Many people think that acid rain is one of
those environmental issues whose dangers
are exaggerated by the news media. It may
affect a few trees, the thinking goes, but
it can't really hurt people. The fact is that
much still remains unknown about acid
rain, but this much is for sure: it is a
serious threat to the environment, and
there is evidence that it can directly
endanger human health.
The problem is not invisible, either. The
next time you visit one of our national
parks to enjoy the vistas, your view may
be tainted somewhat by damaged trees
and a haze of acidic particles in the air.
Scientists say that acid rain - any form of
precipitation, including snow and fog,
that contains some amount of sulfuric and
nitric acids - wreaks havoc on the
environment. It strips the soil of vital
nutrients that support the growth of
vegetation and contaminates thousands of
American waterways and lakes. This
results in forest damage and the
decimation of many aquatic species.
Could acid rain ruin your garden? Not
likely. Environmentalists conclude that
most cultivated plants can tolerate
changes in acidity if they are fertilized
with basic nutrients.
What causes acid rain? According to many
scientific studies, it begins with air
pollution generated from industrial
processes such as pulp and paper,
smelting, and natural gas plants, as well
as the burning of fossil fuels by power
plants, factories, and automobiles. Sulfur
dioxide and nitrogen dioxide are released
into the air, where they react with
sunlight, water, and oxygen to form acids
and salts. As "normal" rain falls through
the atmosphere, it mixes with these
pollutants and turns into acid rain.
Records show that acid rain accounts for
about half of the "acid deposition" that
falls to Earth. The rest is dry acid
deposition, which is comprised of gases
and solid particles. Since both forms of
acid deposition are easily blown by the
wind over long distances, they can cause
damage to the environment far from their
original source.
Is acid rain harmful to humans? Studies
report that the acidic particles that make
up dry acid deposition can exacerbate such
respiratory conditions as asthma and
bronchitis. Higher levels of these particles
in the air are also associated with
increased rates of respiratory illness and
death.
Acid rain is unlikely to taint your city tap
water by seeping into groundwater and
corroding pipes. However, the quality of
well water in some rural areas has been
adversely affected by acid rain deposition.
It is a good idea to have a private lab test
your well water for potability.
Structures made of galvanized steel,
copper, marble, limestone, sandstone, and
granite can be gradually eaten away by
acid rain. The damage is seen on the
exteriors of buildings, statues, and bridges
- even on such beloved monuments as the
Parthenon in Greece and the Taj Mahal in
India
Sunday, March 28, 2010
GLOBAL WARMING
Global warming has become perhaps the
most complicated issue facing world
leaders. On the one hand, warnings from
the scientific community are becoming
louder, as an increasing body of science
points to rising dangers from the ongoing
buildup of human-related greenhouse
gases — produced mainly by the burning
of fossil fuels and forests. On the other,
the technological, economic and political
issues that have to be resolved before a
concerted worldwide effort to reduce
emissions can begin have gotten no
simpler, particularly in the face of a global
economic slowdown.
After years of preparation for climate talks
taking place in Copenhagen through Dec.
18, 2009, President Obama and other
leaders announced on Nov. 15 what had
already become evident — that no formal
treaty could be produced anytime soon.
Instead, the leaders pledged to reach a
placeholder accord that would call for
reductions in emissions and increased aid
to help developing nations adapt to a
changing climate and get access to non-
polluting energy options.
This would in theory give the nations
more time to work out the all-important
details. Negotiators would then seek a
binding global agreement in 2010,
complete with firm emission targets,
enforcement mechanisms and specific
dollar amounts to aid poorer nations.
At the heart of the debate is a momentous
tussle between rich and poor countries
over who steps up first and who pays
most for changed energy menus.
Within the United States, Congress is
similarly fighting over legislation on
climate change. The House in the summer
of 2009 passed a bill outlining a cap-and-
trade system that could, over the next few
decades, lead to an early end to
conventional use of coal and oil, fuels that
have underpinned prosperity and growth
for more than a century. But between stiff
opposition from energy interests and the
overwhelming distractions of health care
reform and the economy, the legislation
has stalled in the Senate.
In international discussions over climate,
Mr. Obama has urged other countries not
to be discouraged by the stasis on Capitol
Hill, pointing to big investments in energy
efficiency, solar and wind power and his
move to restrict greenhouse gases using
environmental regulations.
In the meantime, recent fluctuations in
temperature, seized on by opponents of
emissions restrictions, have intensified the
public debate over how urgently to
respond. The long-term warming trend
over the last century has been well-
established, and scientists immersed in
studying the climate are projecting
substantial disruption in water supplies,
agriculture, ecosystems and coastal
communities. Passionate activists at both
ends of the discourse are pushing ever
harder for or against rapid action, while
polls show the public locked durably in
three camps — with roughly a fifth of
American voters eager for action, a similar
proportion aggressively rejecting
projections of catastrophe and most
people tuned out or confused.
Background
Scientists learned long ago that the
earth's climate has powerfully shaped the
history of the human species —
biologically, culturally and geographically.
But only in the last few decades has
research revealed that humans can be a
powerful influence on the climate as well.
A growing body of scientific evidence
indicates that since 1950, the world's
climate has been warming, primarily as a
result of emissions from unfettered
burning of fossil fuels and the razing of
tropical forests. Such activity adds to the
atmosphere's invisible blanket of carbon
dioxide and other heat-trapping
"greenhouse" gases. Recent research has
shown that methane, which flows from
landfills, livestock and oil and gas
facilities, is a close second to carbon
dioxide in impact
on the atmosphere.
That conclusion has emerged through a
broad body of analysis in fields as
disparate as glaciology, the study of
glacial formations, and palynology, the
study of the distribution of pollen grains
in lake mud. It is based on a host of
assessments by the world's leading
organizations of climate and earth
scientists.
In the last several years, the scientific case
that the rising human influence on
climate could become disruptive has
become particularly robust.
Some fluctuations in the Earth's
temperature
are inevitable regardless of human activity
— because of decades-long ocean cycles,
for example. But centuries of rising
temperatures and seas lie ahead if the
release of emissions from the burning of
fossil fuels and deforestation continues
unabated, according to the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change.
The panel shared the 2007 Nobel Peace
Prize with former Vice President Al Gore
for alerting the world to warming's risks.
Despite the scientific consensus on these
basic conclusions, enormously important
details remain murky. That reality has
been seized upon by some groups and
scientists disputing the overall consensus
and opposing changes in energy policies.
For example, estimates of the amount of
warming that would result from a
doubling of greenhouse gas
concentrations (compared to the level just
before the Industrial Revolution got under
way in the early 19th century) range from
3.6 degrees to 8 degrees Fahrenheit. The
intergovernmental climate panel said it
could not rule out even higher
temperatures). While the low end could
probably be tolerated, the high end would
almost certainly result in calamitous, long-
lasting disruptions of ecosystems and
economies, a host of studies have
concluded. A wide range of economists
and earth scientists say that level of risk
justifies an aggressive response.
Other questions have persisted despite a
century-long accumulation of studies
pointing to human-driven warming. The
rate and extent at which sea levels will
rise in this century as ice sheets erode
remains highly uncertain, even as the
long-term forecast of centuries of
retreating shorelines remains intact.
Scientists are struggling more than ever to
disentangle how the heat building in the
seas and atmosphere will affect the
strength and number of tropical cyclones
. The latest science suggests there will be
more hurricanes and typhoons that reach
the most dangerous categories of
intensity, but fewer storms over all.
Steps Toward a Response
The debate over such climate questions
pales next to the fight over what to do, or
not do, in a world where fossil fuels still
underpin both rich and emerging
economies. With the completion of the
United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change
at the Earth Summit in 1992, the world's
nations pledged to avoid dangerously
disrupting the climate through the buildup
of greenhouse gases, but they never
defined how much warming was too
much.
Nonetheless, recognizing that the original
climate treaty was proving ineffective, all
of the world's industrialized countries
except for the United States accepted
binding restrictions on their greenhouse
gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol,
which was negotiated in Japan in 1997.
That accord took effect in 2005 and its gas
restrictions expire in 2012. (The United
States signed the treaty, but it was never
submitted for ratification, in the face of
overwhelming opposition in the Senate
because the pact required no steps by
China or other fast-growing developing
countries.
It took until 2009 for the leaders of the
world's largest economic powers to agree
on a dangerous climate threshold: an
increase of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees
Fahrenheit) from the average global
temperature recorded just before the
Industrial Revolution kicked into gear.
(This translates into an increase of 1.3
degrees Fahrenheit above the Earth's
current average temperature, about 59
degrees).
The Group of 8 industrial powers also
agreed this year to a goal of reducing
global emissions 50 percent by 2050
, with the richest countries leading the
way by cutting their emissions 80 percent.
But they did not set a baseline from which
to measure that reduction, and so far firm
interim targets — which many climate
scientists say would be more meaningful
— have not been defined.
At the same time, fast-growing emerging
economic powerhouses, led by China and
India, still oppose taking on mandatory
obligations to curb their emissions. They
say they will do what they can to rein in
growth in emissions — as long as their
economies do not suffer. The world's
poorest countries, in the meantime, are
seeking payments to help make them less
vulnerable
to the impacts of climate change, given
that the buildup in climate-warming gases
so far has come mainly from richer
nations. Such aid has been promised since
the 1992 treaty and a fund was set up
under the Kyoto Protocol. But while tens
of billions of dollars are said to be needed,
only millions have flowed so far.
In many ways, the debate over global
climate policy is a result of a global
"climate divide.'' Emissions of carbon
dioxide per person range from less than 2
tons per year in India, where 400 million
people lack access to electricity, to more
than 20 in the United States. The richest
countries are also best able to use wealth
and technology to insulate themselves
from climate hazards, while the poorest,
which have done the least to cause the
problem, are the most exposed.
In Copenhagen in December 2009,
negotiators had planned to try to settle on
the basic terms of two new global climate
agreements. One would renew the
commitments of countries bound by the
Kyoto emissions limits; the other would
rein in emissions of all countries to
varying extents, depending on their
wealth and emissions history
. Given the many competing interests, and
the reality that any big emissions shifts
would have substantial economic impacts,
the negotiations have been called one of
the most complex diplomatic challenges
ever.
Democratic leaders in the United States
Senate continue to try to follow the lead
of the House of Representatives by
securing passage of a bill aiming to sharply
cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
The chief mechanism would be a "cap and
trade" system that sets a gradually
declining ceiling for over all emissions.
Companies and institutions could buy and
sell credits from one another as a way to
curb emissions at the lowest cost.
Companies that made deeper cuts than
required could sell credits to companies
that fell short of their targets.
But a national preoccupation with the
slow economy and competing issues, led
by health care, threaten to delay or
weaken such legislation. Another
impediment is the shortage of money
flowing to basic energy research and large-
scale demonstrations of non-polluting
energy technology. While the Obama
administration and Congress directed
some stimulus money toward such
efforts, such spending comes only after
decades of declining investment in these
areas.
President Obama came into office vowing
to take swift action on climate change,
and under him, the Environmental
Protection Agency has declared that it will
regulate carbon dioxide emissions. But
with the cap-and-trade bill facing an
uncertain future in the Senate, his ability
to take big steps on the issue has been
severely constrained, and without
significant actions by the United States,
China and India had made it clear they
would remain on the sidelines. Just weeks
before the planned Copenhagen session,
he and other leaders gathered for an Asian
summit announced that no treaty would
be reached in 2009. Instead, leaders will
try to reach a political agreement that
could be the basis for new treaty talks in
2010.
In the meantime, a recent dip in emissions
caused by the global economic slowdown
is almost certain to be followed by a rise,
scientists warn, and with population and
appetites for energy projected to rise
through mid-century, they say the
entwined challenges of climate and energy
will only intensify.
most complicated issue facing world
leaders. On the one hand, warnings from
the scientific community are becoming
louder, as an increasing body of science
points to rising dangers from the ongoing
buildup of human-related greenhouse
gases — produced mainly by the burning
of fossil fuels and forests. On the other,
the technological, economic and political
issues that have to be resolved before a
concerted worldwide effort to reduce
emissions can begin have gotten no
simpler, particularly in the face of a global
economic slowdown.
After years of preparation for climate talks
taking place in Copenhagen through Dec.
18, 2009, President Obama and other
leaders announced on Nov. 15 what had
already become evident — that no formal
treaty could be produced anytime soon.
Instead, the leaders pledged to reach a
placeholder accord that would call for
reductions in emissions and increased aid
to help developing nations adapt to a
changing climate and get access to non-
polluting energy options.
This would in theory give the nations
more time to work out the all-important
details. Negotiators would then seek a
binding global agreement in 2010,
complete with firm emission targets,
enforcement mechanisms and specific
dollar amounts to aid poorer nations.
At the heart of the debate is a momentous
tussle between rich and poor countries
over who steps up first and who pays
most for changed energy menus.
Within the United States, Congress is
similarly fighting over legislation on
climate change. The House in the summer
of 2009 passed a bill outlining a cap-and-
trade system that could, over the next few
decades, lead to an early end to
conventional use of coal and oil, fuels that
have underpinned prosperity and growth
for more than a century. But between stiff
opposition from energy interests and the
overwhelming distractions of health care
reform and the economy, the legislation
has stalled in the Senate.
In international discussions over climate,
Mr. Obama has urged other countries not
to be discouraged by the stasis on Capitol
Hill, pointing to big investments in energy
efficiency, solar and wind power and his
move to restrict greenhouse gases using
environmental regulations.
In the meantime, recent fluctuations in
temperature, seized on by opponents of
emissions restrictions, have intensified the
public debate over how urgently to
respond. The long-term warming trend
over the last century has been well-
established, and scientists immersed in
studying the climate are projecting
substantial disruption in water supplies,
agriculture, ecosystems and coastal
communities. Passionate activists at both
ends of the discourse are pushing ever
harder for or against rapid action, while
polls show the public locked durably in
three camps — with roughly a fifth of
American voters eager for action, a similar
proportion aggressively rejecting
projections of catastrophe and most
people tuned out or confused.
Background
Scientists learned long ago that the
earth's climate has powerfully shaped the
history of the human species —
biologically, culturally and geographically.
But only in the last few decades has
research revealed that humans can be a
powerful influence on the climate as well.
A growing body of scientific evidence
indicates that since 1950, the world's
climate has been warming, primarily as a
result of emissions from unfettered
burning of fossil fuels and the razing of
tropical forests. Such activity adds to the
atmosphere's invisible blanket of carbon
dioxide and other heat-trapping
"greenhouse" gases. Recent research has
shown that methane, which flows from
landfills, livestock and oil and gas
facilities, is a close second to carbon
dioxide in impact
on the atmosphere.
That conclusion has emerged through a
broad body of analysis in fields as
disparate as glaciology, the study of
glacial formations, and palynology, the
study of the distribution of pollen grains
in lake mud. It is based on a host of
assessments by the world's leading
organizations of climate and earth
scientists.
In the last several years, the scientific case
that the rising human influence on
climate could become disruptive has
become particularly robust.
Some fluctuations in the Earth's
temperature
are inevitable regardless of human activity
— because of decades-long ocean cycles,
for example. But centuries of rising
temperatures and seas lie ahead if the
release of emissions from the burning of
fossil fuels and deforestation continues
unabated, according to the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change.
The panel shared the 2007 Nobel Peace
Prize with former Vice President Al Gore
for alerting the world to warming's risks.
Despite the scientific consensus on these
basic conclusions, enormously important
details remain murky. That reality has
been seized upon by some groups and
scientists disputing the overall consensus
and opposing changes in energy policies.
For example, estimates of the amount of
warming that would result from a
doubling of greenhouse gas
concentrations (compared to the level just
before the Industrial Revolution got under
way in the early 19th century) range from
3.6 degrees to 8 degrees Fahrenheit. The
intergovernmental climate panel said it
could not rule out even higher
temperatures). While the low end could
probably be tolerated, the high end would
almost certainly result in calamitous, long-
lasting disruptions of ecosystems and
economies, a host of studies have
concluded. A wide range of economists
and earth scientists say that level of risk
justifies an aggressive response.
Other questions have persisted despite a
century-long accumulation of studies
pointing to human-driven warming. The
rate and extent at which sea levels will
rise in this century as ice sheets erode
remains highly uncertain, even as the
long-term forecast of centuries of
retreating shorelines remains intact.
Scientists are struggling more than ever to
disentangle how the heat building in the
seas and atmosphere will affect the
strength and number of tropical cyclones
. The latest science suggests there will be
more hurricanes and typhoons that reach
the most dangerous categories of
intensity, but fewer storms over all.
Steps Toward a Response
The debate over such climate questions
pales next to the fight over what to do, or
not do, in a world where fossil fuels still
underpin both rich and emerging
economies. With the completion of the
United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change
at the Earth Summit in 1992, the world's
nations pledged to avoid dangerously
disrupting the climate through the buildup
of greenhouse gases, but they never
defined how much warming was too
much.
Nonetheless, recognizing that the original
climate treaty was proving ineffective, all
of the world's industrialized countries
except for the United States accepted
binding restrictions on their greenhouse
gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol,
which was negotiated in Japan in 1997.
That accord took effect in 2005 and its gas
restrictions expire in 2012. (The United
States signed the treaty, but it was never
submitted for ratification, in the face of
overwhelming opposition in the Senate
because the pact required no steps by
China or other fast-growing developing
countries.
It took until 2009 for the leaders of the
world's largest economic powers to agree
on a dangerous climate threshold: an
increase of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees
Fahrenheit) from the average global
temperature recorded just before the
Industrial Revolution kicked into gear.
(This translates into an increase of 1.3
degrees Fahrenheit above the Earth's
current average temperature, about 59
degrees).
The Group of 8 industrial powers also
agreed this year to a goal of reducing
global emissions 50 percent by 2050
, with the richest countries leading the
way by cutting their emissions 80 percent.
But they did not set a baseline from which
to measure that reduction, and so far firm
interim targets — which many climate
scientists say would be more meaningful
— have not been defined.
At the same time, fast-growing emerging
economic powerhouses, led by China and
India, still oppose taking on mandatory
obligations to curb their emissions. They
say they will do what they can to rein in
growth in emissions — as long as their
economies do not suffer. The world's
poorest countries, in the meantime, are
seeking payments to help make them less
vulnerable
to the impacts of climate change, given
that the buildup in climate-warming gases
so far has come mainly from richer
nations. Such aid has been promised since
the 1992 treaty and a fund was set up
under the Kyoto Protocol. But while tens
of billions of dollars are said to be needed,
only millions have flowed so far.
In many ways, the debate over global
climate policy is a result of a global
"climate divide.'' Emissions of carbon
dioxide per person range from less than 2
tons per year in India, where 400 million
people lack access to electricity, to more
than 20 in the United States. The richest
countries are also best able to use wealth
and technology to insulate themselves
from climate hazards, while the poorest,
which have done the least to cause the
problem, are the most exposed.
In Copenhagen in December 2009,
negotiators had planned to try to settle on
the basic terms of two new global climate
agreements. One would renew the
commitments of countries bound by the
Kyoto emissions limits; the other would
rein in emissions of all countries to
varying extents, depending on their
wealth and emissions history
. Given the many competing interests, and
the reality that any big emissions shifts
would have substantial economic impacts,
the negotiations have been called one of
the most complex diplomatic challenges
ever.
Democratic leaders in the United States
Senate continue to try to follow the lead
of the House of Representatives by
securing passage of a bill aiming to sharply
cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
The chief mechanism would be a "cap and
trade" system that sets a gradually
declining ceiling for over all emissions.
Companies and institutions could buy and
sell credits from one another as a way to
curb emissions at the lowest cost.
Companies that made deeper cuts than
required could sell credits to companies
that fell short of their targets.
But a national preoccupation with the
slow economy and competing issues, led
by health care, threaten to delay or
weaken such legislation. Another
impediment is the shortage of money
flowing to basic energy research and large-
scale demonstrations of non-polluting
energy technology. While the Obama
administration and Congress directed
some stimulus money toward such
efforts, such spending comes only after
decades of declining investment in these
areas.
President Obama came into office vowing
to take swift action on climate change,
and under him, the Environmental
Protection Agency has declared that it will
regulate carbon dioxide emissions. But
with the cap-and-trade bill facing an
uncertain future in the Senate, his ability
to take big steps on the issue has been
severely constrained, and without
significant actions by the United States,
China and India had made it clear they
would remain on the sidelines. Just weeks
before the planned Copenhagen session,
he and other leaders gathered for an Asian
summit announced that no treaty would
be reached in 2009. Instead, leaders will
try to reach a political agreement that
could be the basis for new treaty talks in
2010.
In the meantime, a recent dip in emissions
caused by the global economic slowdown
is almost certain to be followed by a rise,
scientists warn, and with population and
appetites for energy projected to rise
through mid-century, they say the
entwined challenges of climate and energy
will only intensify.
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