Adventure Ausrama Blog

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a UN body, makes absolutely stupid findings. It says coal use will have to be completely stopped within 22 years or Australia's Great Barrier Reef will be destroyed. Saying that all cars will have to stop by 2050 is also ignoring reality. Without coal power stations most electricity production will cease. Using oil to create electrical power pushes the same amount of greenhouse gases into the environment as coal. Solar and wind will never make enough current to power air conditioners, fridges and ovens. Hydro just gives a starting base to major city demand. Tidal is just for small villages. Nuclear is a danger unto itself - never viable. The world will continue on its merry way. The standard of living will be maintained. Future generations will suffer. It is obvious that the Great Barrier Reef will die. The whole planet will become toxic. We face this: inundation of coastal cities as the oceans rise due to melti...

Mercury pollutes both the northern and southern hemisphere. The Australian tropical zone is polluted. ◘1 northern up we mercury at am it aged mercury news mercury an northern ◘1 Australia is getting mercury pollution from the northern hemisphere. Most of the deadly metal stays in the air over the top half of the planet. However, in the south most of it settles over the Australian tropics.    ◙2 northern pollutes a mercury ok hemisphere to or northern australian ◙2 Damage to the environment from quicksilver began with large scale mining, particularly gold. Now levels in the ocean are six times higher than before industrialization. Stopping all emissions of the substance today would cut the present level by half: then it would stay there.  ⦿3 hemisphere up to pollutes hemisphere ⦿3 Contaminated Fish consumed by people is poisonous and damages the body.  The peripheral and nervous systems are mainly affected. Though, contamination can occur by breathing it in. Then ...

Carbon capture from power stations that are coal powered is not going well. coal-powered power pollution For decades there has been much talk about capturing carbon from coal-fired power stations. So far projects have failed to come up with a viable solution. Coal is dirty and it remains so. Nuclear is more realistic alternative but it is dangerous.   power station pollution carbon coal-fired capture soda ash power stations pollution A new attempt is about to be made in India by Carbon Clean Solutions (CCSL). Claims are being made of capture costs as low $30.00 a tonne, half of that achieved so far in other tests. Pollution is also claimed to be reduced to zero. Such figures are obviously totally baseless.       carbon coal-fired pollution power stations cement fertilizer  Reduction of carbon by salt and amines to soda ash is the method to be used. Soda ash is used for fertilizer and cement. There is more than one system. The list i...

Carbon dioxide changes behavior. Higher carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could be making us stupid. Research has shown that greater concentration s of CO 2  c auses neurological impairment in fish. Sea water stores the dangerous element - the ocean has become more acidic because of its increased presence. The test subjects were Damsel fish  (Acathochromis polyacanthus) , which live in coral reefs. Half were kept in a normal atmosphere. The other half were put in an atmosphere with elevated CO 2 . Brain chemistry, blood and behavior were measured. The behavior test involved the fish choosing between entering normal sea water or going to water containing injured fish. The smell of the injured fish should have stopped the damselfish from choosing to enter that water. However, the fish exposed to higher CO 2   ignored or did not pick up the chemical warning : the injured fish didn't bother them. This is ground breaking stuff. It could show what will ha...

Life began on Earth earlier than thought.  There is evidence of life 3.8 billion years ago.  This is only 0.7 billion short of the total life of the planet. A new study has pushed the origins of life back another 300 million years. It seems life began as soon the chaotic period of Earth's formation had settled down. Flecks of graphite were trapped in the crystal zircon.  This microscopic carbon mineral is among the zirconium, oxygen and silicon which is the main structure of the crystal. While trapped graphite is not full evidence of life, carbon is classed as biogenetic - life needs it to begin.  It is believed that the graphite was originally organic before being absorbed by zirconium.  Apparently, Earth calmed down very quickly after formation. Estimates now puts the origin of life on Earth at 4.1 billion years. ◆ Biology Ty Buchanan   ◆ Adventure Australia Funny Animal Photos Funny Weird Things Articles News Reviews ● ...

Turning carbon dioxide in carbon monoxide may seem like a silly thing to do, considering carbon monoxide is a deadly poison. However, if this can be done easily and cheaply it could reduce pollution: it is used to produce fuels and plastics. A catalyst has been made that does the conversion into carbon dioxide. It does the task rapidly. Last year the world's first commercial capture process at a coal power plant began operating. Waste gases were bubbled up through vats of amine solution. This is very expensive though. The new process became possible when it was made to work in water. Electrocalysts have been used for two decades to take an oxygen molecule from a CO 2 atom. As it now safely functions in water a whole new horizon opens up to clean up the environment. conversion occurs at a rate of 290,000 atoms a second, an improvement of 26 times the pre-water process. Little maintenance of the system is needed. It has only been done in the lab so far. Plans...

As carbon pollution continues what will happen to the Australian climate? We have just had the warmest May on record and are heading for the mildest winter ever. This will probably mean a stinking hot summer. Heat is rising while places like the United States are getting extremely cold conditions. This is mainly due to a permanent change in the Gulf Stream. Because Australia is large open savannah, it does store carbon, but storage is only short term. It will be released again further down the track. Ironically, plants are absorbing more anthropogenic CO2 (man-made) than ever before. It seems the high level of carbon is making flora work harder. Forget pollution from cars it is maintenance of the Amazon Rain Forest that is important. As more land is cleared to make money residual carbon in the atmosphere will rise. A change "is" taking place. Arid areas like Australia are getting greener. Warmer conditions seem to increase rain and plant growth. This ...

Much has been said about cattle that increase carbon and methane levels in the atmosphere. Test were done on cattle in the European Union. Options were considered on how the emissions could be reduced. It was found that dairy and beef cattle contributed 60 per cent of pollution for the whole livestock industry. Because little can be done about body waste emissions, efficiency factors were at the center of the study. Poor land use was the second highest factor in global greenhouse gas emissions after direct production. Pollution for wasted food followed inefficient use of land. As usual the investigators did their calculations on how much pollution could be lessened if their advice was adopted by the livestock industry. It was estimated that the lowest impact would be a reduction of 12 per cent. Optimists in the group said 60 per cent. Somehow consumption of meat was to be reduced. Just how this was to be done was not made clear. With people in developing countrie...

We are obsessed with the oil crisis. So much so that we fail to see other problems that face us in the near future. For example, what about fresh drinking water. If nothing is done soon, the world will be in crisis. Even countries with cold climates, in Europe, are facing a shortage of potable water because of the high population density. As people become Westernized they consume more water. They change from bathing when they can, to having showers every day. Production oil also impacts on the availability of water. it takes 2.5 liters of water to produce every liter of oil. Even growing bio fuels puts pressure on water, with a thousand liters of water needed to make a liter of bio fuel. The modern way of life is water "heavy": Wealthy people use 3,000 liters of water each day to live their lives. More drought in the world is putting prices of everything up. When water gets short it does so locally. Moving water from one place to another in bulk is problematical. In the shor...

Price is already changing consumer behavior in regard to carbon. However, price signals can make people do the wrong thing. Because electricity has risen sharply in Australia over the last two years some people are going back to old wood burning appliances for heating and cooking. Burning wood pushes more carbon into the atmosphere. It is just swapping wood for coal. Demand for fuel timber has risen 30 per cent this winter. It isn't cheap either. A tonne delivered to your door costs $350 and lasts about six weeks. More new fireplaces are being purchased, so there is a trend. Sitting over a fireplace is bad for your health. Pollutants are drawn into the lungs. It is like smoking cigarettes. Over a year a wood heater produces more dangerous particles than five diesel trucks. Already 6 per cent of people in Sydney use wood burners and this number is rising. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://www.feeds.feedburner.com/A...

Where there's money to be gained someone will jump in. This is now the case for camels in Australia. Plans are being made to kill the animals in exchange for carbon credits. It is claimed that their flatulence is polluting the atmosphere. Northwest Carbon apparently believes it owns the camels or has the sole right to cull them. The Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency first suggested taking such action. Apparently, one camel produces a ton of carbon dioxide each year. This is an exaggeration. Culling camels has nothing to do with reducing Australia's carbon footprint. It is just a money-making exercise. Admittedly camels are feral. They were introduced into Australia in the 19th century because they were ideal for moving goods about in the dry outback. But their metabolism is higher than cattle and their pollution level is low. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://www.feeds.feedburner.com/AdventureAu...

Ian Mcfarlane the Shadow Minister for Energy and Resources says Australia should still consider nuclear power. He must be off his bonnet if he thinks Australians will have a bar of this dangerous form of electricity generation. If a Coalition government seriously suggested a move to nuclear energy people would be protesting in the streets. Then there is the " not in my backyard " syndrome. No community would accept such a potentially toxic plant in their area. For Mr Mcfarlane's information lessons have been learned from the impossible situation in Japan where there in no solution to the problem. Australians do not want nuclear and will never want nuclear. Japan's economy is severely damaged and the Japanese will have chronic illnesses into the future. Much of the country will have to be fenced off, never to be used by humans ever again. Australians like everyone else in the world will have to pay much more for electricity as systems of clean coal power generat...

The world is in a tight corner and people are far too optimistic. Thinking that carbon pollution will cure itself is not scientific fact. Only a fool would hang onto the notion that nothing is wrong. The poles are thawing out and that is fact. Polar bears are dwindling in number as their traditional frozen feeding grounds get warmer. Butterflies that used to stay on in winter in southern England have moved north to colder climes. Those species that stay are getting larger. Despite coal power stations being the main culprit more are being built to meet Mankind's increasing demand. Much is said about nuclear power stations holding the key to a "clean" future. Used uranium is going around Europe at this very moment without finding a home in any country. Where will this dangerous product be put in the future? Unless it is blasted into space toward the sun there is no where for it to go. France gets more than 80 percent of its electric power from nuclear means, but this is th...