Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Tuesday 14 November 2017

Global carbon pollution rises after 3 straight flat years

By SETH BORENSTEIN Norwegian scientist. De- team of 76 scientists who
AP Science Writer clines in the United States wrote the report.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Glob- (0.4 percent) and Europe While he called the study
al carbon pollution rose this (0.2 percent) were smaller authoritative, Pennsylvania
year after three straight than previous years. India, State University climate sci-
years when levels of the the No. 3 carbon polluting entist Michael Mann said
heat-trapping gas didn’t nation, went up 2 percent. he sees no need to do fig-
go up at all, scientists re- The 2017 estimate comes ures for 2017 that are not
ported Monday. to on average of 2.57 mil- complete, saying it may be
Preliminary figures project lion pounds (1.16 million ki- “jumping the gun a bit.”
that worldwide carbon lograms) of carbon dioxide Jackson said the team
dioxide emissions are up spewing into the air every — which produces these
about 2 percent this year, second. reports every year in No-
according to an interna- The study was published vember — has confidence
tional team of scientists. In this Feb. 28, 2017 file photo, a passenger airplane flies Monday and is being pre- in its 2017 report because
Most of the increase came behind steam and white smoke emitted from a coal-fired sented in Bonn, Germany, it is based on real data
from China. power plant in Beijing. during climate talks where from top polluting nations
The report by the Glob- Associated Press leaders are trying to come through the summer and in
al Carbon Project team dramatically in the 1950s. In noting in an email that lev- up with rules for the 2015 some cases through Octo-
dashed hopes that emis- the last three years, levels els have increased fourfold Paris deal. ber. Plus, he said past esti-
sions from the burning had stabilized at about 40 since he was born in the The goal is to limit tempera- mates have been correct
of coal, oil and gas had billion tons of carbon diox- 1950s. “We race headlong ture rise to 2 degrees Celsius within a couple tenths of a
peaked. ide (36.2 billion metric tons). into the unknown.” (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) percentage point.
“We hoped that we had Estimates for 2017 put it Man-made carbon diox- since preindustrial times, The top five carbon pollut-
turned the corner... We at about 40.8 billion tons ide is causing more than 90 but it’s already warmed ing countries are China, the
haven’t,” said study co- (37 billion metric tons). percent of global warming half that amount. United States, India, Russia
author Rob Jackson, an Sixty years ago , the world since 1950, U.S. scientists re- “It was tough enough and and Japan. Europe taken
Earth scientist at Stanford spewed only 9.2 billion tons ported this month. if this paper is indicative of as a whole, would rank
University. Carbon dioxide (8.3 billion metric tons). This year’s increase was long-term trends, it just got third.q
emissions rose steadily and “It’s a bit staggering,” said mostly spurred by a 3.5 per- tougher,” said Princeton ___
slowly starting in the late co-author Ralph Keel- cent jump in Chinese car- University climate scientist Follow Seth Borenstein on
1880s with the Industrial ing, a Scripps Institution of bon pollution, said study Michael Oppenheimer, Twitter at @borenbears. His
Revolution, then took off Oceanography scientist, co-author Glen Peters, a who wasn’t part of the work can be found here .

Russia named as likely source of Europe radioactivity spike

tope Ruthenium-106 posed nuclear reactor because that nation had a Russian origin is
no health or environmental would have released other el- unfounded,” it said.
risks to European countries. It ements. The French report says the
said the “plausible zone of re- Germany’s Federal Office for radioactivity peaked in late
lease” was between the Volga Radiation Protection said last September and early October
River and the Ural Mountains, week that elevated levels of and affected a “majority of
and suggested random checks Ruthenium were reported European countries” but is no
on food imports from the re- in Germany, Italy, Austria, longer detected in the atmo-
gion as a precaution. Switzerland and France since sphere over Europe. However
In a report released Thursday Sept. 29, but posed no threat it said if such an accident had
This photo provided on Friday Nov. 10, 2017 by the INRS, based on monitoring in multi- to public health. happened in France, authori-
Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety, shows ple European countries, IRSN After reports of a Rutheni- ties would set up a perimeter
a map of the detection of Ruthenium 106 in France and Europe. said the Ruthenium appeared um-106 leak from a plant in around the accident site to
Associated Press to come from an accident the southern Urals first ap- monitor health, safety and
By ANGELA CHARLTON, Asso- over much of Europe, accord- in late September involving peared, Russia’s state-con- food quality.
ciated Press ing to a report by France’s nuclear fuel or the produc- trolled Rosatom corporation Ruthenium-106 is used for
PARIS (AP) — An apparent ac- nuclear safety agency. tion of radioactive material. said in a statement last month radiation therapy to treat eye
cident at a Russian facility is The Institute for Radiological The French agency said the that it hadn’t come from its tumors, and sometimes as
suspected of causing a recent Protection and Nuclear Safety Ruthenium didn’t appear to facilities. a source of energy to power
spike in radioactivity in the air says the release of the iso- come from an accident in a “The claim that the contami- satellites.q