Mar. 6, 2007: Coal, Clouds, China, CDM -&- CRA

Montreal Protocol slowing warming -- 1987 pact focused on ozone layer

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Is the implication, then, that we should support Kyoto, that maybe it would help too?


Check for whether India signed but China, which would not sign the Kyoto Accord, is one of the countries that would benefit from CDM, according to David Suzuki, (Mar. 6, 2007: CDM - scroll down to it)

[We] can purchase international carbon credits through the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

Meanwhile, China refused to sign to make any concessions to countries in the West who have actually been working on cleaning up their air.

Is China's soot print changing weather? , Anne McIlroy, Mar. 6, 2007

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Soot produced by burning coal in China and India isn't just making it harder for local people to breathe, but could be contributing to freakish weather in Canada and the United States, a team of scientists reported yesterday.

The particles of pollution, known as aerosols, are responsible for the brown haze over many Chinese cities. But they drift upward over the Pacific, where they are causing more large clouds to form higher in the atmosphere where it is colder, says Renyi Zhang, an atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University.

The result has been more intense storms over the ocean, he and his colleagues argue in a paper published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. More intense storms over the Pacific will change the air-flow patterns around the globe, they say.

"And that is going to change meteorology everywhere," Dr. Zhang said in an interview. [....]

In April, NASA launched CloudSat (right) and CALIPSO, two satellites equipped to investigate the role clouds play in climate. They will work in conjunction with three satellites already in orbit to learn more about how aerosols affect clouds and weather.

Glitch shuts down Web tax filing , Oliver Moore, Globe and Mail, Feb. 7, 2007

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The computer systems that allow people to file personal income-tax returns online have been shut down indefinitely by the Canada Revenue Agency, which took the unprecedented move after finding data irregularities.

CRA commissioner Michel Dorais said yesterday that there was "no indication" these irregularities were being caused by hackers. But the agency decided it wasn't worth the risk of keeping the systems running while the source of the problems was being determined. [....]