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We’re all in hot water if climate talks fail

20 Dec 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The psalmist this Sunday prays that the Lord "take care of this vine, and protect what your right hand has planted." The goal of the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen is to get humanity to take better care of the environment. More than our own survival is at stake, according to a report released Monday at the summit. Climate change threatens the survival of dozens of animal species from the emperor penguin to Australian koalas. Rising sea levels, ocean acidification, and shrinking polar ice are taking a heavy toll on species already struggling to cope with pollution and shrinking habitats, said a study from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), an intergovernmental group. "Humans are not the only ones whose fate is at stake here in Copenhagen--some of our favorite species are also taking the fall for our CO2 emissions," said Wendy Foden, an IUCN researcher and co-author of the study. The report detailed how climate change undermines the viability of 10 species, including leatherback turtles, beluga whales, clownfish, emperor penguins, and salmon. Australia's iconic bear-like koala faces malnutrition and potential starvation as the nutritional quality of eucalyptus leaves declines with the increase in CO2 levels, the report said. Polar species are especially hard hit. The ringed seal is being forced further north as sea ice it relies on for rearing its vulnerable pups retreats every decade. The emperor penguin, remarkably adapted to thrive in harsh Antarctic conditions, faces similar problems. Reduced ice cover makes it harder for these animals to mate and raise chicks and has caused a sharp decline in the availability of krill, a major food source. At midweek prospects for a wide-ranging accord in Copenhagen were dimming. "Countries and blocks of countries have come here with very hard positions," Guyana's President Bharrat Jagdeo said Tuesday. "You need some seismic shifts to really close a deal." A week ago the summit was being lauded as "Hopenhagen." As progress stalls some have starting calling it "Constipagen." Source: Articles by Marlowe Hood for Agence France Presse and Alex Morales and Jeremy van Loon for Bloomberg.com

climate change ringed seal bharrat jagdeo koala carbon dioxide emissions wendy foden iucn species animals climate summit copenhagen emperor penguin

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Energy independence created in a test tube?

06 Mar 2011 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In this Sunday’s reading from the Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul talks about how redemption comes to humanity through God’s saving grace. A Massachusetts biotechnology company promises to save the world from fossil fuel depletion and take a bite out of global warming in the process, all thanks to a genetically-engineered organism they say can produce diesel fuel or ethanol in unlimited quantities, Some scientists, however, are skeptical. Joule Unlimited has come up with an organism that it said secretes diesel fuel or ethanol wherever it finds sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide. The company said it can manipulate the organism to produce the renewable fuels on demand at unprecedented rates and can do it in facilities large and small at costs comparable to the cheapest fossil fuels. What might it mean? No less than "energy independence," Joule's web site proclaims. "If we're half right, this revolutionizes the world's largest industry, which is the oil and gas industry," said Joule chief executive Bill Sims. "And if we're right, there's no reason why this technology can't change the world." Some, though, wonder whether Joule can live up to its promises. National Renewable Energy Laboratory scientist Philip Pienkos said Joule's technology is exciting but unproven and their claims of efficiency are undercut by difficulties they could have just collecting the fuel their organism is producing. Timothy Donohue, director of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Joule must demonstrate its technology on a broad scale. The company envisions building facilities near power plants and consuming their waste carbon dioxide, claiming its organism will reduce carbon emissions while producing fuel. The company plans to break ground on a 10-acre demonstration facility this year and said they could be operating commercially in fewer than two years. Source: An article by Jay Lindsay for the Associated Press

fuel energy carbon dioxide timothy donohue philip pienkos bill sims ethanol joule unlimited

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Forecast for global warming is clear: Increasingly cloudy

25 Nov 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In this Sunday’s first reading the prophet Daniel relates a vision in which he “saw one like the Son of man coming, on the clouds of heaven." Such a vision today might be clouded by the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which hit a record high in 2011, according to a report Tuesday from the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Chief among these heat-trapping gases is carbon dioxide, the biggest culprit behind global warming.The international body estimates that about 413 billion tons of carbon have been released into the atmosphere since 1750, primarily from fossil fuel combustion. About half of this atmospheric carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere, and much of it will linger for centuries, causing the planet to warm further, WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud warned.Historically, the Earth's oceans and forests have helped balance the atmosphere's carbon equation by sucking up large amounts of the greenhouse gas. But “this will not necessarily continue in the future," Jarraud said. "We have already seen that the oceans are becoming more acidic as a result of the carbon dioxide uptake, with potential repercussions for the underwater food chain and coral reefs.”Greenhouse gases trap heat within the Earth's atmosphere and create a warming effect on the climate known as radiative forcing. From 1990 to 2011, radiative forcing by greenhouse gases shot up 30 percent, with carbon dioxide blamed for about 80 percent of this increase, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.Homily hint: The issue of global warming hardly came up in the recent election campaign—that is, until Hurricane Sandy caused widespread destruction on the eastern seaboard. The feast of Christ the King provides an opportunity to talk about how we need to be good stewards of Christ’s dominions entrusted to us on this earth. Source: An article by LifeScience.com

greenhouse gases carbon dioxide oceans wmo michel jarraud radiative forcing forests

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Latest global warming figures are breathtaking

19 May 2013 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The psalmist is clear this Sunday that God renews the face of the earth and gives us the breath of life without which we would perish. Recent signs of the damage of global warning suggest humanity has forgotten this ancient wisdom. The level of the most important heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, has passed a long-feared milestone, scientists reported last Friday, reaching a concentration not seen on the earth for millions of years.Scientific instruments showed that the gas had reached an average daily level above 400 parts per million. The best available evidence suggests the amount of the gas in the air has not been this high for at least three million years, before humans evolved, and scientists believe the rise portends large changes in the climate and the level of the sea.“It symbolizes that so far we have failed miserably in tackling this problem,” said Pieter P. Tans, who runs the monitoring program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that reported the new reading.Ralph Keeling, who runs another monitoring program at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, said a continuing rise could be catastrophic. “It means we are quickly losing the possibility of keeping the climate below what people thought were possibly tolerable thresholds,” he said. Maureen E Raymond, a scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, a unit of Columbia University, said: “It feels like the inevitable march toward disaster.”Homily hint: Global warming is one of those issues grandchildren soon will turn to their elders and ask: Why did you let this happen? How will you answer the question? There is still time to help turn down the heat; make sure your own faith community is as green as possible. Source: An article by Justin Gillis for the New York Times

global warming carbon dioxide maureen e raymond ralph keeling pieter p tans

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