Carbon Competition for Silicon? Double Honour for Creators of Graphene

Two Nobel laureates involved in the creation of graphene, a sheet of carbon just one atom thick, have received knighthoods in the British New Year Honours. Graphene is a flat layer of carbon atoms tightly packed into a two-dimensional honeycomb arrangement. Because it is so thin, it is also practically transparent. As a conductor of electricity, it performs as well as copper; and as a conductor of heat, it outperforms all other known materials.

BBC Science and the Environment (31 December 2011):

Knighthoods for Nobel-winning graphene pioneers

Two Nobel laureates involved in the creation of graphene, a sheet of carbon just one atom thick, have received knighthoods in the British New Year Honours.

Profs Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, from the University of Manchester, won the physics Nobel Prize in 2010 for their pioneering research.

Recipients from technology and science sectors make up 3% of this year’s list.

A knighthood has also been given to Prof Robert Watson, chief scientific adviser to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

‘Groundbreaking experiments’

Profs Geim and Novoselov, both originally from Russia, first worked together in the Netherlands before moving to the UK.

Graphene

Graphene is a form of carbon that exists as a sheet, one atom thick

Atoms are arranged into a two-dimensional honeycomb structure

Identification of graphene announced in October 2004

About 100 times stronger than steel and conducts electricity better than copper

About 1% of graphene mixed into plastics could turn them into electrical conductors

Analogous to millions of unrolled nanotubes stuck together

How sticky tape trick led to Nobel Prize

They were based at the University of Manchester when they published their seminal research paper on graphene in October 2004.

It was their work on the world’s thinnest material that was recognised by the Nobel committee in 2010 for “for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene”.

Graphene is a form of carbon. It is a flat layer of carbon atoms tightly packed into a two-dimensional honeycomb arrangement.

Because it is so thin, it is also practically transparent. As a conductor of electricity, it performs as well as copper; and as a conductor of heat, it outperforms all other known materials.

The unusual electronic, mechanical and chemical properties of graphene at the molecular scale promise ultra-fast transistors for electronics.

Some scientists have predicted that graphene could one day replace silicon – which is the current material of choice for transistors.

It could also yield incredibly strong, flexible and stable materials and find applications in transparent touch screens or solar cells.

Source: www.bbc.co.uk

Google This: Asia’s New Data Centre will be Cool & Green

Google’s plan for setting up an environmentally friendly data centre in Jurong includes using Singapore’s abundant rainfall to cool down its new facility. The search engine giant employed a similar solution in Finland, where sea water is used to cool its data centre in Hamina, except that rain will be less corrosive to the cooling equipment. Rather than build the data centres in Hong Kong, and Taiwan – as well as Singapore – on the same model, Google says each facility will be adapted to the specific environmental nature of its location, such as climate and humidity.

From ZDNet Asia (15 December 2011):

Google’s plan for setting up an environmentally friendly data centre in Jurong include using Singapore’s abundant rainfall to cool down its new facility, reports the Straits Times’  Digital Life (21 December 2011).

The search engine giant employed a similar solution in Finland, where sea water is used to cool its data centre in Hamina, except that rain will be less corrosive to the cooling equipment.

Google Southeast Asia, announces the start of construction of a new Google data center in Singapore.

Web titan Google has officially started construction of its Singapore data center, which will cost US$120 million. Expected to be complete by early-2013, the 2.45-hectare facility is located in Jurong West.

Staffing requirements are still being finalized but recruitment for the leadership team that will helm the data center has begun and will continue as construction progresses, Google said Thursday when it officially broke ground on the site of the facility.

Once operational, the data center will be manned by a “small team” full-time staff and a number of contractors in various roles, including computer technicians, electrical and mechanical engineers, catering and security staff. “Building this first data center in Southeast Asia is an exciting step and an important investment in better serving our users across the region,” said Julian Persaud, head of Google Southeast Asia, in a statement.

“More new users are coming online every day in Asia than anywhere else in the world. They are looking for information and entertainment, new business opportunities and better ways to connect with friends and family, near and far,” Persaud said. “We’re building to provide our users here with the fastest and most reliable possible access to all our services so they can do just that.”

In a phone interview with ZDNet Asia, Taj Meadows, Google’s Asia-Pacific manager of policy communications, said the timing to set up new data centers in the region is “pretty obvious”.

“Asia, in general, is the fastest-growing market for Internet users in the world. [Having] data centers here will ensure users have the fastest, most reliable access as possible,” Meadows said. “There’s been incredible growth in the Internet economy in Asia and we’re building to meet the demand and capacity of data-intensive services like cloud.”

Last week, Google also began construction work on its Hong Kong data center, a 2.7 hectare-site in Kowloon, in which it will invest US$300 million. Also expected to be operational by early-2013, the facility will be operated by some 25 full-time staff and a number of part- and full-time contractors.

The Internet giant first announced in September it had bought land to build its first data centers in Asia, namely, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. Details for the Taiwan site have yet to be disclosed. These facilities will join Google’s existing network of eight data centers in the United States and Europe.

Tapping Asia’s booming Net economy

Japan-based Meadows, who was in town for the ground-breaking ceremony, did not identify the countries that would be primarily served by the Singapore data center, but he did reveal that the site would cater to users in Southeast Asia and the broader region of Asia-Pacific.

Rather than build the data centers in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan on the same model, he noted that each facility will be adapted to the specific environmental nature of its location such as climate and humidity. All three sites, however, are expected to be among the most energy-efficient in Asia, Meadows said.

These ”green” data centers will be both energy-efficient and environmentally friendly, as each element of the facility will be “custom designed and custom built” to ensure it is working at peak performance so it can run efficiently, he added.

Asked if Google was planning for more data centers in Asia, Meadows said there was “nothing to announce at this time”. However, he added that the company is constantly looking for where it may need to locate such facilities to best serve the needs of its users.

Google currently has 15 offices in the Asia-Pacific region, including one in Singapore which was officially opened in May 2007.

Source: www.zdnetasia.com

Word is Out: This is the Year to Focus on Sustainable Energy

The Year of the Dragon is on its way and so is the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All. While the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, declared the sustainability initiative back in September, 2010, there has been very little said in advance of this special year. It has three key objectives: ensuring universal access to modern energy services; doubling the rate of improvement in energy efficiency; and doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.

From the Sustainable Business Forum (31 December 2011):

2012 has been officially declared by the United Nations General Assembly as the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All.  The UN Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, declared the sustainability initiative back in September, 2010, and as 2011 nears an end, global sustainability efforts are moving forward in many directions. The initiative will bring people of all nations together and promote a sense of community centered on sustainable energy.

Now is the time to craft our resolutions to reflect our commitment to living a sustainable life and supporting global efforts to do the same. Available and affordable energy is critical because it promotes sustainability awareness, economic growth and global peace.  Green building, sustainable living and green supply chains are just a few of the ways people around the world are improving their living conditions.

Below are some of the more inspirational success stories that are coming out of the UN initiative:

Benin, West Africa

With the help of the non-profit company, Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF), two tiny rural villages in Benin are able to grow fruits and vegetables year round.  Through the use of solar drip irrigation, crops can now flourish during the dry season, a time when the land is typically so parched that nearly nothing can grow on its soil.  Years of arid ground led to food shortages and widespread malnutrition in the community, but now the communities’ solar-powered drip irrigation systems pump water for food crops when rainfall is scarce. Food security is now assured, and families are well fed year round.

Better nutrition during every season has improved life for everyone, making the villages of Bessassi and Dunkassa healthier and more productive.  There is more time for adults to start their own businesses, children to study for school and farmers to increase their incomes by selling their surplus crops at the market. In the near future, these villages will be implementing solar electric systems, giving much-needed power to schools, health clinics, businesses and homes.

Improving Lives in Tajikistan

One rural community in Tajikistan is improving its residents’ lives with clean and renewable energy generated by small-scale solar panels and hydro power plants.  The UN’s Development Program has provided the village of Bozorboi Burunov with these resources, bringing electric power, heat and clean water to schools, businesses and homes.  Because residents can now rely on this power, economic conditions have seriously improved:  better business opportunities are available for previously struggling farmers and merchants, children can study once the sun goes down, and people no longer need to travel long distances for healthcare. Eventually the mini hydro power plant will be connected to a main grid and will sell electricity during low consumption periods, making the plant more sustainable over a longer period.

Music for Relief with Linkin Park

The musical group, Linkin Park, isn’t standing idle knowing that 1.3 billion people in the world do not have electricity.  No electricity means that once the sun goes down, children cannot study, parents cannot work and clinics cannot provide critical health care during an emergency.  Linkin Park is telling its fans to visit the website, www.powertheworld.org and donate $10 to purchase one solar powered light bulb, to be given to a family in Haiti, provided by Music for Relief (www.musicforrelief.org).  Donors receive a custom holiday card and the satisfaction of knowing that they are helping a family live a safer, more sustainable life.

The Big Picture

As we approach the New Year, many of us are reflecting on 2011 and thinking about resolutions for 2012.  Perhaps we’ll try one more time to stick to our budget, lose twenty pounds, or spend less time on our computers.   Goals like these aren’t going anywhere, so why keep recycling them? Instead, let’s make 2012 a year to look at the bigger picture, one in which we think about how to care for the earth and help its citizens live more sustainably.

Source: www.sustainablebusinessforum.com

International Year of Sustainable Energy for All

In December 2010, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2012 the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All, recognizing that “… access to modern affordable energy services in developing countries is essential for the achievement of … the Millennium Development Goals and sustainable development.”

The General Assembly’s Resolution 65/151 called on the Secretary-General, in consultation with the inter-agency group UN-Energy to organize and coordinate activities to be undertaken during the Year in order to “increase awareness of the importance of addressing energy issues, including modern energy services for all, access to affordable energy, energy efficiency and the sustainability of energy sources and use” at local, national, regional and international levels.

In response, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, with support from UN-Energy and the United Nations Foundation, is leading a new global initiative – Sustainable Energy for All. This initiative will engage governments, the private sector, and civil society partners globally with the goal of achieving sustainable energy for all, and to reach three major objectives by 2030:

• ensuring universal access to modern energy services
• doubling the rate of improvement in energy efficiency
• doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix

Over the course of 2012, the designation of the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All will provide a vital platform for raising awareness of the challenge and for securing national commitments toward achieving the three objectives.

Key Elements of the Initiative and the International Year

High-Level Group – The Secretary-General has convened high-level representatives from the private sector, government, UN/intergovernmental organizations and civil society to develop a global strategy and concrete agenda for action to reach the three objectives . The roadmap, which will build on the work of the Secretary-General’s Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change, will be offered for consideration at the Rio+20 conference in June 2012.

National Actions – The United Nations Development Programme will provide support to national activities on advocacy, commitments and accountability to drive action on universal energy access, energy efficiency and renewable energy goals. National activities may include designation of national coordinating mechanisms to facilitate wide stakeholder involvement by government, private-sector, civil society and development partners; advocacy and dialogue towards the formulation of national commitments; and accountability mechanisms to measure success.

Communications and Events – The UN Foundation will support the design and execution of a global multimedia advocacy and awareness campaign to raise the visibility of the energy access issue and the 30/30/307! goals. This will include engagement of prominent figures, including existing UN “Goodwill Ambassadors” as spokespeople.

Practitioner Network – The UN Foundation has formed a public-private partnership of practitioners in the energy access community to address barriers to the effective delivery of energy services, identify and disseminate best policies and practices, and promote the development of new technologies as well as innovative financial and business models. The network will also serve as an advocacy platform for the sector.

Key 2012 dates

January 16-18: Launch of the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, UAE

February 1: Asian Regional Rollout of the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All, New Delhi, India

February 19 (tent.): African Regional Rollout of the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All, Nairobi, Kenya

March (tent.): Americas Regional Rollout of the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All, Barbados

June 4-6: UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Sept. 18-21: Report to the General Assembly on International Year of Sustainable Energy for All

December: Closing ceremony for the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All

Source: www.sustainableenergyforall.org

Silly Season Stories from Sydney: Wind Farms, Whales & Free Range Eggs

Some readers might dismiss these as “silly season stories” but they all appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald and they were deadly serious: “Wind farm opponents ‘aided and abetted’ by climate sceptic groups”; “Why a nation obsessed with whales is drowning in a sea of bureaucracy”; and “Egg gas finding a rotten result for free-range hens”.

Ben Cubby & Josephine Tovey in Sydney Morning Herald (20 December 2011):

THE anti-wind farm movement that is gaining influence in the NSW Parliament is being ”aided and abetted” by climate sceptic groups and some mining figures.

The cabinet debated new wind farm guidelines yesterday, with division over whether NSW should follow Victoria and order wind turbines to be set further back from houses.

The Shooters and Fishers Party, which shares the balance of power in the upper house with the Christian Democrats, said yesterday it wanted a moratorium on new wind farms.

Industry sources said a US Tea Party-style ”astroturf” campaign, which mimics grassroots local opposition but is at least partly directed from elsewhere, was being waged against wind energy in NSW, which was expected to bring up to $10 billion in investment this decade as it accelerated to meet the national 20 per cent renewable energy target.

Wind farm opponents include a coalition of local groups under the banner ”landscape guardians”, and the Australian Environment Foundation, which sprang up seven years ago from a conference run by the right-wing think-tank the Institute of Public Affairs, but is now a separate group.

”Our role is, if you like, aiding and abetting what local communities are doing and helping them voice their disapproval over wind farms,” said the foundation’s executive director, Max Rheese.

While local groups say they believe the inaudible noise and vibration from wind farms affect human health, the foundation does not think humans have a role in causing climate change and therefore believes wind farms are an expensive extravagance.

It hosted the British climate sceptic Lord Monckton last year and says it ”questions the whole science behind anthropogenic global warming”.

Mr Rheese said the foundation had paid for anti-wind signs at public meetings and lobbied the Shooters and Fishers Party, and the National and Liberal parties in NSW.

The Shooters and Fishers MP Robert Borsak said yesterday the party would wait for the cabinet decision but would use its critical position in the upper house to oppose any pro-wind farm legislation that came to Parliament.

The party had discussed wind farms with the foundation but had come up with its own policy calling for a moratorium and public inquiry into wind turbines, Mr Borsak said.

”We do probably see eye to eye with them on this and many issues, but this is a party position that we have finalised internally.”

The Premier, Barry O’Farrell, said in August it was his opinion that no new wind farms should be built in NSW, but it is understood there are divisions in cabinet about the issue.

The Nationals MP and Roads Minister, Duncan Gay, said yesterday his anti-wind farm views were well known and he hoped yesterday’s cabinet meeting ”addresses the sins of the past”.

”I live at Crookwell; we’ve certainly come under the brunt of poor planning and lack of community consultation of wind farms in the past … It puts friends against friends, neighbours against neighbours.”

The Waubra Foundation is a national group arguing wind farms can cause illness because of the vibrations from turbines. It lodged a submission based on perceived health concerns with the government yesterday.

The chairman, Peter Mitchell, said his opposition to wind farms was based on health concerns and nothing to do with his background as a former director of oil and gas companies.

”The critics here are really playing shoot the messenger, which I find ridiculous,” he said.

The British equivalent of landscape guardians, ”country guardians”, was funded and supported by elements of the British nuclear energy industry.

Labor’s environment spokesman, Luke Foley, said ”flat earthers” were running a scare campaign against wind power.

Why a nation obsessed with whales is drowning in a sea of bureaucracy

William Pesek in Sydney Morning Herald (17 December 2011):

Want to know why Japan’s earthquake recovery efforts are moving in slow motion? Ask the whales.

Tokyoites have grown accustomed to shocking news items since the earth shook and the oceans rose. The nuclear meltdown has proven far worse than the government admitted; radioactive cesium made its way into baby food; more leaks were found in the damaged Fukushima reactor; and warnings by seismologists still go unheeded.

Yet the tale of the whales and the $US30 million is what proved most disturbing – and shed light on why Japan is either unable or unwilling to undertake reforms needed to avert credit-rating downgrades and reverse deepening deflation.

Japan spent about 2.28 billion yen ($29 million) on whaling expeditions from funds allocated for recovery from the earthquake and tsunami. It’s a drop in the proverbial bucket, given that the government plans to spend at least $US300 billion rebuilding the Tohoku region. It’s a highly telling expenditure, though, with significance far beyond the price tag.

The whaling programs carried out each year flout international conventions and dent Japan’s reputation, and for very little. Demand for whale meat is negligible: the industry survives because of huge public subsidies. Japan contends that using earthquake funds to boost security for ships will help them elude activists protecting whales. A successful hunt, it’s thought, will revitalise local coastal communities.

You know what would help more? Some fresh thinking. The devastation from March 11 required a reboot of politics, the government’s role in the economy and Japan’s change-resistant, consensus-obsessed mindset. What we’re seeing instead is an inability to adapt on a national level.

Nine months ago, the ground shifted under Japan’s feet not only literally, but figuratively. There was a fleeting glimmer of change, a hope that the disaster would end the political and economic stasis that has gripped Japan for more than two decades. Instead, tossing money at every problem without critical thought suggests that Japan is reverting to the wasteful ways that created a massive national debt and little growth to show for it.

One big question that hasn’t been tackled: whether to bother rebuilding parts of Japan’s north-east – given that they were dying a slow, steady demographic death anyway – or relocate the communities away from the sea. Rather than grapple with it, Japan is pursuing whaling. But how many young people who long ago fled to cities like Tokyo are going to rush back to their ancestral homes to become whalers?

Consider what the brains trust in Tokyo is up to. Last month, Standard & Poor’s hinted that another credit downgrade was brewing as Japan’s public debt, already the developed world’s largest, increased unchecked by distracted lawmakers. So how do they spend their time? In tit-for-tat one-upmanship.

In November a deputy to Defence Minister, Yasuo Ichikawa, was fired for comparing the relocation of a US airbase on the island of Okinawa to rape. Rather than move on and tend to the many dilemmas facing Japan, lawmakers spent last week crafting censure motions for the ousted official’s bosses.

Both story lines, supporting whalers and pointless political posturing, are microcosms of why Japan isn’t rising to this year’s challenges. What we have is a failure to adapt to a dynamic set of problems that threaten economic well-being.

Take Tokyo Electric Power Co. The company’s safety failures are responsible for the radiation still leaking into the air and water 217 kilometres from Tokyo. Yet Tepco hasn’t been nationalised or delisted. Instead of reform, there’s talk of bailouts.

Japan is a top-down society. Right now, mayors in the north-east need a figure: how much they will get to fix airports, train stations, roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, telecoms and ports. It’s hard to hire architects, assemble construction crews and procure materials when you don’t know your budget. Tokyo, instead, is obsessed with political infighting and old remedies for new quandaries.

Bureaucracy is running amok. There’s great confusion about who is handling what phase of reconstruction – the central government or local ones? Rural leaders fed up with all the foot-dragging are finding it’s not easy to forge ahead on their own. There are endless stories of towns that want to rebuild schools or hospitals on higher ground to avoid tsunamis only to find that regulations say they must be put up in the same place.

The upshot is that trust is breaking down on too many levels. Companies are reluctant to hire, communities are split between those who want to stay and those tempted to leave, citizens don’t buy the nuclear industry’s protestations of safety, and cynicism toward officialdom in Tokyo has rarely been higher.

It’s not a great environment for economic revival, never mind any semblance of confidence as Europe’s crisis foreshadows a global economic slowdown. That’s what happens in a country that gives higher priority to killing whales than to reassuring a traumatised population.

Egg gas finding a rotten result for free-range hens

Alexandra Smith in Sydney Morning Herald (17 December 2011):

“I would support the egg industry’s calls for carbon labelling and what I would say is that they should show some leadership and be the first to introduce it because I think we would see others follow” … Paul Klymenko, chief executive of Planet Ark.

EGGS from caged hens produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions than free range eggs, a new report has found, prompting calls for carbon footprint labelling to be used on all food products in Australia.

A report for the Australian Egg Corporation, which represents most egg farmers, found that free range egg production’s carbon footprint in Australia was about 20 per cent higher than caged production.

The main reason was because free range egg production uses more feed per kilogram of eggs produced than caged egg production, the report, which was half-funded by the federal government, found.

The report also found that egg production had a lower carbon footprint than several European egg studies, mainly due to more efficient grain production in Australia.

The corporation’s managing director, James Kellaway, used the findings to call for carbon footprint labelling to be included on food to help consumers make more informed choices when shopping.

“The egg industry would be very happy to consider adding the environmental footprint or greenhouse gas emission status on egg labels,” Mr Kellaway said.

”However, it would be meaningless without other food products having to do it or providing a reference point so consumers can compare food types or food categories.”

Mr Kellaway said the report also suggested that eggs had the lowest carbon footprint of all the main protein foods.

”But the research also highlighted that there is still scope for refinements to current practices in egg production to allow further reductions in emissions,” he said.

Paul Klymenko, the chief executive of Planet Ark, welcomed Mr Kellaway’s calls for carbon footprint labelling.

Planet Ark and the Carbon Trust UK launched the Carbon Reduction Label in Australia after the labelling program was introduced in Britain in 2007 with just three products – chips, shampoo and smoothie drinks.

There are now hundreds of products in Britain with the label including bread, milk, juice, cereal, sugar, potatoes, detergent, toilet and kitchen paper, light bulbs, clothing and appliances.

Mr Klymenko said there was no reason for the egg industry to delay the introduction of a carbon footprint label, especially after it had already collected much of the research in its study that would be needed.

”I would support the egg industry’s calls for carbon labelling and what I would say is that they should show some leadership and be the first to introduce it because I think we would see others follow,” he said.

Aldi’s everyday olive oil and the Mobius Marlborough sauvignon blanc, a product of the New Zealand Wine Company, were the first products in Australia to label their carbon footprint.

Source: www.smh.com.au

Are Climate Change Reporters an Endangered Species?

Why aren’t we seeing more coverage of climate change in the media? The issue is hardly going away. And now that world governments after Durban are not planning to take action ’til 2020, we need more coverage, not less, says James Thornton of ClientEarth. A recent Eurobarometer poll asked 27,000 people in 27 countries what they thought were the most important issues facing the world. The number one issue is global poverty and  number two is global warming.

James Thornton CEO, ClientEarth in the Huffington Post Green (25 December 2011):

Why aren’t we seeing more coverage of climate change in the media? The issue is hardly going away. And now that world governments after Durban are not planning to take action ’til 2020, we need more coverage, not less.

Yet environmentalists reported a drop off in climate change reporting in 2009 and 2010, and we may well see this again when we look back at 2011.

What accounts for this change? A partial answer may be the difficulties facing the market at the moment. Newspapers are not a growth industry. As media organizations downsize, an ever decreasing number of journalists are required to cover an ever increasing remit of issues. Not good for any subject.

But the reasons go deeper. A recent report called “Poles Apart: the International Reporting of Climate Scepticism” released by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University (RISJ) gave us good reason to believe that those of us in the UK and the U.S. could be getting a different view of the climate debate than the rest of the world.

Of a sample of papers from Brazil, China, France, India, the UK and the U.S., 80 percent of skepticism reported was from the UK and U.S.. Even France, with its powerful skeptical lobby groups, barely gave these views much “air-time”. And journalists from the English speaking world were greatly outnumbered at the Copenhagen summit.

James Painter, RISJ researcher and Head of the Journalism Fellowship Programme, said:

“There are politicians in the UK and the U.S. who espouse some variation of climate scepticism. Both countries also have organisations for ‘climate change sceptics’ that provide a sceptical voice for the media, particularly in those media outlets that are more receptive to this message. This is why we see more sceptical coverage in the Anglo-Saxon countries than we do in the other countries in the study where one or more of those factors appear to be absent.”

Another potential reason ties in with the whole idea of ‘news’ itself: ‘Nothing new to say’ is a normal response in journalism to one-time events that have been overexposed. But global warming is hardly that. It is an unfolding story rich in detail, drama and impending tragedy. To say we’ve already done the story is like saying we’ve already done sex.

One might respond that we all hard-wired to be interested in sex. But people are also hard-wired to be interested in the weather. We wouldn’t have survived otherwise, and the proliferation of weather reporting and weather channels testifies there is no end to people’s interest. Climate is weather stretched out in time. Just as people are interested in how sex plays out in relationships, they will be interested in how the weather plays out in climate change.

Or am I imagining this because I happen to care?

A recent Eurobarometer poll is revealing. The pollsters interviewed 27,000 people in 27 countries. This is a mammoth sample compared to most polls. Those interviewed were asked what they thought were the most important issues facing the world. One might expect that Europeans would have said the economy. But no. The number one issue according to the respondents is global poverty. The number two issue is global warming.

More people thought global warming is a critical issue than did before the failed Copenhagen climate talks. Note how accurately people are tracking events. There was no deal in Copenhagen. In Durban there was a “diplomatic success” — an agreement to reach a deal by 2015, and start taking action by 2020 — in which the diplomacy is veering further and further from scientific reality.

It is, of course, easier to agree to agree in the future than to actually agree now. It’s reminiscent of the character Wimpy in the comic strip Popeye, whose tag line is, “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”

Global warming is, in fact, more critical now. Emissions have gone up: in 2010 we globally emitted almost 6 percent more than in 2009. This is history’s greatest one-year increase. Despite the recession, we are now emitting more than the worst case scenario set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Global warming hardly lacks story lines. A report released recently says parts of lower Manhattan could be submerged in the coming decades. In 2010 some 56,000 Russians died from forest fires, and scientists say there is an 80 percent probability the fires were caused by global warming. Hurricane Katrina was a story line of epic proportions. And yet the world’s governments have walked away from creating a binding deal anytime soon — this is a story line with music by Nero.

Most countries have long running soap operas: As the World Turns ran in the U.S. for more than 50 years; EastEnders is running strong in the UK 25 years on; in Germany GZSZ, Holland GTST and so on. They all run through the gamut of human experience with greed, anger, ignorance and violence playing leading roles. The story line of global warming will run on, and the characters onstage will display the range of behavior from honor to venality that make the best soaps.

Why cut reporting on climate change? The majority of Europeans have an ear tuned to the unfolding tale. If mainstream papers don’t cover it, they are missing the story of our time. We will need the progressive elements of the press — as well as the blogosphere, Twitter and whatever next arises — to tell the story. The story won’t go away. If the mainstream media won’t cover it, the public’s move to alternative sources of information will only be quicker.

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Glaciers in Nepal Shrinking & Producing Mass of Melt Water

Ngozumpa Glacier in Nepal snakes away from the sixth highest mountain in the world, Cho Oyo. It is generating a lot of scientific interest as the Nepalese Himalayas have been warming significantly more than the global mean temperature in recent decades. The concern is that this great mass of water could eventually breach the debris dam and hurtle down the valley, sweeping away the Sherpa villages in its path.

Taking the pulse of Ngozumpa

By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News (26 December 2011):

The volume of water at the terminus of Ngozumpa is about a third of a cubic km and growing

Ngozumpa Glacier in Nepal snakes away from the sixth highest mountain in the world, Cho Oyo.

It’s not the greatest glacier to look at – far from it. It’s smothered in a layer of rocky debris that’s fallen from the surrounding cliffs, giving it a very grey, dirty appearance.

But Ngozumpa is generating a lot of scientific interest at the moment.

The Nepalese Himalayas have been warming significantly more than the global mean temperature in recent decades.

Glaciers in much of the region are showing signs of shrinking, thinning, and retreating; and this is producing a lot of melt water.

On Ngozumpa, some of this water is seen to pool on the surface and then drain away via a series of streams and caverns to the snout of the glacier.

There, some 25km from the mountain, an enormous lake is growing behind a mound of dumped rock fragments.

This lake, called Spillway, has the potential to be about 6km long, 1km wide and 100m deep.

The concern is that this great mass of water could eventually breach the debris dam and hurtle down the valley, sweeping away the Sherpa villages in its path. The threat is not immediate, but it’s a situation that needs monitoring, say scientists.

One of the researchers at work on Ngozumpa is Ulyana Horodyskyj, from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado in Boulder, US.

She is setting up remote cameras to monitor the surface, or supraglacial, pools of water that dot the length of Ngozumpa. Some are small; some are big – the size of several football fields.

Already, she has been able to establish just how dynamic these water features can be as they drain and fill in rapid time.

The volumes involved can be prodigious. In one event, her cameras spied a supraglacial lake losing more than 100,000 cubic metres of water in just two days. Within five days, the lake had recovered half the volume, fed by waters from higher up the glacier.

“Say I came the week before and the week after a lake drained – it would seem like nothing had happened because the lake level would appear to be the same,” Ms Horodyskyj told BBC News.

“But my timelapse photography tells me that something has happened – 40 Olympic-size swimming pools just got sent down the glacier.”

The CIRES researcher wants to understand the part these supraglacial lakes play in the erosion of Ngozumpa.

Horodyskyj is placing cameras on the cliffs to monitor the water features on the glacier below

Debris-covered glaciers don’t melt in the same way as clean glaciers. The rock covering, depending on its depth, will insulate the ice from solar radiation. But remove it – as happens in these fluctuating lakes – and the rate of melting will increase.

“The enhanced melting comes from the bare ice walls in the lakes,” she explains.

“The melt rate below the debris covering is about 2cm per day, but on these walls it’s 4cm per day. As the lake drains, it exposes the walls which can then calve.”

Ms Horodyskyj’s assumption is that many of the lakes on Ngozumpa’s surface are directly connected; and as one of them drains, it’s likely that another lake at lower elevation is filling. However, the routes taken by the plumbing system are not always obvious.

This is being investigated by Doug Benn from the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), Norway.

He’s been climbing through the vast channels cut by flowing water inside Ngozumpa. Some of these “ice pipes” open up into spectacular caverns.

“It’s widely recognised that the glaciers in this region are melting down as a result of global warming, but what hasn’t been realised is that they’re also being eaten away from the inside as well,” he says.

“These glaciers are becoming like Swiss cheeses, so everything is happening more rapidly than is apparent by just looking at the surface.”

Dr Benn visits the conduits after the melt season, after the water has stopped flowing. It would be too dangerous to get inside them at the height of summer.

It would seem the channels control where some surface pools and lakes form. It is as if the conduits are the templates.

“They’re lines of weakness. As the glacier melts down, the roofs of the tunnels fall in and bare ice is exposed,” explained Dr Benn. “The rock debris on the surface would normally slow down melting, but the existence of these weaknesses inside Ngozumpa opens it up and makes it melt far faster than would otherwise be the case.”

One of his students, Sarah Thompson, is concentrating her study on the end story – the snout of the glacier. This is where the water sent down Ngozumpa is gathering, in the rapidly growing Spillway Lake.

It is bounded by the moraine – an enormous pile of granite fragments dropped by the glacier over millennia.

At this point the glacier is stagnant; it is not moving. Again, the exposed ice walls that line Spillway Lake calve into the water, raising its level.

“We’ve got quite a short time period – the past 10 years – but it’s an exponential growth in area,” Ms Thompson says of Spillway’s size. “And when we look at other similar lakes in the region, Spillway is on the same sort of trajectory to their development.”

The Swansea University researcher added: “The expansion is way beyond what you would expect from the rates of ice melting, ablation and even calving.

“We need to understand at an early stage the processing rates so that we can predict ahead of time what is likely to happen and, if needs be, go in and mitigate all of this before it becomes such a significant hazard.

“In my work, we’ve been trying to identify where there might be weak points in the moraine dam, and we believe we’ve identified a few areas where in future you might want to take action.”

Spillway is not expected to burst out anytime soon. It could be two decades or more before a 6km-long body of water is built
up. But the difficulty of working in the region and bringing heavy equipment into the area means a long-term strategy for managing the lake’s evolution is essential.

Source:  www.bbc.co.uk

Climate Change Challenge for Cocoa and Chocolate

Enjoy your festive treats while you can, chocolate could once again become an expensive luxury item due to climate change, according to a new study commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It found prices could go up even further due to global warming. It looked at the cocoa plantations in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, where more than half of the world’s cocoa is grown, and found that the amount of land suitable for production could halve due to temperature rise of just 2.3C by 2050.

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent for The Telegraph (26 December 2011):

Chocolate will become an expensive luxury item due to climate change

Enjoy your festive treats while you can, chocolate could once again become an expensive luxury item due to climate change, according to a new study.

Britain has a greater variety of chocolate bars and treats on sale than any other country in the world and is one of the biggest consumers of chocolate per capita.

But prices are rising due to growing demand in the emerging nations like China and conflict in the countries where the crop is grown.

Now a new study commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has found prices could go up even further due to global warming.

The study of cocoa plantations in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, where more than half of the world’s cocoa is grown, found that the amount of land suitable for production could halve due to temperature rise of just 2.3C by 2050.

Dr Peter Laderach of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture was unable to put a figure on the price rise in almost 40 years’ time.

But he said chocolate will certainly become more expensive if demand continues to rise and climate change causes shortages of cocoa, making it a luxury item.

“If the demand of cocoa keeps growing and the land suitable to grow cocoa decreases the prices will go up,” he said.

Recent political upheavals in West Africa have already pushed up the price by 10 per cent on the trading floor top almost £2,000 per tonne. Higher demand and shortages due to climate change will push up the price further, eventually forcing retailers to put up the price of chocolate bars.

Cadbury and Nestlé have recently pushed up the recommended retail price of top-selling confectionery in the UK such as Dairy Milk, Wispa, Kit Kat and Yorkie by up to 7 per cent – more than double the rate of inflation.

Cocoa trees need a cool climate to thrive and could be moved further up into higher land but since West Africa is fairly flat the potential for this is limited.

The study proposes finding new heat and drought resistant crops and growing more cocoa in the shade.

Ultimately, however farmers will have to branch out from cocoa and diversify with crops that can sustain hotter temperatures in order to survive.

Fair trade chocolate suppliers have long argued that cocoa production should be more focused on high quality production rather than mass plantations. This would allow a better price for farmers, discourage child labour and encourage more diverse farming practices.

The study is not the first time it has been claimed a favourite food is threatened by global warming. Other products reportedly affected by climate change include French wine, and Italian pasta.

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

When Will it Ever End? Coal Mining Challenge for Obama

When it comes to coal mining in the United States, environmentalists have a simple goal: End it. For the Obama administration, it’s a little more complicated. It has restricted coal-mining waste from being dumped into streams and imposed new pollution controls on coal-fired power plants. It admits the twin goals of increased fossil fuel production and reducing US greenhouse gas emissions are necessarily in conflict, at least without a national cap on emissions.  Sierra Club and Wild-Earth Guardians have seven cases challenging federal coal leases in the Powder River Basin, the single largest source of coal mined in the US.

Administration reluctant to close federal lands.

By Juliet Eilperin in Washington Post (26 December 2011):

When it comes to coal mining in the United States, environmentalists have a simple goal: End it. For the Obama administration, it’s a little more complicated.

Since taking office nearly three years ago, the administration has restricted coal-mining waste from being dumped into streams and imposed new pollution controls on coal-fired power plants.

But on the fundamental question of whether the government should halt federal leasing, the answer has been: Not yet.

Instead, the federal government is analyzing the environmental impact of extracting coal from public land, drawing fire from both sides. Environmentalists say such action doesn’t go far enough, while industry officials question why it would pursue this analysis in the absence of a federal law on greenhouse gas emissions.

“On some level, the twin goals of increased fossil fuel production and reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are necessarily in conflict, at least without a national cap on emissions,” said Paul Bledsoe, who was a special assistant at the Interior Department during the Clinton administration. “This fundamental contradiction in current U.S. energy policy is playing out on the Keystone oil pipeline, in our public lands policy and throughout the energy economy.”

Interior Deputy Secretary David Hayes said the agency is “committed to evaluating greenhouse gas emissions among the many important factors we analyze when considering whether or not a coal extraction lease sale makes sense for the environment, the economy and America’s energy security.”

Even as Interior has given added scrutiny to
leasing and pushed for the development of renewable energy alternatives, Hayes added, it hasn’t sought to shut down coal production.

“Coal is providing close to half the electricity in the United States, and 40 percent of the coal used in that mix comes from the public land — our land,” he said. “It’s an important part of our energy mix.”

Coal production totaled 1.17 billion short tons in 2008, according to the Energy Information Agency. It declined to 1.074 billion tons in 2009 and last year reached 1.084 billion. It is expected to be roughly 1.08 billion tons in 2011.

Increasingly, both the mining industry and environmentalists have focused on the Powder River Basin, where coal extraction has more than doubled during the past two decades. In 1990, the federal government made the decision to “decertify” the area as a coal production region, which allows coal companies to identify which tracts of land they’d like to lease rather than having the Bureau of Land Management select them.

Sierra Club and Wild-Earth Guardians have seven cases challenging federal coal leases there.

Source: www.mysanantonio.com

Hawaii Leads in Energy Savings & Renewable Energy Innovations

Given its isolated location, Hawaii is in a particularly precarious position, importing 90% of its energy and with the highest energy prices in the country. But it is also ranked No. 1 in the US for investment in energy savings for public buildings per capita and thanks to its renewed commitment, it is also becoming something of a test bed for renewable energy technologies, including geothermal and algae-based biofuel technologies to smart grid experiments.

By Sonia Isotov for Maui Now (28 December 2011):

Hawaii is ranked No. 1 in the United States for investment in energy savings performance contracting (ESPC) for public buildings per capita, according to a ranking published by the Energy Services Coalition.

Hawaii’s overall conservation investment exceeds $150 million. “We are growing a sustainable economy and transforming government through performance contracting and by mobilizing and leveraging investment in high-impact energy efficiency projects for public and private buildings,” said Mark Glick, administrator, DBEDT’s State Energy Office.

“This is exactly the type of investment that will propel the State of Hawai‘i toward our goal of 70% clean energy by 2030,” said Governor Neil Abercrombie, in a written statement today.

“Energy savings performance contracting projects combined with other ambitious clean energy programs – such as the aggressive expansion of photovoltaic use at public school facilities – will further our state’s energy independence and provide a strong catalyst for job growth.”

The Energy Services Coalition is a national nonprofit network working at the state and local level to increase energy efficiency through building upgrades.

ESPC uses guaranteed future energy and water utility bill savings to pay for the up-front capital costs of facility improvements. In Hawai‘i, the State Energy Office has been providing technical assistance on performance contracting to state agencies and the counties, upon request, since 1996.

From 1996 to 2008, ESPC projects by the State of Hawai‘i Executive Branch, University of Hawai‘i at Hilo, state Judiciary, local hospitals, City and County of Honolulu, and the counties of Hawai‘i and Kaua‘i totaled $68,218,183.

In 2009, an additional investment exceeding $33,900,000 for Phase I of a state Department of Accounting and General Services (DAGS) ESPC project brought the total for Hawai‘i to over $100 million.

This year, the state Department of Public Safety (PSD), with DAGS as overall manager, and the University of Hawai‘i Community Colleges (UHCC) initiated projects of $25,511,264 and $32,802,833, respectively, bringing the total investment to more than $159 million (or $117 per capita).

The PSD project covers more than 569,000 square feet at the high and medium security sections at the Halawa Correctional Facility (HCF) and the Laumaka Work Furlough Center at the O‘ahu Community Correctional Center (OCCC). Work includes energy and water efficiency retrofits and improvements to operations and maintenance with annual savings of $2.3 million over the 20-year term of the project.

The UHCC project covers four campuses on O‘ahu with upgrades in lighting and heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment and is expected to generate savings of $4.5 million annually over the 20-year term of the project.

The state is moving forward on other Energy Savings Performance Contracting projects to further increase energy efficiency and reduce costs at state government buildings and facilities. DAGS issued an invitation for proposal (IFP) for a Phase II ESPC for 28 buildings; the Hawai‘i Public Housing Authority is finalizing agreements for a 789-building project; and the state Department of Transportation, with the Airports Division taking the lead, issued an IFP for ESPC for 15 airports, five harbors, and highways facilities throughout the state.

Source: www.mauinow.com

Amy Westervelt for  Forbes GREEN TECH (29 December 2011):

Hawaii: Our Very Own Island Nation, Battling Climate Change Via Innovation

Amid the abstract arguments that often dominate discussions of climate change (let’s face it, for the average person climate models and debates over half a degree here or there don’t hold much relevance), the pleas of island nations have helped to put a human face on things. Representatives from the small island nation of Tuvalu, concerned that their country might disappear in the coming decades, became the poster children of the Copenhagen climate summit last year. Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed has captured hearts and minds all over the world with his commitment to keeping his people and country above water.

Of course, Americans don’t actually have to go all the way to the Indian Ocean to see the effects of climate change. The people of Kivalina, Alaska are losing the ice their village is built on at an alarming rate, requiring urgent and expensive relocation. Many have attributed the storms and floods that have battered Louisiana over the past several years to climate change. But nowhere in the United States is the immediate need to tackle resource efficiency more evident than in the island state of Hawaii.

While people continue to argue over whether human activity is affecting global temperatures, no one disputes the fact that many of our most fundamental resources–water, energy, clean air–are increasingly constrained as the planet’s population grows. Given its isolated location, Hawaii is in a particularly precarious position. Currently the state imports 90 percent of its energy and has the highest energy prices in the country.

We are at great risk of a severe crisis in the future if we don’t become self-sufficient,” says Mark Glick, administrator of the State Energy Office of the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism (DBEDT). “Our longeterm vitality is totally dependent on our ability to become more self-sufficient and, in turn, to retain businesses.”

Glick notes that the state’s current high energy prices are a deal-breaker for many businesses, making it difficult to grow the economy beyond the state’s traditional economic engine–tourism. In an effort to reduce its dependence on imported energy, Hawaii has set an aggressive goal of meeting 40 percent of its energy needs through renewable sources and employing conservation measures to reduce energy demand by 30 percent by 2030. Unfortunately, according to a recent study conducted by the Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Lab it’s doubtful that the state will be able to meet this goal without connecting its disparate island energy sources into a single, statewide grid.

To that end, the state is moving forward with an innovative and ambitious plan to connect the islands via undersea cable, starting with Oahu, Maui, Molokai and Lanai. “Oahu has about 85 percent of the population in the Islands,” explains William Kucharski, director of renewable energy (Pacific) at AECOM Technical Services, Inc, which is producing the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the state’s new renewable energy project. “It also has the least amount of developable land. So when you’re looking at renewables, it appears they’ll have to get power from some other source. If renewable energy can be produced on the other islands, then it can be transmitted through undersea cable,  and hook the Islands together to have a statewide grid rather than a separate grid for each island.”

It sounds simple enough, but given the fact that much of Hawaii is surrounded by marine sanctuaries–some of which are under federal jurisdiction while others are overseen by the state–and that a few of the renewable energy projects proposed to meet the state’s goals, particularly wind farms proposed for Lanai and Molokai, have come under fire, it’s not likely to be easy for the state to move forward. It’s also not a hugely common technology. Underwater cables have been installed in Long Island, in a few test projects in Canada, and in a handful of European locations, but the Hawaii project will be one of the largest and most complicated.

As a first step, rather than tying the development of the undersea cable to any particular renewable energy project (or type of renewable energy), the EIS is taking a programmatic approach, which would enable the cable to move forward irrespective of any particular energy project receiving approval. The EIS is scheduled for completion within 18 months, and the local utility–Hawaiian Electric Company, Inc.–has a request for proposals out for cable developers, one of which is likely to be selected in 2012.

In the meantime, the state is working to study and better understand other aspects of the project as well. “The World Bank has done considerable studies on the Caribbean nations in terms of different ways their grids could be connected to transform the economies of island nations,” Glick says. “We find that work directly applicable to our situation, and we’re looking into those cases much more deeply. We’ve had to do considerable study on our particular context as well, in terms of distances traveled and the depths of the ocean, as well as how the energy could be introduced to various markets in Hawaii.”

The state’s renewable energy strategy is now fairly dependent on the cabling project moving forward.

We really are focused on making this successful,” Glick says. “If it doesn’t work out it makes it extremely difficult to meet our self-sufficiency goals and our renewable energy goals. So we are totally consumed with making this work, under the premise that now is the time to act and if we do act now we can achieve our renewable energy portfolio goals in an economically viable way.”

At stake is not only the state’s ability to wean itself off of imported oil, but also residents’ ability to pay increasingly pricey electrical bills. “Molokai has the highest rates in the country,” Kucharski says.  ”Hooking it into a statewide grid would allow the utility to normalize rates, which might increase Oahu’s rates slightly, but would bring Molokai’s rates down, possibly by a lot.”

Thanks to its commitment to renewable energy, Hawaii is now also becoming something of a test bed for renewable energy technologies, from the study of various geothermal and algae-based biofuel technologies happening at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority on the Big Island to smart grid experiments the state is conducting along with representatives from Japan and China.

We have more in common with Japan and Okinawa, for example, than we do with any other part of the U.S.,” Glick explains. “They look to us as a place to test technology – we’re isolated and so the tests can be very true.  We provide an excellent statistical case to test new technology.”

Those relationships also keep the state’s energy industry up-to-date on the latest technologies, which Glick hopes could push Hawaii’s renewable energy goals past the current 40 percent.

There’s a real opportunity for us to have and even higher degree of self-sufficiency and retain all of this wealth that we currently send outside the state,” Glick says. “Increasing our energy production could really help to improve our balance of trade payments.

Source: www.forbes.com

Study Shows Past Climate Change Shifted Species Off  the Planet

Climate change — even drastic climate change — isn’t new for the planet. But something else is: us. The earth has never seen a species as numerous or as demanding as the modern Homo sapiens, spread to every corner of the world, using up resources and transforming the planet through agriculture, mining and deforestation. Bryan Walsh in Time Magazine.

By Bryan Walsh in Time Magazine (27 December 2011):

A new study shows how climate change drove species diversity in the past.

We are the products of our environment — and that goes for egrets and elephants as much as human beings. The history of all life on this planet has been one of change and adaptation. The environment changes, and life adapts. That’s evolution in a nutshell.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that as the planet’s climate has changed through the geologic past — and it’s changed severely, from the hot and humid earth of the Triassic period to the ice ages that ended just 20,000 years ago — life has changed along with it.

In a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a group of researchers plot out just how the changing climate has impacted mammalian evolution in North America over the past 65 million years. They find that there have been six distinct waves of species diversity, and that the driving force of those waves has likely been climate change.

Here’s Brown University evolutionary biologist Christine Janis — a co-author on the paper with a group of Spanish researchers — on how changes in the climate beat out other factors like migration:

Although we’ve always known in a general way that mammals respond to climatic change over time, there has been controversy as to whether this can be demonstrated in a quantitative fashion. We show that the rise and fall of these faunas is indeed correlated with climatic change — the rise or fall of global paleotemperatures — and also influenced by other more local perturbations such as immigration events.

Of those six “waves” that Janis and her colleagues identify, four show statistically significant correlations with major changes in temperature, while the other two show a weaker correlation, most likely because those patterns corresponded to times when mammals from other continents invaded North America. Even today, invasive species are a leading cause of species extinction and ecosystem change — keeping in mind the fact that humans are, in a sense, an invasive species. But the PNAS study shows how relatively rapid changes in the planet’s temperature led to changes in ecosystems — woodland vegetation shifting to grasslands, for example — which in turn led to evolutionary changes in species themselves. Life adapts.

Of course, as the climate changes today — much more quickly than it has in the past — the question again is how life will adapt to a warmer world. Though the PNAS study doesn’t make any projections, other research has — and it doesn’t paint a pretty picture. It’s difficult to get a firm idea of how wildlife might adapt — or not — to rapid climate change, which makes it hard to project actual numbers of extinctions in a warmer world. The PNAS study shows that temperature change in the past has led to changes in species diversity; when it comes to man-made global warming though, we’re embarking on an unplanned experiment without a control group.

The good news — of sorts — is that the earth has experienced massive climate change and massive species die-off through its 4.5 billion-year history, and every time, life eventually bounces back. Climate change — even drastic climate change — isn’t new for the planet. But something else is: us. The earth has never seen a species as numerous or as demanding as the modern Homo sapiens, spread to every corner of the world, using up resources and transforming the planet through agriculture, mining and deforestation. Science looks to the past to try to understand the future, but nothing like us has ever happened to the earth before.

Bryan Walsh is a senior writer at TIME

Source: www.time.com