MÔI TRƯỜNG và KHÍ HẬU THAY ĐỔI

[Nhím Hoàng Kim]

Continued Arctic methane release raises threat of runaway global warming - 2 Jan 2011

Researchers studying the climate in the Arctic regions of Siberia, Canada and Alaska, USA, have confirmed that the rate at which methane is now being released into the atmosphere from the melting tundra region's permafrost could soon exceed dangerous tipping points, beyond which humans' ability to mitigate climate change may become futile.

In these regions, the permafrost has been frozen for thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years. However, climate change-induced temperature rise is causing permafrost in areas such as Siberia to melt, releasing some of the region's estimated 50 billion tons of stored methane, over ten times the amount currently in the atmosphere.

Dr. Katey Walter Anthony of the University of Alaska, who for the past decade has been studying the tundra and its reaction to global warming, stated, “If permafrost were to thaw suddenly, in a flash, it would put a tremendous amount of carbon in the atmosphere. We would feel temperatures warming across the globe. And that would be serious.”

An international team of scientists recently analyzing the underwater Eastern Siberian Arctic Shelf region also discovered that the constant release of methane into the relatively shallow ocean waters there is causing them to become supersaturated, raising concerns that further release of the vast underground methane stores could set off irreversible warming at any time.

Thank you, Dr. Walter Anthony and colleagues, for reminding us of the gravely precarious situation presented by global warming. May we all comprehend the magnitude of the threat to life on Earth and quickly act to save our beautiful planet.

During a September 2009 videoconference in South Korea, Supreme Master Ching Hai spoke with concern about the urgency of our situation as she has on previous occasions, while highlighting the most effective measures necessary to reverse our global predicament.

Supreme Master Ching Hai: It is an urgent situation indeed. I would say that the most serious one is the frightening prospect of runaway global warming, the frightening aspect that nations will not do enough to stop it.

This runaway warming of the climate could easily be caused by melting permafrost, which is the frozen soil extending across the vast expanse of the Arctic tundra.

Since 2007, scientists have seen more and more evidence of methane from permafrost melt This irreversible effect, we want to avoid at all costs, especially since it may not be as far away as we would like to think.

So please, be a part of the solution and join in first by being vegan yourself and helping to spread this message as much, as quickly as possible:

Be Veg , Go Green 2 Save the Planet .

http://planetsave.com/2010/04/22/wid...elf-confirmed/, http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...5b6294ae04404d
http://planetsave.com/2010/11/26/met...limate-change/
http://translate.google.com/translat...lemas%2F167388

http://www.suprememastertv.com/au/ru...=2334&page=1#v

[Nhím Hoàng Kim]

Account from scientists calculates methane emissions from freshwater sediments - 21 Jan 2011

An international team of researchers for the first time have estimated the methane gas being emitted by fresh water areas such as lakes and rivers. The study, recently published in the journal Science, showed that these emissions reduce the net absorption of greenhouse gases by land ecosystems such as forests by at least 25%.

According to lead author Professor David Baskvilken from Linköping University in Sweden, whereas small methane emissions from fresh water bodies occur continuously, abrupt larger emissions may also occur that are difficult to measure. Team member Dr. John Downing of Iowa State University in the USA stated, “The bottom line is that we have uncovered an important accounting error in the global carbon budget. Acre for acre, lakes, ponds, rivers and streams are many times more active in carbon processing than seas or land surfaces, so they need to be included.”

Meanwhile, numerous other surveys have found plumes of methane escaping from sea floor sediments beneath the Arctic Ocean and other underwater regions. Although cold temperatures and high pressure have kept the methane in a frozen state for centuries past, recent destabilization due to human-caused global warming could eventually trigger a widespread release of the potent greenhouse gas at a rate of 16,000 tons per year.

Research oceanographer Dr. Tony Koslow from the University of California San Diego, USA explained.
Tony Koslow - Research oceanographer - University of California San Diego, USA (M): If the sea temperatures increase sufficiently, that would lead to the release of these methane clathrates, these frozen methane in the deep sea. And once that process starts it would just snowball.

VOICE: Oceanographers also forecast that such a release would generate too many methane- consuming microbes, creating an imbalance as they consume the water's dissolved oxygen and generate carbon dioxide. The resulting oxygen depletion and acidification of the oceans would disrupt ecosystems and form dead zones, which in turn would undermine a vital oxygen source for the entire planet. Dr. Koslow points to a major marine mass extinction event in the past.

Tony Koslow (M): One of the real concerns is that about 55 million years ago, the best available evidence is that much of the methane that was trapped in the deep ocean was released very suddenly in geological terms, and this led to a huge warming. And it actually led to the extinction of much of the life in the oceans.

When paleoecologists discovered this, only within about the last 10, 20 years it's really changed people's perspective on how climate change can happen; very, very rapidly and how it can happen through the release of this frozen methane. The key is that we really have to contain global climate change.

VOICE: Our appreciation, international scientists for informing us of the potentially catastrophic impacts of unleashing underwater methane. May we act swiftly together to mitigate global warming so that the biosphere and planet may be preserved.

During an international gathering with our Association members in February 2008, Supreme Master Ching Hai spoke of the release of methane and its link to global warming, urging for the simple way to halt it.

Supreme Master Ching Hai: You see, the gases are fuming from the ocean and from the land that's been deforested. It's fuming everywhere. It's just that at the moment, it's not so intense. But it'll be more and more intense if we don't do something.

Everybody knows by now, from the UN Report that meat eating, animal raising, it's one of the worst factors, or even the worst factor of global warming. And nobody talks about it.

What is so difficult, to put down one piece of meat, and replace it with one piece of tofu. Which is exactly the same, better nutrition. Better for your health. More economized.

http://environmentalresearchweb.org/...rnews/44766OLD

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/gene...ak_devastation

http://www.suprememastertv.com/au/ru...=2412&page=1#v

[Nhím Hoàng Kim]

Melting permafrost intensifies greenhouse gases - 23 Feb 2011

Scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences have for the first time quantified the amount of carbon that could be released into the atmosphere as the Arctic permafrost melts.

Using computer modeling, the scientists showed that within about a decade, carbon dioxide and methane from the thawing plant material that has been frozen in soil since the last glacial period that ended about 12,000 years ago, will turn the entire Arctic tundra region into a global source of carbon, instead of remaining a carbon sink.

Within a century, the Arctic meltdown could release about 95 billion tons of carbon, equivalent to half the total fossil fuel emissions since the beginning of the Industrial Age. Lead author, Dr. Kevin Schaefer noted that even the most conservative estimates from this projection would make a significant difference to the Earth's climate.

He stated, “If we want to hit a target carbon dioxide concentration, then we have to reduce fossil fuel emissions… much lower than previously thought to account for this additional carbon from the permafrost. Otherwise we will end up with a warmer Earth than we want.”

Our sincere thanks, Dr. Schaefer and University of Colorado colleagues for these revealing insights into the precarious situation of the Arctic permafrost. Let us join together in rapid measures to protect the planet and secure the survival of all co-inhabitants on Earth.

Supreme Master Ching Hai has often highlighted the need for humanity to safeguard the ecosphere from potential sources of runaway global warming, as in this interview published in the September 2009 edition of The House Magazine.

Supreme Master Ching Hai : According to Dr. Hansen, our planet is on a dangerous course to passing irreversible tipping points with disastrous consequences. These you know already,

like the melting of permafrost which in turn releases toxic methane gas, resulting in more warming of the atmosphere.

The reason scientists are now turning their attention to methane is that research has shown this gas has a heating capacity 100 times greater than CO2 within the first 5 years.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization states that livestock is the single largest human-caused source of methane and accounts for 37% of total greenhouse gases.

Thus, if meat eating were to be halted, methane production from livestock would be minimized, and then, consequently all the methane from the permafrost will also be stopped, then we will still have time to handle the CO2. It's very logical, scientifically speaking and otherwise. So, being veg means saving our planet.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/lif...116341429.html,

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2011...#ixzz1EGaejNw9

http://www.suprememastertv.com/au/ru...=2448&page=1#v