Environmental Science =]

            While attempting to endure a bitter cold winter in Chicago, one may second guess the plausibility of global warming, forgetting that weather is no such indicator.  However, unlike weather, climate is the true gauge of the status of global warming, and things aren’t looking good.

            More than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003, according to new NASA satellite data that show the latest signs of what scientists say is global warming.
            More than half of the loss of landlocked ice in the past five years has occurred in Greenland, based on measurements of ice weight by NASA’s GRACE satellite, said NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke. The water melting from Greenland in the past five years would fill up about 11 Chesapeake Bays, he said, and the Greenland melt seems to be accelerating.
           NASA scientists planned to present their findings Thursday at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. Luthcke said Greenland figures for the summer of 2008 aren’t complete yet, but this year’s ice loss, while still significant, won’t be as severe as 2007.
           The news was better for Alaska. After a precipitous drop in 2005, land ice increased slightly in 2008 because of large winter snowfalls, Luthcke said. Since 2003, when the NASA satellite started taking measurements, Alaska has lost 400 billion tons of land ice.
           In assessing climate change, scientists generally look at several years to determine the overall trend.
           Melting of land ice, unlike sea ice, increases sea levels very slightly. In the 1990s, Greenland didn’t add to world sea level rise; now that island is adding about half a millimeter of sea level rise a year, NASA ice scientist Jay Zwally said in a telephone interview from the conference.
           Between Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska, melting land ice has raised global sea levels about one-fifth of an inch in the past five years, Luthcke said. Sea levels also rise from water expanding as it warms.

In this July 19, 2007 file photo, icebergs float in a bay off Ammassalik Island, Greenland.

           Other research, being presented this week at the geophysical meeting point to more melting concerns from global warming, especially with sea ice.
           “It’s not getting better; it’s continuing to show strong signs of warming and amplification,” Zwally said. “There’s no reversal taking place.”
           Scientists studying sea ice will announce that parts of the Arctic north of Alaska were 9 to 10 degrees warmer this past fall, a strong early indication of what researchers call the Arctic amplification effect. That’s when the Arctic warms faster than predicted, and warming there is accelerating faster than elsewhere on the globe.
           As sea ice melts, the Arctic waters absorb more heat in the summer, having lost the reflective powers of vast packs of white ice. That absorbed heat is released into the air in the fall. That has led to autumn temperatures in the last several years that are six to 10 degrees warmer than they were in the 1980s, said research scientist Julienne Stroeve at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.
           That’s a strong and early impact of global warming, she said.
           “The pace of change is starting to outstrip our ability to keep up with it, in terms of our understanding of it,” said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center and a co-author of the Arctic amplification study.
           Two other studies coming out at the conference assess how Arctic thawing is releasing methane — the second most potent greenhouse gas. One study shows that the loss of sea ice warms the water, which warms the permafrost on nearby land in Alaska, thus producing methane, Stroeve says.
           A second study suggests even larger amounts of frozen methane are trapped in lakebeds and sea bottoms around Siberia and they are starting to bubble to the surface in some spots in alarming amounts, said Igor Semiletov, a professor at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. In late summer, Semiletov found methane bubbling up from parts of the East Siberian Sea and Laptev Sea at levels that were 10 times higher than they were in the mid-1990s, he said based on a study this summer.
           The amounts of methane in the region could dramatically increase global warming if they get released, he said.
           That, Semiletov said, “should alarm people.”

sources

AP images

stopglobalwarming.com

            In Australia, methane-producing farm animals are responsible for 70% of all agricultural carbon emissions and 11% of the country’s total carbon emissions, according to their Department of Climate Control.  The solution? Eat less livestock and more kangaroo!  Professor Ross Garnaut, Australia’s top climate change adviser, encourages the farming and consumption of kangaroos over more traditional animals, and stated, “For most of Australia’s human history—about 60,000 years—kangaroo was the main source of meat. It could again become important.”  Conveniently, kangaroos are not only better for the environment, but also healthier for the consumer, containing high protein and low fat levels. 

YUM

 Sources

AP images 

Below is a brief documentary telling the story of the electric car. 

How sad it is to think that in the midst of our country’s and our global environment’s desperation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, especially concerning transportation which is one of the leading causes of carbon emissions, that we already had the perfect solution: the electric car.  And who killed it? General Motors. 

Due to California’s growing problem of air pollution, the Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate was created.  ZEV specified that by 1998, 2% of all new cars sold by the seven major auto manufacturers in the state of California were to meet ‘zero emission’ standards as defined by the California Air Resources Board and 10% by 2003.  As a result, in 1997, GM released 660 Generation One EV1’s, not for purchase, but on a lease program. 

The EV1 was a phenomenal success.  The car got 100 miles for every charge and used the energy equivalent of 2/3 gallon of gas.  Many described the car as fast (it could go up to 120 mph), quiet, smooth, and Mel Gibson even referred to it as ‘cool’.  Most importantly, the EV1 produced zero emissions. 

In late 2003, GM officially canceled the EV1 program.  GM stated that it could not sell enough of the cars to make the EV1 profitable. This, combined with the fact that their parts and service infrastructure costs required to maintain the existing EV1′s for the state legislated minimum of 15 years, would mean the existing leases would not be renewed and all of the cars would all have to be returned to GM’s possession.

Although no one can be totally sure why GM murdered their own baby, I configured my own list of suspicions.

·         Consumers

Lots of ambivalence to new technology, unwillingness to compromise on decreased range and increased cost for improvements to air quality and reduction of dependence on foreign oil.

·         Oil companies

Fearful of losing business to a competing technology, they supported efforts to kill the ZEV mandate. They also bought patents to prevent modern batteries from being used in US electric cars.

·         Car companies

Negative marketing, sabotaging their own product program, failure to produce cars to meet existing demand, unusual business practices with regards to leasing versus sales. GM believed that electric cars needed fewer expensive repairs and would hence not make the car companies as much money over the long term as gasoline-powered cars.

·         Government

The federal government joined in the auto industry suit against California, has failed to act in the public interest to limit pollution and require increased fuel economy, has promoted the purchase of vehicles with poor fuel efficiency through preferential tax breaks, and has redirected alternative fuel research from electric towards hydrogen.

·         California Air Resources Board

The CARB, headed by Alan Lloyd, caved to industry pressure and repealed the ZEV mandate. Lloyd was given the directorship of the new fuel cell institute, creating an inherent conflict of interest.

I believe all of these attributed to GM’s decision to not only recall the electric cars, but to go as far as to deny their existence and their capabilities.  Years later, facing oil crises paired with global warming, GM has set out to create more electric cars, and in 2010, the “Fully Charged” Chevy Volt is to be released…aka the EV1…again?

sources: youtube.com, greencar.com, gm.com