A Simple Solution to a Worldwide Crisis

[ehnriko]

There are actually more simpler things one can do to contribute to cutting of Greenhouse Gas emissions.

1. Keeping their tires inflated - a bit above factory recomended PSI's... example.. if it says 28PSI - make it 30PSI. The lesser the rolling resistance your tires make - the lesser fuel you need to accelerate and the longer your car can conserve momentum specially when you drive at Hypermiling mode.

Did you know that the OIL you replace is designed to be used for only 6 months otherwise your engine will wear faster?... While the synthetic blends are designed to last just a bit longer - but more than the recommended service life - it will accelerate wear in your engine causing higher emissions.

I am so tempted to share my secret oil blend that makes my engine virtually resilient to wear even if I dont change my oil anymore. But I will just keep this secret.... Big brother wont be happy about it. :-)

As I write, I can't help but think of the victims of Ondoy typhoon...

I have been observing the crazy weather patterns for the past 8 months... I made some videos of it in the past and was a bit worried it could get worse - just be mere observation. Apparently, the worse came to pass... Let's just pray - it was already the worse. If we can't raise awareness of everyone, then we will still be seeing much worse case than Ondoys. I hope not.

You see, the pollution the Philippines contribute is miniscule compared to the Big Countries... but little as it seems - it is still big.

Remember the old commercial?... Basurang itinapon mo - Babalik din sa iyo.

The big companies are probably unaffected for now - but soon - they will feel the lessons of not heeding the call of planet.

Social Responsibility concerns Environmental Responsibility.

But we dont need the big corporate minds to do this for us.

We need to be aware of the Carbon Footprint each and everyone is making.

The wasteful lifestyles... our exhaust emissions... imagine curbing emissions by only 20% - if done colectively - that would mean Thousands of Metric Tons Less in terms of Daily to Annual Carbon Footprint... and it doesn't take a new car or an expensive conversion to do just that.

[uls]

ya just what our country needs more of --- more highly advanced forms of transpo

and another thing, we definitely need more people who are really, really good at AGREEing with what other people post

the meaning of AGREE -- "ang galing! baket di ko naisip yan?"

depleting neurons?

[niky]

Agree here!

Anyway, another simple solution to reduce gas/diesel dependence...



Photo courtesy of Regjeex of SSC

Let's see them do that going uphill...

[ghosthunter]

There are actually more simpler things one can do to contribute to cutting of Greenhouse Gas emissions.

1. Keeping their tires inflated - a bit above factory recomended PSI's... example.. if it says 28PSI - make it 30PSI. The lesser the rolling resistance your tires make - the lesser fuel you need to accelerate and the longer your car can conserve momentum specially when you drive at Hypermiling mode.

First, good luck trying to hypermile in the middle of metro manila.

Second, tires with higher than recommended pressure will loose grip earlier and stop less quickly. This is the difference between a close call and a serious accident.

Did you know that the OIL you replace is designed to be used for only 6 months otherwise your engine will wear faster?... While the synthetic blends are designed to last just a bit longer - but more than the recommended service life - it will accelerate wear in your engine causing higher emissions.

I am so tempted to share my secret oil blend that makes my engine virtually resilient to wear even if I dont change my oil anymore. But I will just keep this secret.... Big brother wont be happy about it. :-)

Changing motor oil is meant to remove the contaminants in the oil. The oil itself does not expire.

I have been observing the crazy weather patterns for the past 8 months... I made some videos of it in the past and was a bit worried it could get worse - just be mere observation. Apparently, the worse came to pass... Let's just pray - it was already the worse. If we can't raise awareness of everyone, then we will still be seeing much worse case than Ondoys. I hope not.

So it just takes eight months of weather observations become at meteorologist? Wow, maybe PAGASA can learn something from you!

You see, the pollution the Philippines contribute is miniscule compared to the Big Countries... but little as it seems - it is still big.

What gives developed countries the right to force developing economies to use "green" technologies when those 1st world countries aren't even using the same "green" tech themselves? It is not that they cannot afford it. Developing countries can ill-afford expensive "green" tech.

We need to be aware of the Carbon Footprint each and everyone is making.

The wasteful lifestyles... our exhaust emissions... imagine curbing emissions by only 20% - if done colectively - that would mean Thousands of Metric Tons Less in terms of Daily to Annual Carbon Footprint... and it doesn't take a new car or an expensive conversion to do just that.

Aware? ... Being aware and doing something about it are two different things.

Why not mention what you have done to be "green" in the following thread?

What have you done to be "GREEN" or "ECO-Friendly"?
http://tsikot.yehey.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63161

Isn't it always better to lead by example? So post in that thread the things YOU have done to be "green".

[ehnriko]

First, good luck trying to hypermile in the middle of metro manila.

(I dont - except if I need to.)


Second, tires with higher than recommended pressure will loose grip earlier and stop less quickly. This is the difference between a close call and a serious accident.

(That's if you drive above 140kph all the time and brake too late all the time and if you have worn tyres)


Changing motor oil is meant to remove the contaminants in the oil. The oil itself does not expire.

(Thats because the heat range of the oil is not high enough, the higher engine temp. of modern cars contributes to the accelerated break down of the oil)


So it just takes eight months of weather observations become at meteorologist? Wow, maybe PAGASA can learn something from you!

(I never said I became a meteorologist - but it takes common sense to see the difference)


What gives developed countries the right to force developing economies to use "green" technologies when those 1st world countries aren't even using the same "green" tech themselves? It is not that they cannot afford it. Developing countries can ill-afford expensive "green" tech.

(not true!)

Aware? ... Being aware and doing something about it are two different things.

Why not mention what you have done to be "green" in the following thread?

What have you done to be "GREEN" or "ECO-Friendly"?
http://tsikot.yehey.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63161

Isn't it always better to lead by example? So post in that thread the things YOU have done to be "green".

I am living an example - no intention to lead an example - spare me the publicity.... and I am not bragging about it nor do I intend to. Do we need to?

[ghosthunter]

I am living an example - no intention to lead an example - spare me the publicity.... and I am not bragging about it nor do I intend to. Do we need to?

How can you claim to be an advocate when you don't show to others that being "green" doesn't require designing the next Pinoy car. That being "green" can be as simply as changing a light bulb or choosing one over another.

This is not bragging. This is what being an advocate is about.

[niky]

How can you claim to be an advocate when you don't show to others that being "green" doesn't require designing the next Pinoy car. That being "green" can be as simply as changing a light bulb or choosing one over another.

This is not bragging. This is what being an advocate is about.

Ah... but if you're already doing the personal thing... why not try to inspire others? Nothing wrong with a little dreaming...

[uls]

Fighting to save the environment

Score:

the powers-that-be: 1

the green movement: 0

Al Gore was right

it's too inconvenient

Cassandras of Climate
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/op...gman.html?_r=1

by PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: September 27, 2009

Every once in a while I feel despair over the fate of the planet. If you’ve been following climate science, you know what I mean: the sense that we’re hurtling toward catastrophe but nobody wants to hear about it or do anything to avert it.

And here’s the thing: I’m not engaging in hyperbole. These days, dire warnings aren’t the delusional raving of cranks. They’re what come out of the most widely respected climate models, devised by the leading researchers. The prognosis for the planet has gotten much, much worse in just the last few years.

What’s driving this new pessimism? Partly it’s the fact that some predicted changes, like a decline in Arctic Sea ice, are happening much faster than expected. Partly it’s growing evidence that feedback loops amplifying the effects of man-made greenhouse gas emissions are stronger than previously realized. For example, it has long been understood that global warming will cause the tundra to thaw, releasing carbon dioxide, which will cause even more warming, but new research shows far more carbon dioxide locked in the permafrost than previously thought, which means a much bigger feedback effect.

The result of all this is that climate scientists have, en masse, become Cassandras — gifted with the ability to prophesy future disasters, but cursed with the inability to get anyone to believe them.

And we’re not just talking about disasters in the distant future, either. The really big rise in global temperature probably won’t take place until the second half of this century, but there will be plenty of damage long before then.

For example, one 2007 paper in the journal Science is titled “Model Projections of an Imminent Transition to a More Arid Climate in Southwestern North America” — yes, “imminent” — and reports “a broad consensus among climate models” that a permanent drought, bringing Dust Bowl-type conditions, “will become the new climatology of the American Southwest within a time frame of years to decades.”

So if you live in, say, Los Angeles, and liked those pictures of red skies and choking dust in Sydney, Australia, last week, no need to travel. They’ll be coming your way in the not-too-distant future.

Now, at this point I have to make the obligatory disclaimer that no individual weather event can be attributed to global warming. The point, however, is that climate change will make events like that Australian dust storm much more common.

In a rational world, then, the looming climate disaster would be our dominant political and policy concern. But it manifestly isn’t. Why not?

Part of the answer is that it’s hard to keep peoples’ attention focused. Weather fluctuates — New Yorkers may recall the heat wave that pushed the thermometer above 90 in April — and even at a global level, this is enough to cause substantial year-to-year wobbles in average temperature. As a result, any year with record heat is normally followed by a number of cooler years: According to Britain’s Met Office, 1998 was the hottest year so far, although NASA — which arguably has better data — says it was 2005. And it’s all too easy to reach the false conclusion that the danger is past.

But the larger reason we’re ignoring climate change is that Al Gore was right: This truth is just too inconvenient. Responding to climate change with the vigor that the threat deserves would not, contrary to legend, be devastating for the economy as a whole. But it would shuffle the economic deck, hurting some powerful vested interests even as it created new economic opportunities. And the industries of the past have armies of lobbyists in place right now; the industries of the future don’t.

Nor is it just a matter of vested interests. It’s also a matter of vested ideas. For three decades the dominant political ideology in America has extolled private enterprise and denigrated government, but climate change is a problem that can only be addressed through government action. And rather than concede the limits of their philosophy, many on the right have chosen to deny that the problem exists.

So here we are, with the greatest challenge facing mankind on the back burner, at best, as a policy issue. I’m not, by the way, saying that the Obama administration was wrong to push health care first. It was necessary to show voters a tangible achievement before next November. But climate change legislation had better be next.

And as I pointed out in my last column, we can afford to do this. Even as climate modelers have been reaching consensus on the view that the threat is worse than we realized, economic modelers have been reaching consensus on the view that the costs of emission control are lower than many feared.

So the time for action is now. O.K., strictly speaking it’s long past. But better late than never.

[ehnriko]

Black Carbon Warms the Planet second only to CO2... but cheaper to solve.

Eighty percent of black carbon emissions come from fossil fuels and biomass burning associated with deforestation;

reducing black carbon emissions may be the quickest, cheapest way to save the climate Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

New research shows that airborne soot, or black carbon (BC) aerosols resulting from incomplete combustion, are warming the earth much more than previously thought. According to Veerabhadran Ramanathan at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography San Diego and Greg Carmichael at the University of Iowa, the warming effect of black carbon is 55 percent that of CO2, the biggest contributor to global warming.

The annual emission of BC (for year 1996) was estimated at about 8 Tg (1012g); of which 20 percent comes from biological fuels (wood, dung and crop residues), 40 percent from fossil fuels (diesel and coal) and 40 percent from open biomass burning (associated with deforestation and crop residue burning). High BC emissions occur in both northern and southern hemispheres, the former from fossil fuels and the latter from open biomass burning. BC is often transported long distances, mixing with other aerosols on the way such as sulphates, nitrates, organics, dust and sea salt, to form transcontinental plumes of brown clouds that extend vertically 3 to 5 km. BC is removed from the atmosphere by rain and snowfall; that and direct deposition limits the atmospheric lifetime of BC to about a week.

Major BC sources coincide with atmospheric solar heating and surface dimming

Until about 1950s, North America and Western Europe were the main sources of soot emissions, but now developing nations in the tropics and East Asia are the major source regions. Field observations and satellite sensors reveal that BC concentrations peak close to major source regions, giving rise to regional hotspots of solar heating in the Indo-Gangetic plains in South Asia, eastern China, most of Southeast Asia including Indonesia, regions of Africa between sub-Sahara and South Africa, Mexico and Central America, and most of Brazil and Peru in South America.

Whereas CO2 heats the earth surface through the greenhouse effect, BC heats the earth by decreasing its albedo in several ways. (Albedo is the fraction of solar energy not absorbed but reflected from the earth back into space.) First it heats the atmosphere by absorbing solar radiation reflected by the earth’s surface to the atmosphere. This is referred to as ‘top of atmosphere’ or TOA heating. Second, soot inside cloud drops and ice crystals decrease the albedo of clouds by enhancing absorption of solar energy. Third, when airborne black carbon particles, or soot, is deposited over snow and sea ice, it darkens the surfaces and decreases the otherwise high albedo, contributing to the melting of Arctic ice.

More here...

Source: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/blackCarbonWarmsThePlanets.php


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All the more reason why we should look for alternative solutions - outside the sphere of the influences of the big oil barons.

[uls]

the priority of governments of developing nations mentioned above is to lift their people out of poverty thru econ. development

lalo na China and India with their billion plus population

environmental protection isnt on top of their priority list

try making China and India reduce CO2 emissions