Environment - December 2007

We all share the same planet and nowhere else to go. Suppose all passenger cars are taxed according to the size of the engine, would you pay more registration fees, say ,twice as much to drive a 2,000cc engine car or three times for anything over 3,000cc car?

2007-12-11 22:20:59 · 8 answers · asked by mozart8 3 in Global Warming

2007-12-11 21:53:21 · 11 answers · asked by Anonymous in Other - Environment

2007-12-11 21:47:06 · 10 answers · asked by Anonymous in Other - Environment

Warmer winters less energy consumed to keep warm, land is more productive as crop variety and yield increase, extra rainfall provides an opportunity to use water for hydro power and for sale to low rainfall areas.

2007-12-11 21:21:52 · 8 answers · asked by Biron G 1 in Global Warming

2007-12-11 16:52:42 · 8 answers · asked by naad 1 in Green Living

Climatic change and all that it entails including submerging of islands, forfeiture of monsoon rains and more frequent recurrence of drought are there before our eyes. Will the world community wake up to its responsibilities ?

2007-12-11 15:58:13 · 7 answers · asked by Chidambarank R 2 in Other - Environment

My impression is that corn and other cellulose containing sources for ethanol fermentation must first be broken down into sugars before they can be fermented. Why not start with sugar beets or sugar cane and begin the fermentation immediately since the product is already sugar? Then after fermentation to ethanol, place the solids in an anaerobic environment and let anaerobes convert the remaining solids to methane gas. After methane extraction is complete, use the remaining solids for mulch or burn in a power plant. Locate all of these steps near the power plant to avoid transportation issues. Excess ethanol and methane can also be burned to generate electricity at the nearby powerplant.

2007-12-11 15:42:48 · 15 answers · asked by energy dreamer 3 in Alternative Fuel Vehicles

2007-12-11 15:29:55 · 12 answers · asked by Anonymous in Global Warming

My idea is to have a dedicated parking lot with many photovoltaic panels and computer directed charging of user vehicles. Charge the car when at home with a photovoltaic charger, drive to work and plug into the parking lot outlet until the computer determines completion, drive home and plug into your panel again. Drive to the grocery store and open your portable panel and let it charge while you shop or watch a movie. How long would it take to charge a battery under these conditions? Is it feasable?

2007-12-11 15:14:27 · 7 answers · asked by energy dreamer 3 in Alternative Fuel Vehicles

Not to mention possible ultra capacitors hydrogen fuel cells and water as a fuel ,it's getting very hard to seperate the real from the hoax.

2007-12-11 15:13:00 · 4 answers · asked by dogpatch USA 7 in Alternative Fuel Vehicles

abc7 World News: Greenland's largest glacier is melting twice as fast today as it was five years ago. The ice this one glacier dumps out in just one day holds as much water as New York City uses in a year.

"Most of the fresh water in the world is stored in Antarctica and Greenland. If all that ice melted, sea level would rise more than 300 feet across the planet,

are we going to be extinct in the next 50 years?

2007-12-11 15:03:01 · 12 answers · asked by bball17 2 in Global Warming

is it a more efficient fuel as a gas? What would it take to transport methane efficiently from all the various natural sources and digesters, etc? Will it be cheaper in the long-term to just convert it to a liquid? Or would improvements to the infrastructure (gas pipelines, etc) be worth the investment?

Your thoughts are appreciated!

2007-12-11 14:53:48 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous in Alternative Fuel Vehicles

Sun, Not Man, Main Cause of Climate Change, New Study Says
By Monisha Bansal
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
December 11, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - According to a new study on global warming, climate scientists at the University of Rochester, the University of Alabama, and the University of Virginia found that the climate change models based on human influence do not match observed warming.

That is contrary to the views held by former Vice President Al Gore, who accepted the Nobel Prize on Monday along with the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and who thinks that climate change is largely caused by human action.

Gore wants nations to tax carbon dioxide emissions and not build any new coal plants, among other steps. "It is time to make peace with the planet," Gore said in his Nobel speech, as reported by the Associated Press. "We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war."

The new report, which challenges the claims of Gore and the IPCC, was published in the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society.

The report was written by David Douglass at the University of Rochester, John Christy at the University of Alabama, and Benjamin Pearson and S. Fred Singer at the University of Virginia.

"Our findings basically are that fingerprints - that is to say the pattern of warming - that's predicted by greenhouse models does not match the fingerprints of observations, so there is a disconnect between greenhouse models and the actual reality of observations," Singer told Cybercast News Service.

"This means that the greenhouse effect - while real - is not very important in producing climate change," he said. "It's a lot smaller than what the models calculate."

Singer said the reason why the models "overestimate the effectiveness of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is that the models ignore what are called negative feedbacks which occur in the atmosphere, such as clouds, which reduce the effect of the greenhouse gases."

"Their models just don't consider them properly," he said.

But Bracken Hendricks, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, told Cybercast News Service, that the study is "radically out of step with the complete scientific consensus."

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is not just a report. It's not just a random gathering of scientists. It's the largest scientific body ever assembled," he said. "Their most recent assessment determined that there's 90 percent certainty that global climate change is happening and that it is caused by human beings."

But Singer said, "We have to remember that the climate has always been changing ever since we have records, and we have geologic records going back millions and millions of years. We know that there have been huge climate changes on the earth long before human beings actually came into existence.

"We are fairly sure that what's causing the warming are changes in the sun," he said. "These are very subtle changes that are very difficult to observe. The sun is really a quite variable star."

Hendricks, however, said because of the IPCC report, "the assertion that this is caused by increased solar activity or these sorts of things is out of step with the vast consensus."

"It's dangerous to get into a game of dueling science," he added. "We don't want to be gambling with the fate of the planet."

But Singer said because global warming is a natural event. "There is little point to try to control emission of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, which means that all of this legislation and all of these efforts to find substitutes for fossil fuels are pointless, useless and very, very expensive," he said.

Hendricks countered, saying that alternative energy will be a multi-billion dollar industry and "an opportunity to revitalize our global competitiveness" through innovation and job creation.

2007-12-11 14:23:24 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Global Warming

that 5 year old kid on yahoo news shot a poor bear for the fun of it? i was simply apalled once i saw the video. i felt so sorry for the bear, he stood in a stand in the trees, the little coward, and shot it. what did the bear do to him? im so angry i can barely type. its these type of people who make extinction possible. outragueos. anyone else feel this way?

2007-12-11 13:52:32 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Other - Environment

that 5 year old kid on yahoo news shot a poor bear for the fun of it? i was simply apalled once i saw the video. i felt so sorry for the bear, he stood in a stand in the trees, the little coward, and shot it. what did the bear do to him? im so angry i can barely type. its these type of people who make extinction possible. outragueos. anyone else feel this way?

2007-12-11 13:43:10 · 10 answers · asked by Anonymous in Conservation

2007-12-11 13:36:13 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Global Warming

http://www.snugroups.org/applications/making_methanol.html

Where can I get the name of that little bugger? I've searched and searched but to no avail.

Methane is about 21 times as destructive as CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Yet it's an excellent fuel. Natural gas is usually either methane-based or propane-based. When burned, it exhausts carbon - but if produced from living matter, it can only exhaust as much as it just took in from the atmosphere.

Everything from switchgrass to livestock manure to grease can be easily converted to methane by anaerobic digestion. But can't be transported easily. Conversion to liquid form would solve a host of problems and the methanol could fairly easily be converted to serve as a drop-in replacement for gasoline.

So, where the heck do I find this bacteria?!

2007-12-11 13:35:44 · 1 answers · asked by Anonymous in Alternative Fuel Vehicles

Ok i have a paper due on global warming in 3 days...i have no idea how to start it..The topic of the paper is "To what extent are human activities affecting global climate change?" It has to be 5 pages.. Any suggestions for sites? or how to start or just plain out how to write it?

2007-12-11 12:34:38 · 9 answers · asked by Brittany C 1 in Global Warming

Finally some REAL scientists have done some REAL research and found that global warming is better explained by "natural factors such as solar variability" and that "that attempts to control CO2 emissions are ineffective and pointless." read the article here http://science-sepp.blogspot.com/2007/12/press-release-dec-10-2007.html

This global warming thing has gotten out of control, an Australian professor Barry Walters is suggesting that a carbon tax be put on babies! Read that here http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/10/2114493.htm

So all you Global Warming Honks, do you still think it is your fault?

2007-12-11 11:48:51 · 15 answers · asked by Larry B 5 in Global Warming

2007-12-11 11:20:36 · 8 answers · asked by Anonymous in Other - Environment

Why does everyone doubt global warming?

2007-12-11 10:52:57 · 11 answers · asked by Anonymous in Global Warming

do u believe its a hoax
...........if so show me proff.

2007-12-11 10:29:24 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Global Warming

2007-12-11 10:09:33 · 9 answers · asked by rae duh 1 in Green Living

At all?

2007-12-11 10:03:20 · 8 answers · asked by lucky t 1 in Global Warming

2007-12-11 09:28:53 · 3 answers · asked by NLBNLB 6 in Global Warming

Humans are too insignificant to cause global warming, or so many of the sceptics would have you believe. I've never seen any studies supporting the claim that man is incapable of affecting the climate of the planet, so I'm not sure where this information comes from, and is probably based on nothing other than opinion by, oh I don't know maybe....Rush or O'Reilly?
Ok sceptics, now's your chance, convince me.

Now I wonder how many didn’t bother reading my question this far and are going to give me an answer base on nothing more than its title.

2007-12-11 09:23:51 · 15 answers · asked by Author Unknown 6 in Global Warming

You think that kill animals as a hobbie is good or bad ? and why?

2007-12-11 09:17:43 · 5 answers · asked by ? 3 in Other - Environment

What part of statistics do you not understand? Statistics don't lie. The earth is warming. Antarctic ice IS growing and that too is because of warming. The warmer it is, the more snow falls on Antarctica.

2007-12-11 09:05:24 · 28 answers · asked by Anonymous in Global Warming

Since the first natural gas and alternative energy (non-ethanol, which is a wasteful fuel) powered automobiles were first used - how long will it be from today when we can say there are no more gasoline powered vehicles?

2007-12-11 08:55:13 · 7 answers · asked by diblyhoo 4 in Alternative Fuel Vehicles

Many politicians are pushing the idea of a carbon tax - that there could be a charge for each unit of carbon emitted by a household (almost like a water bill, just not water.) The goal would be to reduce carbon emissions and to use the revenue to invest in new technologies. My question is if you would be willing to pay such a tax, and if so, how much would you be willing to pay?

2007-12-11 08:45:31 · 14 answers · asked by Yoni 2 in Global Warming