How can Phytoplankton, the microscopic plants that live in the ocean which perform two-thirds of all the Earth’s photosynthesis and directly affects the concentrations of CO2 in the ocean, be left out in the climate simulation model for the whole time?

Global climate models are missing a good chunk of plant information that could significantly alter long-term climate change predictions. A new technique for modeling phytoplankton — microscopic plants in the upper layers of the Earth’s waters — could reveal a much more accurate picture.

“(Other) modelers have populated their oceans with three or four kinds of plants, said Mick Follows, a researcher in MIT’s Program in Atmospheres, Oceans and Climate. “We’ve represented a much more diverse community, and allowed it to have interactions that regulate it more naturally.”

Phytoplankton populations are constantly changing, which makes them difficult to predict. So the MIT researchers developed an algorithm using evolutionary principles to more accurately represent the microscopic plants. A more precise count is important because phytoplankton process carbon dioxide — a significant contributor to global warming.

Original Article via WIRED

What the hell is Photo Bio Reactor? It is an “artificial environment for photosynthetic organisms” that basically eats the CO2 from the air. And now you can build your own for $200:

I have wanted to do this a project for a long time and with earth day this year it kinda just fit timing wise. Its really a simple and quick build, yet getting the level up in bio-friendly-geek makes this all the more fun. Now I admit that I have a lacking of unquenchable aspirations to being a hugger of trees or a crusader of tofu and hemp. But I do believe in making changes so that the poor saps that come along after me might have the world a little less badly off for them. Let’s face it, we kind of effed up the whole earth thing… But in all seriousness, once we get a good strong colony established we will be doing some testing of the amount of carbon these can remove from our environment with a C02 PPM meter.

Here’s a video showing when the gadget is working:

What if we make a gadget that not only absorb CO2 but also produce energy? Technology Review has an article about supplying the world’s energy need with light and water.

via EcoGeek:

Bicycle commuting rocks. It’s healthy, safe, fast, cheap and the only emission is what the biker breathes out. But it does have it’s problems. One is that bikes generally have a very awkward shape. If there is no bike rack, or if you want to go somewhere with your bike, you’re reduced to lugging a very cumbersome package around with you.

Well what if there was a bike you could fit in your trunk, that was the size of a briefcase, or that you could take on the subway. That sure would be nice.

Thus, the concept of the folding bike. You might be surprised to learn that there are actually quite a lot of these guys out there. They range from the practical to the nonsensical and from frugal to near-car prices. And today, at EcoGeek, we’re going to show you the best of the folding bikes.

2007 Burning Man’s theme is called “The Green Man” that celebrates clean energy, green technology and environmental responsibilities. Already a festival with a strong leave no trace behind consensus, this year’s the Burning Man figure will “stand atop a structure that resembles green mountain peak. Nestled at its base, will be the Green Man Pavilion, 30,000 square feet of shaded exhibition space for the display of interactive artistic, scientific and educational models, a “World’s Fair” of emerging technologies.”

One of the centerpieces, Jim Mason’s Mechabolic, is an 80-foot-long slug that will process garbage and turn it into clean energy using “Gasification” technology similar to the energy-from-waste project led by researchers at Purdue University. “The Mechabolic invites participants to walk through the innards of an exploded metabolic animal and contribute their waste paper, wood, coffee grounds and food compost to the fuel making effort. Participants can watch all fuel/food processing through transparent process tanks and plumbing, as well as handle the feed and fuels at various points in the “refining” process. All in all, a fun house walk-through journey of machine digestion and respiration –from mouth to anus, oil well to gas tank, trash dumpster to carburetor plenum– with all the interstitial fun and mysteries of organic chemistry implied therein.”

Cnet has a great article explaining the projects and Eco Razzi has a detailed overviews of this year festival.

Original Article from New Scientist.

• Human CO₂ emissions are too tiny to matter

• We can’t do anything about climate change

• The ‘hockey stick’ graph has been proven wrong

• Chaotic systems are not predictable

• We can’t trust computer models of climate

• They predicted global cooling in the 1970s

• It’s been far warmer in the past, what’s the big deal?

• It’s too cold where I live - warming will be great

• Global warming is down to the Sun, not humans

• It’s all down to cosmic rays

• CO₂ isn’t the most important greenhouse gas

• The lower atmosphere is cooling, not warming

• Antarctica is getting cooler, not warmer, disproving global warming

• The oceans are cooling

• The cooling after 1940 shows CO₂ does not cause warming

• It was warmer during the Medieval period, with vineyards in England

• We are simply recovering from the Little Ice Age

• Warming will cause an ice age in Europe

• Ice cores show CO₂ increases lag behind temperature rises, disproving the link to global warming

• Ice cores show CO₂ rising as temperatures fell

• Mars and Pluto are warming too

• Many leading scientists question climate change

• It’s all a conspiracy

• Hurricane Katrina was caused by global warming

• Higher CO₂ levels will boost plant growth and food production

• Polar bear numbers are increasing

Original Article via SF Chronicle:

Scientists are eyeing the jet stream, an energy source that rages night and day, 365 days a year, just a few miles above our heads. If they can tap into its fierce winds, the world’s entire electrical needs could be met, they say.

The trick is figuring out how to harness the energy and get it down to the ground cost-effectively and safely.

Dozens of researchers in California and around the world believe huge kite-like wind-power generators could be the solution. As bizarre as that might seem, respected experts say the idea is sound enough to justify further investigation.

The jet stream typically blows from west to east 6 to 9 miles over the northern hemisphere at speeds up to 310 mph.

By lofting generators into the upper atmosphere, scientists theorize they could capture the power of the jet stream and transmit the electricity along cables back to Earth.

Yes, we want to squeeze all your brain juice out! Now we have a tag-line competition, you are invited to suggest a tag-line for this project (something like “Broadcast Yourself” of YouTube). Later on 10 of those will be selected for an open poll and people will vote for the final winner, who will get a one-of-a-kind gift from artist Kenneth Hung (can’t tell you yet but something pretty cool) Please visit the Development Forums and drop down your suggestions! Of course, if you have any other ideas of making the game fun please contribute too. Later!

Global warming is creating a devastating effect on some of the world’s finest coral reefs. The Famous Caymans coral reefs are dying, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is plagued with mysterious “White Syndrome”, here’s some info from Australian Institute of Marine Science Australia and their positions on the latest IPCC “Climate Change 2007″ report.

Scientists have been arguing “Is climate change likely to increase disease in corals?” Dr John Bruno from the University of North Carolina explaining the clear scientific links between the widespread disease and ocean temperatures in an radio interview.

Meanwhile, Nature Conservancy is teaming up with Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and the NOAA to see if coral reef can be reborn?

Ha ha ha! LOL! This is fun! I miss San Francisco!

Craigslist founder hosts robot camera game developed by researchers at UC Berkeley and Texas A&M.

CONE Sutro Forest allows players to earn points by taking live photos and classifying wild birds. CONE Sutro Forest (CONE-SF) combines a remotely controllable robotic pan-tilt-zoom video camera with live streaming video, image database, and point system.

Conceived by Ken Goldberg, artist and professor of engineering at UC Berkeley, and Dez Song, professor of computer science at Texas A&M, and funded by the National Science Foundation, CONE-SF automatically computes the optimal camera viewpoint that satisfies dozens or hundreds of simultaneous players, including both experts and amateurs. Managing large communities is the specialty of Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, who will host the camera from his San Francisco residence overlooking the Sutro Forest. All photos on this page were taken by him.

CONE-SF is free and open to the public. To play, visit: http://cone.berkeley.edu.

Original story from Herald Tribune:

“The global carbon market tripled last year to $30 billion from $11 billion in 2005, the World Bank’s carbon finance unit said Wednesday.”

“Carbon markets put a price on carbon, and so are seen as a possible key weapon against climate change, motivating people and businesses to think harder about their greenhouse gas emissions.”

“Through a linked, project-based market, European companies can meet their EU emissions caps by funding clean-energy projects in developing countries through carbon trade under the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. That project-based market doubled to $5 billion in 2006, and raised an extra $16 billion in finance for development of clean-energy technologies, the World Bank said.”

This makes me think of my friend Amy Balkin’s project PUBLIC SMOG. The project consists of a gesture in which the artist buys and withholds carbon gas emission credits from international trading markets in order to create a temporary clean-air park. Aiming to highlight the complexities and contradictions of current environmental protocols, Balkin will attempt to submit an application to qualify the entire atmosphere as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

DESIGN21 Social Design Network, a an international design competition launched in 1994 by UNESCO and Felissimo, is having a competition called “Global Warming- Heat Issue“. Paticipants are asked to design an awareness campaign to educate the public on the issue of global warming. The deadline of submission is June 17, 2007.

“The impact of climate change is a heated issue, sparking controversy in political and scientific arenas. Most agree, however, that humans are largely responsible for generating the conditions that are driving the problem.

This competition asks participants to create an educational campaign to raise public awareness of the problem of global warming and the contribution of our daily lifestyle and activities to this phenomenon. The aim of the campaign is to provoke people to think about the issue and how their individual consumer choices and energy consumption play into the equation.

Your entry may address the broader topic of global warming or highlight a specific factor � but any facts contained in your entry must come from a verifiable source (you must quote the sources of your information in your project description).

The campaign may employ any media (print, billboard, clothing, film, animation, music etc) or a combination of formats.”

There are also two other competition: Child’s Play and Shelter Me.

An electrical circuit that should carry enough power to produce the long-sought goal of controlled high-yield nuclear fusion and, equally important, do it every 10 seconds, has undergone extensive preliminary experiments and computer simulations at Sandia National Laboratories’ Z machine facility.

Z, when it fires, is already the largest producer of X-rays on Earth and has been used to produce fusion neutrons. The technology makes it possible to provide humanity unlimited electrical energy from cheap, abundant seawater.

Global Research Technologies, LLC (GRT), a technology research and development company, and Klaus Lackner from Columbia University have achieved the successful demonstration of a bold new technology to capture carbon from the air. The “air extraction” prototype has successfully demonstrated that indeed carbon dioxide (CO₂) can be captured from the atmosphere. This is GRT’s first step toward a commercially viable air capture device.

From AP (original article from Boston.com)

British mock heavy metal group reunites as part of the Live Earth concerts to raise awareness og Global Warming.

“A new 15-minute film directed by Reiner on the band’s reunion will also play at the opening night of the Tribeca Film Festival in New York on Wednesday. The slate for the opening gala, to be hosted by Al Gore, was previously announced, excepting the Reiner short.

The festival is to open with a showing of several global warming-themed short films produced by the SOS (Save Our Selves) campaign. SOS is also putting on the Live Earth concerts, to be held across seven continents.”

2 campaigns, similar idea. A 7 meters high black balloon attached to the cars exhaust pipe, collecting the CO2 a car would have produces per day. The act kick starts WWF China’s 20to20.org

The German Green activists group BUND put a earth balloon on the exhaust pipe and eventually the globe exploded because of CO2 overloaded.

Found at Infosthetics.com