Carbon dioxide global climate change

Takahashi T., Feely R. A., Weiss R., Wanninkhof R., Chipman D. W., Sutherland S. C., and Takahashi T. T. (1997) Global air-sea flux of CO2 an estimate based on measurements of sea-air pCOi dilference. In NAS Colloquium Volume on Carbon Dioxide and Climatic Change (ed. C. D. Keeling). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 94, 8292-8299. 

Concerns about global climate change have led to extensive research and high-level international debates about the need for targets and timetables to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Some policymakers believe that current uncertainties in how to approach the issue do notjustify an all-out effort to reduce carbon dioxide emission, while others feel that this is a crisis needing immediate attention. 

Biomass resources are a major component of strategies to mitigate global climate change. Plant growth recycles C02 from the atmosphere, and the use of biomass resources for energy and chemicals results in low net emissions of carbon dioxide. Since the emissions of NOx and SOx from biomass facilities are also typically low, it is a technology that helps to reduce acid rain. 

Currently, ethanol is produced from sugar beets and from molasses. A typical yield is 72.5 liters of ethanol per ton of sugar cane. Modem crops yield 60 tons of sugar cane per hector of land. Production of ethanol from biomass is one way to reduce both the consumption of erode oil and environmental pollution. Domestic production and use of ethanol for fuel can decrease dependence on foreign oil, reduce trade deficits, create jobs in rural areas, reduce air pollution, and reduce global climate change carbon dioxide build-up. 

The release of carbon dioxide into the environment has come under scrutiny lately because of its possible connection to global climate change. A single car s emission is not a big problem, but the exhaust of millions of cars, along with other combustion engines, adds up. 

In developing the analyses, the committee made quantitative estimates of some of the impacts believed to be most important, but it was not able to examine all of the possible impacts. The environmental impacts examined are associated with potential global climate change caused by carbon dioxide (C02) emissions from light-duty vehicles under the various technology pathways (see Table 5-2 in Chapter 5). The committee does not attempt to estimate any impacts on... 

Carbon dioxide, and in particular emissions from man-made sources, has been implicated in the global climate change. This book is not the place to debate whether or not C02 is actually causing a change in the climate. However, the processes described in this book provide a potential solution to the C02 emission problem. 

Humanity s major sources of energy are derived from fossil fuels, principally oil, gas, coal, and wood. The major combustion by-products of fossil fuel burning include sulfur dioxide (SO2), carbon dioxide (CO2), and nitric oxide (NO2), and partially oxidized hydrocarbons. The process of burning fossil fuels in thermal power plants, factories, homes, and motor vehicles emits enormous amounts of the aforementioned pollutants. The most important environmental concerns resulting from fossil fuel use are global climate change, acid rain, surface ozone, and partic-ulate-Zaerosol-bound toxins. 

Between 1850 and 1998 atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have risen from 285 to 366 ppm, mainly because of the combustion of fossil fuels and changes in land use from forestry to agriculture. This unbalanced release of stored carbon is now generally accepted as setting us on a global climate change journey with an unknown but likely to be unpleasant destination. Combustion of fossil fuels alone contributed 6.3 Gt (gigatonnes or 10 tonnes) of carbon dioxide emissions annually between 1989 and 1998. 

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