Professor Michael Molotar of Columbia University will discuss the United
Nations Convention on the Law
of the Sea. This complex international legal arrangement took decades
to develop, and was only finally ratified in 1994.Lectures week 3.
Tuesday:
Professor Michael Molotar of Columbia University will discuss the United
Nations Convention on the Law
of the Sea. This complex international legal arrangement took decades
to develop, and was only finally ratified in 1994.
Thursday:
Chapter 6 The Atmosphere will be discussed.
A major impact of society on the sea and the rest of the planet comes from
atmospheric gases mankind emits, causing changes in the heat balance. Carbon dioxide and
methane are important to the greenhouse effect. To some extent the planet
is self regulatory, but time constants for change are in the hundreds of
years. This makes it important for governments to take steps to regulate
themselves. The 1997 Third Conference of Parties to the Framework Convention
on Climate Change in Kyoto was one such effort. The US committed itself
to keeping its CO_2 emissions to 1990 levels, and to reduce emission of
all greenhouse gases by 7% by the year 2012. See the
glossary of global warming terms. Try looking up the term "global
warming potential". It turns out that methane is 21 times worse that
CO_2 per kilogram as an agent for global warming, and sulfer hexafloride
(SF_6) is 24,000 times worse. Another concern is the ozone
hole, caused by chemical substances such as chloroflorocarbons and methyl
bromide (an effective pesticide that will no longer be produced in the US
after the year 2000).