This overview sets the scene for the various modules in the Renewables 2024 Global Status Report Collection. It provides high-level trends on the status of renewables in the wider fossil fuel-dominated energy system in the context of global challenges such as climate change, development goals and the geopolitical landscape. Urgent …
THOUGH the State of Forest Report 1991 says India's forest cover increased from 6,40,134 sq km in 1989 to 6,40,694 sq km in 1991, the feat the report describes is impossible: Forest products are primarily used for human and livestock consumption, and as human and livestock population increased by about …
IN THE context of the forest department's increasing sensitivity to participatory programmes such as joint forest management, the "anti-people" stance of the article by a senior forester like A N Chaturvedi is shocking. In his article, he gives priority to specific uses of forests than to people and thus advocates …
JOINT implementation was the main point of discussion at the recent meeting of the intergovernmental committee on climate change in Geneva. The idea of joint implementation has been promoted primarily by industrialised countries seeking ways to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Unable to face the politically difficult choice of reducing …
WHY IS the Indian monsoon so capricious as to cause floods one year and pass on with scarcely any rain the next? Blame it on the increasing concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, say US scientists who have constructed a global climate model that predicts an even more whimsical monsoon when …
HUGE DEPOSITS of iron found in different parts of the world has puzzled geologists because oxygen, which is an important constituent of iron ore, was scarce when they were formed about 3.5 to 1.8 billion years ago. Now, F Widell and his colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Marine …
ARTHUR Nonomura, an American scientist-turned-farmer, may usher in another green revolution with his discovery that methanol (or methyl alcohol), traditionally thought to be toxic to plants, can stimulate crop growth in hot and dry regions. "I think it's going to save the world," says Andrew Benson of Scripps Institution of …
US PRESIDENT Bill Clinton's efforts to tax energy in order to simultaneously reduce the budgetary deficit and reduce carbon dioxide emissions are running into heavy weather. The US senate is now struggling to devise a simple energy tax that will be universally acceptable after strident opposition from various quarters squashed …
Everyone these days is aware of the phenomenon of global warming, even if they find it difficult to distinguish between stratospheric ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect. Global Warming: The Economic Stakes is about the greenhouse effect and the resultant environmental pollution and global damage. Incoming radiation from the sun …
DENMARK is determined to use its position as president of the European Commission to push through the proposed energy tax because, as Danish energy minister Jann Sjurgen put it, "EC must shoulder its responsibility in trying to combat global warming." The proposed tax will be levied on fuels with a …
Iver- TOYOT A vehicles will soon dust equipped with a sensor to regul the air-to-fuel ratio so as to make th ual more economical and with lower emissions (Machine Design, ng a Vol64, No 21). Toyota Motor Corp says introduction of the world's first mass-produced combustion pressure sensor will improve …
TWO RECENT climate studies have found that while changes in solar radiation do contribute to global warming, this effect is small as compared to that of human-made greenhouse gases. The increase in the annual average global temperature at the earth's surface was as much as 0.8o C between 1880 and …
RECENT findings that global warming of the lower atmosphere could trigger major ozone destruction have added an alarming new dimension to the climate change scenario (Nature, Vol 360 No 6401). British scientists John Austin of the Meteorological Office, Neal Butchart of the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Keith Shine …
IT IS WIDELY believed that higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere will stimulate plant growth and thus help crops and forests fix more carbon - a positive feedback effort that may partially help control the global warming problem. But two recent studies indicate'forests may not be as efficient in …
Environmental space may be defined as the total quantity of natural resources that can be used on a sustainable basis, for example, the total quantity of carbon dioxide that can be released into the air by humans without damaging atmospheric processes like the global climate. To ensure equitable distribution of …
PORTLAND cement may acquire a new, environmentally friendly, chemical composition. Researchers are focussing on how to reduce emissions from cement manufacture and also use less energy. Another area of research that has emerged recently examines the use of bauxite (aluminiuni oxide) and wastes such as fly ash, scrap iron and …
A clean and green way to reduce acid rain has been developed by Chang Yul Cha of the University of Wyoming in Laramie. The process cuts sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from coal-fired smokestacks using char and microwaves (Science, Vol 257 No 5076). The gases are absorbed as they pass …
THE NEW US administration of Bill Clinton and Al Gore promises to be environment-friendly. Gore, derided as the "ozone man" by outgoing president George Bush has sound environmental credentials. His book, Earth in the Balance, has been called visionary by some. Others liken it to Hitler's Mein Kampf and they …
WESTERN scientists report the burning of fossil fuels is steadily depleting the oxygen content of the atmosphere. And, because the level of oxygen varies inversely with that of carbon dioxide, the new techniques of oxygen measurement provide them also with clues to the carbon cycle. But the scientists are struggling …
TUBEWELL-related deaths in the green revolution districts of Haryana due to the victims getting trapped in poison-gas pockets formed, some say, by heavy use of fertilisers, are rapidly approaching their usual post-monsoon peak. Since 1987, there have been hundreds of tubewell-related deaths in Haryana, in particular in the districts of …
A NEW cryogenic system for industrial cleaning, using "dry ice" or solidified carbon dioxide, has been developed by Distillers MG, which is part of the German Messer Griesheim industrial gas group. The "cold jet" cleaning system, as it is known, uses small pellets of dry ice, which are blown in …
