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Mar 09, 2022
KANYA SHIKSHA PRAVESH UTSAV
On the eve of International Women’s Day, the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MoWCD)), in partnership with the Ministry of Education and UNICEF, launched a landmark campaign Kanya Shikhsa Pravesh Utsav and a Special Entrepreneurship Promotion Drive for Women -"SAMARTH" (by Ministry of MSME).
Kanya Shikhsa Pravesh Utsav
About Soil Formation
About the Discovery
Highlights of the Study
About High Seas
About Hot Spring
About Nord Stream
Kanya Shikhsa Pravesh Utsav
- It aims to bring back out of school adolescent girls in India to the formal education and/or skilling system.
- The campaign has been launched with the objective of enhancing enrolment and retention of girls between 11-14 years of age in school.
- The initiative intends to build on the existing schemes and programmes like Schemes for Adolescent Girls (SAG), BetiBachaoBetiPadhao (BBBP) and National Education Policy (NEP) to work on a comprehensive system for out of school girls.
- The campaign will be rolled out under the umbrella of MoWCD’s BBBP initiative by targeting more than 400,000 out of school adolescent girls as primary beneficiaries.
- Emphasizing on India’s commitment to the education of girl children, the government fully acknowledges the need to work with women and girls and commits to make sustained investment in health, education, protection, skill building including financial literacy, while empowering young women and girls, and promoting gender-equitable attitudes and practices among India’s children and youth.
- Comprehensive initiatives implemented under the Department that can be availed by adolescent girls, and the aim for ensuring integrated education services to create an inclusive environment and infrastructure for education.
- The programme aims for a convergent approach between MoWCD and MoE with close partnership of international organisations.
- The need has arisen because the Scheme for Adolescent Girls (SAG), which initially took care of out-of-school girls, was getting less traction.
- In the new scheme under Poshan 2 and Saksham Anganwadi, we will be only taking up girls in the age group of 14-18 years.
- Girls aged 11-14 years will not be coming in the Anganwadi system in new schooling that will also take care only of the north-eastern states and all our aspirational districts.
- MSME sector offers plethora of opportunities for women and Ministry of MSME, through its schemes and initiatives, is continuously making efforts to develop entrepreneurship culture among women by offering several additional benefits for women in the schemes implemented by the Ministry of MSME.
- SAMARTH implemented by the Ministry to provide them an opportunity to be self-reliant and independent by undertaking self-employment opportunities.
- Ministry of MSME envisions greater participation of women in the MSME sector and therefore will work hard to promote entrepreneurship.
- Women today are creating exceptional and ground-breaking accomplishments in every sphere of life and are optimistic about what the future holds for them. With the increased supportive initiatives by the government, we together can usher in a new era in India`s future.
- Under the Samarth initiative of the Ministry, following benefits will be available to aspiring and existing women entrepreneurs:
- 20% Seats in free Skill Development Programs organized under skill development schemes of the Ministry will be allocated for Women. More than 7500 women will be benefitted.
- 20% of MSME Business Delegations sent to domestic & international exhibitions under the schemes for Marketing Assistance implemented by Ministry will be dedicated to women owned MSMEs.
- 20% Discount on annual processing fee on NSIC’s Commercial Schemes
- Special Drive for registration of women-owned MSMEs under Udyam Registration
- Through this initiative, Ministry of MSME is focusing on providing Skill Development and Market Development Assistance to women and more than 7500 women candidates from rural and sub- urban areas will be trained in the FY 2022-23.
- Besides, thousands of women will be getting marketing opportunities to showcase their products in domestic and international exhibitions.
- Also, to enhance the participation of women entrepreneurs in Public Procurement, a special discount of 20% shall also be offered on annual processing fee on NSIC’s following commercial schemes during the year 2022-23:
- Single Point Registration Scheme
- Raw Material Assistance and Bill Discounting
- Tender Marketing
- B2B Portal msmemart.com
- To celebrate International Women’s Day, Ministry of MSME organised an international conference - “Empowering Women Entrepreneurs” in association with National Small Industries Corporation and India SME Forum.
- The Conference has been organized to provide a platform to existing and aspiring Indian Women Entrepreneurs to gain from experiences and entrepreneurial journey of the most successful women entrepreneurs from different parts of the world as well as for discussing the best practices and innovation in entrepreneurship with international experts.
About Soil Formation
- Soil can be created over time, as dead things break down and contribute energy and nutrients to an ecosystem based on the underlying rock.
- Soil is the thin layer of material covering the earth’s surface and is formed from the weathering of rocks. It is made up mainly of mineral particles, organic materials, air, water and living organisms—all of which interact slowly yet constantly.
- Most plants get their nutrients from the soil and they are the main source of food for humans, animals and birds. Therefore, most living things on land depend on soil for their existence.
- Physical weathering—breakdown of rocks from the result of a mechanical action. Temperature changes, abrasion (when rocks collide with each other) or frost can all cause rocks to break down.
- Chemical weathering—breakdown of rocks through a change in their chemical makeup. This can happen when the minerals within rocks react with water, air or other chemicals.
- Biological weathering—the breakdown of rocks by living things. Burrowing animals help water and air get into rock, and plant roots can grow into cracks in the rock, making it split.
- Instead of nourishing crops, fertile topsoil is ending up in inconvenient places such as ditches, reservoirs and the ocean.
- Soil erodes 10–30 times faster than it is produced. Globally, erosion reduces annual crop yields by 0.3%. At that rate, 10% of production could be lost by 2050.
- Soil erosion has led to increased pollution and sedimentation in streams and rivers, clogging these waterways and causing declines in fish and other species. Degraded lands are often less able to hold onto water, which can worsen flooding.
- Increasing pH level of soil also hampers soil fertility.
- Other factors are monocropping, increasing soil salinity and acidity.
- Anthropogenic factors such as grazing, excessive use of chemical fertilisers, etc.
- Improper and inadequate Solid Waste Management Techniques.
- The production of more than 95% of the food we eat relies on soil, a heady mix of rock particles, decaying organic matter, roots, fungi and microorganisms.
- Advancing food security and environmental sustainability in farming systems requires an integrated soil fertility management approach that maximizes crop production while minimizing the mining of soil nutrient reserves and the degradation of the physical and chemical properties of soil that can lead to land degradation, including soil erosion.
- Healthy soils are essential for healthy plant growth, human nutrition, and water filtration. Healthy soil supports a landscape that is more resilient to the impacts of drought, flood, or fire.
- Soil helps to regulate the Earth’s climate and stores more carbon than all of the world’s forests combined. Healthy soils are fundamental to our survival.
- There is need of improving holding capacity through planting diverse crops in rotation.
- Increasing organic content with additions such as compost and biochar.
- Reducing the erosional effects of water and wind by reshaping the land with contouring, terraces, windbreaks and the like and ploughing as little as possible.
- Farming needs is a top-down overhaul with proposed discounts on crop-insurance premiums for farmers who increase the carbon in their soil.
- Governments must pay farmers to build soil. In the United States, farmers can apply for funding for anti-erosion improvements through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, run by the Department of Agriculture.
- Around the world, many farmers depend on subsidies, drought relief and payments from piecemeal schemes to conserve soil and nature. Such programmes — currently small-scale, ad hoc fixes for a broken system — should be the core of the agricultural sector.
- Soil fertility can be further improved by incorporating cover crops that add organic matter to the soil, which leads to improved soil structure and promotes a healthy, fertile soil; by using green manure or growing legumes to fix nitrogen from the air through the process of biological nitrogen fixation; by micro-dose fertilizer applications, to replenish losses through plant uptake and other processes; and by minimizing losses through leaching below the crop rooting zone by improved water and nutrient application.
- Biofertilizers such as Rhizobium, Azotobacter, Azospirillum, Pseudomonas and Bacillus have invaluable use in sustainable agriculture owing to their environmentally-friendliness, cost-effectiveness and improved productivity benefits. They improve plant nutrition and yield through biological nitrogen fixation, nutrient solubilization, biocontrol activities and production of plant growth promoting substances.
- Adoption of methods such as Organic farming, zero tillage, bundling of soil, multiple cropping, inter-cropping, terrace farming, contour farming, etc.
- Adoption new methods of irrigation such as sprinkler and drip irrigation techniques, etc.
- Sustainable land use can help to reduce the impacts of agriculture and livestock, preventing soil degradation and erosion and the loss of valuable land to desertification.
- A soil test is an easy and inexpensive way to determine your soil’s level of nutrients, pH, and organic matter. Testing your soil is an essential step for a natural approach to lawn care.
- Our land, our fresh water, our biodiversity and our soil are too precious to be destroyed by the market price of commodity grains and other foodstuffs. We must invest deeply and thoughtfully in our farmers so that they can invest deeply and thoughtfully in the land, becoming holistic landscape-management professionals. This is the future of farming.
- Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, there has been international condemnation of Russia’s actions. While all of Europe and the U.S., as well as a large number of other countries including Japan and Australia, directly condemned Moscow and imposed multiple sanctions, India has not called out Russia by name for its actions.
- In a U.N. Security Council vote on the Russian invasion, India along with China and United Arab Emirates abstained from the vote.
- India’s comments on building global order on the U.N. Charter and respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states clearly targeting Russia.
- India is concerned of the safety and security of Indian nationals, including a large number of Indian students, who are still stranded in Ukraine and the ensuing humanitarian crisis.
- India has also dispatched humanitarian assistance including medicines and medical equipment to Ukraine and asserted that the differences can only be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy.
- The differing statements put out following the Quad summit suggest that there are significant disagreements between India and its three Quad partners.
- The joint statement as well as the individual statements from the three other Quad members appear to suggest that Ukraine was the focus of the recent meeting, and the individual statements condemned the Russian invasion in strong words.
- On the positive side, there appears to be some understanding of India’s difficulties with regard to the current Ukraine crisis. If India is not mentioning names doesn’t mean that it is favouring Russia.
- It would be deeply short-sighted for the United States to harm its relationship with India over what is occurring in Ukraine.
- Clearly, there are differences and disagreements but it is also evident that India and the Quad partners are also willing to work together to resolve these differences.
- The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD) is a strategic security dialogue between the United States, India, Japan and Australia that is maintained by talks between member countries.
- The Quad has come a long way from being an ad hoc grouping to coordinate their relief efforts in the aftermath of the 2004 Tsunami, to now becoming a major geopolitical factor that is bound to influence the strategic balances of the Indo-Pacific region in the 21st century.
- Although Quad 1.0 had a short existence due to the geopolitics of the time, it strongly influenced the bilateral and trilateral engagements that took place among the four nations thereafter.
- By 2017, as the Indo-Pacific became the economic and strategic centre of gravity, the four nations once again regrouped for creating Quad 2.0. The subsequent press statements make it clear that cooperation in the areas of development, connectivity, good governance, regional security, non-proliferation, shared democratic values and maritime cooperation are likely to remain the recurring focal points of the Quad meetings.
- The dialogue was paralleled by joint military exercises of an unprecedented scale, titled Exercise Malabar. The diplomatic and military arrangement was widely viewed as a response to increased Chinese economic and military power, and the Chinese government responded to the Quadrilateral dialogue by issuing formal diplomatic protests to its members, calling it "Asian NATO".
- Ever since the term Indo-Pacific was mentioned in the works of the German strategic thinker Karl Haushofer in 1924, it has figured prominently in many subsequent works of literature focusing on the geopolitics of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
- The contours of the Indian-Pacific maritime space encompass both the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific along with its littoral regions that include East Africa, West, South and East Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania.
- This region has gained enormous strategic relevance due to the ensuing geopolitical factors post the Cold War, which include Asia’s rise as a global geo-economic centre of gravity with the maritime trade taking place in the Indo-Pacific becoming the lifeline of growing economies.
- This growing geostrategic significance of the Indo-Pacific has been accompanied by the hegemonic rise of an assertive China and the threat to the security of Sea Lanes of Communication (SLOC) emanating from both traditional and non-traditional sources.
- The origins of the Quad can be traced back to the 1991, suggested strategic cooperation between US and India to promote exchanges and explore areas of cooperation across the three services. But this inertia for defence cooperation between India and the West was subsequently disrupted by India’s testing of nuclear weapons in 1998, and the most adverse reactions ironically came from the other three Quad nations.
- The 2004 Tsunami brought the four Quad nations together for cooperation in the subsequent Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) operations conducted across the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). This cataclysmic event marked the beginning of Quad 1.0 that created a maritime construct between India, Japan, Australia and the US.
- Even post tsunami, this maritime construct was retained in the bilateral and multilateral engagements between the four nations. But factors like the US preoccupation in Iraq and Afghanistan, change of government in Japan, India seeking China’s support in its bid for Nuclear Suppliers Group and the election of Kevin Rudd in Australia as its Prime Minister led to the disbandment of Quad 1.0.
- The geopolitical developments in the Indo-Pacific region between 2007 and 2017 had a profound role in the resurrection of Quad. Before 2007 there was a raging debate among the international strategic community on whether China’s rise embodies benevolence or malevolence.
- But China’s territorial assertions in the South China Sea (SCS) where it promulgated its territorial claims based on the controversial Nine-Dash Lines and its rejection of the 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) verdict revealed the malevolent undertones to China’s rise.
- The subsequent militarization of SCS accompanied by the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) coercion against the smaller ASEAN nations showed China’s disdain for the rules-based international order. This coupled with the strategic narrative of a ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’ championed by the four Quad Nations gave impetus to the formation of Quad 2.0.
- The scope of Quad is defined by both aspects of axiom and conundrum which is reflected through the perspectives of the individual Quad nations on the evolving geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific.
- The axiom is denoted through the shared perspective of the four Quad nations that refutes the description of the grouping as an alliance or as an ‘Asian NATO’, but as a value-based partnership with a shared vision for a ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’ and promotion of rules-based international order. Shared values on democracy, connectivity and regional stability are other binding factors that define the strategic convergences of the Quad nations.
- On the other hand, the elements of conundrum are reflected through the divergent interests among the Quad nations, the perception of the grouping by some observers as Cold War redux to blindly counter China and the absence of an institutional framework that contributes to the uncertainty in the sustenance of Quad.
- These axioms and conundrums are reflected in the joint statements that have been issued since 2017 and the nomenclatures that are mentioned in those statements which indicate both the convergence and the divergence amongst the Quad members.
- Vaccine Production:
- The partnership for responding towards the COVID-19 pandemic marked a historic new focus area for the Quad. The Quad Vaccine Experts Group has been established for building strong cooperation to support the Indo-Pacific Health Security and improving the region’s COVID-19 response capability.
- This reinforced the shared diplomatic commitment of the Quad nations towards mitigating the effects of the pandemic in the region through the production of safe, effective and affordable vaccines.
- The Quad has pledged to donate more than 1.2 billion doses of vaccines, of which 79 million doses have already been successfully donated across the Indo-Pacific as of September 2021.
- Climate Change:
- The Quad nations have pledged to work together to tackle the effects of climate change. The Quad Climate Working Group focuses on three thematic areas of climate ambition, which are: limiting the rise of temperature to 1.50 C as agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement, clean-energy innovation for achieving sectoral decarbonization efforts and climate adaptation by the development of disaster-resilient infrastructure and climate information systems.
- Critical Emerging Technologies:
- Enhancing cooperation in cyberspace for combating cyber threats and securing the critical infrastructure of the Quad nations, is the central idea of the Quad Critical and Emerging Technology Working Group.
- It has been set up to identify new collaboration opportunities in space technology for sharing satellite data for peaceful purposes like monitoring climate change, coordinating disaster response and facilitating sustainable exploitation of marine resources.
- Inclusion of the Quad into the Blue Dot Network (BDN), which was earlier an exclusive Indo-Pacific initiative between the US, Australia and Japan for improving the standards of infrastructure investment in the region.
- Support to Regional and Sub-Regional Mechanisms:
- The Quad’s commitment for supporting both regional and sub-regional mechanisms including the Mekong sub-region’s efforts to address regional challenges on maritime security, HADR operations, cyber security, disinformation and terrorism.
- The Quad nations have pledged to work towards shared projects and partnership that goes beyond the traditional ambit of security and is deemed necessary for achieving regional stability and prosperity in order to secure the region’s political and economic future.
- Focus on ASEAN Centrality:
- Quad’s unwavering support for ASEAN unity and centrality in the Indo-Pacific region and its commitment towards the practical implementation of ASEAN’s outlook on the Indo-Pacific.
- This outlook for the Indo-Pacific includes the commitment towards strengthening openness, transparency, inclusivity, rules-based order, good governance, respect for sovereignty, non-intervention and adherence to the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) and other international and regional treaties.
- Capacity Building and Technical Assistance:
- Quad’s determination to deepen its engagement with regional partners for providing capacity-building and technical assistance for countering cyber and information threats. The need to build resilience for countering disinformation which can be interpreted as a subtle hint to China and Russia for their alleged use of social media for manipulation.
- Also, these measures are to assist regional partners across the Indo-Pacific in addressing the growing threat of ransomware by building a resilient cyber security framework. The statement also endorses the implementation of the UN Voluntary Framework for Responsible State Behaviour in Cyberspace for promoting international peace and stability in cyberspace.
- Maritime Security:
- There has been extensive focus on the issues pertaining to maritime security as the Quad recognises that international law, peace and security in the maritime domain underpins the development and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region.
- For this purpose, the Quad has expressed its determination to deepen its engagement for strengthening Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA), ensuring FoN and overflight, protecting SLOCs and combating Illegal Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing.
- Countering Terrorism:
- QUAD has categorically denounced the use of terrorist proxies for cross-border terrorism and advocated the elimination of safe havens for terrorists, disruption of the financial channel and the infrastructure support that sustains and enables the cross-border movement of terrorists.
- It has unequivocally called on all nations for ensuring that their territory is not used to launch terror attacks and to apprehend and persecute the perpetrators of such attacks. It condemned the 26/11 Mumbai and Pathankot terror attacks in India. The Quad reaffirmed UNSC Resolution 2593 that demanded the Afghan territory not to be used for terrorism-related activities.
- Countering Economic Coercion:
- The Quad opposed coercive economic policies and practices that run counter to free, open and economic practices. The Quad has pledged to work collectively to foster economic resilience against such actions.
- Although not explicitly stated, this aspect of the statement can be attributed to China’s alleged ‘Debt-Trap Diplomacy’. The statement’s denouncement of economic coercion is complementary to Quad’s fundamental commitment towards creating ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ that is devoid of all forms of coercion including economic, military and political.
- Institution-building is a process that takes considerable time as it involves extensive diplomatic engagements and the Quad has undergone this phase which will ultimately lead to greater institutionalization of the grouping. It must be noted that every mandate of Quad is complemented by the individual efforts of each of its members. The Quad as a value-based partnership must be able to persuade the ASEAN nations to partake in Quad’s vision for the Indo-Pacific region.
- The Joint Statement also indicates that the mandate of Quad is not to oppose any particular nation, but to holistically facilitate greater cooperation among the Quad members and the regional partners to address wide-ranging security issues emanating from both traditional and non-traditional sources. Overall, despite the evolving consensus and expanding cooperation, institutionalizing Quad still remains a work in progress. However, the Quad process is progressively shaping more like an axiom than a conundrum.
About the Discovery
- New data from Chandra’s Atmospheric Composition Explorer-2 (CHACE-2) mass spectrometer on Chandrayaan-2 show the distribution of Argon-40 gas in the lunar ‘exosphere’, beyond the areas this was known to exist.
- Though, Argon-40 (Ar-40) is known to exist in the lunar exosphere, the knowledge on its distribution at higher latitudes is lacking. For the first time, Chandra’s Atmospheric Composition Explorer-2 experiment aboard Chandrayaan-2 orbiter has continuously observed Ar-40 in latitude range of -60 to +60 degrees.
- The observed global distribution indicates that the interaction of Ar-40 with the surface is similar in low and mid latitude regions. The CHACE-2 observations hint at a requirement for improvement in our understanding of the surface-exosphere interactions and source distributions of Ar-40.
- Chandrayaan-2 mission is a highly complex mission, which represents a significant technological leap compared to the previous missions of ISRO, which brought together an Orbiter, Lander and Rover with the goal of exploring south pole of the Moon.
- This is a unique mission which aims at studying not just one area of the Moon but all the areas combining the exosphere, the surface as well as the sub-surface of the moon in a single mission.
- The Moon is the closest cosmic body at which space discovery can be attempted and documented. It is also a promising test bed to demonstrate technologies required for deep-space missions.
- Chandrayaan-2 aims for enhancing our understanding of the Moon, stimulate the advancement of technology, promote global alliances and inspire a future generation of explorers and scientists.
- Extensive mapping of lunar surface to study variations in lunar surface were essential to trace back the origin and evolution of the Moon. Evidence for water molecules discovered by Chandrayaan-1, required further studies on the extent of water molecule distribution on the surface, below the surface and in the tenuous lunar exosphere to address the origin of water on Moon.
- The Lunar South pole is especially interesting because of the lunar surface area that remains in shadow is much larger than that at the North Pole. There could be a possibility of presence of water in permanently shadowed areas around it. In addition, South Pole region has craters that are cold traps and contain a fossil record of the early Solar System.
- The main objective of Chandrayaan-2 mission was to demonstrate ISRO’s capability to make a soft landing on the moon. The mission had a lander and a rover component that were supposed to carry out a number of experiments on the lunar surface.
- However, due to technical glitches in the final moments ahead of the touchdown, the lander was unable to make a soft landing. Instead, it crash-landed and got destroyed.
- The Orbiter part of the Chandrayaan-2 mission, however, was unaffected, and is continuing to carry out its scientific experiments.
- The Orbiter is carrying eight instruments, including CHACE-2, for different kinds of measurements. These instruments have been sending a wealth of new information about the moon and its surroundings.
- To compensate for the failure of making a soft landing, the ISRO has prepared a Chandrayaan-3 mission.
- Chandrayaan-3 is a planned third lunar exploration mission by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
- Chandrayaan-3 will be a mission repeat of Chandrayaan-2 but will only include a lander and rover similar to that of Chandrayaan-2. It will not have an orbiter.
- The spacecraft is planned to be launched in August 2022. The rocket for the launch of the spacecraft was declared ready and awaits the module.
- The lander for Chandrayaan-3 will have only four throttle-able engines, unlike Vikram on Chandrayaan-2 which had five 800 Newtons engines with a fifth one being centrally mounted with a fixed thrust. Additionally, the Chandrayaan-3 lander will be equipped with a Laser Doppler Velocimeter (LDV).
- Chandrayaan-1, India's first deep space mission to Moon, was launched successfully on October 22, 2008 from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota.
- The spacecraft was orbiting around the Moon at a height of 100 km from the lunar surface for chemical, mineralogical and photo-geologic mapping of the Moon. The spacecraft carried 11 scientific instruments built in India, USA, UK, Germany, Sweden and Bulgaria.
- After the successful completion of all the major mission objectives, the orbit has been raised to 200 km during May 2009. The satellite made more than 3400 orbits around the moon and the mission was concluded when the communication with the spacecraft was lost on August 29, 2009.
- Scientific goals included the study of the chemical, mineralogical and photo geologic mapping of the Moon. In addition to the five Indian instruments, the spacecraft carried scientific equipment from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, and Bulgaria.
- Chandrayaan-1’s most important finding was related to the question of water on the Moon. In September 2009, scientists published results of data collected by the American M3 instrument which had detected absorption features on the polar regions of the surface of the Moon usually linked to hydroxyl- and/ or water-bearing molecules.
Highlights of the Study
- Researchers warned that the results mean the Amazon could be approaching a so-called "tipping point" faster than previously understood.
- Analysing 25 years of satellite data, researchers measured for the first time the Amazon's resilience against shocks such as droughts and fires, a key indicator of overall health.
- This has declined across more than three-quarters of the Amazon basin, home to half the world's rainforest, they reported in Nature Climate Change.
- In areas hit hardest by destruction or drought, the forest's ability to bounce back was reduced by approximately half.
- Climate models have suggested that global heating – which has on average warmed Earth's surface 1.1 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels – could by itself push the Amazon past a point of no return into a far drier savannah-like state.
- If carbon pollution continues unabated, that scenario could be locked in by mid-century, according to some models.
- Besides the Amazon, ice sheets on Greenland and the West Antarctic, Siberian permafrost loaded with CO2 and methane, monsoon rains in South Asia, coral reef ecosystems, and the Atlantic Ocean current are all are vulnerable to tipping points that could radically alter the world as we know it.
- Deforestation in Brazil has surged 15-year high. Scientists reported recently that Brazil's rainforest – 60 percent of the Amazon basin's total – has shifted from a "sink" to a "source" of CO2, releasing 20 percent more of the greenhouse gas into the atmosphere over the last decade than it absorbed.
- Terrestrial ecosystems worldwide have been a crucial ally as the world struggles to curb CO2 emissions. Vegetation and soil globally have consistently absorbed about 30 percent of carbon pollution since 1960, even as emissions increased by half.
- The Amazon rainforest is the largest rainforest in the world, covering an area of 6,000,000 km2 (2,316,612.95 square miles). It represents over half of the planet's rainforests, and comprises the largest and most biodiverse tract of tropical rainforest in the world.
- This region includes territory belonging to nine nations. The majority of the forest is contained within Brazil, with 60%, followed by Peru with 13%, Colombia with 10%, and with minor amounts in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.
- The ever-growing human consumption and population is the biggest cause of forest destruction due to the vast amounts of resources, products, services we take from it.
- Logging is believed to be the second largest cause of deforestation. Timber companies cut down huge trees such as mahogany and teak and sell them to other countries to make furniture. Smaller trees are often used for the production of charcoal.
- The cattle sector of the Brazilian Amazon, incentivized by the international beef and leather trades, has been responsible for about 80% of all deforestation in the region, or about 14% of the world's total annual deforestation, making it the world's largest single driver of deforestation.
- The vast majority of agricultural activity resulting in deforestation was subsidized by government tax revenue.
- The forests are cut down to make way for vast plantations where products such as bananas, palm oil, pineapple, sugar cane, tea and coffee are grown. As with cattle ranching, the soil will not sustain crops for long, and after a few years the farmers have to cut down more rainforest for new plantations.
- The demand for minerals and metals such as oil, aluminium, copper, gold and diamonds mean that rainforests are destroyed to access the ground below. Poisonous chemicals are sometimes used to separate the waste from the minerals, for example mercury, which is used to separate gold from the soil and debris with which it is mixed.
- These chemicals often end up in rivers, polluting water supplies which local people depend on, killing fish and affecting the river's ecosystem.
- Rainforests are seriously affected by oil companies searching for new oil deposits. Once established, the oil pipelines which transport the oil sometimes rupture, spouting gallons of oil into the surrounding forest, killing wildlife and contaminating the water supplies of local villages.
- Dams built in rainforest areas often have a short life because the submerged forest gradually rots, making the reservoir water acidic, which eventually corrodes the dam turbines.
- The loss of trees leads to a declining of ecological resilience in the ecosystem of the Amazon rainforest. A 2022 paper indicates, that the Amazon rainforest may be nearing a tipping point of rainforest dieback. The dieback is defined as the point where rainforest will shift to savanna.
- Deforestation like other ecosystem destruction (such as peatbog degradation) can both reduce the carbon sink value of land while increasing emissions through wildfires, land-use change, and reduced ecosystem health, causing stress in normal carbon absorbing ecosystem process. Historically the Amazon Basin has been one of the largest sinks of CO2, absorbing 1/4 of terrestrial land captured carbon.
- Climate change impacts and human activities in the area – mainly wildfires, current land-use and deforestation – are causing a release of forcing agents that were found to likely result in a net warming effect overall as of 2021. Warming temperatures and changing weather also cause physiological responses in the forest preventing further absorption of CO2.
- The rainforest provides much of the rainfall in Brazil, even in areas far from it. Deforestation increased the impacts of the droughts of 2005, 2010, and 2015–2016.
- Increased temperatures in already hot locations may increase human mortality rates and electricity demands, reduce agricultural yields and water resources, and contribute to biodiversity collapse, particularly in tropical regions. Furthermore, local warming may cause shifts in species distributions, including for species involved in infectious disease transmissions.
- The native tribes of the Amazon have often been abused during the Amazon's deforestation. Loggers have killed natives and encroached onto their land. Many uncontacted peoples have come out of the jungles to mingle with mainstream society after threats from outsiders. Uncontacted peoples making first contact with outsiders are susceptible to diseases to which they have little immunity. Entire tribes can easily be decimated.
- To lessen future forest loss, we must increase and sustain the productivity of farms, pastures, plantations, and scrub-land in addition to restoring species and ecosystems to degraded habitats. By reducing wasteful land-use practices, consolidating gains on existing cleared lands, and improving already developed lands we can diminish the need to clear additional rainforest.
- Increasing productivity of cleared rainforest lands is possible using improved technology to generate higher yielding crops. Taking advantage of improved germplasm developed through careful selection can produce grasses and crops that will grow on degraded forest soils.
- Tracts of replanted forest may have ecological returns in addition to economic ones. In the short term, forests absorb large amounts of atmospheric carbon and the more trees that are replanted, the more atmospheric carbon will be sequestered.
- Replanting and rehabilitating secondary forests around the world have tremendous potential for offsetting greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, rehabilitated forest lands can attract ecotourists and sustain some native forest wildlife.
- The extension of protection to critically important habitats within the Amazon region is key to maximizing survival of biodiversity in Brazil.
- prioritizing areas for protection -- i.e., focusing on biological hotspots
- ensuring sufficient enforcement agencies and funding exist for the maintenance of protected areas
- encouraging the involvement of locals -- the fate of protected areas rests largely in the hands of local people and only by improving their living condition can we expect conservation efforts to be successful.
- Perhaps the best way to address deforestation in Brazil is developing a new conservation policy based on the principle of sustainable use and development of rainforests. "Sustainable development" should consider an underlying philosophy to be applied via policy to various agents and industries involved in the use and development of rainforest lands and resources.
- Through agroforestry, polycultural fields, and floodplain orchards outright destruction of rainforests can be avoided, while improving economic efficiency and providing a source of income for rural poor.
- Restrict the trade of certain rainforest tree species. In 2002, CITES did just that with mahogany, but Brazil still has a way to go in terms of enforcing existing forestry laws governing the extraction of certain tree species. Native Amazonians still face violent encroachment by illegal loggers seeking mahogany.
- By ending subsidies for saw mills and road construction, logging of tropical rainforests will become more accurately reflect the true costs of harvesting.
- Use reduced impact logging. Reduced impact logging practices including:
- cutting climbers and lianas well prior to felling;
- directional tree felling to inflict the smallest impact on the surrounding forest;
- establishing stream buffer zones and watershed protection areas;
- using improved technologies to reduce damage to the soil cause by log extraction;
- careful planning to prevent excess roads which give access to transient settlers;
- reducing wood waste for cut areas (anywhere from 25-50% of the wood from a given cleared patch is wasted);
- limiting the gradient of roads to prevent excess erosion.
- Establish plantations on degraded lands. Forest plantations are essentially tree crops planted for the particular purpose of providing a specific source for wood products.
- Brazil is a land of remarkable beauty and unsurpassed biological diversity. For this reason, deforestation in the Amazon is especially troubling. While environmental losses and degradation of the rainforests have yet to reach the point of collapse, the continuing disappearance of wildlands and loss of its species is disheartening.
- Biodiversity is makes life on Earth livable for our species. By extinguishing hotbeds of biodiversity like the Amazon rainforest we are destroying a part of ourselves. Biodiversity will recover after humanity is gone, but in the meantime, the continuing loss of our fellow species will make Earth an awfully crowded, but lonely place.
- Past extinctions have shown it takes at least 5 million years to restore biodiversity to the level equal to that prior of the extinction event. Our actions today will determine whether Earth will be biologically impoverished for the 500 trillion or more humans that will inhabit the earth during that future period.
- The extinction event that is occurring as you read these words rivals the extinctions caused by natural disasters of global ice ages, planetary collisions, atmospheric poisoning, and variations in solar radiation. The difference is that this extinction was conceived by humans and subject to human decisions. We are the last, best hope for life as we prefer it on this planet.
About High Seas
- The terms international waters or trans-boundary waters apply where any of the following types of bodies of water (or their drainage basins) transcend international boundaries: oceans, large marine ecosystems, enclosed or semi-enclosed regional seas and estuaries, rivers, lakes, groundwater systems (aquifers), and wetlands.
- “International waters” is not a defined term in international law. It is an informal term, which most often refers to waters beyond the "territorial sea" of any country. In other words, "international waters" is often used as an informal synonym for the more formal term high seas or, in Latin, mare liberum (meaning free sea).
- International waters (high seas) do not belong to any state's jurisdiction, known under the doctrine of 'mare liberum'. States have the right to fishing, navigation, overflight, laying cables and pipelines, as well as scientific research.
- Ships sailing the high seas are generally under the jurisdiction of the flag state (if there is one); however, when a ship is involved in certain criminal acts, such as piracy, any nation can exercise jurisdiction under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction. International waters can be contrasted with internal waters, territorial waters and exclusive economic zones.
- UNCLOS also contains, in its part XII, special provisions for the protection of the marine environment, which, in certain cases, allow port States to exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction over foreign ships on the high seas if they violate international environmental rules (adopted by the IMO), such as the MARPOL Convention.
- The nations across the world are working on creating an international legally-binding treaty to manage shared marine biodiversity in the high seas.
- Until now, seafood supply chain companies have rarely offered positions on this issue. A coalition of retailers and suppliers, though usually market competitors, have joined forces to publish a joint position.
- The voice of the supply chain tends to focus on seafood matters rather than biodiversity, however all seafood is part of a wider ecosystem. The health of this ecosystem is integral to the sustainability of seafood for present and future generations.
- Under this joint position, nearly 50 supply chain companies, signatories recognise commercial fisheries as the largest direct driver of biodiversity decline in the high seas and call for the increased protection of these areas.
- They ask for governments to conclude a robust global treaty as soon as possible, including provision of marine protected areas. This is the first ever public effort by members of the seafood sector to contribute to the BBNJ process in the over 15 years of negotiations.
- The so-called high seas encompass all areas that lie beyond national waters - specifically, they are outside of the exclusive economic zone of any country, and equate to almost ½ of the Earth’s surface.
- The high seas are largely unexplored, vastly deep, and teeming with marine life. At the same time, they are under increasing threat from overfishing, mining, climate change, and pollution.
- Only around 1% are currently protected and - due to the lack of clear rules and effective enforcement that follows as well as persisting governance gaps - the high seas are notoriously difficult to manage and often subject to contention.
- Oceans — along with coastal people and marine species — are vulnerable, and good ocean governance is critical to protect these expanses from pollution, overfishing and climate change, to name just some of the threats.
- The high seas are important for international trade, fishing fleets, undersea telecommunications cables and are of commercial interest to mining companies. The high seas also host a wide array of ecosystems and species.
- Other multilateral, sector-based arrangements manage particularly complex resources. For example, regional fisheries management organizations bring nation states together to collaborate on monitoring and managing fish stocks, like tuna, that have large ranges and cross multiple borders and boundaries.
- A major focus of the treaty will be to agree a process to create marine protected areas (MPAs) — regions that are off-limits to at least some kinds of commercial activity. Established properly, MPAs can boost biodiversity in previously decimated regions.
- The fishes are diminishing at astonishing rates. The coral reefs, an indelible feature of the ocean is dying, driven to the brink by warmer, more acidic waters.
- Increased intensity of existing human activities; increases in maritime transportation, marine pollution, particularly from land-based sources, such as garbage, as well as traditional fishing techniques.
- Sustained demand for fish has accelerated fishing pressures and pushed fishing efforts into more extreme environments, such as the Southern Ocean, as well as into deeper waters.
- Heavy exploitation of valuable deep-sea species such as orange roughly and Patagonian toothfish (often sold as Chilean sea-bass) has meant that some stocks are on the verge of economic extinction before scientists have discovered much about them.
- Bottom trawling for stocks that spawn on seamount ecosystems can eliminate whole year groups as well as destroy the very sea-bed ecosystems that attract them.
- Warming of the oceans and rises in sea level prompted both by the resulting increases in volume and fed by melting glaciers and ice-caps have already attracted public attention. But, in addition the increased atmospheric carbon load – now estimated at about 380 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere – is already beginning to affect the ocean acidity levels.
- Over the last 200 years, the concentration of carbon dioxide has considerably risen and during this time, the pH of the surface waters of the ocean has fallen by 0.1pH units.
- Between 1.15 and 2.41 million tons of plastic enter the ocean every single year. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is a collection of rubbish in the Pacific Ocean is now three times the size of France. Animals can get tangled in the huge amount of plastic which litter the ocean, and the plastic smothers and destroys coral and sponges.
- As mounting pressures and impacts from human-induced climate change and biodiversity loss fundamentally alter the ocean, its sustainability is a matter of urgent priority for all.
- Competitors working together and taking ownership of social and environmental impacts makes it possible to achieve real, transformative change that no single group could achieve alone.
- As well as profitable seafood supply chains, the statement signatories want to source from healthy and sustainable fisheries, which are directly linked to a healthy marine ecosystem.
- This joint position demonstrates how the major companies are thinking about the bigger picture, stepping forward to make noise and calling on governments for action. Because after all, biodiversity is everyone’s business.
- The Convention on the High Seas is an international treaty which codifies the rules of international law relating to the high seas, otherwise known as international waters.
- The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is an international treaty which was adopted and signed in 1982.
- It replaced the four Geneva Conventions of April, 1958, which respectively concerned the territorial sea and the contiguous zone, the continental shelf, the high seas, fishing and conservation of living resources on the high seas.
- The Convention has created three new institutions on the international scene:
- the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea,
- the International Seabed Authority,
- the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.
- As of 2013, the treaty had been ratified by 63 states, including most NATO-bloc and Soviet-bloc nations but with the notable exceptions of most of the OPEC and Arab league nations like Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, as well as China, North Korea, and South Korea.
- The convention on the High Seas was superseded by the 1982 UNCLOS III, which introduced several new concepts to the law of maritime boundaries including Exclusive Economic Zones.
About Hot Spring
- A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth.
- The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by circulation through faults to hot rock deep in the Earth's crust. In either case, the ultimate source of the heat is radioactive decay of naturally occurring radioactive elements in the Earth's mantle, the layer beneath the crust.
- Hot spring water often contains large amounts of dissolved minerals. The chemistry of hot springs ranges from acid sulfate springs with a pH as low as 0.8, to alkaline chloride springs saturated with silica, to bicarbonate springs saturated with carbon dioxide and carbonate minerals. Some springs also contain abundant dissolved iron.
- The minerals brought to the surface in hot springs often feed communities of extremophiles, microorganisms adapted to extreme conditions, and it is possible that life on Earth had its origin in hot springs.
- Along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India in China, Indian Army has been given certain locations that its troops have to access to patrol the area under its control. These points are known as patrolling points, or PPs, and are decided by the China Study Group (CSG).
- CSG was set-up in 1976, when Indira Gandhi was the prime minister, and is the apex decision-making body on China.
- Barring certain areas, like Depsang Plains, these patrolling points are on the LAC, and troops access these points to assert their control over the territory. It is an important exercise since the boundary between India and China is not yet officially demarcated.
- PP15 and PP17A are two of the 65 patrolling points in Ladakh along the LAC. PP15 is located in an area known as the Hot Springs, while PP17A is near an area called the Gogra post.
- Both of these are close to the Chang Chenmo river in the Galwan sub-sector of the LAC in eastern Ladakh. While Hot Springs is just north of the Chang Chenmo river, Gogra Post is east of the point where the river takes a hairpin bend coming southeast from Galwan Valley and turning southwest.
- The area is north of the Karakoram Range of mountains, which lies north of the Pangong Tso lake, and south east of Galwan Valley, which became a major flashpoint and a violent faceoff in June 2020 had left 20 Indian and at least four Chinese troops dead.
- The area lies close to Kongka Pass, one of the main passes, which, according to China marks the boundary between India and China. India’s claim of the international boundary lies significantly east, as it includes the entire Aksai Chin area as well.
- During the official negotiations on the boundary between India and China in 1960, Yang Kung-su, who was the Tibet Bureau of Foreign Affairs in the Chinese Foreign Office, had stated that the Western Sector of the boundary “is divided into two portions, with Kongka Pass as the dividing point” and the portion “north of Kongka Pass is the boundary between Sinkiang (now Xinjiang) and Ladakh, and the portion south of it is that between Tibet and Ladakh”.
- Thus, Hot Springs and Gogra Post are close to the boundary between two of the most historically disturbed provinces of China.
- Both PP15 and PP17A are in an area where India and China largely agree on the alignment of the LAC, which comes southeast from Galwan Valley, turns down at Konga La and moves towards Ann Pass before reaching the north bank of Pangong Tso.
- China has a major post of the People’s Liberation Army a few km east of Kongka La, while Indian posts lie southwest of it.
- However, according to the official history of the 1962 war between India and China, the region is not identified as a major “launchpad” from where an offensive can be launched by either side.
- The official history notes that the Chinese had “succeeded in eliminating possible launch pads for any offensive against the Aksai Chin highway by eliminating DBO, Chushul and Demchok positions. It said that it “all the more strengthens the contention that Indians should have attempted to retain at least one jump off point: Chushul”.
- But the history notes that Hot Springs was an important post even during the 1962 conflict. In October 1962 there was a company strength at the Galwan Post, while three other posts—Hot springs, Nala Junction and Patrol Base—had strengths of a platoon.
- Hot Spring also served as the Company headquarter, and was shelled by the Chinese on October 21. Chinese troops had wanted to get behind Hot Spring, but were resisted at the Nala Junction.
About Nord Stream
- Nord Stream is a set of offshore natural gas pipelines in Europe, running under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany.
- It includes the two Nord Stream 1 pipelines running from Vyborg in north-western Russia near Finland and the two Nord Stream 2 pipelines running from Ust-Luga in north-western Russia near Estonia. Both sets of pipelines run to Lubmin in the North-eastern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
- Nord Stream 1 is owned and operated by Nord Stream AG, whose majority shareholder is the Russian state company Gazprom. Nord Stream 2 is owned and planned to be operated by Nord Stream 2 AG, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Gazprom.
- Nord Stream 2 is a 1,200km pipeline under the Baltic Sea, which will take gas from the Russian coast near St Petersburg to Lubmin in Germany.
- It cost €10bn (£8.4bn). The Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom put up half of the cost and western energy firms such as Shell and ENGIE of France are paying the rest.
- Nord Stream 2 runs parallel to an existing gas pipeline, Nord Stream, which has been working since 2011.
- Nord Stream 1 gave Nord Stream a total annual capacity of 55 billion m3 (1.9 trillion cu ft) of gas, and the construction of Nord Stream 2 would double this.
- The name "Nord Stream" occasionally refers to a wider pipeline network, including the feeding onshore pipeline in Russia, and further connections in Western Europe.
- Nord Stream also operates four pipeline facilities: landfalls in Russia and Germany where the offshore pipeline ties in to the onshore connecting pipelines; the Control Centre; as well as a fully independent Backup Control Centre.
- The Nord Stream pipeline crosses several countries' Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), including Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany, as well as the territorial waters of Russia, Germany and Denmark.
- The pipeline connects to the OPAL (Baltic Sea Pipeline) and NEL (North European Pipeline) in Germany and further connects with the European grid.
- The US and UK, along with Russia's neighbours Poland and Ukraine, strongly oppose Nord Stream 2.
- They fear that if were to start operating, it would give Russia even more of a stranglehold over gas supplies to Europe.
- In 2006, Russia shut off gas supplies going through Ukraine because of a financial quarrel between the two countries. It caused acute energy shortages during winter in central and eastern Europe.
- There are fears Russia might stop gas supplies in the future for political reasons.
- The US has tried to block Nord Stream 2 before, by imposing sanctions on companies involved in the project. However, it has only targeted Russian firms and not German ones, for fear of damaging diplomatic relations with Berlin.
- Russia is keen to boost supplies of gas to Europe from its vast fields in the west of the country.
- It wants an undersea pipeline to Europe, rather than relying on its land-based pipelines which go through Poland and Ukraine. These pipeline networks are aging and inefficient. Besides this, Poland and Ukraine charge high transit fees.
- Germany already imports 35% of the gas it needs from Russia and she thought Nord Stream 2 would be a way of getting much more Russian gas delivered directly to Germany.
- It would reduce Russia's dependence on the transit countries as for the first time it would link Russia directly to Western Europe.
- Russian and German officials have claimed that the pipeline leads to economic savings due to the elimination of transit fees (as transit countries would be bypassed), and a higher operating pressure of the offshore pipeline which leads to lower operating costs (by eliminating the necessity for expensive midway compressor stations).
- This pipeline, when completed, would guarantee Germany’s need for gas supplies with a relatively low price amidst the reduction of energy production in Europe. Russia is trying to diversify its Europe export options.
- Replacing coal with natural gas benefits the climate because, when burned, natural gas emits less carbon dioxide than coal.
- The Nord Stream projects have been fiercely opposed by the United States and Ukraine, as well as by other Central and Eastern European countries, because of concerns that the pipelines would increase Russia's influence in Europe, and because of the knock-on reduction of transit fees for use of the existing pipelines in Central and Eastern European countries.
- Swedish military experts and several politicians, including former Minister for Defence Mikael Odenberg, have stated that the pipeline may cause a security policy problem for Sweden. According to Odenberg, the pipeline motivates Russian navy presence in the Swedish economic zone and the Russians can use this for military intelligence should they want to.
- As the Nord Stream pipeline crosses the waterway to Polish ports in Szczecin and Swinoujscie, there were concerns that it will reduce the depth of the waterway leading to the ports.
- Before construction there were concerns that during construction the sea bed would be disturbed, dislodging World War II-era naval mines and toxic materials including mines, chemical waste, chemical munitions and other items dumped in the Baltic Sea in the past decades, and thereby toxic substances could surface from the seabed, damaging the Baltic's particularly sensitive ecosystem.
- The greatest environmental impact in connection with the pipeline results from the consumption of the transported gas, if it allows more imports to the EU. That would be in conflict with decarbonization efforts for climate protection. At a nominal capacity of 55 billion m3/a (1.9 trillion cu ft/a), each pipe pair can cause carbon emissions of 110 million tonnes CO2 annually.
- The impact on bird and marine life in the Baltic Sea is also a concern, as the Baltic Sea is recognized by the International Maritime Organization as a particularly sensitive sea area. The World-Wide Fund for Nature requested that countries party to the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (HELCOM) safeguard the Baltic marine habitats, which could be altered by the implementation of the Nord Stream project.
- Europe’s dependency on Germany in the energy sector could provide Moscow with the opportunity to interfere in European developments especially through hybrid war.
- The completion of Nord Stream 2 pipeline could pose an intelligence threat to the West as the infrastructure and pipes used under the sea could be exploited for intelligence gathering in the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea throughout the pipeline.
- Natural gas is a naturally occurring hydrocarbon gas mixture consisting of methane and commonly includes various amounts of other higher alkanes, and sometimes a small percentage of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, or helium.
- Natural gas is colorless and odorless, so a sulfur-smell (similar to rotten eggs) is usually added for early detection of leaks. Natural gas is formed when layers of decomposing plant and animal matter are exposed to intense heat and pressure under the surface of the Earth over millions of years.
- The energy that the plants originally obtained from the sun is stored in the form of chemical bonds in the gas. Natural gas is a fossil fuel.
- Natural gas is a non-renewable hydrocarbon used as a source of energy for heating, cooking, and electricity generation. It is also used as a fuel for vehicles and as a chemical feedstock in the manufacture of plastics and other commercially important organic chemicals.
- The extraction and consumption of natural gas is a major and growing driver of climate change. It is a potent greenhouse gas itself when released into the atmosphere, and creates carbon dioxide when burned.
- Natural gas can be efficiently burned to generate heat and electricity, emitting less waste and toxins at the point of use relative to other fossil and biomass fuels. However, gas venting and flaring, along with unintended fugitive emissions throughout the supply chain, can result in a similar carbon footprint overall.
- Natural gas is found in deep underground rock formations or associated with other hydrocarbon reservoirs in coal beds and as methane clathrates. Petroleum is another fossil fuel found close to and with natural gas.
- Most natural gas was created over time by two mechanisms: biogenic and thermogenic. Biogenic gas is created by methanogenic organisms in marshes, bogs, landfills, and shallow sediments. Deeper in the earth, at greater temperature and pressure, thermogenic gas is created from buried organic material.
- In petroleum production, gas is sometimes burned as flare gas. Before natural gas can be used as a fuel, most, but not all, must be processed to remove impurities, including water, to meet the specifications of marketable natural gas.
- The by-products of this processing include ethane, propane, butanes, pentanes, and higher molecular weight hydrocarbons, hydrogen sulfide (which may be converted into pure sulfur), carbon dioxide, water vapor, and sometimes helium and nitrogen.
- The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean, enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.
- The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 10°E to 30°E longitude. A marginal sea of the Atlantic, with limited water exchange between the two water bodies, the Baltic Sea drains through the Danish Straits into the Kattegat by way of the Oresund, Great Belt and Little Belt.
- It includes the Gulf of Bothnia, the Bay of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Riga and the Bay of Gdansk.
- The Baltic Sea is connected by artificial waterways to the White Sea via the White Sea-Baltic Canal and to the German Bight of the North Sea via the Kiel Canal.
POSTED ON 09-03-2022 BY ADMIN
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