The climate change debate continues.

[old man emu]

Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood  in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of  charcoal burning, the heat is supplied by burning part of the starting material itself, with a limited supply of oxygen.

 

The volatile constituents would be carbon-based chemicals, so they are a source of the common oxides of carbon. The process produces low density pure carbon which produces more heat than an equivalent weight of dried wood because the non-combustible stuff in the wood has been removed. In the end, however, burning charcoal still produces CO and CO2.

 

From Middle English charcole, from charren (“to change, turn”) + cole (“coal”), from Old English cierran (“to change, turn”) + col (“coal”)

[octave]

There are some interesting and innovative ways of sequestering  CO2.    Construction is an area that produces large amounts of CO2 due to concrete and steel.     Timber holds vast amounts of CO2 during the buildings life and beyond if the materials are recycled at the end of the buildings life.  This timber is cross laminated timber (CLT).   It is strong and fire safe.

 

Why we should build wooden skyscrapers

 

Wooden skyscrapers: Sustainable homes of the future?

 

 

And for an example of a timber building that exists now....

 

The World's biggest Wooden Skyscraper stands in Norway | Rising 85 meters into the sky

 

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

A timber office block has been built among concrete towers in the new Honeysuckle development area of Newcastle’s waterfront.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I disagree Marty. To make charcoal, you roast wood in an oxygen free space. You are left with carbon. Yes it is not as dense as coal, but a kilo of charcoal is a kilo of carbon removed from the air. And it is geologically stable, so you can bury it without it rotting. Rotting wood produces CO2.

Yes, per kilo of carbon, it is the exact opposite of coal mining.

Every leaf is a CO2 remover, but to keep it removed, it needs to be charred. And yes, it the charring fire is lit with wood, then this makes the process less efficient. A smart country would use nuclear energy to do the charring.

[Old Koreelah]

 

We don’t know what’s causing these, but the methane they release could devastate any efforts to limit greenhouse emissions:

https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p097w5p3/the-mystery-of-siberia-s-exploding-craters

 

We know glaciers are retreating almost everywhere and that much of humankind depends on their meltwater. As they disappear, this could trigger droughts, famines and migrations on a biblical scale. 

It seems to have already begun:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56247945

[pmccarthy]

New Scientist (March 6) reports on the efficiency paradox. 33 studies show that 63% of "efficiency savings" are lost by what is called the "rebound effect". For example, if you reduce the cost of fuel then people drive further. If you reduce the cost of electricity then people spend the money saved on other consumption, which requires power and production. Energy models (they quote the International Energy Agency, the UN climate science panel, BP, Shell and Greenpeace) do not incorporate this effect, meaning future energy demand will be much higher than their forecasts.

[spacesailor]

More water = droughts ?.

Could be just replacing all that lost hydrogen, 

spacesailor

[Marty_d]

I want one of these.  Anyone got a spare $180k to give me??

 

https://www.motortrend.com/news/2021-bollinger-b1-b2-electric-truck-suv-first-look-review/

[onetrack]

They obviously gave the Italian body designers a big miss, in the design criteria!

[spacesailor]

Hey 

It,s getting Colder !.

Throw another log on the fire.

The colder the weather, the more pollution we create burning stuff just to keep that certain temperature we like.

spacesailor

[Bruce Tuncks]

Space, that log for the fire extracted carbon from the air when it grew. So you are not changing things if you grow your own firewood.

If you were to bury the wood, the carbon would return to the air as it rotted. Only if you turn it into charcoal can you bury it for geological time and lock out the extracted carbon.

[Marty_d]

Actually, if you bury wood, it doesn't return the carbon to the atmosphere.

Fossil fuels such as coal are formed by decomposed plant and animal matter.  They release carbon when burned, so logically, they retained the carbon of the original plants & animals.

[Marty_d]

Why coal is no longer a valid choice:

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-17/electricity-has-become-a-jigsaw-coal-missing-pieces/13253392

[onetrack]

It turns out that Bitcoin is becoming the Elephant in the room, as regards climate change caused by fossil-fuel power generation, that no-one wants to address.

 

It can only get worse - unless Bitcoin implodes like the Dutch Tulip bubble, due to excessive human greed - as I expect it will, in line with all unregulated financial schemes.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-18/bitcoin-has-a-climate-problem/13210376

[Marty_d]

Now they have these things called "Non-Fungible Tokens" (NFT's) which also make use of blockchain technology.  The whole thing bemuses me.  We don't have enough real sh*t which takes bulk energy to produce, now we have to use bulk energy to make sh*t which isn't real too?

[Old Koreelah]

On 05/03/2021 at 1:20 PM, Old Koreelah said:

...We know glaciers are retreating almost everywhere and that much of humankind depends on their meltwater. As they disappear, this could trigger droughts, famines and migrations on a biblical scale...

Africa is losing it’s last glaciers; more droughts, floods.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56526631

[pmccarthy]

Global greenhouse gas emissions over the last century have made southern China a hotspot for bat-borne coronaviruses, by driving growth of forest habitat favoured by bats.

Governments must seize the opportunity to reduce health risks from infectious diseases by taking decisive action to mitigate climate change.

Andrea Manica

A new study published today in the journal Science of the Total Environment provides the first evidence of a mechanism by which climate change could have played a direct role in the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study has revealed large-scale changes in the type of vegetation in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan, and adjacent regions in Myanmar and Laos, over the last century. Climatic changes including increases in temperature, sunlight, and atmospheric carbon dioxide - which affect the growth of plants and trees - have changed natural habitats from tropical shrubland to tropical savannah and deciduous woodland. This created a suitable environment for many bat species that predominantly live in forests.

The number of coronaviruses in an area is closely linked to the number of different bat species present. The study found that an additional 40 bat species have moved into the southern Chinese province of Yunnan in the past century, harbouring around 100 more types of bat-borne coronavirus. This ‘global hotspot’ is the region where genetic data suggests SARS-CoV-2 may have arisen. 

“Climate change over the last century has made the habitat in the southern Chinese Yunnan province suitable for more bat species,” said Dr Robert Beyer, a researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and first author of the study, who has recently taken up a European research fellowship at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany.

He added: “Understanding how the global distribution of bat species has shifted as a result of climate change may be an important step in reconstructing the origin of the COVID-19 outbreak.”

To get their results, the researchers created a map of the world’s vegetation as it was a century ago, using records of temperature, precipitation, and cloud cover. Then they used information on the vegetation requirements of the world’s bat species to work out the global distribution of each species in the early 1900s. Comparing this to current distributions allowed them to see how bat ‘species richness’, the number of different species, has changed across the globe over the last century due to climate change.

“As climate change altered habitats, species left some areas and moved into others - taking their viruses with them. This not only altered the regions where viruses are present, but most likely allowed for new interactions between animals and viruses, causing more harmful viruses to be transmitted or evolve,” said Beyer.

The world’s bat population carries around 3,000 different types of coronavirus, with each bat species harbouring an average of 2.7 coronaviruses - most without showing symptoms. An increase in the number of bat species in a particular region, driven by climate change, may increase the likelihood that a coronavirus harmful to humans is present, transmitted, or evolves there.

Most coronaviruses carried by bats cannot jump into humans. But several coronaviruses known to infect humans are very likely to have originated in bats, including three that can cause human fatalities: Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) CoV, and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) CoV-1 and CoV-2. 

The region identified by the study as a hotspot for a climate-driven increase in bat species richness is also home to pangolins, which are suggested to have acted as intermediate hosts to SARS-CoV-2. The virus is likely to have jumped from bats to these animals, which were then sold at a wildlife market in Wuhan - where the initial human outbreak occurred. 

The researchers echo calls from previous studies that urge policy-makers to acknowledge the role of climate change in outbreaks of viral diseases, and to address climate change as part of COVID-19 economic recovery programmes. 

“The COVID-19 pandemic has caused tremendous social and economic damage. Governments must seize the opportunity to reduce health risks from infectious diseases by taking decisive action to mitigate climate change,” said Professor Andrea Manica in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, who was involved in the study. 

“The fact that climate change can accelerate the transmission of wildlife pathogens to humans should be an urgent wake-up call to reduce global emissions,” added Professor Camilo Mora at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, who initiated the project.

The researchers emphasised the need to limit the expansion of urban areas, farmland, and hunting grounds into natural habitat to reduce contact between humans and disease-carrying animals.

The study showed that over the last century, climate change has also driven increases in the number of bat species in regions around Central Africa, and scattered patches in Central and South America.

This research was supported by the European Research Council.

Reference
Beyer, R.M. et al: ‘Shifts in global bat diversity suggest a possible role of climate change in the emergence of SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2.’ Science of the Total Environment, Feb 2021. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145413

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[pmccarthy]

Hands up those who can see the irony and hypocrisy in my previous post.

[Old Koreelah]

An interesting proposal:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/ideas/videos/could-we-bring-back-mammoths-to-fight-climate-chan/p09cdh9z

[spacesailor]

WHY

Bring back those poor animals, into a hothouse world !.

WHEN

We can,t look after our Elephants and other animals, that are dying by the dozens. 

spacesailor

[Old Koreelah]

2 hours ago, spacesailor said:

WHY

Bring back those poor animals, into a hothouse world !.

WHEN

We can,t look after our Elephants and other animals, that are dying by the dozens. 

spacesailor

Good point Spacey, but the point of the proposal seemed to be that herds of those large grazing animals would gradually change the landscape, making it more reflective, thus combating warming.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Hmmm.. Haven't yet watched the proposal, but from Met theory, wasn't it the radiation from the earth absorbing the heat that warms the atmosphere? In which case, if you remove the vegetation, won't it make the earth more absorbant of the UK waves (being a darker colour than the vegetation)? I shoudl watch it before I comment, but that would be my first question

 

[pmccarthy]

North Face woke nonsense exposed.

 

 

[nomadpete]

[facthunter]

Charcoal is just carbon ( Mostly) The wood was a HYDRO carbon. The hydrogen is combusted preferentially in a HOT oxygen starved environment same as you get soot from a rich mixture.. Nev