Cracks permeate the dried-out desert ground, the landscape bears testimony to the lack of water. But even here, where there are no lakes, rivers or groundwater, considerable quantities of water are stored in the air. In the Negev desert in Israel, for example, annual average relative air humidity is 64 percent – in every cubic meter of air there are 11.5 milliliters of water.

Research scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB in Stuttgart working in conjunction with their colleagues from the company Logos Innovationen have found a way of converting this air humidity autonomously and decentrally into drinkable water. “The process we have developed is based exclusively on renewable energy sources such as thermal solar collectors and photovoltaic cells, which makes this method completely energy-autonomous. It will therefore function in regions where there is no electrical infrastructure,” says Siegfried Egner, head of department at the IGB. The principle of the process is as follows: hygroscopic brine – saline solution which absorbs moisture – runs down a tower-shaped unit and absorbs water from the air. It is then sucked into a tank a few meters off the ground in which a vacuum prevails. Energy from solar collectors heats up the brine, which is diluted by the water it has absorbed.

Because of the vacuum, the boiling point of the liquid is lower than it would be under normal atmospheric pressure. This effect is known from the mountains: as the atmospheric pressure there is lower than in the valley, water boils at temperatures distinctly below 100 degrees Celsius. The evaporated, non-saline water is condensed and runs down through a completely filled tube in a controlled manner. The gravity of this water column continuously produces the vacuum and so a vacuum pump is not needed. The reconcentrated brine runs down the tower surface again to absorb moisture from the air.

“The concept is suitable for various sizes of installation. Single-person units and plants supplying water to entire hotels are conceivable,” says Egner. Prototypes have been built for both system components – air moisture absorption and vacuum evaporation – and the research scientists have already tested their interplay on a laboratory scale. In a further step the researchers intend to develop a demonstration facility.

California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown and 13 other attorneys general on Monday called on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to use the 1990 act. “It has a proven track record of effectively dealing with complex air pollution problems…and it has done so without harming the economy,” they wrote in a letter to the agency.

Using the Clean Air Act would likely be the fastest way for the United States to crack down on its global warming emissions. Barring that, it will be up to Congress to pass a new law to regulate climate-related pollution — an effort that will entail a lengthy political wrestling match. Last spring, the U.S. Senate failed to pass a bill, as industry lobbyists outfoxed environmentalists. “After eight years of foot-dragging, it is time for the EPA to reverse its shameful inaction on global warming,” said Brown, a likely gubernatorial candidate who has made global warming one of his signature issues.

The California Air Resources Board, which also signed the letter, is expected to adopt its own comprehensive plan next week for slashing the state’s planet-warming emissions — the first state to do so. If the EPA were to regulate global warming under the Clean Air Act, then California could apply for a waiver that would allow it and other states to adopt even stricter rules than the federal government might pass — an effort sure to rouse vigorous opposition from coal, cement and other heavily-polluting industries.

They urged governments and citizens to take steps now to avoid the most devastating consequences of global warming. The Union of Concerned Scientists presented a report detailing the disastrous consequences of climate change on the economy, tourism industry, coastline and agricultural production in nine states. The scientists said the goal of the assessment is to provide policymakers and business leaders with the best available science on which to base climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. “We’ve got a real problem when it comes to climate change — there is a clear and present danger,” New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine said before receiving the 145-page report, entitled “Confronting Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast.” It was compiled by 50 independent scientists from around the country.

The burning of fossil fuels, such as coal and gasoline, are a leading cause of the heating of the planet, known as global warming. In New Jersey and other states, the multi-billion-dollar coastal tourism industry will suffer from even a slight rise in sea level that will result from a global rise in temperatures, the scientists said. Less snowfall and more ice storms will adversely impact New Hampshire, Vermont and other states that draw winter tourists for skiing, snowmobiling and the like.

In New Jersey, two of the state’s premier crops, blueberries and cranberries, would be threatened if temperatures rise by as much as 14 degrees Fahrenheit by late century, as scientists predict if fossil fuels consumption continues to rise at current levels. Some impacts of global warming have already begun because of heat-trapping gases already in the environment. Some impacts are expected to happen whether or not anti-global warming strategies are adopted.

For example, Boston and Atlantic City, N.J., are projected to experience once-a-century flooding every year or two. Coastal flooding and erosion along the eastern seaboard is projected to occur regularly, costing billions. And, in Maine, Long Island Sound and other coastal regions, the lobster industry will be decimated by warmer sea waters, and cod are expected to disappear from those waters by the end of the century. The economic impacts of global warming extend to human health. With more days over 100 degrees, and more unhealthy air days, more people will suffer from asthma and other respiratory ailments, and more will require emergency care due to extreme heat, the report says. The allergy season will last longer, and more people will suffer more serious effects. Because many pests thrive in warmer, dirtier air, farmers may be forced to use more pesticides and herbicides to protect their crops.

The scientists encourage several mitigation and adaptation strategies. They include reducing reliance on fossil fuels, building environmentaly friendly buildings, retrofitting older structures with green materials and technologies, and developing wise transportation and land-use policies. On a personal level, residents can buy energy-efficient products; drive hybrid cars, take mass transit or use a bicycle; and not waste energy, the scientists suggested.

“We have so much to lose in our state if we don’t act,” said Environmental Commissioner Lisa Jackson. The report comes five days after Corzine signed a law ensuring that New Jersey would be a leader in the fight against global warming. His Global Warming Response Act requires the state to reduce global warming gases to 1990 levels by 2020, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below 2006 levels by 2050.

New Jersey became the third state behind California and Hawaii to enact a comprehensive global warming law. But, New Jersey is the first state to set global warming targets so far into the future, and the first to require that energy imports adhere to New Jersey’s standards. Corzine said such action is vital on the state level since the federal government has failed to act on global warming.

The methane emissions from both ends of cattle and sheep are causing so much concern in government that it has ordered researchers to find ways to cut down on the emissions from livestock, which account for about a quarter of the methane – a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful at driving global warming than carbon dioxide – pumped into the atmosphere in Britain. Each day every one of Britain’s 10 million cows pumps out an estimated 100-200 litres of methane.

This is the equivalent of up to 4,000 grams of carbon dioxide and compares with the 3,419g of carbon dioxide pumped out by a Land Rover Freelander on an average day’s drive of 33 miles. With the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation predicting that methane emissions from livestock could increase by as 60 per cent by 2030, the issue is being treated with some urgency.

Scientists attempting to find new foods for cattle have already exploded the myth that most bovine emissions come from the rear. They have found the majority come from belching. Attempts to find a diet for cattle that will result in less flatulence are being made by researchers as part of a government-backed project.

A study in New Zealand suggested that the methane output could be reduced by up to 50 per cent and small-scale research in Britain has found that “significant quantities” could be prevented from getting into the atmosphere. A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesman said: Recent research suggests that substantial methane reductions could be achieved by changes to feed regimes in farm animals. Improving the longevity of dairy cows may also result in decreased methane production as a result of a reduction in the total number of animals needed to produce the same quantity of milk.

He added that in the longer term the department was also looking at the feasibility of reducing methane from livestock by genetically engineering the digestive system. Sheep are now being sealed in polytunnels in field experiments to find out if the results of laboratory tests can be matched outdoors. They were chosen in place of cows because they are ruminant but more manageable for research. Mass spectrometers analyse the air in the polytunnels before the sheep eat and the fug afterwards when they have digested their food. The key to reducing the methane from livestock is, researchers believe, to make the diet of the cattle and sheep more easily digestible.

Michael Abberton, of the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research in Aberystwyth, said rye grass with a high sugar content, white clover and bird’s-foot trefoil, a traditional meadow flower also known as “bacon and eggs”, all show promise. “Contrary to popular myth the methane comes mainly from belching rather than from the other end,” he said yesterday. “We know the diet of the animal does have an impact on the methane emissions. There are a range of approaches we can take.

“We are, for example, working on high-sugar rye grasses which are designed to increase the effectiveness of the processes in the animal’s gut.”

Particular effort is being put into investigating how bird’s-foot trefoil can be made to grow more abundantly in pastureland as the tannin it contains is thought to be especially helpful in reducing emissions. The mechanisms within a ruminant’s stomach that produce methane are not fully understood, but the scientists believe that if they make the food more digestible it will reduce the quantity of methane produced by microbes in the gut.

High-sugar rye grass is already on the market, said Dr Abberton, and has improved milk and meat yield from cattle, but new strains of grass and clover are under development to make them more digestible to reduce the impact of livestock on climate change. The team of scientists, funded by Defra, believe that farmers will need to be shown additional advantages if they are to be persuaded to go to the expense of introducing new strains.

The £750,000 project, led by theUniversity of Wales, Aberystwyth, will run for three years and will also consider how emissions of another greenhouse gases, can be reduced in livestock. Agriculture accounts for 37 per cent of methane and 67 per cent of nitrous oxide emissions in Britain.

Global average air temperature near the Earth’s surface rose 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.3 ± 0.32 °F) during the past century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes, “most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations,” which leads to warming of the surface and lower atmosphere by increasing the greenhouse effect. Natural phenomena such as solar variation combined with volcanoes have probably had a small warming effect from pre-industrial times to 1950, but a small cooling effect since 1950. These basic conclusions have been endorsed by at least 30 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists is the only scientific society that rejects these conclusions, and a few individual scientists also disagree with parts of them.

Climate models referenced by the IPCC project that global surface temperatures are likely to increase by 1.1 to 6.4 °C (2.0 to 11.5 °F) between 1990 and 2100. The range of values reflects the use of differing scenarios of future greenhouse gas emissions and results of models with differences in climate sensitivity. Although most studies focus on the period up to 2100, warming and sea level rise are expected to continue for more than a millennium even if greenhouse gas levels are stabilized. This reflects the large heat capacity of the oceans.

An increase in global temperatures can in turn cause other changes, including sea level rise, and changes in the amount and pattern of precipitation. There may also be changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, though it is difficult to connect specific events to global warming. Other effects may include changes in agricultural yields, glacier retreat, reduced summer streamflows, species extinctions and increases in the ranges of disease vectors.

We call the result global warming, but it is causing a set of changes to the Earth’s climate, or long-term weather patterns, that varies from place to place. As the Earth spins each day, the new heat swirls with it, picking up moisture over the oceans, rising here, settling there. It’s changing the rhythms of climate that all living things have come to rely upon.

What will we do to slow this warming? How will we cope with the changes we’ve already set into motion? While we struggle to figure it all out, the face of the Earth as we know it-coasts, forests, farms and snow-capped mountains-hangs in the balance.