Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions

Confronting Climate Change – Part 1

Did You Know? Warming trends in the next 50 years may have profound effects Burning oil, coal and natural gas promotes global warming Solutions include alternative fuels and greener industrial processes. Using a mixture of coal and biofuels can help reduce carbon dioxide emissions Eating chicken, fish or vegetables instead of red meat just once a week could help fight climate change

As wagon trains of pioneers headed West to settle the American frontier, they encountered oceans of grass swaying in the wind in the prairies. This grass grew 7-10 feet high — almost to the second story windows on a modern house. Much of that green ocean consisted of switch grass. Today switch grass is looking greener than ever to new generations of pioneers. Those pioneers are chemists, chemical engineers, and other scientists who are searching for solutions to the challenges of global warming.

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Resources

Science for Kids

Hands on activities for young, aspiring chemists.

EPA Climate Change Kids Site

ChemMatters

A magazine for high school students.

• Clearing the Air—Treaties to Treatments (Sept. 2005)
  So now that we’ve got all this information about the atmosphere—what are we going to do with it?
• Life in a Greenhouse (October 2003)
  A close look at how some gases keep our planet warm, maybe too warm.
• Beefing Up Atmospheric Models (October 2003)
  They’re difficult to work with, but many find them attractive. They’re mathematical models! Chemists use them to study processes from local pollution to global warming.
• Nobel Prize Winner Sherwood Rowland: A Conversation (October 2003)
  Would you give up a shot at a baseball career to be a chemist? A Nobel Prize winner reflects back on growing up smart and athletic.
• Pieternel Levelt: Shining Light on Atmospheric Ozone (September 2002)
  Based in the Netherlands, the Ozone Measuring Instrument team prepares to measure the Earth’s ozone layer with unmatched precision.
• Carbon Dioxide—A Pourable Greenhouse Gas (September 2001)
  Do some experiments to discover a fascinating property of this greenhouse gas.
• Global Warming—Hot Topic Getting Hotter (September 2001)
  Is our planet getting warmer? Are humans to blame? Would a small average increase in temperature be a problem? This article helps to sort out the big questions. Answers are sure to be more difficult.

Careers in Chemistry

• Environmental Chemistry

Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS^®)

SciFinder®, a research tool produced by CAS (a division of the American Chemical Society), found 264 references in the CAS databases on the subject of carbon capture and storage (sequestration) directly related to the concept of climate change. These references were published this year. A further analysis performed in SciFinder shows the increased interest in this topic in the last decade. For example, using the same search strategy showed there were 194 references in 2000, with the numbers growing steadily to 472 in 2007.

The CAS databases cover references from more than 10,000 major scientific journals and 57 patent authorities worldwide.

http://www.cas.org

In the News

• Hansen Renews Plea For Action
  C&EN, June 30, 2008
• Cooling The Planet
  C&EN, April 28, 2008
• Do food miles matter?
  ES&T, April 13, 2008
• Coal: The New Black
  C&EN, March 17, 2008
• Real-Life Trial Of CO2 Capture
  C&EN, March 3, 2008
• A Major Shift Beyond Fossil Fuels
  C&EN, Feb.18, 2008
• U.S. Actions On Greenhouse Gases
  C&EN, Nov. 5, 2007
• Capturing Carbon And Saving Coal
  C &EN, Oct. 29, 2007
• Driving CO2 Underground
  C&EN, Sept. 24, 2007
• Underground Gases Don't Always Stay Put
  C&EN, Sept. 24, 2007
• Outsourcing U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions
  ES&T, June 13, 2007
• Livestock and greenhouse gases
  ES&T, Jan. 3, 2007

Books

• Hundreds of books have been written in the past few years on the effects of climate change. These books offer an amazing variety of opinions and viewpoints. Information on many of these books is available from the Library of Congress, http://catalog.loc.gov/

Sources for this podcast

• United Nations Kyoto Protocol site
• Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act
• DOE site of fossil fuels
• Oak Ridge National Lab – Biofuels from Switchgrass
• Converting syngas to ethanol
• ACS endorses Climate Security Act – ACS Legislative Action Network
• Synthetic fuel production
• Switchgrass Cofiring
• Food choice affects climate
• CO₂ Capture from Flue Gases
• AAAS Science & Policy Web site on Climate Change and Energy
• C&EN editorial on Grand Science Challenges
• Filtering out the Bad Stuff
• C&EN archive of articles on climate change published since 1998

Other Resources

• Royal Society for Chemistry: Chemistry for Tomorrow’s World
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007
• Scientific opinions on climate change references compiled by Wikipedia
• Biofuel references compiled by Wikipedia
• The Cost of Carbon Capture – David and Herzog – MIT
• U.S. Department of Energy Carbon Sequestration
• Greenhouse gases and trends – DOE Energy Information Administration
• DOE - Oak Ridge National Laboratory Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center
• DOE – Greenhouse Gas Emissions
• EPA Climate Change site
• Pew Center Web Site on Global Climate Change
• C&EN archive of articles on climate change published since 1998

Meet the Scientists

• Scientist Bios