Trees made in lab to capture CO2 faster

The thought of an artificial tree usually excites memories of building and ornamenting a Christmas centerpiece. But here’s an innovation that will put those plastic branches to shame: scientists at Columbia University are developing a structure that can capture carbon 1,000 times faster than a real tree.

Klaus Lackner, a professor of geophysics at the university, has been working on the project since 1998, according to a CNN report, and is optimistic about a near-future application. Modern improvements in coal-fired power plants have reduced carbon emissions, but Lackner is seeking a different function. The “tree” would be used to trap carbon that has already been emitted into the air by car gasoline or airplane fuel, CNN reports.

Unlike the real thing, the synthetic “tree” doesn’t need direct sunlight, water, a trunk, or branches to function, as it looks more like a cylinder than a soaring Redwood. The concept, which Lackner says is flexible in size and can be placed nearly anywhere, works by collecting carbon dioxide on a sorbent, cleaning and pressurizing the gas, and releasing it. Similar to the way a sponge collects water, the sorbent would collect carbon dioxide. Resin filters on top would capture CO2 from the ambient air. The CO2 is then removed at the bottom using a series of moisture and compression steps, according to one of the concept’s developers.

Each synthetic tree would absorb one ton of carbon dioxide per day, eliminating an amount of gas equivalent to that produced by 20 cars. Lackner is also co-founder and chairman of Tuscon, Arizonabased Global Research Technologies, which is working on the technology. Although the prospect of this is exciting, manufacturing the structures would be expensive, as each unit would reportedly cost about $30,000 to make.

Nonetheless, Lackner and his team are pushing the project full-force. CNN says he has already met with US energy secretary Steven Chu to discuss the concept, which Lackner says will have a prototype within three years. He is also writing a proposal for the Department of Energy in a continuous effort to raise attention for a concept, which he says is several hundred times more effective than the traditional windmill.

Link Times

Rich people to blame for carbon emission: Study

As the world grapples with the challenge of climate change, the wealthy seems to be caught on the wrong side, with a study saying that

rich people and their lifestyles account for a major chunk of the carbon emissions globally.

The study by a group of researchers from the Princeton University comes at a time when the developed and developing countries are yet to agree on carbon emission caps, which would help in tackling climate change.

"Most of the world's emissions come disproportionately from the wealthy citizens of the world, irrespective of their nationality," Shoibal Chakravarty, one of the leader authors of the report said.

Chakravarty, who is a physicist at the Princeton Environmental Institute, noted that most of the emissions come from lifestyles that involve airplane flights, car use and the heating and cooling of large homes.

"We estimate that in 2008, half of the world's emissions came from just 700 million people," Chakravarty was quoted as saying about the study in a statement posted on the Princeton University website.

At present, the world average for tons of carbon dioxide emitted a year per individual is about five tons.

Each European produces about 10 tons a year, with each American producing twice that amount, the statement said.

Link Times

Poaching of rare snake goes unchecked

At a time when wildlife enthusiasts are crying foul over the dwindling population of rare species of birds, reptiles and animals from the vast tracts of forests in Andhra Pradesh, here comes another dampener. No less than 10,000 snakes in Chittoor district are falling prey to greedy s m u g g l e r s every month. Especially, the ‘red sand boa’ snake, popularly known as ‘pudupamu,’ is under serious threat as hundreds of them are caught in villages and sold to brokers from neighbouring Tamil Nadu and Karnataka at a mindboggling rate of over Rs 1 lakh per snake.

Adults rarely exceed two feet in length (61 cm), although they sometimes reach 3 feet (91 cm). Adapted to burrowing, the head is wedge-shaped with narrow nostrils and very small eyes. The body is cylindrical in shape with small polished scales. The tail, which is blunt, rounded and not distinct from the body, appears truncated. Coloration varies from reddish-brown to dull yellow-tan. Eryx johnii is a non-venomous found in Iran, Pakistan and India.

“Red sand boas are killed for their medicinal value to cure chronic diseases, while the skins of other snakes are peeled off for making belts,” said Kiranmayee, a wildlife enthusiast. Ironically, the farmers in whose fields the snakes are caught get a pittance, while the brokers take a lion’s share of the earnings.

Asked as to why there is a huge demand for the snakes, a forest department official said the smugglers export them to China and Japan where snake meat is a delicacy. With the green belt of Seshachalam ranges covering the tail-end Chittoor district being home to several thousands of rare species of animals and reptiles, including golden gecko (golden lizard), slender loris, civet cat and red sand boa, the smugglers are having a field day.

“The spurt in smuggling and poaching of reptiles and animals is a cause of worry as these endangered species could become extinct very soon,” regretted a forest official. He said since Chittoor district is close to TN and Karnataka, smuggling is rampant. “We have nabbed several villagers when they were selling red sand boa snakes to some brokers in Ta m b a l l ap a l l e constituency,” he said.
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Stubborn West throws spanner in climate talks

Attempts to forge a global consensus to battle climate change suffered a serious setback as developed countries tried to wriggle out of any short-term commitment to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and instead, demanded that developing economies such as India and China accept emission reducing targets.

Group of Five leaders from left, India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, Mexico's President Felipe Calderon, South Africa's President Jacob Zuma, and Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo stand for a group photo at the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy on Wednesday, (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

At a meeting of the Major Economies Forum (MEF) in Rome on Tuesday evening, the developed countries tried to renege on their commitment to use 1990 as the base year for reducing emissions. Nor would they spell out what quantum of commitments they would accept in the run-up to 2020. The developed nations insisted that India, China and other emerging economies such as Brazil and South Africa agree to a long-range target for reduction of GHGs with the burden-sharing formula remaining quite ambiguous. The 17 members of MEF who will discuss the issue here on Thursday account for 75% of global emissions, and an agreement among them could have fastpaced the global response to a deepening crisis resulting from changes in the climate. Sources termed the deliberations at the Rome meeting as "tense" with India and China having to join hands to counter pressure from the developed world led by the US.

The India-China partnership had staved off a similar challenge at the Bonn climate change talks where discussions failed to make any headway. Indian sources called the development a step backwards. It was only last month that US and Mexico at the MEF meeting in Mexico had sponsored a draft that recommended an ``aspirational'' goal of halving emission levels by 2050. An aspirational long-term goal for all without a roadmap of how the emission reduction burden would be shared was even then strongly opposed by India and China.

India is not keen to let the negotiations progress only on the long-term goals which would bind them without the industrialized nations putting on the table numbers for the commitments they would take in the second phase of Kyoto Protocol as the first phase expires in 2012. However, the intransigence of developed countries reduced the draft to a bland statement of the professed intensions of the global community to take on the threat of climate change, without any mention of either timeframe or targets. The decision to come out with the draft at all, after the clash between the developed and developing countries, was taken after the US representatives at the Rome meeting cajoled participants into agreeing to put one out. The US insistence was because of the anxiety to organize a face-saver for President Barak Obama who in his capacity as chairman of the MEF is to release the draft on Thursday to coincide with the ongoing G-8 summit. The MEF meeting, US had hoped, would become an important prelude to the UN Climate Conference in Copehenhagen in December. Under the Kyoto Protocol, 36 industrialized countries known as Annexe 1 countries are obliged to reduce their emissions by a fixed percentage below 1990 levels between 2008-2012.

However, barring UK, Germany and a couple of others, they have failed to meet the commitment. Instead, they are seeking to shift the goalpost. Japan has already argued that 2005 be used as the base year in place of 1990 under the Kyoto Protocol. The global downturn has come in handy for the defaulters who have also been insistent that developing countries accept emission reduction targets lower than "business-than-usual" levels, in what marks a major shift away from the principle of "historical responsibility" that enjoined the developed countries to agree to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Though China and India came together in Rome and are expected to stick together as the standoff with the developed world deepens, the two neighbours are hugely different in terms of their contribution to global pollution levels. China accounts for 16% of the total global emissions annually and 3 tonnes per capita. US is comparable with China on an absolute level but its per capita emissions are 20 tonnes. As against this, India's contribution stands at a mere 1.1 tonne per capita and a meagre 4% in absolute terms on an annual basis.

Link Times

G-8 leaders have ambitious environmental goals.

Leaders of the world's most powerful economies pledged to seek huge cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions at a summit in Italy on Wednesday. The Group of Eight leaders said they would "join a global response to achieve a 50 percent reduction in global emissions by 2050 and to a goal of an aggregate 80 percent or more reduction by developed countries by that date."
The goal mirrors one adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives last month.

Despite the G-8 leaders' pledge to cut emissions, developing nations may not follow suit -- and G-8 leaders stopped short of calling on them to set specific targets. Instead, they "called upon major emerging economies to undertake quantifiable actions to collectively reduce emissions significantly below business-as-usual by a specified year," the White House said.

U.S. President Obama joined the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia in the mountain town of L'Aquila, which was devastated by a 6.3-magnitude quake in April, for the meeting.
Photo:German Chancellor Angela Merkel, center, and Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi, right, visit the quake zone.

Chinese President Hu Jintao was expected to attend the summit but returned home Wednesday to deal with deadly ethnic clashes in China's remote western Xinjiang province that have prompted a massive security clampdown. China's problems add to a list of global concerns overshadowing the talks, including the recent political turmoil in Iran and North Korea's nuclear ambitions, both of which have prompted renewed talk of major economic sanctions.

Though Hu was forced to return home, representatives of the other "plus five" group of emerging economic giants, including Brazil, India, South Africa and Mexico, are to attend Thursday's session, with discussions looking ahead to a major environmental summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. A senior Chinese official, Dai Binnguo, is standing in for Hu in Italy.

After the summit's first session, Obama and other leaders toured the area damaged by the quake, which killed about 300 people and left 45,000 homeless. Obama is expected to push for further international financial stimulus packages at the summit, reflecting continued concerns over the global economic crisis despite massive government spending to halt the downturn.

The summit's host, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, is probably hoping that the three-day event will help draw the spotlight away from recent scandals that have prompted questions over his suitability to lead.

Prone to gaffes and facing a divorce from his wife of 19 years, the Italian prime minister is being investigated over allegations that he paid for sex, claims that he has repeatedly denied.
Berlusconi has made a show of moving the summit from its original venue on the island of Sardinia to L'Aquila, in the mountains of central Italy, as a gesture of support for the region. A massive security operation has been put in place around the town, which is still hit by regular aftershocks. Italy claimed last week that it had arrested six members of a left-wing terrorist group who were plotting an attack on the summit.

Meanwhile, Pope Benedict XVI launched his own verbal assault on global capitalism ahead of the meeting, lambasting "grave deviations and failures" and calling for a "profoundly new way of understanding business enterprise." The pope, who is due to meet Obama on the summit's sidelines, challenged bankers to turn away from the practices blamed for bringing about the global economic crisis and instead use their power to help the world create wealth and economic development. "Above all, the intention to do good must not be considered incompatible with the effective capacity to produce goods," Benedict said.

After a G-20 summit of leading powers in London, England, in April that critics claim was little more than a photo opportunity despite pledges of global economic cooperation, some have questioned what tangible gains can be made from this week's meeting.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned that the financial crisis is far from over, echoing White House calls for further economic stimulus -- something that is likely to meet resistance among European leaders. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is campaigning for greater environmental awareness, said Tuesday that the G-8 was expected to set out a framework for tackling climate change that would be carried forward to the Copenhagen meeting.

Link CNN