The landmark Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), (click here) regulating the international trade in conventional arms – from small arms to battle tanks, combat aircraft and warships – entered into force on 24 December 2014.
If they are contracted by a government to assist with a justified conflict, the government needs to procure and distribute all arms into any region. These militias can cause ethnic wars for the sake of profit. It should never be allowed.
There is enough problem with sovereign countries that believe their moral obligation lies with the death of others.
MORALITY is not spelled d-e-a-t-h.
June 29, 2017
A U.N. Security Council committee (click here) has published a report on Iranian sanctions violations, including shipments of weapons to Syria in breach of a U.N. ban on weapons exports by the Islamic Republic.
The Security Council has imposed four rounds of sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt its nuclear enrichment program, which the United States, European Union and their allies suspect is at the heart of a weapons program. Iran rejects the allegation and refuses to halt what it says is a peaceful energy program.
The report appeared on the committee website on Thursday, diplomats told Reuters on Friday. The report, which Reuters reported on last month, said that Syria remains the top destination for Iranian arms shipments.
Iran, like Russia, is one of Syria's few allies as it presses ahead with a 16-month-old assault on opposition forces determined to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Western diplomats said they were pleased the report was made public. Initially they said they feared Russia would block it as it did last year's report on Iran, which has yet to be made public due to Russian objections....
Tuesday, April 04, 2017
There have been 26 dead Americans because of tornadoes to date in 2017.
By Faith Eberts
Following several rounds of damaging storms early this week, (click here) a new storm will bring the threat of severe weather back to the eastern United States.
The first severe weather associated with the new storm will erupt over the Central states in portions of Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas and Missouri Tuesday afternoon and evening.
The storms will roughly parallel the Interstate-44 corridor from Oklahoma City to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Joplin and Springfield, Missouri....
Five of those deaths occurred with this storm. The danger is not abating. This current storm took about 24 hours to form into a vortex. In this satellite image it is easy to discern the extent of the reach of the current northern spring hemisphere as the entire ITCZ is disrupted with water vapor pulled into higher latitudes to fuel the vortexes.
4 April 2017
0130.20z
UNISYS water vapor satellite of the north and west hemisphere (12 hour loop please see below)
As the first vortex moves offshore of North America there is a second one already formed over the Midwest which took all of about 12 hours.
4 April 2017
1330.18z
UNISYS water vapor satellite of north and west hemisphere ( click here for 12 hour loop - thank you)
April 3, 2017
By Chris Dolce
Five of those deaths occurred with this storm. The danger is not abating. This current storm took about 24 hours to form into a vortex. In this satellite image it is easy to discern the extent of the reach of the current northern spring hemisphere as the entire ITCZ is disrupted with water vapor pulled into higher latitudes to fuel the vortexes.
4 April 20170130.20z
UNISYS water vapor satellite of the north and west hemisphere (12 hour loop please see below)
As the first vortex moves offshore of North America there is a second one already formed over the Midwest which took all of about 12 hours.
4 April 20171330.18z
UNISYS water vapor satellite of north and west hemisphere ( click here for 12 hour loop - thank you)
April 3, 2017
By Chris Dolce
The tornado death toll for 2017 (click here) has risen to 26 after an EF1 that destroyed a mobile home and killed two people in Breaux Bridge, Lousiana, Sunday morning.
Most of the fatalities from tornadoes so far this year occurred during a Jan. 21-22 outbreak that killed 20 people in the South. The other four additional tornado-related deaths were in Illinois and Missouri on Feb. 28....
You mean that good looking southern christian white boy is managing international wars now?
April 4, 2017
Washington – The United Arab Emirates (click here) arranged a secret meeting in January between an American businessman supporting then President-elect Trump and a Russian close to President Vladimir Putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and the incoming president, The Washington Post reports.
Citing U.S., European and Arab officials, the Post said the UAE agreed to broker the meeting in part to explore whether Russia could be persuaded to curtail its relationship with Iran, including in Syria, a Trump administration objective that would be likely to require major concessions to Moscow on U.S. sanctions. The full agenda remains unclear, the newspaper said.
The meeting took place nine days before Mr. Trump’s inauguration and involved businessman Erik Prince, the Post reported. Prince, the founder of the security firm Blackwater and now the head of the Hong Kong-based company Frontier Services Group, has ties to Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon and is the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos
U.S. officials said the FBI has been scrutinizing the meeting in the Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean as part of the broader probe of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and alleged contacts between associates of Putin and Mr. Trump, the Post reported. The FBI declined to comment, the newspaper said....
10 August 2016
Former Blackwater CEO and U.S. Navy SEAL (click here) veteran Erik Prince joined Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos during the latest episode of The Milo Yiannopoulos Show to discuss Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and why he’s supporting him.
“You mentioned a moment ago that you hoped it would be Trump. Talk to us a little bit about your opinion of the Republican candidate,” Milo said. “I mean I’m guessing that you are, broadly speaking, a fan, and I’m guessing you think Hillary would be a disaster, but I don’t want to put words in your mouth. Give us your opinion on Donald Trump.”
“I like the fact that Donald Trump has been in the private sector. I like that he’s had to make a payroll. I like that he’s had to do projects” replied Prince. “I even like some of his projects that have gone bankrupt, because people that do things, and build things, and try things, sometimes fail at doing it, and that’s the strength of the American capitalist system. He sat across the table and fired people that didn’t perform in his business, and I’m not talking about the TV show, I’m talking about when hundreds of millions of dollars are on the line.”...
Business is good, huh, Erik? You have to know there is nothing like government money, is there?
April 3, 2017
By Tom McKay
Erik Prince, (click here) co-founder of notorious private military contractor Blackwater, traveled to the Seychelles islands in January to set up a secret back channel between President Donald Trump's administration and the Russian government, the Washington Post reported on Monday.
Interesting place, the Republic of Seychelles. Tropical paradise. Distant enough that a large jet liner could land and never be found, huh?
The meeting between Prince and a "confidant" of Russian President Vladimir Putin was arranged in secret by United Arab Emirates officials. According to the Post, Prince, an ardent Trump supporter, portrayed himself as an "unofficial envoy for Trump" during the meeting despite having "no formal role with the Trump campaign or transition team."
Can't deny what everyone else knows, Erik. Oh, yeah, Trump drank the Kool-Aid.
January 17, 2017
By Jeremy Scahill
In July, (click here) Prince told Trump’s senior adviser and white supremacist Steve Bannon, at the time head of Breitbart News, that the Trump administration should recreate a version of the Phoenix Program, the CIA assassination ring that operated during the Vietnam War, to fight ISIS. Such a program, Prince said, could kill or capture “the funders of Islamic terror and that would even be the wealthy radical Islamist billionaires funding it from the Middle East, and any of the other illicit activities they’re in.”
Prince also said that Trump would be the best force to confront “Islamic fascism.” “As for the world looking to the United States for leadership, unfortunately, I think they’re going to have to wait till January and hope Mr. Trump is elected because, clearly, our generals don’t have a stomach for a fight,” Prince said. “Our president doesn’t have a stomach for a fight and the terrorists, the fascists, are winning.”
Prince founded the notorious private security firm Blackwater, which rose to infamy in September 2007 after its operatives gunned down 17 Iraqi civilians, including a 9-year-old boy in Baghdad’s Nisour Square.
Whistleblowers also alleged that Prince encouraged an environment in which Iraqis were killed for sport. At the height of the Blackwater scandals in 2007, another prominent Trump backer, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, praised Prince, who once worked in his congressional office. “Prince,’’ Rohrabacher said, “is on his way to being an American hero just like Ollie North was.’’
Ultimately, Prince sold Blackwater and now heads up a Hong Kong-based company known as Frontier Services Group. The Intercept has previously reported on Prince’s efforts to build a private air force for hire and his close ties to Chinese intelligence. One of his latest schemes is a proposal to deploy private contractors to work with Libyan security forces to stop the flow of refugees to Europe....
White American boys won't be tolerated in Libya, Erik. They accept a proposal to help only to steal the munitions and remove the bodies to unmarked graves. Not a good idea.
That is so typical of Americans who just can't give up the war; they actually think others admire them as much as they admire themselves. They have an inflated ego with little character to match except for the bible they carry. They have to be sure to be on the right side of god when they die, or so they think. I don't believe arming Libyans will go over well with a christian god, will it, Erik?
How many American soldiers? Last I read they were fighting within yards of Russian soldiers.
April 4, 2017
By Anne Barnard
Beirut, Lebanon — A toxic gas attack (click here) killed dozens of people in northern Syria on Tuesday morning, including women and children, and sickened scores more, according to medics, rescuers and witnesses in the rebel-held province of Idlib, who said the gas had been delivered by a government airstrike.
A few hours later, according to several witnesses, another airstrike hit one of the clinics treating victims, who had been farmed out to smaller hospitals and maternity wards because the area’s largest hospital had been severely damaged by an airstrike two days earlier.
The European Union and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey condemned the attack and blamed the Syrian government. France called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council....
March 28, 2017
By F. Brinley Bruton
Russian and American troops are within "hand-grenade range" of each other (click here) in parts of Syria, according to U.S. commanders, an overlap that highlights Moscow's efforts to bolster its footprint in the Middle East.
While the Russians and Americans have traditionally been on opposite sides of the Syrian civil war — with the Kremlin supporting President Bashar al-Assad and Washington working with rebels fighting him. But now the rivals are both backing Kurdish YPG fighters as they take on ISIS there and in neighboring Iraq....
It depends on expertise and training to determine how far is "hand grenade range."
By Anne Barnard
Beirut, Lebanon — A toxic gas attack (click here) killed dozens of people in northern Syria on Tuesday morning, including women and children, and sickened scores more, according to medics, rescuers and witnesses in the rebel-held province of Idlib, who said the gas had been delivered by a government airstrike.
A few hours later, according to several witnesses, another airstrike hit one of the clinics treating victims, who had been farmed out to smaller hospitals and maternity wards because the area’s largest hospital had been severely damaged by an airstrike two days earlier.
The European Union and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey condemned the attack and blamed the Syrian government. France called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council....
March 28, 2017
By F. Brinley Bruton
Russian and American troops are within "hand-grenade range" of each other (click here) in parts of Syria, according to U.S. commanders, an overlap that highlights Moscow's efforts to bolster its footprint in the Middle East.
While the Russians and Americans have traditionally been on opposite sides of the Syrian civil war — with the Kremlin supporting President Bashar al-Assad and Washington working with rebels fighting him. But now the rivals are both backing Kurdish YPG fighters as they take on ISIS there and in neighboring Iraq....
It depends on expertise and training to determine how far is "hand grenade range."
Monday, April 03, 2017
The Rooster
"Okeydoke"
I believe Steve Bannow is instrumental in all these areas, Flynn and lies; Russia hacking to defeat Hillary Clinton and the dossier to blackmail Trump. All of these issues supports his loyalty to White Supremacy and the power of the USA military.
There needs to be a national day of remembrance for the death of loyalty to the USA rather than the loyalty to the international plutocracy.I have yet to see a list of the people at the Russian gathering.
Trump would like all this to go away as some sort of witch hung. It is far from that.
The issue with Michael Flynn is that he concealed information before taking office. Putting it simply, he lied when accepting a job at the top of the federal government's intelligence network.
April 1, 2017
By Darren Samuelsohn and Bryan Bender
...In an interview last summer with the Washington Post, (click here) Flynn had criticized fellow retired military officers for taking advantage of the lucrative market for retired military leaders with secret clearances and deep relationships in the Pentagon.
“What do generals do when they get out?" Flynn said. “One of the big companies in Arlington [Virginia] just put out a little call saying, ‘we are looking for two two-stars and two retired one-stars.'”
Asked what point he was making, he continued: “Why? Because people want to use that person for themselves, for their company. That’s why I didn’t go to work for anybody because I wanted to make my decision for what I wanted to do.”
But Flynn appears to have been doing exactly what he said he wasn’t doing....
"The 3 Trump-Russia scandals, explained" (click here)
Sunday, April 02, 2017
There are no good reasons to change protocols to relieve the USA of responsibility in protecting Earth, our common home. The USA has the longest HISTORY.of GHG emissionos regardless of gas or vapor.
The land mass and its use, the growing population and consumerism of the USA allvt point to enormous emitting of gases and vapors that have harmed Earth. There is no pointing to others because the historical tropospheric GHG belong yb to the USA. Not to say Asia can do as it please while the USA mitigates the past. Asia needs to tighten up its GHG emitting and bring technology to bear whereverhc possible.
The real lesson to be learned from America's abuses is that greed kills. Our Wall Street companies were inappropriately appreciated for their profits and not their moral content in earning those profits. It is a shame in how American politics seeks to hide in corruption and pretends to be leading by example. I hope from here on the global community will feel secure in speaking truth to power.
The land mass and its use, the growing population and consumerism of the USA allvt point to enormous emitting of gases and vapors that have harmed Earth. There is no pointing to others because the historical tropospheric GHG belong yb to the USA. Not to say Asia can do as it please while the USA mitigates the past. Asia needs to tighten up its GHG emitting and bring technology to bear whereverhc possible.
The real lesson to be learned from America's abuses is that greed kills. Our Wall Street companies were inappropriately appreciated for their profits and not their moral content in earning those profits. It is a shame in how American politics seeks to hide in corruption and pretends to be leading by example. I hope from here on the global community will feel secure in speaking truth to power.
This is a fascinating graph.
The most rapidly expanding sector has been Asia. It is appropriate that China take the lead in reducing GHG emissions in the region and through it's alliances with the countries that are trading partners.
In case it is a quandry as to who the CIS countries are:
Russia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan and Armenia comprise the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS, as of 2014. Turkmenistan and Ukraine are both unofficial members of the organization. Georgia was a member of the CIS but left the group in 2008.
Russia is the most populous of the CIS members (click here) and has the highest gross domestic product. However, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Moldova and Turkmenistan all have higher growth rates than Russia.
Kindly remember these vapors affect health.
There is always speculation that applications of science to environmental issues is self-serving to the scientific community. That is not the case. Scientists want to solve problems. These vapors cause problems in human health as well as effecting the ozone layers of Earth. Applying science to decrease emissions of these vapors serves two purposes. They each are exclusive to themselves, but, they meet due to the nature of the chemicals involved.
Protecting Earth's climate is about protecting people, their water resources and agricultural land. Bringing tight controls to VOCs and NMVOCs is important for the quality of life of people, their climate both on a larger scale and their indoor and outdoor air quality.
April 2, 2015
Protecting Earth's climate is about protecting people, their water resources and agricultural land. Bringing tight controls to VOCs and NMVOCs is important for the quality of life of people, their climate both on a larger scale and their indoor and outdoor air quality.
April 2, 2015
An interview with Dr Chelsea Thompson, (click here) Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
Q: For anyone who has not read your paper (published November 14 2014, Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene), could you give an overview of the study you carried out, and the motivations behind it.
A: The primary focus of this particular study was to assess average ambient levels of non-methane hydrocarbons (also referred to more generally as volatile organic compounds, or VOCs) that residents living near oil and natural gas (O&NG) production operations are exposed to at their homes. Several air quality studies have been conducted in recent years within the Denver-Julesburg Basin, however, these have been located at more rural sites. Our study differs from these in that the air measurements were conducted within residential neighbourhoods.
The measurements that we conducted were located in the town of Erie, Colorado, which is located about 25 km east of Boulder and 40 km north of Denver, and has approximately 28,000 residents, and also slightly north near the town of Longmont. Erie can be considered a small, suburb or bedroom-community of both Boulder and Denver, and has been attracting young families due to its location outside of major cities and more affordable housing. This study was motivated directly by concerns of residents, who worry that emissions from nearby wells could be leading to detrimental health effects for themselves and their children with repeated, long-term exposure at their homes....
One of the failing sources is the energy sector. Below are the top energy consumers and the bottom are the least.
"Global Energy Statistics Yearbook 2016" (click here)
Not all the lowest energy consumers are Third World countries. These are countries that have a western culture and some allies of the USA. The point is there needs to be a concerted effort to understand which energy sector is performing best with Non-Methane VOCs and apply those principles on a larger scale in countries with a poor emission record.
Bringing sunlight to the solvent industry was met with compliance and healthier indoor air quality for production plants.
The emissions of NMVOC have descreased since 1990 for all sectors with the exception of the energy industries and waste. Emissions from energy industries increased during the nineties due to the increasing use of stationary gas engines, which have much higher emissions of NMVOC than conventional boilers. The total anthropogenic emissions have decreased by 48 % from 1990 to 2014, largely due to the increased use of catalyst cars and reduced emissions from use of solvents.
The solvents industry has been doing its' part. There is no reason to scrutinize them much closer. Below is a 1996 assessment of solvents and the places that were most challenged to contain them.
...A preliminary analysis (click here) estimated total global NMVOC release from solvent use to be about 11 per cent of total NMVOC emissions (Watson, et al., 1991). Based on national GHG emissions inventories, NMVOC emissions from these sources can represent a much larger share of the total NMVOC emissions for some countries.
NMVOC from solvent use represents 31 per cent of the total NMVOC emissions for both Italy and Denmark. (ENEA, 1991, Fenger et al., 1990) The Netherlands estimates solvent use to account for 25 per cent, and both Finland and the United States estimate emissions to be 24 per cent of their total NMVOC emissions (van den Born et al., 1991, Boström et al., 1992, US EPA, 1991). By contrast, emissions from solvent use in Nigeria were only 3 per cent of the total NMVOC (Obioh et al., 1992)....
The solvents industry has been doing its' part. There is no reason to scrutinize them much closer. Below is a 1996 assessment of solvents and the places that were most challenged to contain them.
...A preliminary analysis (click here) estimated total global NMVOC release from solvent use to be about 11 per cent of total NMVOC emissions (Watson, et al., 1991). Based on national GHG emissions inventories, NMVOC emissions from these sources can represent a much larger share of the total NMVOC emissions for some countries.
NMVOC from solvent use represents 31 per cent of the total NMVOC emissions for both Italy and Denmark. (ENEA, 1991, Fenger et al., 1990) The Netherlands estimates solvent use to account for 25 per cent, and both Finland and the United States estimate emissions to be 24 per cent of their total NMVOC emissions (van den Born et al., 1991, Boström et al., 1992, US EPA, 1991). By contrast, emissions from solvent use in Nigeria were only 3 per cent of the total NMVOC (Obioh et al., 1992)....
Glaciologists record ice as a rock, but, the knowledge of the ice inside the geological structures in the world is more diffuse.
There is a dialogue in Europe regarding the building of a tramway, if you will, connecting Grindelwald and the top of Mt. Eiger. But, my interest is different. The Mt. Eiger glaciers and ice within it's rock has been melting with a very different result than normally thought about melting ice.
March 24, 2017
By Kozo Yamamura
...One morning, (click here) shortly after dawn, we were awoken by thunderous noises coming from the direction of the Eiger. Startled, we looked toward the mountain and saw a huge, grey dust cloud rising high into the sky from the edge of the mountain next to the glacier’s path. Tons of rock, including gigantic boulders, along with an immense quantity of gravel and dirt, were cascading down toward the river valley. In no time, the dust cloud drifted over the village, obscuring the houses. The noise and the avalanche of rocks and dirt gradually stopped and, as the dust cloud dissipated, we could see that a stalagmite-like rock column as high as the Empire State building that once stood at the edge of Eiger was gone forever...
As stated in the article there were rock slides affiliated with Eiger and it's glaciers. These rock slides were facilitated by heat. Silly, you say? Not. The ice formations hold the rocks in place. The water seeped into the crevasses a long time ago and maintained the integrity of the mountain ever since.
Today, because of the climate crisis, mountains like Eiger lose rock regularly because of melting ice in the spaces between the rocks themselves. This film of Eiger shows rubble at the bottom of the mountain. This is the rubble that falls when the ice melts.
This diffusely understood ice formations is the error in calculations about the rapidity of the heating of Earth. There is no solid way to know exactly the amount of ice vs. rock in these mountains. It is best measured as mountain water runoff. The difficulty there is being sure the amount of rain is measured as well to find the sincere loss of ancient ice.
March 24, 2017
By Kozo Yamamura
...One morning, (click here) shortly after dawn, we were awoken by thunderous noises coming from the direction of the Eiger. Startled, we looked toward the mountain and saw a huge, grey dust cloud rising high into the sky from the edge of the mountain next to the glacier’s path. Tons of rock, including gigantic boulders, along with an immense quantity of gravel and dirt, were cascading down toward the river valley. In no time, the dust cloud drifted over the village, obscuring the houses. The noise and the avalanche of rocks and dirt gradually stopped and, as the dust cloud dissipated, we could see that a stalagmite-like rock column as high as the Empire State building that once stood at the edge of Eiger was gone forever...
As stated in the article there were rock slides affiliated with Eiger and it's glaciers. These rock slides were facilitated by heat. Silly, you say? Not. The ice formations hold the rocks in place. The water seeped into the crevasses a long time ago and maintained the integrity of the mountain ever since.
Today, because of the climate crisis, mountains like Eiger lose rock regularly because of melting ice in the spaces between the rocks themselves. This film of Eiger shows rubble at the bottom of the mountain. This is the rubble that falls when the ice melts.
This diffusely understood ice formations is the error in calculations about the rapidity of the heating of Earth. There is no solid way to know exactly the amount of ice vs. rock in these mountains. It is best measured as mountain water runoff. The difficulty there is being sure the amount of rain is measured as well to find the sincere loss of ancient ice.
The emissions of NMVOC have descreased since 1990 for all sectors with the exception of the energy industries and waste.
The primary 'good guy' is the auto industry and the catalytic converter.
The graph may be a little difficult to discern, but, the biggest take away is the black line on the chart. It shows the extensive decline in these emissions since 1990 to 2014.
Magnificent.
But, the real beauty is the bottom part of the graph. Each industry worked to change the trajectory of these vapors, with the exception of agriculture and energy. More can be done and should. Kindly remember all these achievements can be reversed with population increases and consumerism. It is important we all keep our oars in the water and continue to examine places where it can be improved.
...The decline (click here) in emissions since 1990 has primarily been due to reductions achieved in the road transport sector due to the introduction of vehicle catalytic converters to reduce exhaust emissions, and carbon canisters on petrol cars for evaporative emission control. These reductions have been driven by tighter vehicle emission standards, combined with limits on the maximum volatility of petrol that can be sold in EU Member States, as specified in fuel quality directives. The reductions in NMVOC emissions have been enhanced by the switching from petrol to diesel cars in some EU countries. Reductions have also occurred in the 'Solvents and product use' sector as a result of the introduction of legislative measures limiting the use and emissions of solvents....
Ilulissat Glacier in Western Greenland
This repeats the reporting of this glacier on this blog, but, I believe it needs to be a measure of the extremely dangerous melting of Earth's icefields, glaciers and ice caps. This is simply crazy and based completely in greed.
Published on Dec 14, 2012 This rare footage has gone on record as the largest glacier calving event ever captured on film, by the 2016 Guiness Book of World Records. On May 28, 2008, Adam LeWinter and Director Jeff Orlowski filmed a historic breakup at the Ilulissat Glacier in Western Greenland. The calving event lasted for 75 minutes and the glacier retreated a full mile across a calving face three miles wide. The height of the ice is about 3,000 feet, 300-400 feet above water and the rest below water. Footage produced by James Balog (http://jamesbalog.com) and the Extreme Ice Survey (http://extremeicesurvey.org) Chasing Ice won the award for Excellence in Cinematography at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and a 2013 Emmy Award for Outstanding Nature Programming. It has won over 40 awards at festivals worldwide, and was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, "Before My Time" by J. Ralph featuring Scarlett Johansson and Joshua Bell.
Listen to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB4UEQ...
And watch the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIZTMV...
Published on Dec 14, 2012 This rare footage has gone on record as the largest glacier calving event ever captured on film, by the 2016 Guiness Book of World Records. On May 28, 2008, Adam LeWinter and Director Jeff Orlowski filmed a historic breakup at the Ilulissat Glacier in Western Greenland. The calving event lasted for 75 minutes and the glacier retreated a full mile across a calving face three miles wide. The height of the ice is about 3,000 feet, 300-400 feet above water and the rest below water. Footage produced by James Balog (http://jamesbalog.com) and the Extreme Ice Survey (http://extremeicesurvey.org) Chasing Ice won the award for Excellence in Cinematography at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and a 2013 Emmy Award for Outstanding Nature Programming. It has won over 40 awards at festivals worldwide, and was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, "Before My Time" by J. Ralph featuring Scarlett Johansson and Joshua Bell.
Listen to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB4UEQ...
And watch the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIZTMV...
VOC
Volatile Organic Chemicals (VOC) are organic compounds that easily become vapors or gases that contain elements such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, fluorine, chlorine, bromine, sulfur or nitrogen.
The compounds are aldehydes (click here), alephatic (click here) and aromatic hydrocarbons (click here), alcohols (click here), ketones (click here), esters (click here) and halogenated compounds (click here). They are highly unstable and shed parts of the compound in the form of vapors.
There is a strong reason to monitor and improve on VOCs in our environment, including upper tropospheric ozone. These chemicals, when occurring indoors, are ten times more dangerous to human health. They can cause liver, kidney and central nervous damage resulting in headaches, loss of coordination and nausea. One of the first things physicians treating migraine headaches will ask is if the house is clear of VOC chemicals.
The best example of dangerous VOCs is formaldehyde; CH2O is the simplest of the aldehydes. Simplest and among the most dangerous.
There are no safe levels.
...Sources of formaldehyde
Formaldehyde is a common chemical that can be emitted from a number of products in the home. Smoking, pressed wood, and particle board have all been shown to be sources of formaldehyde. Higher formaldehyde levels are usually found in newer homes or homes with new construction. The levels decrease over time. Formaldehyde levels also increase with increases in temperature and humidity....
All people are at risk for exposure, including pregnant women, children and the elderly. There is no way to know if a substance or appliance is safe without testing and investigation. It is why the USA developed the FDA and why China has followed that example to protect it's people.
e-cigarettes can contribute to poor indoor air quality.
Example of potentially unregulated danger:
Nearly 500 brands and 7,700 flavors of e-cigarettes (click here) are on the market and none of them have been evaluated by the FDA. We don't know for sure what's in them. Studies have found toxic chemicals, including an ingredient used in antifreeze and formaldehyde in e-cigarettes. Because the FDA doesn't regulate these products, there aren't requirements around ingredient disclosure, warning labels or youth access restrictions....
The compounds are aldehydes (click here), alephatic (click here) and aromatic hydrocarbons (click here), alcohols (click here), ketones (click here), esters (click here) and halogenated compounds (click here). They are highly unstable and shed parts of the compound in the form of vapors.
There is a strong reason to monitor and improve on VOCs in our environment, including upper tropospheric ozone. These chemicals, when occurring indoors, are ten times more dangerous to human health. They can cause liver, kidney and central nervous damage resulting in headaches, loss of coordination and nausea. One of the first things physicians treating migraine headaches will ask is if the house is clear of VOC chemicals.
The best example of dangerous VOCs is formaldehyde; CH2O is the simplest of the aldehydes. Simplest and among the most dangerous.There are no safe levels.
...Sources of formaldehyde
Formaldehyde is a common chemical that can be emitted from a number of products in the home. Smoking, pressed wood, and particle board have all been shown to be sources of formaldehyde. Higher formaldehyde levels are usually found in newer homes or homes with new construction. The levels decrease over time. Formaldehyde levels also increase with increases in temperature and humidity....
All people are at risk for exposure, including pregnant women, children and the elderly. There is no way to know if a substance or appliance is safe without testing and investigation. It is why the USA developed the FDA and why China has followed that example to protect it's people.
e-cigarettes can contribute to poor indoor air quality.
Example of potentially unregulated danger:
Nearly 500 brands and 7,700 flavors of e-cigarettes (click here) are on the market and none of them have been evaluated by the FDA. We don't know for sure what's in them. Studies have found toxic chemicals, including an ingredient used in antifreeze and formaldehyde in e-cigarettes. Because the FDA doesn't regulate these products, there aren't requirements around ingredient disclosure, warning labels or youth access restrictions....
Air pressure is constant, the composition of the air mass in contained spaces dictates air quality.
March 28, 2017By Emma Berthold
The evidence that ‘green’ offices (click here) have a significant positive impact on the health and productivity of workers continues to mount.
We know that workers take fewer sick days, experience better health and work more productively in a workspace where buildings are designed, run and maintained with health and well-being in mind. Now, we also know that brainpower is better, too. Studies have shown that cognitive functioning is significantly better for workers in ‘green’ offices.
So what makes an office ‘green’? Having a low environmental impact is perhaps the first and most obvious factor that comes to mind, but from a health perspective, a lot of it comes down to having plenty of ventilation and air flow, low levels of chemicals such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and the amount of carbon dioxide present in the air. Each of these can have their own effects on the Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) of a building and, in turn, on our health.
A 2016 study tested the cognitive function of workers in simulated office environments: a conventional office environment that mirrored typical ‘non-green’ buildings, a ‘green’ low-VOC environment, and a ‘green +’ environment with higher ventilation rates.
Perhaps not surprisingly, workers performed better in the ‘Green’ and ‘Green +’ offices compared to conventional workspaces. On average, cognitive scores were 61 per cent higher on the Green building day and 101 per cent higher on the two Green+ building days than on the conventional building day. Specifically, the working environment had the biggest impact on participants’ crisis response, strategy, and information usage abilities.
The study also examined the effects of carbon dioxide concentration on cognitive function. Carbon dioxide is often viewed as an indicator of ventilation (and therefore, the overall indoor air quality) in a space. However, some recent research has suggested it should be viewed as a direct pollutant in its own right. Researchers found significant declines in cognitive function when carbon dioxide concentrations reached levels common in indoor spaces (approximately 950 parts per million). A separate study also showed that increasing carbon dioxide concentrations affected purely physiological factors such as heart rate....The science is correct. Air quality is important to quality of life, even in office spaces. Offices and factories are huge offenders of VOCs in the air. INDOOR AIR QUALITY is paramount to employees that feel well and perform their jobs better.
"Low maintenance plants to help with air quality." (click here) These plants can adorn desks, shelves or flood space. Basically, "Bring a plant to work" quality of life. A little nurturing might go a long way in high stress work environments.
Carbon dioxide can become toxic when it is in higher concentrations than normal. The air has to be safe for people to think and work. In contained spaces, like office buildings, air quality can become imbalanced. Just because the air outside in the courtyard is great doesn't mean the air inside is the same. Ventilation is very, very important and HVAC systems carry brevity in indoor air quality, but, when that alone doesn't solve the problem add plants and water falls that will effect air filtration and water vapor/moisture/humidity.
All the GHGs (GreenHouse Gases) are dangerous to Earth's climate, not simply CO2.
CO2 is a big danger as a GHG simply because of it's quantity PRODUCED. Other GHGs are also dangerous and have been proven to be more dangerous and quite possibly more readily controlled.
Charts and tables (click here) in this Emissions section of our website convert all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions into CO2 equivalents so they can be compared.
Each greenhouse gas (GHG) has a different global warming potential (GWP) (Global Warming Potential) and persists for a different length of time in the atmosphere.
The three main greenhouse gases (along with water vapour) and their 100-year global warming potential (GWP) compared to carbon dioxide are: (1)
- 1 x – carbon dioxide (CO2)
- 25 x – methane (CH4) – I.e. Releasing 1 kg of CH4 into the atmosphere is about equivalent to releasing 25 kg of CO2
- 298 x – nitrous oxide (N2O) – I.e. Releasing 1 kg of N2O into the atmosphere is about equivalent to releasing 298 kg of CO2
Water vapour is not considered to be a cause of man-made global warming because it does not persist in the atmosphere for more than a few days.
There are other greenhouse gases which have far greater global warming potential (GWP) but are much less prevalent. These are sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and perfluorocarbons (PFCs).
There are a wide variety of uses for SF6, HFCs, and PFCs but they have been most commonly used as refrigerants and for fire suppression. Many of these compounds also have a depleting effect on ozone in the upper atmosphere....
How to read this table
The column on the right shows how much that chemical would warm the earth over a 100 year period as compared to carbon dioxide.
For example, sulphur hexafluoride is used to fill tennis balls. The table shows that a release on 1 kg of this gas is equivalent to 22,800 kg or 22.8 tonnes of CO2. Therefore, releasing ONE KILOGRAM of sulphur hexafluoride is about equivalent to driving 5 cars for a year! (2)
NOTE: The GWP values were changed in 2007. The values in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) in 2007 where refined from the IPCC Second Assessment Report (SAR) values used previously and still in much of the literature.
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