1.
Environmental economics
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Environmental economics is a sub-field of economics that is concerned with environmental issues. Particular issues include the costs and benefits of alternative policies to deal with air pollution, water quality, toxic substances, solid waste. Environmental economics is distinguished from ecological economics in that ecological economics emphasizes the economy as a subsystem of the ecosystem with its focus upon preserving natural capital, central to environmental economics is the concept of market failure. Market failure means that markets fail to allocate resources efficiently, as stated by Hanley, Shogren, and White in their textbook Environmental Economics, A market failure occurs when the market does not allocate scarce resources to generate the greatest social welfare. A wedge exists between what a person does given market prices and what society might want him or her to do to protect the environment. Such a wedge implies wastefulness or economic inefficiency, resources can be reallocated to make at least one person better off without making anyone worse off. Common forms of failure include externalities, non-excludability and non-rivalry. An externality exists when a person makes a choice that affects people in a way that is not accounted for in the market price. An externality can be positive or negative, but is associated with negative externalities in environmental economics. For instance, water seepage in residential buildings happen in upper floor affect the lower floor, or a firm emitting pollution will typically not take into account the costs that its pollution imposes on others. As a result, pollution may occur in excess of the efficient level. When it is too costly to some people from access to an environmental resource. In either case of non-exclusion, market allocation is likely to be inefficient and these challenges have long been recognized. Hardins concept of the tragedy of the commons popularized the challenges involved in non-exclusion and common property, the basic problem is that if people ignore the scarcity value of the commons, they can end up expending too much effort, over harvesting a resource. Hardin theorizes that in the absence of restrictions, users of a resource will use it more than if they had to pay for it and had exclusive rights. See, however, Ostroms work on how people using real common property resources have worked to establish self-governing rules to reduce the risk of the tragedy of the commons. The mitigation of climate change effects is an example of a public good and this is a public good since the risks of climate change are both non-rival and non-excludable. Such efforts are non-rival since climate mitigation provided to one does not reduce the level of mitigation that anyone else enjoys and they are non-excludable actions as they will have global consequences from which no one can be excluded
Environmental economics
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Nitrogen Cycle
Environmental economics
Environmental economics
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Oxygen Cycle
Environmental economics
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Main fields
2.
Green economy
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The green economy is defined as an economy that aims at reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities, and that aims for sustainable development without degrading the environment. It is closely related with ecological economics, but has a more applied focus. The 2011 UNEP Green Economy Report argues that to be green, an economy must not only be efficient, fairness implies recognising global and country level equity dimensions, particularly in assuring a just transition to an economy that is low-carbon, resource efficient, and socially inclusive. Green Sticker and ecolabel practices have emerged as consumer facing measurements of friendliness to the environment, many industries are starting to adopt these standards as a viable way to promote their greening practices in a globalizing economy. Green economics is defined as any theory of economics by which an economy is considered to be component of the ecosystem in which it resides. A holistic approach to the subject is typical, such that economic ideas are commingled with any number of other subjects, depending on the particular theorist. The use of the term is further ambiguated by the distinction of Green parties which are formally organized and claim the capital-G Green term as a unique. It is thus preferable to refer to a school of green economists who generally advocate shifts towards a green economy, biomimicry. Some economists view green economics as a branch or subfield of more established schools, for instance, it is regarded as classical economics where the traditional land is generalized to natural capital and has some attributes in common with labor and physical capital. Developed nations is held steady at a ratio reflecting a balance of power, taking these into account targeting not less but radically zero emission and waste is what is promoted by the Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives. The UNEP2011 Green Economy Report informs that ased on existing studies, to place this demand in perspective, it is about one-tenth of total global investment per year, as measured by global Gross Capital Formation. In 2012, the ICC published the Green Economy Roadmap, containing contributions from experts from around the globe brought together in a consultation process. The Roadmap represents a comprehensive and multidisciplinary effort to clarify and frame the concept of “green economy” and it highlights the essential role of business in bringing solutions to common global challenges. 2010 -2016 Global Green Economy Index™, published by consultancy Dual Citizen LLC is in its 5th edition,2009 -2012 Green City Index A global study commissioned by Siemens 2009 -2013 Circles of Sustainability project scored 5 cities in 5 separate countries. Ecological footprint measurements are a way to gauge anthropogenic impact and are another standard used by municipal governments, Green economies require green energy generation based on renewable energy to replace fossil fuels as well as energy conservation and efficient energy use. The green economy may need government subsidies as market incentives to firms to invest and produce green products. The German Renewable Energy Act, legislations of many other states of the European Union. He has also criticised the UNs project on the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity, daly NOAA Economics of Ecosystems Data & Products
Green economy
3.
Renewable energy
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Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources, which are naturally replenished on a human timescale, such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, waves, and geothermal heat. Renewable energy often provides energy in four important areas, electricity generation, air and water heating/cooling, transportation, based on REN21s 2016 report, renewables contributed 19. 2% to humans global energy consumption and 23. 7% to their generation of electricity in 2014 and 2015, respectively. This energy consumption is divided as 8. 9% coming from biomass,4. 2% as heat energy,3. 9% hydro electricity and 2. 2% is electricity from wind, solar, geothermal. Worldwide investments in renewable technologies amounted to more than US$286 billion in 2015, with countries like China, globally, there are an estimated 7.7 million jobs associated with the renewable energy industries, with solar photovoltaics being the largest renewable employer. As of 2015 worldwide, more than half of all new electricity capacity installed was renewable, Renewable energy resources exist over wide geographical areas, in contrast to other energy sources, which are concentrated in a limited number of countries. Rapid deployment of energy and energy efficiency is resulting in significant energy security, climate change mitigation. In international public opinion there is strong support for promoting renewable sources such as solar power. At the national level, at least 30 nations around the already have renewable energy contributing more than 20 percent of energy supply. National renewable energy markets are projected to continue to grow strongly in the coming decade, for example, in Denmark the government decided to switch the total energy supply to 100% renewable energy by 2050. While many renewable energy projects are large-scale, renewable technologies are also suited to rural and remote areas and developing countries, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said that renewable energy has the ability to lift the poorest nations to new levels of prosperity. Renewable energy systems are becoming more efficient and cheaper. Their share of energy consumption is increasing. Growth in consumption of coal and oil could end by 2020 due to increased uptake of renewables, in its various forms, it derives directly from the sun, or from heat generated deep within the earth. Included in the definition is electricity and heat generated from solar, wind, ocean, hydropower, biomass, geothermal resources, rapid deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency, and technological diversification of energy sources, would result in significant energy security and economic benefits. New government spending, regulation and policies helped the industry weather the financial crisis better than many other sectors. As of 2011, small solar PV systems provide electricity to a few million households, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said that renewable energy has the ability to lift the poorest nations to new levels of prosperity. At the national level, at least 30 nations around the already have renewable energy contributing more than 20% of energy supply. Some countries have much higher long-term policy targets of up to 100% renewables, outside Europe, a diverse group of 20 or more other countries target renewable energy shares in the 2020–2030 time frame that range from 10% to 50%
Renewable energy
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Wind, solar, and biomass are three emerging renewable sources of energy.
Renewable energy
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The 845 MW Shepherds Flat Wind Farm near Arlington, Oregon, USA
Renewable energy
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The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in China
Renewable energy
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Satellite image of the 550-megawatt Topaz Solar Farm in California, USA
4.
Environmental tariff
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They can be used as controls on global pollution and can also be considered as corrective measures against environmental races to the bottom and eco-dumping. There has been debate on the role that increased trade has played in increasing pollution. According to a World Bank paper, Since freer trade raises income, however, it thereby induces the composition technique effects of increased income, both of which tend to reduce pollution levels. Additionally, environmental standards will be harmonized between the nations as a result of the environmental tariff. One of the issues that are raised when discussing environmental tariffs, is the issue of a reduction in trade. The argument raised is that tariffs reduce trade and may not actually be targeting the source of the pollution. The proposed legislation was tabled as the International Pollution Deterrence Act of 1991 and was introduced in its Senate in April of that year, negotiations took place in 2001 Doha, Qatar towards the improvement of work related issues concerning the implementation of present agreements. This was a mandated conference dubbed the Fourth Ministerial Conference, one of the issues discussed concerned the issues of trade barriers on environmental goods and services. A notable feature of the proposed U. S, the purpose of this index is to measure the level of compliance within each country with standards comparable to or greater than those in the United States. The Administrator shall analyze, in particular, the level of technology employed, more positives of environmental tariffs is that they result in the movement in production of goods, to areas in which stricter environmental standards are enforced. Moreover, the GATT does condone the use of tariffs as market interventions, so long as the interventions do not discriminate products, both foreign and domestic. A disputed case relating to this policy was brought forth to the GATT/WTO, involving the U. S. additionally, many foreign factory owners in newly industrialized countries and underdeveloped countries saw the attempts to impose pollution controls on them as suspicious. Moreover, the problem of what the ideal tariff level is also a cause for concern when implementing environmental tariffs, further implementation problems have been as a result of what some developing nations may view as green protectionism. Green protectionism being the use of methods meant to address legitimate environment goals for the end goal of protection,1966, Environmental Tariffs on Polluting Imports, An Empirical Study, Environmental & Resource Economics, European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, Volume 7 Issue 4, Pgs. 391-411, Jean-Marie, Grether & Mathys, Nicole A.1988, Industrial Pollution Abatement, The Impact on Balance of Trad, Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, Vol.21, Pgs. 187-99, February, Ghosh, S. & Yamarik, Steven 2006, an Analysis of 162 Countries in 1990, Applied Econometric and International Development,2006 Vol.6, Naghavi, Alireza, Can R&D-Inducing Green Tariffs Replace International Environmental Regulations. Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, 2006–92, Tobey, James A,1990, The Effects of Domestic Environmental Policies on Patterns of World Trade, An Empirical Test, Kyklos, Blackwell Publishing, Vol.43, Pgs. 191-209, Baldwin, R E & Murray, Tracy,1977, MFN Tariff Reductions and Developing Country Trade Benefits under the GSP, Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, Vol.98, Pgs
Environmental tariff
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Taxation
5.
Pigovian tax
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A Pigovian tax is a tax levied on any market activity that generates negative externalities. The tax is intended to correct an inefficient market outcome, in the presence of negative externalities, the social cost of a market activity is not covered by the private cost of the activity. In such a case, the outcome is not efficient. An often-cited example of such an externality is environmental pollution, in the presence of positive externalities, i. e. public benefits from a market activity, those who receive the benefit do not pay for it and the market may under-supply the product. Similar logic suggests the creation of a Pigovian subsidy to make the pay for the extra benefit. An example sometimes cited is a subsidy for provision of flu vaccine, Pigovian taxes are named after English economist Arthur Pigou who also developed the concept of economic externalities. William Baumol was instrumental in framing Pigous work in economics in 1972. In 1920, British economist Arthur C, Pigou wrote The Economics of Welfare. In it, Pigou argues that industrialists seek their own marginal private interest, when the marginal social interest diverges from the marginal private interest, the industrialist has no incentive to internalize the cost of the marginal social cost. Conversely, Pigou argues, if an industry produces a marginal social benefit, Pigou refers to these situations as incidental uncharged disservices and incidental uncharged services, respectively. Pigou provides numerous illustrations of incidental uncharged disservices and he also references businesses that sell alcohol. The sale of alcohol necessitates higher costs in policemen and prisons, Pigou argues, in other words, the net private product of alcohol businesses is peculiarly large relative to the net social product of the same business. He suggests that this is why most countries tax alcohol businesses, the divergence between the marginal private interest and the marginal social interest produces two primary results. First, as noted, the party receiving the social benefit does not pay for it. Second, when the social cost exceeds the private marginal benefit. Ultimately, because non-pecuniary externalities overestimate the value, they are over-produced. To deal with over-production, Pigou recommends a tax placed on the offending producer, if the government can accurately gauge the social cost, the tax could equalize the marginal private cost and the marginal social cost. In more specific terms, the producer would have to pay for the non-pecuniary externality that it created and this would effectively reduce the quantity of the product produced, moving the economy back to a healthy equilibrium
Pigovian tax
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Pigovian tax effect on output.
6.
Renewable energy commercialization
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Renewable energy commercialization involves the deployment of three generations of renewable energy technologies dating back more than 100 years. First-generation technologies, which are mature and economically competitive, include biomass, hydroelectricity, geothermal power. As of 2012, renewable energy accounts for half of new nameplate electrical capacity installed. Public policy and political leadership helps to level the playing field, countries such as Germany, Denmark, and Spain have led the way in implementing innovative policies which has driven most of the growth over the past decade. As of 2014, Germany has a commitment to the Energiewende transition to an energy economy. There are now 144 countries with renewable energy policy targets, Renewable energy continued its rapid growth in 2015, providing multiple benefits. There was a new set for installed wind and photovoltaic capacity. A key benefit that this investment growth brings is a growth in jobs, the top countries for investment in recent years were China, Germany, Spain, the United States, Italy, and Brazil. Renewable energy companies include BrightSource Energy, First Solar, Gamesa, GE Energy, Goldwind, Sinovel, Trina Solar, Vestas, Climate change concerns are also driving increasing growth in the renewable energy industries. According to a 2011 projection by the International Energy Agency, solar power generators may produce most of the worlds electricity within 50 years, Renewable power has been more effective in creating jobs than coal or oil in the United States. Climate change, pollution, and energy insecurity are significant problems, in the old economy, energy was produced by burning something — oil, coal, or natural gas — leading to the carbon emissions that have come to define our economy. The new energy economy harnesses the energy in wind, the coming from the sun. In international public opinion there is strong support for a variety of methods for addressing the problem of energy supply. It is expected that renewable energy investments will pay off economically in the long term, EU member countries have shown support for ambitious renewable energy goals. In 2010, Eurobarometer polled the twenty-seven EU member states about the target to increase the share of energy in the EU by 20 percent by 2020. Most people in all twenty-seven countries either approved of the target or called for it to go further, across the EU,57 percent thought the proposed goal was about right and 16 percent thought it was too modest. In comparison,19 percent said it was too ambitious, New EPA initiatives targeting air toxics, coal ash, and effluent releases highlight the environmental impacts of coal and the cost of addressing them with control technologies. The use of fracking in natural gas exploration is coming under scrutiny, with evidence of groundwater contamination, concerns are increasing about the vast amounts of water used at coal-fired and nuclear power plants, particularly in regions of the country facing water shortages
Renewable energy commercialization
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The Sun, wind, and biomass are three renewable energy sources.
Renewable energy commercialization
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The 150 MW Andasol solar power station is a commercial parabolic trough solar thermal power plant, located in Spain. The Andasol plant uses tanks of molten salt to store solar energy so that it can continue generating electricity even when the sun isn't shining.
Renewable energy commercialization
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Biomass heating plant in Austria. The total heat power is about 1000 kW.
Renewable energy commercialization
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The 22,500 MW Three Gorges Dam in the Peoples Republic of China, the largest hydroelectric power station in the world.
7.
Green politics
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Green politics is a political ideology that aims to create an ecologically sustainable society rooted in environmentalism, nonviolence, social justice, and grassroots democracy. The political term Green was used initially in relation to die Grünen, supporters of green politics share many ideas with the ecology, conservation, environmentalism, feminism, and peace movements. The partys platform is considered left in the political spectrum. Adherents to green politics tend to consider it to be part of a higher worldview, Green politics draws its ethical stance from a variety of sources, from the values of indigenous peoples, to the ethics of Gandhi, Spinoza and Uexküll. These people influenced green thought in their advocacy of long-term seventh generation foresight, of course, unease about adverse consequences of human actions on nature predates the modern concept of “environmentalism. Social commentators as far apart as ancient Rome and China complained of air, water, the philosophical roots of environmentalism can be traced back to enlightenment thinkers such as Rousseau in France and, later, the author and naturalist Thoreau in America. Organised environmentalism began in late 19th Century Europe and the United States as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution with its emphasis on unbridled economic expansion, “Green politics” first began as conservation and preservation movements, such as the Sierra Club, founded in San Francisco in 1892. In the 1970s, as these grew in influence, green politics arose as a new philosophy which synthesized their goals. The Kabouters were an outgrowth of Provo’s environmental White Plans and they proposed “Groene Plannen”, in May 1972, a meeting at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, launched the Values Party, the worlds first countrywide green party to contest Parliamentary seats nationally. A year later in 1973, Europes first green party, the UKs Ecology Party and they started as a provisional coalition of civic groups and political campaigns which, together, felt their interests were not expressed by the conventional parties. This statement of principles has since been utilised by many Green Parties around the world and it was this party that first coined the term Green and adopted the sunflower symbol. In the 1983 federal election, the Greens won 27 seats in the Bundestag, the first Canadian foray into green politics took place in the Maritimes when 11 independent candidates ran in the 1980 federal election under the banner of the Small Party. Inspired by Schumachers Small is Beautiful, the Small Party candidates ran for the purpose of putting forward an anti-nuclear platform in that election. It was not registered as a party, but some participants in that effort went on to form the Green Party of Canada in 1983. Current Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May was the instigator and one of the candidates, in Finland, in 1995, the Green League became the first European Green Party to form part of a state-level Cabinet. The German Greens followed, forming a government with the Social Democratic Party of Germany from 1998 to 2005 and this put them at odds with many Greens worldwide, but demonstrated that they were capable of difficult political tradeoffs. In 2015, Emsis party colleague, Raimonds Vējonis, was elected President of Latvia by the Latvian parliament, Vējonis became the first green head of state worldwide. In the German state of Baden-Württenburg, the Green Party became the leader of the coalition with the Social Democrats after finishing second in the Baden-Württemberg state election,2011
Green politics
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German Green Party co-founder, Petra Kelly, with former German cabinet member, Otto Schily, at press conference in 1983.
Green politics
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The sunflower is an internationally recognized symbol of Green politics.
8.
Pollution haven hypothesis
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However, this often comes at the cost of environmentally sound practices. Thus, companies that choose to physically invest in foreign countries tend to locate to the countries with the lowest environmental standards or weakest enforcement, Pollution control costs have an impact at the margins, where they exert some effect on investment decisions and trade flows. Pollution control costs are important enough to measurably influence trade and investment, countries set their environmental standards below socially-efficient levels in order to attract investment or to promote their exports. Scales 1 and 2 have empirical support, but the significance of the relative to other investment. One study found that regulations have a strong negative effect on a countrys FDI. However, that study found that the environmental regulations present in a countrys neighbors have an insignificant impact on that countrys trade flows. Yi = αRi + XiβI + εi In the above formula, Y is economic activity, R is regulatory stringency, theoretically, by changing your value of R, analysts will be able to calculate the expected effect on economic activity. This lack of comparative advantage causes firms to move to countries with lower environmental standards and this model holds true in cases of national development, but cannot necessarily be applied at a local scale. Spent batteries that Americans turn in to be recycled are increasingly being sent to Mexico, a significant proportion of this flow is smuggled in after being mislabeled as metal scrap. The world map shown here illustrates how e-waste dump sites along with the GDP PPP per-capita of those countries, the first area of controversy with respect to the Pollution Haven Theory has to do with the formulas above. The compliance costs stemming from these regulations, however, could come in the form of taxes, regulatory delays. This proliferation of cost styles makes R hard to quantify, furthermore, governments at times engage in inefficient competition to actually attract polluting industries through weakening their environmental standards. However, as per conventional economic theory, welfare-maximizing governments should set standards so that the benefits justify the costs at the margin, by extension, this means that industry migration to less stringent jurisdictions may not raise efficiency concerns in an economic sense. A final area of controversy is whether the Pollution Haven Hypothesis has empirical support and this does not, however, say that such examples cannot arise in the future. Scale 3 above has had empirical arguments made specifically against it, environmental dumping Global waste trade Pollution in China Race to the bottom Trading Up Toxic colonialism
Pollution haven hypothesis
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Factory with smokestacks overlooking the Yangtze River
9.
Emissions trading
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Emissions trading or cap and trade is a government-mandated, market-based approach to controlling pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants. Various countries, states and groups of companies have adopted such trading systems, a central authority allocates or sells a limited number of permits to discharge specific quantities of a specific pollutant per time period. Polluters are required to hold permits in amount equal to their emissions, polluters that want to increase their emissions must buy permits from others willing to sell them. Financial derivatives of permits can also be traded on secondary markets, in theory, polluters who can reduce emissions most cheaply will do so, achieving the emission reduction at the lowest cost to society. Cap and trade is meant to provide the private sector with the flexibility required to reduce emissions while stimulating technological innovation, there are active trading programs in several air pollutants. For greenhouse gases, which climate change, permit units are often called carbon credits. The United States has a market to reduce acid rain. Pollution is the example of a market externality. An externality is an effect of some activity on an entity that is not party to a market related to that activity. Emissions trading is an approach, among others, to address pollution. The overall goal of an emissions trading plan is to minimize the cost of meeting a set emissions target. In an emissions trading system, the government sets a limit on emissions. The government may sell the permits, but in many existing schemes, the baseline is determined by reference to the participants historical emissions. To demonstrate compliance, a participant must hold permits at least equal to the quantity of pollution it actually emitted during the time period, if every participant complies, the total pollution emitted will be at most equal to the sum of individual limits. In effect, the buyer pays a charge for polluting, while the seller gains a reward for having reduced emissions, in many schemes, organizations which do not pollute may also trade permits and financial derivatives of permits. In some schemes, participants can bank allowances to use in future periods, in some schemes, a proportion of all traded permits must be retired periodically, causing a net reduction in emissions over time. Thus, environmental groups may buy and retire permits, driving up the price of the remaining permits according to the law of demand, in most schemes, permit owners can donate permits to a nonprofit entity and receive a tax deduction. Usually, the government lowers the overall limit over time, with an aim towards an emissions reduction target
Emissions trading
Emissions trading
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A coal power plant in Germany. Due to emissions trading, coal may become a less competitive fuel than other options.
Emissions trading
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Example MACs for two different countries
Emissions trading
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Chicago Climate Justice activists protesting cap and trade legislation in front of Chicago Climate Exchange building in Chicago Loop
10.
Carbon offset
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A carbon offset is a reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide or greenhouse gases made in order to compensate for or to offset an emission made elsewhere. One carbon offset represents the reduction of one ton of carbon dioxide or its equivalent in other greenhouse gases. There are two markets for carbon offsets, in the larger, compliance market, companies, governments, or other entities buy carbon offsets in order to comply with caps on the total amount of carbon dioxide they are allowed to emit. This market exists in order to achieve compliance with obligations of Annex 1 Parties under the Kyoto Protocol, in 2006, about $5.5 billion of carbon offsets were purchased in the compliance market, representing about 1.6 billion metric tons of CO2e reductions. For example, an individual might purchase carbon offsets to compensate for the gas emissions caused by personal air travel. Many companies offer carbon offsets as an up-sell during the process so that customers can mitigate the emissions related with their product or service purchase. In 2008, about $705 million of carbon offsets were purchased in the voluntary market, some fuel suppliers in the UK offer fuel which has been carbon offset such as Fuel dyes. Offsets are typically achieved through financial support of projects that reduce the emission of gases in the short- or long-term. The most common type is renewable energy, such as wind farms, biomass energy. Others include energy efficiency projects, the destruction of pollutants or agricultural byproducts, destruction of landfill methane. Some of the most popular carbon offset projects from a corporate perspective are energy efficiency, the Kyoto Protocol has sanctioned offsets as a way for governments and private companies to earn carbon credits that can be traded on a marketplace. Organizations that are unable to meet their emissions quota can offset their emissions by buying CDM-approved Certified Emissions Reductions, Emissions from burning fuel, such as red diesel, has pushed one UK fuel supplier to create a carbon offset fuel named Carbon Offset Red Diesel. Offsets may be cheaper or more convenient alternatives to reducing ones own fossil-fuel consumption, however, some critics object to carbon offsets, and question the benefits of certain types of offsets. Offsets are viewed as an important policy tool to maintain stable economies, Carbon offsets have several common features, Vintage. The vintage is the year in which the carbon takes place. The source refers to the project or technology used in offsetting the carbon emissions, projects can include land-use, methane, biomass, renewable energy and industrial energy efficiency. Projects may also have secondary benefits, for example, projects that reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions may improve water quality by reducing fertilizer usage. The certification regime describes the systems and procedures that are used to certify, different methodologies are used for measuring and verifying emissions reductions, depending on project type, size and location
Carbon offset
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Wind turbines near Aalborg, Denmark. Renewable energy projects are the most common source of carbon offsets.
Carbon offset
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Chicago Climate Justice activists protesting cap and trade legislation in front of Chicago Climate Exchange building in Chicago Loop
11.
Food miles
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Food miles is a term which refers to the distance food is transported from the time of its production until it reaches the consumer. Food miles are one factor used when assessing the impact of food. The concept of food miles originated in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom, at the same time, most of the greenhouse gas emissions created by food have their origin in the production phases, which create 83% of overall emissions of CO2. A range of studies compare emissions over the food cycle, including production, consumption. These include estimates of food-related emissions of greenhouse gas up to the farm gate versus beyond the farm gate, researchers are currently working to provide the public with more information. The concept of food miles has been criticised, and food miles are not always correlated with the environmental impact of food production. The concept of food miles is part of the issue of sustainability which deals with a large range of environmental, social and economic issues. Food that is transported by road produces more carbon emissions than any form of transported food. Road transport produces 60% of the worlds food transport carbon emissions, air transport produces 20% of the worlds food transport carbon emissions. Rail and sea transport produce 10% each of the worlds food transport carbon emissions, although it was never intended as a complete measure of environmental impact, it has come under attack as an ineffective means of finding the true environmental impact. The report also indicates that it is not only how far the food has travelled, more emissions are created by the drive to the supermarket to buy air freighted food than was created by the air freighting in the first place. Also, the environmental effects of organic farming may be compromised by increased transportation. It suggests that selling local foods through supermarkets may be economically viable and sustainable than through farmers markets. However, as both Prof. Lang and the original Food Miles report noted, the resulting number – although interesting, there are benefits to be gained by improving livelihoods in poor countries through agricultural development. However, exports from poor countries do not always poor people. Unless the product has a Fairtrade label, or a label from another robust and independent scheme, for example, wages are often very low and working conditions bad and sometimes dangerous. Sometimes the food grown for export takes up land that had used to grow food for local consumption. Researchers say a complete environmental assessment of food that consumers buy needs to take into account how the food has been produced
Food miles
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A truck carrying produce
Food miles
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A grocery store displaying a sign for food miles
12.
Solar energy
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Active solar techniques include the use of photovoltaic systems, concentrated solar power and solar water heating to harness the energy. Passive solar techniques include orienting a building to the Sun, selecting materials with favorable thermal mass or light-dispersing properties, the large magnitude of solar energy available makes it a highly appealing source of electricity. The United Nations Development Programme in its 2000 World Energy Assessment found that the potential of solar energy was 1. This is several times larger than the world energy consumption. In 2011, the International Energy Agency said that the development of affordable, inexhaustible, hence the additional costs of the incentives for early deployment should be considered learning investments, they must be wisely spent and need to be widely shared. The Earth receives 174,000 terawatts of incoming solar radiation at the upper atmosphere, approximately 30% is reflected back to space while the rest is absorbed by clouds, oceans and land masses. The spectrum of light at the Earths surface is mostly spread across the visible. Most of the population live in areas with insolation levels of 150-300 watts/m². Solar radiation is absorbed by the Earths land surface, oceans – which cover about 71% of the globe –, warm air containing evaporated water from the oceans rises, causing atmospheric circulation or convection. When the air reaches an altitude, where the temperature is low, water vapor condenses into clouds. The latent heat of water condensation amplifies convection, producing atmospheric phenomena such as wind, sunlight absorbed by the oceans and land masses keeps the surface at an average temperature of 14 °C. By photosynthesis, green plants convert solar energy into stored energy, which produces food, wood. The total solar energy absorbed by Earths atmosphere, oceans and land masses is approximately 3,850,000 exajoules per year, in 2002, this was more energy in one hour than the world used in one year. Photosynthesis captures approximately 3,000 EJ per year in biomass, geography affects solar energy potential because areas that are closer to the equator have a greater amount of solar radiation. However, the use of photovoltaics that can follow the position of the sun can significantly increase the energy potential in areas that are farther from the equator. Time variation effects the potential of energy because during the nighttime there is little solar radiation on the surface of the Earth for solar panels to absorb. This limits the amount of energy that solar panels can absorb in one day, cloud cover can affect the potential of solar panels because clouds block incoming light from the sun and reduce the light available for solar cells. In addition, land availability has an effect on the available solar energy because solar panels can only be set up on land that is otherwise unused
Solar energy
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Outstanding solar potential compared to all other energy sources
Solar energy
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Patent drawing of Shuman's solar collector in 1917
Solar energy
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Solar water heaters facing the Sun to maximize gain.
13.
Geothermal
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Geothermal gradient is the rate of increasing temperature with respect to increasing depth in the Earths interior. Away from tectonic plate boundaries, it is about 25 °C per km of depth near the surface in most of the world, strictly speaking, geo-thermal necessarily refers to the Earth but the concept may be applied to other planets. A line tracing the gradient through the body is called a geotherm on Earth. On the Moon it is called a selenotherm, the Earths internal heat comes from a combination of residual heat from planetary accretion, heat produced through radioactive decay, and possibly heat from other sources. The major heat-producing isotopes in the Earth are potassium-40, uranium-238, uranium-235, at the center of the planet, the temperature may be up to 7,000 K and the pressure could reach 360 GPa. Temperature within the Earth increases with depth, the heat content of the Earth is 1031 joules. Much of the heat is created by decay of radioactive elements. An estimated 45 to 90 percent of the heat escaping from the Earth originates from decay of elements mainly located in the mantle. Heat of impact and compression released during the formation of the Earth by accretion of in-falling meteorites. Heat released as abundant heavy metals descended to the Earths core, latent heat released as the liquid outer core crystallizes at the inner core boundary. Heat may be generated by tidal force on the Earth as it rotates, since rock cannot flow as readily as water it compresses and distorts, in Earths continental crust, the decay of natural radioactive isotopes has had significant involvement in the origin of geothermal heat. The continental crust is abundant in lower density minerals but also contains significant concentrations of heavier lithophilic minerals such as uranium, because of this, it holds the largest global reservoir of radioactive elements found in the Earth. Especially in layers closer to Earths surface, naturally occurring isotopes are enriched in the granite and these high levels of radioactive elements are largely excluded from the Earths mantle due to their inability to substitute in mantle minerals and consequent enrichment in partial melts. The mantle is made up of high density minerals with high contents of atoms that have relatively small atomic radii such as magnesium, titanium. Heat flows constantly from its sources within the Earth to the surface, total heat loss from the Earth is estimated at 44.2 TW. Mean heat flow is 65 mW/m2 over continental crust and 101 mW/m2 over oceanic crust and this is 0.087 watt/square meter on average, but is much more concentrated in areas where thermal energy is transported toward the crust by convection such as along mid-ocean ridges and mantle plumes. The Earths crust effectively acts as an insulating blanket which must be pierced by fluid conduits in order to release the heat underneath. More of the heat in the Earth is lost through plate tectonics, the final major mode of heat loss is by conduction through the lithosphere, the majority of which occurs in the oceans due to the crust there being much thinner and younger than under the continents
Geothermal
–
Temperature profile (geotherm) of the inner Earth, schematic view.
Geothermal
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Geothermal drill machine in Wisconsin, USA
Geothermal
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The radiogenic heat from the decay of 238 U and 232 Th are now the major contributors to the earth's internal heat budget.
Geothermal
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Geothermal power
14.
Nuclear power
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Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions that release nuclear energy to generate heat, which most frequently is then used in steam turbines to produce electricity in a nuclear power plant. The term includes nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion, since all electricity supplying technologies use cement, etc. during construction, emissions are yet to be brought to zero. Each result is contrasted with coal and fossil gas at 820 and 490 g CO2 eq/kWh, there is a social debate about nuclear power. Proponents, such as the World Nuclear Association and Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy, contend that nuclear power is a safe, opponents, such as Greenpeace International and NIRS, contend that nuclear power poses many threats to people and the environment. These include the Chernobyl disaster which occurred in 1986, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, there have also been some nuclear submarine accidents. Energy production from coal, petroleum, natural gas and hydroelectricity has caused a number of fatalities per unit of energy generated due to air pollution. In 2015, Ten new reactors were connected to the grid, seven reactors were permanently shut down. 441 reactors had a net capacity of 382,855 megawatts of electricity. 67 new nuclear reactors were under construction, Most of the new activity is in China where there is an urgent need to control pollution from coal plants. In October 2016, Watts Bar 2 became the first new United States reactor to enter commercial operation since 1996. The same year, his doctoral student James Chadwick discovered the neutron, further work by Enrico Fermi in the 1930s focused on using slow neutrons to increase the effectiveness of induced radioactivity. Experiments bombarding uranium with neutrons led Fermi to believe he had created a new, transuranic element and they determined that the relatively tiny neutron split the nucleus of the massive uranium atoms into two roughly equal pieces, contradicting Fermi. Numerous scientists, including Leó Szilárd, who was one of the first, recognized that if fission reactions released additional neutrons, a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction could result. In the United States, where Fermi and Szilárd had both emigrated, this led to the creation of the first man-made reactor, known as Chicago Pile-1, which achieved criticality on December 2,1942. In 1945, the pocketbook The Atomic Age heralded the untapped atomic power in everyday objects and depicted a future where fossil fuels would go unused. One science writer, David Dietz, wrote that instead of filling the gas tank of a car two or three times a week, people travel for a year on a pellet of atomic energy the size of a vitamin pill. The United Kingdom, Canada, and the USSR proceeded over the course of the late 1940s, electricity was generated for the first time by a nuclear reactor on December 20,1951, at the EBR-I experimental station near Arco, Idaho, which initially produced about 100 kW. Work was also researched in the US on nuclear marine propulsion
Nuclear power
–
The 1200 MWe, Leibstadt fission-electric power station in Switzerland. The boiling water reactor (BWR), located inside the dome capped cylindrical structure, is dwarfed in size by its cooling tower. The station produces a yearly average of 25 million kilowatt-hours per day, sufficient to power a city the size of Boston.
Nuclear power
–
The Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, the largest in the US with 3 pressurized water reactors (PWRs), is situated in the Arizona desert. It uses sewage from cities as its cooling water in 9 squat mechanical draft cooling towers. Its total spent fuel /"waste" inventory produced since 1986, is contained in dry cask storage cylinders located between the artificial body of water and the electrical switchyard.
Nuclear power
–
U.S. nuclear powered ships,(top to bottom) cruisers USS Bainbridge, the USS Long Beach and the USS Enterprise, the longest ever naval vessel, and the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Picture taken in 1964 during a record setting voyage of 26,540 nmi (49,190 km) around the world in 65 days without refueling. Crew members are spelling out Einstein 's mass-energy equivalence formula E = mc 2 on the flight deck.
Nuclear power
–
The Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker NS Yamal on a joint scientific expedition with the NSF in 1994.
15.
Greenhouse gas
–
A greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in Earths atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, without greenhouse gases, the average temperature of Earths surface would be about −18 °C, rather than the present average of 15 °C. In the Solar System, the atmospheres of Venus, Mars, human activities since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution have produced a 40% increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, from 280 ppm in 1750 to 400 ppm in 2015. This increase has occurred despite the uptake of a portion of the emissions by various natural sinks involved in the carbon cycle. Anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions come from combustion of fuels, principally coal, oil. Greenhouse gases are those that absorb and emit infrared radiation in the range emitted by Earth. The proportion of an emission remaining in the atmosphere after a time is the airborne fraction. The annual airborne fraction is the ratio of the increase in a given year to that years total emissions. Over the last 50 years the annual airborne fraction for CO2 has been increasing at 0.25 ±0. 21%/year, therefore, they do not contribute significantly to the greenhouse effect and usually are omitted when discussing greenhouse gases. Some gases have indirect radiative effects and this happens in two main ways. One way is that when they break down in the atmosphere they produce another greenhouse gas, for example, methane and carbon monoxide are oxidized to give carbon dioxide. Oxidation of CO to CO2 directly produces an increase in radiative forcing although the reason is subtle. The peak of the thermal IR emission from Earths surface is close to a strong vibrational absorption band of CO2. On the other hand, the single CO vibrational band only absorbs IR at much higher frequencies, where the ~300 K thermal emission of the surface is at least a factor of ten lower. Oxidation of methane to CO2, which requires reactions with the OH radical, produces a reduction, since CO2 is a weaker greenhouse gas than methane. As described below this is not the story, since the oxidations of CO. In any case, the calculation of the radiative effect needs to include both the direct and indirect forcing
Greenhouse gas
–
The false colors in this image represent concentrations of carbon monoxide in the lower atmosphere, ranging from about 390 parts per billion (dark brown pixels), to 220 parts per billion (red pixels), to 50 parts per billion (blue pixels).
Greenhouse gas
–
Greenhouse effect schematic showing energy flows between space, the atmosphere, and Earth's surface. Energy influx and emittance are expressed in watts per square meter (W/m 2).
16.
Negative externality
–
In economics, an externality is the cost or benefit that affects a party who did not choose to incur that cost or benefit. Economists often urge governments to adopt policies that internalize an externality, if external costs exist, such as pollution, the producer may choose to produce more of the product than would be produced if the producer were required to pay all associated environmental costs. Because responsibility or consequence for self-directed action lies partly outside the self, if there are external benefits, such as in public safety, less of the good may be produced than would be the case if the producer were to receive payment for the external benefits to others. For the purpose of these statements, overall cost and benefit to society is defined as the sum of the monetary value of benefits and costs to all parties involved. Two British economists are credited with having initiated the study of externalities, or spillover effects, Henry Sidgwick is credited with first articulating. Pigou is credited with formalizing the concept of externalities, suppose that there are K different possible allocations and N different agents, where K, N < ∞ and N ≥2. Suppose that each agent has a type θ i ∼ F i and that each agent gets payoff v i + t i, a map f = is a social choice function if ∑ i =1 N t i ≤0 for all θ ∈ N. An allocation κ, N → K is ex-post efficient if ∑ i =1 N v i ≥ ∑ i =1 N v i for all θ = ∈ N and all k ∈ K. Let κ ∗ denote an ex-post efficient allocation and let κ i ~ denote an ex-post efficient allocation without agent i. Then the externality imposed by agent i on the agents is ∑ j ≠ i v j − ∑ j ≠ i v j. Voluntary exchange is considered beneficial to both parties involved, because buyers or sellers would not trade if either thought it detrimental to themselves. However, a transaction can cause effects on third parties. From the perspective of those affected, these effects may be negative, neoclassical welfare economics asserts that, under plausible conditions, the existence of externalities will result in outcomes that are not socially optimal. Those who suffer from external costs do so involuntarily, whereas those who enjoy external benefits do so at no cost, a voluntary exchange may reduce societal welfare if external costs exist. The externality may even be seen as a trespass on their lungs, thus, an external cost may pose an ethical or political problem. Alternatively, it might be seen as a case of poorly defined property rights, as with, for example, on the other hand, a positive externality would increase the utility of third parties at no cost to them. Since collective societal welfare is improved, but the providers have no way of monetizing the benefit, Goods with positive externalities include education, public health initiatives and law enforcement. Positive externalities are often associated with the free rider problem, there are a number of potential means of improving overall social utility when externalities are involved
Negative externality
–
Air pollution from motor vehicles is an example of a negative externality. The costs of the air pollution for the rest of society is not compensated for by either the producers or users of motorized transport.
Negative externality
–
Light pollution is an example of an externality because the consumption of street lighting has an effect on bystanders that is not compensated for by the consumers of the lighting.
17.
OECD
–
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an intergovernmental economic organisation with 35 member countries, founded in 1960 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. Most OECD members are high-income economies with a very high Human Development Index and are regarded as developed countries, in 1948, the OECD originated as the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, led by Robert Marjolin of France, to help administer the Marshall Plan. This would be achieved by allocating American financial aid and implementing programs for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. The OECDs headquarters are at the Château de la Muette in Paris, the OECD is funded by contributions from member states at varying rates. And had a budget of EUR363 million in 2015. It started its operations on 16 April 1948, and originated from the work done by the Committee of European Economic Co-operation in 1947 in preparation for the Marshall Plan, since 1949, it was headquartered in the Château de la Muette in Paris, France. After the Marshall Plan ended, the OEEC focused on economic issues, in 1958, a European Nuclear Energy Agency was set up under the OEEC. By the end of the 1950s, with the job of rebuilding Europe effectively done, some leading countries felt that the OEEC had outlived its purpose and this reconstituted organisation would bring the US and Canada, who were already OEEC observers, on board as full members. It would also set to work away on bringing in Japan. Following the 1957 Rome Treaties to launch the European Economic Community, the Convention was signed in December 1960 and the OECD officially superseded the OEEC in September 1961. It consisted of the European founder countries of the OEEC plus the United States and Canada, the official founding members are, During the next 12 years Japan, Finland, Australia, and New Zealand also joined the organisation. Yugoslavia had observer status in the organisation starting with the establishment of the OECD until its dissolution as a country, the OECD created agencies such as the OECD Development Centre, International Energy Agency, and Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering. Unlike the organizations of the United Nations system, OECD uses the spelling organisation with an s in its name rather than organization, in 1989, after the Revolutions of 1989, the OECD started to assist countries in Central Europe to prepare market economy reforms. This programme also included an option for these countries. As a result of this, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, in the 1990s, a number of European countries, now members of the European Union, expressed their willingness to join the organisation. In 1995, Cyprus applied for membership, but, according to the Cypriot government, in 1996, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania signed a Joint Declaration expressing willingness to become full members of the OECD. Slovenia also applied for membership that same year, in 2005, Malta applied to join the organisation. The EU is lobbying for admission of all EU member states, Romania reaffirmed in 2012 its intention to become a member of the organisation through the letter addressed by the Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta to OECD Secretary-General José Ángel Gurría
OECD
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Propaganda poster created by the Economic Cooperation Administration to promote the Marshall Plan in Europe.
OECD
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Logo
OECD
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The main entrance to the OECD Conference Centre in Paris
18.
Motor vehicle
–
For legal purposes motor vehicles are often identified within a number of vehicle classes including cars, buses, motorcycles, off-road vehicles, light trucks and regular trucks. These classifications vary according to the codes of each country. ISO3833,1977 is the standard for road vehicles types, terms, as of 2010 there were more than one billion motor vehicles in use in the world excluding off-road vehicles and heavy construction equipment. Global vehicle ownership per capita in 2010 was 148 vehicles in operation per 1000 people, the United States has the largest fleet of motor vehicles in the world, with 239.8 million in 2010. Vehicle ownership per capita in the US is also the highest in the world with 769 vehicles in operation per 1000 people. The Peoples Republic of China has the second largest fleet in the world, with more than 78 million vehicles. In 2011, a total of 80 million cars and commercial vehicles were built, led by China, the US publisher Wards, estimate that as of 2010 there were 1.015 billion motor vehicles in use in the world. This figure represents the number of cars, light, medium and heavy duty trucks, and buses, the world vehicle population passed the 500 million-unit mark in 1986, from 250 million motor vehicles in 1970. Between 1950 and 1970, the population doubled roughly every 10 years. Two US researchers estimate that the fleet will reach 2 billion motor vehicles by 2020. Navigant Consulting forecasts that the stock of light-duty motor vehicles will reach 2 billion units in 2035. The global rate of motorization increased in 2013 to 174 vehicles per 1000 inhabitants, in developing countries vehicle ownership rates rarely exceed 200 cars per 1,000 population. The five largest markets, Germany, Italy, France, the UK, the EU-27 member countries had in 2009 an estimated ownership rate of 473 passenger cars per 1000 people. According to Wards, Italy had the second highest vehicle ownership per capita in 2010, Germany had a rate of motorization of 534 vehicles per 1000 people and the UK of 525 vehicles per 1000 inhabitants, both in 2008. France had a rate of 575 vehicles per 1000 people and Spain 608 vehicles per 1000 people in 2007, portugal, between 1991 and 2002 grew up 220% on its motorization rate, having had in 2002,560 cars per 1000 people. Italy also leads in alternative fuel vehicles, with a fleet of 779,090 natural gas vehicles as of June 2012, sweden, with 225,000 flexible-fuel vehicles, has the largest flexifuel fleet in Europe by mid-2011. According to Wards, the United States has the largest fleet of vehicles in the world. Vehicle ownership per capita in the U. S. is also the highest in the world with 769 vehicles in operation per 1000 inhabitants, or a ratio of 1,1.3 vehicles to people
Motor vehicle
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The United States has the world's largest motor vehicle registered fleet, with almost 250 million vehicles.
Motor vehicle
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The People's Republic of China became the world's largest new car market in 2009
19.
Attribution of recent climate change
–
Attribution of recent climate change is the effort to scientifically ascertain mechanisms responsible for recent climate changes on Earth, commonly known as global warming. The dominant mechanisms are anthropogenic, i. e. the result of human activity and they are, increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases global changes to land surface, such as deforestation increasing atmospheric concentrations of aerosols. There are also natural mechanisms for variation including climate oscillations, changes in solar activity, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it is extremely likely that human influence was the dominant cause of global warming between 1951 and 2010. The IPCC defines extremely likely as indicating a probability of 95 to 100%, historical estimates of past climate changes suggest that the recent changes in global surface temperature are unusual. Computer-based climate models are unable to replicate the observed warming unless human greenhouse gas emissions are included, natural forces alone cannot explain the observed warming. The IPCCs attribution of recent global warming to human activities is a view shared by the scientific community and this section introduces some concepts in climate science that are used in the following sections, Factors affecting Earths climate can be broken down into feedbacks and forcings. A forcing is something that is imposed externally on the climate system, external forcings include natural phenomena such as volcanic eruptions and variations in the suns output. Human activities can also impose forcings, for example, through changing the composition of the atmosphere, radiative forcing is a measure of how various factors alter the energy balance of the Earths atmosphere. A positive radiative forcing will tend to increase the energy of the Earth-atmosphere system, Climate feedbacks can either amplify or dampen the response of the climate to a given forcing. There are many mechanisms in the climate system that can either amplify or diminish the effects of a change in climate forcing. Aspects of the system will show variation in response to changes in forcings. In the absence of forcings imposed on it, the system will still show internal variability. This internal variability is a result of interactions between components of the climate system, such as the coupling between the atmosphere and ocean. An example of variability is the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Detection and attribution of climate signals, as well as its meaning, has a more precise definition within the climate change literature. Detection of a signal does not always imply significant attribution. Detection of a signal requires demonstrating that a change is statistically significantly different from that which can be explained by natural internal variability. Carbon dioxide is the greenhouse gas that is contributing to recent climate change
Attribution of recent climate change
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This graph is known as the Keeling Curve and shows the long-term increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2) concentrations from 1958–2015. Monthly CO 2 measurements display seasonal oscillations in an upward trend. Each year's maximum occurs during the Northern Hemisphere 's late spring, and declines during its growing season as plants remove some atmospheric CO 2.
20.
Radiative forcing
–
Radiative forcing or climate forcing is defined as the difference of insolation absorbed by the Earth and energy radiated back to space. Typically, radiative forcing is quantified at the tropopause in units of watts per meter of the Earths surface. A positive forcing warms the system, while negative forcing cools it, causes of radiative forcing include changes in insolation and the concentrations of radiatively active gases, commonly known as greenhouse gases and aerosols. Almost all of the energy that affects Earths climate is received as radiant energy from the Sun, the planet and its atmosphere absorb and reflect some of the energy, while long-wave energy is radiated back into space. The balance between absorbed and radiated energy determines the global temperature. Because the atmosphere absorbs some of the re-radiated long-wave energy, the planet is warmer than it would be in the absence of the atmosphere, any such alteration is a radiative forcing, and changes the balance. This happens continuously as sunlight hits the surface, clouds and aerosols form, in this report radiative forcing values are for changes relative to preindustrial conditions defined at 1750 and are expressed in Watts per square meter. In simple terms, radiative forcing is. the rate of energy change per unit area of the globe as measured at the top of the atmosphere, a typical value of λ is 0.8 K/, which gives a warming of 3K for doubling of CO2. Radiative forcing can be estimated in different ways for different components, for solar irradiance, the radiative forcing is simply the change in the average amount of solar energy absorbed per square meter of the Earths area. Since the Earths cross-sectional area exposed to the Sun is equal to 1/4 of the area of the Earth. This must be multiplied by the fraction of incident sunlight that is absorbed, F=, the albedo is approximately 0.3, so F is approximately equal to 0.7. Thus, the forcing is the change in the solar intensity divided by 4. Likewise, a change in albedo will produce a solar forcing equal to the change in albedo divided by 4 multiplied by the solar constant and these calculations can often be simplified into an algebraic formulation that is specific to that gas. The relationship between carbon dioxide and radiative forcing is logarithmic and thus increased concentrations have a progressively smaller warming effect, a different formula applies for other greenhouse gases such as methane and N2O or CFCs, with coefficients that can be found e. g. in the IPCC reports. Radiative forcing is a way to compare different causes of perturbations in a climate system. We propose an alternative, the troposphere and stratosphere forcing. We present GCM calculations showing that it is a more reliable predictor of this GCMs surface temperature change than radiative forcing. It is a candidate to supplement radiative forcing as a metric for comparing different mechanisms, in this quote, GCM stands for global circulation model, and the word predictive does not refer to the ability of GCMs to forecast climate change
Radiative forcing
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Incoming solar radiation
21.
Kyoto Protocol
–
The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005. There are currently 192 parties to the Protocol, the Protocols first commitment period started in 2008 and ended in 2012. Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have stated that they may withdraw from the Protocol or not put into force the Amendment with second round targets. Japan, New Zealand and Russia have participated in Kyotos first-round but have not taken on new targets in the commitment period. Other developed countries without second-round targets are Canada and the United States, as of July 2016,66 states have accepted the Doha Amendment, while entry into force requires the acceptances of 144 states. Of the 37 countries with binding commitments,7 have ratified, negotiations were held in the framework of the yearly UNFCCC Climate Change Conferences on measures to be taken after the second commitment period ends in 2020. This resulted in the 2015 adoption of the Paris Agreement, which is an instrument under the UNFCCC rather than an amendment of the Kyoto protocol. The view that human activities are responsible for most of the observed increase in global mean temperature since the mid-20th century is an accurate reflection of current scientific thinking. Human-induced warming of the climate is expected to continue throughout the 21st century, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have produced a range of projections of what the future increase in global mean temperature might be. The IPCCs projections are baseline projections, meaning that they assume no future efforts are made to reduce gas emissions. The IPCC projections cover the period from the beginning of the 21st century to the end of the 21st century. The likely range is a increase in global mean temperature over the 21st century of between 1.1 and 6.4 °C. The range in temperature projections partly reflects different projections of greenhouse gas emissions. Different projections contain different assumptions of social and economic development. The range also reflects uncertainty in the response of the system to past. 1992 The UN Conference on the Environment and Development is held in Rio de Janeiro and it results in the Framework Convention on Climate Change among other agreements. 1995 Parties to the UNFCCC meet in Berlin to outline specific targets on emissions,1997 In December the parties conclude the Kyoto Protocol in Kyoto, Japan, in which they agree to the broad outlines of emissions targets. 2002 Russia and Canada ratify the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC bringing the treaty into effect on 16 February 2005,2011 Canada became the first signatory to announce its withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol
Kyoto Protocol
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China (party, no binding targets)
Kyoto Protocol
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Annex B parties with binding targets in the second period
22.
The Economist
–
The Economist is an English-language weekly magazine-format newspaper owned by the Economist Group and edited at offices in London. Continuous publication began under its founder, James Wilson, in September 1843, in 2015 its average weekly circulation was a little over 1.5 million, about half of which were sold in the United States. The publication belongs to the Economist Group and it is 50% owned by the English branch of the Rothschild family and by the Agnelli family through its holding company Exor. The remaining 50% is held by investors including the editors. The Rothschilds and the Agnellis are represented on the board of directors, a board of trustees formally appoints the editor, who cannot be removed without its permission. Although The Economist has an emphasis and scope, about two-thirds of the 75 staff journalists are based in the London borough of Westminster. For the year to March 2016 the Economist Group declared operating profit of £61m, previous major shareholders include Pearson PLC. The Economist takes a stance of classical and economic liberalism which is supportive of free trade, globalisation, free immigration. The publication has described itself as a product of the Caledonian liberalism of Adam Smith and it targets highly educated readers and claims an audience containing many influential executives and policy-makers. The publications CEO described this recent global change, which was first noticed in the 1990s and accelerated in the beginning of the 21st century, on the contents page of each issue, The Economists mission statement is written in italics. The Economist was founded by the British businessman and banker James Wilson in 1843, to advance the repeal of the Corn Laws, articles relating to some practical, commercial, agricultural, or foreign topic of passing interest, such as foreign treaties. An article on the principles of political economy, applied to practical experience, covering the laws related to prices, wages, rent, exchange, revenue. Parliamentary reports, with focus on commerce, agriculture and free trade. Reports and accounts of popular movements advocating free trade, general news from the Court of St. Jamess, the Metropolis, the Provinces, Scotland, and Ireland. Law reports, confined chiefly to areas important to commerce, manufacturing, books, confined chiefly, but not so exclusively, to commerce, manufacturing, and agriculture, and including all treatises on political economy, finance, or taxation. A commercial gazette, with prices and statistics of the week, correspondence and inquiries from the news magazines readers. It has long respected as one of the most competent. Its logo was designed in 1959 by Reynolds Stone, in January 2012 The Economist launched a new weekly section devoted exclusively to China, the first new country section since the introduction of a section about the United States in 1942
The Economist
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Walter Bagehot, one of the early Editors of The Economist
The Economist
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Front page of The Economist, on 16 May 1846
The Economist
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The Economist Building, St James's Street, by Alison and Peter Smithson
23.
Indirect tax
–
An indirect tax is a tax collected by an intermediary from the person who bears the ultimate economic burden of the tax. The intermediary later files a tax return and forwards the tax proceeds to government with the return, in this sense, the term indirect tax is contrasted with a direct tax, which is collected directly by government from the persons on whom it is imposed. Some commentators have argued that a tax is one that cannot be changed by the taxpayer to someone else. An indirect tax may increase the price of a good to raise the price of the products for the consumers, examples would be fuel, liquor, and cigarette taxes. Thus, a tax is one that can be shifted or passed on. The degree to which the burden of a tax is shifted determines whether a tax is direct or primarily indirect. This is a function of the elasticity of the supply. Under this definition, even income taxes may be indirect, the term indirect tax has a different meaning in the context of American Constitutional law, see direct tax and excise tax in the United States. Indirect taxation is policy commonly used to tax revenue. Indirect tax is so called as it is paid indirectly by the consumer of goods. It is broadly based since it is applied to everyone in the society whether rich or poor. Since the cost of the tax does not vary according to income, indirect taxation includes Ad Valorem tax and Specific tax, of which Ad Valorem is proportional and Specific tax is fixed. The taxpayer who pays the tax does not bear the burden of tax, in the case of a direct tax, the taxpayer has to bear the burden of tax personally, in case of indirect tax the taxpayer and the taxbearer are not the same person. Excise duty is a governmental tax meant for producers and manufacturers on certain goods, manufacturers are considered to be, Entities who manufacture goods themselves. Entities who outsource manufacturing, but manufacturing takes place from their name To cover these costs, manufacturer adds them to COGS, thus, it is considered to be an indirect tax. Direct tax Financial repression Income tax in the United States United Kingdom Corporation Tax Value Added Tax
Indirect tax
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Taxation
24.
Direct tax
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The term may be used in economic and political analyses, but does not itself have any legal implications. However, in the United States, the term has special significance because of a provision in the U. S. Constitution that direct taxes imposed by the government be apportioned among the states on the basis of population. In the European Union direct taxation remains the responsibility of member states. In general, a tax is one imposed upon an individual person or property as distinct from a tax imposed upon a transaction. In this sense, indirect taxes such as a tax or a value added tax are imposed only if. Some commentators have argued that a tax is one that cannot be shifted by the taxpayer to someone else. The unconditional, inexorable aspect of the tax was a paramount concern of people in the 18th century seeking to escape tyrannical forms of government. Income taxes on income from services such as wages are indirect taxes in this sense. The Court reasoned that the tax is not a capitation because not everyone will be required to pay it, rather it is triggered by specific circumstances. In the United States, Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 of the Constitution requires that direct taxes imposed by the government be apportioned among the states on the basis of population. After the 1895 Pollock ruling, this made it difficult for Congress to impose a national income tax that applied to all forms of income until the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913. After the Sixteenth Amendment, no Federal income taxes are required to be apportioned, with regard to European Union direct taxes, Member States have taken measures to prevent tax avoidance and double taxation. Indirect tax United Kingdom Corporation Tax Income tax in the United States Foster, commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, Historical and Judicial. Boston, The Boston Book Co. pp. 415–423
Direct tax
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Taxation
25.
Marginal cost
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In economics, marginal cost is the change in the opportunity cost that arises when the quantity produced is incremented by one unit, that is, it is the cost of producing one more unit of a good. In general terms, marginal cost at each level of production includes any additional costs required to produce the next unit, for example, if producing additional vehicles requires building a new factory, the marginal cost of the extra vehicles includes the cost of the new factory. In practice, this analysis is segregated into short and long-run cases, so that, over the longest run, the graph is plotted with Price, Cost and Revenue on the Y-axis and Quantity on the X-axis. This is as the definition finds the tangent to the total cost curve at the point q which assumes that costs increase at the rate as they were at q. If the cost function is differentiable joining, the marginal cost is the cost of the unit produced referring to the basic volume. Marginal Cost = d C d Q If the cost function is not differentiable, M C = Δ C Δ Q A number of other factors can affect marginal cost and its applicability to real world problems. Some of these may be considered market failures and these may include information asymmetries, the presence of negative or positive externalities, transaction costs, price discrimination and others. Since fixed costs do not vary with production quantity, it out of the equation when it is differentiated. The important conclusion is that marginal cost is not related to fixed costs and this can be compared with average total cost or ATC, which is the total cost divided by the number of units produced and does include fixed costs. A T C = C0 + Δ C Q For discrete calculation without calculus, for instance, suppose the total cost of making 1 shoe is $30 and the total cost of making 2 shoes is $40. The marginal cost of producing the second shoe is $40 – $30 = $10, marginal cost is not the cost of producing the next or last unit. As Silberberg and Suen note, the cost of the last unit is the same as the cost of the first unit, in the short run, increasing production requires using more of the variable input — conventionally assumed to be labor. Adding more labor to a capital stock reduces the marginal product of labor because of the diminishing marginal returns. This reduction in productivity is not limited to the labor needed to produce the marginal unit – the productivity of every unit of labor is reduced. The first component is the per unit or average cost, the second unit is the small increase in costs due to the law of diminishing marginal returns which increases the costs of all units of sold. Marginal costs can also be expressed as the cost per unit of labor divided by the product of labor. Economies of scale is a concept applies to the long run. Production may be subject to economies of scale, conversely, there may be levels of production where marginal cost is higher than average cost, and average cost is an increasing function of output
Marginal cost
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A typical marginal cost curve with marginal revenue overlaid
26.
Avoiding dangerous climate change
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Previously this had generally been accepted as being 550 ppm. The conference took place under the United Kingdoms presidency of the G8 and it was chaired by Dennis Tirpak and hosted by the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Exeter, from 1 February to 3 February. It was also intended to further research in the area. An initial assessment of the subject had been included in the 2001 IPCC Third Assessment Report, however, specifically, the conference explored three issues, For different levels of climate change what are the key impacts, for different regions and sectors and for the world as a whole. What would such levels of climate change imply in terms of greenhouse gas stabilisation concentrations, what options are there for achieving stabilisation of greenhouse gases at different stabilisation concentrations in the atmosphere, taking into account costs and uncertainties. Among the conclusions reached, the most significant was a new assessment of the link between the concentration of gases in the atmosphere and the increase in global temperature levels. Some researchers have argued that the most serious consequences of global warming might be avoided if global temperatures rose by no more than 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. It had generally been assumed that this would occur if greenhouse gas concentrations rose above 550 ppm carbon dioxide equivalent by volume and this concentration was, for example, informing government in certain countries, including the European Union. The conference concluded that, at the level of 550 ppm, it was likely that 2 °C would be exceeded, according to the projections of more recent climate models
Avoiding dangerous climate change
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Global carbon dioxide emissions through year 2004
27.
David Gordon Wilson
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David Gordon Wilson is emeritus professor of engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Born in Warwickshire, England, Wilson went to the US on a fellowship in 1955. He returned to Britain in 1957 to work in the gas-turbine industry and he taught engineering in Nigeria from 1958 -60. He started a branch of a US company in London and in 1961 was moved to the US, in 1966 he joined the MIT faculty and taught engineering design and pursued a long-standing interest into human-powered transport, coauthoring Bicycling Science. He is credited, along with Chester Kyle, with starting the modern recumbent bicycle movement in the USA, in 1980, Wilson and Richard Forrestall developed a recumbent bicycle, the Avatar 2000. In 1982, Tim Gartside rode a faired version as the Avatar Bluebell in a US event to a world record of 51.9 mph for 200 metres with a flying start. Wilson also invented the carbon tax in 1973, Wilson is the co-founder of Wilson TurboPower, was founded in 2001 to commercialize two energy technologies developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Wilson invented of the Wilson Turbogenerator, an electrical efficiency of greater than 50% is claimed for his design. A prototype 300 kW microturbine was under development in 2008 when work was terminated and Wilson was removed from the board and, later, Wilson lives in Winchester, Massachusetts with his wife, Ellen. Wilson, David Gordon, Whitt, Frank Rowland, et al, the Design of High-Efficiency Turbomachinery and Gas Turbines
David Gordon Wilson
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David Gordon Wilson outside his home workshop, 2005
28.
Economic impacts of climate change
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This article describes the economic impacts of climate change. Given the inherent nature of economic forecasting, which involves significant degrees of uncertainty, Climate change impacts can be measured as an economic cost. This is particularly well-suited to market impacts, that is impacts that are linked to market transactions, monetary measures of non-market impacts, e. g. impacts on human health and ecosystems, are more difficult to calculate. Vulnerability, Compared with developed countries, there is an understanding of the potential market sector impacts of climate change in developing countries. Adaptation, The future level of capacity in human and natural systems to climate change will affect how society will be impacted by climate change. Assessments may under- or overestimate adaptive capacity, leading to under- or overestimates of positive or negative impacts, in a literature assessment, Smith et al. concluded, with medium confidence, that, climate change would increase income inequalities between and within countries. A small increase in mean temperature would result in net negative market sector impacts in many developing countries. Smith et al. predicted that climate change would result in pronounced non-market impacts. Most of impacts were predicted to be negative, the literature assessment by Smith et al. suggested that climate change would cause substantial negative health impacts in developing countries. Smith et al. noted that few of the studies they reviewed had adequately accounted for adaptation, in a literature assessment, Confalonieri et al. found that in the studies that had included health impacts, those impacts contributed substantially to the total costs of climate change. A number of other sectors will be affected by change, including the livestock, forestry. Other sectors sensitive to change include the energy, insurance, tourism. The aggregate impact of change on most of these sectors is highly uncertain. Africa, In Africa, coastal facilities are economically significant, in a literature assessment, Desanker et al. concluded that climate change would result in sea-level rise, coastal erosion, saltwater intrusion, and flooding. Desanker et al. predicted that changes would have a significant impact on African communities and economies. Coasts and low-lying areas, In literature assessment, Nicholls et al. concluded that the impacts of climate change on coastal. Some benefits, however, were noted, e. g. the opening of new ocean routes due to reduced sea ice, Compared with developed countries, the protection costs associated with projected sea level rise were found to be relatively higher for developing countries. Polar regions, Anisimov et al. reviewed the literature on climate change impacts in polar regions, with very high confidence, they concluded that the impact of climate change on infrastructure would increase economic costs
Economic impacts of climate change
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This graph shows estimation confidence intervals from a meta-analysis of researchers as well as by the Stern Review.
29.
Economics of climate change mitigation
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This article is about the economics of climate change mitigation. Mitigation of climate change involves actions that are designed to limit the amount of climate change. Mitigation may be achieved through the reduction of gas emissions or through the enhancement of sinks that absorb GHGs. In this article, the phrase “climate change” is used to describe a change in the climate, measured in terms of its statistical properties, in this context, “climate” is taken to mean the average weather. Climate can change over period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years, the classical time period is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization. The climate change referred to may be due to causes, e. g. changes in the suns output, or due human activities. Any human-induced changes in climate will occur against the “background” of natural climatic variations, the atmosphere is an international public good and GHG emissions are an international externality. Each individuals or countrys welfare, Uj, is a function of its own consumption, Cj, a change in the quality of the atmosphere, A, does not affect the welfare of all individuals and countries equally. In other words, some individuals and countries may benefit from climate change, GHG emissions are unevenly distributed around the world, as are the potential impacts of climate change. Nations with higher than average emissions that face potentially small negative/positive climate change impacts have little incentive to reduce their emissions, Nations with relatively low levels of emissions that face potentially large negative climate change impacts have a large incentive to reduce emissions. Nations that avoid mitigation can benefit from free-riding on the actions of others, the unequal distribution of benefits from mitigation, and the potential advantages of free-riding, make it difficult to secure an international agreement to reduce emissions. Mitigation of climate change can be considered a transfer of wealth from the present generation to future generations, the amount of mitigation determines the composition of resources that future generations receive. If the current generation also benefitted from mitigation, it might lead them to be willing to bear the costs of mitigation. Emissions of carbon dioxide might be irreversible on the scale of millennia. There are risks of climate changes, and the possibility of sudden changes in climate. On the other hand, these effects are true of mitigation efforts. Investments made in long-lived, large-scale low-emission technologies are essentially irreversible, if the scientific basis for these investments turns out to be wrong, they would become stranded assets. Additionally, the costs of reducing emissions may change over time in a non-linear fashion, from an economic perspective, as the scale of private sector investment in low-carbon technologies increases, so do the risks
Economics of climate change mitigation
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Total extreme weather cost and number of events costing more than $1 billion in the United States from 1980 to 2011. [citation needed]
30.
Peer review
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Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people of similar competence to the producers of the work. It constitutes a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field, peer review methods are employed to maintain standards of quality, improve performance, and provide credibility. In academia, scholarly peer review is used to determine an academic papers suitability for publication. Peer review can be categorized by the type of activity and by the field or profession in which the activity occurs, professional peer review focuses on the performance of professionals, with a view to improving quality, upholding standards, or providing certification. In academia, peer review is common in decisions related to faculty advancement, a prototype professional peer-review process was recommended in the Ethics of the Physician written by Ishāq ibn ʻAlī al-Ruhāwī. He stated that a physician had to make duplicate notes of a patients condition on every visit. Professional peer review is common in the field of health care, further, since peer review activity is commonly segmented by clinical discipline, there is also physician peer review, nursing peer review, dentistry peer review, etc. Many other professional fields have some level of peer review process, accounting, law, engineering, aviation, and even forest fire management. Peer review is used in education to achieve certain learning objectives and this may take a variety of forms, including closely mimicking the scholarly peer review processes used in science and medicine. The peer review helps the publisher decide whether the work should be accepted, considered acceptable with revisions, peer review requires a community of experts in a given field, who are qualified and able to perform reasonably impartial review. Peer review is generally considered necessary to academic quality and is used in most major scientific journals, the European Union has been using peer review in the Open Method of Co-ordination of policies in the fields of active labour market policy since 1999. In 2004, a program of peer reviews started in social inclusion and these usually meet over two days and include visits to local sites where the policy can be seen in operation. The meeting is preceded by the compilation of a report on which participating peer countries submit comments. The results are published on the web, the State of California is the only U. S. state to mandate scientific peer review. This requirement is incorporated into the California Health and Safety Code Section 57004, thus, the terminology has poor standardization and specificity, particularly as a database search term
Peer review
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A reviewer at the American National Institutes of Health evaluates a grant proposal.
31.
Meta-analysis
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A meta-analysis is a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies. The basic tenet behind meta-analyses is that there is a common truth behind all conceptually similar scientific studies, the aim then is to use approaches from statistics to derive a pooled estimate closest to the unknown common truth based on how this error is perceived. Meta-analyses are often, but not always, important components of a review procedure. For instance, a meta-analysis may be conducted on several trials of a medical treatment. This encompassed a review of 145 reports on ESP experiments published from 1882 to 1939, although meta-analysis is widely used in epidemiology and evidence-based medicine today, a meta-analysis of a medical treatment was not published until 1955. In the 1970s, more sophisticated techniques were introduced in educational research, starting with the work of Gene V. Glass, Frank L. Schmidt. The term meta-analysis was coined by Gene V. Glass, who was the first modern statistician to formalize the use of the term meta-analysis and he states my major interest currently is in what we have come to call. the meta-analysis of research. The term is a bit grand, but it is precise, meta-analysis refers to the analysis of analyses. Although this led to him being widely recognized as the founder of the method. The statistical theory surrounding meta-analysis was greatly advanced by the work of Nambury S. Raju, Larry V. Hedges, Harris Cooper, Ingram Olkin, John E. Hunter, Jacob Cohen, chalmers, Robert Rosenthal, Frank L. Schmidt, and Douglas G. Bonett. A meta-analysis is an overview of the results from one or more systematic review. This, in turn, may increase the power to detect an effect. Inconsistency of results across studies can be quantified and analyzed, for instance, does inconsistency arise from sampling error, or are study results influenced by between-study heterogeneity. Some have argued that a weakness of the method is that sources of bias are not controlled by the method and this would mean that only methodologically sound studies should be included in a meta-analysis, a practice called best evidence synthesis. This is not easily solved, as one cannot know how many studies have gone unreported and this should be seriously considered when interpreting the outcomes of a meta-analysis. The distribution of sizes can be visualized with a funnel plot which is a scatter plot of standard error versus the effect size. It makes use of the fact that the studies have more scatter of the magnitude of effect while the larger studies have less scatter. If many negative studies were not published, the remaining positive studies give rise to a plot in which the base is skewed to one side
Meta-analysis
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A funnel plot expected without the file drawer problem. The largest studies converge at the tip while smaller studies show more or less symmetrical scatter at the base
Meta-analysis
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A funnel plot expected with the file drawer problem. The largest studies still cluster around the tip, but the bias against publishing negative studies has caused the smaller studies as a whole to have an unjustifiably favorable result to the hypothesis
32.
Climate change mitigation
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Climate change mitigation consists of actions to limit the magnitude or rate of long-term climate change. Climate change mitigation generally involves reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases. Mitigation may also be achieved by increasing the capacity of carbon sinks, Mitigation policies can substantially reduce the risks associated with human-induced global warming. According to the IPCCs 2014 assessment report, Mitigation is a public good, effective climate change mitigation will not be achieved if each agent acts independently in its own selfish interest, suggesting the need for collective action. Nevertheless, financing such adaptive activities remains an issue, particularly for poor individuals, Energy efficiency may also play a role, for example, through improving the insulation of buildings. Another approach to climate change mitigation is climate engineering, most countries are parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The ultimate objective of the UNFCCC is to stabilize concentrations of GHGs at a level that would prevent dangerous human interference of the climate system. Scientific analysis can provide information on the impacts of climate change, in 2010, Parties to the UNFCCC agreed that future global warming should be limited to below 2.0 °C relative to the pre-industrial level. With the Paris Agreement of 2015 this was confirmed, but was revised with a new target laying down parties will do the best to achieve warming below 1.5 °C. The current trajectory of global greenhouse gas emissions does not appear to be consistent with limiting global warming to below 1.5 or 2 °C, other mitigation policies have been proposed, some of which are more stringent or modest than the 2 °C limit. One of the often discussed in relation to climate change mitigation is the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has the objective of preventing dangerous anthropogenic interference of the climate system. There are a number of anthropogenic greenhouse gases and these include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and a group of gases referred to as halocarbons. The emissions reductions necessary to stabilize the atmospheric concentrations of gases varies. CO2 is the most important of the greenhouse gases. There is a difference between stabilizing CO2 emissions and stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of CO2, stabilizing emissions of CO2 at current levels would not lead to a stabilization in the atmospheric concentration of CO2. In fact, stabilizing emissions at current levels would result in the concentration of CO2 continuing to rise over the 21st century. The reason for this is human activities are adding CO2 to the atmosphere far faster than natural processes can remove it
Climate change mitigation
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The 22,500 MW nameplate capacity Three Gorges Dam in the Peoples Republic of China, the largest hydroelectric power station in the world.
Climate change mitigation
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Fossil fuel related CO2 emissions compared to five of IPCC's emissions scenarios. The dips are related to global recessions. Data from IPCC SRES scenarios; Data spreadsheet included with International Energy Agency's "CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion 2010 - Highlights"; and Supplemental IEA data. Image source: Skeptical Science
Climate change mitigation
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Solar cookers use sunlight as energy source for outdoor cooking.
Climate change mitigation
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The Shepherds Flat Wind Farm is an 845 megawatt (MW) nameplate capacity, wind farm in the U.S. state of Oregon, each turbine is a nameplate 2 or 2.5 MW electricity generator.
33.
Ad valorem tax
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An ad valorem tax is a tax whose amount is based on the value of a transaction or of property. It is typically imposed at the time of a transaction, as in the case of a tax or value-added tax. An ad valorem tax may also be imposed annually, as in the case of a real or personal property tax, in some countries a stamp duty is imposed as an ad valorem tax. A sales tax is a tax charged at the point of purchase for certain goods. The tax is set as a percentage by the government charging the tax. There is usually a list of exemptions, the tax can be included in the price or added at the point of sale. Ideally, a tax is fair, has a high compliance rate, is difficult to avoid, is charged every time an item is sold retail. This prevents so-called tax cascading or pyramiding, in which an item is taxed more than once as it makes its way from production to final retail sale. There are several types of taxes, seller or vendor taxes, consumer excise taxes, retail transaction taxes. A value-added tax, or goods and services tax, is tax on exchanges and it is levied on the added value that results from each exchange. It differs from a tax because a sales tax is levied on the total value of the exchange. For this reason, a VAT is neutral with respect to the number of passages that there are between the producer and the final consumer. A VAT is a tax, in that the tax is collected from someone other than the person who actually bears the cost of the tax. To avoid double taxation on final consumption, exports are not subject to VAT and VAT charged under such circumstances is usually refundable. In France, it is the most important source of state finance, a property tax, millage tax is an ad valorem tax that an owner of real estate or other property pays on the value of the property being taxed. There are three species or types of property, Land, Improvements to Land, and Personal, real estate, real property or realty are all terms for the combination of land and improvements. The taxing authority requires and/or performs an appraisal of the value of the property. Forms of property tax used vary between countries and jurisdictions, ad valorem duties are important to those importing goods into the United States because the amount of duty owed is often based on the value of the imported commodity
Ad valorem tax
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Taxation
34.
Thermal efficiency
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For a power cycle, thermal efficiency indicates the extent to which the energy added by heat is converted to net work output. In the case of a refrigeration or heat pump cycle, thermal efficiency indicates the extent to which the energy added by work is converted to net heat output. In general, energy efficiency is the ratio between the useful output of a device and the input, in energy terms. For thermal efficiency, the input, Q i n, to the device is heat, the desired output is mechanical work, W o u t, or heat, Q o u t, or possibly both. Because the input heat normally has a financial cost, a memorable. From the first law of thermodynamics, the output cannot exceed the input, so 0 ≤ η t h <1 When expressed as a percentage. Efficiency is typically less than 100% because there are such as friction. The largest diesel engine in the peaks at 51. 7%. In a combined cycle plant, thermal efficiencies are approaching 60%, such a real-world value may be used as a figure of merit for the device. For engines where a fuel is burned there are two types of efficiency, indicated thermal efficiency and brake thermal efficiency. This efficiency is only appropriate when comparing similar types or similar devices, for other systems the specifics of the calculations of efficiency vary but the non dimensional input is still the same. Efficiency = Output energy / input energy Heat engines transform thermal energy, or heat, Qin into mechanical energy, or work, so the energy lost to the environment by heat engines is a major waste of energy resources. This inefficiency can be attributed to three causes, there is an overall theoretical limit to the efficiency of any heat engine due to temperature, called the Carnot efficiency. Second, specific types of engines have lower limits on their due to the inherent irreversibility of the engine cycle they use. Thirdly, the behavior of real engines, such as mechanical friction. The second law of thermodynamics puts a limit on the thermal efficiency of all heat engines. Even an ideal, frictionless engine cant convert anywhere near 100% of its heat into work. No device converting heat into energy, regardless of its construction
Thermal efficiency
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Output (mechanical) energy is always lower than input energy
35.
UNFCC
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The UNFCCC objective is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. The framework set no binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions for individual countries, instead, the framework outlines how specific international treaties may be negotiated to set binding limits on greenhouse gases. Initially an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee produced the text of the Framework Convention during its meeting in New York from 30 April to 9 May 1992, the UNFCCC was adopted on 9 May 1992, and opened for signature on 4 June 1992. UNFCCC has 197 parties as of December 2015, the convention enjoys broad legitimacy, largely due to its nearly universal membership. The parties to the convention have met annually from 1995 in Conferences of the Parties to assess progress in dealing with climate change, in 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was concluded and established legally binding obligations for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the period 2008-2012. The 2010 Cancún agreements state that global warming should be limited to below 2.0 °C relative to the pre-industrial level. The Protocol was amended in 2012 to encompass the period 2013-2020 in the Doha Amendment, in 2015 the Paris Agreement was adopted, governing emission reductions from 2020 on through commitments of countries in ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions. Updated inventories must be submitted by Annex I countries. The UNFCCC is also the name of the United Nations Secretariat charged with supporting the operation of the Convention, with offices in Haus Carstanjen, from 2010 to 2016 the head of the secretariat was Christiana Figueres. In July 2016, Patricia Espinosa from Mexico succeeded Figueres, the Secretariat, augmented through the parallel efforts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, aims to gain consensus through meetings and the discussion of various strategies. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was opened for signature at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. Under Article 4, all Parties make general commitments to address climate change through, for example, climate change mitigation, the Framework Convention specifies the aim of developed Parties stabilizing their greenhouse gas emissions at 1990 levels, by the year 2000. After the signing of the UNFCCC treaty, Parties to the UNFCCC have met at conferences to discuss how to achieve the treatys aims, the Kyoto Protocol sets emissions targets for developed countries which are binding under international law. The Kyoto Protocol has had two commitment periods, the first of which lasted from 2008-2012, the second one runs from 2013-2020 and is based on the Doha Amendment to the Protocol, which has not entered into force. The US has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, while Canada denounced it in 2012, the Kyoto Protocol has been ratified by all the other Annex I Parties. All Annex I Parties, excluding the US, have participated in the 1st Kyoto commitment period,37 Annex I countries and the EU have agreed to second-round Kyoto targets. These countries are Australia, all members of the European Union, Belarus, Croatia, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Norway, Switzerland, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have stated that they may withdraw from the Protocol or not put into legal force the Amendment with second round targets. Japan, New Zealand, and Russia have participated in Kyotos first-round but have not taken on new targets in the commitment period
UNFCC
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Christiana Figueres (left) - Executive Secretary UNFCCC, and Noeleen Heyzer - ES of Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) at the Bangkok Climate Change Talks., August 2012
UNFCC
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UNFCCC logo
36.
2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference
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The 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, commonly known as the Copenhagen Summit, was held at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, between 7 and 18 December. The conference included the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, according to the Bali Road Map, a framework for climate change mitigation beyond 2012 was to be agreed there. On Friday 18 December, the day of the conference. Media also reported that in lieu of a collapse, only a weak political statement was anticipated at the conclusion of the conference. The Copenhagen Accord was drafted by the United States, China, India, Brazil and South Africa on 18 December and it was taken note of, but not adopted, in a debate of all the participating countries the next day, and it was not passed unanimously. The document recognised that climate change is one of the greatest challenges of the present day, the document is not legally binding and does not contain any legally binding commitments for reducing CO2 emissions. The US National Security Agency provided US delegates with advance details other delegations positions, the conference was preceded by the Climate Change, Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions scientific conference, which took place in March 2009 and was also held at the Bella Center. On 28 January 2009, the European Commission released a position paper, the position paper addresses three key challenges, targets and actions, financing, and building an effective global carbon market. Leading by example, the European Union had committed to implementing binding legislation, last December, the European Union revised its carbon allowances system called the Emissions Trading Scheme designed for the post-Kyoto period. This new stage of the system aims at reducing greenhouse gases emitted in Europe in a binding way. Other sectors should buy such credits on an international market, Energy intensive industries in Europe have advocated for this benchmark system in order to keep funds in investment capacities for low carbon products rather than for speculations. The European chemical industry claims here the need to be closer to the needs of citizens in a sustainable way, to comply with such commitments for a low-carbon economy, this requires competitiveness and innovations. The French Minister for Ecology Jean-Louis Borloo pushes the creation of the Global Environment Organisation as Frances main institutional contribution, a draft negotiating text for finalisation at Copenhagen was publicly released. It was discussed at a series of meetings before Copenhagen, delegates from 183 countries met in Bonn from 1 to 12 June 2009. The purpose was to discuss key negotiating texts and these served as the basis for the international climate change agreement at Copenhagen. The AWG-KP still needs to decide on the emission reduction target for industrialised countries. Progress was made in gaining clarification of the issues of concern to parties, the resumed session was held in Barcelona, Spain, from 2 to 6 November 2009. Thereafter, the AWG-LCA met to conclude its work at its eighth session, during the conference some countries stated what actions they were proposing to take if a binding agreement was achieved
2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference
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Connie Hedegaard, former president of the UN Climate Change Conference 2009 in Copenhagen (left chair to Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen on 16 December)
2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference
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United Nations Climate Change Conference
2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference
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Alston Koch discusses Climate Change at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference.
2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference
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India 's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (blue) and Indian Minister of Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh (behind) during a multilateral meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Brazilian President Lula da Silva and South African President Jacob Zuma at the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
37.
List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions
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The following table lists the 2015 annual CO2 emissions estimates along with a list of emissions per capita from same source. The data only considers carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and cement manufacture, emissions from international shipping or bunker fuels are also not included in national figures, which can make a huge difference for small countries with important ports. The top 10 largest emitter countries account for 67. 6% of the world total, other powerful, more potent greenhouse gases, including methane, are not included in this data
List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions
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Carbon dioxide emissions for the top 40 countries by total emissions in 2013, given as totals and per capita. Data from EU Edgar database
38.
Wu Den-yih
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Wu Den-yih is a Taiwanese politician and former Vice President of the Republic of China. Wu was the mate of President Ma Ying-jeou and was elected Vice President in the 2012 presidential election with 51. 5% of the vote. Wu served as Premier from 2009 until 2012, First Vice Chairman of Kuomintang in 2014, Wu was born in Tsaotun, Nantou County, Taiwan in 1948. He enrolled in National Taiwan University and majored in history, during university time, he served as president and editor-in-chief for University News student periodical in 1968-1969. One of his essay he wrote for the student periodical had prompted future ROC President Chiang Ching-kuo to urge him to public service. He graduated with his BA degree in 1970, upon graduation, he served his conscription. Upon completing his military service in the armed forces, he worked as a journalist for China Times before entering political world. In China Times, he was known for his accurate reporting, in 1973 at the age of 25, he was appointed to a position in the Taipei City Council, serving as the youngest member of the council. While in the office, he was resolute in upholding the view of working with standard of integrity. For some corrupt officials, he asserted that bending the law is even worse than the corruption itself and he further added that although corruption violates the law, the law nevertheless survives. But if one publicly manipulates the law with impunity, the law dies, Wu worked for the council for eight years. During his time in the council, he still worked as an editorial writer at China Times providing his opinions. After serving Taipei City Council, Wu returned to his home in Nantou County where he made a campaign for the Magistrate of Nantou County. He served the position from 1981 to 1989. Wu Den-yih was the mayor of Kaohsiung City between 1990 and 1994, and he served as the mayor again from 1994 to 1998 by direct election. He was defeated by Frank Hsieh in the election in 1998. While serving as the member of Legislative Yuan since 2002, Wu was appointed as the secretary-general of Kuomintang from February 2007 to September 2009, in May 2009, Wu left for China for an 8-day visit. He was accompanied by three KMT high officials, Wu Po-hsiung, Lin Fong-cheng and John Chiang, wang Yi, Director of Taiwan Affairs Office welcomed the delegations upon arrival in Beijing
Wu Den-yih
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Signature
Wu Den-yih
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Wu Den-yih
Wu Den-yih
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Ma Ying-jeou and running mate Wu Den-yih register as KMT candidates for the 2012 presidential election.
Wu Den-yih
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Vice President Wu at the 85th anniversary of Radio Taiwan International.
39.
Carbon pricing in Australia
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It was in operation until it was repealed on 17 July 2014, and backdated to 1 July 2014. In its place the Abbott Government set up the Emission Reduction Fund in December 2014, as a result of being in place for such a short time, regulated organisations responded in a rather tepid and informal manner, with very few investments in emissions reductions being made. Carbon units were purchased from the government or issued free as part of industry assistance measures. The plan set out to achieve these targets by encouraging Australias largest emitters to increase energy efficiency, the scheme was administered by the Clean Energy Regulator. Compensation to industry and households was funded by the derived from the charge. As part of the scheme, personal tax was reduced for those earning less than $80,000 per year. Initially the price of a permit for one tonne of carbon was fixed at $23 for the 2012–13 financial year, the fixed price rose to $24.15 for 2013–14. The government had announced that the scheme was part of a transition to an emissions trading scheme in 2014–15, the scheme primarily applied to electricity generators and industrial sectors. It did not apply to transport and agriculture. Domestic aviation did not face the carbon price scheme per se, the government agency Geoscience Australia reported that investment in coal prospecting reached $520 million in 2010-2011. Falls in carbon emissions were observed following implementation of this policy and it was noted that emissions from sectors subject to the pricing mechanism were 1. However, attribution of these trends to carbon pricing have been disputed, Electricity demand had been falling and in 2012 was at the lowest level seen since 2006 in the National Electricity Market. In October 2006 the Stern Review on the effect of change on the worlds economy was released for the British government. This report recommended a range of measures including ecotaxes to address the market failure represented by climate change with the least amount of economic, in opposition, Kevin Rudd called for a cut to greenhouse gas emissions by 60% before 2050. Both the incumbent Howard Government and the Rudd Labor opposition promised to implement an emissions trading scheme before the 2007 federal election, following the release of the final Shergold report, the Howard government committed to introduce an ETS in June 2007. Labor differentiated itself from the government by promising an ETS with a start date of 2010 rather than the 2012 timeframe advocated by Howard. It also promised ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, investment in coal and renewable energy. Labor won the election on 24 November 2007, and on 3 December 2007 the Rudd Government signed the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol at the 2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference
Carbon pricing in Australia
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A protest at Hazelwood Power Station, the OECD's most polluting power station, in September 2009.
40.
Australian National University
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The Australian National University is a national research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, founded in 1946, it is the only university to have been created by the Parliament of Australia. ANU enrolls 10,052 undergraduate and 10,840 postgraduate students, the universitys endowment stood at A$1.13 billion in 2012. ANU is ranked 22nd in the world by the 2016/17 QS World University Rankings, ANU was named the worlds 7th most international university in a 2017 study by Times Higher Education. In the 2016 Times Higher Education Global Employability University Ranking, a ranking of university graduates employability. ANU is ranked 100th in the CWTS Leiden ranking, ANU counts six Nobel laureates and 49 Rhodes scholars among its faculty and alumni. The university has educated two prime ministers,30 current Australian ambassadors and more than a dozen current heads of Government departments of Australia, calls for the establishment of a national university in Australia began as early as 1900. After the location of the capital, Canberra, was determined in 1908. A group of eminent Australian scholars returned from overseas to join the university, including Sir Howard Florey, Sir Mark Oliphant, Sir Keith Hancock, economist Sir Douglas Copland was appointed as ANUs first Vice-Chancellor and former Prime Minister Stanley Bruce served as the first Chancellor. ANU was originally organised into four centres—the Research Schools of Physical Sciences, Social Sciences and Pacific Studies, the first residents’ hall, University House, was opened in 1954 for faculty members and postgraduate students. Mount Stromlo Observatory, established by the government in 1924. The first locations of the ANU Library, the Menzies and Chifley buildings, the Australian Forestry School, located in Canberra since 1927, was amalgamated by ANU in 1965. Canberra University College was the first institution of education in the national capital, having been established in 1929. Its founding was led by Sir Robert Garran, one of the drafters of the Australian Constitution, CUC was affiliated with the University of Melbourne and its degrees were granted by that university. Academic leaders at CUC included historian Manning Clark, political scientist Finlay Crisp, in 1960, CUC was integrated into ANU as the School of General Studies, initially with faculties in arts, economics, law and science. Faculties in Oriental studies and engineering were introduced later, Bruce Hall, the first residential college for undergraduates, opened in 1961. The Canberra School of Music and the Canberra School of Art were amalgamated by ANU in 1992, ANU established its Medical School in 2002, after obtaining federal government approval in 2000. On 18 January 2003, the Canberra bushfires largely destroyed the Mount Stromlo Observatory, ANU astronomers now conduct research from the Siding Spring Observatory, which contains 10 telescopes including the Anglo-Australian Telescope
Australian National University
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Remains of the ANU homopolar generator designed by Mark Oliphant
Australian National University
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Coat of arms of ANU
Australian National University
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ANU School of Art located at the former Canberra High School building
Australian National University
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ANU College of Law
41.
Abbott Government
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The Abbott Government was the federal executive government of Australia led by Prime Minister Tony Abbott. The Government was made up of members of the Liberal–National Coalition, the Leader of the Nationals, Warren Truss, served as Deputy Prime Minister. Following the 2013 Australian federal election on 7 September, the Coalition defeated the second Rudd Government, the Abbott Government was sworn into office on 18 September 2013. Less than two years later on 14 September 2015, Malcolm Turnbull defeated Abbott in a ballot,54 votes to 44. In economic policy, the Abbott Government aimed to rein in a deficit that reached A$48.5 billion by June 2014. It concluded free trade agreements with China, Japan and South Korea and it removed the Rudd-Gillard era Resource Super Profits Tax and carbon pricing. Treasurer Joe Hockey delivered two Budgets, the first focused on expenditure reduction measures, but faced a hostile reception in the Senate, partial deregulation of universities, and a $7 contribution to doctor visits were proposed, but blocked by the Senate. The second Budget emphasised stimulus for the business sector. Abbott campaigned in Opposition and in Office to halt the smuggling trade. In foreign policy, Australia continued its military engagement in the Mid-East, in 2015, The Abbott Government agreed to resettle an additional 12,000 refugees from the region. Abbott and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop challenged Russia at the United Nations over the shooting down of Malaysian Flight MH17 in Ukraine, the Government launched the New Colombo Plan to encourage educational exchange with the Indo-Pacific region. Domestically, Abbott campaigned for recognition of Indigenous Australians in the Australian Constitution, flagging a referendum for 2017, air and road infrastructure was prioritised. Abbott had to negotiate a hostile Senate, the Palmer United Party had emerged at the 2013 Election, but fractured soon after. The Liberal Party faced Cabinet leaks and early leadership instability, after a poorly received first Budget, Abbott became the shortest-serving Australian Prime Minister since William McMahon, when his government was succeeded by the Turnbull Government. The Liberal–National coalition, led by Abbott, won the 2013 Australian federal election, Rudd did not complete his first term in office, having been replaced by Julia Gillard following an internal Labor party leadership vote in June 2010. Leadership instability in the ALP continued, and Gillard was replaced by Rudd following a Labor ballot conducted shortly before the 2013 election. He offered support to the Gillard governments National Disability Insurance Scheme and he took a proposal for an expanded paid parental leave scheme, part funded by a levy on big business, to the 2010 and 2013 elections. In his 2013 election campaign, Abbott told the media that the Coalition wanted to build a stronger economy so that everyone can get ahead, well scrap the carbon tax, end the waste, stop the boats and build the infrastructure and the roads of the 21st century
Abbott Government
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The Honourable Tony Abbott MP
Abbott Government
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Senior members of the government following their swearing-in ceremony: Warren Truss, Tony Abbott, Julie Bishop, and Eric Abetz.
Abbott Government
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Tony Abbott is sworn in by Governor-General Quentin Bryce
Abbott Government
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The Abbott government after being commissioned by Quentin Bryce on 18 September 2013.
42.
NZ First
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New Zealand First is a conservative and populist political party in New Zealand. It was founded in July 1993, following the 19 March 1993 resignation of its leader and founder, Winston Peters, from the then-governing National Party. It has formed governments with both parties in New Zealand, first with the National Party from 1996 to 1998. The party held seats in the House of Representatives of New Zealand from its formation in 1993 until 2008, however, in the 2011 election, New Zealand First gained 6. 59% of the total party vote, entitling it to eight Members of Parliament. The party sits on the cross-benches and during the 50th New Zealand Parliament tended to vote with the Opposition against Government policies, at the core of New Zealand Firsts policies are its Fifteen Fundamental Principles, the first being To put New Zealand and New Zealanders First. They largely echo the policies that Peters has advocated throughout his career, the party generally focuses on the rule of law for all and does not prescribe to a departure from this principle. It therefore does not focus on minority issues to large extent as it values improving the lot of all New Zealanders regardless of background, New Zealand First is best known for its policies regarding the welfare of the elderly and its strongly restrictive immigration policies. The party also espouses a mixture of economic policies and it opposes the privatisation of state assets, which aligned it with views generally found on the left of New Zealand politics. On the other hand, it favours reducing taxation and reducing the size of government, rather than defining the partys precise position on the left-right spectrum, some commentators labelled NZ First as populist—in line with its emphasis on direct democracy and on popular referendums. In 2012, New Zealand First announced that if state assets were to be privatised, at the next general election. The New Zealand First Partys leader is part-Māori, it held all the then available Māori electorates. However, New Zealand First no longer supports the retention of the Māori electorates and has declared that it will not stand candidates in the Māori electorates in the future and it did not stand candidates in the Māori electorates in the 2002,2005, or 2008 general elections. On 19 March 1993, shortly before the writs were issued for the general election, about four months later on 18 July 1993 and shortly before the that years general election, Peters announced the formation of New Zealand First as a political grouping. In the April 1993 special by-election, Tauranga voters re-elected Peters as an independent. At the general election a few later, Peters easily retained Tauranga. This did much to counter the perception of New Zealand First as merely a vehicle for Peters. With the switch to the Mixed Member Proportional electoral system for the 1996 election and this enabled New Zealand First to win 13% of the vote and 17 seats, including all five Māori seats. New Zealand Firsts five Māori MPs—Henare, Tuku Morgan, Rana Waitai, Tu Wyllie, the election result put New Zealand First in a powerful position just three years after its formation
NZ First
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New Zealand First Party Aotearoa Tuatahi
43.
United Future
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United Future New Zealand, usually known as United Future, is a centrist political party in New Zealand. The result of the 2014 general election was much the same for United Future, the Party has been in government since 2005 under Labour and then National. United Future was formed from the merger of liberal centrist party United New Zealand, United, formed as a centrist party by a group of moderate Labour and National MPs, held one seat in parliament—that of Dunne. United Futures first party president, Inky Tulloch, stated that United Future isnt a Christian party – its a party that has a lot of Christians in it. Tulloch said that the principles of family, of common sense, of looking after one another, of compassion. Support for United Future, which was growing in early 2002, was boosted further by Peter Dunnes strong television debating performance. United Future made a showing in the 2002 election, taking 6.7 percent of the vote and eight seats, Dunnes electorate seat of Ohariu-Belmont. After 2002 United Future in its law reform proposals took to heart the trauma. In December 2004, United Future MPs exercised their individual votes to oppose a Bill to enable civil unions. This provided an alternative to marriage for couples and to opposite-sex couples who choose not to marry. A civil union provides a couple with most of the rights as married couples. However, Peter Dunne and Judy Turner both supported a companion Bill to give recognition to civil unions. In mid-2004 United Future announced that it would contest the 2005 general election in partnership with Outdoor Recreation New Zealand, a month before the September 2005 election, list MP Paul Adams quit the party to stand as an independent in the East Coast Bays electorate. His daughter Sharee Adams, also on the United Future List, in the 2005 election, United Future had the support of the WIN Party, which was set up to fight the ban on smoking in bars and restaurants. WINs leader, John van Buren, was United Futures candidate for Christchurch Central and this further spoke of alliances still to come. In this election, support plummeted to 2. 8% and the party won three seats. Peter Dunne retained Ohariu-Belmont, and Gordon Copeland and Judy Turner were returned on its party list, United Future had tried to distance itself from its more assertive fundamentalist list MPs, such as Adams, Larry Baldock and Murray Smith. As Election New Zealand data revealed that the Outdoor Recreation Party still provided about 1% of the vote,4. 8% of the vote had gone elsewhere
United Future
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For other uses, see United Future (disambiguation).
44.
Danish krone
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The krone is the official currency of Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands, introduced on 1 January 1875. Both the ISO code DKK and currency sign kr. are in use, the former precedes the value. The currency is referred to as the Danish crown in English. Historically, krone coins have been minted in Denmark since the 17th century, one krone is subdivided into 100 øre, the name øre possibly deriving from Latin aureus meaning gold coin. Altogether there are eleven denominations of the krone, with the smallest being the 50 øre coin, formerly there were more øre coins, but those were discontinued due to inflation. The krone is pegged to the euro via the ERM II, the oldest known Danish coin is a penny struck AD 825–840, but the earliest systematic minting produced the so-called korsmønter or cross coins minted by Harald Bluetooth in the late 10th century. Organised minting in Denmark was introduced on a larger scale by Canute the Great in the 1020s, for almost 1,000 years, Danish kings – with a few exceptions – have issued coins with their name, monogram and/or portrait. Taxes were sometimes imposed via the coinage, e. g. by the substitution of coins handed in by new coins handed out with a lower silver content. Danish coinage was based on the Carolingian silver standard. Periodically, the value of the minted coins was reduced. This was mainly done to generate income for the monarch and/or the state, as a result of the debasement, the public started to lose trust in the respective coins. Danish currency was overhauled several times in attempts to restore public trust in the coins, in 1619 a new currency was introduced in Denmark, the krone. One krone had the value of 1 1/2 Danish Rigsdaler Species accounting for 96 Kroneskillinger, later for 144 common Skillings, until the late 18th century, the krone was a denomination equal to 8 mark, a subunit of the Danish rigsdaler. A new krone was introduced as the currency of Denmark in January 1875 and it replaced the rigsdaler at a rate of 2 kroner =1 rigsdaler. This placed the krone on the standard at a rate of 2480 kroner =1 kilogram fine gold. The latter part of the 18th century and much of the 19th century saw expanding economic activity, consequently, banknotes were increasingly used instead of coins. The introduction of the new krone was a result of the Scandinavian Monetary Union, the parties to the union were the three Scandinavian countries, where the name was krone in Denmark and Norway and krona in Sweden, a word which in all three languages literally means crown. The three currencies were on the standard, with the krone/krona defined as 1⁄2480 of a kilogram of pure gold
Danish krone
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1000 kroner banknote
Danish krone
Danish krone
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Two golden 20 kr coins from the Scandinavian Monetary Union, with identical weight and composition. The coin to the left is Swedish and the right one is Danish.
Danish krone
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A tin - bronze 50-øre coin
45.
Tax refund
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A tax refund or tax rebate is a refund on taxes when the tax liability is less than the taxes paid. According to the Internal Revenue Service, 77% of tax returns filed in 2004 received a refund check, in 2011, the average tax refund was $2,913. Taxpayers may choose to have their refund directly deposited into their account, have a check mailed to them. As of 2006, tax filers may now split their tax refund with direct deposit in up to three separate accounts with three different financial institutions and this has given taxpayers an opportunity to save and spend some of their refund. Every year, a number of U. S. taxpayers around the country get tax refunds even if they owe zero income tax and this is due to withholding calculations and the earned income tax credit. Because withholding is calculated on a basis, an individual just entering the work force or unemployed for a long period of time will have more tax than is owed withheld. Refund anticipation loans are a means to receive a tax refund early. Another argument is that it is better to get a rather than to owe money. When properly filled out, the Form W-4 will withhold approximately the amount of tax to eliminate a refund or amount owed. A U. S. federal law signed in 1996 contained a provision that required the government to make electronic payments by 1999. In 2008, the U. S. Treasury Department paired with Comerica Bank to offer the Direct Express Debit MasterCard prepaid debit card, the card is used to make payments to federal benefit recipients who do not have a bank account. Tax refunds, however, are exempt from the electronic payments requirement, however, many U. S. states send tax refunds in the form of prepaid debit cards to people who do not have bank accounts. In New Zealand, income tax is deducted by the employer under the PAYE tax system and this information is collected and held by the Inland Revenue Department and is not automatically processed. However individual earners can request a summary of earnings to see if they have overpaid or underpaid their tax for each financial year. To claim a tax refund, a personal tax summary must be filed, in India, there is a provision of refund of excess tax along with interest. For claiming a refund one has to file the income tax return within a specified period, however, under Sections 237 and 119 of the Income Tax Act, the Chief Commissioner or Commissioner of Income Tax are empowered to condone a delay in the claim of a refund. Provisions of refund of duty exists in indirect taxation, in Section 11 B of the Central Excises Act,1944 which is also applicable in the cases of Service Tax. In the Republic of Ireland, income tax is deducted by the employer under the PAYE tax system, if incorrect tax credits are applied by the employer, then a refund of tax is due
Tax refund
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Taxation
46.
Finland
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Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a sovereign state in Northern Europe. A peninsula with the Gulf of Finland to the south and the Gulf of Bothnia to the west, the country has borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north. Estonia is south of the country across the Gulf of Finland, Finland is a Nordic country situated in the geographical region of Fennoscandia, which also includes Scandinavia. Finlands population is 5.5 million, and the majority of the population is concentrated in the southern region,88. 7% of the population is Finnish people who speak Finnish, a Uralic language unrelated to the Scandinavian languages, the second major group are the Finland-Swedes. In terms of area, it is the eighth largest country in Europe, Finland is a parliamentary republic with a central government based in the capital Helsinki, local governments in 311 municipalities, and an autonomous region, the Åland Islands. Over 1.4 million people live in the Greater Helsinki metropolitan area, from the late 12th century, Finland was an integral part of Sweden, a legacy reflected in the prevalence of the Swedish language and its official status. In the spirit of the notion of Adolf Ivar Arwidsson, we are not Swedes, we do not want to become Russians, let us therefore be Finns, nevertheless, in 1809, Finland was incorporated into the Russian Empire as the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland. In 1906, Finland became the nation in the world to give the right to vote to all adult citizens. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, Finland declared itself independent, in 1918, the fledgling state was divided by civil war, with the Bolshevik-leaning Reds supported by the equally new Soviet Russia, fighting the Whites, supported by the German Empire. After a brief attempt to establish a kingdom, the became a republic. During World War II, the Soviet Union sought repeatedly to occupy Finland, with Finland losing parts of Karelia, Salla and Kuusamo, Petsamo and some islands, Finland joined the United Nations in 1955 and established an official policy of neutrality. The Finno-Soviet Treaty of 1948 gave the Soviet Union some leverage in Finnish domestic politics during the Cold War era, Finland was a relative latecomer to industrialization, remaining a largely agrarian country until the 1950s. It rapidly developed an advanced economy while building an extensive Nordic-style welfare state, resulting in widespread prosperity, however, Finnish GDP growth has been negative in 2012–2014, with a preceding nadir of −8% in 2009. Finland is a top performer in numerous metrics of national performance, including education, economic competitiveness, civil liberties, quality of life, a large majority of Finns are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, though freedom of religion is guaranteed under the Finnish Constitution. The first known appearance of the name Finland is thought to be on three rune-stones. Two were found in the Swedish province of Uppland and have the inscription finlonti, the third was found in Gotland, in the Baltic Sea. It has the inscription finlandi and dates from the 13th century, the name can be assumed to be related to the tribe name Finns, which is mentioned first known time AD98. The name Suomi has uncertain origins, but a candidate for a source is the Proto-Baltic word *źemē, in addition to the close relatives of Finnish, this name is also used in the Baltic languages Latvian and Lithuanian
Finland
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Hakkapeliitta featured on a 1940 Finnish stamp
Finland
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Flag
Finland
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Now lying within Helsinki, Suomenlinna is a UNESCO World Heritage Site consisting of an inhabited 18th century sea fortress built on six islands. It is one of Finland's most popular tourist attractions.
Finland
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Pioneers in Karelia (1900) by Eero Järnefelt
47.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
France
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One of the Lascaux paintings: a horse – Dordogne, approximately 18,000 BC
France
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Flag
France
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The Maison Carrée was a temple of the Gallo-Roman city of Nemausus (present-day Nîmes) and is one of the best preserved vestiges of the Roman Empire.
France
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With Clovis ' conversion to Catholicism in 498, the Frankish monarchy, elective and secular until then, became hereditary and of divine right.
48.
Irish Government
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The Government of Ireland is the cabinet that exercises executive authority in the Republic of Ireland. The structure of the Government of Ireland is regulated fundamentally by the Constitution of Ireland, the Government is headed by a prime minister called the Taoiseach. The deputy prime minister is called the Tánaiste, and is nominated by the Taoiseach from among the members of the Government, the Government must consist of between seven and fifteen members, according to the Constitution of Ireland. Every member of the Government must be a member of the parliament of Ireland, no more than two members of the Government may be members of Seanad Éireann, the upper house of the Oireachtas. Therefore, all members of the Government must be members of Dáil Éireann. The Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Minister for Finance must be members of the Dáil, the 7 to 15 Members of Government are generally referred to as The Cabinet. The Taoiseach is nominated by Dáil Éireann, the house of the Oireachtas. Other members of the Government are nominated by the Taoiseach, approved by Dáil Éireann, Members of the government are often styled cabinet ministers, as opposed to Ministers of State, called junior ministers, who are not in the cabinet. A minister is usually in charge of a Department of State, occasionally a minister without portfolio is appointed who is a minister and a member of the Government but not a Minister of the Government. Non members have no voting rights at Cabinet but may participate fully and normally receive circulated Cabinet Papers on the same basis as a full member of Government. The Government is advised by the Attorney General, who is not formally a member of the Government, the Chief Whip may attend meetings of the cabinet, but is not a member of the Government. In addition, the Government can choose other Ministers of State and this person is informally known as a Super Junior Minister. The current Super Junior Ministers are Paul Kehoe and Finian McGrath, Office of the President The Office of President was established by The Constitution. The President is elected directly by the people, the term of office is 7 years and a President may not serve more than 2 terms. The President must reside in or near Dublin, st. Patrick’s Hall, Dublin Castle, is the venue for Inauguration ceremonies, at which each President takes an oath as provided in the Constitution. The President represents all the people when undertaking official engagements at home, the President is Supreme Commander of the Defence Forces. There have been nine different holders of the office – Michael D. Higgins is the current President. The formal powers, the President, who does not have an executive or policy role, exercises them on the advice of the Government. Additional functions can be conferred on the President by law, a special Commission acts whenever the President is absent
Irish Government
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Government Buildings in Dublin.
Irish Government
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Ireland
49.
Environmental Protection Agency
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The EPA was proposed by President Richard Nixon and began operation on December 2,1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House, the agency is led by its Administrator, who is appointed by the president and approved by Congress. The current administrator is Scott Pruitt, the EPA is not a Cabinet department, but the administrator is normally given cabinet rank. The EPA has its headquarters in Washington, D. C. regional offices for each of the ten regions. The agency conducts environmental assessment, research, and education and it has the responsibility of maintaining and enforcing national standards under a variety of environmental laws, in consultation with state, tribal, and local governments. It delegates some permitting, monitoring, and enforcement responsibility to U. S. states, EPA enforcement powers include fines, sanctions, and other measures. The agency also works with industries and all levels of government in a variety of voluntary pollution prevention programs. In 2016, the agency had 15,376 full-time employees, more than half of EPAs employees are engineers, scientists, and environmental protection specialists, other employees include legal, public affairs, financial, and information technologists. Beginning in the late 1950s and through the 1960s, Congress reacted to increasing concern about the impact that human activity could have on the environment. Senator James E. Murray introduced a bill, the Resources and Conservation Act of 1959, the 1962 publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson alerted the public about the detrimental effects on the environment of the indiscriminate use of pesticides. In the years following, similar bills were introduced and hearings were held to discuss the state of the environment, in the colloquium, some members of Congress expressed a continuing concern over federal agency actions affecting the environment. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 was modeled on RCA, President Nixon signed NEPA into law on January 1,1970. The law created the Council on Environmental Quality in the Executive Office of the President, NEPA required that a detailed statement of environmental impacts be prepared for all major federal actions significantly affecting the environment. The detailed statement would ultimately be referred to as an impact statement. On July 9,1970, Nixon proposed a reorganization that consolidated many environmental responsibilities of the federal government under one agency. After conducting hearings during that summer, the House and Senate approved the proposal, the agency’s first administrator, William Ruckelshaus, took the oath of office on December 4,1970. In May 2013, Congress renamed the EPA headquarters as the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building, the EPA is led by an Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. As of 2017 Scott Pruitt is the 14th administrator, each EPA regional office is responsible within its states for implementing the Agencys programs, except those programs that have been specifically delegated to states
Environmental Protection Agency
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Stacks emitting smoke from burning discarded automobile batteries, photo taken in Houston in 1972 by Marc St. Gil (cs), official photographer of recently founded EPA
Environmental Protection Agency
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Seal of the Environmental Protection Agency
Environmental Protection Agency
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Same smokestacks in 1975 after the plant was closed in a push for greater environmental protection
Environmental Protection Agency
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Ruckelshaus sworn in as first EPA Administrator.
50.
Swiss Federal Council
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While the entire council is responsible for leading the federal administration of Switzerland, each Councillor heads one of the seven federal executive departments. The position of Federal President rotates among the seven Councillors on a yearly basis, when the Constitution was written, constitutional democracy was still in its infancy, and the founding fathers of Switzerland had little in the way of examples. While they drew heavily on the U. S, Constitution for the organisation of the federal state as a whole, they opted for the collegial rather than the presidential system for the executive branch of government. This accommodated the long tradition of the rule of collective bodies in Switzerland, today, only three other states, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Andorra and San Marino, have collective rather than unitary heads of state. However the collegial system of government has found widespread adoption in modern democracies in the form of government with collective responsibility. Nonetheless, some significant developments deserve to be mentioned here, the 1848 Constitution was one of the few successes of the Europe-wide democratic revolutions of 1848. In Switzerland, the movement was led – and the new federal state decisively shaped – by the Radicals. After winning the Sonderbund War against the Catholic cantons, the Radicals at first used their majority in the Federal Assembly to fill all the seats on the Federal Council and this made their former war opponents, the Catholic-Conservatives, the opposition party. Only after Emil Weltis resignation in 1891 after a referendum on railway nationalisation did the Radicals decide to co-opt the Conservatives by supporting the election of Josef Zemp. The process of involving all political movements of Switzerland into the responsibility of government continued during the first half of the 20th century. It was hastened by the FDPs and CVPs gradually diminishing voter shares and these were the Social Democratic Party on the Left and the Party of Farmers, Traders and Independents on the Right. In due course, the CVP received its seat in 1919 with Jean-Marie Musy. In 1943, during World War II, the Social Democrats were also included with Ernst Nobs. During that time, the FDP and CVP very slowly but steadily kept losing voter share to the SVP and SP, respectively, which overtook the older parties in popularity during the 1990s. The governmental balance was changed after the 2003 elections, when the SVP was granted a Council seat for their leader Christoph Blocher that had belonged to the CVPs Ruth Metzler. This led to a split of the SVP in 2008, the SVP regained its second seat on the Council in 2015, when Widmer-Schlumpf decided to resign after the SVPs large election gains in the 2015 election, being replaced by Guy Parmelin. Women gained suffrage on the level in 1971. They remained unrepresented in the Federal Council for three legislatures, until the 1984 election of Elisabeth Kopp
Swiss Federal Council
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Incumbent Didier Burkhalter Johann Schneider-Ammann Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf Doris Leuthard Ueli Maurer Simonetta Sommaruga Alain Berset (Federal Chancellor Corina Casanova also pictured)
Swiss Federal Council
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Federal Council
Swiss Federal Council
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The interior of the west wing of the Federal Palace in Berne, where the Council meetings are held.
Swiss Federal Council
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This article's lead section may not adequately summarize key points of its contents. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article. Please discuss this issue on the article's talk page. (April 2015)
51.
Cap-and-trade
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Emissions trading or cap and trade is a government-mandated, market-based approach to controlling pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants. Various countries, states and groups of companies have adopted such trading systems, a central authority allocates or sells a limited number of permits to discharge specific quantities of a specific pollutant per time period. Polluters are required to hold permits in amount equal to their emissions, polluters that want to increase their emissions must buy permits from others willing to sell them. Financial derivatives of permits can also be traded on secondary markets, in theory, polluters who can reduce emissions most cheaply will do so, achieving the emission reduction at the lowest cost to society. Cap and trade is meant to provide the private sector with the flexibility required to reduce emissions while stimulating technological innovation, there are active trading programs in several air pollutants. For greenhouse gases, which climate change, permit units are often called carbon credits. The United States has a market to reduce acid rain. Pollution is the example of a market externality. An externality is an effect of some activity on an entity that is not party to a market related to that activity. Emissions trading is an approach, among others, to address pollution. The overall goal of an emissions trading plan is to minimize the cost of meeting a set emissions target. In an emissions trading system, the government sets a limit on emissions. The government may sell the permits, but in many existing schemes, the baseline is determined by reference to the participants historical emissions. To demonstrate compliance, a participant must hold permits at least equal to the quantity of pollution it actually emitted during the time period, if every participant complies, the total pollution emitted will be at most equal to the sum of individual limits. In effect, the buyer pays a charge for polluting, while the seller gains a reward for having reduced emissions, in many schemes, organizations which do not pollute may also trade permits and financial derivatives of permits. In some schemes, participants can bank allowances to use in future periods, in some schemes, a proportion of all traded permits must be retired periodically, causing a net reduction in emissions over time. Thus, environmental groups may buy and retire permits, driving up the price of the remaining permits according to the law of demand, in most schemes, permit owners can donate permits to a nonprofit entity and receive a tax deduction. Usually, the government lowers the overall limit over time, with an aim towards an emissions reduction target
Cap-and-trade
Cap-and-trade
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A coal power plant in Germany. Due to emissions trading, coal may become a less competitive fuel than other options.
Cap-and-trade
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Example MACs for two different countries
Cap-and-trade
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Chicago Climate Justice activists protesting cap and trade legislation in front of Chicago Climate Exchange building in Chicago Loop
52.
International Energy Agency
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The IEA acts as a policy adviser to its member states, but also works with non-member countries, especially China, India, and Russia. The Agencys mandate has broadened to focus on the 3Es of effectual energy policy, energy security, economic development, the latter has focused on mitigating climate change. The IEA has a role in promoting alternate energy sources, rational energy policies. IEA member countries are required to maintain total oil stock levels equivalent to at least 90 days of the previous years net imports, at the end of July 2009, IEA member countries held a combined stockpile of almost 4.3 billion barrels of oil. On 1 September 2015, Fatih Birol took office as the new Executive Director, succeeding in this position former Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs, the IEA was established to meet the industrial countries energy organization needs in the wake of the 1973–1974 oil crisis. In addition, the OECD had adopted recommendations on oil stockpiling in Europe, but due to their limited scope, establishment of the new organization was proposed by United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in his address to the Pilgrims Society in London on 12 December 1973. In so doing they will build on the work of the OECD, however, the OECD has a rule of unanimity, and not all member states were ready to participate. Therefore, instead of an approach, an autonomous approach was chosen. The IEA was created on 18 November 1974 by the Agreement on an International Energy Program, in April 2001, the IEA, in collaboration with five other international organisations launched the Joint Oil Data Exercise, which in 2005 became the Joint Organisations Data Initiative. The reliability and sustainability of our energy system depends on investment. But this wont materialize unless there are credible policy frameworks in place as well as access to long-term sources of finance. Neither of these conditions should be taken for granted, van der Hoeven said in a statement accompanying the report, only the OECD member states can become members of the IEA. Except for Chile, Iceland, Israel, Mexico, and Slovenia, in 2014, Estonia joined the IEA and became its 29th member. In 2017, India joined as the associate member of IEA. According to an unidentified former senior IEA official it was imperative not to anger the Americans. The Guardian also referred to a team of scientists from Uppsala University in Sweden who studied the 2008 World Energy Outlook and concluded the forecasts of the IEA were unattainable. According to their report, oil production in 2030 would not exceed 75 million barrels per day while the IEA forecasts a production of 105 million barrels per day. The lead author of the report, Dr. Kjell Aleklett, has claimed that IEAs reports are political documents, in the past, the IEA has been criticized by environmental groups for underplaying the role of renewable energy technologies in favor of nuclear and fossil-fuels. In 2009, Guy Pearse stated that the IEA has consistently underestimated the potential for renewable energy alternatives, a 2008 EWG report compares IEA projections about the growth of wind power capacity and finds that it has consistently underestimated the amount of energy the wind power industry can deliver
International Energy Agency
53.
Liberal Party of Canada
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The Liberal Party of Canada, colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federal political party in Canada. The party espouses the principles of liberalism, and generally sits at the centre of the Canadian political spectrum, the Liberal Party is traditionally positioned to the left of the Conservative Party of Canada and to the right of the New Democratic Party. During the beginning of the 21st century, the party lost a significant amount of support, in the present times, the Liberal party has favoured a variety of big tent policies from both right and left of the political spectrum. It also legalized same-sex marriage and allowed the use of cannabis for medical purposes, during the 2015 election, the Liberal partys proposed policies included, Cut the middle class tax bracket from 22% to 20.88 per $100 to $1. In the 29 years after Canadian confederation, the Liberals were consigned to opposition, with the exception of one stint in government. Alexander Mackenzie was able to lead the party to power for the first time in 1873, Mackenzie subsequently won the 1874 election, and served as Prime Minister for an additional four years. However the party was able to build a solid support base in Ontario. The Liberals would spend the next 18 years in opposition, in their early history, the Liberals were the party of continentalism and opposition to imperialism. The Liberals also became identified with the aspirations of Quebecers as a result of the hostility of French Canadians to the Conservatives. It was not until Wilfrid Laurier became leader that the Liberal Party emerged as a modern party, Laurier was able to capitalize on the Tories alienation of French Canada by offering the Liberals as a credible alternative. Laurier was able to overcome the reputation for anti-clericalism that offended the still-powerful Quebec Roman Catholic Church. In English-speaking Canada, the Liberal Partys support for reciprocity made it popular among farmers, Laurier led the Liberals to power in the 1896 election, and oversaw a government that increased immigration in order to settle Western Canada. Lauriers government created the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta out of the North-West Territories, there was no national membership of the party, an individual became a member by joining a provincial Liberal party. The new organization allowed individuals to join the national Liberal Party for the first time. No national convention was held, however, until 1948, the Liberal Party held only three national conventions prior to the 1950s – in 1893,1919 and 1948). Over time, provincial Liberal parties in most provinces were separated from provincial wings of the federal party, by the 1980s, the National Liberal Federation was officially known as the Liberal Party of Canada. Under Laurier, and his successor William Lyon Mackenzie King, the Liberals promoted Canadian sovereignty, after the King–Byng Affair of 1926, the Liberals argued that the Governor General of Canada should no longer be appointed on the recommendation of the British government. The decisions of the Imperial Conferences were formalized in the Statute of Westminster, which was passed in 1931
Liberal Party of Canada
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Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Prime Minister of Canada (1896-1911)
Liberal Party of Canada
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William Lyon Mackenzie King, Prime Minister of Canada (1921-1926, 1926-1930, 1935-1948)
Liberal Party of Canada
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Louis St. Laurent, Prime Minister of Canada (1948-1957) with Mackenzie King
Liberal Party of Canada
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Lester B. Pearson, Prime Minister of Canada (1963-1968)
54.
Canadian federal election, 1867
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The Canadian federal election of 1867, held from August 7 to September 20, was the first election for the new nation of Canada. It was held to elect members to the Canadian House of Commons, representing districts in the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario. The provinces of Manitoba and British Columbia were created during the term of the 1st Parliament of Canada and were not part of the Canadian federal election of 1867. Sir John A. Macdonald had been sworn in as minister by the Governor General, Lord Monck. The Liberal Party of Canada won the second largest number of seats overall, the Liberals did not have a party leader in the election. George Brown, who was leader of the Liberal Party of Ontario, was considered the elder statesman of the national party, Brown failed to win a seat in either body, and the national Liberals remained officially leaderless until 1873. The Anti-Confederation Party, led by Joseph Howe, won the third largest number of seats overall and their main desire was the reversal of the decision to join Confederation, which had become highly unpopular in that province. The goals of the Anti-Confederation Members of Parliament were openly supported by five of the Liberal MPs of New Brunswick, the Anti-Confederation MPs sat with the Liberal caucus. When the government in Britain refused to allow Nova Scotia to secede, a majority of the Anti-Confederation MPs moved to the Conservatives
Canadian federal election, 1867
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180 seats in the 1st Canadian Parliament 91 seats needed for a majority
Canadian federal election, 1867
Canadian federal election, 1867
55.
Canadian province
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Canadas geography is divided into administrative divisions known as provinces and territories that are responsible for delivery of sub-national governance. Over its history, Canadas international borders have changed several times, the ten provinces are Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan. Several of the provinces were former British colonies, Quebec was originally a French colony, the three territories are Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon, which govern the rest of the area of the former British North America. Together, the provinces and territories make up the worlds second-largest country by area, the powers flowing from the Constitution Act are divided between the federal government and the provincial governments to exercise exclusively. In modern Canadian constitutional theory, the provinces are considered to be co-sovereign divisions, the territories are not sovereign, but simply part of the federal realm, and have a commissioner who represents the federal government. Notes, There are three territories in Canada, unlike the provinces, the territories of Canada have no inherent sovereignty and have only those powers delegated to them by the federal government. They include all of mainland Canada north of latitude 60° north and west of Hudson Bay, the following table lists the territories in order of precedence. Prior to Confederation, Ontario and Quebec were united as the Province of Canada, over the following years, Manitoba, British Columbia, and Prince Edward Island were added as provinces. The Hudsons Bay Company controlled large swathes of western Canada referred to as Ruperts Land and the North-Western Territory until 1870, subsequently, the area was re-organized into the province of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories. The remaining Arctic islands were transferred by Britain to Canada in 1880,1898 saw the Yukon Territory, later renamed simply as Yukon, carved from the parts of the Northwest Territories surrounding the Klondike gold fields. On September 1,1905, a portion of the Northwest Territories south of the 60th parallel north became the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. In 1912, the boundaries of Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba were expanded northward, Manitobas to the 60° parallel, Ontarios to Hudson Bay, in 1907, Newfoundland acquired dominion status. In the middle of the Great Depression in Canada with Newfoundland facing a period of economic crisis. In 2001, it was officially renamed Newfoundland and Labrador, in 1903, the Alaska Panhandle Dispute fixed British Columbias northwestern boundary. This was one of two provinces in Canadian history to have its size reduced. In 1999, Nunavut was created from the portion of the Northwest Territories. Yukon lies in the portion of The North, while Nunavut is in the east. All three territories combined are the most sparsely populated region in Canada, covering 3,921,739 km2 in land area and they are often referred to as a single region, The North, for organisational and economic purposes
Canadian province
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" O Canada we stand on guard for thee" Stained Glass, Yeo Hall, Royal Military College of Canada features arms of the Canadian provinces and territories (1965)
Canadian province
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Alberta Legislature Building
Canadian province
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British Columbia Parliament Buildings
Canadian province
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Manitoba Legislative Building
56.
Quebec
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Quebec is the second-most populous province of Canada and the only one to have a predominantly French-speaking population, with French as the sole provincial official language. Quebec is Canadas largest province by area and its second-largest administrative division and it also shares maritime borders with Nunavut, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. Quebec is Canadas second-most populous province, after Ontario, most inhabitants live in urban areas near the Saint Lawrence River between Montreal and Quebec City, the capital. Approximately half of Quebec residents live in the Greater Montreal Area, the Nord-du-Québec region, occupying the northern half of the province, is sparsely populated and inhabited primarily by Aboriginal peoples. Even in central Quebec at comparatively southerly latitudes winters are severe in inland areas, Quebec independence debates have played a large role in the politics of the province. Parti Québécois governments held referendums on sovereignty in 1980 and 1995, in 2006, the House of Commons of Canada passed a symbolic motion recognizing the Québécois as a nation within a united Canada. These many industries have all contributed to helping Quebec become an economically influential province within Canada, early variations in the spelling of the name included Québecq and Kébec. French explorer Samuel de Champlain chose the name Québec in 1608 for the colonial outpost he would use as the seat for the French colony of New France. The province is sometimes referred to as La belle province, the Province of Quebec was founded in the Royal Proclamation of 1763 after the Treaty of Paris formally transferred the French colony of Canada to Britain after the Seven Years War. The proclamation restricted the province to an area along the banks of the Saint Lawrence River, the Treaty of Versailles ceded territories south of the Great Lakes to the United States. After the Constitutional Act of 1791, the territory was divided between Lower Canada and Upper Canada, with each being granted an elected legislative assembly, in 1840, these become Canada East and Canada West after the British Parliament unified Upper and Lower Canada into the Province of Canada. This territory was redivided into the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario at Confederation in 1867, each became one of the first four provinces. In 1898, the Canadian Parliament passed the first Quebec Boundary Extension Act that expanded the provincial boundaries northward to include the lands of the aboriginal peoples. This was followed by the addition of the District of Ungava through the Quebec Boundaries Extension Act of 1912 that added the northernmost lands of the Inuit to create the modern Province of Quebec. In 1927, the border between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador was established by the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Located in the part of Canada, and part of Central Canada. Its topography is very different from one region to another due to the composition of the ground, the climate. The Saint Lawrence Lowland and the Canadian Shield are the two main regions, and are radically different
Quebec
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The arrival of Samuel de Champlain, the father of New France, on the site of Quebec City.
Quebec
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Flag
Quebec
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Michel's falls on Ashuapmushuan River in Saint-Félicien, Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean.
Quebec
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View of Jacques-Cartier River from Andante mountain.
57.
British Columbia
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British Columbia is the westernmost province of Canada, with a population of more than four million people located between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. British Columbia is also a component of the Pacific Northwest and the Cascadia bioregion, along with the U. S. states of Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Alaska. The first British settlement in the area was Fort Victoria, established in 1843, subsequently, on the mainland, the Colony of British Columbia was founded by Richard Clement Moody and the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, in response to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. Port Moody is named after him, in 1866, Vancouver Island became part of the colony of British Columbia, and Victoria became the united colonys capital. In 1871, British Columbia became the province of Canada. Its Latin motto is Splendor sine occasu, the capital of British Columbia remains Victoria, the fifteenth-largest metropolitan region in Canada, named for the Queen who created the original European colonies. The largest city is Vancouver, the third-largest metropolitan area in Canada, the largest in Western Canada, in October 2013, British Columbia had an estimated population of 4,606,371. British Columbia evolved from British possessions that were established in what is now British Columbia by 1871, First Nations, the original inhabitants of the land, have a history of at least 10,000 years in the area. Today there are few treaties and the question of Aboriginal Title, notably, the Tsilhqotin Nation has established Aboriginal title to a portion of their territory, as a result of the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision. BCs economy is diverse, with service producing industries accounting for the largest portion of the provinces GDP and it is the endpoint of transcontinental railways, and the site of major Pacific ports that enable international trade. Though less than 5% of its vast 944,735 km2 land is arable and its climate encourages outdoor recreation and tourism, though its economic mainstay has long been resource extraction, principally logging, farming, and mining. Vancouver, the provinces largest city and metropolitan area, also serves as the headquarters of many western-based natural resource companies and it also benefits from a strong housing market and a per capita income well above the national average. The Northern Interior region has a climate with very cold winters. The climate of Vancouver is by far the mildest winter climate of the major Canadian cities, the provinces name was chosen by Queen Victoria, when the Colony of British Columbia, i. e. the Mainland, became a British colony in 1858. The current southern border of British Columbia was established by the 1846 Oregon Treaty, British Columbias land area is 944,735 square kilometres. British Columbias rugged coastline stretches for more than 27,000 kilometres and it is the only province in Canada that borders the Pacific Ocean. British Columbias capital is Victoria, located at the tip of Vancouver Island. Only a narrow strip of the Island, from Campbell River to Victoria, is significantly populated, much of the western part of Vancouver Island and the rest of the coast is covered by thick, tall and sometimes impenetrable temperate rainforest
British Columbia
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Strait of Georgia, near Vancouver.
British Columbia
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Flag
British Columbia
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The Okanagan region has a climate suitable to vineyards.
British Columbia
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Mount Robson, Canadian Rockies, BC
58.
Boulder, Colorado
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Boulder is the home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Boulder County, and the 11th most populous municipality in the U. S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of 5,430 feet above sea level, the city is 25 miles northwest of Denver. The population of the City of Boulder was 97,385 people at the 2010 United States Census, while the population of the Boulder, furthermore, the city of Boulder frequently receives high rankings in art, health, well-being, quality of life, and education. The university officially opened on September 5,1877, Boulder adopted an anti-saloon ordinance in 1907. Statewide prohibition started in Colorado in 1916 and ended with the repeal of prohibition in 1933. As of the census of 2010, there were 97,385 people,41,302 households, the population density is 3,942.7 inhabitants per square mile. There were 43,479 housing units at a density of 1,760.3 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 88. 0% White,0. 9% Black or African American,0. 4% Native American,4. 7% Asian,0. 1% Pacific Islander,3. 2% some other race, and 2. 6% from two or more races. 8. 7% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race,35. 8% of all households were made up of individuals, and 7. 1% were someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.16, and the family size was 2.84. Boulders population is younger than the average, largely due to the presence of university students. The median age at the 2010 census was 28.7 years compared to the U. S. median of 37.2 years. In Boulder,13. 9% of the residents were younger than the age of 18,29. 1% from 18 to 24,27. 6% from 25 to 44,20. 3% from 45 to 64, for every 100 females there were 105.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and older, there were 106.2 males, in 2011 the estimated median household income in Boulder was $57,112, and the median family income was $113,681. Male full-time workers had an income of $71,993 versus $47,574 for females. The per capita income for the city was $37,600,24. 8% of the population and 7. 6% of families were below the poverty line. Out of the population,17. 4% of those under the age of 18 and 6. 0% of those 65. Boulder housing tends to be priced higher than surrounding areas, for the 2nd quarter of 2006, the median single-family home in Boulder sold for $548,000 and the median attached dwelling sold for $262,000
Boulder, Colorado
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View of Boulder from Bear Peak
Boulder, Colorado
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Panorama print of Boulder, 1900
Boulder, Colorado
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Boulder's iconic rock formations, the Flatirons
Boulder, Colorado
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Autumn in Boulder brings many sunny days
59.
Xcel Energy
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It consists of four operating subsidiaries, Northern States Power-Minnesota, Northern States Power-Wisconsin, Public Service Company of Colorado, and Southwestern Public Service Co. Ben Fowke is the Chairman, CEO, and President, Xcel Energy was built on three companies, Minneapolis-based Northern States Power Company, Denver-based Public Service Company of Colorado, and Amarillo-based Southwestern Public Service. The financial strain of creating this new enterprise soon overwhelmed him and he sold the franchise to W. H. Gillenwater and he later sold the company to an investment firm in Cleveland, Ohio, which already owned the Roswell Gas Co. Northern States Power Companys timeline begins with the organization of the Washington County Light & Power Co. in 1909, while the bulk of NSPs territory grew across central and southern Minnesota, it acquired territory in North Dakota and extended southwest into South Dakota. NSPs system also extended east into Wisconsin, but because of utility ownership laws in that state, Public Service Company of Colorado was formed in 1923 to provide an electric generating station for the Denver area. By 1924, it had acquired most of the companies in northern. Originally a subsidiary of Cities Service Company, it became an independent autonomous operation in November 1943, by this time, it served 80 percent of Colorado’s gas and electricity needs. As demand for energy continued to grow, so did PSCo, eventually, the company merged with SPS to form New Century Energies in 1995. After the failed Primergy merger, NSP merged with New Century Energies to form Xcel Energy, in 2005, Xcel sold Cheyenne Light, Fuel and Power to Black Hills Corporation. Cheyenne Light, Fuel and Power had been a subsidiary of PSCo since the 1920s, the Cabin Creek Fire occurred on October 2,2007 at Xcel Energy’s Hydropower Generation plant in Georgetown, Colorado. On June 1,2011, Federal prosecutors opened their charges that Xcel Energy was criminally liable for the deaths of the five RPI workers, on June 28, the jury found Xcel Energy not guilty. On December 19,2011, RPI Coating pleaded guilty to workplace safety violations, the company took responsibility for the deaths of five workers and the injuries to three. Xcel Energy currently has 13 coal plants with a capacity of 7,697 MW, seven of those plants are operated in Colorado. Xcel Energy owns and operates three wind farms, in October 2011, Xcel Energy set a world record for electricity from wind power. Xcel Energy generates over 500 megawatts of power from 27 plants in Wisconsin, Minnesota. This accounts for four percent of their electricity generation. They also purchase large amounts of hydro-generated electricity from Manitoba Hydro, biomass electricity comes from organic fuel sources. Xcel Energy has contracts for about 110 megawatts of electricity from biomass generators, two in northern Minnesota are fueled by forest harvest residue, such as treetops and limbs
Xcel Energy
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Xcel Energy Inc.
Xcel Energy
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The Bay Front Power Plant in Wisconsin.
60.
Greenhouse gas emissions
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A greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in Earths atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, without greenhouse gases, the average temperature of Earths surface would be about −18 °C, rather than the present average of 15 °C. In the Solar System, the atmospheres of Venus, Mars, human activities since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution have produced a 40% increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, from 280 ppm in 1750 to 400 ppm in 2015. This increase has occurred despite the uptake of a portion of the emissions by various natural sinks involved in the carbon cycle. Anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions come from combustion of fuels, principally coal, oil. Greenhouse gases are those that absorb and emit infrared radiation in the range emitted by Earth. The proportion of an emission remaining in the atmosphere after a time is the airborne fraction. The annual airborne fraction is the ratio of the increase in a given year to that years total emissions. Over the last 50 years the annual airborne fraction for CO2 has been increasing at 0.25 ±0. 21%/year, therefore, they do not contribute significantly to the greenhouse effect and usually are omitted when discussing greenhouse gases. Some gases have indirect radiative effects and this happens in two main ways. One way is that when they break down in the atmosphere they produce another greenhouse gas, for example, methane and carbon monoxide are oxidized to give carbon dioxide. Oxidation of CO to CO2 directly produces an increase in radiative forcing although the reason is subtle. The peak of the thermal IR emission from Earths surface is close to a strong vibrational absorption band of CO2. On the other hand, the single CO vibrational band only absorbs IR at much higher frequencies, where the ~300 K thermal emission of the surface is at least a factor of ten lower. Oxidation of methane to CO2, which requires reactions with the OH radical, produces a reduction, since CO2 is a weaker greenhouse gas than methane. As described below this is not the story, since the oxidations of CO. In any case, the calculation of the radiative effect needs to include both the direct and indirect forcing
Greenhouse gas emissions
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The false colors in this image represent concentrations of carbon monoxide in the lower atmosphere, ranging from about 390 parts per billion (dark brown pixels), to 220 parts per billion (red pixels), to 50 parts per billion (blue pixels).
Greenhouse gas emissions
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Greenhouse effect schematic showing energy flows between space, the atmosphere, and Earth's surface. Energy influx and emittance are expressed in watts per square meter (W/m 2).
61.
San Francisco Bay Area
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The San Francisco Bay Area is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses the cities and metropolitan areas of San Jose, San Francisco. The Bay Areas nine counties are Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma. The combined statistical area of the region is the second-largest in California, the fifth-largest in the United States, the Bay Area has the second-most Fortune 500 Companies in the United States, and is known for its natural beauty, liberal politics, entrepreneurship, and diversity. The eastern side of the bay, consisting of Alameda and Contra Costa counties, is known locally as the East Bay, the inner East Bay is more densely populated, with generally older buildings, and a more ethnically diverse population. The word Lamorinda was coined by combining the names of the cities it includes, Lafayette, Moraga, walnut Creek is situated east of Lamorinda and north of the San Ramon Valley and, together with Concord, Martinez, and Pleasant Hill comprises Central Contra Costa County. The cities of Antioch, Pittsburg, Brentwood, Oakley and the areas surrounding them comprise East Contra Costa County. The Tri-Valley consists of the Amador, the Livermore, and the San Ramon Valleys, dublin and Pleasanton comprise the Amador Valley, Livermore lies in the Livermore Valley, and the San Ramon Valley consists of Alamo, Danville, Diablo and its namesake, San Ramon. The outer East Bay is connected to the inner East Bay by BART, Interstate 580 to the south, and State Routes State Route 4 to the north, the outer East Bays infrastructure was mostly built up after World War II. This area remains largely white demographically, although the Hispanic and Filipino populations have grown significantly over the past 2–3 decades, the region north of the Golden Gate Bridge is known locally as the North Bay. This area encompasses Marin County, Sonoma County, Napa County, the city of Fairfield, being part of Solano County, is often considered the easternmost city of the North Bay. With few exceptions, this region is affluent, Marin County is ranked as the wealthiest in the state. The North Bay is relatively rural compared to the remainder of the Bay Area, with areas of undeveloped open space, farmland. Santa Rosa in Sonoma County is the North Bays largest city, with a population of 167,815 and a Metropolitan Statistical Area population of 466,891, making it the fifth-largest city in the Bay Area. The North Bay is the section of the Bay Area that is not currently served by a commuter rail service. The area from San Francisco to the Silicon Valley, geographically part of the San Francisco Peninsula, is known locally as The Peninsula, many of these families are of foreign background and have significantly contributed to the diversity of the area. Whereas the term peninsula technically refers to the entire geographical San Franciscan Peninsula, in local terms, San Francisco is surrounded by water on three sides, the north, east, and west. The city squeezes roughly 870,000 people in under 47 square miles, on any given day, there can be as many as 1 million people in the city because of the commuting population and tourism
San Francisco Bay Area
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San Francisco
San Francisco Bay Area
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San Jose
San Francisco Bay Area
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Oakland
San Francisco Bay Area
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A view of the San Francisco skyline from the bay.
62.
Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006
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AB32 was authored by then-Assembly member Fran Pavley and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on September 27,2006. On June 1,2005, Governor Schwarzenegger signed an order known as Executive Order S-3-05 which established greenhouse gas emissions targets for the state. The executive order required the state to reduce its gas emissions levels to 2000 levels by 2010, to 1990 levels by 2020. However, to implement this measure, the California Air Resources Board needed authority from the legislature, the California State Legislature passed the Global Warming Solutions Act to address this issue and gave the CARB authority to implement the program. The bill also allows the Governor to suspend the emissions caps for up to a year in case of emergency or significant economic harm. The State of California leads the nation in energy efficiency standards and plays a role in environmental protection. Greenhouse gas emissions are defined in the bill to include all of the following, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride and these are the same greenhouse gases listed in Annex A of the Kyoto Protocol. The scoping plan, approved by the ARB Board December 12,2008, the approved scoping plan indicates how these emission reductions will be achieved from significant greenhouse gas sources via regulations, market mechanisms and other actions. Identify the statewide level of gas emissions in 1990 to serve as the emissions limit to be achieved by 2020. Adopt a regulation requiring the reporting of greenhouse gas emissions. In December 2007, the Board adopted a regulation requiring the largest industrial sources to report, the reporting regulation serves as a solid foundation to determine greenhouse gas emissions and track future changes in emission levels. In 2011, the Board adopted the cap-and-trade regulation, the cap-and-trade program covers major sources of GHG emissions in the State such as refineries, power plants, industrial facilities, and transportation fuels. The cap-and-trade program includes an emissions cap that will decline over time. The State will distribute allowances, which are trad-able permits, equal to the emissions allowed under the cap, sources under the cap will need to surrender allowances and offsets equal to their emissions at the end of each compliance period. Identify and adopt regulations for discrete early actions that could be enforceable on or before January 1,2010, ARB will continue to work with the EJAC as AB32 is implemented. Appoint an Economic and Technology Advancement Advisory Committee to provide recommendations for technologies, research, after a year-long public process, the ETAAC submitted a report of their recommendations to the Board in February 2008. The ETAAC also reviewed and provided comments on the scoping plan, AB32 stipulates the following timeline, In late-January 2014, ARB plans to release the draft proposed Scoping Plan Update and Environmental Assessment. In February 2014, ARB will have a Board meeting discussion that will include additional opportunities for stakeholder feedback, in Spring 2014, ARB will hold a Board Hearing to consider the Final Scoping Plan Update and Environmental Assessment
Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006
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Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006
63.
Mirant Corporation
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GenOn Energy Holdings, formerly Mirant Corporation, was a subsidiary of GenOn Energy, and is now a part of NRG Energy. The company was spun off from its parent, Southern Company. The company was merged into GenOn Energy on 3 December 2010, the company then became part of NRG Energy in December 2012. On the domestic front the company forged a joint venture in 1999 with Houston-based Vastar Energy to create Southern Company Energy Marketing and that same year the company also acquired power generation facilities in New England, New York, California. That same year SEI was renamed Southern Energy, in keeping with the theme of the products and markets that it pursued. The Mirant bankruptcy proceedings were unusual in that the agreed to the appointment of a committee of equity holders. But the judge did find it sufficiently likely in Mirant that there would be equity interest after re-organization to create such a committee, in January 2006, Mirant emerged from bankruptcy and the company was relisted to the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MIR. The equity holders from the pre-bankruptcy Mirant did retain a portion of the equity of the re-organized entity, in 2007, Mirant sold some gas-fired generating plants and its overseas power plants in the Philippines and in the Caribbean. On Sunday, April 11,2010 Mirant announced it was merging with RRI Energy, the merger, which was completed on December 3,2010, resulted in a company known as GenOn Energy. Efforts include providing artificial nesting structures and planting trees, shrubs. Major pollutants indicated by the study include sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, during the protest, six people were arrested for trespassing on private property. The protestors called on the owner, the Mirant Corporation, to stop opposing state. Under the terms of bankruptcy, Mirant held payment in excess of $180 million due this last several years while a settlement could be reached and this case, which has caused local residents to themselves file bankruptcy, cost the average taxpayer over $2000 in increased property taxes. Following proceedings in court, a settlement was reached between Mirant and the towns in December 2006, with taxes based on lower assessed values of the two power plants. Local 369 of the Utility Workers Union of America recently succeeded in enforcing an arbitration award in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the court determined that Mirant did not have just cause to discharge two workers for viewing pornographic materials on a computer. Federal Judge Douglas P. Woodlock denied Mirant’s motion to vacate the award, Mirant website Mirant RRI merger website
Mirant Corporation
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Mirant's Morgantown Generating Station and the Governor Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge
Mirant Corporation
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Unit 3 of Mirant's Potrero Generating Station in San Francisco.
64.
Washington (state)
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It was admitted to the Union as the 42nd state in 1889. Washington is sometimes referred to as Washington State or the State of Washington to distinguish it from Washington, Washington is the 18th largest state with an area of 71,362 square miles, and the 13th most populous state with over 7 million people. Washington is the second most populous state on the West Coast and in the Western United States, Mount Rainier, an active stratovolcano, is the states highest elevation at almost 14,411 feet and is the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States. Washington is a leading lumber producer and its rugged surface is rich in stands of Douglas fir, hemlock, ponderosa pine, white pine, spruce, larch, and cedar. Manufacturing industries in Washington include aircraft and missiles, shipbuilding and other equipment, lumber, food processing, metals and metal products, chemicals. Washington has over 1,000 dams, including the Grand Coulee Dam, built for a variety of purposes including irrigation, power, flood control, Washington was named after President George Washington by an act of the United States Congress during the creation of Washington Territory in 1853. Washington is the only U. S. state named after a president, confusion over the state of Washington and the city of Washington, D. C. led to renaming proposals during the statehood process for Washington in 1889, which failed to garner support. Washington, D. C. s own statehood movement in the 21st century includes a proposal to use the name State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, which would conflict with the current state of Washington. To distinguish it from the capital, Washington is sometimes referred to as Washington state, or, in more formal contexts. Residents of Washington and the Pacific Northwest simply refer to the state as Washington, Washington is the northwestern-most state of the contiguous United States. Washington is bordered by Oregon to the south, with the Columbia River forming the western part, to the west of Washington lies the Pacific Ocean. The high mountains of the Cascade Range run north-south, bisecting the state, from the Cascade Mountains westward, Western Washington has a mostly marine west coast climate, with mild temperatures and wet winters, autumns and springs, and relatively dry summers. The Cascade Range contains several volcanoes, which reach altitudes significantly higher than the rest of the mountains, from the north to the south, these major volcanoes are Mount Baker, Glacier Peak, Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, and Mount Adams. Mount Rainier, the tallest mountain in the state, is 50 miles south of the city of Seattle and it is also covered with more glacial ice than any other peak in the contiguous 48 states. Western Washington also is home of the Olympic Mountains, far west on the Olympic Peninsula and these deep forests, such as the Hoh Rainforest, are among the only temperate rainforests in the continental United States. Eastern Washington – the part of the state east of the Cascades – has a dry climate. It includes large areas of steppe and a few truly arid deserts lying in the rain shadow of the Cascades. Farther east, the climate becomes less arid, with annual rainfall increasing as one goes east to 21.2 inches in Pullman, the Okanogan Highlands and the rugged Kettle River Range and Selkirk Mountains cover much of the northeastern quadrant of the state
Washington (state)
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South Eastern Washington
Washington (state)
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Flag
Washington (state)
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The Pacific Coast of Westport, Washington
Washington (state)
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Cascade Pass in the North Cascades National Park
65.
Earned income tax credit
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The United States federal earned income tax credit or earned income credit is a refundable tax credit for low- to moderate-income working individuals and couples, particularly those with children. The amount of EITC benefit depends on an income and number of children. For a person or couple to claim one or more persons as their child, requirements such as relationship, age. In the 2013 tax year, working families, if they have children, childless workers that have incomes below about $14,340 can receive a very small EITC benefit. U. S. tax forms 1040EZ, 1040A, or 1040 can be used to claim EITC without qualifying children, to claim the credit with qualifying children, forms 1040A or 1040 must be used along with Schedule EITC attached. EIC phases in slowly, has a plateau, and then phases out more slowly than it was phased in. Since the credit phases out at 21% or 16%, it is preferable to have one more dollar of actual salary or wages considering the EITC alone. For tax year 2013, the maximum EITC benefit for a person or couple filing without qualifying children is $487. The maximum EITC with one qualifying child is $3,250 and these amounts are indexed annually for inflation. On December 4,2014, The Atlantic reported that the EITC will reduce revenue to the government by about $70 billion in 2015. The earned income tax credit has been part of debates in the United States regarding whether raising the minimum wage or increasing EITC is a better idea. Today, the EITC is one of the largest anti-poverty tools in the United States, most income measures, including the poverty rate, do not account for the credit. A qualifying child can be a daughter, son, stepchild, or any further descendant or a persons brother, sister, half sister, half brother, stepbrother, stepsister. A qualifying child can also be in the process of being adopted provided he or she has been lawfully placed, foster children also count provided either the child has been officially placed or is a member of one’s extended family. A younger single parent cannot claim EIC if he or she is also claimable as a child of their parent or another older relative. This restriction does not apply to a couple who is claiming EIC with a child. A person claiming EIC must be older than his or her child unless the “child” is classified as permanently and totally disabled for the tax year. A qualifying “child” can be up to and including age 18, a qualifying “child” who is a full-time student can be up to and including age 23
Earned income tax credit
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Under traditional welfare, a dollar-for-dollar decrease of benefits corresponded to an increase in earnings. Standard indifference curve analysis shows that this creates a "spiked" budget constraint of OABC, making it very likely that an individual's utility maximizing bundle includes no work.
Earned income tax credit
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The EITC, in contrast to traditional welfare, creates a "smoother" budget constraint of OABCD, making it theoretically much more likely that an individual's utility-maximizing bundle will include some hours of work.
66.
Greg Mankiw
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Nicholas Gregory Mankiw is an American macroeconomist and the Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Mankiw is best known in academia for his work on New Keynesian economics, Mankiw has written widely on economics and economic policy. He was the 11th most cited economist and the 9th most productive research economist as measured by the h-index, Mankiw is a conservative and has been an economic adviser to several Republican politicians. From 2003 to 2005, Mankiw was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush, in 2006, he became an economic adviser to Mitt Romney, and he worked with Romney during the presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012. Mankiw was born in Trenton, New Jersey, in his youth, he attended the Pingry School. In 1975, he studied astronomy at the Summer Science Program and he graduated from Princeton University summa cum laude in 1980 with a Bachelor of Arts in economics. At Princeton, Mankiw was classmates with economist David Romer, who would become a coauthor of his. After college, Mankiw spent a year working on his Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and he worked as a staff economist for the Council of Economic Advisers from 1982–83, foreshadowing his later position as chairman of that organization. After leaving the Council, he earned his PhD in economics from MIT in 1984 under the supervision of Stanley Fischer and he was promoted to full professor in 1987 at the age of 29. Mankiw is widely considered a New Keynesian economist, although at least one financial journalist says he resists such easy categorisation, Mankiw did important work on menu costs, which are a source of price stickiness. The paper concluded that expansion in aggregate demand may either increase welfare or reduce it, a contraction in aggregate demand, however, reduces welfare, possibly in an amount much larger than the menu cost. Put another way, from a social point of view, prices may be stuck too high. In 2002, Mankiw and Ricardo Reis proposed an alternative to the widely used New Keynesian Phillips curve and their sticky-information model displays three related properties that are more consistent with accepted views about the effects of monetary policy. Second, monetary policy shocks have their maximum impact on inflation with a substantial delay, third, the change in inflation is positively correlated with the level of economic activity. Mankiw has written papers on the empirical analysis of consumer behavior. Mankiws most widely cited paper is A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth, coauthored with David Romer and David Weil and published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 1992. The paper argues that the Solow growth model, once augmented to include a role for human capital, according to Google Scholar, it has been cited more than 15,000 times, making it one of the most cited articles in the field of economics. Mankiw has also several notable papers outside of macroeconomics
Greg Mankiw
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Greg Mankiw
67.
Milton Friedman
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Friedmans challenges to what he later called naive Keynesian theory began with his 1950s reinterpretation of the consumption function. In the 1960s, he became the main advocate opposing Keynesian government policies and he theorized that there existed a natural rate of unemployment, and argued that employment above this rate would cause inflation to accelerate. He argued that the Phillips curve was, in the run, vertical at the natural rate. Friedman promoted an alternative macroeconomic viewpoint known as monetarism, and argued that a steady and his ideas concerning monetary policy, taxation, privatization and deregulation influenced government policies, especially during the 1980s. His monetary theory influenced the Federal Reserves response to the financial crisis of 2007–08. Friedman was an advisor to Republican U. S. President Ronald Reagan and his political philosophy extolled the virtues of a free market economic system with minimal intervention. He once stated that his role in eliminating U. S. conscription was his proudest accomplishment and his support for school choice led him to found the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, later renamed EdChoice. His books and essays have had influence, including in former communist states. Friedman was born in Brooklyn, New York on July 31,1912 and his parents, Sára Ethel and Jenő Saul Friedman, were Jewish immigrants from Beregszász in Carpathian Ruthenia, Kingdom of Hungary. They both worked as dry goods merchants, shortly after Miltons birth, the family relocated to Rahway, New Jersey. In his early teens, Friedman was injured in a car accident, a talented student, Friedman graduated from Rahway High School in 1928, just before his 16th birthday. In 1932, Friedman graduated from Rutgers University, where he specialized in mathematics and economics, during his time at Rutgers, Friedman became influenced by two economics professors, Arthur F. Burns and Homer Jones, who convinced him that modern economics could help end the Great Depression. After graduating from Rutgers, Friedman was offered two scholarships to do graduate work—one in mathematics at Brown University and the other in economics at the University of Chicago, Friedman chose the latter, thus earning a Master of Arts degree in 1933. He was strongly influenced by Jacob Viner, Frank Knight, and it was at Chicago that Friedman met his future wife, economist Rose Director. During the 1933–1934 academic year he had a fellowship at Columbia University and he was back in Chicago for the 1934–1935 academic year, working as a research assistant for Henry Schultz, who was then working on Theory and Measurement of Demand. That year, Friedman formed what would prove to be lifelong friendships with George Stigler, foreshadowing his later ideas, he believed price controls interfered with an essential signaling mechanism to help resources be used where they were most valued. During 1935, he work for the National Resources Committee. Ideas from this later became a part of his Theory of the Consumption Function
Milton Friedman
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Friedman in 2004
Milton Friedman
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University of Chicago
68.
Federal Reserve
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The Federal Reserve System is the central banking system of the United States. Over the years, events such as the Great Depression in the 1930s, the U. S. Congress established three key objectives for monetary policy in the Federal Reserve Act, maximizing employment, stabilizing prices, and moderating long-term interest rates. The first two objectives are sometimes referred to as the Federal Reserves dual mandate. S, the Fed conducts research into the economy and releases numerous publications, such as the Beige Book. S. member banks, and various advisory councils. The federal government sets the salaries of the seven governors. Nationally chartered commercial banks are required to hold stock in the Federal Reserve Bank of their region, thus, the Federal Reserve System has both private and public components to serve the interests of the public and private banks. The structure is considered unique among central banks and it is also unusual in that the United States Department of the Treasury, an entity outside of the central bank, prints the currency used. The U. S. Government receives all the annual profits, after a statutory dividend of 6% on member banks capital investment is paid. In 2015, the Federal Reserve made a profit of $100.2 billion, the primary motivation for creating the Federal Reserve System was to address banking panics. Before the founding of the Federal Reserve System, the United States underwent several financial crises, a particularly severe crisis in 1907 led Congress to enact the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. Today the Federal Reserve System has responsibilities in addition to ensuring the stability of the financial system. S. S and this practice is called fractional-reserve banking. As a result, banks usually invest the majority of the funds received from depositors, on rare occasions, too many of the banks customers will withdraw their savings and the bank will need help from another institution to continue operating, this is called a bank run. Bank runs can lead to a multitude of social and economic problems, the Federal Reserve System was designed as an attempt to prevent or minimize the occurrence of bank runs, and possibly act as a lender of last resort when a bank run does occur. Many economists, following Milton Friedman, believe that the Federal Reserve inappropriately refused to lend money to banks during the bank runs of 1929. Because some banks refused to clear checks from certain others during times of economic uncertainty, to address these problems, Congress gave the Federal Reserve System the authority to establish a nationwide check-clearing system. It took over this role from the private sector clearing houses which operated during the Free Banking Era, whether public or private, through its discount window and credit operations, Reserve Banks provide liquidity to banks to meet short-term needs stemming from seasonal fluctuations in deposits or unexpected withdrawals. Longer term liquidity may also be provided in exceptional circumstances, the rate the Fed charges banks for these loans is called the discount rate. By making these loans, the Fed serves as a buffer against unexpected day-to-day fluctuations in reserve demand and this contributes to the effective functioning of the banking system, alleviates pressure in the reserves market and reduces the extent of unexpected movements in the interest rates. For example, on September 16,2008, the Federal Reserve Board authorized an $85 billion loan to stave off the bankruptcy of international insurance giant American International Group
Federal Reserve
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Public finance
Federal Reserve
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Seal of the Federal Reserve System
Federal Reserve
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The Eccles Building in Washington, D.C., which serves as the Federal Reserve System's headquarters.
Federal Reserve
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Obverse of a Federal Reserve $1 note issued in 2009.
69.
Paul Volcker
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Paul Adolph Volcker Jr. is an American economist. He was Chairman of the Federal Reserve under Presidents Jimmy Carter and he is widely credited with ending the high levels of inflation seen in the United States during the 1970s and early 1980s. He was the chairman of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board under President Barack Obama from February 2009 until January 2011, Volcker was born in Cape May, New Jersey, the son of Alma Louise and Paul Adolph Volcker. All of his grandparents were German immigrants, Volcker grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey, where his father was the townships first municipal manager. As a child, he attended his mothers Lutheran church, while his father went to an Episcopal church, Volcker graduated from Teaneck High School in 1945. Volckers undergraduate education was at Princeton University, he graduated in 1949, in 1952 he joined the staff of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as a full-time economist. He left that position in 1957 to become a financial economist with the Chase Manhattan Bank, in 1962, Robert Roosa, who had been his mentor at the Federal Reserve, hired him at the Treasury Department as director of financial analysis. In 1963, he became deputy under-secretary for monetary affairs and he returned to Chase Manhattan Bank as vice president and director of planning in 1965. From 1969 to 1974, Volcker served as under-secretary of the Treasury for international monetary affairs and he played an important role in President Nixons decision leading to the suspension of gold convertibility on August 15,1971, which resulted in the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. Volcker considers the suspension of gold convertibility the single most important event of his career, in general he acted as a moderating influence on policy, advocating the pursuit of an international solution to monetary problems. After leaving the U. S. Treasury, he became president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 1975 to 1979, in 1975, Volcker also became a senior fellow in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. President Ronald Reagan renominated Volcker to a term in 1983. Inflation emerged as an economic and political challenge in the United States during the 1970s, the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve board, led by Volcker, were widely credited with curbing the rate of inflation and expectations that inflation would continue. US inflation, which peaked at 14.8 percent in March 1980, the Federal Reserve board led by Volcker raised the federal funds rate, which had averaged 11. 2% in 1979, to a peak of 20% in June 1981. The prime rate rose to 21. 5% in 1981 as well, US monetary policy eased in 1982, helping lead to a resumption of economic growth. The combination of growing federal debt and high interest rates led to a rise in federal net interest costs. The sharp rise of interest costs and large deficits led Congress to take steps towards fiscal constraint. Of the three, I had the most interaction with Volcker and he was more personable and smarter than the others, including the more recent board chairmen Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke
Paul Volcker
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Paul Volcker
70.
James E. Hansen
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James Edward Hansen is an American adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. However, even then he wrote the future balance of forcings is likely to shift toward dominance of CO2 over aerosols Hansen was born in Denison, Iowa to James Ivan Hansen and Gladys Ray Hansen. He was trained in physics and astronomy in the science program of James Van Allen at the University of Iowa. He obtained a B. A. in Physics and Mathematics with highest distinction in 1963, an M. S. in Astronomy in 1965, Hansen then began work at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in 1967. After graduate school, Hansen continued his work with radiative transfer models, later he applied and refined these models to understand the Earths atmosphere, in particular, the effects that aerosols and trace gases have on Earths climate. Hansens development and use of climate models has contributed to the further understanding of the Earths climate. In 2009 his first book, Storms of My Grandchildren, was published, in 2012 he presented a 2012 TED Talk, Why I must speak out about climate change. From 1981 to 2013, he was the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, as of 2014, Hansen directs the Program on Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions at Columbia Universitys Earth Institute. The program is working to continue to connect the dots from advancing basic science to promoting public awareness to advocating policy actions. As a college student at the University of Iowa, Hansen was attracted to science, a decade later, his focus shifted to planetary research that involved trying to understand the climate change on earth that will result from anthropogenic changes of the atmospheric composition. Because of the ability of satellites to monitor the entire globe, they may be one of the most effective ways to monitor and his other interests include the development of global circulation models to help understand the observed climate trends, and diagnosing human impacts on climate. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, following his Ph. D. dissertation, Venus has a high brightness temperature in the radio frequencies compared to the infrared. Hansen proposed that the hot surface was the result of aerosols trapping the internal energy of the planet, Hansen continued his study of Venus by looking at the composition of its clouds. He looked at the near-infrared reflectivity of ice clouds, compared them to observations of Venus and he also was able to use a radiative transfer model to establish an upper limit to the size of the ice particles if the clouds were actually made of ice. Evidence published in the early 1980s showed that the clouds consist mainly of sulfur dioxide, by 1974, the composition of Venus clouds had not yet been determined, with many scientists proposing a wide variety of compounds, including liquid water and aqueous solutions of ferrous chloride. Kiyoshi Kawabata and Hansen expanded upon this work by looking at the variation of polarization on Venus and they found that the visible clouds are a diffuse haze rather than a thick cloud, confirming the same results obtained from transits across the sun. The Pioneer Venus project was launched in May 1978 and reached Venus late that same year, Hansen collaborated with Larry Travis and other colleagues in a 1979 Science article that reported on the development and variability of clouds in the ultraviolet spectrum. The linear polarization data obtained from the same mission confirmed that the low-, above the cloud layer was a layer of submicrometre haze
James E. Hansen
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James Hansen
James E. Hansen
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Venus is surrounded by a thick atmosphere composed mainly of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, and its clouds are sulfuric acid. The thickness of the atmosphere initially made it difficult to determine why the surface was so hot.
James E. Hansen
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A typical automated airport weather station which records the routine hourly weather observations of temperature, weather type, wind, sky condition, and visibility. These surface stations are located around the world, and are used to derive a global temperature.
James E. Hansen
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The incomplete combustion of biomass during the Yellowstone fires of 1988 near the Snake River introduced a large quantity of black carbon particles into the atmosphere.
71.
Citizens Climate Lobby
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Operating since 2007, the goal of CCL is to build political support across party lines to put a price on carbon, specifically a revenue neutral carbon fee and dividend at the national level. CCL is supported by climate scientists James Hansen, Katharine Hayhoe. CCLs advisory board also includes former Secretary of State George Shultz, former US Representative Bob Inglis, actor Don Cheadle, the Citizens Climate Lobby is a non-partisan organization with members throughout the United States, Canada and other countries, which advocates for effective climate legislation. Its key purposes are listed as creating a political will for a sustainable climate, in the US, using a market-based approach by putting a price on carbon is gaining support from both Republicans and Democrats. CCL believes that a neutral carbon fee and dividend is a bipartisian solution that would effectively address carbon emissions. The Citizens Climate lobby originated in the United States in 2007 after founder Marshall Saunders recognized the need for progressive climate legislation, Saunders, a successful businessman turned philanthropist, internationally recognized for his work in micro-credit, became increasingly concerned about climate change. With ever-rising energy production and increased use Saunders believed effective legislation was necessary to cut carbon emissions, Saunders coordinated his efforts to establish Citizens Climate Lobby with RESULTS, an organization committed to helping volunteer organizations seeking legislative changes to become more effective. Groups of volunteers organized by electoral districts could work through local media and elected officials to build public support, the Citizens Climate Lobby held its first annual conference in 2009 in Washington D. C. bringing together representatives from around the United States as well as several Canadians. These Canadians subsequently led the establishment of the organization within Canada in 2011, with the first chapter emerging in Sudbury, since the initial development of Citizens Climate Lobby, the group has rapidly grown and spread, from 3 local groups in 2007 to 327 groups in May 2016. These activities support the goals of the organization and contribute to progress toward effective carbon pricing legislation. Citizens Climate Lobby proposes national legislation that would reduce US greenhouse gas emissions by placing a fee on carbon dioxide or equivalent gases, the fee would be levied against all fossil fuels at their point of entry into the economy. The revenue that would be collected would be 100% returned as a monthly or annual payment to every American household and this would protect low and middle class Americans from the rising consumer costs associated with the carbon fee. This idea is known as a fee and dividend. CCLs proposal would start the fee at US$15 per ton of CO2 equivalent, the fee would continue to rise until total US CO2 equivalent emissions have been reduced to 10% of US CO2 equivalent emissions in 1990. To protect US businesses from competition from countries that do not have carbon pricing mechanisms. Similar to the Montreal Protocol, goods coming from countries without a carbon price would be subjected to a fee at the border, goods leaving the US for sale in a country without a carbon price would be reimbursed that fee at the border. In addition, all existing subsidies of fossil fuels, including tax credits, on September 1,2016 California State Legislature passed a measure that urges the United States Congress to enact a tax on carbon-based fossil fuels. The proposal is revenue-neutral, with all money collected going to the bottom 2/3 of American households, so while the resolution is framed as a tax, it is in fact a carbon fee and dividend scheme
Citizens Climate Lobby
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Citizens Climate Lobby
72.
Bob Inglis
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Robert Durden Bob Inglis, Sr. is an American politician who was the U. S. Representative for South Carolinas 4th congressional district from 1993 to 1999 and he is a member of the Republican Party. Inglis was unseated in the Republican primary runoff in 2010, in 2012, Inglis launched the Energy and Enterprise Initiative, a nationwide public engagement campaign promoting conservative and free-enterprise solutions to energy and climate challenges. Inglis was born in Savannah, Georgia, the son of Helen Louise and Allick Wyllie Inglis and his ancestry is Scottish and English. He grew up in Bluffton, South Carolina, near Hilton Head Island and he earned his undergraduate degree from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He obtained his Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law in Charlottesville, upon his graduation from law school, he worked for a number of years as a lawyer in private practice, and served on the executive committee of the Greenville County Republican Party. In 2015, he signed an amicus brief calling for the recognition of same-sex marriage,1992 Inglis made his first run for elected office when he won the Republican nomination for the 4th District. Although the 4th District had been trending Republican for some time, Patterson had deep ties in the district as the daughter of the late. Senator Olin D. Johnston, and she had won her first three terms under unfriendly conditions for Democrats. 1994–1996 Proving just how Republican this district had become, Inglis was re-elected in 1994 and 1996 with no substantive opposition,1998 Inglis had promised during his initial bid for the seat to serve only three terms. Accordingly, he vacated the seat in 1998 to run for the Senate against Democratic incumbent Ernest Hollings, Inglis gave Hollings his second close race in a row, holding the longtime Senator to 53 percent of the vote. After losing the race, Inglis returned to work as a lawyer and he was succeeded in the House by Jim DeMint, who had been an informal adviser to Inglis. 2004 In 2004, DeMint opted to run for Hollingss open Senate seat instead of seeking re-election to the House, Inglis chose to take his old House seat back. He easily won a three-way Republican primary with 85 percent of the vote, all and he was re-elected with little difficulty in 2006 and 2008. 2010 Inglis faced four challengers in the Republican primary—the real contest in this heavily Republican district and it was the first time he faced substantive primary opposition as an incumbent. The challengers included 7th Circuit Solicitor Trey Gowdy, state Senator David Thomas, college professor and former Historian of the U. S. House Christina Jeffrey, and businessman Jim Lee. In the June 8,2010, primary election, Inglis finished second with 27 percent of the vote and he was forced into a June 22 run-off election against Gowdy. Inglis had attacked Gowdys conservatism and questioned his opponents support for creating a lake in Union County
Bob Inglis
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Bob Inglis
73.
UNFCCC
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The UNFCCC objective is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. The framework set no binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions for individual countries, instead, the framework outlines how specific international treaties may be negotiated to set binding limits on greenhouse gases. Initially an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee produced the text of the Framework Convention during its meeting in New York from 30 April to 9 May 1992, the UNFCCC was adopted on 9 May 1992, and opened for signature on 4 June 1992. UNFCCC has 197 parties as of December 2015, the convention enjoys broad legitimacy, largely due to its nearly universal membership. The parties to the convention have met annually from 1995 in Conferences of the Parties to assess progress in dealing with climate change, in 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was concluded and established legally binding obligations for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the period 2008-2012. The 2010 Cancún agreements state that global warming should be limited to below 2.0 °C relative to the pre-industrial level. The Protocol was amended in 2012 to encompass the period 2013-2020 in the Doha Amendment, in 2015 the Paris Agreement was adopted, governing emission reductions from 2020 on through commitments of countries in ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions. Updated inventories must be submitted by Annex I countries. The UNFCCC is also the name of the United Nations Secretariat charged with supporting the operation of the Convention, with offices in Haus Carstanjen, from 2010 to 2016 the head of the secretariat was Christiana Figueres. In July 2016, Patricia Espinosa from Mexico succeeded Figueres, the Secretariat, augmented through the parallel efforts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, aims to gain consensus through meetings and the discussion of various strategies. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was opened for signature at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. Under Article 4, all Parties make general commitments to address climate change through, for example, climate change mitigation, the Framework Convention specifies the aim of developed Parties stabilizing their greenhouse gas emissions at 1990 levels, by the year 2000. After the signing of the UNFCCC treaty, Parties to the UNFCCC have met at conferences to discuss how to achieve the treatys aims, the Kyoto Protocol sets emissions targets for developed countries which are binding under international law. The Kyoto Protocol has had two commitment periods, the first of which lasted from 2008-2012, the second one runs from 2013-2020 and is based on the Doha Amendment to the Protocol, which has not entered into force. The US has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, while Canada denounced it in 2012, the Kyoto Protocol has been ratified by all the other Annex I Parties. All Annex I Parties, excluding the US, have participated in the 1st Kyoto commitment period,37 Annex I countries and the EU have agreed to second-round Kyoto targets. These countries are Australia, all members of the European Union, Belarus, Croatia, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Norway, Switzerland, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have stated that they may withdraw from the Protocol or not put into legal force the Amendment with second round targets. Japan, New Zealand, and Russia have participated in Kyotos first-round but have not taken on new targets in the commitment period
UNFCCC
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Christiana Figueres (left) - Executive Secretary UNFCCC, and Noeleen Heyzer - ES of Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) at the Bangkok Climate Change Talks., August 2012
UNFCCC
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UNFCCC logo
74.
New York Times
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The New York Times is an American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18,1851, by The New York Times Company. The New York Times has won 119 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper, the papers print version in 2013 had the second-largest circulation, behind The Wall Street Journal, and the largest circulation among the metropolitan newspapers in the US. The New York Times is ranked 18th in the world by circulation, following industry trends, its weekday circulation had fallen in 2009 to fewer than one million. Nicknamed The Gray Lady, The New York Times has long been regarded within the industry as a newspaper of record. The New York Times international version, formerly the International Herald Tribune, is now called the New York Times International Edition, the papers motto, All the News Thats Fit to Print, appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page. On Sunday, The New York Times is supplemented by the Sunday Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine and T, some other early investors of the company were Edwin B. Morgan and Edward B. We do not believe that everything in Society is either right or exactly wrong, —what is good we desire to preserve and improve, —what is evil, to exterminate. In 1852, the started a western division, The Times of California that arrived whenever a mail boat got to California. However, when local California newspapers came into prominence, the effort failed, the newspaper shortened its name to The New-York Times in 1857. It dropped the hyphen in the city name in the 1890s, One of the earliest public controversies it was involved with was the Mortara Affair, the subject of twenty editorials it published alone. At Newspaper Row, across from City Hall, Henry Raymond, owner and editor of The New York Times, averted the rioters with Gatling guns, in 1869, Raymond died, and George Jones took over as publisher. Tweed offered The New York Times five million dollars to not publish the story, in the 1880s, The New York Times transitioned gradually from editorially supporting Republican Party candidates to becoming more politically independent and analytical. In 1884, the paper supported Democrat Grover Cleveland in his first presidential campaign, while this move cost The New York Times readership among its more progressive and Republican readers, the paper eventually regained most of its lost ground within a few years. However, the newspaper was financially crippled by the Panic of 1893, the paper slowly acquired a reputation for even-handedness and accurate modern reporting, especially by the 1890s under the guidance of Ochs. Under Ochs guidance, continuing and expanding upon the Henry Raymond tradition, The New York Times achieved international scope, circulation, in 1910, the first air delivery of The New York Times to Philadelphia began. The New York Times first trans-Atlantic delivery by air to London occurred in 1919 by dirigible, airplane Edition was sent by plane to Chicago so it could be in the hands of Republican convention delegates by evening. In the 1940s, the extended its breadth and reach. The crossword began appearing regularly in 1942, and the section in 1946
New York Times
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Cover of The New York Times (November 15, 2012), with the headline story reporting on Operation Pillar of Defense.
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The Times Square Building, The New York Times ' publishing headquarters, 1913–2007
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The New York Times newsroom, 1942
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A speech in the newsroom after announcement of Pulitzer Prize winners, 2009
75.
Washington state
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It was admitted to the Union as the 42nd state in 1889. Washington is sometimes referred to as Washington State or the State of Washington to distinguish it from Washington, Washington is the 18th largest state with an area of 71,362 square miles, and the 13th most populous state with over 7 million people. Washington is the second most populous state on the West Coast and in the Western United States, Mount Rainier, an active stratovolcano, is the states highest elevation at almost 14,411 feet and is the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States. Washington is a leading lumber producer and its rugged surface is rich in stands of Douglas fir, hemlock, ponderosa pine, white pine, spruce, larch, and cedar. Manufacturing industries in Washington include aircraft and missiles, shipbuilding and other equipment, lumber, food processing, metals and metal products, chemicals. Washington has over 1,000 dams, including the Grand Coulee Dam, built for a variety of purposes including irrigation, power, flood control, Washington was named after President George Washington by an act of the United States Congress during the creation of Washington Territory in 1853. Washington is the only U. S. state named after a president, confusion over the state of Washington and the city of Washington, D. C. led to renaming proposals during the statehood process for Washington in 1889, which failed to garner support. Washington, D. C. s own statehood movement in the 21st century includes a proposal to use the name State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, which would conflict with the current state of Washington. To distinguish it from the capital, Washington is sometimes referred to as Washington state, or, in more formal contexts. Residents of Washington and the Pacific Northwest simply refer to the state as Washington, Washington is the northwestern-most state of the contiguous United States. Washington is bordered by Oregon to the south, with the Columbia River forming the western part, to the west of Washington lies the Pacific Ocean. The high mountains of the Cascade Range run north-south, bisecting the state, from the Cascade Mountains westward, Western Washington has a mostly marine west coast climate, with mild temperatures and wet winters, autumns and springs, and relatively dry summers. The Cascade Range contains several volcanoes, which reach altitudes significantly higher than the rest of the mountains, from the north to the south, these major volcanoes are Mount Baker, Glacier Peak, Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, and Mount Adams. Mount Rainier, the tallest mountain in the state, is 50 miles south of the city of Seattle and it is also covered with more glacial ice than any other peak in the contiguous 48 states. Western Washington also is home of the Olympic Mountains, far west on the Olympic Peninsula and these deep forests, such as the Hoh Rainforest, are among the only temperate rainforests in the continental United States. Eastern Washington – the part of the state east of the Cascades – has a dry climate. It includes large areas of steppe and a few truly arid deserts lying in the rain shadow of the Cascades. Farther east, the climate becomes less arid, with annual rainfall increasing as one goes east to 21.2 inches in Pullman, the Okanogan Highlands and the rugged Kettle River Range and Selkirk Mountains cover much of the northeastern quadrant of the state
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South Eastern Washington
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Flag
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The Pacific Coast of Westport, Washington
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Cascade Pass in the North Cascades National Park
76.
Gary Becker
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Gary Stanley Becker was an American economist. He was a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago, a 2011 survey of economics professors named Becker their favorite living economist over the age of 60, followed by Ken Arrow and Robert Solow. He was known for arguing that many different types of behavior can be seen as rational. His approach included altruistic behavior of human behavior by defining individuals utility appropriately and he was also among the foremost exponents of the study of human capital. Becker was also credited with the rotten kid theorem, in 1965 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association. Becker was a partner of TGG Group, a business. Becker won the John Bates Clark Medal in 1967 and he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1972, and was a member of the Mont Pelerin Society. Becker also received the National Medal of Science in 2000, a political conservative, he wrote a monthly column for Business Week from 1985 to 2004, alternating with liberal Princeton economist Alan Blinder. In 1996 Becker was an adviser to Republican Presidential Candidate Robert Dole. In December 2004, Becker started a joint weblog with Judge Richard Posner entitled The Becker-Posner Blog. The Becker-Posner Blog. uchicagolaw, Beckers first wife was Doria Slote, from 1954 until her death in 1970. The marriage produced two daughters, Catherine Becker and Judy Becker, in 1980 Becker married Guity Nashat, a historian of the Middle East whose research interests overlapped his own. Becker had two stepsons, Cyrus Claffey and Michael Claffey, from his second marriage, Becker died in Chicago, Illinois, aged 83, on May 3,2014, after complications from surgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He was survived by his wife, two daughters, two stepsons, and four grandchildren. In 2014 he was honored in a three day conference organized at the University of Chicago, Becker received the Nobel Prize in 1992 for having extended the domain of microeconomic analysis to a wide range of human behaviour and interaction, including nonmarket behaviour. Discrimination as defined by Kenneth Arrow is the valuation in the place of personal characteristics of the worker that are unrelated to worker productivity. Personal characteristics can be physical features such as sex or race, or other such as a persons religion, caste. Becker often included a variable of taste for discrimination in explaining behavior and he believes that people often mentally increase the cost of a transaction if it is with a minority against which they discriminate. His theory held that competition decreases discrimination and his research found that when minorities are a very small percentage the cost of discrimination mainly falls on the minorities
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Gary Becker speaking in Chicago, May 24, 2008
77.
Chicago School of Economics
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In the context of macroeconomics, it is connected to the freshwater school of macroeconomics, in contrast to the saltwater school based in coastal universities. Chicago macroeconomic theory rejected Keynesianism in favor of monetarism until the mid-1970s, the freshwater-saltwater distinction is largely antiquated today, as the two traditions have heavily incorporated ideas from each other. Other economists affiliated with Chicago have made their impact in fields as diverse as social economics, thus, there is not a clear delineation of the Chicago school of economics, a term that is more commonly used in the popular media than in academic circles. They met together in frequent intense discussions that helped set a group outlook on economic issues, the 1950s saw the height of popularity of the Keynesian school of economics, so the members of the University of Chicago were considered outside the mainstream. Nonetheless, these scholars had an important influence on the thought of Milton Friedman and George Stigler, most notably in the development of price theory, however, their relationship to the modern macroeconomists, led by Robert Lucas, Jr. and Eugene Fama, is more blurred. A further significant branching of Chicago thought was dubbed by George Stigler as Chicago political economy and his work was originally focused in labor economics. His work partly inspired the popular economics book Freakonomics and he is considered one of the founding fathers of Chicago political economy. Ronald Coase was the most prominent economic analyst of law and the 1991 Nobel Prize-winner and his first major article, The Nature of the Firm, argued that the reason for the existence of firms is the existence of transaction costs. Rational individuals trade through bilateral contracts on open markets until the costs of transactions mean that using corporations to produce things is more cost-effective, only the existence of transaction costs may prevent this. So, the law ought to pre-empt what would happen, the idea is that law and regulation are not as important or effective at helping people as lawyers and government planners believe. Coase and others like him wanted a change of approach, to put the burden of proof for positive effects on a government that was intervening in the market, by analysing the costs of action. Eugene Fama is an American financial economist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2013 for his work on asset pricing and is the seventh most highly cited economist of all time. In his tract, Railroads and American Economic Growth, Essays in Econometric History, Milton Friedman stands as one of the most influential economists of the late twentieth century. A student of Frank Knight, he won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1976 for, among other things, Friedman argued that the Great Depression had been caused by the Federal Reserves policies through the 1920s, and worsened in the 1930s. Friedman argued that government policy is more desirable than government intervention in the economy. One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results, governments should aim for a neutral monetary policy oriented toward long-run economic growth, by gradual expansion of the money supply. He advocated the quantity theory of money, that general prices are determined by money, therefore, active monetary or fiscal policy can have unintended negative effects. The slogan that money matters has come to be associated with Friedman, lars Peter Hansen is an American economist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2013 with Eugene Fama and Robert Shiller for their work on asset pricing
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Richard Posner ran a blog with Gary Becker.
78.
Rex Tillerson
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Rex Wayne Tillerson is an American energy executive, civil engineer, and diplomat who is the 69th and current United States Secretary of State, serving since February 1,2017. Tillerson joined ExxonMobil in 1975 and rose to serve as the chairman, Tillerson began his career as an engineer and holds a bachelors degree in civil engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. By 1989 he had become manager of the Exxon USA central production division. In 1995, he became president of Exxon Yemen Inc. in 2006, Tillerson was elected chairman and chief executive officer of Exxon, the worlds 6th largest company by revenue. Tillerson retired from Exxon effective January 1,2017, and was succeeded by Darren Woods and he is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Tillerson is a volunteer with the Boy Scouts of America. He is a contributor to Republican campaigns, although he did not donate to Donald Trumps presidential campaign. In 2014, Tillerson, who had made deals on behalf of Exxon with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has previously been the director of the joint US-Russian oil company Exxon Neftegas, Tillerson was born on March 23,1952, in Wichita Falls, Texas, the son of Patty Sue and Bobby Joe Tillerson. He was raised in Vernon, Texas, Stillwater, Oklahoma and Huntsville and his sister Rae Ann Hamilton is a physician and resides in Abilene, Texas. The other, Jo Lynn Peters, is a high school educator, active in the Boy Scouts of America for most of his life, he earned the rank of Eagle Scout in 1965. At 14 he began to work as a bus boy in the student union building at Oklahoma State University, two years later in 1968 he became a janitor working in one of the engineering buildings at the University. Tillerson graduated from Huntsville High School in 1970 and he received a bachelors degree in civil engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 1975. During his time at UT Austin, he was involved with the Tejas Club, the Longhorn Band, in 2006 he was named a Distinguished Engineering Graduate. Tillerson joined Exxon Company, U. S. A in 1975 as a production engineer, in 1989, Tillerson became general manager of the central production division of Exxon USA. In 1995, he became President of Exxon Yemen Inc. in 1998, he became a vice president of Exxon Ventures and president of Exxon Neftegas Limited with responsibility for Exxons holdings in Russia and the Caspian Sea. In 1999, with the merger of Exxon and Mobil, he was named vice president of ExxonMobil Development Company. In 2004, he became president and director of ExxonMobil, upon this appointment Tillersons replacement of Lee Raymond as CEO of Exxon Mobil was implicitly implied
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Rex Tillerson
79.
Exxonmobil
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Exxon Mobil Corporation is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefellers Standard Oil Company, the worlds seventh largest company by revenue, ExxonMobil is also the seventh largest publicly traded company by market capitalization. The company was ranked ninth globally in the Forbes Global 2000 list in 2016, ExxonMobil was the second most profitable company in the Fortune 500 in 2014. ExxonMobil is the largest of the worlds Big Oil companies, or supermajors, with production of 3.921 million BOE. In 2008, this was approximately 3 percent of world production, when ranked by oil and gas reserves, it is 14th in the world—with less than 1 percent of the total. ExxonMobils reserves were 25.2 billion BOE at the end of 2013, ExxonMobil has a history of lobbying for climate change denial and against the scientific consensus that global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. The company has also been the target of accusations of improperly dealing with rights issues, influence on American foreign policy. ExxonMobil was formed in 1999 by the merger of two oil companies, Exxon and Mobil. Both Exxon and Mobil were descendants of Standard Oil, established by John D. Rockefeller, in 1882, it together with its affiliated companies was incorporated as the Standard Oil Trust with Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and Standard Oil Company of New York as its largest companies. The Anglo-American Oil Company was established in the United Kingdom in 1888, in 1890, Standard Oil, together with local ship merchants in Bremen established Deutsch-Amerikanische Petroleum Gesellschaft. In 1891, a branch for the Netherlands and Belgium. At the same year, a branch for Italy, Società Italo Americana pel Petrolio, was established in Venice. The Standard Oil Trust was dissolved under the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1892, however, in 1893, the Chinese and the whole Asian kerosene market was assigned to Standard Oil Company of New York in order to improve trade with the Asian counterparts. In 1898, Standard Oil of New Jersey acquired controlling stake in Imperial Oil of Canada, in 1899, Standard Oil Company of New Jersey became the holding company for the Standard Oil Interests. The anti-monopoly proceedings against the Standard Oil were launched in 1898, by 1911, with public outcry at a climax, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Standard Oil must be dissolved and split into 34 companies. Two of these companies were Jersey Standard, which eventually became Exxon, and Socony, over the next few decades, Jersey Standard and Socony grew significantly. John Duston Archbold was the first president of Jersey Standard, Archbold was followed by Walter C. Teagle in 1917, who made it the largest oil company in the world, in 1919, Jersey Standard acquired a 50% share in Humble Oil & Refining Co. a Texas oil producer
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ExxonMobil Building, former ExxonMobil offices in Downtown Houston were vacated in early 2015.
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Chart of the major energy companies dubbed "Big Oil", sorted by latest published revenue
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ExxonMobil refinery in Baton Rouge
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Map of the Yellowstone River watershed
80.
Social Security (United States)
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In the United States, Social Security is the commonly used term for the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program. Social Security is funded primarily through taxes called Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax or Self Employed Contributions Act Tax. With a few exceptions, all salaried income, up to an amount specifically determined by law, is subject to the Social Security payroll tax, all income over said amount is not taxed. In 2017, the amount of taxable earnings was $127,200. With few exceptions, all legal residents working in the United States now have an individual Social Security number. Indeed, nearly all working residents since Social Securitys 1935 inception have had a Social Security number because it is required to do a range of things, e. g. paying the IRS. In 2015, Social Security expenditures totaled $750.5 billion for OASDI, Social Security Timeline 1935 The 37-page Social Security Act signed August 14 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Landmark U. S. Supreme Court ruling that gave Congress the power to amend, the Court also ruled that recipients have no contractual right to receive payments. 1961 Early retirement age lowered to age 62 at reduced benefits 1965 Medicare health care benefits added to Social security—20 million joined in three years 1966 Medicare tax of 0, the Earnings limit doubled exemption amount for retired Social Security beneficiaries. The Act was an attempt to limit unforeseen and unprepared for dangers in the life, including old age, disability, poverty, unemployment. Opponents, however, decried the proposal as socialism, in a Senate Finance Committee hearing, Senator Thomas Gore asked Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, Isnt this socialism. She said that it was not, but he continued, Isnt this a bit of socialism. By 1950, debates moved away from which occupational groups should be included to get enough taxpayers to fund Social Security to how to provide more benefits, changes in Social Security have reflected a balance between promoting equality and efforts to provide adequate and affordable protection for low wage workers. These retirement benefits are a form of insurance that is heavily biased toward lower paid workers to make sure they do not have to retire in relative poverty. The OASI accounts plus trust funds are the only Social Security funding source that brings in more than it sends out, Social Security revenues exceeded expenditures, between 1983 and 2009. The disability insurance taxes of 1. 4% are included in the OASDI rate of 6. 2% for workers and employers or 12. 4% for the self-employed, the additional retirees expected under the baby boom bulge will hasten this trust fund depletion. Medicare expenses, tied to medical costs growth rates, have traditionally increased much faster than GDP growth rates, for workers the Social Security tax rate is 6. 2% on income under $127,200 through the end of 2017. The worker Medicare tax rate is 1. 45% of all income—employers pay another 1. 45%, employers pay 6. 2% up to the wage ceiling and the Medicare tax of 1.45 percent on all income
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Older man with sign, "Hands Off Our Social Security", Rally in Senate Park, Washington D.C., Feb. 12, 2013.
Social Security (United States)
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For people in the bottom fifth of the earnings distribution, the ratio of benefits to taxes is almost three times as high as it is for those in the top fifth.
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Single men with different wages and retirement dates
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Impact of gender and wage levels on net SS benefits
81.
Economics of global warming
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The economics of global warming concerns the economic aspects of global warming, this can inform policies that governments might consider in response. One of the most important greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide, around 20% of carbon dioxide which is emitted due to human activities can remain in the atmosphere for many thousands of years. The long time scales and uncertainty associated with warming have led analysts to develop scenarios of future environmental, social. These scenarios can help understand the potential consequences of their decisions. The impacts of climate change include the loss of biodiversity, sea level rise, increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events. Economists have attempted to quantify these impacts in terms. The two main responses to global warming are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the impacts of global warming. Another policy response which has received greater attention is geoengineering of the climate system. One of the responses to the uncertainties of global warming is to adopt a strategy of sequential decision making and this strategy recognizes that decisions on global warming need to be made with incomplete information, and that decisions in the near term will have potentially long-term impacts. Governments might choose to use risk management as part of their response to global warming. For instance, an approach can be applied to climate impacts which are difficult to quantify in economic terms. Analysts have assessed global warming in relation to sustainable development, sustainable development considers how future generations might be affected by the actions of the current generation. In some areas, policies designed to address global warming may contribute positively towards other development objectives, in other areas, the cost of global warming policies may divert resources away from other socially and environmentally beneficial investments. One of the aspects of climate change is producing scenarios of future economic development. Since these future changes are highly uncertain, one approach is that of scenario analysis, in scenario analysis, scenarios are developed that are based on differing assumptions of future development patterns. An example of this are the SRES emissions scenarios produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the SRES scenarios project a wide range of possible future emissions levels. The SRES scenarios are baseline or non-intervention scenarios, in that they assume no specific measures to control future GHG emissions. The different SRES scenarios contain widely differing assumptions of future social, for example, the SRES A2 emissions scenario projects a future population level of 15 billion people in the year 2100, but the SRES B1 scenario projects a lower population level of 7 billion people
Economics of global warming
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Changes in components of the Kaya identity between 1971 and 2009. Includes global energy-related CO 2 emissions, world population, world GDP per capita, energy intensity of world GDP and carbon intensity of world energy use.
82.
Cap and share
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Cap and Share was originally developed by Feasta and is a regulatory and economic framework for controlling the use of fossil fuels in relation to climate stabilisation. This market based mechanism was devised by Feasta in 2005 and 2006 and it calls for global emissions to be capped at their current level and then brought down year by year at a rate fast enough to prevent catastrophic climate change. Each year, the emissions tonnage involved would be shared equally amongst the Earths adult population, everyone would receive at least partial compensation for the higher cost of fossil fuels that limiting their availability would necessarily involve. The final report was published in December 2008, c&C also allows for a convergence period, during which the richer countries would receive higher per capita emissions allowances than poorer countries. The governments involved would sell their certificates to raise money for remedial works, for example, the government of Bangladesh might sell its allocation to pay for better defences against rising sea levels. That a ceiling or cap on carbon dioxide and other green house gas emissions from fossil fuels should be calculated that prevents a global temperature rise of over 2 degrees Celsius. That the right to emit such ghgs is a human right, some argue that lump sum recycling is an inferior way to recycle the revenue of environmental taxes, and that this has been repeatedly confirmed for Ireland. Feasta suggests that if a carbon tax were to be introduced, it would work best in tandem with Cap, the two policies could be used to help countries fine-tune their responses to climate change and Peak Oil. As the future is not known with certainty, some argue that cap, in the case of greenhouse gas emissions, the argument goes, price-based regulation is more robust to uncertainty and leads to lower welfare losses
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A diagram which sets out the basic process of the policy
83.
Environmental impact of aviation
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The environmental impact of aviation occurs because aircraft engines emit heat, noise, particulates and gases which contribute to climate change and global dimming. From 1992 to 2005, passenger kilometers increased 5. 2% per year, and in the European Union, greenhouse gas emissions from aviation increased by 87% between 1990 and 2006. These concerns are highlighted by the present volume of commercial aviation, globally, about 8.3 million people fly daily, twice the total in 1999. U. S. airlines alone burned about 16.2 billion gallons of fuel during the months between October 2013 and September 2014. Emissions weighting factor i. e. the factor by which aviation CO2 emissions should be multiplied to get the CO2-equivalent emissions for annual fleet average conditions is in the range 1. 3–2.9. In 1999 the contribution of civil aircraft-in-flight to global CO2 emissions was estimated to be around 2%, a 2007 report from Environmental Change Institute / Oxford University posits a range closer to 4 percent cumulative effect. The level and effects of CO2 emissions are currently believed to be broadly the same regardless of altitude, at the high altitudes flown by large jet airliners around the tropopause, emissions of NOx are particularly effective in forming ozone in the upper troposphere. High altitude NOx emissions result in greater concentrations of O3 than surface NOx emissions, the effect of O3 concentrations are regional and local. NOx emissions also reduce ambient levels of methane, another greenhouse gas, but this effect does not offset the O3 forming effect of NOx emissions. It is now believed that aircraft sulfur and water emissions in the stratosphere tend to deplete O3 and these effects have not been quantified. This problem does not apply to aircraft that fly lower in the troposphere, one of the products of burning hydrocarbons in oxygen is water vapour, a greenhouse gas. Water vapour produced by aircraft engines at high altitude, under certain conditions, condenses into droplets to form Condensation trails. Contrails are visible line clouds that form in cold, humid atmospheres and are thought to have a warming effect. Contrails are extremely rare from lower-altitude aircraft, or from aircraft or rotorcraft. Cirrus clouds have been observed to develop after the persistent formation of contrails and have found to have a global warming effect over-and-above that of contrail formation alone. However, a 2015 study found that artificial cloudiness caused by contrail outbreaks reduce the difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures, the former are decreased and the latter are increased, in comparison to temperatures the day before and the day after such outbreaks. On days with outbreaks the day/night temperature difference was diminished by about 6F° in the U. S, south and 5F° in the Midwest. Least significant is the release of soot and sulfate particles, soot absorbs heat and has a warming effect, sulfate particles reflect radiation and have a small cooling effect
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Contrails
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A C-141 Starlifter leaves contrails over Antarctica.
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Cirrus cloud formation
84.
Martin S. Feldstein
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Martin Stuart Marty Feldstein is an American economist. He is currently the George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University, and he served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the NBER from 1978 through 2008. From 1982 to 1984, Feldstein served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and he has also been a member of the Washington-based financial advisory body the Group of Thirty since 2003. Feldstein was born in New York City to a Jewish family and graduated from South Side High School in Rockville Centre and he completed his undergraduate education at Harvard University, where he was affiliated with Adams House, and then attended University of Oxford. He was also a Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford from 1964 to 1967 and he is among the 10 most influential economists in the world according to IDEAS/RePEc. He is the author of more than 300 research articles in economics and is primarily for his work on macroeconomics. He has pioneered much of the research on the working mechanism, Feldstein is an avid advocate of Social Security reform and was a main driving force behind former President George W. Bushs initiative of partial privatization of the Social Security system. Aside from his contributions to the field of public sector economics, one of his more well-known papers in this field was his investigation with Charles Horioka of investment behavior in various countries. He and Horioka found that in the run, capital tends to stay in its home country – that is to say. This has since known as the Feldstein–Horioka puzzle. In 2005, Feldstein was widely considered a candidate to succeed chairman Alan Greenspan as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. This was in due to his prominence in the Reagan administration. Subsequently, AIG suffered a financial collapse that played a central role in the worldwide economic crisis of 2007–08. The firm was rescued only by multiple capital infusions by the U. S. Federal Reserve Bank, although Feldstein was not explicitly linked to the accounting practices in question, he had served as a Director of AIG since 1988. In March 2007, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation announced that one of four 2007 Bradley Prizes to honor outstanding achievement would be awarded to Feldstein, on September 10,2007, Feldstein announced that he would be stepping down as president of NBER effective June 2008. Feldstein served as a member of the Presidents Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from 2007 to 2009, Feldstein said in March 2008 he believed the United States was in a recession and it could be a severe one. In May 2009, Feldstein announced he would step down as a director of AIG and he served as a board member for Eli Lilly and Company. He also previously served on the boards of other public companies including JPMorgan
Martin S. Feldstein
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Secretary of State
85.
The Boston Globe
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The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1872 by Charles H. Taylor, it was held until 1973. The company was acquired in 1993 by The New York Times Company, in 2011, a BostonGlobe. com subscription site was launched. In 2013, the newspaper and websites were purchased by John W. Henry, the Boston Globe has been awarded 26 Pulitzer Prizes since 1966, and its chief print rival is the Boston Herald. The Boston Globe was founded in 1872 by six Boston businessmen, including Charles H. Taylor and Eben Jordan, the first issue was published on March 4,1872, and cost four cents. Originally a morning daily, it began a Sunday edition in 1877, in 1878, The Boston Globe started an afternoon edition called The Boston Evening Globe, which ceased publication in 1979. By the 1890s, The Boston Globe had become a stronghold, in 1964, Tom Winship succeeded his father, Larry Winship, as editor. The younger Winship transformed The Globe from a local paper into a regional paper of national distinction. He served as editor until 1984, during which time the paper won a dozen Pulitzer Prizes, the Boston Globe was a private company until 1973 when it went public under the name Affiliated Publications. It continued to be managed by the descendants of Charles H. Taylor, in 1993, The New York Times Company purchased Affiliated Publications for US$1.1 billion, making The Boston Globe a wholly owned subsidiary of The New York Times parent. The Jordan and Taylor families received substantial New York Times Company stock, Boston. com, the online edition of The Boston Globe, was launched on the World Wide Web in 1995. Consistently ranked among the top ten websites in America, it has won numerous national awards. Under the helm of editor Martin Baron and then Brian McGrory, the Boston Globe is credited with allowing Peter Gammons to start his Notes section on baseball, which has become a mainstay in all major newspapers nationwide. In 2004, Gammons was selected as the 56th recipient of the J. G. Taylor Spink Award for outstanding baseball writing, given by the BBWAA, and was honored at the Baseball Hall of Fame on July 31,2005. In 2007, Charlie Savage, whose reports on President Bushs use of signing statements made national news, the Boston Globe has consistently been ranked in the forefront of American journalism. The Boston Globe hosts 28 blogs covering a variety of topics including Boston sports, local politics, on April 2,2009, The New York Times Company threatened to close the paper if its unions did not agree to $20,000,000 of cost savings. Some of the cost savings include reducing union employees pay by 5%, ending pension contributions, the Boston Globe eliminated the equivalent of fifty full-time jobs, among buy-outs and layoffs, it swept out most of the part-time employees in the editorial sections. The papers other three major unions had agreed to concessions on May 3,2009, after The New York Times Company threatened to give the government 60-days notice that it intended to close the paper
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The April 18, 2011 front page of The Boston Globe
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Boston Globe headquarters in September 2009
86.
International Standard Serial Number
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An International Standard Serial Number is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title, ISSN are used in ordering, cataloging, interlibrary loans, and other practices in connection with serial literature. The ISSN system was first drafted as an International Organization for Standardization international standard in 1971, ISO subcommittee TC 46/SC9 is responsible for maintaining the standard. When a serial with the content is published in more than one media type. For example, many serials are published both in print and electronic media, the ISSN system refers to these types as print ISSN and electronic ISSN, respectively. The format of the ISSN is an eight digit code, divided by a hyphen into two four-digit numbers, as an integer number, it can be represented by the first seven digits. The last code digit, which may be 0-9 or an X, is a check digit. Formally, the form of the ISSN code can be expressed as follows, NNNN-NNNC where N is in the set, a digit character. The ISSN of the journal Hearing Research, for example, is 0378-5955, where the final 5 is the check digit, for calculations, an upper case X in the check digit position indicates a check digit of 10. To confirm the check digit, calculate the sum of all eight digits of the ISSN multiplied by its position in the number, the modulus 11 of the sum must be 0. There is an online ISSN checker that can validate an ISSN, ISSN codes are assigned by a network of ISSN National Centres, usually located at national libraries and coordinated by the ISSN International Centre based in Paris. The International Centre is an organization created in 1974 through an agreement between UNESCO and the French government. The International Centre maintains a database of all ISSNs assigned worldwide, at the end of 2016, the ISSN Register contained records for 1,943,572 items. ISSN and ISBN codes are similar in concept, where ISBNs are assigned to individual books, an ISBN might be assigned for particular issues of a serial, in addition to the ISSN code for the serial as a whole. An ISSN, unlike the ISBN code, is an identifier associated with a serial title. For this reason a new ISSN is assigned to a serial each time it undergoes a major title change, separate ISSNs are needed for serials in different media. Thus, the print and electronic versions of a serial need separate ISSNs. Also, a CD-ROM version and a web version of a serial require different ISSNs since two different media are involved, however, the same ISSN can be used for different file formats of the same online serial
International Standard Serial Number
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ISSN encoded in an EAN-13 barcode with sequence variant 0 and issue number 5
87.
PubMed Identifier
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PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health maintains the database as part of the Entrez system of information retrieval, from 1971 to 1997, MEDLINE online access to the MEDLARS Online computerized database primarily had been through institutional facilities, such as university libraries. PubMed, first released in January 1996, ushered in the era of private, free, home-, the PubMed system was offered free to the public in June 1997, when MEDLINE searches via the Web were demonstrated, in a ceremony, by Vice President Al Gore. Information about the journals indexed in MEDLINE, and available through PubMed, is found in the NLM Catalog. As of 5 January 2017, PubMed has more than 26.8 million records going back to 1966, selectively to the year 1865, and very selectively to 1809, about 500,000 new records are added each year. As of the date,13.1 million of PubMeds records are listed with their abstracts. In 2016, NLM changed the system so that publishers will be able to directly correct typos. Simple searches on PubMed can be carried out by entering key aspects of a subject into PubMeds search window, when a journal article is indexed, numerous article parameters are extracted and stored as structured information. Such parameters are, Article Type, Secondary identifiers, Language, publication type parameter enables many special features. As these clinical girish can generate small sets of robust studies with considerable precision, since July 2005, the MEDLINE article indexing process extracts important identifiers from the article abstract and puts those in a field called Secondary Identifier. The secondary identifier field is to store numbers to various databases of molecular sequence data, gene expression or chemical compounds. For clinical trials, PubMed extracts trial IDs for the two largest trial registries, ClinicalTrials. gov and the International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Number Register, a reference which is judged particularly relevant can be marked and related articles can be identified. If relevant, several studies can be selected and related articles to all of them can be generated using the Find related data option, the related articles are then listed in order of relatedness. To create these lists of related articles, PubMed compares words from the title and abstract of each citation, as well as the MeSH headings assigned, using a powerful word-weighted algorithm. The related articles function has been judged to be so precise that some researchers suggest it can be used instead of a full search, a strong feature of PubMed is its ability to automatically link to MeSH terms and subheadings. Examples would be, bad breath links to halitosis, heart attack to myocardial infarction, where appropriate, these MeSH terms are automatically expanded, that is, include more specific terms. Terms like nursing are automatically linked to Nursing or Nursing and this important feature makes PubMed searches automatically more sensitive and avoids false-negative hits by compensating for the diversity of medical terminology. The My NCBI area can be accessed from any computer with web-access, an earlier version of My NCBI was called PubMed Cubby
PubMed Identifier
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PubMed
88.
Martha Hall Findlay
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Martha Hall Findlay is a Canadian businesswoman, entrepreneur, lawyer and politician from Toronto, Ontario, currently serving as president and CEO of the Canada West Foundation. She was re-elected in the 2008 general election but lost her seat in the 2011 election and she was also an unsuccessful candidate in the 2013 leadership race. Born in Toronto, Hall Findlay lived in York Mills, attending the Toronto French School until Grade 8 when she was 13 and she moved with her mother to Thornbury, at the base of the Blue Mountains, east of Owen Sound. She skipped three grades to enter Grade 12 at Georgian Bay Secondary School in Meaford, and graduated high school at 15. Hall Findlay was overall silver medallist in the 1976 Canadian Ski Championship and she graduated in international relations from the University of Toronto, and in law from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. Through university, she worked as a waitress, carpenter and ski coach, while completing law school. While in the International Relations Program she married Doug Findlay and, in her year in 1981, gave birth to her first child. At Osgoode Hall Law School she had two children, Everett in 83 and Patrick in 85, receiving her LL. B. in 1987. At the same time her mother went back for her university degree at age 60, in 2007, she joined the law firm of Gowlings Lafleur Henderson LLP as counsel. After losing her seat in the 2011 election Hall Findlay became the Chief Legal Officer at EnStream LP, in the 2004 federal election, the presumptive Liberal Party candidate in the riding of Newmarket—Aurora bowed out, not wanting to run for the scandal-plagued Liberal Party. While Stronach was thought to have a lead on election night Hall Findlay came within 687 votes of winning the seat. Hall Findlay was dedicated to winning the seat in the next election, however, on May 17,2005, Stronach crossed the floor to join the Liberal Party caucus, and Hall Findlay stepped down as the candidate to allow Stronach to run under the Liberal banner. With nominations closed in other Toronto area ridings she was not a candidate in the 2006 election, the Liberal Party was defeated in the 2006 election and Paul Martin announced his intentions to step down as leader of the Liberal Party. On February 8,2006, Hall Findlay became the first declared candidate for the Liberal Party leadership election to succeed Paul Martin, as the lowest profile of the candidates she jokingly referred to herself as Martha Who Who. Hall Findlay made up for her lack of profile with a grassroots campaign that also included driving across the country in a motor home. She described herself as fiscally conservative, socially progressive and the candidate who could bridge the gap between the Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin factions of the party and her two key issues in the race were the environment and health care. She believed that the Kyoto climate change protocol was worth pursuing and favoured private health care, towards the end of the campaign Hall Findlay was endorsed by York West Member of Parliament Judy Sgro, she was the only member of the Liberal caucus to endorse Hall Findlays candidacy. Along with Stéphane Dion she also received an endorsement from the Toronto Sun
Martha Hall Findlay
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Martha Hall Findlay
Martha Hall Findlay
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Martha Hall Findlay's Big Red Bus.
Martha Hall Findlay
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Martha Hall Findlay on the morning of the last day of the Liberal Leadership race, having just endorsed Dion.
Martha Hall Findlay
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Hall Findlay during a candidates debate on February 16, 2013, in Mississauga
89.
The Globe And Mail
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The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper owned by The Woodbridge Company, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. The Globe and Mail is regarded by some as Canadas newspaper of record, the predecessor to The Globe and Mail was The Globe, founded in 1844 by Scottish immigrant George Brown, who became a Father of Confederation. Browns liberal politics led him to court the support of the Clear Grits and he selected as the motto for the editorial page a quotation from Junius, The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures. The quotation is carried on the page to this day. By the 1850s, The Globe had become an independent and well-regarded daily newspaper and it began distribution by railway to other cities in Ontario shortly after Canadian Confederation. At the dawn of the century, The Globe added photography, a womens section, and the slogan Canadas National Newspaper. It began opening bureaus and offering subscriptions across Canada, on 23 November 1936, The Globe merged with The Mail and Empire, itself formed through the 1895 merger of two conservative newspapers, The Toronto Mail and Toronto Empire. Press reports at the stated, the minnow swallowed the whale because The Globes circulation was smaller than The Mail. The merger was arranged by George McCullagh, who fronted for mining magnate William Henry Wright and became the first publisher of The Globe, McCullagh committed suicide in 1952, and the newspaper was sold to the Webster family of Montreal. As the paper lost ground to The Toronto Star in the local Toronto market, the newspaper was unionised in 1955, under the banner of the American Newspaper Guild. From 1937 until 1974, the newspaper was produced at the William H, in 1965, the paper was bought by Winnipeg-based FP Publications, controlled by Bryan Maheswary, which owned a chain of local Canadian newspapers. FP put an emphasis on the Report on Business section that was launched in 1962. FP Publications and The Globe and Mail were sold in 1980 to The Thomson Corporation, after the acquisition there were few changes made in editorial or news policy. However, there was more attention paid to national and international news on the editorial, op-ed, the Globe and Mail has always been a morning newspaper. Since the 1980s, it has been printed in editions in six Canadian cities, Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary. Southern Ontario Newspaper Guild employees took their first ever strike vote at The Globe in 1982 and those negotiations ended without a strike, and the Globe unit of SONG still has a strike-free record. SONG members voted in 1994 to sever ties with the American-focused Newspaper Guild, shortly afterwards, SONG affiliated with the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. Under the editorship of William Thorsell in the 1980s and 1990s, during this period, the paper continued to favour such socially liberal policies as decriminalizing drugs and expanding gay rights
The Globe And Mail
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The January 25, 2013 front page of The Globe and Mail
The Globe And Mail
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The Globe's Office in Toronto
The Globe And Mail
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Globe and Mail staff await news of the D-Day invasion. June 6, 1944.
90.
The Guardian
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The Guardian is a British daily newspaper, known from 1821 until 1959 as the Manchester Guardian. Along with its sister papers The Observer and The Guardian Weekly, The Guardian is part of the Guardian Media Group, the Scott Trust became a limited company in 2008, with a constitution to maintain the same protections for The Guardian. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than to the benefit of an owner or shareholders, the Guardian is edited by Katharine Viner, who succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. In 2016, The Guardians print edition had a daily circulation of roughly 162,000 copies in the country, behind The Daily Telegraph. The newspaper has an online UK edition as well as two international websites, Guardian Australia and Guardian US, the newspapers online edition was the fifth most widely read in the world in October 2014, with over 42.6 million readers. Its combined print and online editions reach nearly 9 million British readers, notable scoops include the 2011 News International phone hacking scandal, in particular the hacking of murdered English teenager Milly Dowlers phone. The investigation led to the closure of the UKs biggest selling Sunday newspaper, and one of the highest circulation newspapers in the world, in 2016, it led the investigation into the Panama Papers, exposing the then British Prime Minister David Camerons links to offshore bank accounts. The Guardian has been named Newspaper of the Year four times at the annual British Press Awards, the paper is still occasionally referred to by its nickname of The Grauniad, given originally for the purported frequency of its typographical errors. The Manchester Guardian was founded in Manchester in 1821 by cotton merchant John Edward Taylor with backing from the Little Circle and they launched their paper after the police closure of the more radical Manchester Observer, a paper that had championed the cause of the Peterloo Massacre protesters. They do not toil, neither do they spin, but they better than those that do. When the government closed down the Manchester Observer, the champions had the upper hand. The influential journalist Jeremiah Garnett joined Taylor during the establishment of the paper, the prospectus announcing the new publication proclaimed that it would zealously enforce the principles of civil and religious Liberty. Warmly advocate the cause of Reform, endeavour to assist in the diffusion of just principles of Political Economy and. Support, without reference to the party from which they emanate, in 1825 the paper merged with the British Volunteer and was known as The Manchester Guardian and British Volunteer until 1828. The working-class Manchester and Salford Advertiser called the Manchester Guardian the foul prostitute, the Manchester Guardian was generally hostile to labours claims. The Manchester Guardian dismissed strikes as the work of outside agitators –, if an accommodation can be effected, the occupation of the agents of the Union is gone. CP Scott made the newspaper nationally recognised and he was editor for 57 years from 1872, and became its owner when he bought the paper from the estate of Taylors son in 1907. Under Scott, the moderate editorial line became more radical, supporting William Gladstone when the Liberals split in 1886
The Guardian
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The Guardian front page on 6 June 2014
The Guardian
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The Guardian senior news writer Esther Addley interviewing Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño for this article relating to Julian Assange (August 2014)
The Guardian
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The Guardian's HQ in London
The Guardian
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The Guardian' s Newsroom visitor centre and archive (No 60), with an old sign with the name The Manchester Guardian
91.
Agence France-Presse
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Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1944, AFP is the third largest news agency in the world, after the Associated Press, journalists of the French Resistance established the AFP in the headquarters of the former Office Français dInformation, a Vichy news agency, following the liberation of Paris. Currently, the CEO is Emmanuel Hoog and the News Director is Michèle Léridon, AFP has regional offices in Nicosia, Montevideo, Hong Kong, and Washington, D. C. and bureaux in 150 countries. AFP transmits news in French, English, Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish, the Agence Havas was founded in 1835 by a Parisian translator and advertising agent, Charles-Louis Havas as Agence Havas. Two of his employees, Paul Reuter and Bernhard Wolff, later set up rival news agencies in London and Berlin respectively and this arrangement lasted until the 1930s, when the invention of short-wave wireless improved and cut communications costs. To help Havas extend the scope of its reporting at a time of international tension. Established as an enterprise, AFP devoted the post-war years to developing its network of international correspondents. One of them was the first Western journalist to report the death of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin on March 6,1953, AFP was keen to shake off its semi-official status, and on January 10,1957 the French Parliament passed a law establishing its independence. Since that date, the proportion of the revenues generated by subscriptions from government departments has steadily declined. Such subscriptions represented 115 million Euros in 2011, in 1982, the agency began to decentralize its editorial decision-making by setting up the first of its five autonomous regional centres, in Hong Kong, then a British Crown colony. Each region has its own budget, administrative director and chief editor, in September 2007, the AFP Foundation was launched to promote higher standards of journalism worldwide. The Mitrokhin archive identified six agents and two confidential KGB contacts inside Agence France-Presse who were used in Soviet operations in France, in 1991, AFP set up a joint venture with Extel to create a financial news service, AFX News. It was sold in 2006 to Thomson Financial, in October 2008, the Government of France announced moves to change AFPs status, including the involvement of outside investors. On February 24,2010, Pierre Louette unexpectedly announced his intention to resign as CEO by the end of March, AFP is a government-chartered public corporation operating under a 1957 law, but is officially a commercial business independent of the French government. One is named by the minister, another by the minister of finance. The board elects the CEO for a term of three years. The AFP also has a council charged with ensuring that the agency operates according to its statutes, editorially, AFP is governed by a network of senior journalists. The primary client of AFP is the French government, which purchases subscriptions for its various services, in practice, those subscriptions are an indirect subsidy to AFP
Agence France-Presse
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AFP headquarters in Paris.
Agence France-Presse
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Agence France-Presse
92.
Joseph Rowntree Foundation
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The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is a British social policy research and development charity, that funds a UK-wide research and development programme. It seeks to understand the causes of social problems, to identify ways of overcoming them. JRF works by funding research and taking forward the lessons learned and it is politically leftist but non-partisan and independent from all UK political parties. The current Chief Executive of JRF is Julia Unwin, JRF works in partnership with the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust. JRHT provides housing, care homes, retirement and supported housing and it manages more than 2,000 homes, roughly half of which are in New Earswick, York. The remainder are in the City of York and surrounding areas, JRHT also provides retirement and supported housing services in York and other parts of north-east England. Poverty, examining the causes of poverty, inequality and disadvantage. For example, work on the annual Minimum Income Standard for the UK - working with members of the public, place, contributing to the building and development of strong, sustainable and inclusive communities. For example, the Housing and Neighbourhoods Monitor - identifying key housing and neighbourhoods statistics across England, Scotland, Wales, ageing Society, how people and communities can have control of their own lives. For example, research into A better life - What needs to change so that people, especially those with high support needs. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation was founded in 1904, and is one of four established by Joseph Rowntree. Then known as the Joseph Rowntree Village Trust, its purpose was to build and manage the garden village of New Earswick. Joseph Rowntree wanted his money to be used to tackle the causes of social problems. To search out the causes of weakness or evil in the community. In 1988, Richard Best became director of JRF, holding the post until 2006, in 1989, Roland Hurst, a Quaker, joined as Director of Information Services. He sought to disseminate and publicise the results of JRF-funded research, to achieve this, he introduced the Findings series which summarised research reports in a four-page summary paper. Today, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation spends around £10 million a year on its research and development programme, the majority of JRF-funded research is available to download free of charge from the JRF website. Derwenthorpe Poverty in the United Kingdom Centre for Research in Social Policy
Joseph Rowntree Foundation
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Joseph Rowntree Foundation
93.
World Resources Institute
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The World Resources Institute is an independent, non-governmental global research organization which seeks to create equity and prosperity through sustainable natural resource management. It was established in 1982 with funding from the John D. WRIs activities are focused on six areas, climate, clean energy, food, forests, water, and sustainable cities. In 2014, Stephen M. Ross, an American real estate developer, the world’s energy systems need a change, they have proved ineffective as well as posing a great threat to the entire population. With climate change due to pollution and activity, as well as more than 1.3 billion people still lacking access to electricity. While subsidies still continue to support fossil fuel investment, there has been a shift in more sustainable energy systems. World Resource works with the policymakers of the society to transform. We focus on reducing greenhouse gas pollution while still providing energy to those in the most poverty-stricken situations. Society, human activity, and the economy are all linked to forests. Forest ecosystems play critical roles in stabilizing the climate, and providing food, water, wood products, World Resource aims at curbing deforestation worldwide while helping to restore already-cleared land. The impacts of a global climate are being felt all around the world. Heat waves and extreme weather effects devastate many countries by, destroying agriculture increasing wildfires and we are working on the national and international level to identify cost-effective solutions that reduce emissions in the short and long-term. The world’s water system face great threats more than 1 billion people live in water scarce regions with it reaching as many as 3.5 billion in nine years, with problems like increasing pollution and climate change, the amount of water available is exponentially decreasing. Our Aqueduct Project uses the most updated data to produce global risk maps, the world is projected to have 9.6 billion people by 2050 and in order to sustain it the meeting of three great needs. We have to reduce agriculture’s impact, ecosystems, and water, at World Resource Institute we are developing solutions to meet these needs by first identifying and then advancing methods, such as climate-smart agriculture to solve them. Traditional models of city development constrict us into congestion, sprawl and we aim at creating a compact, connected, and a more efficient city, As it can provide a better quality of life for the citizens. We accomplish this by collaborating with national decision-makers to implement our projects that overcome all of the challenges presented with urbanization. Some of the initiatives of WRI include, ACT2015 is a relatively new project, designed as an international climate change agreement towards a low-carbon. EMBARQ is part of WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, Aqueduct, an initiative to measure, map and understand water risks around the globe
World Resources Institute
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World Resources Institute
94.
Climate change
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Climate change is a change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns when that change lasts for an extended period of time. Climate change may refer to a change in weather conditions. Climate change is caused by such as biotic processes, variations in solar radiation received by Earth, plate tectonics. Certain human activities have also identified as significant causes of recent climate change. Scientists actively work to understand past and future climate by using observations, more recent data are provided by the instrumental record. The most general definition of change is a change in the statistical properties of the climate system when considered over long periods of time. Accordingly, fluctuations over periods shorter than a few decades, such as El Niño, the term climate change is often used to refer specifically to anthropogenic climate change. Anthropogenic climate change is caused by activity, as opposed to changes in climate that may have resulted as part of Earths natural processes. In this sense, especially in the context of environmental policy, within scientific journals, global warming refers to surface temperature increases while climate change includes global warming and everything else that increasing greenhouse gas levels affect. A related term is climatic change, in 1966, the World Meteorological Organization proposed the term climatic change to encompass all forms of climatic variability on time-scales longer than 10 years, regardless of cause. Change was a given and climatic was used as an adjective to describe this kind of change, when it was realized that human activities had a potential to drastically alter the climate, the term climate change replaced climatic change as the dominant term to reflect an anthropogenic cause. Climate change was incorporated in the title of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate change, used as a noun, became an issue rather than the technical description of changing weather. On the broadest scale, the rate at which energy is received from the Sun and this energy is distributed around the globe by winds, ocean currents, and other mechanisms to affect the climates of different regions. Factors that can shape climate are called climate forcings or forcing mechanisms, there are a variety of climate change feedbacks that can either amplify or diminish the initial forcing. Some parts of the system, such as the oceans and ice caps, respond more slowly in reaction to climate forcings. There are also key factors which when exceeded can produce rapid change. Forcing mechanisms can be internal or external. Internal forcing mechanisms are natural processes within the system itself
Climate change
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Atmospheric sciences
Climate change
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Pacific Decadal Oscillation 1925 to 2010
Climate change
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A schematic of modern thermohaline circulation. Tens of millions of years ago, continental-plate movement formed a land-free gap around Antarctica, allowing the formation of the ACC, which keeps warm waters away from Antarctica.
Climate change
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In atmospheric temperature from 1979 to 2010, determined by MSU NASA satellites, effects appear from aerosols released by major volcanic eruptions (El Chichón and Pinatubo). El Niño is a separate event, from ocean variability.
95.
Effective temperature
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The effective temperature of a body such as a star or planet is the temperature of a black body that would emit the same total amount of electromagnetic radiation. Effective temperature is used as an estimate of a bodys surface temperature when the bodys emissivity curve is not known. When the stars or planets net emissivity in the relevant wavelength band is less than unity, the net emissivity may be low due to surface or atmospheric properties, including greenhouse effect. Notice that the luminosity of a star is then L =4 π R2 σ T e f f 4. The definition of the radius is obviously not straightforward. More rigorously the effective temperature corresponds to the temperature at the radius that is defined by a value of the Rosseland optical depth within the stellar atmosphere. The effective temperature and the bolometric luminosity are the two fundamental physical parameters needed to place a star on the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram, both effective temperature and bolometric luminosity depend on the chemical composition of a star. The effective temperature of our Sun is around 5780 kelvin, stars have a decreasing temperature gradient, going from their central core up to the atmosphere. The core temperature of the temperature at the centre of the sun where nuclear reactions take place—is estimated to be 15,000,000 K. The effective temperature of a star indicates the amount of heat that the star radiates per unit of surface area, from the warmest surfaces to the coolest is the sequence of star types known as O, B, A, F, G, K, and M. The effective temperature of a planet can be calculated by equating the power received by the planet with the emitted by a blackbody of temperature T. Take the case of a planet at a distance D from the star and we also allow the planet to reflect some of the incoming radiation by incorporating a parameter called the albedo. An albedo of 1 means that all the radiation is reflected, the effective temperature for Jupiter from this calculation is 112 K and 51 Pegasi b is 1258 K. A better estimate of effective temperature for some planets, such as Jupiter, the actual temperature depends on albedo and atmosphere effects. The actual temperature from spectroscopic analysis for HD209458 b is 1130 K, the internal heating within Jupiter raises the effective temperature to about 152 K. The surface temperature of a planet can be estimated by modifying the effective-temperature calculation to account for emissivity and this area intercepts some of the power which is spread over the surface of a sphere of radius D. We also allow the planet to some of the incoming radiation by incorporating a parameter a called the albedo. An albedo of 1 means that all the radiation is reflected, there is also a factor ε, which is the emissivity and represents atmospheric effects
Effective temperature
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The effective temperature of the Sun (5777 K) is the temperature a black body of the same size must have to yield the same total emissive power.
96.
Global warming hiatus
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A global warming hiatus, also sometimes referred to as a global warming pause or a global warming slowdown, is a period of relatively little change in globally averaged surface temperatures. Publicity has surrounded claims of a global warming hiatus during the period 1998–2013, a 2009 study showed that decades without warming were not exceptional, and in 2011 a study showed that if allowances were made for known variability, the rising temperature trend continued unabated. Various studies examined possible causes of the short-term slowdown, research reported in July 2015 on an updated NOAA dataset casts doubt on the existence of a hiatus, and it finds no indication of a slowdown even in earlier years. Scientists working on other datasets welcomed this study, though they have expressed the view that the recent warming trend was less than in previous periods of the same length, another review finds no substantive evidence of a pause in global warming. A statistical study of temperature data since 1970 concludes that the term hiatus or pause is not justified. Independent of these discussions about data and measurements for earlier years,2015 turned out to be warmer than any of the earlier years. The warmth of 2015 largely ended any remaining credibility of claims that the supposed hiatus since 1998 had any significance for the long-term warming trend. In January 2017, a study published in the journal Science Advances cast further doubt on the existence of a recent pause, Climate is the statistics of weather, the classical period for averaging weather variables is 30 years in accordance with the definition set by the World Meteorological Organization. There has been considerable variability at shorter interannual to decadal periods, the 1998–2012 hiatus shows a rise of 0.05 °C per decade, compared with a longer term rise of 0.12 °C per decade over the period from 1951 to 2012. While hiatus periods have appeared in surface-air temperature records, other components of the system associated with warming have continued. Sea level rise has not stopped in recent years, and Arctic sea ice decline has continued, there have been repeated records set for extreme surface temperatures. The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 reported that 2005 and 1998 were the warmest two years in the instrumental global surface-air temperature record since 1850, surface temperatures in 1998 were enhanced by the major 1997–1998 El Niño but no such strong anomaly was present in 2005. Eleven of the last 12 years – the exception being 1996 – rank among the 12 warmest years on record since 1850, the IPCC report was disputed by an open letter in the National Post with 94 signatories, which said there has been no net global warming since 1998. That the current temperature plateau follows a late 20th-century period of warming is consistent with the continuation today of natural multi-decadal or millennial climate cycling. There were further claims in blogs and media of lack of warming since 1998, in July 2009 Jeb Bush said that global warming might not be occurring as mean temperatures had been cooler over six years. The decade to the end of 2010 was again the warmest on record, in January 2012 Rose claimed that the latest global temperatures showed 15 years without warming, the Met Office described this as entirely misleading. However, the standstill has led to an assertion that global warming has stopped. It discussed possible explanations of the recent hiatus in rising temperatures, there was a surge in media interest setting a misleading narrative, as in the Reuters headline Climate scientists struggle to explain warming slowdown
Global warming hiatus
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Global mean surface temperature change from 1880 to 2014, relative to the 1951–1980 mean. The black line is the annual mean and the red line is the 5-year running mean. The green bars show uncertainty estimates. Source: NASA GISS.
97.
Instrumental temperature record
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The instrumental temperature record provides the temperature of Earths climate system from the historical network of in situ measurements of surface air temperatures and ocean surface temperatures. Data are collected at thousands of stations, buoys and ships around the globe. The longest-running temperature record is the Central England temperature data series, the longest-running quasi-global record starts in 1850. The global average and combined land and ocean temperature, show a warming of 0.85 °C, in the period 1880 to 2012. This gives a trend of 0.064 ±0.015 °C per decade over that period, the trend is faster for land than ocean, faster for Arctic regions, and faster since the 1970s than the longer period. Most of the observed warming occurred in two periods, around 1900 to around 1940 and around 1970 onwards, the cooling/plateau from 1940 to 1970 has been attributed to sulphate aerosol. Some of the temperature variations over time period may also be due to ocean circulation patterns. Attribution of the change to natural or anthropogenic factors is an important question, see global warming. Land air temperatures are rising faster than sea surface temperatures, uncertainties in the temperature record, e. g. the urban heat island effect, are discussed further in a later section. In January 2017, several agencies around the world, including NASA and the NOAA in the United States. This marked the third consecutive year reaching a new record temperature, 2016s record meant that 16 of the 17 warmest years have occurred since 2000. While record-breaking years can attract considerable public interest, individual years are less significant than the overall trend, of the 2015 and 2016 records, Schmidt stated that the 2014–16 El Niño event was a factor. But both 2015 and 2016 would have been records even without it, he attributed about 90% of the warming in 2016 to anthropogenic climate change, the longer youre on the escalator, the higher you go. And the El Niño phenomenon is like jumping up and down while youre on the escalator, arndt also stated that the long-term warming is driven almost entirely by greenhouse gases. This long-term trend is the cause for the record warmth of 2015 and 2016. Based on the NOAA dataset, the table lists the global combined land and ocean annually averaged temperature rank. Numerous cycles have been found to influence annual global mean temperatures, the tropical El Niño-La Niña cycle and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation are the most well-known of these cycles. In the Northern Hemisphere, 1983–2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years, the following chart is from NASA data of combined land-surface air and sea-surface water temperature anomalies
Instrumental temperature record
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Instrumental global surface temperature record since widespread reliable measurements began in the late 19th century; see also [1] The X axis represents time, and the Y axis represents the temperature anomaly (departure from 1961-1990 baseline of 14.0°C, Jones et al. 1999).
98.
Paleoclimatology
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Paleoclimatology is the study of changes in climate taken on the scale of the entire history of Earth. It then uses the records to determine the past states of the Earths various climate regions and he noted that the loess deposits at Timaru in the South Island recorded changes in climate, he called the loess a climate register. Paleoclimatologists employ a variety of techniques to deduce ancient climates. Mountain glaciers and the polar ice caps/ice sheets provide much data in paleoclimatology, ice-coring projects in the ice caps of Greenland and Antarctica have yielded data going back several hundred thousand years, over 800,000 years in the case of the EPICA project. Air trapped within fallen snow becomes encased in tiny bubbles as the snow is compressed into ice in the glacier under the weight of later years snow. The trapped air has proven a valuable source for direct measurement of the composition of air from the time the ice was formed. Layering can be observed because of seasonal pauses in ice accumulation and can be used to establish chronology, changes in the layering thickness can be used to determine changes in precipitation or temperature. Oxygen-18 quantity changes in ice layers represent changes in ocean surface temperature. Water molecules containing the heavier O-18 evaporate at a higher temperature than water molecules containing the normal Oxygen-16 isotope, the ratio of O-18 to O-16 will be higher as temperature increases. It also depends on factors such as the waters salinity. Various cycles in those isotope ratios have been detected, pollen has been observed in the ice cores and can be used to understand which plants were present as the layer formed. Pollen is produced in abundance and its distribution is well understood. A pollen count for a layer can be produced by observing the total amount of pollen categorized by type in a controlled sample of that layer. Changes in plant frequency over time can be plotted through statistical analysis of pollen counts in the core, knowing which plants were present leads to an understanding of precipitation and temperature, and types of fauna present. Palynology includes the study of pollen for these purposes, volcanic ash is contained in some layers, and can be used to establish the time of the layers formation. Each volcanic event distributed ash with a set of properties. Establishing the ashs source will establish a range of time to associate with layer of ice, climatic information can be obtained through an understanding of changes in tree growth. Generally, trees respond to changes in climatic variables by speeding up or slowing down growth, different species, however, respond to changes in climatic variables in different ways
Paleoclimatology
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Sea floor core sample labelled to identify the exact spot on the sea floor where the sample was taken. Slight variations in location can make a significant difference in the chemical and biological composition of the sediment sample.
Paleoclimatology
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Timeline of glaciations, shown in blue
Paleoclimatology
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Biogeography
99.
Proxy (climate)
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Reliable global records of climate only began in the 1880s, and proxies provide the only means for scientists to determine climatic patterns before record-keeping began. Examples of proxies include ice cores, tree rings, sub-fossil pollen, boreholes, corals, lake and ocean sediments, and carbonate speleothems. The character of deposition or rate of growth of the material has been influenced by the climatic conditions of the time in which they were laid down or grew. Chemical traces produced by climatic changes, such as quantities of particular isotopes, to produce the most precise results, systematic cross-verification between proxy indicators is necessary for accuracy in readings and record-keeping. Proxies can be combined to produce temperature reconstructions longer than the temperature record. The distribution of records, just like the instrumental record, is not at all uniform. In science, it is necessary to study a variable which cannot be measured directly. This can be done by methods, in which a variable which correlates with the variable of interest is measured. Proxy methods are of use in the study of the past climate. The longer history of the proxy is then used to reconstruct temperature from earlier periods, Ice cores are cylindrical samples from within ice sheets in the Greenland, Antarctic, and North American regions. First attempts of extraction occurred in 1956 as part of the International Geophysical Year and their machinery could drill through 15–20 feet of ice in 40–50 minutes. From 1300 to 3,000 feet in depth, core samples were 4 ¼ inches in diameter and 10 to 20 feet long, deeper samples of 15 to 20 feet long were not uncommon. Every subsequent drilling team improves their method with each new effort, presence of water molecule isotopic compositions of 16O and 18O in an ice core help determine past temperatures and snow accumulations. The heavier isotope more readily as temperatures decrease and falls as precipitation. The farther north elevated levels of an 18O isotope are detected signals a warming over time, in addition to oxygen isotopes, water contains hydrogen isotopes - 1H and 2H, usually referred to as H and D - that are also used for temperature proxies. Normally, ice cores from Greenland are analyzed for δ18O and those from Antarctica for δ-deuterium and those cores that analyze for both show a lack of agreement. Air bubbles in the ice, which contain trapped greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, from 1989-1992, the European Greenland Ice Core Drilling Project drilled in central Greenland at coordinates 72°35 N, 37°38 W. In their project, ice at a depth of 770 m were 3840 years old,2521 m were 40,000 years old, however, ice cores can reveal the climate records for the past 650,000 years
Proxy (climate)
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Ice Core sample taken from drill. Photo by Lonnie Thompson, Byrd Polar Research Center.
Proxy (climate)
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Reconstruction of global temperature over the past 2000 years, comparing results from researchers using different proxy methods
Proxy (climate)
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δ18O air and δD ice for Vostok, Antarctica ice core.
Proxy (climate)
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Tree rings seen in a cross section of a trunk of a tree.
100.
Biofuel
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Biofuels can be derived directly from plants, or indirectly from agricultural, commercial, domestic, and/or industrial wastes. Renewable biofuels generally involve contemporary carbon fixation, such as those that occur in plants or microalgae through the process of photosynthesis, other renewable biofuels are made through the use or conversion of biomass. This biomass can be converted to convenient energy-containing substances in three different ways, thermal conversion, chemical conversion, and biochemical conversion and this biomass conversion can result in fuel in solid, liquid, or gas form. This new biomass can also be used directly for biofuels, bioethanol is an alcohol made by fermentation, mostly from carbohydrates produced in sugar or starch crops such as corn, sugarcane, or sweet sorghum. Cellulosic biomass, derived from sources, such as trees and grasses, is also being developed as a feedstock for ethanol production. Ethanol can be used as a fuel for vehicles in its pure form, bioethanol is widely used in the USA and in Brazil. Current plant design does not provide for converting the portion of plant raw materials to fuel components by fermentation. Biodiesel is produced from oils or fats using transesterification and is the most common biofuel in Europe, in 2010, worldwide biofuel production reached 105 billion liters, up 17% from 2009, and biofuels provided 2. 7% of the worlds fuels for road transport. Global ethanol fuel production reached 86 billion liters in 2010, with the United States and Brazil as the top producers. The worlds largest biodiesel producer is the European Union, accounting for 53% of all production in 2010. As of 2011, mandates for blending biofuels exist in 31 countries at the national level, the International Energy Agency has a goal for biofuels to meet more than a quarter of world demand for transportation fuels by 2050 to reduce dependence on petroleum and coal. The production of biofuels also led into an automotive industry. There are various social, economic, environmental and technical issues relating to production and use. Most transportation fuels are liquids, because vehicles usually require high energy density and this occurs naturally in liquids and solids. High energy density can also be provided by a combustion engine. The fuels that are easiest to burn cleanly are typically liquids, thus, liquids meet the requirements of being both energy-dense and clean-burning. In addition, liquids can be pumped, which means handling is easily mechanized, first-generation or conventional biofuels are made from sugar, starch, or vegetable oil. Biobutanol is often claimed to provide a replacement for gasoline
Biofuel
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A bus fueled by biodiesel
Biofuel
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Information on pump regarding ethanol fuel blend up to 10%, California
Biofuel
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Neat ethanol on the left (A), gasoline on the right (G) at a filling station in Brazil
Biofuel
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Walmart 's truck fleet logs millions of miles each year, and the company planned to double the fleet's efficiency between 2005 and 2015. This truck is one of 15 based at Walmart's Buckeye, Arizona distribution center that was converted to run on a biofuel made from reclaimed cooking grease produced during food preparation at Walmart stores.
101.
Black carbon
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Chemically, black carbon is a component of fine particulate matter. Black carbon consists of carbon in several linked forms. It is formed through the combustion of fossil fuels, biofuel, and biomass. Black carbon causes human morbidity and premature mortality, in climatology, black carbon is a climate forcing agent.1 W/m2. Black carbon stays in the atmosphere for several days to weeks. The term black carbon is used in soil sciences and geology. Especially in the tropics, black carbon in soils significantly contributes to fertility as it is able to absorb important plant nutrients, the term black carbon was coined by Tihomir Novakov, referred to as the godfather of black carbon studies by James Hansen, in the 1970s. Smoke or soot was the first pollutant to be recognized as having significant environmental impact yet one of the last to be studied by the atmospheric research community. Faraday recognized that soot was composed of carbon and that it was produced by the combustion of carbon-containing fuels. The term black carbon is used to imply that this component is primarily responsible for the absorption of visible light. The term black carbon is used as a synonym for both the elemental and graphitic component of soot and it can be measured using different types of devices based on absorption or dispersion of a light beam or derived from noise measurements. The disastrous effects of pollution on human health and mortality in the early 1950s in London led to the UK Clean Air Act 1956. This act led to reductions of soot concentrations in the United Kingdom which were followed by similar reductions in US cities like Pittsburgh. These reductions were achieved by the decreased use of soft coal for domestic heating by switching either to “smokeless” coals or other forms of fuel, such as fuel oil. In the less-developed regions of the world there were limited or no controls on soot emissions the air quality continued to degrade as the population increased. It was not generally realized until years later that from the perspective of global effects the emissions from these regions were extremely important. Most of the mentioned above relate to air quality in urban atmospheres. The first indications of the role of carbon in a larger
Black carbon
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Black carbon is found worldwide, but its presence and impact are particularly strong in Asia.
Black carbon
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Black carbon on a cooking pot. Result of a biofuel cooking.
102.
Earth's energy budget
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Earths energy budget accounts for the energy Earth receives from the Sun. Much of this energy is lost when the earth re-radiates it back into space. This system is made up of water, ice, atmosphere, rocky crust. Quantifying changes in these amounts is required to model the Earths climate. Received radiation is distributed over the planet, because the Sun heats equatorial regions more than polar regions. When the incoming energy is balanced by an equal flow of heat to space. Disturbances of Earths radiative equilibrium, such as an increase of greenhouse gases, however, Earths energy balance and heat fluxes depend on many factors, such as atmospheric composition, the albedo of surface properties, cloud cover and vegetation and land use patterns. Changes in surface temperature due to Earths energy budget do not occur instantaneously, due to the inertia of the oceans and the cryosphere. The net heat flux is buffered primarily by becoming part of the heat content. To quantify Earths heat budget or heat balance, let the insolation received at the top of the atmosphere be 100 units, as shown in the accompanying illustration. Called the albedo of Earth, around 35 units are reflected back to space,27 from the top of clouds,2 from snow and ice-covered areas, the 65 remaining units are absorbed,14 within the atmosphere and 51 by the Earth’s surface. These 51 units are radiated to space in the form of radiation,17 directly radiated to space and 34 absorbed by the atmosphere. The 48 units absorbed by the atmosphere are finally radiated back to space and these 65 units balance the 65 units absorbed from the sun, thereby demonstrating no net gain of energy by the Earth. The total amount of energy received per second at the top of Earths atmosphere is measured in watts and is given by the solar constant times the area of the Earth. Because the surface area of a sphere is four times the surface area of a sphere. Since the absorption varies with location as well as with diurnal, seasonal and annual variations and this gives the earth a mean net albedo of 0.29. The geothermal heat flux from the Earths interior is estimated to be 47 terawatts and this comes to 0.087 watt/square metre, which represents only 0. 027% of Earths total energy budget at the surface, which is dominated by 173,000 terawatts of incoming solar radiation. Earlier, Joseph Fourier had claimed that deep space radiation was significant in an often cited as the first on the greenhouse effect
Earth's energy budget
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Earth's climate is largely determined by the planet's energy budget, i.e., the balance of incoming and outgoing radiation. It is measured by satellites and shown in W/m 2.
Earth's energy budget
103.
Ecocide
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The term ecocide is more recently used to refer to the destructive impact of humanity on its own natural environment. As a group of complex organisms we are committing ecocide through unsustainable exploitation of the planets resources. The geological era we are living in, known as the anthropocene, is so named because the activities of the species are influencing the Earths natural state in a way never seen before. The most notable example is that of the atmosphere which is being transformed through the emission of gases from fuel use, carbon dioxide, methane. The ecocide we are witnessing is a symptom of the disregard and reward for accounting for the damage being caused, U. S. environmental theorist and activist Patrick Hossay argues that the human species is committing ecocide, via industrial civilizations effects on the global environment. Much of the environmental movement stems from this belief as a precept. The concept of ecocide as an international crime originated in the 1970s, in 2010 it was proposed that the Rome Statute be amended to include the international crime of Ecocide. The proposal was submitted to the United Nations International Law Commission who are ‘mandated to promote the development of international law. The definition proposed includes provisions for individual and state responsibility and would be a strict liability crime. It would create a duty of care in events of naturally occurring ecocide as well as creating criminal responsibility for human caused ecocide, to be considered an ecocide under the proposed law, an environmental harm would need to be widespread, long lasting or severe. 1970 The word was recorded at the Conference on War and National Responsibility in Washington 1970, Galston was a US biologist who identified the defoliant effects of a chemical later developed into Agent Orange. Subsequently a bioethicist, he was the first in 1970 to name massive damage, others, including Indira Gandhi from India and Tang Ke, the leader of the Chinese delegation, also denounced the war in human and environmental terms. They too called for ecocide to be an international crime, a Working Group on Crimes Against the Environment was formed at the conference, and a draft Ecocide Convention was submitted into the United Nations in 1973. Dai Dong, a branch of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation sponsored a Convention on Ecocidal War which took place in Stockholm, the Convention brought together many people including experts Richard A. Falk, expert on the international law of war crimes and Robert Jay Lifton, a psychohistorian. The Convention called for a United Nations Convention on Ecocidal Warfare, Richard A. Westings view was that the element of intent did not always apply. Intent may not only be impossible to establish without admission but, I believe,1978 Draft Code of Crimes Against the Peace and Security of Mankind discussions commence. At the same time, State responsibility and international crimes are discussed and drafted, supporters who spoke out in favour of a crime of ecocide included Romania and the Holy See, Austria, Poland, Rwanda, Congo and Oman 1985 Ecocide as a crime continued to be addressed. 1991 The ILC Draft Code of Crimes Against the Peace and Security of Mankind of 1991 contained 12 crimes, one of those was wilful damage to the environment
Ecocide
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General
104.
Greenhouse effect
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The greenhouse effect is the process by which radiation from a planets atmosphere warms the planets surface to a temperature above what it would be without its atmosphere. If a planets atmosphere contains radiatively active gases the atmosphere radiate energy in all directions. Part of this radiation is directed towards the surface, warming it, greenhouse gases in the atmosphere radiate energy, some of which is directed to the surface and lower atmosphere. The mechanism that produces this difference between the surface temperature and the effective temperature is due to the atmosphere and is known as the greenhouse effect. Earth’s natural greenhouse effect is critical to supporting life, human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests, have intensified the natural greenhouse effect, causing global warming. The mechanism is named after a faulty analogy with the effect of radiation passing through glass. The way a greenhouse retains heat is fundamentally different, as a works by reducing airflow. The existence of the effect was argued for by Joseph Fourier in 1824. The effect was more fully quantified by Svante Arrhenius in 1896, however, the term greenhouse was not used to refer to this effect by any of these scientists, the term was first used in this way by Nils Gustaf Ekholm in 1901. Earth receives energy from the Sun in the form of ultraviolet, visible, of the total amount of solar energy available at the top of the atmosphere, about 26% is reflected to space by the atmosphere and clouds and 19% is absorbed by the atmosphere and clouds. Most of the energy is absorbed at the surface of Earth. Because the Earths surface is colder than the photosphere of the Sun, most of this thermal radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere, thereby warming it. In addition to the absorption of solar and thermal radiation, the atmosphere gains heat by sensible, the atmosphere radiates energy both upwards and downwards, the part radiated downwards is absorbed by the surface of Earth. This leads to an equilibrium temperature than if the atmosphere were absent. An ideal thermally conductive blackbody at the distance from the Sun as Earth would have a temperature of about 5.3 °C. However, because Earth reflects about 30% of the incoming sunlight, the surface temperature of this hypothetical planet is 33 °C below Earths actual surface temperature of approximately 14 °C. The basic mechanism can be qualified in a number of ways, the atmosphere near the surface is largely opaque to thermal radiation, and most heat loss from the surface is by sensible heat and latent heat transport. Radiative energy losses become increasingly important higher in the atmosphere, largely because of the concentration of water vapor
Greenhouse effect
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A modern Greenhouse in RHS Wisley
Greenhouse effect
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A representation of the exchanges of energy between the source (the Sun), the Earth's surface, the Earth's atmosphere, and the ultimate sink outer space. The ability of the atmosphere to capture and recycle energy emitted by the Earth surface is the defining characteristic of the greenhouse effect.
105.
Infrared window
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A large gap in the absorption spectrum of water vapor, the main greenhouse gas, is most important in the dynamics of the window. Other gases, especially carbon dioxide and ozone, partly block transmission, window radiation is radiation that actually passes through the atmospheric window. Non-window radiation is radiation that actually does not pass through the atmospheric window, window wavelength radiation is radiation that, judging only from its wavelength, potentially might or might not, but is likely to pass through the atmospheric window. Non-window wavelength radiation is radiation that, judging only from its wavelength, is unlikely to pass through the atmospheric window. In those days, computers were not available, and Simpson notes that he used approximations, he writes, There is no hope of getting an exact solution, nowadays, accurate line-by-line computations are possible, and careful studies of the infrared atmospheric window have been published. The infrared atmospheric window is a path from the surface of the earth to space. It separates two components, window and non-window radiation, that are not of the kind that have kinetics suitable for description by the Beer-Lambert law. The window radiation and the radiation from the land-sea surface are not defined in the terms that are necessary for the application of the Beer-Lambert Law. It would therefore be a logical and conceptual error to try to apply the Beer-Lambert Law either to window or non-window radiation considered separately. The reason for this is that the window and non-window radiation have already been conditioned by the Beer-Lambert Law, logically, the Beer-Lambert Law applies to radiation of which the origin is known but the destination is unknown. Such is not the case for window and non-window radiation, thus it makes sense to state the precise spectral distribution and spatial, especially altitudinal, distribution of locations of absorption of non-window radiation in the atmosphere. Radiation that can be described by the Beer-Lambert Law can partly escape absorption by the medium of interest, non-window radiation is by definition absorbed by the atmosphere, and its energy is thereby transduced into kinetic energy of atmospheric molecules. That kinetic energy is then transferred according to the dynamics of atmospheric energy transfer. The infrared absorptions of the natural greenhouse gases are mostly in two ranges. At wavelengths longer than 14 µm, gases such as CO2 and CH4 absorb due to the presence of relatively long C-H and carbonyl bonds, the bonds of H2O and NH3 absorb at wavelengths shorter than 8 µm. Clouds are excellent emitters of infrared radiation, moreover, the water vapour continuum absorptivity, molecule for molecule, decreases with pressure decrease. Thus water vapour above the clouds, besides being less concentrated, is also less absorptive than water vapour at lower altitudes. Without the infrared atmospheric window, the Earth would become too warm to support life
Infrared window
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As the main part of the 'window' spectrum, a clear electromagnetic spectral transmission 'window' can be seen between 8 and 14 µm. A fragmented part of the 'window' spectrum (one might say a louvred part of the 'window') can also be seen in the visible to mid-wavelength infrared between 0.2 and 5.5 µm.
106.
Land use, land-use change and forestry
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LULUCF has impacts on the global carbon cycle and as such, these activities can add or remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, influencing climate. LULUCF has been the subject of two reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Additionally, land use is of importance for biodiversity. Land-use change can be a factor in CO2 atmospheric concentration, and is thus a contributor to climate change. IPCC estimates that land-use change contributes a net 1.6 ±0.8 Gt carbon per year to the atmosphere. For comparison, the source of CO2, namely emissions from fossil fuel combustion. This decision sets out the rules that govern how Kyoto Parties with emission reduction commitments account for changes in carbon stocks in land use, land-use change, the most recent options for rule changes under consideration are summarized in a Non-Paper the co-chairs of the contact group on LULUCF. The impact of change on the climate is also more and more recognized by the climate modelling community. On regional or local scales, the impact of LUC can be assess by Regional Climate Models and this is however difficult, particularly for variables, which are inherently noisy, such as precipitation. For this reason, it is suggested to conduct RCM ensemble simulations, the extent, and type of land use directly affects wildlife habitat and thereby impacts local and global biodiversity. Human alteration of landscapes from natural vegetation to any other use typically results in loss, degradation. Land conversion is the single greatest cause of extinction of terrestrial species, an example of land conversion being a chief cause of the critically endangered status of a carnivore is the reduction in habitat for the African wild dog, Lycaon pictus. Deforestation is also the reason for loss of a natural habitat, urban growth has become a problem for forests and agriculture, the expansion of structures prevents natural resources from producing in their environment. The loss of forest land is estimated to have sixteen to thirty four million. In order to prevent the loss of wildlife the forests must maintain a stable climate, the U. S. Forest service predicts that urban and developing terrain in the U. S. will expand by forty one percent in the year 2060. These conditions cause displacement for the wildlife and limited resources for the environment to maintain a sustainble balance, deforestation and climate change Land use Satoyama Good Practice Guidance for Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry IPCC Special Report on Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry
Land use, land-use change and forestry
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Per capita greenhouse gas emissions by country including land-use change, in the year 2000.
107.
Urban heat island
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An urban heat island is an urban area or metropolitan area that is significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas due to human activities. The temperature difference usually is larger at night than during the day, UHI is most noticeable during the summer and winter. The main cause of the heat island effect is from the modification of land surfaces. Waste heat generated by energy usage is a secondary contributor, as a population center grows, it tends to expand its area and increase its average temperature. The less-used term heat island refers to any area, populated or not, monthly rainfall is greater downwind of cities, partially due to the UHI. Increases in heat within urban centers increases the length of growing seasons, the UHI decreases air quality by increasing the production of pollutants such as ozone, and decreases water quality as warmer waters flow into area streams and put stress on their ecosystems. Not all cities have an urban heat island. Mitigation of the heat island effect can be accomplished through the use of green roofs and the use of lighter-colored surfaces in urban areas. There are concerns raised about possible contribution from urban heat islands to global warming, research on China and India indicates that urban heat island effect contributes to climate warming by about 30%. On the other hand, one 1999 comparison between urban and rural areas proposed that the heat island effects have little influence on global mean temperature trends. Many studies reveal increases in the severity of the effect with the progress of climate change, the phenomenon was first investigated and described by Luke Howard in the 1810s, although he was not the one to name the phenomenon. This causes a change in the budget of the urban area. Another major reason is the lack of evapotranspiration in urban areas, with a decreased amount of vegetation, cities also lose the shade and cooling effect of trees, and the removal of carbon dioxide. Other causes of a UHI are due to geometric effects, the tall buildings within many urban areas provide multiple surfaces for the reflection and absorption of sunlight, increasing the efficiency with which urban areas are heated. This is called the urban canyon effect, another effect of buildings is the blocking of wind, which also inhibits cooling by convection and prevents pollution from dissipating. Waste heat from automobiles, air conditioning, industry, and other sources also contributes to the UHI, high levels of pollution in urban areas can also increase the UHI, as many forms of pollution change the radiative properties of the atmosphere. As UHI raises the temperature of cities, it increases the concentration of ozone. Some cities exhibit a heat island effect, largest at night, seasonally, UHI shows up both in summer and winter
Urban heat island
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Thermal (top) and vegetation (bottom) locations around New York City via infrared satellite imagery. A comparison of the images shows that where vegetation is dense, temperatures are cooler.
Urban heat island
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Tokyo, an example of an urban heat island. Normal temperatures of Tokyo go up more than those of the surrounding area.
Urban heat island
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Image of Atlanta, Georgia, showing temperature distribution, with blue showing cool temperatures, red warm, and hot areas appear white.
Urban heat island
108.
Climate oscillation
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A climate oscillation or climate cycle is any recurring cyclical oscillation within global or regional climate, and is a type of climate pattern. They are not perfectly periodic and a Fourier analysis of the data does not give a sharp spectrum, records of past climate conditions are recovered through geological examination of proxies, found in glacier ice, sea bed sediment, tree ring studies or otherwise. Many oscillations on different time-scales are hypothesized, although the causes may be unknown, the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation –15 to 30 years. The Arctic oscillation – no particular periodicity the North Atlantic Oscillation – no particular periodicity the North Pacific Oscillation –. In the case of volcanoes, large eruptions such as Mount Tambora in 1816, around 70000 years ago the Toba supervolcano eruption created an especially cold period during the ice age, leading to a possible genetic bottleneck in human populations. However, outgassing from large igneous provinces such as the Permian Siberian Traps can input carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, triggering of other mechanisms, such as methane clathrate deposits as during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, increased the rate of climatic temperature change and oceanic extinctions. Another longer-term near-millennial oscillation involves the Daansgard-Oeschger cycles, occurring on roughly 1 and they may be related to the Holocene Bond events, and may involve factors similar to those responsible for Heinrich events. There are close correlations between Earths climate oscillations and astronomical factors, and modes of heat distribution between the climate system. Shorter-term climate oscillations typically do not directly result in climate change in temperatures. Collapses of past civilizations such as the Maya may be related to cycles of precipitation, especially drought, one example of possible correlations between factors affecting the climate and global events, popular with the media, is a 2003 study on the correlation between wheat prices and sunspot numbers. Radiative forcings and other factors in a climate oscillation must obey the laws of atmospheric thermodynamics, however, because Earths climate is inherently a complex system, simple Fourier analysis or climate modelling often does not create a perfect replication of the observed or inferred conditions. No climate cycle is found to be periodic, although the Milankovich cycles are quite close to being periodic. One difficulty in detecting climate cycles is that the Earths climate has been changing in non-cyclic ways over most paleoclimatological timescales, for instance, we are now in a period of global warming that appears anthropogenic. During warm periods, temperature fluctuations are often of a lesser amplitude, the Pleistocene period, dominated by repeated glaciations, developed out of more stable conditions in the Miocene and Pliocene climate. Holocene climate has been relatively stable, all of these changes complicate the task of looking for cyclical behavior in the climate. Most climatologists recognize the existence of various tipping points that push small forcings beyond a threshold that makes the change irreversible while the forcings are still in place. Various climate forcings are typically in flux throughout geologic time, however, the absence of plant cover to absorb atmospheric CO2 emitted by volcanoes meant that the greenhouse gas could accumulate in the atmosphere. There was also an absence of exposed rocks, which use CO2 when they undergo weathering
Climate oscillation
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Climate change over the past 65 million years, using proxy data including Oxygen-18 ratios from foraminifera.
109.
Cosmic ray
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Cosmic rays are high-energy radiation, mainly originating outside the Solar System. Upon impact with the Earths atmosphere, cosmic rays can produce showers of particles that sometimes reach the surface. Composed primarily of protons and atomic nuclei, they are of mysterious origin. Data from the Fermi space telescope have been interpreted as evidence that a significant fraction of cosmic rays originate from the supernovae explosions of stars. Active galactic nuclei probably also produce cosmic rays, the term ray is a historical accident, as cosmic rays were at first, and wrongly, thought to be mostly electromagnetic radiation. In current usage, the cosmic ray almost exclusively refers to massive particles. Massive particles – those that have rest mass – can gain additional, kinetic, mass-energy when they are moving, through this process, some particles acquire tremendously high mass-energies. These are significantly higher than the energy of even the highest-energy photons detected to date. The energy of the massless photon depends solely on frequency, not speed, at the higher end of the energy spectrum, relativistic kinetic energy is the main source of the mass-energy of cosmic rays. Hence, the highest-energy detected fermionic cosmic ray was around 3×106 times more energetic than the highest-energy detected cosmic photons, of primary cosmic rays, which originate outside of Earths atmosphere, about 99% are the nuclei of well-known atoms, and about 1% are solitary electrons. Of the nuclei, about 90% are simple protons, i. e. hydrogen nuclei, 9% are alpha particles, identical to helium nuclei, a very small fraction are stable particles of antimatter, such as positrons or antiprotons. The precise nature of this fraction is an area of active research. An active search from Earth orbit for anti-alpha particles has failed to detect them, one can show that such enormous energies might be achieved by means of the Centrifugal mechanism of acceleration in Active galactic nuclei. At 50 J, the highest-energy ultra-high-energy cosmic rays have energies comparable to the energy of a 90-kilometre-per-hour baseball. As a result of discoveries, there has been interest in investigating cosmic rays of even greater energies. Most cosmic rays, however, do not have such extreme energies, however, his paper published in Physikalische Zeitschrift was not widely accepted. In 1911 Domenico Pacini observed simultaneous variations of the rate of ionization over a lake, over the sea, Pacini concluded from the decrease of radioactivity underwater that a certain part of the ionization must be due to sources other than the radioactivity of the Earth. In 1912, Victor Hess carried three enhanced-accuracy Wulf electrometers to an altitude of 5300 meters in a balloon flight
Cosmic ray
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Pacini makes a measurement in 1910.
Cosmic ray
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Cosmic ray flux versus particle energy
Cosmic ray
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Increase of ionization with altitude as measured by Hess in 1912 (left) and by Kolhörster (right)
Cosmic ray
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Hess lands after his balloon flight in 1912.
110.
Climate change feedback
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Feedback in general is the process in which changing one quantity changes a second quantity, and the change in the second quantity in turn changes the first. Positive feedback amplifies the change in the first quantity while negative feedback reduces it, the term forcing means a change which may push the climate system in the direction of warming or cooling. An example of a climate forcing is increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, by definition, forcings are external to the climate system while feedbacks are internal, in essence, feedbacks represent the internal processes of the system. Some feedbacks may act in isolation to the rest of the climate system, others may be tightly coupled. Forcings, feedbacks and the dynamics of the system determine how much. The main positive feedback in global warming is the tendency of warming to increase the amount of vapor in the atmosphere. Some observed and potential effects of global warming are positive feedbacks, there have been predictions, and some evidence, that global warming might cause loss of carbon from terrestrial ecosystems, leading to an increase of atmospheric CO2 levels. Several climate models indicate that global warming through the 21st century could be accelerated by the response of the carbon cycle to such warming. All 11 models in the C4MIP study found that a fraction of anthropogenic CO2 will stay airborne if climate change is accounted for. By the end of the twenty-first century, this additional CO2 varied between 20 and 200 ppm for the two models, the majority of the models lying between 50 and 100 ppm. The higher CO2 levels led to an additional climate warming ranging between 0. 1° and 1.5 °C, however, there was still a large uncertainty on the magnitude of these sensitivities. Eight models attributed most of the changes to the land, while three attributed it to the ocean, the strongest feedbacks in these cases are due to increased respiration of carbon from soils throughout the high latitude boreal forests of the Northern Hemisphere. One model in particular indicates a secondary carbon cycle feedback due to the loss of much of the Amazon Rainforest in response to reduced precipitation over tropical South America. While models disagree on the strength of any terrestrial carbon cycle feedback, results such as this rely on a dense sampling network and thus are not available on a global scale. Extrapolating to all of the United Kingdom, they estimate annual losses of 13 million tons per year and this is as much as the annual reductions in carbon dioxide emissions achieved by the UK under the Kyoto Treaty. It has also suggested that the release of dissolved organic carbon from peat bogs into water courses constitutes a positive feedback for global warming. The carbon currently stored in peatlands is over half the amount of carbon already in the atmosphere, tree deaths are believed to be increasing as a result of climate change, which is a positive feedback effect. This contradicts the previously held view that increased natural vegetation would lead to a negative-feedback effect
Climate change feedback
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Photo shows what appears to be permafrost thaw ponds in Hudson Bay, Canada, near Greenland. (2008) Global warming will increase permafrost and peatland thaw, which can result in collapse of plateau surfaces.
111.
Thermohaline circulation
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Thermohaline circulation is a part of the large-scale ocean circulation that is driven by global density gradients created by surface heat and freshwater fluxes. The adjective thermohaline derives from thermo- referring to temperature and -haline referring to salt content, wind-driven surface currents travel polewards from the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, cooling en route, and eventually sinking at high latitudes. This dense water then flows into the ocean basins, while the bulk of it upwells in the Southern Ocean, the oldest waters upwell in the North Pacific. Extensive mixing therefore takes place between the basins, reducing differences between them and making the Earths oceans a global system. On their journey, the water masses transport both energy and matter around the globe, as such, the state of the circulation has a large impact on the climate of the Earth. The thermohaline circulation is called the ocean conveyor belt, the great ocean conveyor, or the global conveyor belt. On occasion, it is used to refer to the overturning circulation. Moreover, temperature and salinity gradients can lead to circulation effects that are not included in the MOC itself. The movement of surface currents pushed by the wind is fairly intuitive, for example, the wind easily produces ripples on the surface of a pond. Thus the deep ocean—devoid of wind—was assumed to be perfectly static by early oceanographers, however, modern instrumentation shows that current velocities in deep water masses can be significant. In general ocean water velocities range from fractions of centimeters per second to more than 1 m/s in surface currents like the Gulf Stream. In the deep ocean, the predominant driving force is differences in density, caused by salinity, there is often confusion over the components of the circulation that are wind and density driven. Note that ocean currents due to tides are also significant in places, most prominent in relatively shallow coastal areas. There they are thought to facilitate mixing processes, especially diapycnal mixing. The density of water is not globally homogeneous, but varies significantly and discretely. Sharply defined boundaries exist between water masses which form at the surface, and subsequently maintain their own identity within the ocean, but these sharp boundaries are not to be imagined spatially but rather in a T-S-diagram where water masses are distinguished. They position themselves above or below each other according to their density, warm seawater expands and is thus less dense than cooler seawater. Saltier water is denser than water because the dissolved salts fill interstices between water molecules, resulting in more mass per unit volume
Thermohaline circulation
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Global map of average Sea Surface Density
Thermohaline circulation
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A summary of the path of the thermohaline circulation. Blue paths represent deep-water currents, while red paths represent surface currents.
Thermohaline circulation
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Benjamin Franklin 's map of the Gulf Stream
112.
Indian Ocean Dipole
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The IOD involves an aperiodic oscillation of sea-surface temperatures, between positive, neutral and negative phases. The negative phase of the IOD brings about the conditions, with warmer water and greater precipitation in the eastern Indian Ocean. The IOD also affects the strength of monsoons over the Indian subcontinent, a significant positive IOD occurred in 1997–98, with another in 2006. The IOD is one aspect of the cycle of global climate. The IOD phenomenon was first identified by researchers in 1999. Yet evidence from fossil coral reefs demonstrates that the IOD has functioned since at least the middle of the Holocene period,6500 years ago, an average of four each positive-negative IOD events occur during each 30-year period with each event lasting around six months. However, there have been 12 positive IODs since 1980 and no negative events from 1992 until a negative event in late 2010. Modelling suggests that consecutive positive events could be expected to occur twice over a 1, the positive IOD in 2007 evolved together with La Niña, which is a very rare phenomenon that has happened only once in the available historical records. A strong negative IOD developed in October 2010, which, coupled with a strong and concurrent La Niña, caused the 2010–2011 Queensland floods and the 2011 Victorian floods. In 2008, Nerilie Abram used coral records from the eastern and western Indian Ocean to construct a coral Dipole Mode Index extending back to 1846 AD and this extended perspective on IOD behaviour suggested that positive IOD events increased in strength and frequency during the 20th century. A2009 study by Ummenhofer et al, every major southern drought since 1889 has coincided with positive-neutral IOD fluctuations including the 1895–1902, 1937–1945 and the 1995–2009 droughts. In the IOD-positive phase, the pattern of ocean temperatures is reversed, weakening the winds and reducing the amount of moisture picked up, the consequence is that rainfall in the south-east is well below average during periods of a positive IOD. Arctic dipole anomaly Monsoon Abram, Nerilie J. et al, seasonal characteristics of the Indian Ocean dipole during the Holocene epoch. Ashok, Karumuri, Guan, Zhaoyong, Yamagata, Toshio, impact of the Indian Ocean Dipole on the Relationship between the Indian Monsoon Rainfall and ENSO. A Theory for the Indian Ocean Dipole–Zonal Mode, interannual variability in the subsurface Indian Ocean with special emphasis on the Indian Ocean Dipole. A dipole mode in the tropical Indian Ocean, IOD home page IOD, monsoons, and ENSO. Indian Ocean causes Big Dry, drought mystery solved, animation of Indian Ocean Dipole in Victoria, Australia
Indian Ocean Dipole
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Water temperatures around the Mentawai Islands dropped about 4° Celsius during the height of a positive phase of the Indian Ocean Dipole in November of 1997. During these events unusually strong winds from the east push warm surface water towards Africa, allowing cold water to upwell along the Sumatran coast. In this image blue areas are colder than normal, while red areas are warmer than normal.
113.
Pacific decadal oscillation
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The Pacific Decadal Oscillation is a robust, recurring pattern of ocean-atmosphere climate variability centered over the mid-latitude Pacific basin. The PDO is detected as warm or cool surface waters in the Pacific Ocean, over the past century, the amplitude of this climate pattern has varied irregularly at interannual-to-interdecadal time scales. This climate pattern also affects coastal sea and continental surface air temperatures from Alaska to California, during a warm, or positive, phase, the west Pacific becomes cooler and part of the eastern ocean warms, during a cool or negative phase, the opposite pattern occurs. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation was named by Steven R. Hare and this PDO index is the standardized principal component time series. A PDO signal has been reconstructed to 1661 through tree-ring chronologies in the Baja California area, Several studies have indicated that the PDO index can be reconstructed as the superimposition of tropical forcing and extra-tropical processes. Thus, unlike ENSO, the PDO is not a single mode of ocean variability. Additionally sea surface temperature anomalies have some winter to winter persistence due to the reemergence mechanism, ENSO teleconnections, the atmospheric bridge ENSO can influence the global circulation pattern thousands of kilometers away from the equatorial Pacific through the atmospheric bridge. The planetary waves form at preferred locations both in the North and South Pacific Ocean, and the pattern is established within 2–6 weeks. SST reemergence Midlatitude SST anomaly patterns tend to recur from one winter to the next but not during the intervening summer, when the mixed layer deepens again in the following autumn/early winter the anomalies may influence again the surface. Stochastic atmospheric forcing Long term sea surface temperature variation may be induced by random atmospheric forcings that are integrated and reddened into the mixed layer. Thus an atmospheric white noise generates SST anomalies at much longer timescales, modeling studies suggest that this process contribute to as much as 1/3 of the PDO variability at decadal timescales. Ocean dynamics Several dynamic oceanic mechanisms and SST-air feedback may contribute to the observed decadal variability in the North Pacific Ocean, remote reemergence occurs in regions of strong current such as the Kuroshio extension and the anomalies created near the Japan may reemerge the next winter in the central pacific. This advective resonance mechanism may generate decadal SST variability in the Eastern North Pacific associated with the anomalous Ekman advection, the propagation of h anomalies in the western pacific changes the KOE axis and strength and impact SST due to the anomalous geostrophic heat transport. Temperature and precipitation The PDO spatial pattern and impacts are similar to those associated with ENSO events, winter precipitation is higher than usual in the Alaska Coast Range, Mexico and the Southwestern United States but reduced over Canada, Eastern Siberia and Australia McCabe et al. The Asian Monsoon is also affected, increased rainfall and decreased summer temperature is observed over the Indian subcontinent during the negative phase, the PDO index has been reconstructed using tree rings and other hydrologically sensitive proxies from west North America and Asia. MacDonald and Case reconstructed the PDO back to 993 using tree rings from California, 1924/1925, PDO changed to a warm phase. 1976/1977, PDO changed to a warm phase, 1997/1998, Several changes in sea surface temperature and marine ecosystem occurred in the North Pacific after 1997/1998, in contrast to prevailing anomalies observed after the 1970s shift. The SST declined along the United States west coast and substantial changes in the populations of salmon, anchovy and this pattern dominated much of the North Pacific SST variability after 1989
Pacific decadal oscillation
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PDO positive phase global pattern
114.
Solar variation
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The solar cycle or solar magnetic activity cycle is the nearly periodic 11-year change in the Suns activity and appearance. They have been observed for centuries, the changes on the sun cause effects in space, in the atmosphere, and on Earths surface. While it is the dominant variable in solar activity, aperiodic fluctuations also occur, Solar cycles have an average duration of about 11 years. Solar maximum and solar minimum refer respectively to periods of maximum and minimum sunspot counts, cycles span from one minimum to the next. The solar cycle was discovered in 1843 by Samuel Heinrich Schwabe, following Wolfs numbering scheme, the 1755–1766 cycle is traditionally numbered 1. Wolf created a standard sunspot number index, the Wolf index, the period between 1645 and 1715, a time of few sunspots, is known as the Maunder minimum, after Edward Walter Maunder, who extensively researched this peculiar event, first noted by Gustav Spörer. In the second half of the nineteenth century Richard Carrington and by Spörer independently noted the phenomena of sunspots appearing at different latitudes at different parts of the cycle, the cycles physical basis was elucidated by Hale and collaborators, who in 1908 showed that sunspots were strongly magnetized. In 1919 they showed that the polarity of sunspot pairs, Is constant throughout a cycle, Is opposite across the equator throughout a cycle. Hales observations revealed that the complete magnetic cycle spans two solar cycles, or 22 years, before returning to its original state, however, because nearly all manifestations are insensitive to polarity, the 11-year solar cycle remains the focus of research. In 1961 the father-and-son team of Harold and Horace Babcock established that the cycle is a spatiotemporal magnetic process unfolding over the Sun as a whole. Horaces Babcock model described the Suns oscillatory magnetic field, with a periodicity of 22 years. It covered the exchange of energy between poloidal and toroidal solar magnetic field ingredients. The level of activity beginning in the 1940s is exceptional – the last period of similar magnitude occurred around 9,000 years ago. The Sun was at a high level of magnetic activity for only ~10% of the past 11,400 years. Almost all earlier high-activity periods were shorter than the present episode, fossil records suggest that the Solar cycle has been stable for at least the last 290 million years. For example, the cycle length during the early Permian is estimated to be 10.62 years, since observations began, cycles have ranged from 9–14 years. The current solar cycle began on January 4,2008, with minimal activity until early 2010 and it is on track to have the lowest recorded sunspot activity since accurate records began in 1750. The cycle featured a double-peaked solar maximum, the first peak reached 99 in 2011 and the second in early 2014 at 101
Solar variation
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Samuel Heinrich Schwabe (1789–1875). German astronomer, discovered the solar cycle through extended observations of sunspots
Solar variation
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400 year sunspot history, including the Maunder Minimum
Solar variation
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Rudolf Wolf (1816–1893), Swiss astronomer, carried out historical reconstruction of solar activity back to the seventeenth century
Solar variation
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A drawing of a sunspot in the Chronicles of John of Worcester.
115.
Volcanism
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It includes all phenomena resulting from and causing magma within the crust or mantle of the body, to rise through the crust and form volcanic rocks on the surface. Magma from the mantle or lower crust rises through its crust towards the surface, if magma reaches the surface, its behavior depends on the viscosity of the molten constituent rock. Viscous magma produces volcanoes characterised by explosive eruptions, while non-viscous magma produce volcanoes characterised by effusive eruptions pouring large amounts of lava onto the surface, in some cases, rising magma can cool and solidify without reaching the surface. Instead, the cooled and solidified igneous mass crystallises within the crust to form an igneous intrusion, as magma cools the chemicals in the crystals formed are effectively removed from the main mix of the magma, so the chemical content of the remaining magma evolves as it solidifies slowly. Fresh unevolved magma injections can remobilise more evolved magmas, allowing eruptions from more viscous magmas, movement of molten rock in the mantle, caused by thermal convection currents, coupled with gravitational effects of changes on the earths surface drive plate tectonic motion and ultimately volcanism. Volcanoes are places where magma reaches the earths surface, the type of volcano depends on the location of the eruption and the consistency of the magma. These are formed where magma pushes between existing rock, intrusions can be in the form of batholiths, dikes, sills, earthquakes are generally associated with plate tectonic activity, but some earthquakes are generated as a result of volcanic activity. These are formed where water interacts with volcanism and these include geysers, fumaroles, hotsprings and mudpots, they are often used as a source of geothermal energy. The amount of gas and ash emitted by volcanic eruptions has a significant effect on the Earths climate, large eruptions correlate well with some significant climate change events. When the magma cools it solidifies and forms rocks, the type of rock formed depends on the composition of the magma. Magma that reaches the surface to become lava cools rapidly resulting in rocks with small crystals such as basalt, some of this magma may cool extremely rapidly and will form volcanic glass such as obsidian. Magma that remains trapped below ground in thin intrusions cools slower than magma exposed to the surface, magma that remains trapped in large quantities below ground cools most slowly resulting in rocks with larger crystals - such as granite and gabbro. Existing rocks that come into contact with magma may be melted and assimilated into the magma, other rocks adjacent to the magma may be altered by contact metamorphism or metasomatism as they are affected by the heat and escaping or externally circulating hydrothermal fluids. Volcanism is not confined only to Earth, but is thought to be found on any body having a solid crust, evidence of volcanism should still be found on any body that has had volcanism at some point in its history. It can be surmised that volcanism exists on planets and moons of this type in other systems as well. In 2014, scientists found 70 lava flows which formed on the Moon in the last 100 million years, bimodal volcanism Continental drift Hotspot Volcanic arc Glossary of Volcanic Terms. G. J. Hudak, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh,2001, crumpler, L. S. and Lucas, S. G. Volcanoes of New Mexico, An Abbreviated Guide For Non-Specialists. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin, archived from the original on 2007-03-21
Volcanism
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The internal structure of the inner planets.
Volcanism
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Plate tectonics map with volcano locations indicated with red circles
116.
Global climate model
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A general circulation model is a type of climate model. It employs a model of the general circulation of a planetary atmosphere or ocean. It uses the Navier–Stokes equations on a sphere with thermodynamic terms for various energy sources. These equations are the basis for computer programs used to simulate the Earths atmosphere or oceans, Atmospheric and oceanic GCMs are key components along with sea ice and land-surface components. GCMs and global models are used for weather forecasting, understanding the climate. Versions designed for decade to century time scale climate applications were created by Syukuro Manabe and Kirk Bryan at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton. These models are based on the integration of a variety of fluid dynamical, chemical, the acronym GCM originally stood for General Circulation Model. Recently, a second meaning came into use, namely Global Climate Model, while these do not refer to the same thing, General Circulation Models are typically the tools used for modelling climate, and hence the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably. In 1956, Norman Phillips developed a model that could realistically depict monthly. It became the first successful climate model, following Phillipss work, several groups began working to create GCMs. The first to combine both oceanic and atmospheric processes was developed in the late 1960s at the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, by the early 1980s, the United States National Center for Atmospheric Research had developed the Community Atmosphere Model, this model has been continuously refined. In 1996, efforts began to model soil and vegetation types, later the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Researchs HadCM3 model coupled ocean-atmosphere elements. The role of gravity waves was added in the mid-1980s, gravity waves are required to simulate regional and global scale circulations accurately. Atmospheric and oceanic GCMs can be coupled to form a coupled general circulation model. With the addition of such as a sea ice model or a model for evapotranspiration over land. Thus a carbon CTM may allow a GCM to better predict anthropogenic changes in carbon dioxide concentrations, in addition, this approach allows accounting for inter-system feedback, e. g. chemistry-climate models allow the possible effects of climate change on ozone hole to be studied. Climate prediction uncertainties depend on uncertainties in chemical, physical and social models, significant uncertainties and unknowns remain, especially regarding the future course of human population, industry and technology. Three-dimensional GCMs apply discrete equations for fluid motion and integrate these forward in time and they contain parameterisations for processes such as convection that occur on scales too small to be resolved directly
Global climate model
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North American precipitation from various models.
Global climate model
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This visualization shows early test renderings of a global computational model of Earth's atmosphere based on data from NASA's Goddard Earth Observing System Model, Version 5 (GEOS-5).
117.
Atmospheric thermodynamics
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Atmospheric thermodynamics is the study of heat-to-work transformations that take place in the earths atmosphere and manifest as weather or climate. Atmospheric thermodynamic diagrams are used as tools in the forecasting of storm development, the atmosphere is an example of a non-equilibrium system. Those dynamics are modified by the force of the pressure gradient, the tools used include the law of energy conservation, the ideal gas law, specific heat capacities, the assumption of isentropic processes, and moist adiabatic processes. Considerations of moist air and cloud theories typically involve various temperatures, such as equivalent potential temperature, wet-bulb and virtual temperatures. Connected areas are energy, momentum, and mass transfer, turbulence interaction between air particles in clouds, convection, dynamics of tropical cyclones, and large scale dynamics of the atmosphere and these equations form a basis for the numerical weather and climate predictions. In 1873, thermodynamicist Willard Gibbs published Graphical Methods in the Thermodynamics of Fluids and these sorts of foundations naturally began to be applied towards the development of theoretical models of atmospheric thermodynamics which drew the attention of the best minds. Papers on atmospheric thermodynamics appeared in the 1860s that treated such topics as dry, in 1884 Heinrich Hertz devised first atmospheric thermodynamic diagram. In 1911 von Alfred Wegener published a book Thermodynamik der Atmosphäre, Leipzig, from here the development of atmospheric thermodynamics as a branch of science began to take root. The term atmospheric thermodynamics, itself, can be traced to Frank W. Verys 1919 publication, by the late 1970s various textbooks on the subject began to appear. Today, atmospheric thermodynamics is an part of weather forecasting. The thermodynamic efficiency of the Hadley system, considered as an engine, has been relatively constant over the 1979~2010 period. Parcels of air traveling close to the sea surface take up heat and water vapor, the rising air, and condensation, produces circulatory winds that are propelled by the Coriolis force, which whip up waves and increase the amount of warm moist air that powers the cyclone. Both a decreasing temperature in the upper troposphere or a temperature of the atmosphere close to the surface will increase the maximum winds observed in hurricanes. When applied to hurricane dynamics it defines a Carnot heat engine cycle, the Clausius–Clapeyron relation shows how the water-holding capacity of the atmosphere increases by about 8% per Celsius increase in temperature. This water-holding capacity, or equilibrium vapor pressure, can be approximated using the August-Roche-Magnus formula e s =6.1094 exp and this shows that when atmospheric temperature increases the absolute humidity should also increase exponentially. An air-sea interaction theory for tropical cyclones, J. Atmos
Atmospheric thermodynamics
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Air is being moistened as it travels toward convective system. Ascending motion in a deep convective core produces air expansion, cooling, and condensation. Upper level outflow visible as an anvil cloud is eventually descending conserving mass (rysunek - Robert Simmon).
Atmospheric thermodynamics
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Thermodynamic diagram developed in the 19th century is still used to calculate quantities such as convective available potential energy or air stability.
118.
Svante Arrhenius
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Svante August Arrhenius was a Nobel-Prize winning Swedish scientist, originally a physicist, but often referred to as a chemist, and one of the founders of the science of physical chemistry. He received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1903, becoming the first Swedish Nobel laureate, Arrhenius was born on 19 February 1859 at Vik, near Uppsala, Sweden, the son of Svante Gustav and Carolina Thunberg Arrhenius. His father had been a surveyor for Uppsala University, moving up to a supervisory position. At the age of three, Arrhenius taught himself to read without the encouragement of his parents, and by watching his fathers addition of numbers in his account books, in later life, Arrhenius enjoyed using masses of data to discover mathematical relationships and laws. At age eight, he entered the cathedral school, starting in the fifth grade, distinguishing himself in physics and mathematics. His work focused on the conductivities of electrolytes, in 1884, based on this work, he submitted a 150-page dissertation on electrolytic conductivity to Uppsala for the doctorate. It did not impress the professors, among whom was Cleve, and he received a fourth-class degree, later, extensions of this very work would earn him the 1903 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Arrhenius put forth 56 theses in his 1884 dissertation, most of which would still be accepted today unchanged or with minor modifications, Arrhenius explanation was that in forming a solution, the salt disassociates into charged particles. Faradays belief had been that ions were produced in the process of electrolysis, Arrhenius proposed that, even in the absence of an electric current and he thus proposed that chemical reactions in solution were reactions between ions. They were far more impressed, and Ostwald even came to Uppsala to persuade Arrhenius to join his research team, Arrhenius declined, however, as he preferred to stay in Sweden for a while and had received an appointment at Uppsala. In an extension of his ionic theory Arrhenius proposed definitions for acids and bases and he believed that acids were substances that produce hydrogen ions in solution and that bases were substances that produce hydroxide ions in solution. The Arrhenius equation gives the basis of the relationship between the activation energy and the rate at which a reaction proceeds. In 1891 he became a lecturer at the Stockholm University College, being promoted to professor of physics in 1895, and rector in 1896. He was married twice, first to his former pupil Sofia Rudbeck, with whom he had one son Olof Arrhenius, about 1900, Arrhenius became involved in setting up the Nobel Institutes and the Nobel Prizes. He was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1901, for the rest of his life, he would be a member of the Nobel Committee on Physics and a de facto member of the Nobel Committee on Chemistry. He used his positions to arrange prizes for his friends and to attempt to deny them to his enemies, in 1901 Arrhenius was elected to the Swedish Academy of Sciences, against strong opposition. In 1903 he became the first Swede to be awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry, in 1905, upon the founding of the Nobel Institute for Physical Research at Stockholm, he was appointed rector of the institute, the position where he remained until retirement in 1927. He was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 1910, in 1911 he won the first Willard Gibbs Award
Svante Arrhenius
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Svante Arrhenius
Svante Arrhenius
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Arrhenius' family grave in Uppsala
Svante Arrhenius
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Arrhenius at the first Solvay conference on chemistry in 1922 in Brussels.
Svante Arrhenius
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Svante Arrhenius (1909)
119.
James Hansen
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James Edward Hansen is an American adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. However, even then he wrote the future balance of forcings is likely to shift toward dominance of CO2 over aerosols Hansen was born in Denison, Iowa to James Ivan Hansen and Gladys Ray Hansen. He was trained in physics and astronomy in the science program of James Van Allen at the University of Iowa. He obtained a B. A. in Physics and Mathematics with highest distinction in 1963, an M. S. in Astronomy in 1965, Hansen then began work at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in 1967. After graduate school, Hansen continued his work with radiative transfer models, later he applied and refined these models to understand the Earths atmosphere, in particular, the effects that aerosols and trace gases have on Earths climate. Hansens development and use of climate models has contributed to the further understanding of the Earths climate. In 2009 his first book, Storms of My Grandchildren, was published, in 2012 he presented a 2012 TED Talk, Why I must speak out about climate change. From 1981 to 2013, he was the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, as of 2014, Hansen directs the Program on Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions at Columbia Universitys Earth Institute. The program is working to continue to connect the dots from advancing basic science to promoting public awareness to advocating policy actions. As a college student at the University of Iowa, Hansen was attracted to science, a decade later, his focus shifted to planetary research that involved trying to understand the climate change on earth that will result from anthropogenic changes of the atmospheric composition. Because of the ability of satellites to monitor the entire globe, they may be one of the most effective ways to monitor and his other interests include the development of global circulation models to help understand the observed climate trends, and diagnosing human impacts on climate. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, following his Ph. D. dissertation, Venus has a high brightness temperature in the radio frequencies compared to the infrared. Hansen proposed that the hot surface was the result of aerosols trapping the internal energy of the planet, Hansen continued his study of Venus by looking at the composition of its clouds. He looked at the near-infrared reflectivity of ice clouds, compared them to observations of Venus and he also was able to use a radiative transfer model to establish an upper limit to the size of the ice particles if the clouds were actually made of ice. Evidence published in the early 1980s showed that the clouds consist mainly of sulfur dioxide, by 1974, the composition of Venus clouds had not yet been determined, with many scientists proposing a wide variety of compounds, including liquid water and aqueous solutions of ferrous chloride. Kiyoshi Kawabata and Hansen expanded upon this work by looking at the variation of polarization on Venus and they found that the visible clouds are a diffuse haze rather than a thick cloud, confirming the same results obtained from transits across the sun. The Pioneer Venus project was launched in May 1978 and reached Venus late that same year, Hansen collaborated with Larry Travis and other colleagues in a 1979 Science article that reported on the development and variability of clouds in the ultraviolet spectrum. The linear polarization data obtained from the same mission confirmed that the low-, above the cloud layer was a layer of submicrometre haze
James Hansen
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James Hansen
James Hansen
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Venus is surrounded by a thick atmosphere composed mainly of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, and its clouds are sulfuric acid. The thickness of the atmosphere initially made it difficult to determine why the surface was so hot.
James Hansen
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A typical automated airport weather station which records the routine hourly weather observations of temperature, weather type, wind, sky condition, and visibility. These surface stations are located around the world, and are used to derive a global temperature.
James Hansen
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The incomplete combustion of biomass during the Yellowstone fires of 1988 near the Snake River introduced a large quantity of black carbon particles into the atmosphere.
120.
Environmental ethics
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Environmental ethics is the part of environmental philosophy which considers extending the traditional boundaries of ethics from solely including humans to including the non-human world. It exerts influence on a range of disciplines including environmental law, environmental sociology, ecotheology, ecological economics, ecology. There are many ethical decisions that human beings make with respect to the environment, for example, Should humans continue to clear cut forests for the sake of human consumption. Why should humans continue to propagate its species, and life itself, should humans continue to make gasoline-powered vehicles. What environmental obligations do humans need to keep for future generations, is it right for humans to knowingly cause the extinction of a species for the convenience of humanity. How should humans best use and conserve the environment to secure. Two papers published in Science had an impact, Lynn Whites The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis. The first British based journal of this kind, Environmental Values, was launched in 1992, some scholars have tried to categorise the various ways the natural environment is valued. Alan Marshall and Michael Smith are two examples of this, as cited by Peter Vardy in The Puzzle of Ethics, according to Marshall, three general ethical approaches have emerged over the last 40 years, Libertarian Extension, the Ecologic Extension and Conservation Ethics. Marshall’s Libertarian extension echoes a civil liberty approach, in environmentalism, though, the community is generally thought to consist of non-humans as well as humans. Andrew Brennan was an advocate of ecologic humanism, the argument that all entities, animate and in-animate. The work of Arne Næss and his collaborator Sessions also falls under the libertarian extension, Deep ecology is the argument for the intrinsic value or inherent worth of the environment – the view that it is valuable in itself. Their argument, incidentally, falls under both the extension and the ecologic extension. Peter Singers work can be categorized under Marshalls libertarian extension and he reasoned that the expanding circle of moral worth should be redrawn to include the rights of non-human animals, and to not do so would be guilty of speciesism. This approach is then, bio-centric. Alan Marshalls category of ecologic extension places emphasis not on human rights but on the recognition of the interdependence of all biological entities. Whereas Libertarian Extension can be thought of as flowing from a reflection of the natural world. Holmes Rolston, among others, has taken this approach, the planet is characterized as a unified, holistic entity with ethical worth of which the human race is of no particular significance in the long run
Environmental ethics
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Art
Environmental ethics
Environmental ethics
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Main fields
121.
Public opinion on climate change
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Public opinion on climate change is the aggregate of attitudes or beliefs held by the adult population concerning the science, economics, and politics of global warming. It is affected by media coverage of climate change, a 2007–2008 Gallup Poll surveyed individuals in 128 countries. This poll queried whether the respondent knew of global warming and, for those who were aware of the issue, over a third of the worlds population were unaware of global warming, with developing countries less aware than developed, and Africa the least aware. Opinion within the United Kingdom was divided, opinions in the United States vary intensely enough to be considered a culture war. A Gallup poll in 2014 concluded that 51 percent of Americans were a little or not at all worried about climate change,24 percent a great deal and 25 percent a fair amount. Adults in Asia, with the exception of those in developed countries, are the least likely to perceive global warming as a threat and these variations pose a challenge to policymakers, as different countries travel down different paths, making an agreement over an appropriate response difficult. While Africa may be the most vulnerable and produce the least amount of greenhouse gases, the top five emitters, who together emit half the worlds greenhouse gases, vary in both awareness and concern. The United States, Russia, and Japan are the most aware at over 85% of the population, conversely, only two-thirds of people in China and one-third in India are aware. Japan expresses the greatest concern, which translates into support for environmental policies, people in China, Russia, and the United States, while varying in awareness, have expressed a similar proportion of aware individuals concerned. Similarly, those aware in India are likely to be concerned and it has been suggested that the low U. S. ranking is tied to denial campaigns. In countries varying in awareness, an educational gap translates into a gap in awareness, however an increase in awareness does not always result in an increase in perceived threat. Despite the differences in awareness in China, all groups perceive a low level of threat from global warming. In India those who are educated are more likely to be aware, in Europe, individuals who have attained a higher level of education perceive climate change as a serious threat. There is also an association between education and Internet use. Europeans who use the Internet more are likely to perceive climate change as a serious threat. However, a survey of American adults found that. there is in fact little disagreement among culturally diverse citizens on what science knows about climate change, residential demographics affect perceptions of global warming. In China, 77% of those who live in urban areas are aware of global warming compared to 52% in rural areas and this trend is mirrored in India with 49% to 29% awareness, respectively. Of those countries where at least half the population are aware of global warming, in Europe, individuals under fifty-five are more likely to perceive both poverty, lack of food and drinking water and climate change as a serious threat than individuals over fifty-five
Public opinion on climate change
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Proportion reporting knowing "something" or "a great deal" about global warming in 2007–08. Darker areas indicate a greater proportion of individuals aware, yellow indicates no data.
122.
Climate change denial
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Climate change denial, or global warming denial, is part of the global warming controversy. Climate change denial can also be implicit, when individuals or social groups accept the science, several social science studies have analyzed these positions as forms of denialism. In the public debate, phrases such as climate skepticism have frequently used with the same meaning as climate denialism. Those promoting denial commonly use rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of a controversy where there is none. Of the worlds countries, the climate change denial industry is most powerful in the United States, since January 2015, the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works has been chaired by oil lobbyist and climate change denier Jim Inhofe. Organised campaigning to undermine public trust in science is associated with conservative economic policies. Climate change denial has been associated with the fossil fuels lobby, more than 90% of papers sceptical on climate change originate from right-wing think tanks. The total annual income of these climate change counter-movement-organizations is roughly $900 million, since the late 1970s, oil companies have published research broadly in line with the standard views on global warming. The terminology emerged in the 1990s and this small group of scientists presented their views in public statements and the media, rather than to the scientific community. His 1997 book The Heat is On may have been the first to concentrate specifically on the topic, a November 2006 CBC Television documentary on the campaign was titled The Denial Machine. In 2007 journalist Sharon Begley reported on the machine, a phrase subsequently used by academics. This was exemplified in Kari Norgaards study of a village in Norway affected by climate change, the term contrarian is more specific, but used less frequently. In academic literature and journalism, the climate change denial. Both the National Center for Science Education and historian Spencer R. Weart recognise that either option is problematic, terms related to denialism have been criticised for introducing a moralistic tone, and potentially implying a link with Holocaust denial. There have been claims that this link is intentional, which academics have strongly disputed, in December 2014, an open letter from the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry called on the media to stop using the term skepticism when referring to climate change denial. They said Not all individuals who call themselves climate change skeptics are deniers, but virtually all deniers have falsely branded themselves as skeptics. By perpetrating this misnomer, journalists have granted undeserved credibility to those who reject science, the letter was taken up by the advocacy group Face the Facts as the basis for an online petition to news media. Research on the effect of CO2 on the began in 1824
Climate change denial
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Joseph Fourier is credited with first discovering the greenhouse effect in 1824, beginning scientific research into the effects of increased greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.
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Climate change in the Arctic
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The effects of global warming in the Arctic include rising temperatures, loss of sea ice, and melting of the Greenland ice sheet. Potential methane release from the region, especially through the thawing of permafrost, because of the amplified response of the Arctic to global warming, it is often seen as a leading indicator of global warming. The melting of Greenlands ice sheet is linked to polar amplification, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, warming in the Arctic, as indicated by daily maximum and minimum temperatures, has been as great as in any other part of the world. The period of 1995-2005 was the warmest decade in the Arctic since at least the 17th century, some regions within the Arctic have warmed even more rapidly, with Alaska and western Canadas temperature rising by 3 to 4 °C. This warming has caused not only by the rise in greenhouse gas concentration. The authors conclude that anthropogenic increases in greenhouse gases have led to unprecedented regional warmth, the poles of the Earth are more sensitive to any change in the planets climate than the rest of the planet. In the face of ongoing global warming, the poles are warming faster than lower latitudes, the primary cause of this phenomenon is ice-albedo feedback, whereby melting ice uncovers darker land or ocean beneath, which then absorbs more sunlight, causing more heating. The loss of the Arctic sea ice may represent a point in global warming, when runaway climate change starts. Sea ice is currently in decline in area, extent, and volume and may cease to exist sometime during the 21st century. Sea ice area refers to the area covered by ice, whereas sea ice extent is the area of ocean with at least 15% sea ice. Reliable measurement of sea ice edges began with the era in the late 1970s. Before this time, sea ice area and extent were monitored less precisely by a combination of ships, buoys, the data show a long-term negative trend in recent years, attributed to global warming, although there is also a considerable amount of variation from year to year. Some of this variation may be related to such as the arctic oscillation. The Arctic sea ice September minimum extent reached new lows in 2002,2005,2007. The 2007 melt season let to a minimum 39% below the 1979-2000 average, and for the first time in human memory, the dramatic 2007 melting surprised and concerned scientists. From 2008 to 2011, Arctic sea ice minimum extent was higher than 2007, in 2012 however, the 2007 record low was broken in late August with 3 weeks still left in the melt season. The rate of the decline in entire ice coverage is accelerating. From 1979–1996, the average per decade decline in entire ice coverage was a 2. 2% decline in ice extent, for the decade ending 2008, these values have risen to 10. 1% and 10. 7%, respectively
Climate change in the Arctic
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The image above shows where average air temperatures (October 2010–September 2011) were up to 2 degrees Celsius above (red) or below (blue) the long-term average (1981–2010).
Climate change in the Arctic
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Rapidly thawing Arctic permafrost and coastal erosion on the Beaufort Sea, Arctic Ocean, near Point Lonely, AK. Photo Taken in August, 2013
Climate change in the Arctic
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Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Trend 2003-2005
124.
Climate change in Argentina
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According to scientists, global warming is predicted to have significant effects on the climate of Argentina. Though temperatures have increased at a slower rate than the global average, if these trends continue, it is predicted that climate change will exacerbate existing natural disasters such as increasing the intensity and frequency of floods or create new ones. There has been an increase in precipitation in almost all of Argentina, particularly in the northeast. Since 1970, precipitation has increased by 10% in the northeast while in parts of La Pampa Province and western parts of Buenos Aires province, the highest increases in the precipitation have occurred in the eastern parts of the country. In contrast, the Andean part of Patagonia along with the Cuyo region has seen a decrease in precipitation, some parts of Patagonia in the Andes have seen a 30%–50% reduction in precipitation since the middle of the 20th century. These extreme precipitation events such as flooding, and hail have occurred frequently in the east. Mean temperatures have increased by 0.5 °C from 1901–2012, temperatures in the Andean part of Patagonia have increased by more than 1 °C, which has caused the retreat of almost all of the glaciers. This affects water availability to arid areas of the country that depend on it, higher temperatures can reduce winter snowfall, causing river flow to decrease, which can reduce hydroelectric energy production, losses of up to 40% had been observed. In the last half of the 20th century, the lack of snow at the highest peaks in the Cuyo region has impacted agriculture and viticulture production due to less available in the rivers. Outside of Patagonia, mean temperatures have increased at a smaller rate since the increase in temperatures is counteracted by the decrease in maximum temperatures. Ozone depletion has played a role in changing the atmospheric circulation patterns. There has been a decrease in the days with frost, heat waves, which is defined as 3 consecutive days in which the temperature exceeds the 90th percentile with respect to the 1961–1990 period have become more common and intense between 1961–2010. Within the next 2 or 3 decades, mean temperatures are predicted to increase by 0.5 to 1.0 °C under the two scenarios from the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. Under the RCP4.5 scenario, temperatures increase by 1.0 °C throughout the country. In the more severe RCP8.5 scenario, the increased in temperatures will be higher. In both scenarios, the warming will be more pronounced during the summer months. The predicted trend for precipitation is not as clear as the one for temperature, in the northern and central regions, precipitation is predicted to increase while in much of central–western Argentina and Patagonia, precipitation is predicted to decrease. Because Argentina is potentially vulnerable to change, such projected changes based on the models could enhance current or create new problems associated with climate change on Argentina
Climate change in Argentina
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Tierra del Fuego during winter
Climate change in Argentina
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Subtropical with no dry season
Climate change in Argentina
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Jacarandas in bloom at Plaza Miserere, Buenos Aires
Climate change in Argentina
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Thunderstorm in Córdoba province during summer
125.
Climate change in Canada
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In Canada mitigation of anthropogenic climate change is being addressed more seriously by the provinces than by the federal government. Berkeley Earth has reported that 2015 was unambiguously the warmest year on record across the world, ECCC lists impacts of climate change consistent with global changes. Temperature-related changes include longer growing season, more heat waves and fewer cold spells, thawing permafrost, earlier river ice break-up, earlier spring runoff, meteorological changes include an increase in precipitation and more snowfall in northwest Arctic. Highlighting that Warming is not uniform, Arctic is warming even faster, ECCC notes 2012 had the lowest extent of Arctic sea ice on record up to 2014. ECCCs Climate Research Division summarized annual precipitation changes to support biodiversity assessments by the Canadian Councils of Resource Ministers, evaluating records up to 2007 they observed, Precipitation has generally increased over Canada since 1950 with the majority of stations with significant trends showing increases. The increasing trend is most coherent over northern Canada where many stations show significant increases, also, increasing precipitation over the Arctic appears to be occurring in all seasons except summer. A general lack of a detectable signal, meaning no overall change in extreme. On a regional basis, southwest and the east coastal regions generally showed significant increasing regional trends for 1-, decreasing regional trends for 5 to 15 minute rainfall amounts were observed in the St. Lawrence region of southern Quebec and in the Atlantic provinces. In 2000 Canada ranked ninth out of 186 countries in terms of per capita greenhouse gas emissions without taking into account land use changes, in 2009, Canada was ranked seventh in total greenhouse gas emissions behind Germany and Japan. Canada is a country with a low population density, so transportation – often in cold weather when fuel efficiency drops – is a big part of the economy. About 25 per cent of Canadas greenhouse gases s come from trucks, trains, airplanes and, especially, cars. Commerce, residential fuel consumption and industry account for 24 per cent of the total, another 14 per cent come from non-energy sources. The rest come from the production and manufacture of energy and power, the following table summarizes forecast changes to annual emissions by sector in megatonnes. Together, these account for nearly two-thirds of Canadas greenhouse gases. Upstream emissions will decline slightly, primarily from gas field depletion and from increasing production of coalbed methane, meanwhile, emissions from unconventional resources and refining will soar. However, the estimates for carbon emissions differ amongst Environment Canada, World Resources Institute, the reasons for the differences have not been determined. Canada is a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, however, the Liberal government that later signed the accord took little action towards meeting Canadas greenhouse gas emission targets. Soon after the 2006 federal election, the new minority government of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that Canada could and would not meet Canadas commitments, the House of Commons passed several opposition-sponsored bills calling for government plans for the implementation of emission reduction measures
Climate change in Canada
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50%+ increase
126.
Climate change in Finland
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Climate change in Finland discuss the climate change issues in Finland. Finnish national renewable energy program was done in 1999 and it was accepted as the national strategy in 2001. It included targets for the energy but no limit in the use of the fossil. The target can be compared to the EU Directive 2001/77/EU that also promoted renewable energy in the electricity production, the government ordered the evaluation report, published in February 2003, from the Electrowatt-Ekono Oy that was part of Pöyry. The EU aims in the 2014 United Nations Climate Change Conference a legally binding 40% drop in emissions by 2030 against carbon output in 1990 as baseline, in the Kyoto agreement Sweden was permitted lower emission decline targets based on Nuclear power phase-out. Respectively Finnish emission cut obligations may be increased based on higher nuclear dependency, Fortum is half state owned energy company. Fortum energy strategy is large investments in the energy in Finland, Sweden. According to Financial Times Fortum aims to invest 15 per cent in a controversial Finnish nuclear power plant to be built by Rosatom, Fortum has saved no funds to invest in the new renewable energy forms. Until end of 2014 Finnish governments have no obligations in the new renewables for companies. Russia had interest to build and share own a plant in Finland in 2014 during the 2014 Russian military intervention in Ukraine and 2014 Crimean crisis. Unlike Finland most other European countries demanded to decline energy dependency from Russia, the Finnish governments support nuclear energy by allocating majority of the risks, accident costs and nuclear waste costs to the tax payers. Finnish nuclear energy is informed to be risk free, according to Helsingin Sanomat reporting same assurance had been given in Japan before the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. European Union aims in 2014 demanding targets to decline emissions 40% from 1990 level to 2030, in Finnish traffic this goal demands decline from 12.48 to 7.4. As linear reduction this objective is annual decline in value of 0.30 from the top year emission 13.36 in 2010 and this objective equals maximum emission levels of 12,16 and 11,56. Finland is a member of the EU and thus the EU directives are binding in Finland, Finnish government has approved that human indused greenhouse gases cause the global warming. Despite this the most harmful use of peat as energy has been promoted by Finnish government since 2005. Regarding the climate change expenses, the Polluter Pay -principle has been neglected in Finland at least until 2011, CO2 emissions from peat were 15% and coal and peat 39% of total fossil fuel emissions in Finland in 2006. According to UNEP peatlands are the carbon storage and their protection is one of the main issues in the climate change mitigation
Climate change in Finland
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Renewable energy in Finland is mainly based on bioenergy from the forests and water power
127.
Climate change in the United Kingdom
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Climate change in the United Kingdom has been a subject of protests and controversies and various policies have been developed to mitigate its effects. It is estimated to demand at least 80-85% emission reductions in the EU during 2008-2050 with reductions as soon as technically possible, the UK Government has a commitment to reduce CO2 equivalent emissions by 80% on 1990 levels by 2025 and by 50% on 1990 levels by 2050. The emissions for 2012 were 581 MtCO2e in total and 7.7 tonnes per capita, CO2 emissions have reduced 17 % from 1990 to 2012 compared to 21 % in Germany. Import related emissions of the United Kingdom were 35% in 1992, consumer emissions have risen steadily over the period 1992-2004 and are in 2004 18% higher than in 1992, while the national total emissions reported to the UNFCCC in 1992-2004 have declined by 5%. The Committee on Climate Change, an independent body which advises the UK and devolved Government, meeting future carbon budgets UK will require reducing emissions by at least 3% a year. According to the report in June 2013 emissions of greenhouse gases increased by 3. 5% in 2012 due to cold winter compared to 2011 and coal in power generation. UK594 MtCO2e emissions by sectors in 2011 were 24% power, 19% industry, 18% land transport, 14% buildings, ca 1% agriculture and LULUCF and ca 1% aviation. Emission increase was biggest in aviation, Air transport in the United Kingdom CO2 emissions increased from ca 17 MtCO2 in 1990 to 35 MtCO2 in 2011. UK peatlands cover around 23,000 km2 or 9. 5% of the UK land area, a loss of only 5% of UK peatland carbon would equate to the total annual UK anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Healthy peat bogs have a net long-term ‘cooling’ effect on the climate, when drained, peatlands waste away through oxidation, adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Damaged and degraded peatlands place a financial burden on society because of increased greenhouse gas emissions, poorer water quality. There is in national legislation, international agreements and the EU directives. The EU directive 2001/77/EU promotes renewable energy in the electricity production, the British government and the economist Nicholas Stern published the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change in 2006. The report states that change is the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen. The Review provides prescriptions including environmental taxes to minimise economic and social disruptions, the Stern Reviews main conclusion is that the benefits of strong, early action on climate change far outweigh the costs of not acting. The Review points to the impacts of climate change on water resources, food production, health. According to the Review, without action, the costs of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global gross domestic product each year, now. Including a wider range of risks and impacts could increase this to 20% of GDP or more, no-one can predict the consequences of climate change with complete certainty, but we now know enough to understand the risks
Climate change in the United Kingdom
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Instrumental record of global average temperatures as compiled by the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia and the Hadley Centre of the UK Meteorological Office.
128.
Politics of global warming
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Developing countries do not have cost effective access to the advanced energy technologies that they need for development. All parties that engage in such acts add to the politicization of the science of global warming, the result is a clouding of the reality of the global warming problem. Distrust between developed and developing countries at most international conferences that seek to address the topic add to the challenges, as an example, a gold mine might release a dangerous chemical byproduct into a waterway that kills the fish in the waterway, a clear environmental damage. By contrast, carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring colorless odorless trace gas that is essential to the biosphere, carbon dioxide is produced by all animals and utilized by plants and algae to build their body structures. Plant structures buried for tens of millions of years sequester carbon to form coal, oil, over 80% of the worlds energy is derived from carbon dioxide emitting fossil fuels and over 91% of the worlds energy is derived from non carbon-neutral energy sources. Scientists attribute the increases of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to industrial emissions, however, the scientific consensus is difficult for the average individual layperson to readily see and grasp. The vast majority of developed countries rely on carbon dioxide emitting energy sources for large components of their economic activity, in developing countries the challenges are slightly different. Developing countries see carbon dioxide emitting fossil fuels as a cost effective, sometimes renewable energy technologies are not readily available to developing countries because of cost or due to export restrictions from developed countries who own those technologies. Carbon dioxide emitting fossil fuels continue to be abundant and their prices are consequently low accounting in 2010 for over 80% of the energy needs. When a trees carbon is released into the atmosphere in a single pulse, current studies indicate that even after 50 years the forest has not recovered to its initial carbon storage and the optimal strategy is likely to be protection of the standing forest. After adjustment, carbon neutral renewables account for 4. 9% of the energy needs in 2010 with solar accounting for. 23%. A strong contributor to these decisions is that the technologies are not yet adequate to replace the role of fossil hydrocarbon fuels. According to IEA energy subsidies artificially lower the price of energy paid by consumers, fossil fuels subsidies costs generally outweigh the benefits. Subsidies to renewables and low-carbon energy technologies can bring long-term economic, the IEAs report disagreed with claims that renewable energy technologies are only viable through costly subsidies and not able to produce energy reliably to meet demand. By contrast, Fossil-fuel consumption subsidies were $409 billion in 2010, renewable-energy subsidies were $66 billion in 2010 and will reach according to IEA $250 billion by 2035. Renewable energy is subsidized in order to compete in the market, increase their volume, eliminating fossil-fuel subsidies could bring economic and environmental benefits. Phasing out fossil-fuel subsidies by 2020 would cut primary energy demand 5%, since the start of 2010, at least 15 countries have taken steps to phase out fossil-fuel subsidies. According to IEA onshore wind may become competitive around 2020 in the European Union, the developing world sees economic and industrial development as a natural right and the evidence shows that the developing world is industrializing
Politics of global warming
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Politics of Global Warming Pictogram.
Politics of global warming
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Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Pioneer of the political treatment of the Greenhouse Effect
129.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
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Membership of the IPCC is open to all members of the WMO and UNEP. The IPCC produces reports that support the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the ultimate objective of the UNFCCC is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. The IPCC does not carry out its own research, nor does it do the work of monitoring climate or related phenomena itself. The IPCC bases its assessment on the literature, which includes peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed sources. Thousands of scientists and other experts contribute to writing and reviewing reports, IPCC reports contain a Summary for Policymakers, which is subject to line-by-line approval by delegates from all participating governments. Typically this involves the governments of more than 120 countries, the IPCC provides an internationally accepted authority on climate change, producing reports which have the agreement of leading climate scientists and the consensus of participating governments. The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was shared, in equal parts, in this way, it was formed as a hybrid between a scientific body and an intergovernmental political organisation. The aims of the IPCC are to assess scientific information relevant to, Human-induced climate change, The impacts of human-induced climate change, korean economist Hoesung Lee has been the chair of the IPCC since October 8,2015, following the election of the new IPCC Bureau. Before this election, the IPCC was led by his vice-Chair Ismail El Gizouli, the previous chairs were Rajendra K. Pachauri, elected in May 2002, Robert Watson in 1997, and Bert Bolin in 1988. The chair is assisted by an elected bureau including vice-chairs, working group co-chairs, the IPCC Panel is composed of representatives appointed by governments and organizations. Participation of delegates with appropriate expertise is encouraged, plenary sessions of the IPCC and IPCC Working groups are held at the level of government representatives. Non Governmental and Intergovernmental Organizations may be allowed to attend as observers, Sessions of the IPCC Bureau, workshops, expert and lead authors meetings are by invitation only. Attendance at the 2003 meeting included 350 government officials and climate change experts, after the opening ceremonies, closed plenary sessions were held. The meeting report states there were 322 persons in attendance at Sessions with about seven-eighths of participants being from governmental organizations, there are several major groups, IPCC Panel, Meets in plenary session about once a year and controls the organizations structure, procedures, and work program. The Panel is the IPCC corporate entity, Secretariat, Oversees and manages all activities. 30 members include IPCC Vice-Chairs, Co-Chairs and Vice-Chairs of Working Groups, Working Groups, Each has two Co-Chairs, one from the developed and one from developing world, and a technical support unit. Working Group I, Assesses scientific aspects of the climate system, Co-Chairs, Valérie Masson-Delmotte and Panmao Zhai Working Group II, Assesses vulnerability of socio-economic and natural systems to climate change, consequences, and adaptation options. Co-Chairs, Hans-Otto Pörtner and Debra Roberts Working Group III, Assesses options for limiting greenhouse gas emissions, the organisation is required to comply with the Financial Regulations and Rules of the WMO
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
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Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
130.
Effects of global warming
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The effects of global warming are the environmental and social changes caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases. There is a consensus that climate change is occurring. Many impacts of change have already been observed, including glacier retreat, changes in the timing of seasonal events. Future effects of change will vary depending on climate change policies. The two main policies to address climate change are reducing human greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change, near-term climate change policies could significantly affect long-term climate change impacts. Stringent mitigation policies might be able to limit warming to around 2 °C or below. Without mitigation, increased demand and extensive use of fossil fuels might lead to global warming of around 4 °C. Higher magnitudes of warming would be more difficult to adapt to. In this article, climate change means a change in climate that persists over a period of time. The World Meteorological Organization defines this time period as 30 years, examples of climate change include increases in global surface temperature, changes in rainfall patterns, and changes in the frequency of extreme weather events. Changes in climate may be due to causes, e. g. changes in the suns output, or due to human activities. Also, the term anthropogenic forcing refers to the influence exerted on a habitat or chemical environment by humans and this article breaks down some of the impacts of climate change according to different levels of future global warming. This way of describing impacts has, for instance, been used in the IPCC Assessment Reports on climate change, the instrumental temperature record shows global warming of around 0.6 °C during the 20th century. The future level of warming is uncertain, but a wide range of estimates have been made. The IPCCs SRES scenarios have been used to make projections of future climate change. The SRES scenarios are baseline scenarios, which means that they do not take into account any current or future measures to limit GHG emissions, emissions projections of the SRES scenarios are broadly comparable in range to the baseline emissions scenarios that have been developed by the scientific community. In the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, changes in global mean temperature were projected using the six SRES marker emissions scenarios. Emissions projections for the six SRES marker scenarios are representative of the set of forty SRES scenarios
Effects of global warming
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A map that shows ice concentration on 16 September 2012, along with the extent of the previous record low (yellow line) and the mid-September median extent (black line) setting a new record low that was 18 percent smaller than the previous record and nearly 50 percent smaller than the long-term (1979-2000) average.
Effects of global warming
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Summary of climate change impacts.
Effects of global warming
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Temperatures across the world in the 1880s (left) and the 1980s (right), as compared to average temperatures from 1951 to 1980.
Effects of global warming
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Projected changes in average temperatures across the world in the 2050s under three greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions scenarios.
131.
Arctic haze
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Arctic haze is the phenomenon of a visible reddish-brown springtime haze in the atmosphere at high latitudes in the Arctic due to anthropogenic air pollution. A major distinguishing factor of Arctic haze is the ability of its ingredients to persist in the atmosphere for an extended period of time compared to other pollutants. Due to limited amounts of snow, rain, or turbulent air to displace pollutants from the air mass in spring. Arctic haze was first noticed in 1750 when the Industrial Revolution began, explorers and whalers could not figure out where the foggy layer was coming from. Poo-jok was the term the Inuit used for it, another hint towards clarifying this issue was relayed in notes approximately a century ago by Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen. After trekking through the Arctic he found dark stains on the ice, from his investigations, Mitchell thought the haze had come from industrial areas in Europe and China. He went on to become an eminent climatologist, the haze is seasonal, reaching a peak in late winter and spring. When an aircraft is within a layer of Arctic haze, pilots report that horizontal visibility can drop to one tenth that of normally clear sky, at this time it was unknown whether the haze was natural or was formed by pollutants. Further research continues with the aim of understanding the impact of pollution on global warming. The pollutants are commonly thought to originate from coal-burning in northern mid-latitudes, the aerosols contain about 90% sulfur and the rest is carbon, which makes the haze reddish in color. This pollution is helping the Arctic warm up faster than any other region, during the Arctic winter, however, there is no sunlight to reflect. In the absence of cooling effect, the dominant effect of changes to Arctic clouds is an increased trapping of infrared radiation from the surface. Some of those pollutants figure among environmental effects of coal burning, due to low deposition rates, these pollutants are not yet having adverse effects on people or animals. Different pollutants actually represent different colors of haze, dr. Shaw discovered in 1976 that the yellowish haze is from dust storms in China and Mongolia. The particles were carried polwards by unusual air currents, the trapped particles were dark gray the next year he took a sample. That was caused by an amount of industrial pollutants. Home fires in India also contribute, european climatologists predicted in 2009 that by the end of the 21st century, the temperature of the Arctic region is expected to rise 3° Celsius on an average day. Pictures of Arctic are Hard to Argue With, Arctic Haze, An Uninvited Spring Guest
Arctic haze
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Long-range pollution pathways to the Arctic
132.
Current sea level rise
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Sea level rise refers to an increase in the volume of water in the world’s oceans, resulting in an increase in global mean sea level. Sea level rise is attributed to global climate change by thermal expansion of the water in the oceans and by melting of Ice sheets. Melting of floating ice shelves or icebergs at sea raises sea levels only slightly, Sea level rise at specific locations may be more or less than the global average. Local factors might include tectonic effects, subsidence of the land, tides, currents, storms, Sea level rise is expected to continue for centuries. IPCC Summary for Policymakers, AR5,2014, indicated that the mean sea level rise will continue during the 21st century, very likely at a faster rate than observed from 1971 to 2010. A January 2017 NOAA report suggests a range of GMSL rise of 0.3 –2.5 m possible during the 21st century, Sea level rises can considerably influence human populations in coastal and island regions and natural environments like marine ecosystems. On the timescale of centuries to millennia, the melting of ice sheets could result in even higher sea level rise, partial deglaciation of the Greenland ice sheet, and possibly the West Antarctic ice sheet, could contribute 4 to 6 m or more to sea level rise. Various factors affect the volume or mass of the ocean, leading to changes in eustatic sea level. The two primary influences are temperature, and the mass of water locked up on land and sea as water in rivers, lakes, glaciers. Over much longer timescales, changes in the shape of oceanic basins. Since the Last Glacial Maximum about 20,000 years ago, sea level has risen by more than 125 m, with rates varying from tenths of a mm/yr to 10+mm/year, as a result of melting of major ice sheets. During the rest of the early Holocene, the rate of sea level rise varied from a low of about 6.0 -9.9 mm/yr to as high as 30 -60 mm/yr during brief periods of accelerated sea level rise. In sharp contrast, the period between 14,300 and 11,100 calendar years ago, which includes the Younger Dryas interval, was an interval of reduced sea level rise at about 6.0 -9.9 mm/yr. Meltwater pulse 1C was centered at 8,000 calendar years, such rapid rates of sea level rising during meltwater events clearly implicate major ice-loss events related to ice sheet collapse. The primary source may have been meltwater from the Antarctic ice sheet, other studies suggest a Northern Hemisphere source for the meltwater in the Laurentide ice sheet. For example, this research included studies of Roman wells in Caesarea and these methods in combination suggest a mean eustatic component of 0.07 mm/yr for the last 2000 years. Since 1880, as the Industrial Revolution took center stage, the ocean began to rise briskly, climbing a total of 210 mm through 2009 causing extensive erosion worldwide, Sea level rose by 6 cm during the 19th century and 19 cm in the 20th century. Evidence for this includes geological observations, the longest instrumental records, for example, geological observations indicate that during the last 2,000 years, sea level change was small, with an average rate of only 0. 0–0.2 mm per year
Current sea level rise
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Map of the Earth with a six-meter sea level rise represented in red.
Current sea level rise
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Trends in global average absolute sea level, 1880–2013.
Current sea level rise
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Close-up of Ross Ice Shelf, the largest ice shelf of Antarctica, about the size of France and up to several hundred metres thick.
Current sea level rise
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Greenland 2007 melt anomaly, measured as the difference between the number of days on which melting occurred in 2007 compared to the average annual melting days from 1988–2006
133.
Effect of climate change on plant biodiversity
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Environmental conditions play a key role in defining the function and distribution of plants, in combination with other factors. It is predicted that climate change will remain one of the drivers of biodiversity patterns in the future. The Earth has experienced a constantly changing climate in the time since plants first evolved, in comparison to the present day, this history has seen Earth as cooler, warmer, drier and wetter, and CO2 concentrations have been both higher and lower. It has been shown that past climatic change has been a driver of the processes of speciation and extinction. The best known example of this is the Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse which occurred 350 million years ago and this event decimated amphibian populations and spurred on the evolution of reptiles. There is significant current interest and research focus on the phenomenon of recent anthropogenic climate changes, focus is on identifying the current impacts of climate change on biodiversity, and predicting these effects into the future. Increases in atmospheric CO2 concentration affect how plants photosynthesise, resulting in increases in plant water use efficiency, enhanced photosynthetic capacity, increased CO2 has been implicated in ‘vegetation thickening’ which affects plant community structure and function. Increased CO2 can also lead to increased Carbon, Nitrogen ratios in the leaves of plants or in aspects of leaf chemistry. Increases in temperature raise the rate of many physiological processes such as photosynthesis in plants, extreme temperatures can be harmful when beyond the physiological limits of a plant. As water supply is critical for plant growth, it plays a key role in determining the distribution of plants. Changes in precipitation are predicted to be less consistent than for temperature and more variable between regions, with predictions for some areas to much wetter, and some much drier. This can cause a change in some ecosystems which are dependent on water supply. Environmental variables will not act in isolation, but also in combination with one another and it is suggested that these other drivers of biodiversity change will act in synergy with climate change to increase the pressure on species to survive. If climatic factors such as temperature and precipitation change in a region beyond the tolerance of a phenotypic plasticity. There is already evidence that plant species are shifting their ranges in altitude and latitude as a response to changing regional climates, the environmental conditions required by some species, such as those in alpine regions may disappear altogether. The result of changes is likely to be a rapid increase in extinction risk. Adaptation to new conditions may also be of importance in the response of plants. Predicting the extinction risk of plant species is not easy however, estimations from particular periods of rapid climatic change in the past have shown relatively little species extinction in some regions, for example
Effect of climate change on plant biodiversity
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Alpine flora at Logan Pass, Glacier National Park, in Montana, USA: Alpine plants are one group expected to be highly susceptible to the impacts of climate change
Effect of climate change on plant biodiversity
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Australian Rainforest: An ecosystem known to have significantly contracted in area over recent geological time as a result of climatic changes.
Effect of climate change on plant biodiversity
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Global annual surface temperature anomaly in 2005, relative to 1951-1980 mean
Effect of climate change on plant biodiversity
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Pine tree representing an elevational tree-limit rise of 105 m over the period 1915–1974. Nipfjället, Sweden
134.
Effects of global warming on human health
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The effects of global warming include effects on human health. The observed and projected increased frequency and severity of climate related impacts will further exacerbate the effects on human health and this article describes some of those effects on individuals and populations. A good example of the impact of global warming on health can be seen in the disease Erythromelalgia, as climate change proceeds, more Erythromelalgia outbreaks may occur because of the extreme weather events that are projected to increase in coming decades. Warming oceans and a changing climate are resulting in extreme weather patterns which have brought about an increase of infectious diseases—both new and re-emerging. These extreme weather patterns are creating extended rainy seasons in some areas, “The rise of extreme weather is itself a symptom of an unstable climate. Extreme weather also means stronger winds, mosquito-borne diseases are probably the greatest threat to humans as they include malaria, elephantiasis, Rift Valley fever, yellow fever, and dengue fever. Studies are showing higher prevalence of diseases in areas that have experienced extreme flooding. Flooding creates more standing water for mosquitoes to breed, as well, shown that these vectors are able to feed more and grow faster in warmer climates. As the climate warms over the oceans and coastal regions, warmer temperatures are also creeping up to higher elevations allowing mosquitoes to survive in areas they had never been able to before. As the climate continues to warm there is a risk that malaria will make a return to the developed world, ticks are also thriving in the warmer temperatures allowing them to feed and grow at a faster rate. The black legged tick, a carrier of Lyme disease, when not feeding, ticks die when the climate either becomes too cold or when the climate becomes too dry, causing the ticks to dry out. Other diseases on the due to extreme weather include hantavirus, schistosomiasis, onchocerciasis. It also causes the rise in hay fever, as when the weather gets warmer there is a rise in levels in the air. Because of the temperature, parts of the globe could become uninhabitable. The warming oceans are becoming a ground for toxic algae blooms. As the nitrogen and phosphorus levels in the increase, the cholera bacteria that lives within zooplankton emerge from their dormant state. The changing winds and changing ocean currents push the zooplankton toward the coastline, carrying the cholera bacteria, as flooding increases there is also an increase in cholera epidemics as the flood waters that are carrying the bacteria are infiltrating the drinking water supply. El Nino has also linked with cholera outbreaks because this weather pattern warms the shoreline waters
Effects of global warming on human health
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This alpine valley is entirely above the tree line
Effects of global warming on human health
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Freshet in Pangnirtung, Nunavut -f
Effects of global warming on human health
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Lichen-covered tree, Tresco
Effects of global warming on human health
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Tussocks - geograph.org.uk - 452055
135.
Environmental migrant
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Environmental migrants are people who are forced to leave their home region due to sudden or long-term changes to their local environment. These are changes which compromise their well-being or secure livelihood, such changes are held to include increased droughts, desertification, sea level rise, and disruption of seasonal weather patterns. Environmental migrants may choose flee to or migrate to another country, the term climate exiles has been used to refer to those climate migrants who may be in danger of becoming stateless. The distinctions between these terms are contested, unless it is assumed in order to consider a person an environmental refugee, nature or the environment could be considered the persecutor. Environmental refugees do not really fit any of the legal definitions of a refugee. Not all environmental refugees migrate from their country, on occasion they are just displaced within their country of origin. Moreover, the refugees arent leaving their homes because of fear they will be persecuted, the term environmental refugee was first proposed by Lester Brown in 1976. Environmental forced migrants, people who have to leave due to deteriorating environmental conditions. Environmental motivated migrants also known as environmentally induced economic migrants, people who choose to leave to avoid future problems. ”This type of migrant is displaced from their environment when an event is predicted prior to when it would be imperative for the inhabitants to leave. Such events could be desertification or prolonged drought, where the people of the region are no longer able to maintain farming or hunting to provide a living environment. These are migrants that have been or will be displaced from their homes due to environmental factors beyond their control. This includes migrants suffering from a single event and this type of migrant is displaced from their home state when their environment rapidly changes. They are displaced when disastrous events occur, such as tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, there have been a number of attempts over the decades to enumerate environmental migrants and refugees. Jodi Jacobson is cited as the first researcher to enumerate the issue, drawing on ‘worst-case scenarios’ about sea-level rise, she argued that all forms of ‘Environmental Refugees’ would be six times as numerous as political refugees. By 1989, Mustafa Tolba, Executive Director of UNEP, was claiming that as many as 50 million people could become environmental refugees if the world did not act to support sustainable development. In the mid-1990s, British environmentalist, Norman Myers, became the most prominent proponent of this ‘maximalist’ school, noting, that environmental refugees will soon become the largest group of involuntary refugees. Additionally, he stated there were 25 million environmental refugees in the mid-1990s, further claiming that this figure could double by 2010. Myers argued that the causes of environmental displacement would include desertification, lack of water, salination of irrigated lands, more recently, Myers has suggested that the figure by 2050 might be as high as 250 million
Environmental migrant
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Drought refugees from Oklahoma camping by the roadside, California, 1936
Environmental migrant
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German artist Hermann Josef Hack 's World Climate Refugee Camp in Hannover displaying 600 small climate refugee tents.
136.
Fisheries and climate change
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Rising ocean temperatures and ocean acidification are radically altering aquatic ecosystems. Climate change is modifying fish distribution and the productivity of marine and this has impacts on the sustainability of fisheries and aquaculture, on the livelihoods of the communities that depend on fisheries, and on the ability of the oceans to capture and store carbon. The effect of sea level means that coastal fishing communities are in the front line of climate change, while changing rainfall patterns and water use impact on inland fisheries. Healthy ocean ecosystems are essential for the mitigation of climate change, coral reefs provide habitat for millions of fish species and with climate change it can provoke these reefs to die. The rising ocean acidity makes it difficult for marine organisms such as shrimps, oysters. Many important animals, such as zooplankton, that forms the base of the food chain have calcium shells. Thus the entire food web is being altered – there are ‘cracks in the food chain’. Changing rainfall patterns and water scarcity is impacting on river and lake fisheries, after the ice age about 200,000 years ago, the global air temperature has risen 3 degrees, leading to an increase in sea temperatures. Coastal and fishing populations and countries dependent on fisheries are particularly vulnerable to climate change, low-lying countries such as the Maldives and Tuvalu are particularly vulnerable and entire communities may become the first climate refugees. Fishing communities in Bangladesh are subject not only to sea-level rise, Fisheries and aquaculture contribute significantly to food security and livelihoods. Fish provides essential nutrition for 3 billion people and at least 50% of animal protein, the impacts of climate change can be addressed through adaptation and mitigation. The costs and benefits of adaptation are essentially local or national, consequently, removal of subsidies on fuel for fishing can have a double benefit by reducing emissions and overfishing. Investment in sustainable aquaculture can buffer water use in agriculture while producing food, the oceans have removed 50% of the anthropogenic CO2, so the oceans have absorbed much of the impact of climate change. The famous White Cliffs of Dover illustrate how the ocean captures and buries carbon and these limestone cliffs are formed from the skeletons of marine plankton called coccoliths. Similarly, petroleum formation is attributed largely to marine and aquatic plankton further illustrating the key role of the oceans in carbon sequestration, exactly how the oceans capture and bury CO2 is the subject of intense research by scientists worldwide, such as the Carboocean Project. The current level of GHG emissions means that ocean acidity will continue to increase and aquatic ecosystems will continue to degrade, there are feedback mechanisms involved here. For example, warmer waters can absorb less CO2, so as ocean temperatures rise some dissolved CO2 will be released back into the atmosphere, warming also reduces nutrient levels in the mesopelagic zone. This in turn limits the growth of diatoms in favour of smaller phytoplankton that are poorer biological pumps of carbon and this inhibits the ability of the ocean ecosystems to sequester carbon as the oceans warm
Fisheries and climate change
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Fishing with a lift net in Bangladesh. Coastal fishing communities in Bangladesh are vulnerable to flooding from sea-level rises.
Fisheries and climate change
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Island with fringing reef in the Maldives. Coral reefs are dying around the world.
Fisheries and climate change
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Fisherman landing his catch, Seychelles
Fisheries and climate change
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The White Cliffs of Dover
137.
Forest dieback
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Forest dieback is a condition in trees or woody plants in which peripheral parts are killed, either by pathogens, parasites or due to conditions like acid rain and drought. Two of the nine tipping points for major changes, forecast for the next century, are directly related to forest diebacks. Phomopsis azadirachtae is a fungus of the Phomopsis genus that has identified as the fungus responsible for dieback of Azadirachta indica in India. Forest dieback refers to the phenomena of a stand of trees losing health and this condition is also known as forest decline, forest damage, canopy level dieback, and stand level dieback. This usually affects individual species of trees, but can affect multiple species. Trees and woody plants are killed by a group of factors that include parasites, such as fungus and beetles, pollution, such as acid rain and organic compounds. Diseases and pests can kill large groups of very easily. Dieback takes on many locations and shapes and it can be along the perimeter, at specific elevations, or dispersed throughout the forest ecosystem. Forest dieback has many dynamic forms, a stand of trees can exhibit mild symptoms, extreme systems, or death at the same time. Forest decline can be viewed as the result of continued, widespread, current forest decline is described by rapid development on individual trees, occurrence in different forest types, a long duration, and occurrence throughout the natural range of affected species. Much research was done in the 1980s when a severe dieback happened in Germany, previous diebacks were regionally limited, but starting at the end of the 1970s a decline took over the forests of Central Europe and parts of North America. The forest damage in Germany was different because the decline was severe, up to 50% of the trees, prolonged, over 5 years, affected trees went from 8% in 1982 to 50% in 1984 and stayed at 50% through 1987. Many hypotheses have proposed for this dieback, see below. Drought and temperature have been factors in many diebacks. This condition is common in regions and the trees are already stressed by dehydration. There have been reported diebacks in the 50% mortality range across multiple species in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South and Central America, notable drought related diebacks have occurred globally from the 1970s through the 2000s. A few drought related diebacks have occurred before this, for instance, a 23% mortality rate was reported between 1945 and 1993 in Senegal Africa. Trees stressed by drought and temperature are more susceptible to parasites, in North America there were five notable hardwood diebacks in the XX century
Forest dieback
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Jizera Mountains in Central Europe
138.
Megadrought
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A megadrought is a prolonged drought lasting two decades or longer. Past megadroughts have been associated with persistent multiyear La Niña conditions, the term megadrought is generally used to describe the length of a drought, and not its acute intensity. In scientific literature the term is used to describe decades-long droughts or multi-decadal droughts, multiyear droughts of less than a decade, such as the Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s, are generally not described as megadroughts even though they are of a long duration. Megadroughts have historically led to the migration of humans away from drought affected lands. The African Sahel region in particular has suffered multiple megadroughts throughout history, north America experienced at least four megadroughts during the Medieval Warm Period. There are several sources for establishing the past occurrence and frequency of megadroughts, including, When megadroughts occur, lakes dry up and trees, when the drought ends the lakes refill, when this happens the trees are submerged and die. In some locations these trees have remained preserved and can be studied giving accurate radio-carbon dates, such trees have been found in Mono and Tenaya lakes in California, Lake Bosumtwi in Ghana, and various other lakes. Dendrochronology, the dating and study of rings in trees. The tree-ring data indicate that the Western states have experienced droughts that lasted ten times longer than anything the modern U. S. has seen. Based on annual tree rings, NOAA has recorded patterns of drought covering most of the U. S. for every year since 1700, certain species of trees have given evidence over a longer period, in particular Montezuma Cypress and Bristlecone pine trees. The University of Arkansas has produced a 1238-year tree-ring based chronology of weather condition in central Mexico by examining core samples taken from living Montezuma Cypress trees, sediment core samples taken at the volcanic caldera in Valles Caldera, New Mexico and other locations. Plant and pollen remains found in samples from the bottom of lakes have been also studied and added to the record. Using the relationship between tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures and the isotope ratio in living corals to convert fossil coral records into sea surface temperatures. This has been used to establish the occurrence and frequency of La Niña conditions
Megadrought
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Montezuma Bald Cypress tree, 900 years old
139.
Ocean acidification
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Ocean acidification is the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earths oceans, caused by the uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Seawater is slightly basic, and the process in question is a shift towards pH-neutral conditions rather than a transition to acidic conditions, Ocean alkalinity is not changed by the process, or may increase over long time periods due to carbonate dissolution. An estimated 30–40% of the carbon dioxide from human activity released into the atmosphere dissolves into oceans, rivers, to achieve chemical equilibrium, some of it reacts with the water to form carbonic acid. Some of these extra carbonic acid molecules react with a molecule to give a bicarbonate ion. Between 1751 and 1996 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.25 to 8.14, representing an increase of almost 35% in H+ ion concentration in the worlds oceans. By increasing the presence of hydrogen ions, each molecule of carbonic acid that forms in the oceans ultimately results in the conversion of two carbonate ions into bicarbonate ions. Ongoing acidification of the oceans threatens food chains connected with the oceans, while ongoing ocean acidification is anthropogenic in origin, it has occurred previously in Earths history. The most notable example is the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, which occurred approximately 56 million years ago, for reasons that are currently uncertain, massive amounts of carbon entered the ocean and atmosphere, and led to the dissolution of carbonate sediments in all ocean basins. Ocean acidification has been called the twin of global warming. The carbon cycle describes the fluxes of carbon dioxide between the oceans, terrestrial biosphere, lithosphere, and the atmosphere, human activities such as the combustion of fossil fuels and land use changes have led to a new flux of CO2 into the atmosphere. About 45% has remained in the atmosphere, most of the rest has been taken up by the oceans, the carbon cycle involves both organic compounds such as cellulose and inorganic carbon compounds such as carbon dioxide and the carbonates. The inorganic compounds are relevant when discussing ocean acidification for it includes many forms of dissolved CO2 present in the Earths oceans. When CO2 dissolves, it reacts with water to form a balance of ionic and non-ionic chemical species, dissolved carbon dioxide, carbonic acid. The ratio of these depends on factors such as seawater temperature. These different forms of dissolved inorganic carbon are transferred from a surface to its interior by the oceans solubility pump. The resistance of an area of ocean to absorbing atmospheric CO2 is known as the Revelle factor. Since the industrial revolution began, it is estimated that surface ocean pH has dropped by more than 0.1 units on the logarithmic scale of pH. It is expected to drop by a further 0.3 to 0.5 pH units by 2100 as the oceans absorb more anthropogenic CO2, the impacts being most severe for coral reefs and the Southern Ocean
Ocean acidification
Ocean acidification
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Estimated change in sea water pH caused by human created CO 2 between the 1700s and the 1990s, from the Global Ocean Data Analysis Project (GLODAP) and the World Ocean Atlas
Ocean acidification
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Distribution of (A) aragonite and (B) calcite saturation depth in the global oceans
Ocean acidification
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A NOAA (PMEL) moored autonomous CO 2 buoy used for measuring CO 2 concentration and ocean acidification studies
140.
Physical impacts of climate change
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This article is about the physical impacts of climate change. For some of these impacts, their effect on social. This article refers to reports produced by the IPCC, the climate change referred to may be due to natural causes and/or the result of human activity. Global surface temperatures have increased about 0.74 °C since the century. The warming has not been globally uniform, some areas have, in fact, cooled slightly over the last century. The recent warmth has been greatest over North America and Eurasia between 40 and 70°N, lastly, seven of the eight warmest years on record have occurred since 2001 and the 10 warmest years have all occurred since 1995. Thousands of land and ocean temperature measurements are recorded each day around the globe and this includes measurements from climate reference stations, weather stations, ships, buoys and autonomous gliders in the oceans. These surface measurements are also supplemented with satellite measurements and these measurements are processed, examined for random and systematic errors, and then finally combined to produce a time series of global average temperature change. Some of these indicators are further discussed in this article, global average temperature is one of the most-cited indicators of global climate change, and shows an increase of approximately 1.4 °F since the early 20th Century. The global surface temperature is based on air temperature data over land and sea-surface temperatures observed from ships, buoys and satellites. There is a clear long-term global warming trend, while each year does not always show a temperature increase relative to the previous year. These year-to-year fluctuations in temperature are due to processes, such as the effects of El Niños, La Niñas. Notably, the 20 warmest years have all occurred since 1981, there has been a general, but not global, tendency toward reduced diurnal temperature range over about 70% of the global land mass since the middle of the 20th century. However, for the period 1979–2005 the DTR shows no trend since the trend in both maximum and minimum temperatures for the period are virtually identical, both showing a strong warming signal. A variety of factors contribute to this change in DTR, particularly on a regional and local basis, including changes in cloud cover, atmospheric water vapor, land use. Indirect indicators of warming such as temperatures, snow cover. Increasing temperature is likely to lead to increasing precipitation but the effects on storms are less clear, extratropical storms partly depend on the temperature gradient, which is predicted to weaken in the northern hemisphere as the polar region warms more than the rest of the hemisphere. It is possible that the Polar and Ferrel cells in one or both hemispheres will weaken and eventually disappear, which would cause the Hadley cell to cover the whole planet
Physical impacts of climate change
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Record low Arctic sea ice extent for September 2012
Physical impacts of climate change
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Global mean surface temperature difference from the average for 1880–2009.
Physical impacts of climate change
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Retreat of the Helheim Glacier, Greenland
141.
Polar stratospheric cloud
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Polar stratospheric clouds or PSCs, also known as nacreous clouds, are clouds in the winter polar stratosphere at altitudes of 15, 000–25,000 meters. They are best observed during civil twilight when the sun is between 1 and 6 degrees below the horizon as well as in winter and in northerly latitudes. They are implicated in the formation of ozone holes, the stratosphere is very dry, unlike the troposphere, it rarely allows clouds to form. In the extreme cold of the winter, however, stratospheric clouds of different types may form. PSCs form at low temperatures, below −78 °C. These temperatures can occur in the stratosphere in polar winter. In the Antarctic, temperatures below −88 °C frequently cause type II PSCs, such low temperatures are rarer in the Arctic. In the Northern hemisphere, the generation of lee waves by mountains may locally cool the lower stratosphere, forward-scattering of sunlight within the clouds produces a pearly-white appearance. Particles within the optically thin clouds cause colored Interference fringes by diffraction, the visibility of the colors may be enhanced with a polarising filter. PSCs are classified into three types Ia, Ib and II according to their chemical composition which can be measured using LIDAR, the technique also determines the height and ambient temperature of the cloud. Type Ib clouds contain small, spherical particles, of a liquid supercooled ternary solution of acid, nitric acid. Type Ic clouds consist of metastable water-rich nitric acid in a solid phase, Type II clouds, which are very rarely observed in the Arctic, consist of water ice only. Only Type II clouds are necessarily nacreous whereas Type I clouds can be iridescent under certain conditions, just as any other cloud
Polar stratospheric cloud
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Antarctic stratospheric cloud (nacreous clouds)
Polar stratospheric cloud
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A type II (water) PSC showing iridescence
Polar stratospheric cloud
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A type I PSC (white cloud above the orange tropospheric clouds), showing fine horizontal structures in the veil.
142.
Retreat of glaciers since 1850
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Studied by glaciologists, the temporal coincidence of glacier retreat with the measured increase of atmospheric greenhouse gases is often cited as an evidentiary underpinning of global warming. Glacier mass balance is the key determinant of the health of a glacier, Glaciers in retreat will have negative mass balances, and if they do not find an equilibrium between accumulation and ablation, will eventually disappear. The Little Ice Age was a period from about 1550 to 1850 when the world experienced relatively cooler temperatures compared to the present, subsequently, until about 1940, glaciers around the world retreated as the climate warmed substantially. Glacial retreat slowed and even reversed temporarily, in many cases, in locations such as the Andes of South America and Himalayas in Asia, the demise of glaciers in these regions has the potential to affect water supplies in those areas. The acceleration of the rate of retreat since 1995 of key outlet glaciers of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets may foreshadow a rise in sea level, the mass balance, or difference between accumulation and ablation, of a glacier is crucial to its survival. Climate change may cause variations in temperature and snowfall, resulting in changes in mass balance. A glacier with a negative balance loses equilibrium and retreats. A sustained positive balance is out of equilibrium and will advance to reestablish equilibrium. Currently, nearly all glaciers have a mass balance and are retreating. Glacier retreat results in the loss of the region of the glacier. Since higher elevations are cooler, the disappearance of the lowest portion decreases overall ablation, thereby increasing mass balance, methods for measuring retreat include staking terminus location, global positioning mapping, aerial mapping and laser altimetry. The key symptom of disequilibrium is thinning along the length of the glacier. This indicates a diminishment of the accumulation zone, the result is marginal recession of the accumulation zone margin, not just of the terminus. In effect, the no longer has a consistent accumulation zone. However, the Grinnell Glacier in Montana, U. S. will shrink at an increasing rate until it disappears. The difference is that the section of Easton Glacier remains healthy and snow-covered. Small glaciers with minimal altitude range are most likely to fall into disequilibrium with the climate, middle latitude glaciers are located either between the Tropic of Cancer and the Arctic Circle, or between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Antarctic Circle. Both areas support glacier ice from glaciers, valley glaciers and even smaller icecaps
Retreat of glaciers since 1850
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Whitechuck Glacier in 1973
Retreat of glaciers since 1850
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Morteratsch (right) and Pers (left) glaciers in 2005
Retreat of glaciers since 1850
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Engabreen Glacier in Norway extended to within 7 m (23 ft) above sea level in 2014, the lowest altitude of any glacier in Europe.
Retreat of glaciers since 1850
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This NASA image shows the formation of numerous glacial lakes at the termini of receding glaciers in Bhutan - Himalaya.
143.
Shutdown of thermohaline circulation
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A shutdown or slowdown of the thermohaline circulation is an effect of global warming on a major ocean circulation. Data from 2010 NASA suggested that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation has not slowed down, downturn of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, has been tied to extreme regional sea level rise. Lohmann and Dima 2010 found a weakening of the AMOC since the late 1930s and they published their findings in a study, and concluded that the AMOC circulation shows exceptional slowdown in the last century, and that Greenland melt is a possible contributor. Didier Swingedouw concluded in a 2015 study that the slowdown of AMOC since the 1970s is unprecedented over the last millennium, a study published in 2016 found further evidence for a considerable impact from sea level rise for the U. S. The study confirms earlier research findings which identified the region as a hotspot for rising seas, with a potential to divert 3–4 times in the rate of rise, compared to the global average. Additional the study noted, Our results suggest that higher emission rates also contribute to increased in this region compared to the global average. Global warming could, via a shutdown of the circulation, trigger cooling in the North Atlantic, Europe. This would particularly affect areas such as the British Isles, France and the Nordic countries, hansen et al.2015 found, that the shutdown or substantial slowdown of the AMOC, besides possibly contributing to extreme end-Eemian events, will cause a more general increase of severe weather. This in turn leads to an increase of baroclinicity produced by temperature gradients. Continued warming of low latitude oceans in coming decades will provide water vapor to strengthen such storms. If this tropical warming is combined with a cooler North Atlantic Ocean from AMOC slowdown and their results at least imply that strong cooling in the North Atlantic from AMOC shutdown does create higher wind speed. The increment in seasonal mean wind speed of the relative to preindustrial conditions is as much as 10–20 %. Such a percentage increase of speed in a storm translates into an increase of storm power dissipation by a factor ∼1. 4–2. However, the simulated changes refer to seasonal mean winds averaged over large grid-boxes and he and his team found the chimneys to have virtually disappeared. Normally there are seven to twelve giant columns, but Wadhams found only two giant columns, both extremely weak, in 2005 a 30% reduction in the warm currents that carry water north from the Gulf Stream was observed, from the last such measurement in 1992. The authors noted uncertainties in the measurements, following media discussions, Detlef Quadfasel pointed out that the uncertainty of the estimates of Bryden et al. He concluded that observations and modelling are crucial for providing early warning of a possible devastating breakdown of the circulation. In response Quirin Schiermeier concluded that natural variation were the culprit for the observations and this might have a lot to do with the observations of variations in cold water chimney behaviour
Shutdown of thermohaline circulation
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The red end of the spectrum indicates slowing in this presentation of the trend of velocities derived from NASA Pathfinder altimeter data from May 1992 to June 2002. Source: NASA.
Shutdown of thermohaline circulation
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A summary of the path of the thermohaline circulation. Blue paths represent deep-water currents, while red paths represent surface currents
144.
Effects of global warming on India
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Regarding local temperature rises, the IPCC figure projected for the mean annual increase in temperature by the end of the century in South Asia is 3.3 °C with the min-max range as 2.7 -4.7 °C. The mean value for Tibet would be higher with mean increase of 3.8 °C, the corresponding sea level rise at the end of the 21st Century relative to the end of the 20th Century ranges from 0.18 to 0.59 m. Ongoing sea level rises have already submerged several low-lying islands in the Sundarbans, temperature rises on the Tibetan Plateau, which are causing Himalayan glaciers to retreat. Increased landslides and flooding are projected to have an impact upon states such as Assam, the first among the countries to be affected by severe climate change is Bangladesh. Its sea level, temperature and evaporation are increasing, and the changes in precipitation, there is a reduction in fresh water availability, disturbance of morphologic processes and a higher intensity of flooding and other such disasters. Bangladesh only contributes 0. 1% of the world’s emissions yet it has 2. 4% of the world’s population, in contrast, the United States makes up about 5 percent of the worlds population, yet they produce approximately 25 percent of the pollution that causes global warming. Around seven million people are projected to be displaced due to, among other factors, submersion of parts of Mumbai and Chennai, if severe climate changes occur, Bangladesh will lose land along the coast line. This will be damaging to Bangladeshis especially because nearly two-thirds of Bangladeshis are employed in the agriculture sector. However, Bangladesh remains a poor, overpopulated, and inefficiently governed nation, if no further steps are taken to improve the current conditions global warming will affect the economy severely worsening the present issues further. The climate change would increase expenditure towards health care, cool drinks, alcoholic beverages, air conditioners, ice cream, cosmetics, climate Change in India will have a disproportionate impact on the more than 400 million that make up Indias poor. This is because so many depend on resources for their food, shelter. More than 56% of people in India work in agriculture, while others earn their living in coastal areas. Thick haze and smoke, originating from burning biomass in northeastern India and air pollution from industrial cities in northern India. Prevailing westerlies carry aerosols along the margins of the steep-faced Tibetan Plateau to eastern India. Dust and black carbon, which are blown towards higher altitudes by winds at the faces of the Himalayas, can absorb shortwave radiation. Indian media can contribute to increased awareness of change and related issues. This is in contrast to the scepticism displayed by American newspapers at the time, alongside, Indian media highlight frames of energy challenge, social progress, public accountability and looming disaster. This sort of coverage finds parallels in European media narratives as well and helps build a transnational, another study has found that the media in India are divided along the lines of a north-south, risk-responsibility discourse
Effects of global warming on India
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Thick haze and smoke along the Ganges River in northern India.
145.
United Kingdom Climate Change Programme
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The 2000 programme was updated in March 2006 following a review launched in September 2004. In 2008, the UK was the worlds 9th greatest producer of carbon emissions. When the original programme was published in 2000, it confirmed that UK emissions were already forecast to be around 15% lower by 2010. 4% in 2010-2012 up to 15. 4% by 2015-2016. The UK Government announced in the 2006 Energy Review an additional target of 20% by 2020-21, for each eligible megawatt hour of renewable energy generated, a tradable certificate called a renewables obligation certificate is issued by OFGEM. The buy-out fund is recycled before 1 November to those electricity suppliers who presented ROCs against their Renewables Obligation and this recycling is distributed equally for each ROC redeemed, those suppliers who did not redeem any ROCs will receive no recycling from the buy-out fund. The renewables obligation also makes requirements about how the electricity can be generated, an example is that the co-firing of biomass with coal is to be phased out - and will not be eligible for Renewable Obligation Certificates after 2016. The renewables transport fuel obligation is a law, which although is not in force yet, is set to become law. It would require bio-ethanol and bio-diesel to be added to road fuel, the land required for this would be considerable. It has been estimated that the biomass could be grown by using all of the UKs net wheat exports, in 2006 these were replaced by the Low Carbon Buildings Programme. It is anticipated that the scheme will have cut carbon emissions by 1.2 million tonnes of carbon per year by 2020, the CRC scheme will apply to organisations that have a mandatory half-hourly metered electricity consumption greater than 6,000 MWh per year. This roughly equates to an electricity bill above £500,000, the Green Deal is a policy to encourage energy efficiency improvements in the UKs building stock. It will be financed through loans attached to the bills of the improved properties - The green deal was dropped by government in 2015. Electricity Market Reform is a UK programme seeking to decarbonise electricity generation in the UK by providing low carbon generators guaranteed income through a contract for difference arrangement and it is made up of 2 mechanisms, Contract for Difference and the Capacity Market. Environmentally Related Taxes and Tradable Permit Systems in Practice, OECD, Environment Directorate, Centre for Tax Policy and Administration. Campaign against Climate Change Pressure group seeking to bring about a response to climate change from government. Friends of the Earth The environmentalist groups view of the programmes shortcomings, DTI specific section specific government details Webtool and online global collaboration resource to accelerate cleantech and inform about a Low Carbon Economy
United Kingdom Climate Change Programme
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Global mean surface temperatures 1856 to 2007
146.
Efficient energy use
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Efficient energy use, sometimes simply called energy efficiency, is the goal to reduce the amount of energy required to provide products and services. For example, insulating a home allows a building to use less heating and cooling energy to achieve, installing fluorescent lights, LED lights or natural skylights reduces the amount of energy required to attain the same level of illumination compared with using traditional incandescent light bulbs. Improvements in energy efficiency are generally achieved by adopting an efficient technology or production process or by application of commonly accepted methods to reduce energy losses. There are many motivations to improve energy efficiency, reducing energy use reduces energy costs and may result in a financial cost saving to consumers if the energy savings offset any additional costs of implementing an energy efficient technology. Reducing energy use is seen as a solution to the problem of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Energy efficiency and renewable energy are said to be the pillars of sustainable energy policy and are high priorities in the sustainable energy hierarchy. Energy efficiency has proved to be a strategy for building economies without necessarily increasing energy consumption. For example, the state of California began implementing energy-efficiency measures in the mid-1970s, including building code, during the following years, Californias energy consumption has remained approximately flat on a per capita basis while national US consumption doubled. In general, up to 75% of the electricity used in the US today could be saved with efficiency measures that cost less than the electricity itself. The same holds true for this is home and there is 78% of electricity uses D in your home-owners, in fact, researchers at the US Department of Energy and their consortium, Residential Energy Efficient Distribution Systems have found that duct efficiency may be as low as 50–70%. The US Department of Energy has stated there is potential for energy saving in the magnitude of 90 Billion kWh by increasing home energy efficiency. Other studies have emphasized this.2 percent average growth anticipated through 2020 in a business-as-usual scenario, international standards ISO17743 and ISO17742 provide a documented methodology for calculating and reporting on energy savings and energy efficiency for countries and cities. Modern appliances, such as, freezers, ovens, stoves, dishwashers, installing a clothesline will significantly reduce ones energy consumption as their dryer will be used less. Current energy efficient refrigerators, for example, use 40 percent less energy than conventional models did in 2001, in the US, the corresponding figures would be 17 billion kWh of electricity and 27,000,000,000 lb CO2. According to a 2009 study from McKinsey & Company the replacement of old appliances is one of the most efficient global measures to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Modern power management systems also reduce energy usage by idle appliances by turning them off or putting them into a low-energy mode after a certain time, many countries identify energy-efficient appliances using energy input labeling. The impact of energy efficiency on peak demand depends on when the appliance is used, for example, an air conditioner uses more energy during the afternoon when it is hot. Therefore, an efficient air conditioner will have a larger impact on peak demand than off-peak demand
Efficient energy use
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A spiral-type integrated compact fluorescent lamp, which has been in popular use among North American consumers since its introduction in the mid-1990s.
Efficient energy use
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Receiving a Gold rating for energy and environmental design in September 2011, the Empire State Building is the tallest and largest LEED certified building in the United States and Western Hemisphere.
Efficient energy use
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Toyota Prius used by NYPD Traffic Enforcement
147.
Climate engineering
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Climate engineering is an umbrella term for two types of measures, carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation management. Carbon dioxide removal addresses the cause of change by removing one of the greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Solar radiation management attempts to offset effects of gases by causing the Earth to absorb less solar radiation. Climate engineering approaches are sometimes viewed as potential options for limiting climate change. There is substantial agreement among scientists that climate engineering cannot substitute for climate change mitigation, some approaches might be used as accompanying measures to sharp cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Research on costs, benefits, and various types of risks of most climate engineering approaches is at a stage and their understanding needs to improve to judge their adequacy. Almost all research into solar radiation management has consisted of computer modelling or laboratory tests, some carbon dioxide removal practices, such as planting of trees and bio-energy with carbon capture and storage projects, are underway. Their scalability to effectively affect global climate is, however, debated, ocean iron fertilization has been given small-scale research trials, sparking substantial controversy. However, most experts also argue that the risks of such interventions must be seen in the context of risks of climate change. Groups such as ETC Group and some researchers are in favour of a moratorium on out-of-doors testing. With respect to climate, geoengineering is defined by the Royal Society as, the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth’s climate system, in order to moderate global warming. The Asilomar International Conference on Climate Intervention Technologies was convened to identify, some authors have argued that any public support for climate engineering may weaken the fragile political consensus to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Several climate engineering strategies have been proposed, IPCC documents detail several notable proposals. These fall into two categories, solar radiation management and carbon dioxide removal. Here is a list of specific proposals, Solar radiation management techniques would seek to reduce sunlight absorbed. This would be achieved by deflecting sunlight away from the Earth and these methods would not reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, and thus would not seek to address problems such as the ocean acidification caused by CO2. Furthermore, many proposed SRM methods would be reversible in their direct climatic effects, while greenhouse gas remediation offers a more comprehensive possible solution to climate change, it does not give instantaneous results, for that, solar radiation management is required. Solar radiation management methods may include, Surface-based, for example, using pale-colored roofing materials, attempting to change the oceans brightness, troposphere-based, for example, marine cloud brightening, which would spray fine sea water to whiten clouds and thus increase cloud reflectivity
Climate engineering
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An oceanic phytoplankton bloom in the South Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Argentina. The aim of ocean iron fertilization in theory is to increase such blooms by adding some iron, which would then draw carbon from the atmosphere and fix it on the seabed.
Climate engineering
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Significant reduction in ice volume in the Arctic Ocean in the range between 1979 and 2007 years
148.
Reforestation
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Reforestation is the natural or intentional restocking of existing forests and woodlands that have been depleted, usually through deforestation. Sometimes the term re-afforestation is used to distinguish between the original forest cover and the later re-growth of forest to an area, forestation is the establishment of forest growth on areas that either had forest or lacked it. Special tools, e. g. tree planting bars, are used to make planting of trees easier and faster, a debated issue in managed reforestation is whether or not the succeeding forest will have the same biodiversity as the original forest. If the forest is replaced with one species of tree and all other vegetation is prevented from growing back. However, most reforestation involves the planting of different seedlots of seedlings taken from the area, another important factor is the natural regeneration of a wide variety of plant and animal species that can occur on a clear cut. In some areas the suppression of forest fires for hundreds of years has resulted in large single aged, the logging of small clear cuts and/or prescribed burning, actually increases the biodiversity in these areas by creating a greater variety of tree stand ages and species. Reforestation need not be used for recovery of accidentally destroyed forests. In some countries, such as Finland, many of the forests are managed by the products and pulp. In such an arrangement, like other crops, trees are planted to replace those that have been cut, in such circumstances, the industry can cut the trees in a way to allow easier reforestation. The wood products industry systematically replaces many of the trees it cuts, for example, in 2010, Weyerhaeuser reported planting 50 million seedlings. However replanting an old-growth forest with a plantation is not replacing the old with the characteristics in the new. In just 20 years, a plantation in Costa Rica can produce up to about 400 m³ of wood per hectare. As the natural forests of Asia become more scarce or difficult to obtain. Other species such as mahogany grow more slowly than teak in Tropical America but are extremely valuable. Faster growers include pine, eucalyptus, and Gmelina, the reestablishment of forests is not just simple tree planting. Forests are made up of a community of species and they build dead organic matter into soils over time, a major tree-planting program could enhance the local climate and reduce the demands of burning large amounts of fossil fuels for cooling in the summer. Forests are an important part of the carbon cycle because trees. By removing this greenhouse gas from the air, forests function as terrestrial carbon sinks, at any time, forests account for as much as double the amount of carbon in the atmosphere
Reforestation
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Tropical tree nursery at Planeta Verde Reforestación S.A.'s plantation in Vichada Department, Colombia
Reforestation
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A 15-year-old reforested plot of land
Reforestation
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A 21-year-old plantation of red pine in Southern Ontario
Reforestation
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Forest regrowth in Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, Washington state, USA
149.
Dam
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A dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, aquaculture. Hydropower is often used in conjunction with dams to generate electricity, a dam can also be used to collect water or for storage of water which can be evenly distributed between locations. Dams generally serve the purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. The word dam can be traced back to Middle English, and before that, from Middle Dutch, the first known appearance of dam occurs in 1165. However, there is one village, Obdam, that is mentioned in 1120. The word seems to be related to the Greek word taphos, so the word should be understood as dike from dug out earth. The names of more than 40 places from the Middle Dutch era such as Amsterdam and Rotterdam, early dam building took place in Mesopotamia and the Middle East. Dams were used to control the level, for Mesopotamias weather affected the Tigris. The earliest known dam is the Jawa Dam in Jordan,100 kilometres northeast of the capital Amman and this gravity dam featured an originally 9-metre-high and 1 m-wide stone wall, supported by a 50 m-wide earth rampart. The structure is dated to 3000 BC, the Ancient Egyptian Sadd-el-Kafara Dam at Wadi Al-Garawi, located about 25 km south of Cairo, was 102 m long at its base and 87 m wide. The structure was built around 2800 or 2600 BC as a dam for flood control. During the Twelfth Dynasty in the 19th century BC, the Pharaohs Senosert III, Amenemhat III, two dams called Ha-Uar running east-west were built to retain water during the annual flood and then release it to surrounding lands. The lake called Mer-wer or Lake Moeris covered 1,700 km2 and is today as Berkat Qaroun. One of the wonders of the ancient world was the Great Dam of Marib in Yemen. Repairs were carried out during various periods, most important around 750 BC and these extensive works were not actually finalized until 325 AD and allowed the irrigation of 25,000 acres. By the mid-late 3rd century BC, an intricate water-management system within Dholavira in modern-day India was built, the system included 16 reservoirs, dams and various channels for collecting water and storing it. Eflatun Pınar is a Hittite dam and spring temple near Konya and it is thought to be from the time of the Hittite empire between the 15th and 13th century BC
Dam
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Glen Canyon Dam
Dam
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A sideview of the Lake Vyrnwy dam, in Wales, finished in 1888
Dam
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Karapuzha Dam, an earth dam in the Indian state of Kerala
Dam
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The Roman dam at Cornalvo in Spain has been in use for almost two millennia
150.
Desalination
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Desalination is a process that extracts minerals from saline water. More generally, desalination refers to the removal of salts and minerals from a substance, as in soil desalination. Saltwater is desalinated to produce water suitable for consumption or irrigation. One by-product of desalination is salt, Desalination is used on many seagoing ships and submarines. Most of the modern interest in desalination is focused on cost-effective provision of water for human use. Along with recycled wastewater, it is one of the few rainfall-independent water sources, due to its energy consumption, desalinating sea water is generally more costly than fresh water from rivers or groundwater, water recycling and water conservation. However, these alternatives are not always available and depletion of reserves is a problem worldwide. Currently, approximately 1% of the population is dependent on desalinated water to meet daily needs. Desalination is particularly relevant in dry countries such as Australia, which traditionally have relied on collecting rainfall behind dams for water and this number increased from 78.4 million cubic meters in 2013, a 10. 71% increase in 2 years. Kuwait produces a higher proportion of its water than any other country, the traditional process used in these operations is vacuum distillation—essentially boiling it to leave impurities behind. In desalination, atmospheric pressure is reduced, thus lowering the temperature needed. Liquids boil when the pressure equals the ambient pressure and vapor pressure increases with temperature. Thus, because of the temperature, low-temperature waste heat from electrical power generation or industrial processes can be employed. Water is evaporated and separated from sea water through multi-stage flash distillation, each subsequent flash process utilizes energy released from the condensation of the water vapor from the previous step. Multiple effect distillation works through a series of steps called “effects”, incoming water is sprayed onto vertically or, more commonly, horizontally oriented pipes which are then heated to generate steam. The steam is used to heat the next batch of incoming sea water. To increase efficiency, the used to heat the sea water can be taken from nearby power plants. Although this method is the most thermodynamically efficient, a few limitations exist such as a max temperature, vapor compression distillation involves using either a mechanical compressor or a jet stream to compress the vapor present above the liquid
Desalination
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Reverse osmosis desalination plant in Barcelona, Spain
Desalination
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Plan of a typical reverse osmosis desalination plant
Desalination
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The Shevchenko BN350, a nuclear-heated desalination unit
Desalination
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RO production train, North Cape Coral RO Plant
151.
Rainwater tank
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A rainwater tank is a water tank used to collect and store rain water runoff, typically from rooftops via rain gutters. A rainwater catchment or collection system can yield 2358 litres of water from 2.54 cm of rain on a 93 m2 roof, Rainwater tanks are devices for collecting and maintaining harvested rain. Rainwater tanks are installed to use of rain water for later use, reduce mains water use for economic or environmental reasons. Underground rainwater tanks can also be used for retention of stormwater for release at a later time, in arid climates, rain barrels are often used to store water during the rainy season for use during dryer periods. Rainwater tanks may have an initial cost. However, many homes use small scale rain barrels to harvest minute quantities of water for landscaping/gardening applications rather than as a potable water surrogate. These small rain barrels, often recycled from food storage and transport barrels or, in cases, whiskey. While most are properly engineered to screen out mosquitoes, the lack of proper filtering or closed loop systems may create breeding grounds for larvae, with tanks used for drinking water, the user runs a health risk if maintenance is not carried out. If rainwater is used for drinking, it is often filtered first, while rain water is pure it may become contaminated during collection or by collection of particulate matter in the air as it falls. While rain water does not contain chlorine, contamination from airborne pollutants, many water suppliers and health authorities, such as the New South Wales Department of Health, do not advise using rainwater for drinking when there is an alternative mains water supply available. However, reports of associated with rainwater tanks are relatively infrequent. Australian standards may differ greatly from other places in the world where rainwater is used for drinking water. In the United States, rainwater is being used throughout the country for various purposes. In the semi-arid western state of New Mexico, for instance, many residents in the Taos, the smells, tastes, and looks fine standard used in the above paragraph is not an absolute indicator of rainwater safety. Most people who are rainwater users for potable purposes in the USA make certain that their water is safe through filtration, ultraviolet sterilization, certain paints and roofing materials may cause contamination. In particular, a Melbourne Water publication advises that lead-based paints never be used, tar-based coatings are also not recommended, as they affect the taste of the water. Zinc can also be a source of contamination in some paints, as well as galvanized iron or zincalume roofs, particularly when new, roofs painted with acrylic paints may have detergents and other chemicals dissolve in the runoff. Runoff from fibrous cement roofs should be discarded for an entire winter, chemically treated timbers and lead flashing should not be used in roof catchments
Rainwater tank
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Some of the rainwater tanks around CERES Community Environment Park, in Melbourne, Australia.
Rainwater tank
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A plastic water container (IBC)
Rainwater tank
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Large polyethylene rainwater tanks being installed.
152.
Weather modification
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Weather modding is the act of intentionally manipulating or altering the weather. The most common form of modification is cloud seeding to increase rain or snow. Weather modification in warfare has been banned by the United Nations, wilhelm Reich performed cloudbusting experiments in the 1950s to 1960s, the results of which are controversial and not widely accepted by mainstream science. Dr Walter Russell wrote of weather control in Atomic Suicide 1956, —give him complete power to cause rains, wherever he desires, on deserts or meadows and to dissipate cyclones while forming. For the 2008 Olympics, China had plans to utilize 30 airplanes,4,000 rocket launchers, each system would shoot various chemicals into any threatening clouds in the hopes of shrinking rain drops before they reached the stadium. The artificial rainstorms were said to have sometimes caused hail, gales and thunderstorms, cloud seeding is a common technique to enhance precipitation. Cloud seeding entails spraying small particles, such as iodide, onto clouds in order to affect their development. Cloud seeding only works to the extent that there is water vapor present in the air. Critics generally contend that claimed successes occur in conditions which were going to lead to rain anyway and it is used in a variety of drought-prone countries, including the United States, the Peoples Republic of China, India, and the Russian Federation. In mountainous areas of the United States such as the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada, project Stormfury was an attempt to weaken tropical cyclones by flying aircraft into storms and seeding the eyewall with silver iodide. The project was run by the United States Government from 1962 to 1983, a similar project using soot was run in 1958, with inconclusive results. Various methods have been proposed to reduce the effects of hurricanes. Alexandre Chorin of the University of California, Berkeley, proposed dropping large amounts of environmentally friendly oils on the sea surface to prevent droplet formation, experiments by Kerry Emanuel of MIT in 2002 suggested that hurricane-force winds would disrupt the oil slick, making it ineffective. Other scientists disputed the factual basis of the theoretical mechanism assumed by this approach, the Florida company Dyn-O-Mat and its CEO, Peter Cordani, proposed the use of a patented product it developed, called Dyn-O-Gel, to reduce the strength of hurricanes. The substance is a polymer in powder form which reportedly has the ability to absorb 1,500 times its own weight in water. The theory is that the polymer is dropped into clouds to remove their moisture and force the storm to use energy to move the heavier water drops. When the gel reaches the surface, it is reportedly dissolved. Peter Cordani teamed up with Mark Daniels and Victor Miller, the owners of a government contracting aviation firm AeroGroup which operated unique tactical aircraft, the tests were documented on film and made international news showing the storms were successfully removed on monitored Doppler radar
Weather modification
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A tornado in central Oklahoma. Weather modification researchers may aspire to eliminate or control dangerous types of weather such as this.
Weather modification
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Hail cannons at an international congress on hail shooting held in 1901
Weather modification
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Witches concoct a brew to summon a hailstorm.
. PMID 28143934. doi:10.1073/pnas.1609244114.
