What is DriveOnPay for?

DriveOnPay™


Home  About us   Contact us
Ergonomic Solutions to Man-Made Afflictions
smoking factory      
Climate Change Banner


How much do you think you know about Climate Change?

How much do you know about anthropogenic climate change before you call it a planetary crisis?
Are you sure you've delved into climatic events of the Earth and you've gained some balanced knowledge and data about them, before you say yes or no to the climatic scenarios of this planet.
Is it fair you simply agree with your best friends and your heroes on the global warming or global cooling just because their opinions are cherishable to you. Keep your eyes wide open, and cool your heads, and try to get some balance before you  decide your  position as to the climate change.


Is it a climate crisis?

Referring to anthropogenic climate change,some world leaders assert man should find  a cutting-edge resolution  within a decade and they stress it's now or never. Does it sound like a distant cry to you? It is up to you all to decide whether or not  man is entering the 11th hour regarding the climatic events. Maybe it is a little too early to press a panic button, but it is true that man is entering a devastating phase of the climatic cycles. Giving out terrifying  messages and clamoring against the imminent disaster reproachfully is going to be our fist line of defense against the oncoming climatic threats? Everyone should agree that now is the time to prioritize the possible effective measures to "tame" the climatic events.


Frugality is the remedy?      
          
As regards anthropogenic global warming, however, we have a litany of resolutions  in our hands already. Topping the litany can be "Return to nature". You can say man should control their avarice to start a more frugal living, saving energy and leading an environment-friendly way of  living. In other words, a holistic solution for  the climatic events should be sought for. If an aggregation of varied solutions points to much too artificial intentions or is weighted with special interests,  this soup for the climatic scenario will be spoiled.



Is it a conundrum?

Aren't we driving these climatic events into a conundrum of this century or tie them up into a nonsensical Gordian knot. However, it is crystal-clear that man has just started a hard bargain with Mother Nature. Save energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions into atmosphere is the best strategy to counter climate change. We must be tactful to prioritize all the remedial options and synergize them and, more importantly, must remember that climatic variations will continue in billions of years to come. And is there any red herring  in this conundrum?



Bottom up or top down?

Do we need to start this campaign against climate change top down or bottom up? Illustrious politicians started brainstorming to get the best remedies. What do you think is the best remedy for climate change. There is no bite-sized solution, but  a great deal of options lie in store for us.  We should think about them. Not to change the subject,is it much too far-fetched to support a news article saying Americans' obesity is one contributor to anthropogenic global warming?

How to evaluate Climate Change

There are a number of things to consider to evaluate the possible risks and properties of climate variations.

About five to 9 millenniums ago, this planet was  much warmer than now. The Holocene Climate Optimum was  a warm period ranging from  9,000 to 5,000 years B.P. [B.P. stands  for Before Present, having 1950 as the base year in radiocarbon dating]


The Holocene Climate Optimum warm event consisted of increases of up to 4 °C near the North Pole (in one study, winter warming of 3-9°C and summer of 2-6°C in northern central Siberia). Northwestern Europe experienced warming, while there was cooling in the south. The average temperature change appears to have declined rapidly with latitude so that essentially no change in mean temperature is reported at low and mid latitudes. Tropical reefs tend to show temperature increases of less than 1 °C. In terms of the global average, the typical shift was probably between 0.5 and 2 °C warmer than the mid-20th century (depending on estimates of latitude dependence and seasonality in response patterns).  Sources: Wikipedia

Early Holocene Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations



Further studies on carbon cycle may determine the optimum period of looking into climatic events. Ironically, if the Holocene Climate Optimum were set as the base climate model, then we could assume man has been in the global cooling cycle for the past millennium and is getting back to normal .

Global average air temperature near Earth's surface rose 0.74 ± 0.18 °Celsius (1.3 ± 0.32 °Fahrenheit) in the last century. Models referenced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) predict that global temperatures are likely to increase by 1.4°C (2.5°F) to 5.8 °C (10.4°F) between 1990 and 2100.  sources: IPCC

 Although most studies focus on the period up to 2100, warming and sea level rise are expected to continue for more than a millennium even if no further greenhouse gases are released after this date. This reflects the long average atmospheric lifetime of carbon dioxide (CO2). Sources: Wikipedia

To measure a road distance, a 12-inch rule is not a proper means to do the job. What  about a 60-feet tape measure? Still, it won't help, either. Likewise, to search for paleoclimate records and reconstruct them, a methodology is a very important part. For reconstruction of paleoclimatic records for a past millennium or two, reading tree rings are something like using a 12-inch rule to measure a few hundred miles of distance on the roads. To better understand the Earth's paleoclimatic variations since the Big Bang, which would be the optimum timescale in measuring and reconstructing climate records: 10 years, 100 years, 1000 years or 5000 years? I'd be rather inclined to refer to a concept of meta-seasons or metaseasons, instead of four regular seasons that come in a yearly cycle. This planet may have some metaseasons that may  be recurring in terms of timescale.


There was the hot topic of the spurious Hockey Stick controversy at US Congress that was centered on the reconstructed estimates of Northern Hemisphere temperature change over the past millennium.  The Hockey Stick is the coined name for a reconstructed paleoclimate record by Mann and co-authors to describe the climatic variations over the past 1000 years.

The Hockey Stick has  ignited criticism , based on the following:

  a) Medieval Warm Period ( between 10th and 14th centuries) and
      Little Ice Age( between 1600 and 1700 AD) were muffled on the Hockey Stick graph

  b) IPCC gave prominence to the Hockey Stick in its 2001 report (IPCC TAR).

This climatic event could probably be ascribable to such other factors as predictable changes in the Earth's orbit (Milankovitch cycles). Evidently, CO2 gas is not the biggest driver for warming the Earth's surface and atmosphere. Theoretically, factors other than the Milankovitch cycles might include

  a) A surge in population on the Earth

  b) Catastrophic and  cataclysmic changes affecting biodiversity and terrestrial carbon storage
  c) A possible mysterious carbon cycle interruption
  d) Other causes yet to be scientifically identified

  If any gas of the atmosphere were removed, the following percentage reduction in Greenhouse Effect(GE)  would occur as per table below.


Gas Removed Percentage Reduction in GE 
Water Vapor  36%
CO2 12%
O3 3%
Source: Ramanathan and Coakley,
Rev. Geophys and Space Phys., 16 465 (1978)


Meantime, IPCC reports have been focused on atmospheric CO2 concentrations, which are part of the Earth's carbon cycle. Major measurements like ice-core records and stomatal index records have not been consistent all the time during 11,000 years, for instance. And ironically enough, during the Holocene Climate Optimum, temperature in the North Pole showed increases of up to 4ºC , while at  the Holocene minimum, atmospheric CO2 concentrations showed a record low of 260ppm according to the Taylor Dome ice-core. On the other hand, the recent stomatal index records showed the atmospheric CO2 concentrations during the early Holocene went up to 350ppm.  It compares with 383 ppm of CO2 gas in the air for now.

There are people at the forefront of climatic afflictions. About 155,000 Inuits, also known as Eskimos, have been losing their habitat, due to climate change, for more than a decade. Shifting winds and  thinning ice have jeopardized their hunting patterns.

"Our way of life is at stake," says Sheila Watt-Cloutier, had been nominated with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore for a 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their work on climate change. Al Gore and IPCC won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize jointly.

While for many global warming is a distant threat, for the Inuit its impact is a reality now. "It's about real people who live on top of the world," she said.

A recent report called Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, produced by the Hadley Centre, one of the top world centres for projecting future climate, modelled the likely effects of 3º C rise.

It warned the situation could wreck half the world's wildlife reserves, destroy major forest systems, and put 400 million more people at risk of hunger.

The fast population growth may cause a surge in CO2 gas emissions at an exponential rate, which may be called  Population Time Bomb.

When first baby boomers were born , the world's population stood  at  2 billion and reached 3 billion in 1960.  As of February, 2007, it stood at  6.5 billion and will soar to 7 billion in 2012 and 9 billion around 2050, according to UN figures released. The world population increased by 1 billion to reach  6 billion between 1987 and 1999.

"Humans are stripping nature at an unprecedented rate and will need two planets' worth of natural resources every year by 2050 on current trends", said the WWF conservation group.

According to a February 2007 report from U.N. Food Program, today 850 million people are hungry and malnourished. Over half of them are children. 18,000 children die every single day because of hunger and malnutrition.




What is causing Climate Change

The greenhouse effect is the process warming the Earth's surface and atmosphere by radiating infrared out of the absorbed sunlight. Water vapor is responsible for 36% of greenhouse effect, while CO2 gas for 12% and O3 for  3%.Water vapor is a product of  natural phenomenon, but CO2 gas and other greenhouse gases are emitted by human activities.CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere has increased from about 313 ppm (parts per million) in 1960 to about 375 ppm in 2000, according to the  Mauna Loa observatory. According to IPCC's 2001 report, there had been a minimal increase of 20ppm in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere during the past 11,000 years until the pre-industrial period.

Variations in atmospheric CO2 concentrations over the past 11,000 years


Best Strategy for Climate Change : "Beat Traffic Congestion"

Traffic

Some say  vehicles account for  63 percent of CO2 gas emissions as opposed to the more conservative figures of  20- 30%  claimed by others. Unfortunately, there are not reliable data available now. As of end-2005, the global total of vehicles stood at approx. 600 million, while the number of vehicles in the United States was over 230 million in the same year. Considering an annual vehicle production set at 50 million worldwide. and the growing median vehicle age(that of passenger cars in 2006 rose to 9.2 years), it is estimated the global vehicle total will reach over 1 billion before 2015.

U.S.A. is responsible for one quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, consuming 20% of the global fossil fuel. China and India rank second and third largest producers of CO2 gas emissions. To curb greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, Kyoto Protocol signed in February 2005 is  participated by over 160 countries, but the United States has not ratified this treaty, while China and India are not obligated under this treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in view of their developing country status.

U.N. data for 2003 put the U.S. top with 23 percent of world carbon dioxide emissions and China second on 16.5 percent. But U.S. individuals were far bigger emitters, at 20 tons per capita against China's 3.2 tons and a world average of 3.7.

CO2 gas emissions from factories will be soaring in the emerging economies, like China and India, while carbon trading under the Kyoto Protocol will be prevalent in North America and  EU. On the other hand, CO2 gas emissions from vehicles will rapidly surge in North America. Annually, USA alone witnesses an increase of 6 to 7 million vehicles, due to geographical conditions, socioeconomic trends shadowing HOV(High Occupancy Vehicles) initiatives, and inefficient mass transit systems.

According to a 2000 estimate by Texas Transportation Institute,   75 U.S. metropolitan areas experienced 3.6 billion vehicle-hours of delay, resulting in 5.7 billion US gallons (21.6 billion liters) in wasted fuel and $67.5 billion in lost productivity. It is assumed that  to reduce CO2 gas emissions from vehicle, beating traffic congestion is a foregone conclusion.  Top priority in alleviating traffic congestion should go to eliminating tollgate congestions,
among others.  And why?  



Why tollgate?

To collect tolls, metropolitan traffic should be stopped at every tollgate, and normally , the stop-and-go traffic will stretch over  5 to 15 miles before any tollgate during rush hours, and the incomplete combustion triggered by this delay will cause vehicles to spit out more CO2 gas into atmosphere. According to Environmental Defense, U.S.A.is accountable for 45 % of the world's vehicle CO2 emissions There is no confirmed data yet,  but the percentage of CO2 gas emissions caused by tollgate congestions may perhaps account for  over 40% of the total vehicle CO2 emissions.

And the following items are  how to address the tollgate congestion:
  • get rid of tollbooths completely (no carpool booth, no cash booth, no RFID transponder booth) 
  • let vehicles pass cashless through tollgates at any speed , normally 75 to 80 mph
  • let motorists pay tolls wirelessly, but not by means of RFID transponders 
              [See Wireless Payment on our website for further details]


Hopefully we will come to realize we are the environment

Currently polarizing views on climate change will hopefully narrow down to a consensus: "We are the environment". At the same time, we all know whistle-blowing is one thing, and pressing a panic button is another. The climate issue won't hopefully evolve into political agenda leaning towards partisan interests. We do not look forward eagerly to  pompous grandstand plays by either side of  pros and cons revolving around the climatic scenarios for the relatively short span of 1990 and 2100. We have billions of  years gone by and centillions of millenniums yet to come.


Possible remedies for Climate Change

There are five strategic  baselines of  debating Climate Change Remedies. 
  • economize on energy ( inclusive of population control)
  • green technology for renewable or alternative energy
  • develop ICT (Information and Communications Technology) for synergizing the above
  • how to effectively motivate and coordinate the top-down and bottom-up initiatives to this end
  • what is going to be the first line therapy for anthropogenic climate forcing

NEWS

Study: Renewable Energy Not Green
Our Slogan  on  Anthropogenic Climate Change

We are the environment !
Traffic congestion is more devastating than all the world wars combined together.
Traffic congestion is forever  and growing worse. All the wars are transient.
Traffic congestion and anthropogenic climate change are both sides of the  same coin..




last update: January 28, 2009



Greetings to Visitors



             


 




             

Unicorn Classical Music Archive
 
Classical Music Archives



















         Baby Blue





            

 Site Map   Legal   Privacy  Patents & IP   Investor Relations    © 2006-2009 ErgonoTech, Inc.