WASHINGTON – Pollution typically declines during a recession. Not this time. Despite a global economic slump, worldwide carbon dioxide pollution jumped 2 percent last year, most of the increase coming from China, according to a study published online Tuesday.
"The growth in emissions since 2000 is almost entirely driven by the growth in China," said study lead author Corinne Le Quere of the University of East Anglia. "It's China and India and all the developing countries together."
Carbon dioxide emissions, the chief man-made greenhouse gas, come from the burning of coal, oil, natural gas, and also from the production of cement, which is a significant pollution factor in China. Worldwide emissions rose 671 million more tons from 2007 to 2008. Nearly three-quarters of that increase came from China.
The numbers are from the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
According to the study, the 2008 emissions increase was smaller than normal for this decade. Annual global pollution growth has averaged 3.6 percent. This year, scientists are forecasting a nearly 3 percent reduction, despite China because of the massive economic slowdown in most of the world and in the United States.
The U.S. is still the biggest per capita major producer of man-made greenhouse gases, spewing about 20 tons of carbon dioxide per person per year. The world average is 5.3 tons and China is at 5.8 tons
Last year, the U.S. emissions fell by 3 percent, a reduction of nearly 192 million tons of carbon dioxide. Overall European Union emissions dropped by 1 percent. The U.S. is still the No. 2 biggest carbon polluter overall, emitting more than the next four largest polluting countries combined: India, Russia, Japan and Germany. China has been No. 1, since pushing past the United States in 2006.
The world remains on a dangerous path, despite the recession, scientists said.
"There's a very clear gap between the path we are on and the path we should be on if the goal is to limit global warming to 2 degrees (1.3 degrees Celsius)," said Le Quere, who also works for the British Antarctic Survey.
The world has spewed 715.3 trillion tons of industrial carbon dioxide since 1982, which is the same amount civilization produced in all the previous years, said study co-author Gregg Marland of the Oak Ridge National Lab.
Outside scientists said the study was thorough and the results sobering.
"Basically these numbers are screaming out at decision makers that whatever they are doing now is not working," said University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver, who wasn't involved in the study.
The report comes as countries from around the world prepare for a December U.N. conference on reducing carbon emissions. Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen of Denmark, who will host the conference in Copenhagen, said Tuesday that President Barack Obama supported his proposal for a sweeping political deal that would include commitments by industrial countries to reduce carbon emissions and to provide funds for less developed countries to fight the effects of global warming.
Obama, who was in China, said after a meeting with President Hu Jintao Tuesday that he wanted an all-encompassing agreement in Copenhagen, even if it falls short of a legal treaty. And he said he wants something "that has immediate operational effect."
Le Quere said the numbers point specifically to developing world as the cause for the most recent growth.
China is opening up new coal-fired power plants at a breakneck pace and carbon dioxide emissions in that country have doubled since 2001.
Not all the emission increases in China and other developing countries come from new power plants. About one-quarter of the emissions growth is because western countries, like the United States, buy more manufactured products from those countries, Le Quere and Marland said.
"We're shipping our emissions offshore," Marland said.

Other countries beside China to increase their carbon dioxide emissions by more than 5 million tons in 2008 were India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, Indonesia, Iran, Poland, Mexico, Canada and the Netherlands.

The paper also raised concerns because it shows that the percentage of carbon dioxide emissions that hang in the air — compared to those sucked into the oceans and forests — is growing.

Fifty years ago, only 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions stayed in the air. Now in this decade it's up to 45 percent, Le Quere said.

That steady rise is alarming because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the warmer it gets, and the warmer it gets, the higher percentage of carbon dioxide stays in the air, Le Quere said.

It's a feedback loop that is not good news for global warming, she said.

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On the Net:

Nature Geoscience: http://www.nature.com/ngeo

Some truly strange creatures can be found on the ocean seafloor, and boneworms are among the most bizarre - they have no eyes or mouth and feast on the bones of dead whale carcasses.

Now scientists have identified even more species of this recently discovered worm, and their analysis reveals additional clues to when the creatures first evolved.

Boneworms, belonging to the genus Osedax, were first discovered back in 2002 off the coast of California in an underwater valley called the Monterey Canyon. Since then, the researchers that made the find have been uncovering details about the life cycle and eating habits of these worms.

Between 2004 and 2008, the team, from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, sank five whale carcasses into the bay, providing a cornucopia for their research subjects.

They found that the worms begin life as microscopic larvae floating through the deep ocean. When the larvae encounter a dead animal, such as a whale or elephant seal, they settle onto its bones. The worms then sprout up, looking a bit like tiny trees. At one end are root-like structures that grow into the bone. The scientists suspect that bacteria in these roots break down proteins within the bone, which supply nutrients for the worms. At the other end are feathery appendages called "palps," which take in oxygen.

When these worms sexually mature, they all turn into females. But larvae that land on the female boneworm's palps develop into male worms, although they remain microscopic in size. The male worms fertilize the females' eggs, which are then released to start the cycle over.

Initially, the researchers identified five species of boneworms. In the new study, they found an additional 12 species from analyses of the worm's DNA.

Not all boneworms look alike. Their feathery palps can be red, pink, green or even striped. And some don't have feathers at all.

The researchers also attempted to calculate how long these worms have been around by estimating how fast their DNA mutates. With one particular estimate for the mutation rate, they hypothesized that the worms evolved 45 million years ago, which is around the time that large whales first appear in the fossil record. A second, slower estimate suggests that the worms may have evolved 130 million years ago, in which case they could have eaten the bones of ancient sea reptiles.

Further study of whale and marine reptile fossils for the remains of worm roots could help pin down the time period in which the worms evolved, the researchers suggest.

The study was published Nov. 10 in the journal BMC Biology.

Image Gallery: Examining the Seafloor
New Worm Species Discovered on Dead Whales
Otherworldly Scenes Found on Seafloor
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The suspension system keeps the coil centered in the gap and provides a restoring force to make the speaker cone return to a neutral position after moving. A typical suspension system consists of two parts: the "spider", which connects the diaphragm or voice coil to the frame and provides the majority of the restoring force; and the "surround", which helps center the coil/cone assembly and allows free pistonic motion aligned with the magnetic gap.

Modern driver magnets are almost always permanent and made of ceramic, ferrite, Alnico, or, more recently, neodymium magnet. A current trend in design, due to increases in transportation costs and a desire for smaller, lighter devices (as in many home theater multi-speaker installations), is the use of neodymium magnet instead of ferrite types.

Although many types of balls are today made from rubber, this form was unknown outside the Americas until after the voyages of Columbus. The Spanish were the first Europeans to see bouncing rubber balls (albeit solid and not inflated) which were employed most notably in the Mesoamerican ballgame. Balls used in various sports in other parts of the world prior to Columbus were made from other materials such as animal bladders or skins, stuffed with various materials.

However, while the work attracted continued support from advocates of psychosomatic medicine, many in experimental physiology concluded that his concepts were too vague and unmeasurable. During the 1950s Selye turned away from the laboratory to promote his concept through popular books and lectures tours. The US military became a key center of stress research, attempting to understand and reduce combat neurosis and psychiatric casualties. Seyle wrote for both non-academic physicians and, in an international bestseller titled "Stress of Life", for the general public.

Stress Balls