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.
Sunday, April 02, 2017
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.
The next listing for Kyoto Protocol is "Solvent and other product use."
Up to now the discussion surrounding GHG (Greenhouse Gas) emissions has been in regard to gases, such as carbon dioxide. The more volatile emissions that are somewhat more elusive to capture and contain are vapors. The specific name for them are VOCs or Volatile Organic Compounds.
Look at me, what have I become
I am lost I was once a gentleman
But the thief came out in my London town
So I must leave you now
But I will remember the ups and the downs
I am lost I was once a gentleman
But the thief came out in my London town
So I must leave you now
But I will remember the ups and the downs
Goodbye my friends
Goodbye to the money
Adieu to the fuckers that think that it's funny
I just want to turn the lights on
in these volatile times
I just want to turn the lights on
in these volatile times
Goodbye to the money
Adieu to the fuckers that think that it's funny
I just want to turn the lights on
in these volatile times
I just want to turn the lights on
in these volatile times
Look at me in the apocalypse
My European guilt, expecting instant fix
I imagine all the brutal services
Of ancient infidels
Of all the wounded and the crying witches
My European guilt, expecting instant fix
I imagine all the brutal services
Of ancient infidels
Of all the wounded and the crying witches
Goodbye my friends
Goodbye to the money
Adieu to the fuckers that think that it's funny
I just want to turn the lights on in these volatile times
I just want to turn the lights on in these volatile times
Goodbye to the money
Adieu to the fuckers that think that it's funny
I just want to turn the lights on in these volatile times
I just want to turn the lights on in these volatile times
I drove through countries like a marching funeral
In the search of fools and utopias
Along the lonely roads with all the empty human souls
Filling their heavy hearts
With slum religion and Coca-Cola
Every book is read and I'm paralyzed
Every fist is clenched, but I'm so tired
In the search of fools and utopias
Along the lonely roads with all the empty human souls
Filling their heavy hearts
With slum religion and Coca-Cola
Every book is read and I'm paralyzed
Every fist is clenched, but I'm so tired
Goodbye my friends
Goodbye to the money
Adieu to the fuckers that think that it's funny
I just want to turn the lights on
in these volatile times
I just want to turn the lights on
in these volatile (volatile) times
Goodbye to the money
Adieu to the fuckers that think that it's funny
I just want to turn the lights on
in these volatile times
I just want to turn the lights on
in these volatile (volatile) times
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