The Green Thread

[mic of Orion]

Originally Posted by wjfox

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7237672.stm


Masdar City will be constructed in the desert on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi. The aims are to use only renewable energy sources, and to
eliminate 99% of the waste stream. This artist's impression shows wind turbines on the edge of the city and public transport links running through.


Work starts on Gulf 'green city'

Abu Dhabi has started to build what it says is the world's first zero-carbon, zero-waste car-free city.

Masdar City will cost $22bn (£11.3bn), take eight years to build and be home to 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses.

The city will be mostly powered by solar energy and residents will move in travel pods running on magnetic tracks.

Abu Dhabi has one of the world's biggest per capita carbon footprints and sceptics fear Masdar may be just a fig leaf for the oil-rich Gulf emirate.

Others fear Masdar City - on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi City - may become a luxury development for the rich.

The project is supported by global conservation charity, the WWF.

Less power, less water

The city will make use of traditional Gulf architecture to create low-energy buildings, with natural air conditioning from wind towers.

Water will be provided through a solar-powered desalination plant, Masdar says. The city will need a quarter of the power required for a similar sized community, while its water needs will be 60% lower.

The city forms part of an ambitious plan to develop clean energy technologies.

In January, the government of Abu Dhabi announced a $15bn five-year initiative to develop clean energy technologies, calling it "the most ambitious sustainability project ever launched by a government".

As part of the plan, Abu Dhabi will become home to the world's largest hydrogen power plant.

The money is being channelled through the Masdar Initiative, a company established to develop and commercialise clean energy technologies, and Abu Dhabi hopes it will lead to international joint ventures involving much more money.

Abu Dhabi will invest $4bn of equity in the project and borrow some of the rest, Masdar said.

"We are creating an array of financial vehicles to finance the $22bn development," Masdar chief executive officer Sultan al-Jaber told Reuters news agency.

"We will monetise all carbon emission reductions... Such innovative financing has never been applied to the scale of an entire city."



An artist's impression of a Masdar City transport pod

now this is something I'd love to see

[andysimo123]

Originally Posted by Newcastle Guy

I haven't used any form of transport other than walking since I got down here two weeks ago. However, none of the household waste is getting recycled here...

Pretty shocking that. Am pretty sure most of the country is the same. My council have really raised the bar in the 3 weeks. We can recycle almost anything apart from food waste and the packaging that products shouldn't really be in.

[wjfox]

NASA has put together an absolutely outstanding website on climate change -

http://climate.jpl.nasa.gov/

Well worth checking out.

[wjfox]

Tougher climate target unveiled

The government has committed the UK to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by the middle of this century.

Full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7673748.stm

[Adam2707]

I came across this video of a 'solar island' concept, don't know is anyone has heard of them before.

[Tony Sebo]

Originally Posted by wjfox

Tougher climate target unveiled

The government has committed the UK to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by the middle of this century.

Full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7673748.stm

really stupid stunt that politicians have done, knowing they will not be a round to face the music..... or will they?
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magaz...e-change.thtml

[wjfox]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/mai...0/eawwf120.xml




Climate change accelerating far beyond the IPCC forecast, WWF says

By Paul Eccleston
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 20/10/2008


Climate change is happening much faster than the world's best scientists predicted and will wreak havoc unless action is taken on a global scale, a new report warns.

• Deforestation: Paying nations not to cut down forests 'will fuel corruption'
• 'IPCC seriously underplays climate change'
• IPCC: Lawson wrong about climate change

Extreme weather events such as the hot summer of 2003, which caused an extra 35,000 deaths across southern Europe from heat stress and poor air quality, will happen more frequently.

Britain and the North Sea area will be hit more often by violent cyclones and sea level rise predictions will double to more than a metre putting vast coastal areas at risk from flooding.

The bleak report from WWF - formerly the World Wildlife Fund - also predicts crops failures and the collapse of eco systems on both land and sea.

And it calls on the EU to set an example to the rest of the world by agreeing a package of challenging targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions to tackle the consequences of climate change and to keep any increase in global temperatures below 2ºC.

The report says that the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - a study of global warming by 4,000 scientists from more than 150 countries which alerted the world to the possible consequences of global warming - is now out of date.

WWF's report, Climate Change: Faster, stronger, sooner, has updated all the scientific data and concluded that global warming is accelerating far beyond the IPCC's forecasts.

As an example it says the first tipping point may have already been reached in the Arctic where sea ice is disappearing up to 30 years ahead of IPCC predictions and may be gone completely within five years - something that hasn't occurred for 1m years. This could result in rapid and abrupt climate change rather than the gradual changes forecast by the IPCC.

The findings include:

• Global sea level rise could more than double from the IPCC's estimate of 0.59m by the end of the century.
  
  
• Natural carbon sinks, such as forests and oceans, are losing their ability to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere faster than expected.
  
  
• Rising temperatures have already led to a major reduction in food crops resulting in losses of 40m tonnes of grain per year.
  
  
• Marine ecosystems in the North and Baltic Sea are being exposed to the warmest temperatures measured since records began.
  
  
• The number and intensity of extreme cyclones over the UK and North Sea are projected to increase, leading to increased wind speeds and storm-related losses over Western and Central Europe.

The report was issued to coincide with a meeting of EU Environment Ministers today (mon) to discuss new laws aimed at tackling climate change. Some countries, including Italy and Poland, have already rejected proposals for higher cuts in emissions claiming they are unaffordable and unrealistic when many countries are facing recession.

The UK is the only country so far to commit to a legally binding 80 per cent cut in emissions by 2050 which the Government claims can be achieved by a switch to renewable energy sources - such as wind and wave - combined with a new generation of nuclear power stations.

In the report WWF urges the EU to commit to a reduction target of at least 30% below 1990 levels by 2020 without relying on offsetting overseas and to provide financial support so developing countries can cut their own emissions and prepare for unavoidable impacts of climate change.

WWF-UK's Head of Climate Change, Dr. Keith Allott, said: "Climate change is a major challenge to the future of mankind and the environment, and this sobering overview highlights just how critical it is that EU Environment Ministers, who are meeting today to discuss EU legislation to tackle climate change, commit to a strong climate and energy package, in order to ensure a low carbon future.

If the European Union wants to be seen as leader at UN talks in Copenhagen next year, and to help secure a strong global deal to tackle climate change after 2012, then it must stop shirking its responsibilities and commit to real emissions cuts within Europe."

The report has been endorsed by Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, the newly elected Vice Chair of the IPCC, who said: "It is clear that climate change is already having a greater impact than most scientists had anticipated, so it's vital that international mitigation and adaptation responses become swifter and more ambitious."

[Tony Sebo]

so it looks like we'll get to the bottom of things now that WWF have completely upped the hysteria stakes. There is not a hope that 'actions' they say are needed will occur... so it's either bye bye world or 'fuck, it was all wrong'!


how come these difinative reports are still stuffed with ifs, could be, possible and other qualifications?

[wjfox]

Originally Posted by Tony Sebo

There is not a hope that 'actions' they say are needed will occur

Yeah, thanks to people in denial like yourself.

Isn't it a coincidence that there's a really close correlation between (a) the industrialisation of our planet, (b) the level of carbon emissions over time, and (c) the heating of the atmosphere and oceans. Odd, that.

[Tony Sebo]

yes wjfox, that oft repeated nonsense, despite the fact that I have said more than once that my journey started with me being quite convinced by the mantra myself?

[wjfox]

I suppose we can just carry on pumping billions and billions of tons of filthy coal and oil into the air (which took literally millions of years to form underground), rape the oceans and rainforests until they've been bled dry of resources, kill off tens of thousands of species through destruction of natural habitat, and keep consuming more and more and more and more and more as our world's population hits 10 billion people - and it won't have ANY effect at all ... because the planet is SOOOO big, right... we can't possibly have ANY effect on it, no matter what we do, it's all cyclical and entirely out of our control. Obviously.

[Tony Sebo]

Tut, tut. That old nugget and deplorable debating tactic... I thought you would not stoop so low... mad extrapolation into an extreme counterposition!!!


No, we should not, but we should not go along with a bogus, political campaign simply because it seems to achieve noble aims.. that way lies deciet and facism!

CO2 does fuck all, fossil fuels pump much more dangerous stuff into the air and has a much more directly negative imact. Things like land use that has been shaped around profligate use of oil have devestated our cities and millions of acres of wilderness.. we should NOT continue doing these things.

WJfox, you are a fair man, but go on and on about the God deceit, should we continue to tell kids they will go to hell if it ensures that many of them will behave better? Thought not.

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Some projects going on in Birmingham...

[El Mariachi]

All this "green fantasy" stuff reminds me of what people thought the world was going to look like 60-70 years ago.

[G.C.]

Nothing at all.

The words climate will change with or without humans.

Why did the last Ice Age end? Because of humans? No, because of natural warming of the planet.

[jmancuso]

Originally Posted by wjfox

I suppose we can just carry on pumping billions and billions of tons of filthy coal and oil into the air (which took literally millions of years to form underground), rape the oceans and rainforests until they've been bled dry of resources, kill off tens of thousands of species through destruction of natural habitat, and keep consuming more and more and more and more and more as our world's population hits 10 billion people - and it won't have ANY effect at all ... because the planet is SOOOO big, right... we can't possibly have ANY effect on it, no matter what we do, it's all cyclical and entirely out of our control. Obviously.

i think the human impact on the climate is overstated. yes, we have an adverse effect but there are also natural forces at work that our beyond our control. i think the issue has been overly politicized.

[Medo]

We are killers of entire species. We are destroyers of worlds. Who will forgive us?

Granted, it is possible that it is not our poisonous fumes and toxic fluids that are causing the shifts in the climate, but it is definitely our axes and chainsaws, our drills and hammers, our machines that are causing the death of our friends. Our friends who cannot defend themselves against our mighty and terrible appetite. Going green is not just about saving the planet so that we can live in it happily ever after, it is also about reconciling our differences with our animal neighbours, respecting their boundaries and letting them live in peace.

[El Mariachi]

Kill them all. Kill all of the animals that would kill us. Those cute little chimps would probally bite my nuts off if they had the chance.

[Medo]

By your reasoning once we have killed all the animals then we would have to kill ourselves, since we too are animals and we are certainly capable of killing each other. Then sleep easy my friend, we are already doing it.

[El Mariachi]

Originally Posted by Medo

By your reasoning once we have killed all the animals then we would have to kill ourselves, since we too are animals and we are certainly capable of killing each other. Then sleep easy my friend, we are already doing it.

Nah. Humans are too useful and most of us are good. Animals want to kill and eat us.