The Obama administration is considering using the Montreal Protocol to address climate change in the short term, according to reports.
The protocol, ratified by 195 nations, has been successful in reducing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) responsible for creating a hole in the ozone layer. However the hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) that replaced CFCs as coolants in everything from refrigerators to medical devices are extremely potent greenhouse gases.
HFC’s account for a small, but growing, percentage of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
Changing the Montreal Protocol to phase out HFCs could have a quick effect on reducing climate change, with the possibility of new rules going into effect within a year.
The Associated Press reported that Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif) are behind the idea.
Scientists say eliminating use of HFCs would spare the world an amount of greenhouse gases up to about a third of all carbon dioxide emissions about two to four decades from now.
Manufacturers in both Europe and the U.S. have already begun replacing HFCs with so-called natural refrigerants such as hydrocarbons, ammonia or carbon dioxide.
Read the full report at the link below.
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METHANE CONTRIBUTIONS TO GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE
There are several scientific comments that I would like to make about “Global
Warming” and “Global Climate Change”. There is a basic principal
involved that has been overlooked by most of the non-scientific media.
Every statement in this paper is verified in detail in the references presented
at the conclusion of this discussion.
FIRST — is that Global Warming is NOT a new effect. It has occurred five
times during the past 500,000 years! The basic cause is Methane (CH4)
“natural gas” and NOT man-made Carbon Dioxide (CO2). The present
global warming cycle began about the time man was crossing the frozen
land bridge from Siberia to North America.
We need to understand the sources and mechanics of Methane that
are actually the basic cause of our global warming. Anything that has
grown, ranging from yard clippings to a decaying body, produces
methane as it decomposes. Methane gas from permafrost is a decay
product. Methane gas from the deep ocean (methane hydrate) is totally
different.
Methane gas from oil wells is yet a very different composition. These
must all be recognized as such and understood as to their manner of
existence, production, and/or release.
Deep Sea Methane appears to be the waste product of a bacteriological
process and is therefore a renewable resource! (See Reference 2).
It is a relative clean product of our environment. It has recently been
produced (as clean natural gas) in continuous commercial quantities
by Japanese & American scientists in Canada in 2008. It is this Methane
gas that has been bubbling up, for eons, from the continental shelfs
around the world that is the real culprit and basic cause of our present
situation.
Oil well Methane gas is a very dirty gas mixture — it is methane with
huge amounts of sulfur and other noxious gases mixed with it. The
Methane often mentioned in the media as “Bubbling up from Undersea
Permafrost” is a decay product. It is NOT from a Hydrate!
NEXT — Drastic Global Climate Change has taken place at least FIVE
different times during the last 500,000 years. Our present cycle is
the only one during which man has been a factor! (Ref. 1 & 2).
Methane gas which bubbles up continuously from the deep ocean
sources (and which in turn disassociates into CO2) is the true source
of the “Greenhouse Gas” that has operated in the previous five
interglacial cycles — all of which have been extinction cycles!
As will this one!
Proof of this CH4 history was discovered in the Vostok ice cores
made in Antarctia. See charts at:
https://www.box.net/shared/nak3lhquby
These five previous cycles are NOT man made effects, nor is the
present cycle, and it IS TOO LATE to change our present cycle, we
may actually now be past the peak. We can only learn to adapt!
We cannot STOP the process although we might slow
it down for a few years, which in geological time is nothing.
We MUST ADAPT to survive! ADAPT! ADAPT ! ADAPT !
There is one specific comment that should be added. There is currently a great deal of concern among scientists about destabilization of geological structures that may be caused by “mining” of methane-hydrate.??The Methane (CH4) that is contained within a Methane Clatherate can be displaced and replaced by a CO2 molecule WITH NO DAMAGE to the Clatherate structure! This is one of several recovery techniques being investigated by the Japanese! It was used, I believe, in the 2008 drilling in Canada, but has not been discussed in the literature due to its proprietary nature.??FINALLY, if all of the above is true, why are there so many respected scientists who do not recognize these facts? I believe that it is due to their education and methodology in training regarding the ideas of TIME! There is human time (lifetimes and generations). There is geologicaL TIME. There is cosmic TIME and there is also relativistic TIME. Most scientists are not trained to think in all four of these time domains, and therein lies the problem.??JCSPILMAN P.E. (Ret.), Huntsville, AL 35803
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Unfortunately this media does not present a method for posting a graph. I mentioned in my text that the CH4 history is obtained from the Vostok Ice Cores (from reference 2). ??What that chart shows is that there has been almost identical amounts of CH4 in the atmosphere with EVERY interglacial period over the 500,000 year timespan. The chart also indicates that CH4 production ceases when the water has risen sufficiently that the increased pressure and associated temperature changes shutoff the production of the Deep Ocean methane. Only THEN does the earth drop back into another glacial period.
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“Proof of this CH4 history was discovered in the Vostok ice cores made in Antarctia.” The charts that I mentioned earlier can be found at:?www.box.net/shared/nak3lhquby?I shall enter additional charts and related data as I locate them. ?The CO2 “sequestration” data can be found in reference 2.
I might add that CO2 sequestration is the incorrect term in this usage. Sequestration procedures are an absorption process where an “interchange” is the process where CO2 replaces CH4 in an existing ice matrix
.??JCSPILMAN P.E. (Ret.), Huntsville, AL 35803
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Hi all –??Here is the URL for the “Fire in the Ice” article on CH4-CO2 interchange:??
http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/oil-
gas/publications/Hydrates/Newsletter/HMNewsFall08.pdf#Page=1??
You may need to cut and paste this one
.??JCSPILMAN P.E. (Ret.), Huntsville, AL 35803
REFERENCES
There are several prime references associated with the material that I
have covered, if ever so briefly.
(1) EARTH’s CHANGING CLIMATE. Lecture Series by Dr. Richard
Wolfson, the Benjamin F. Wissler Professor of Physics at Middlebury
College. This is a six hour lecture series (12 segments of 30 minutes
each) on two DVDs produced by The Teaching Company of Chantilly VA
20151-1232.?http://www.TEACH12.com
This series covers in-depth detail of the science and methodology of
climate change. It is not an advocacy program. Interestingly, Dr.
Wolfson does not even mention Methane-Clathrate in this lecture
series — knowledge on that subject is almost too new to have been
included. It was first discovered on a moon of Venus by NASA about
1985. At the time we did not even know that it existed on Earth!
(2) FIRE IN THE ICE. Quarterly Journal , U.S.Department of Energy,
Office of Fossil Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory. Also
known as Methane Hydrate Newsletter. Recommended reading is all
issues to current issue from about 2000 forward. This is the best of
several technical journals devoted to the science of Methane
Clathrates.?http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/oil-gas/FutureSupply/MethaneHydrates/newsletter/newsletter.htm
(3) HIGH TIDE by Mark Lynas. Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY.
10010. ISBN 0-312-30365-3. This well written book clarifies the problems
of Global Warming “… The American People have been subjected to one
of the most pervasive misinformation campaigns ever undertaken … “?http://www.picadorusa.com
(4) WITH SPEED AND VIOLENCE [Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in
Climate Change] by Fred Pearce. Beacon Press; 25 Beacon Street;
Boston, MA 02108. © 2007. “We are on the precipice of climate system
tipping points beyond which there is no redemption”
http://www.beacon.org
(5) Natural Gas Hydrate Studies in Canada; Hyndman & Dallimore from
The Recorder, 26,11-20, 2001, Canadian Society of Exploration
Geophysicists.
JCSpilman, P.E. (Ret.) Huntsville, AL
====================================================
James C. Spilman, (P.E.Ret) President
The Colonial Newsletter Foundation, Inc.
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