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Red Sea huge source of air pollution, greenhouse gases: study:
Hydrocarbon gases bubbling from the bottom of the Red Sea are polluting the atmosphere at a rate equivalent to the emissions of some large fossil fuel exporting countries, researchers said Tuesday.
The gases seeping from the waters—which are ringed by the resorts and ports of several countries, including Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia—then mix with emissions from industrial shipping and turned into noxious pollutants that are very harmful to human health.
The Middle East holds more than half of the world's oil and gas reserves[. The intense] fossil fuel exploitation that takes place there [means] the region releases enormous amounts of gaseous pollutants into the atmosphere.
But during a 2017 expedition around the Gulf, researchers at the Max Plank Institute for Chemistry noticed that levels of ethane and propane in the air above the Northern Red Sea were up to 40 times higher than predicted, even accounting for regional manmade emissions.
The team analysed possible sources for the gas emissions, including traffic, agriculture, burning of biomass, and power generation from hydrocarbons.
They came to an unexpected conclusion: the two gases had to be seeping out of the sea bed after escaping natural subterranean oil and gas reservoirs.
They were then carried by currents to the surface, where they mix with another greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide, which is emitted in high amounts by industrial shipping.
The resulting gas compounds are extremely harmful to human health, according to the team's study, published in Nature Communications.
Journal Reference:
Bourtsoukidis, E., Pozzer, A., Sattler, T. et al. The Red Sea Deep Water is a potent source of atmospheric ethane and propane. Nat Commun 11, 447 (2020). doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-14375-0, www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-14375-0
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday January 30 2020, @11:34AM (3 children)
I wonder if that isn't shifting, though, because alternative energy has been winning friends and fans in places that would have been unexpected a couple decades ago. Wind farms have been bringing new revenue and people to the high plains for the first time in a hundred years. There are towns that were dying out in Kansas and Nebraska, which have new families moving in to work on the big turbines. That has to be winning them political support.
Also, Tesla is selling every vehicle it makes, with much more pent up demand to work through, and every other car maker is running to catch up in the shift to EVs. I think when more regular people have first hand experience with the renewable energy revolution, it wins hearts and minds.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday January 30 2020, @02:45PM (2 children)
You're underestimating how much people are susceptible to propaganda. For instance, there are people in my area that specifically are driving around nasty diesel trucks far bigger than they need to carry anything expressing attitudes that amount to "All the concerns about the environment and oil supply are a liberal conspiracy, and I burn oil on purpose to stick it to the libs." My state government, elected by these sorts, recently cut renewable power programs so they could keep coal, oil, and nuke power plants running, then claimed that anybody backing renewable power was intending to give control of the US power grid to China.
The really strange part is that there are people that have directly experienced the damage of existing policies, and still oppose changing them because they want to pwn the libs. These are people that will opt for suffering and death over admitting that someone like Barack Obama might have been right about anything.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday January 30 2020, @03:14PM (1 child)
That's something that cuts both ways, though. How many people are switching to solar and EVs to stick it to Trump? I'm happy if they are, because whatever their motives they will drive economies of scale that will make switching to renewables the financially smart play. Then everyone will jump over, because economics beat ideology almost every time in at least the medium term.
I don't know how many people are choosing to burn more diesel, etc to stick it to the libs, honestly, though. Conservatives do mock climate change, but few of them mock wind, solar, and electric cars. They especially don't mock the last one because now that they're more commonly seen on our roads they are impressed with how they can blow the doors off the BMWs, Mercedes, and Audis of the world; it's a grudging admission, but an admission nonetheless.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday January 30 2020, @03:34PM
I can report that the enviro-hippie types I know are motivated far more by "If we don't do something, science says we're all dead." And they're pretty cynical about the odds that the US government will do anything to save us, because the Republicans definitely don't want to (again, admitting that they might be wrong is a problem) and the Democrats probably don't want to (it would be short-term bad for the stock market and thus their biggest donors).
And the more realistic ones know that right now it's a question of "Is everybody boned, or is almost everybody boned?"
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.