Association of Evangelicals, National Council of Churches and the Union for Reform Judaism all say Congress should REQUIRE a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
New environmental and climate policies will put additional pressures on, already vulnerable low-income families, which will inevitably result in higher energy prices.
The group of church leaders is seeking to have 40% of the emissions-related revenues from climate change legislation directed to help the poor deal with rising energy costs. Right now the bill calls for 5% of additional revenues to go to helping the poor.
The church leaders sticking their noses into government which is happening more and more, are claiming while they don’t agree on much they do agree on the need to protect G-d’s creation. Rev. Michael Livingston, president of the National Council of Churches says, “It has become clear that global warming will have devastating impact on those in poverty around the world.”
Bishop Thomas Wenksi of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said, “Those who contribute least to the problem (global warming) are likely to suffer the most.”
84% of evangelicals support mandatory limits on greenhouse gases Richard Cizik vice president for governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals says it’s a matter “of moral leadership.”
The average net income of Megachurches was 4.8 million anually. These churches alone numbered 740 and only accounted for 1% of churches in the U.S. and did not reflect any Catholic congregations. These figures were based on a survey done in 2003.
Churches thoughout the world have armies of non-paid, loyal volunteers working tirelessly for their ‘corporations’. Maybe earmarking 40% of their collection plate revenues for low income energy costs would actaully show ‘moral leadership’.
The Warner (R-Va), Lieberman (I-Ct) ACSA, Amreica’s Climate Security Act, seeks to reduce U.S. greenhouse emissions by as much as 70% or the 2005 levels by 2050.
That is a steep reduction no doubt, but 2050 is a long way away.
One co-sponsor of the ACSA Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) says “It is imperative that our nation acts now to address the concerns over growing greenhouse gas emissions, while carefully addressing the effects it could have on working families and our economy.”
Labels: Carbon-credit, Climate Change, Congress, Global Warming, Leiberman, Mega Church, Warner, carbon-trading market, greenhouse gas
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Congress Considers Legislation to Combat Global Warming
Monday, July 30, 2007
In 1978 The Galapagos Islands were given World Heritage Site status by UNESCO. In 1985 the islands were made a ‘Biosphere Reserve’ in December of 2001 the marine reserve was expanded to 43,500 miles of ocean surrounding the islands.
UNESCO is looking at an application from Ecuador, the territory’s ruler, requesting further protection for the Galapagos.
Tourism is said to be threatening the environment of the islands. Ecuador’s President, Rafael Correa, has named the islands management as one of his nation’s top priorities.
Correa thinks there needs to be further restrictions placed on tourism and residency permits.
This leaves room for the notion that someone will be keeping an eye on Russ George’s plan to dump 80 tons of iron particles just 350 miles west of The Galapagos, into the ocean. It would seem the more eyes on this plan the better, but Correa seems to be someone that can stare down many giants at one time.
Ecuador appears to be crawling out from under a large and very thick blanket of corruption that has been covering it for a very long time.
Correa ran his Presidential bid seeking a clear mandate for ‘deep political reform’. He seems to be committed to cleaning up the government and stoking social reform. He’s been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration and said he would reject the US backed hemispheric free-trade agreement.
It bodes well for the environment of The Galapagos if Correa takes up his mission to protect it, when the administration in the US is still in a state of denial where the environment is concerned.
If compassion for people can be extrapolated to compassion for the beasts of the field and of the oceans then the fragile residents of The Galapagos can hope for some permanent protection. Correa seems to be a man that isn’t afraid to stand up for his idealism.
Labels: Carbon-credit, Correa, Environment, Frankenplankton, Galapagos, Ocean, UNESCO, carbon-trading market
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Saving The Galapagos from Frankenplankton, Tourism and Residents
Sunday, July 22, 2007
A company in California plans to plow a field under the sea with iron dust.
The company, Planktos says it is “possible to boost the ocean’s absorption of carbon dixoide by increasing the production of phytoplankton”.
How much iron do they want to ‘dump’ into the sea? how about a whopping 80 tons?
Where do they want to ‘dump’ their 80 tons of iron particles? 350 miles west of the Galapagos islands in the Pacific Ocean.
Johannah Barry, Galapagos Conservancey says, “it’s still this extraordinary place that contains 95% of its prehuman diversity.”
Planktos intends to drop iron dust into the ocean, feeding plankton and encouraging growth. The ‘restored’ plankton blooms would generate food for sea life. Some plankton would sink and store carbon deep beneath the surface of the sea.
As I’ve said before, I’m not a rocket scientist, but Russ George says I don’t have to be. According to George, “This isn’t rocket science, it’s ocean farming.”
In what sounds like a story that rivals ‘Citizen Kane’ the protagonist in this novel is Russ George. Planktos plans to estimate the amount of carbon dioxide captured by the plankton and sell it on the nascent carbon-trading markets.
Where Kane inserts the words ‘you provide the prose poems, I’ll provide the war” in place of W.R. Hearst’s “You provide the pictures, I’ll provide the war” one could be tempted to imagine George saying, you provide the market, I’ll provide the credits!
Color me dubios yet again. When I wrap my mind around carbon-trading, it falls back on the dot.com boom and bust.
Worse yet carbon-trading leaves me with the bitter taste of the rich man’s war, and the poor man’s fight. pay either $300 or supply a substitute as happened during the US Civil War. Will people like George ultimately turn our oceans into ‘the 300 credit seas’…amassing carbon-credits with which to buy influence.
From the Galapagos to the Vatican, Russ George is a man that seems to be all over the map. Both literally and figuratviely. Billed as CEO of Planktos, and managing director of its ‘forest subsidiary’, KlimaFa, George recently presented Cardinal Paul Poupard a bushel basket of carbon credits. George hopes to make the Vatican the first carbon-neutral sovereign state.
Whoowah!
This carbon-credit donation is coming from not the iron dumpped off the back of a boat near the Galapagos, but from a new “Vatican Climate Forest” planted in Hungary’s Bukk National Park. The dimensions of said ‘Vatican Climate Forest’ will be determined by the Vatican’s 2007 energy usage. Fair enough.
Frankenplankton and carbon-credits as always, follow the money. This idea isn’t passing my Acid Test, if I have to drink the kool aid, I’m going to chase it with a large dose of skepticism.
Labels: Carbon, Carbon-credit, Frankenplankton, Galapagos, Ocean, Plankton, Sea, Vatican, carbon dioxide, carbon-trading market
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Frankenplankton: Plans to force feed iron to plankton may create the world’s first Carbon-credit bank.
