July 26, 2019
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Removing Carbon Dioxide from our Atmosphere

Cleaning CO2 from our atmosphere.

“CarbonEngineering:“Commercialization of Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology that captures CO2 directly from the atmosphere at an affordable price.”

By Linn Smith

According to NASA, in a report from June 2019, CO2 in our atmosphere reached 412ppm (parts per million) which hasn’t been seen in human history. CO2 is the gas that we humans are rapidly releasing into our atmosphere, trapping heat similar to a greenhouse. It is a result of burning fossil fuels such as coal.

Coal and Oil Formation

The Rise in Earth’s Temperature

Earth’s average temperature has risen 1.62 degrees F since late 1800’s, with most of the rise in temperature occurring in the past 35 years. The 5 warmest years have occurred since 2010! At this point in history the answer to survival of life on our planet is multifaceted. We must work to not only offset our personal CO2 emissions, but also seek ways of CO2 removal from our atmosphere before it’s too late
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Carbon Offsets

A carbon offset is an action everyone can take. It means compensating for your emissions in one part of your life by working to cut CO2 emissions somewhere else or contributing to programs that are working to combat global warming.

Unless you’re driving an electric or hybrid, an average car can emit about 5 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. Can you plant enough trees in your yard to offset your car pollution? Probably not.

There are many online sites that will calculate your CO2 footprint with recommendations to offset emissions, such as planting trees, or you can go to the EPA website and use their carbon footprint caluculator to calculate the carbon footprint of you and your family.

Clean Energy: Make It a Priority!

Planting Trees to Offset Your Carbon Footprint

According to http://www.urbanforestrynetwork.org, “On average, one acre of new forest can sequester about 2.5 tons of CO2 a year. Young trees absorb about 13 pounds per tree each year. Trees reach their most productive stage of carbon storage at about 10 years, at which point they are estimated to absorb 48 pounds of CO2 per year.”

An MIT study states that the average CO2 emissions emitted per person per year in the U.S.. is 20 metric tons, compared to the world average of 4 tons.

CO2 is turned into clean fuel.

Carbon Engineering

Jennifer Wilcox states in her TedTalk that we have the technology to clean up the atmosphere, but it has been too expensive until now. Companies are currently working to bring down this cost. One company, Carbon Engineering, www. carbonengineering.com, is focusing on “commercialization of Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology that captures CO2 directly from the atmosphere at an affordable price.” They do this in a “closed loop where the only major inputs are water and energy and the output is a stream of pure, compressed CO2 that can be stored underground or converted into fuels using AIR To FUEL technology.”

“AIR to FUEL uses CO2 captured from the atmosphere to synthesize clean transportation fuels. It uses renewable electricity to generate hydrogen from water, and then combines it with CO2 captured from atmosphere to produce hydrocarbon fuels such as diesel, gasoline and Jet-A, all with little or no fossil carbon emissions to the atmosphere. Individual facilities can be built to capture one million tons of CO2 per year which is equivalent to 250,000 average cars per year.”

Cleaning our atmosphere

Combating global warming

We all have a responsibility to do our part with no more excuses! We can’t wait for someone else to do it. For survival on earth, we need to stabilize the ppm (parts per million) of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. The outcome of doing nothing about our changing climate is mass extinction of species, including our own, caused by extreme weather and our changing climate.

Climate Change

March 17, 2019
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On Population Growth

“The momentum for an increasing population seems to be difficult to change.”

By Dr. John J. Hidore

March 17, 2019—–During the earliest stage of modern humans the human species was struggling with the environment. They were just beginning to use stone tools. The size of the population was limited by the amount of wild food that could be gathered or caught. When food was scarce the population died back, and when it was plentiful the population expanded.

Diseases due to technological advances began at an early time. Sinusitis is a disease that irritates the nose as a result of breathing damp, smoky, or dusty air, such as was often found in inhabited caves. Evidence of sinusitis has been detected in skulls dating well back into the paleolithic. Only limited numbers of human lives were lost from storms and other short lived events as the population was small and widely scattered.

Overpopulation and turmoil leads to current migration patterns.

During the first 500,000 thousand years the population growth was slow. Birth rates were high, perhaps between 38 to 42 per thousand. The death rate was also very high, perhaps between 35 to38 per thousand. Evidence indicates that infant mortality was high and average life span was around 30 years.

Although life was difficult for hominoids during this time, the human species triumphed. Charles Darwin stated the case for these early people. “Man, in the rudest form in which he now exists, is the most dominant animal that has appeared on earth. He has spread more widely than any other highly organized species, and all others have yielded before him.” (1871)

Does organized religion support overpopulation?

Current and projected Growth

The global population numbers began to grow and are now growing faster than at any time in history. We are now adding about 224,000 people per day to the planet. This adds 82,000,000 people to the planet each year. That annual increase is the same as adding the population of the United States to the planet every three to four years.

What is astonishing in the growth data is how fast the rate of growth has been increasing. It took hundreds of thousands of years for the first billion to be reached in about 1800. The time it has taken for adding each billion has dropped rapidly. The last billion was added in just 12 years from 1999 to 2011. At the beginning of 2019 global population stood at about seven billion. The key element in driving population growth is changing technology which has increased the global food supply.

Some estimates of early human population size:

125,000 1 million years ago
1-5 million 11,000 B.C
50 million 3,000 B.C
500 million 1,500 A.D.

Adding the billions Time Span for the growth:

1 billion 1800 200,000 to a million years
2 billion 1930 130 years
3 billion 1960 30 years
4 billion 1974 14 years
5 billion 1987 13 years
6 billion 1999 12 years
7 Billion 2011 12 years
8 Billion 2023-2025 12-14years

The human population reached its highest annual growth rate of about 2 percent per year, in the early 1970s. The growth rate in 2018 was around 1.1 percent. While the rate has dropped the absolute number of humans added to the planet each year continues to be greater than in the past. In mid-2019 the total population is estimated to reach about 7.7 billion.

What is Carrying Capacity?

Region Growth

Today the fastest-growing countries are the developing countries. Many of the nations with the highest growth rates are in Africa and southwest Asia. China has the largest population of any country. However, India, which has a smaller population than China but has a higher growth rate, is adding 1/3 more people each year than is China. The UN projects India to surpass China as the most populous country in the world about the year 2028. At that time both countries will have a population of about 1.45 billion. China’s population will begin to stabilize near that time and India’ will continue to grow for some time. Most of the growth will be in developing countries with more than half in Africa. Population in Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to double from the 2010 population of 0.86 to 1.96 billion in 2050.

Are there enough resources for overpopulation?

With climate change will there be enough resources for all?

Prognosis

The next billion people added to the earth will want and expect food, clothing, shelter, and some means of employment. How are these needs to be met? There are already a billion people with some degree of malnutrition. Most of the population supports themselves from agriculture. All good and even marginal land is already occupied, and much productive land is being removed from agriculture due to erosion and general depletion. How are these agriculturists going to find employment? These are critical issues.

The momentum for an increasing population seems to be difficult to change. Global business thrives on population growth. It seems the options are limited. Either the human species understands what is taking place and mandates a change, or these trends will continue until some unpredictable apocalypse eliminates a substantial portion of the people living at the time.

The world’s increasing population!

December 10, 2018
by Planet Earth Weekly Leave a comment

CLIMATE CHANGE, DROUGHT AND FAMINE

The growing ranges of our food supply will change as the temperatures rise.

“Climate change is the current cause of drought and famine.”

By Dr. John J. Hidore

December 10, 2018—There are many causes of famine, but one of the major ones is drought. Most of the past catastrophic famines have been precipitated by drought resulting from short term shifts in the atmospheric circulation.

Crop Yield and Drought

Drought generally occurs when there is a short-term lack of precipitation lasting more then one growing season. They are the most common in regions which have a pronounced seasonal rainfall regime. Drought affects the quality and quantity of crop yields and the food supply for domestic animals. During severe droughts there may be a great loss of domestic animals. The loss of milk products or meat increases the impact of drought.

Our Food Supply may be Rapidly Reduced with Rises in Temperatures.

Great famines have occurred throughout the Asian continent from the time that agriculture spread over the continent. China, India, Russia, and many middle-east countries have suffered frequently from famine resulting from drought. A famine is described as occurring during the time of Abraham, about 2247 BC. A massive famine occurred in Egypt prior to the exodus of the Israelites.

Drought and famine are endemic in India and China. The oldest record of famine in India goes back at least to 400 B.C. and in China to 108 B.C. From the time of the earliest known famine there have been nearly continuous episodes of drought and famine in some part of the region. Other regions experience droughts as well. It should be mentioned here that what is often referred to as The Great Famine occurred in Europe in the period from 1315-1317.

Working Toward Renewable Energy

Eighteenth Century Drought and Famine in India

In the mid-eighteenth century the people of India were largely subsistence farmers. It was primarily crop agriculture based on the whims of the monsoons. The country was under the control of the British East India Company, which kept the farmers on the verge of starvation under the best of conditions. Because of the general poverty of the masses and the marginal nature of the food supply, only a small shortfall in the crops in a given year produced scattered starvation. India is a huge country, and at the time only a ponderous transportation system existed. There was no means of moving large quantities of food, nor of moving large numbers of people to areas where food was available. When drought set in there were few alternatives to starvation available.

Drought and Famine: 1768

In the summer of 1768 there was little rain and crops were poor. The drought continued into 1769. Famine was apparent in the northern parts of Bengal by November 1769. By April 1770 over 30 million people in West Bengal and Bihar were affected. Fatalities were estimated at upwards of 10 million. The deaths were the result of both starvation and disease. Smallpox became epidemic along with the drought. The death toll from this famine is the highest known from any famine up to this time.

Famine has often been a problem in some part of the world since this event. As with this one, short term climate change has been the primary cause.

Drought and Famine

May 19, 2018
by Planet Earth Weekly 2 Comments

Climate Change and Human Population Growth Precipitated the Pleistocene Mass Extinction

Climate change and extinction of species

“Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception!”

By John J. Hidore

May 19, 2018—-Changes in climate can and do result in the elimination of species of plants and animals. Evolutionary adaptation and ecological equilibrium may not take place as rapidly as the climate changes. Adaptation by plant and animal species to environmental change may take years, centuries or thousands of years.

Different species respond at different rates and in different forms to climate change. Plants are always producing hybrids and individuals with mutations. In any plant species, there are those individuals better suited to the extremes of the range of the plant. These individuals may thrive under changing conditions while the majority perish. In this manner, the optimum conditions for the species changes to those of the new environment. Animals may also come under more and more stress with changing environmental condition and some species become extinct.

Mass extinction throughout time

The Paleozoic/Mesozoic Mass Extinction

At intervals through geologic time, events have taken place that resulted in the demise of many if not most living species. Extreme cases are called extinctions or mass extinctions. A current definition of a mass extinction is a widespread and unusually rapid decrease in the number of species of plants or animals. There have been at least 13 mass extinctions since life became abundant on the planet. As a result of these mass extinctions 99 percent of all species that have existed on the planet no longer exist.

The most extensive mass extinction of all time happened at the boundary between the Paleozoic and Mesozoic Eras. Ninety percent of all living species died out and very drastic changes took place in the fauna of the planet with a major collapse of marine fauna, especially those living in shallow water on the continental shelves.

Among the organisms that perished were the trilobites. Trilobites were one of the dominant organisms of the seas. They survived the previous two extinctions but couldn’t withstand the changes that mark this period in earth’s history. While many land species disappeared, there was no parallel to the mass extinction of marine animals. The changes were so drastic that the life of the following Mesozoic Era was quite different from that of the Paleozoic Era.

Survival or mass extinction

The Pleistocene Mass Extinction was a Global Event

In the recent history of the earth there have been two periods of accelerated extinction of biota during which the extinction rates were greater than evolutionary causes would predict. These two periods are the end of the Pleistocene Epoch and the modern period.

The Pleistocene extinction, took place over a period of a few thousand years, at the end of the last glacial advance (l8,000 to 8000 BCE). In a relatively short period of time, whether measured in either geologic time, evolutionary time or in terms of human history on earth, a large number of species of mammals and birds disappeared without being replaced. The period of greatest species loss was from 13,000 to 8000 BCE. During this time there was a rapid warming of the planet. Especially impacted species were the larger animals weighing more than 40 kg (88 lbs)The spacing of the extinctions over several thousand years makes it difficult to ascribe to climate events alone. Furthermore, most of the extinct animals were large enough to be conspicuous and edible.

The rate of extinction varied from place to place and through time. The rate of extinction was lowest in Sub-Saharan Africa where modern humans coexisted with the large animals the longest. The rate of extinction increased as distance from the African region increased. The highest rate of extinction occurred in South America.

Climate change and mass extinction

To some extent the rate of extinction paralleled the spread of modern humans. It was long believed that large mammals were too powerful for humans to hunt. Perhaps this was true for the individual hunter with spear or bow and arrow, but when hunters went out in groups, it is quite possible they could have been very successful hunters of large animals, even using only simple tools.

In Africa, pygmies hunted elephants with primitive tools. The Plains Indians of North America demonstrated they could successfully hunt large animals with primitive weapons. Herds of animals were driven off cliffs or into water by the use of fire and were either subsequently destroyed in the fall or drowned, or at least made far more vulnerable to attack. Modern humans became more sophisticated hunters as they spread from their place of origin in Africa. Places that were isolated from human migration for a longer period of time, such as some islands, suffered less species loss.

The Mass Extinction in North America

The largest North American mammals were hardest hit. Seventy percent of existing species became extinct. Horses and camels, which had evolved in the New World, became extinct on this continent, as did mammoths and mastodons, which had migrated into the New World over the once dry land of the Bering Strait. The ground sloth, saber toothed tiger, dire wolf, giant buffalo, antelope, and the giant beaver also disappeared, and yet there was no concomitant loss of small mammals, plants or aquatic organisms.

The spread of the human species and the state of the cultural development at the end of the Pleistocene suggests that humans were a major factor in this accelerated extinction. A surprising number of the fossilized bones of extinct animals and birds were discovered associated with charcoal and stone tools, such as arrowheads or spear points. Some of the sharpened tools were still embedded in the bones. Humans appeared in North America rather suddenly from Asia, occupied the continent, and began hunting animals that had never had a chance to adapt to this special type of predator.

The most recent extinction is that taking place today. How severe it will be is yet to be determined.

Planet Earth Weekly

Climate Change and Renewable Energy: Saving Our Planet for Future Generations

Category Archives: Mass extinction

Removing Carbon Dioxide from our Atmosphere

“CarbonEngineering:“Commercialization of Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology that captures CO2 directly from the atmosphere at an affordable price.”

The Rise in Earth’s Temperature

Carbon Offsets

Planting Trees to Offset Your Carbon Footprint