CCBF Blog

Our Ocean's Ecological Recession

by Mr. TC Yee

Coral reefs: Vital to the oceans, vital to humans

Coral reefs are dying off at record rates, thanks to pollution, disease and global warming. Scientists worldwide are trying to come up with new ideas to conserve and protect not just the coral reefs, but also the biodiversity and human economies that depend upon them for their survival. Last month, a group of 155 scientists from 26 countries issued a document dubbed "The Monaco ...
Source: Coral reefs: Vital to the oceans, vital to humans [Scientific American]

Bleak forecast on fishery stocks
By James Morgan Science reporter, BBC News, Chicago

The world's fish stocks will soon suffer major upheaval due to climate change, scientists have warned.
Source: Bleak forecast on fishery stocks [BBC News]

Personal views: With the rapid increase of seafood consumption worldwide for health and dining habit change, the demand for various species of fish and shellfish is never witnessed in our nature history. Even the market force has brought in fish farming (aquaculture), the reliance on our oceans to cope with our desires has never diminished. Unfortunately, more and more evidences are exhibited that many fishes and other marine lives are getting less and less in some parts of the world where they used to live in large crowds. Further more alarming news is on reports of the emergence of so called dead zones being found in oceans where practically no life could be traced. Is climate change coupled with deteriorating marine ecologies the culprit to take away the delicious food from people or rather we ourselves are to be blamed?

Geoengineering experiment raises sail

An Indo-German effort has set sail to experiment and help determine the viability of sequestering carbon by promoting algae blooms with iron.  In areas where iron is a limiting nutrient, geoengineers hope that adding iron sulfate to the ocean will promote (or "seed") algae blooms which in turn will capture carbon dioxide and sequester some of it when the plankton die and sink to the ocean's floor.  Some environmentalists worry that the potential environmental impacts of iron seeding have not been appropriately assessed or considered.

Source: Ocean climate fix remains afloat [BBC News]
For more information on the LOHAFEX effort, see the Indian National Institute of Oceanography.

The CCBF also has more information on the basic science of climate change.

Impact of Googling and the Climate Disparity

by Mr. TC Yee

‘Carbon cost' of Google revealed
Two search requests on the internet website Google produce "as much carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle."
Source: 'Carbon cost' of Google revealed [BBC News]


Britons 'create more CO2 in 9 days than world's poorest will all year'
ANTI-poverty campaigners warned on Friday that the average Briton has already caused more carbon emissions in 2009 than a person in the poorest countries will create all year.
Source: Britons 'create more CO2 in 9 days than world's poorest will all year' [Morning Star Online]

Personal views: Few of us would care a few clicks from our mouse will incur such a substantial carbon emission. It is no doubt a mystery to most people on the huge energy consumption behind in running thousands of data centre and the ubiquitous global optical fiber networks that support our internet surfing. On the surface, modern digital living has provided much more convenience and saved lots of laborious work that our grandparents or even parents never imagined. Yet a more in-depth look will bring out the underlying question that if human beings are really consuming more than our Earth could afford. Moving to the international front, disputes and finger-pointing are increasingly seen in international climate change conferences on who are going to be responsible. Witnessed in Bali, Poznan and most likely again in Copenhagen, rich or developed nations keep on pushing the newly industrialized nations to take up a larger stake in carbon reduction while the latter rebuke the out-of-proportion high per capita carbon footprints exhibited by the nationals in the former. Where is the balance and how are cross-border compromises could be achieved are absolutely a challenge never seen in history.

The CCBF has more details on actions business can take to reduce climate change.

Cutting CO2 is absolutely necessary.... but what if it doesn't work? Where can we turn next? What is plan B?

by Dr. Adam D. Switzer

I read with great interest this recent article:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-scientists-its-time-for-plan-b-1221092.html

The article reports on a poll (of leading scientists) by The Independent in the UK and suggests that some possibly many scientists suggest we need to think about plan B....

The article correctly points out that....

"The collective international failure to curb the growing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has meant that an alternative to merely curbing emissions may become necessary"

At the bottom of the article a number of 'Plan B's' are presented.... Where do I stand you may ask?

I'm with John Shephard on this one... he stated that "Geoengineering options... must not be allowed to detract from efforts to reduce CO2 emissions directly" ... prepare for Plan B but remember it makes a lot of sense to have a good go at "Plan A" first.... unfortunately we don't seem to be making much progress on Plan A so we may be calling on Plan B earlier then we thought.

Is the Kyoto an abject failure? Or can valuable lessons be learnt?

by Ciara Shannon

Do readers think, as Oliver Tickell does in his book Kyoto 2 that the UNFCCC process is sclerotic?

According to Tickell, every change to the UNFCCC status quo is interpreted in terms of marginal profit or loss to the national interest of member states - not in terms of the need to achieve an effective climate agreement. National delegations adhere rigidly to entrenched positions, and not only for reasons of national interest - the positions taken are just as likely to reflect the purely egotistical motivations of individual negotiators. And the negotiations have become so Byzantine in their complexity, so broken down into working parties, committees and sub-committees, that it has become impossible for any government minister, or even head of delegation, to truly grasp what is going on, and why.