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Mike The Blacksmith Post number 26156 Posted: 15th February 2020     Subject: Some good news
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The United States saw the largest decline in energy-related CO2 emissions in 2019 on a country basis – a fall of 140 Mt, or 2.9%, to 4.8 Gt. US emissions are now down almost 1 Gt from their peak in the year 2000, the largest absolute decline by any country over that period. A 15% reduction in the use of coal for power generation underpinned the decline in overall US emissions in 2019. Coal-fired power plants faced even stronger competition from natural gas-fired generation, with benchmark gas prices an average of 45% lower than 2018 levels. As a result, gas increased its share in electricity generation to a record high of 37%. Overall electricity demand declined because demand for air-conditioning and heating was lower as a result of milder summer and winter weather.

https://www.iea.org/articles/global-co2-emissions-in-2019
Mike The Blacksmith Post number 26166 Posted: 24th February 2020     Subject: Tesla tree cutting
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Bloomberg) -- Tesla Inc. has overcome a legal roadblock standing in the way of Elon Musk’s plan to build an electric-car factory in Germany.

A Berlin-Brandenburg court on Thursday ruled that Tesla can resume cutting down trees at a forest site in the small town of Gruenheide to make way for its first assembly plant in Europe. That puts the U. S. carmaker on track to start construction before the start of a crucial breeding period for local wildlife in March.

The court found that local authorities didn’t violate laws when they allowed work on the factory to start, throwing out a complaint by Gruene Liga Brandenburg, an environmental group that claimed Tesla and local authorities were sidestepping regulations to rush the project.

https://finance.yahoo.c ... 3722173.html
Mike The Blacksmith Post number 26391 Posted: 19th June 2020     Subject:
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World CO2 Emissions, China the largest producer of green house gasses.

China’s carbon dioxide emissions increased by 3.4 percent last year, higher than the ten-year average growth rate of 2.6 percent, BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy showed on Wednesday - the highest growth rate of Chinese emissions since 2011.
Chinese CO2 emissions accounted for the single largest share of global carbon emissions last year – 28.8 percent, according to BP’s annual statistics report.

https://www.bp.com/cont ... missions.pdf

https://oilprice.com/La ... ce-2011.html
Morgana Post number 26432 Posted: 9th July 2020     Subject: Project Force: Could the world survive a nuclear winter?
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Project Force: Could the world survive a nuclear winter?
The consequences of a nuclear war would extend far beyond the blast itself, killing millions of people across the globe.
by Alex Gatopoulos 2 Jul 2020

Firestorms triggered by burning cities create a huge plume of smoke, soot and ash. The plume rises above the clouds, into the upper atmosphere of the planet,
where it will stay, encircling the globe, shielding the Earth from the Sun's light, cooling the planet.
This is the scenario we could expect following a nuclear clash between nations.
The term nuclear winter was coined in the 1980s as scientists began to realise that the horrors of a nuclear war would not be confined to explosive blasts and radiation.

(read on... )
https://www.aljazeera.c ... 2211696.html
Morgana Post number 26439 Posted: 15th July 2020     Subject: Green New Deal
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What if we actually pulled off a Green New Deal? What would the future look like? The Intercept presents a film narrated by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and illustrated by Molly Crabapple.

Set a couple of decades from now, the film is a flat-out rejection of the idea that a dystopian future is a forgone conclusion. Instead, it offers a thought experiment: What if we decided not to drive off the climate cliff? What if we chose to radically change course and save both our habitat and ourselves?

We realized that the biggest obstacle to the kind of transformative change the Green New Deal envisions is overcoming the skepticism that humanity could ever pull off something at this scale and speed. That’s the message we’ve been hearing from the “serious” center for four months straight: that it’s too big, too ambitious, that our Twitter-addled brains are incapable of it, and that we are destined to just watch walruses fall to their deaths on Netflix until it’s too late.

This film flips the script. It’s about how, in the nick of time, a critical mass of humanity in the largest economy on earth came to believe that we were actually worth saving. Because, as Ocasio-Cortez says in the film, our future has not been written yet and “we can be whatever we have the courage to see. ”

Subscribe to our channel: https://interc.pt/subscribe
Read the article from Naomi Klein: https://interc.pt/2UktTeE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9uTH0iprVQ&t=37s
Mike The Blacksmith Post number 26468 Posted: 5th August 2020     Subject: The Dirty Secrets Of ‘Clean’ Electric Vehicles
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The widespread view that fossil fuels are “dirty” and renewables such as wind and solar energy and electric vehicles are “clean” has become a fixture of mainstream media and policy assumptions across the political spectrum in developed countries, perhaps with the exception of the Trump-led US administration. Indeed the ultimate question we are led to believe is how quickly can enlightened Western governments, led by an alleged scientific consensus, “decarbonize” with clean energy in a race to save the world from impending climate catastrophe. The ‘net zero by 2050’ mantra, calling for carbon emissions to be completely mitigated within three decades, is now the clarion call by governments and intergovernmental agencies around the developed world, ranging from several EU member states and the UK, to the International Energy Agency and the International Monetary Fund.

Mining out of sight, out of mind

Let’s start with Elon Musk’s Tesla. In an astonishing achievement for a company that has now posted four consecutive quarters of profits, Tesla is now the world’s most valuable automotive company. Demand for EVs is set to soar, as government policies subsidize the purchase of EVs to replace the internal combustion engine of gasoline and diesel-driven cars and as owning a “clean” and “green” car becomes a moral testament to many a virtue-signaling customer.

Yet, if one looks under the hood of “clean energy” battery-driven EVs, the dirt found would surprise most. The most important component in the EV is the lithium-ion rechargeable battery which relies on critical mineral commodities such as cobalt, graphite, lithium, and manganese. Tracing the source of these minerals, in what is called “full-cycle economics”, it becomes apparent that EVs create a trail of dirt from the mining and processing of minerals upstream.

https://www.forbes.com/ ... 12c2ac04650b
Morgana Post number 26481 Posted: 17th August 2020     Subject: Forecasting Marine “Bioinvasions” in a Warming World
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Forecasting Marine “Bioinvasions” in a Warming World
Modern material technology and climate change are facilitating the global movement of ocean life like never before.
Can we learn to detect species introductions earlier on?
DOMINICK LESKIW
August 12, 2020

AT RHODE ISLAND’s Weekapaug Point, sea boulders stand stout in the spray, while low tide lingers in pools piled with life.
Green crabs dip under drying red seaweed, while sea squirts slouch and sway over the stones.
A stripe-legged shore crab scurries, stops, and pinches angrily at me. Periwinkles line the rocks like rough wallpaper, ingrained, it seems,
into the very structure of the shoreline.

Many of the creatures found in New England tidepools are not native to the region. Photo by Glenna Barlow.
It may come as a shock to some, as it did to me during my trip to Weekapaug this February, that not one of these creatures is native to New England. Such is the nature of many marine species introductions, which have impacted nearly every coastline in the world for at least the last 500 years: Organisms find their way into waters far beyond their native ranges, often aided by human activities, and establish populations well below the surface of common cultural awareness. These organisms — from the smallest of diatoms and shellfish to sizable salmon and gigantic white-spotted jellyfish — can devastate local ecosystems, destroy coastal infrastructure, and cost billions of dollars to combat every year.

According to a Pews Oceans Commission report, “Bioinvasions is a broad term that refers to both human-assisted introductions and natural range expansions, ” though the typology and terminology of these invasions are often as complex as the issues they attempt to describe. The long history of marine bioinvasions is enmeshed with travel and trade, colonization and war, fisheries and aquaria, and the countless physical means of carriage, called vectors, that allow humans — and the organisms we bring with us — to reach oceanic habitats all around the globe. Exploratory, military, and cargo vessels, which have crossed the sea daily for centuries, are the most infamous vectors. A single ship can harbor hundreds of “fouling” species on its hull, each with the potential of establishing an invasive population in the region where that ship is headed. Ballast water, stored as a stabilizing mechanism in huge tanks belowdecks, can take up entire communities of organisms at one port and release them thousands of miles later in another where they are not naturally found. While seemingly innocuous, other vectors like scuba fins and wetsuits can hide and transport tiny hitchhikers in their creases and fibers. Fishermen, too, feeling sorry for their leftover live-bait, may release hundreds of worms — as well as the non-native snails, crabs, and algae they were packaged with — into new habitats every year.

read more...

https://www.earthisland ... imate-change
Morgana Post number 26483 Posted: 18th August 2020     Subject: Beautiful Mural in Warsaw Eats Up Smog, Purifying The Air
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Beautiful Mural in Warsaw Eats Up Smog, Purifying The Air Equal to 720 Trees
By Andy Corbley -Aug 15, 2020


Looking Good Studio website
Warsaw, Poland became the latest city to feature public art projects that also clean city air, as a giant mural made of special, sun-activated, smog-cleaning pigments was painted by local artists.

Organized by the sportswear company Converse as part of their City-Forests campaign, the mural was produced using photocatalytic paint with titanium dioxide that attracts airborne pollutants before converting them into harmless nitrates through a chemical process involving sunlight.

Through this process the mural reportedly purifies the surrounding air equal to 720 trees, and when the campaign is finished, the murals spread across several countries should be doing the work of 3,000.

The mural was erected on a building facing a popular metro stop and features a collection of smiling flowers entangled among high rise buildings. Polish artists Maciek Polak and Dawid Ryski designed the image, which was executed by the local artist hub Good Looking Studio, involving expert muralists.

Amid the flowers are the words “Create Together For Tomorrow, ” a positive message to inspire change, which Converse officials feel will help welcome people who are returning to their daily commutes after periods of COVID-19 isolation.

read more...
https://www.goodnewsnet ... NoM.facebook

Also this Website: http://goodlooking.pl/en/
Morgana Post number 26555 Posted: 26th September 2020     Subject: Update...The Ocean Cleanup - 1
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From Trash To Treasure - The Ocean Cleanup Material | Cleaning Oceans | The Ocean Cleanup
24 Sep 2020



The plastic we are working with has been floating in the ocean for possibly decades.
When transforming it into something new, we wanted the material to evoke a reminder of where it's been.
Register for our first product made with certified ocean plastic here: https://bit.ly/2Z7a8wC

In October, we expect to show you what we managed to make of our first plastic catch from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
We are looking forward to sharing this with you, and enabling you to take ownership of the plastic and give it a new chance.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel to stay updated: https://bit.ly/371k8sN

--

Trash accumulates in five ocean garbage patches, the largest one being the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located between
Hawaii and California. If left to circulate, the plastic will impact our ecosystems, health, and economies.
Solving it requires a combination of closing the source, and cleaning up what has already accumulated in the ocean.

The ocean is big. Cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch using conventional methods – vessels and nets –
would take thousands of years and tens of billions of dollars to complete. Our passive systems are estimated to remove
50% of the Great Pacific Garbage patch in just five years, and at a fraction of the cost.

--
Follow The Ocean Cleanup on:

Facebook: https://bit.ly/2QWgmLQ
Twitter: https://bit.ly/2RqHqSk
Instagram: https://bit.ly/2st9SKT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhEffEsC9iw
Morgana Post number 26556 Posted: 26th September 2020     Subject: Update...The Ocean Cleanup - 2
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How we turn trash into treasure


On October 24th we will present our first product made with plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
During this live stream, Boyan Slat (Founder and CEO) will share how we can take our plan full circle:
recycling our catch into beautiful, sustainable products to fund the continuation of the cleanup.

https://theoceancleanup ... e_24-09-2020

See products and register here for updates: https://products-eu.theoceancleanup.com/
And scientific publications: https://theoceancleanup.com/scientific-publications/
Morgana Post number 26937 Posted: 11th April 2021     Subject:
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Here is an interesting article with information about Greenhouse Gases and much more:

We Need to “See the Whole Board” to Stop Climate Change
Addressing climate change is like playing chess. We need to use all the pieces, employ multiple strategies, and see the whole board.
But, unlike chess, we have to play this game collaboratively to win.
Dr. Jonathan Foley
Feb 14 · 2021

It’s 2021, and the era of climate denial is over. We are moving beyond denying climate change and are now seeking ways to stop it.
The world understands climate change is real and addressing it is one of the most critical challenges facing us. That’s good news, but there are still many challenges ahead. The most important is overcoming our sometimes limited views about how to address the climate crisis.

In a nutshell, we aren’t always looking at the whole range of solutions we need to get the job done, or enough ways to scale them in time to make a difference.
Too many of our conversations focus only on a handful of climate solutions, usually in areas like power generation or electric cars, and forget about the many other solutions we need. And too many conversations focus only on a few ways to scale solutions — to the necessary size, at the necessary speed — to avert disaster.

Unfortunately, too many of us share these blind spots. It’s human nature. But, as a result, we’re still neglecting many important solutions, and are missing enormous opportunities to make progress.
After watching The Queen’s Gambit, an analogy comes to mind. Our approach to addressing climate change is like trying to play chess but only using a knight or a bishop. We don’t realize there are other pieces on the board, and that we will need them all. And we don’t realize we need a range of tactics, depending on the state of the board. We can’t just play our favorite move, again and again.
We need to use all the pieces and consider all the tactics to play a successful game — from the opening gambits, through the complex play in the middle, to achieving “climate checkmate” in the future. In other words, we have to see and play the “whole board”.

So, what are the pieces on the climate chessboard? And what are the strongest tactics? In other words, what are the rules of climate chess?
The first rule of climate chess is this: The board is bigger than we think, and includes more than fossil fuels.
We usually hear that climate change is a problem of fossil fuels. If we simply get rid of fossil fuels and the carbon dioxide emissions they create, we will stop climate change.
No, that’s an incomplete view. Only ~62% of the greenhouse gas emissions are carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels.

see full article here:
https://globalecoguy.or ... 98be66412281
Morgana Post number 26938 Posted: 12th April 2021     Subject: Cooling the Planet? 09.04.2021 - Los Angeles, USA - Robert H
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Cooling the Planet?
09.04.2021 - Los Angeles, USA - Robert Hunziker

Image of depleted Ozone Layer Around the South Pole, Antarctica. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Grandiose plans to cool Earth, saving the planet from overheating by utilizing low-tech balloon flights sprinkling particles into the atmosphere to reflect solar radiation back into outer space have been delayed, nobody knows for sure when, or if, it’ll proceed.

The planet-cooling scheme referred to as Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment aka: SCoPEx headed by Harvard professor Fran Keutsch hopes to save humanity from hothouse Earth with plans to sprinkle aerosols of calcium carbonate and other substances at 12 miles above Earth’s surface to reflect solar radiation to outer space. The initial flight scheduled for June 2021 was set to test the balloon and gondola equipment sans release of aerosols until later in the year.

But heavy lobbying by prominent groups against the “alleged insanity” of toying around with the planet’s climate system put an end to this test run. Still, it’s an open question as to whether it really is insanity. Although, nobody knows for sure what consequences may follow. Nobody! On the other hand, civilization has been insanely altering the climate system by spewing carbon dioxide CO2 and sulfur dioxide SO2 into the atmosphere for years upon years. The question now revolves around whether SCoPEx makes it worse by trying to fix it? As such, is it the issue at hand? Answers: maybe and yes.

It should be noted that research to help/repair/fix Earth’s climate system, which is severely broken, is ongoing at major universities throughout the world and for good reason. It’s an open secret that the Anthropocene (direct human influence) is disrupting the planet’s climate system in very big pronounced ways, geologically at warp speed. The proof is found in numbers. For example, throughout the Holocene Era of the past 10,000+ years the natural rate of CO2 emissions was ~0.003 ppm/year which equates to +36 ppm over a time span of 12,000 years versus today’s rate of 2.0 ppm/year or +40 ppm in only 20 years or geological light speed. It’s highly probable the planet has never experienced such a rapid rate of change as it has, especially since WWII. There’s absolutely nothing positive about that.

The risk of geoengineering, especially unimaginable unknown unknowns, has prompted prominent reconsideration of the efficacy of SCoPEx. Raymond Pierrehumbert, University of Oxford physicist and renowned expert on climate dynamics, claims that widespread adoption of SCoPEx would be the sword of Damocles hanging over humanity, meaning, unless CO2 emissions are taken down to zero “… each year that goes on, you’ll have more CO2, which gives you more of a warming force which has to be counteracted by an even larger amount of geoengineering. You go into this death spiral, where you try to keep the Earth habitable in the face of ever-increasing CO2 and set ourselves up for a bigger and bigger risk of catastrophe. ” (Source: Balloon Test Flight Plan Under Fire Over Solar Geoengineering Fears, ” The Guardian, Feb. 8, 2021)

Pierrehumbert’s criticism is analogous to running endlessly on a treadmill that continues to grow bigger and faster multiplying until it morphs into a monolithic monster that overwhelms everything.

Moreover, critics argue the consequences of SCoPEx are not well understood. They claim stratospheric aerosol injections (SAI) on a” large scale” could (1) damage the ozone layer, (2) cause excessive heating in the stratosphere, and (3) disrupt ecosystems. Any one of which is cause for pause.

Just imagine depleting some, or too much, of the ozone layer. Ozone molecules protect the planet from burning up, no questions asked. According to NASA: “Ozone absorbs harmful components of sunlight, known as ultraviolet B or UV-B… above weather systems a tenuous layer of ozone gas absorbs UV-B, protecting living things below. ”

“Study of ozone amounts before and after the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo show that there were significant decreases in lower stratospheric ozone (Grant and others, 1994). The amount of ozone in the 16-28 km region was reduced by 33% compared to pre-eruption amounts. ” (Source: Volcanic Gases, Oregon State University)

“Sulfate aerosols pose well-known risks such as ozone depletion and stratospheric heating. ” (Source: Zhen Dai, et al, Experimental Reaction Rates Constrain Estimates of Ozone Response to Calcium Carbonate Geoengineering, Nature, Dec. 15, 2020)

However, according to the same source: “A prior modeling study from our group suggested that calcium carbonate (CaCO3) might enable stratospheric geoengineering with reduced ozone loss or even ozone increase, but that study lacked measurements of important CaCO3-specific reaction rates… This uncertainty needs to be resolved by empirical methods, ” Ibid.

As such, SCoPEx plans to sprinkle aerosols of calcium carbonate as preliminary research indicates this mineral dust may be an acceptable fix, but the jury is still out. It’s far too early to know. Empirical studies for this are not easily accomplished. With geoengineering, uncertainty is common.

Still, proponents of SCoPEx advocate experimentation of redirection of solar radiation regardless of uncertainties, thus, hopefully upending or reducing the impact of multiple ecosystem risks associated with global warming, thereby humanity continues eating, drinking, and pretending to be happy, drinking helps.

Nevertheless, according to the state-owned Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), which operates the Esrange Space Station in Kinuna, Sweden whence the test was to commence: “The scientific community is divided regarding geoengineering, ” (Source: Controversial Test Flight Aimed at Cooling the Planet Cancelled, PHYS. ORG, April 1, 2021)

Johanna Sandahl, president of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation: “It’s time for all countries in the world to live up to the de facto moratorium on geoengineering introduced by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity of 2010… The test will not be conducted in Sweden and should not be anywhere. ” (Source: Geoengineering Monitor, April 1, 2021)

Both sides of the solar engineering argument have agreed to meet to see if there is a middle ground, but from the outside looking in, it doesn’t look all that promising. The list of questions, concerns, and observations is endless, for example: What, where and for how long? Forever? Really? What of slip-ups, the unknown unknowns? What of loss of ozone or something comparable, out of the blue? What if hydrological cycles misfire, disrupting agricultural seasons? If SCoPEx does an A-plus reflection job whilst fossil fuels chug along in tandem, will oceans absorb so much CO2 that whales go belly up?

And, towering above all other considerations: What if world opinion remains sharply divided? Then what?
Full article...
https://www.pressenza.com/2021/04/cooling-the-planet/
Morgana Post number 26939 Posted: 12th April 2021     Subject: Cooling the Planet? 09.04.2021 - Los Angeles, USA - Robert H
View user's profile
Cooling the Planet?
09.04.2021 - Los Angeles, USA - Robert Hunziker

Image of depleted Ozone Layer Around the South Pole, Antarctica. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Grandiose plans to cool Earth, saving the planet from overheating by utilizing low-tech balloon flights sprinkling particles into the atmosphere to reflect solar radiation back into outer space have been delayed, nobody knows for sure when, or if, it’ll proceed.

The planet-cooling scheme referred to as Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment aka: SCoPEx headed by Harvard professor Fran Keutsch hopes to save humanity from hothouse Earth with plans to sprinkle aerosols of calcium carbonate and other substances at 12 miles above Earth’s surface to reflect solar radiation to outer space. The initial flight scheduled for June 2021 was set to test the balloon and gondola equipment sans release of aerosols until later in the year.

But heavy lobbying by prominent groups against the “alleged insanity” of toying around with the planet’s climate system put an end to this test run. Still, it’s an open question as to whether it really is insanity. Although, nobody knows for sure what consequences may follow. Nobody! On the other hand, civilization has been insanely altering the climate system by spewing carbon dioxide CO2 and sulfur dioxide SO2 into the atmosphere for years upon years. The question now revolves around whether SCoPEx makes it worse by trying to fix it? As such, is it the issue at hand? Answers: maybe and yes.

It should be noted that research to help/repair/fix Earth’s climate system, which is severely broken, is ongoing at major universities throughout the world and for good reason. It’s an open secret that the Anthropocene (direct human influence) is disrupting the planet’s climate system in very big pronounced ways, geologically at warp speed. The proof is found in numbers. For example, throughout the Holocene Era of the past 10,000+ years the natural rate of CO2 emissions was ~0.003 ppm/year which equates to +36 ppm over a time span of 12,000 years versus today’s rate of 2.0 ppm/year or +40 ppm in only 20 years or geological light speed. It’s highly probable the planet has never experienced such a rapid rate of change as it has, especially since WWII. There’s absolutely nothing positive about that.

The risk of geoengineering, especially unimaginable unknown unknowns, has prompted prominent reconsideration of the efficacy of SCoPEx. Raymond Pierrehumbert, University of Oxford physicist and renowned expert on climate dynamics, claims that widespread adoption of SCoPEx would be the sword of Damocles hanging over humanity, meaning, unless CO2 emissions are taken down to zero “… each year that goes on, you’ll have more CO2, which gives you more of a warming force which has to be counteracted by an even larger amount of geoengineering. You go into this death spiral, where you try to keep the Earth habitable in the face of ever-increasing CO2 and set ourselves up for a bigger and bigger risk of catastrophe. ” (Source: Balloon Test Flight Plan Under Fire Over Solar Geoengineering Fears, ” The Guardian, Feb. 8, 2021)

Pierrehumbert’s criticism is analogous to running endlessly on a treadmill that continues to grow bigger and faster multiplying until it morphs into a monolithic monster that overwhelms everything.

Moreover, critics argue the consequences of SCoPEx are not well understood. They claim stratospheric aerosol injections (SAI) on a” large scale” could (1) damage the ozone layer, (2) cause excessive heating in the stratosphere, and (3) disrupt ecosystems. Any one of which is cause for pause.

Just imagine depleting some, or too much, of the ozone layer. Ozone molecules protect the planet from burning up, no questions asked. According to NASA: “Ozone absorbs harmful components of sunlight, known as ultraviolet B or UV-B… above weather systems a tenuous layer of ozone gas absorbs UV-B, protecting living things below. ”

“Study of ozone amounts before and after the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo show that there were significant decreases in lower stratospheric ozone (Grant and others, 1994). The amount of ozone in the 16-28 km region was reduced by 33% compared to pre-eruption amounts. ” (Source: Volcanic Gases, Oregon State University)

“Sulfate aerosols pose well-known risks such as ozone depletion and stratospheric heating. ” (Source: Zhen Dai, et al, Experimental Reaction Rates Constrain Estimates of Ozone Response to Calcium Carbonate Geoengineering, Nature, Dec. 15, 2020)

However, according to the same source: “A prior modeling study from our group suggested that calcium carbonate (CaCO3) might enable stratospheric geoengineering with reduced ozone loss or even ozone increase, but that study lacked measurements of important CaCO3-specific reaction rates… This uncertainty needs to be resolved by empirical methods, ” Ibid.

As such, SCoPEx plans to sprinkle aerosols of calcium carbonate as preliminary research indicates this mineral dust may be an acceptable fix, but the jury is still out. It’s far too early to know. Empirical studies for this are not easily accomplished. With geoengineering, uncertainty is common.

Still, proponents of SCoPEx advocate experimentation of redirection of solar radiation regardless of uncertainties, thus, hopefully upending or reducing the impact of multiple ecosystem risks associated with global warming, thereby humanity continues eating, drinking, and pretending to be happy, drinking helps.

Nevertheless, according to the state-owned Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), which operates the Esrange Space Station in Kinuna, Sweden whence the test was to commence: “The scientific community is divided regarding geoengineering, ” (Source: Controversial Test Flight Aimed at Cooling the Planet Cancelled, PHYS. ORG, April 1, 2021)

Johanna Sandahl, president of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation: “It’s time for all countries in the world to live up to the de facto moratorium on geoengineering introduced by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity of 2010… The test will not be conducted in Sweden and should not be anywhere. ” (Source: Geoengineering Monitor, April 1, 2021)

Both sides of the solar engineering argument have agreed to meet to see if there is a middle ground, but from the outside looking in, it doesn’t look all that promising. The list of questions, concerns, and observations is endless, for example: What, where and for how long? Forever? Really? What of slip-ups, the unknown unknowns? What of loss of ozone or something comparable, out of the blue? What if hydrological cycles misfire, disrupting agricultural seasons? If SCoPEx does an A-plus reflection job whilst fossil fuels chug along in tandem, will oceans absorb so much CO2 that whales go belly up?

And, towering above all other considerations: What if world opinion remains sharply divided? Then what?
Full article...
https://www.pressenza.com/2021/04/cooling-the-planet/
Morgana Post number 27016 Posted: 30th May 2021     Subject: YES! Presents: Solving Plastic
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YES! Presents: Solving Plastic

Activists and contributors from the Solving Plastic issue of YES! Magazine discuss the diverse ways communities are fighting the petrochemical industry and working toward a plastic-free world—and how you can get involved!

Featured speakers:
- Erica Cirino, a science writer, artist, and author of the forthcoming book Thicker Than Water: The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis (Island Press, fall 2021)
- Sharon Lavigne, founder of RISE St. James in New Orleans and a leading environmental justice advocate fighting the petrochemical buildout in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley”
- Christie Keith, international coordinator and executive director of GAIA (U. S.), a global alliance of grassroots groups, NGOs, and individuals working toward a just, toxic-free world without incineration
- Breanna Draxler, YES! environmental editor and moderator of the event
- Zenobia Jeffries Warfield, YES! executive editor and host of the event

This is a recording of a live event that took place on May 20, 2021.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzr-B4qdaxM
Mike The Blacksmith Post number 27173 Posted: 16th August 2021     Subject: How your phone battery creates striking alien landscapes
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Millions of years ago, volcanoes deposited minerals over vast tracts of South America. Later, water leached through the rock to form massive lakes. Cycles of evaporation and deposition followed, leaving vast plains of salt behind – infused with one of the world's most sought-after minerals: lithium.

With the rapid rise in battery usage in electronic devices and electric cars, the demand for lithium and other constituent materials is accelerating. As BBC Future has previously reported, it is enabling mining companies to look in new places, such as the deep ocean or in previously exploited mines, and has prompted scientists to seek alternative battery technology. But our focus today is how lithium is changing the fortunes – and specifically, the landscapes – of those countries that have it in abundance.

In Bolivia and Chile, the high tonnage of lithium embedded in the salt plains has given rise to massive facilities. From the air, the evaporation pools associated with the mineral's extraction dot the landscape like colours in a painter's palette.

https://www.bbc.com/fut ... g-landscapes
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