Carbon Dioxide

MAUNA LOA OBSERVATORY, Hawaii -- Carbon dioxide, the gas seen largely responsible for global warming, has reached record-high levels in the atmosphere after growing at an accelerated pace in the past year, say scientists monitoring the sky from this 2-mile-high station atop a Hawaiian volcano. The reason for the faster buildup of the most important "greenhouse gas" will require further analysis, the US government specialists say. "But the big picture is that CO2 is continuing to go up," said Russell Schnell, deputy director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's climate...

Doug O'Neill, the trainer of Triple Crown hopeful I'll Have Another, was suspended 45 days after one of his horses had an excessive level of carbon dioxide, but the punishment won't start before he saddles the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner in the Belmont Stakes June 9. The suspension comes in the final weeks of I'll Have Another's attempt to become horse racing's 12th Triple Crown winner and first since Affirmed 34 years ago. The colt...

When it comes to fighting climate change, most people think about shrinking their carbon footprints by reducing the amount of the heat-trapping gas, or carbon dioxide, generated when they flip on a light switch, drive a car, or put on the air conditioner. But scientists and policy makers have long been intrigued by a larger-scale approach: the idea of removing carbon dioxide - separating out the greenhouse gas from the exhaust coming out of the flues of coal plants or other sources, and keeping it out of the atmosphere.

Kentucky Derby-winning trainer Doug O'Neill could face a suspension in California after one of his horses was found to have an elevated level of total carbon dioxide, an infraction for which he previously has been punished. The California Horse Racing Board is considering the case, which involves "milkshaking," the illegal practice of giving a horse a blend of bicarbonate of soda, sugar and electrolytes. The mixture is designed to reduce fatigue and enhance performance. O'Neill faces his third total carbon dioxide violation in California and fourth in a career that has spanned 25...

WASHINGTON - If the world is going to limit global warming to a few degrees, it has to slash carbon dioxide pollution much more than now being discussed, two new studies say. Carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels - coal, oil, and natural gas - is the chief cause of global warming. The studies found there's a limit to how much man-made carbon dioxide can be added to the air before warming exceeds an increase of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit - the level that many governments have set as a goal.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court plunged yesterday into the debate over global warming and whether the government should regulate "greenhouse" gases, especially carbon dioxide from cars. The ruling could be one of the court's most important ever on the environment. Spurred by states in a pollution battle with the Bush administration, the court said it would decide whether the Environmental Protection Agency is required under the federal clean air law to treat carbon dioxide from automobiles as a pollutant that is harmful to health.

WASHINGTON -- Coral and other marine creatures are threatened by excess carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, a panel of scientists warned yesterday. Already blamed for global warming , this additional carbon dioxide is dissolving into the oceans, making them more acidic. Such a change can damage coral and other sea life, according to the panel of researchers convened by the National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and US Geological Survey.

New Hampshire’s House and Senate will take up competing bills dealing with a regional program designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The Senate will vote Wednesday on a bill to retain New Hampshire’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, but place limits on the program. The House will vote to repeal the state’s RGGI law. RGGI requires utilities and other companies that generate greenhouse gases to reduce pollution or bid at auction for allowances giving them the right to produce certain amounts of carbon dioxide.

The New Hampshire House is trying again to remove the state from a regional program to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The House Science, Technology and Energy Committee is holding a hearing Tuesday on legislation to end the state's participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Gov. John Lynch vetoed a similar bill last year. The Senate's vote to override the veto fell short and the bill died. The regional program is a cap-and-trade program for carbon dioxide.

RE "CLIMATE skeptics don't ‘deny science' " (Op-ed, Sept. 25): At least three aspects of "global-warming theory" are "as well understood as plate tectonics or photosynthesis" and beyond reasonable scientific challenge. First, carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere. Second, human burning of fuels adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Third, atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased well beyond levels previously experienced by humans. Even if Jeff Jacoby is right that human fuel use has not been the primary driver of global warming, it is unquestionably a significant factor in global...

The New Hampshire House is trying again to remove the state from a regional program to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The House Science, Technology and Energy Committee is holding a hearing Tuesday on legislation to end the state's participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Gov. John Lynch vetoed a similar bill last year. The Senate's vote to override the veto fell short and the bill died. The regional program is a cap-and-trade program for carbon dioxide.

WASHINGTON - Heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are building up so high, so fast, that some scientists think the world can no longer limit global warming to the level world leaders have agreed upon as safe. New figures from the UN weather agency yesterday showed that the three biggest greenhouse gases not only reached record levels last year but were increasing at an ever-faster rate, despite efforts by many countries to reduce emissions. With world leaders set to meet next week in South Africa to tackle the issue of climate change, several scientists...

The Brazilian government has revised upward the amount of Amazon rain forest destroyed last year. But it's still the lowest figure since tracking began two decades ago. The Environment Ministry now says 2,703 square miles (7,000 square kilometers) were destroyed between August 2009 and July 2010. That's the period the government uses to find annual deforestation figures. Earlier, the government had said 2,490 square miles (6,450 square kilometers) were destroyed. Officials measure the destruction using satellite images and revisions normally...

RE "CLIMATE skeptics don't ‘deny science' " (Op-ed, Sept. 25): At least three aspects of "global-warming theory" are "as well understood as plate tectonics or photosynthesis" and beyond reasonable scientific challenge. First, carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere. Second, human burning of fuels adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Third, atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased well beyond levels previously experienced by humans. Even if Jeff Jacoby is right that human fuel use has not been the primary driver of global warming, it is unquestionably a significant factor in global...

Tucked between treatises on algae and prehistoric turquoise beads, the study on page 460 of a long-ago issue of the U.S. journal Science drew little attention. "I don't think there were any newspaper articles about it or anything like that," the author recalls. But the headline on the 1975 report was bold: "Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?" And this article that coined the term may have marked the last time a mention of "global warming" didn't set off an instant outcry of angry denial.

Sometime next month, on the steaming fringes of an Icelandic volcano, an international team of scientists will begin pumping "seltzer water" into a deep hole, producing a brew that will lock away carbon dioxide forever. Chemically disposing of CO2, the chief greenhouse gas blamed for global warming, is a kind of 21st-century alchemy that researchers and governments have hoped for to slow or halt climate change. The American and Icelandic designers of the "CarbFix" experiment will be capitalizing on a feature of the basalt rock underpinning...

PROVIDENCE -- A species of songbirds is avoiding insects that have ingested leaves with elevated carbon dioxide levels, a finding that may show how global warming affects the food chain, researchers say. The researchers at the University of Rhode Island have been studying the eating habits of the black-capped chickadee, a common songbird in New England. In a recent study, they say the birds are not eating insects that have eaten leaves with high carbon dioxide levels. Carbon dioxide, emitted into the atmosphere primarily by power plants and automobiles, is a major contributor to global warming.

BRUSSELS -- European customers don't want to buy the environmentally friendly cars that would help the auto industry reach a target to lower carbon dioxide emissions, European car makers said yesterday. The European Commission warned last week that it may need to bring in new rules to force car makers to cut carbon dioxide because they are unlikely to meet their own voluntary target to achieve average emissions for new European cars of 140 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer by 2008.

A Cambridge company developing technology to make ethanol more efficiently said it has been granted two key US patents. Joule Unlimited Technologies has made significant progress toward its goal of finding a way to produce 25,000 gallons of ethanol per acre, spokeswoman Felicia Spagnoli said yesterday. The alternative energy fuel is made from various sources, including corn. The company uses microorganisms that capture carbon dioxide from industrial sources, such as factories, and manipulates them to create ethanol as a product of photosynthesis.