National Fuel Cell Education Program Page

Folks,

We can talk the talk but now we REALLY need to walk the walk...a truly green holiday season might just be the way to go. Perhaps the best gift to the Planet we could give is .....G-R-E-E-N:
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Lyrics: "Take Our Planet Back" by will i am
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Al Gore: Today, I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100% of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.

Calling all the leaders to lead us out the h***
Asking all deceivers the things I want to know

If we’re so technological
Why’re we still burning oil

‘Cause I got a car you plug into the wall that’s faster than a GTO

We shot for the stars, put rovers on Mars, make planes like UFOs

So why are we borrowin’ money from China to buy oil from the Gulf and destroyin’ the world

Al Gore: Every bit of that has to change…

Now that’s got to change
Now that’s got to change

(Chorus x3)
We’ll stand up
We’ll stand up and take our planet back
You and me

We’ll stand up
We’ll stand up and take our planet back

Talkin’ ‘bout we

Talkin’ ‘bout we

Talkin’ ‘bout

Calling all the citizens
(Al Gore: Citizens…)
Citizens of the land

Ask you your politicians
(Al Gore: Political Leaders…)
All these questions

If we fight another war on terror
Why aren’t we fighting for the environment

We spend a billion dollars on wars in foreign lands
But nothin’ on education

Nikola Tesla turned the Niagara Falls into energy way back when
(Al Gore: Energy…)

And we’re still burning coal
(Al Gore: Coal…)
When you can make electricity with solar and wind
(Al Gore: Solar and wind…)

Now who’s getting played?
You and me

And who’s getting paid?

(Chorus x3)
We’ll stand up
We’ll stand up and take our planet back
You and me

We’ll stand up
We’ll stand up and take our planet back

Talkin’ ‘bout we

Talkin’ ‘bout we, we, we, we

I’m askin’ all the citizens to take action
(Al Gore: Citizens…)
Take action and take back the government
Tell the government to start taxin’ pollution
Makin’ laws ‘cause that’s the solution
It should be against the law to make pollution
So if they make products that do what the other products do
But they didn’t pollute, what are you gonna choose?

Al Gore:
We should tax what we burn, not what we earn.
To those who say the challenge is not politically viable
I suggest they go before the American people and try to defend the status quo
And then bear witness to the people’s appetite for dramatic change
The time is now.
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'We should tax what we burn and not what we earn.'
--ex-VP and Nobel Laureate, Al Gore

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Cliff Notes on Global Warming and Carbon Dioxide ("CO2"):
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If the Earth's atmosphere received no more Greenhouse Gases (CO2, Methane, etc) now, it STILL would take about 1000 years for the rate of increase in the Earth's average temperature to zero out.
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On a time scale of several thousand years, it is estimated that about 90% of human generated CO2 emissions will end up in the ocean
--Christopher Sabine, NOAA
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"The ocean has removed 48% of the CO2 we have released into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels and cement manufacturing," said Christopher Sabine, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) in Seattle, US.

"If the ocean had not removed 118 billion metric tonnes of carbon between 1800 and 1994, the CO2 level in the atmosphere would be about 55 parts per million greater than currently observed."

Sea chemistry

This may have slowed global warming, but it also led to a change in seawater chemistry.

According to Richard Feely, of NOAA, and his colleagues, that might make life pretty hard for some shell-forming marine animals.

Corals, pteropod molluscs and some plankton (single celled organisms) pull carbonate ions from the seawater to produce their calcium carbonate shells.


The 10-year survey was an international effort
But, as the CO2 concentrations in the water increase, the carbonate ion concentrations decrease.

This means the animals lack the materials with which to build their shells.

And in areas where CO2 concentrations are particularly high, Professor Feely's team claim, the animal's shells can actually begin to dissolve.

"Based on our present knowledge, it appears that as seawater CO2 levels rise, the skeletal growth rates of calcareous plankton will be reduced - as a result of the effects of CO2 on calcification," said co-author Victoria Fabry, of California State University, US.

Patchy distribution

This effect is not witnessed uniformly throughout the oceans, however.

The survey has revealed that dissolved CO2 levels are rather patchy.

Because CO2 gets into the water by gas exchange at the surface - and because oceans tend to mix rather slowly - most CO2 is found near the top of the ocean, or in seas that are quite shallow.

"About half of the anthropogenic CO2 (i.e. produced by human activity) taken up over the last 200 years can be found in the upper 10% of the ocean," said Professor Sabine.

That means shelled creatures that live in surface waters at higher latitudes may have the most trouble.

At the moment the oceans house a mere third of the CO2 that they could. Again, that is because our seas are "stirred" very slowly. So deep layers of water, which will eventually reach the surface, are far from being saturated.

"On the time scale of several thousand years, it is estimated that about 90% of the anthropogenic CO2 emissions will end up in the ocean," said Professor Sabine.

But the key word here is "thousands" of years. In the shorter term, as the surface waters become more saturated, the ocean may become a less efficient sink for CO2.

Just what that will mean for the Earth's climate, and for the marine ecosystem, is not quite clear yet.

Professor Sabine said: "Future studies of the carbon system in the oceans should be designed to identify and assess these feedback mechanisms [so that we can] determine the ocean's future role as a sink for CO2".
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Sampling package used to collect water samples for the global carbon dioxide survey

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