Global Warming Issues

Only three air-quality advisory days have been issued for the Youngstown-Warren region this year.

YOUNGSTOWN — It can alert you to conditions that make you cough, wheeze or sneeze, but some area residents don’t think that air-quality reports really affect their life.

“I hear the reports and then the pollen count, but I care more about the pollen count because both of my kids have allergies,” said Jill Johngrass, 31, of Campbell.

Air-quality control reports, or forecasts, display how much pollution is in the air of a region and if the pollution is at an unhealthy level.

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Professor Ross Garnaut report about global warming in Adelaide

2 polar bears talking in funny cartoon movie about global warming

Very nice global warming movie made by globalwarminghope.com

Benedict also told reporters while flying to Sydney to start a 10-day visit that he would work for “healing and reconciliation with the victims” of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy there “just as I did in the United States” earlier this year.

Less than an hour after the pope’s flight took off from Rome, Benedict walked back to the section where journalists sat and met with them for about 15 minutes. He called on five journalists to ask questions that had been submitted to the Vatican earlier in the week.

One asked about climate change following discussions on the environment during this month’s G-8 summit in Japan.

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It’s not just the American dollar that’s losing value. A government agency has decided that an American life isn’t worth what it used to be.

The “value of a statistical life” is $6.9 million in today’s dollars, the Environmental Protection Agency reckoned in May — a drop of nearly $1 million from just five years ago.

The Associated Press discovered the change after a review of cost-benefit analyses over more than a dozen years.

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WASHINGTON | A federal appeals court unanimously struck down a signature component of President Bush’s clean air policies Friday. The decision also dealt a blow to environmental groups and likely delayed further action until the next administration.

The regulation, known as the Clean Air Interstate Rule, required 28 mostly Eastern states to reduce smog-forming and soot-producing emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency predicted it would prevent about 17,000 premature deaths a year.

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CSIRO Energy Technology Chief, Dr David Brockway, said the milestone followed the Garnaut Report’s recognition that Australia has an important role to play in developing low emission coal technologies such as PCC.

“PCC uses a liquid to capture CO₂ from power station flue gases and can potentially reduce CO₂ emissions from existing and future coal-fired power stations by more than 85 per cent,” he said.

“Coal is the primary fuel for over 80 percent of Australia’s current power supply – it’s what turns the lights on in most homes – so we need to find ways to make it a cleaner energy source. This is the first time anyone in the Southern Hemisphere has captured CO₂ using the PCC process at a power station and we are thrilled we’ve been able to prove this technology,” Dr Brockway said.

The 10.5 metre-high pilot plant is designed to capture up to 1000 tonnes of CO₂ per annum from the power station’s exhaust-gas flues. Future trials will involve the use of a range of different CO₂-capture liquids.

CSIRO is undertaking similar PCC research at Munmorah near NSW and Beijing, China, and is negotiating the installation of another pilot plant at a Queensland site.

“Climate change is a key issue for Australia and we’re delighted to be part of finding a solution to this global challenge,” Loy Yang Power Chief Executive Ian Nethercote said.

“We’re pleased to be working with CSIRO to identify ways to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector,” Mr Nethercote said.

The project is part of the Latrobe Valley Post Combustion Capture Project – a joint collaboration between Loy Yang Power, International Power Hazelwood, government and researchers from CSIRO’s Energy Transformed Flagship and the CO2CRC (including Monash and Melbourne Universities). The Loy Yang component of the project is supported by the Victorian Government for A$2.5million through the Energy Technology Innovation Strategy.