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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (8477)	12/6/2006 11:38:22 AM
From: Ron	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 36923

A quite interesting post from another thread :) I guess this guy didn't get the memo from Cheney and company.. Shell CEO: 'The debate about CO2 is over' JIM KRANE The Associated Press Article Last Updated:12/05/2006 08:13:14 AM EST DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- The chief executive for Shell berated Washington on Monday for spurning the United Nation's Kyoto agreement on global warming, saying U.S. backing for a global regulatory framework would create incentives for oil companies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. "For us as a company, the debate about CO2 is over. We've entered a debate about what we can do about it," Royal Dutch Shell PLC chief Jeroen Van Der Veer told a gathering of hundreds of political and business leaders from the Middle East and elsewhere. Van Der Veer was asked by an American attending the Arab Strategy Forum whether the energy company's business plans were being hurt by the global backlash against global warming, and the carbon dioxide emissions from burning oil-based fuels considered the prime cause. Van Der Veer said energy companies would be ready to partner with governments to solve the carbon problem if there was a worldwide framework to bind governments to the same standards. He said Kyoto protocol, which focuses on 35 industrial countries, was a good start. "You are from the United States. Why don't you join the Kyoto agreement?" Van Der Veer asked the American. "You see an initial framework there and you can build on that for our future." The Bush administration pulled out of the Kyoto accords shortly after taking office in 2001. The preceding Clinton administration signed the agreement in 1997, along with European Union members and Japan. Kyoto requires industrialized countries to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and five other gases that act like a greenhouse, trapping heat in the atmosphere. The urgency of reducing carbon dioxide emissions appears set to grow. The Shell chief executive said energy use will rise by 50 percent over the next 25 years, mainly from increased demand for oil and natural gas in China and India, but also in the West. The United States produces about a quarter of the world's greenhouse gases, the largest amount of any country. But searing economic growth and rapid industrialization are boosting emissions in China and India, developing countries not bound by the Kyoto accords. America counts the world's highest level of automobile ownership, at more than 1,000 cars per 1,000 residents, with India at 11 per 1,000 and China at just nine, said Daniel Yergin, director of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "China is not going to stay at nine cars per thousand people, you can be sure about that," Yergin said. "People aren't going to be denied a higher standard of living." Van Der Veer said there needed to be a "level playing field" of environmental ground rules that all countries followed, otherwise companies like Shell have little incentive to invest in expensive emissions-reducing strategies in one country, when they could move operations to a neighboring country that has no such restrictions. Shell is looking for ways to cut carbon dioxide emissions by trapping and perhaps injecting the gas into the earth, where it might be useful in increasing pressure in depleted oil fields that could enhance recovery of oil, Van Der Veer said. "I think a better approach to it is to see it as an opportunity," Van Der Veer said. "Can we catch it? Can we use it for enhanced oil recovery? Where can we sequester it?" The Middle East, with 60 percent of the world's crude oil reserves and 40 percent of its gas, will remain the world's most important source of energy, Van Der Veer said. Remaining oil is growing ever more expensive to extract, requiring Shell and other oil companies to make larger investments in a business already saddled with huge costs, he said. "Countries accuse us of making too much profit," Van Der Veer said. "But those investments have to come from somewhere." Shell has made an effort to at least appear green, though critics would say the company is more about propaganda than anything else, given that Shell's main product is oil. Not many people outside the company are praising Shell's green record.That said, they're aware of the issues. Shell was early with "sustainability reporting" (their first annual sustainability report was published in 1998). They currently have a goal to have their (self-reported) greenhouse gas emissions 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2010, similar to the Kyoto Protocols. The company is using the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines, the best known international standard for reporting on GHG emissions. So Shell is also more transparent than some. Shell claims to have invested $1 billion in renewables since 2000, notably in a major offshore wind project in the North Sea. yorkdispatch.com

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (8477)	12/7/2006 1:56:54 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 36923

Thanks for the interesting links to serious information Wharfie. They show we have nothing much to worry about. The sea level rise is at MOST going to be 1 metre over the next century. That's not even the size of a mini-tsunami so it's irrelevant. And over 100 years - yawn... we'll all die waiting. The next generation can build their houses slightly uphill to avoid tsunamis [and also global warming worries]. Interesting that Antarctica is a monster moisture catcher. As things warm up, precipitation over Antarctica will increase, which means no sea level rise. They didn't suggest any problem at all with Antarctica, though they think Greenland could become reasonably habitable. Which would be a good thing. Though it's quite fun flying over it and being amazed at the vast quantity of ice burying it. The temperature rises projected are averages, so I suppose hot places won't increase much in temperature, but colder places will increase a lot, so that aspect of global warming will be great. We could use a LOT of global warming in New Zealand. <Since the mid-1900s, CO2 levels have increased at an average annual rate in excess of 1 ppm, due to a combination of natural processes and increased combustion of fossil fuels. The average CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is now above 380 ppm and the rate of increase has been above 2% annually over the past five years. > So you are saying [they are saying] that over the past five years, CO2 concentration has increased by 8 ppm per year, for a total of 40 ppm increase. 2% of 380ppm = 8 ppm x 5 = 40 ppm Gee, I didn't think it was that much. Got that graph handy again and we can check it. How come it suddenly went up by 8 ppm per year when it was going at only 1 ppm before that? Carbon production hasn't increased much over the last 20 years. Mqurice