"Campaign Against Climate Change" National Planning Meeting in Oxford Oct 1

I`m off to the national planning meeting of the campaign against climate change that is happening in oxford on Oct 1st. This site will be neglected for a whole 2-3 days as i do more practical things: basically making "Climate Change Action" a suitable title for this blog.

The Word is Not Enough. Action on the most urgent problem of our time is required, join the campaign.

http://campaigncc.org

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Campaign against Climate Change Aberdeen (Update)

I have just recieved an update on the plans of the Abdn Campaign against climate change.
The meeting on the 4th as previously noted will not be occuring.

"We have decided to ask everybody to go to the Friends of the Earth talk on 5th October, then (between 9pm and 9.30 pm) go to the pub (The Globe) together and go through - a film night - a public meeting, with prior stalls - set a date for a next meeting."

for more updates see 'comments' on this post.

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Climate Change-Facts and Impacts (Part 1 of 4)

Climate Change: Facts and Impacts

Ø Is it happening, is it human caused?

Human induced Climate Change is the more accurate of two terms, the other being Global Warming. The importance of this is that in a complex system such as earth’s atmosphere a general warming does not necessarily lead to warming everywhere, it leads to changes in climate throughout the world, a redistribution of an increased amount of energy in a far from uniform manner. The two primary questions you might ask about what I have just said are:

1. Do we know for sure that the climate is changing?

2. Couldn’t this be as a result of natural variation in the climate system?

Climate Change was in fact predicted back in 1894 by the famous Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius. The reason for this is that it was well known even back in 1894 that carbon dioxide is produced by burning fossil fuels and that it absorbs strongly in the infra red region of the spectrum, but allows visible light to pass through

There is a natural greenhouse effect caused by water in the atmosphere and natural levels of carbon dioxide, if it weren`t for this the planet would be far colder than it is today, and life would probably be impossible. We know the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere where stable at 270ppm for thousands of years before the industrial revoloution and they are now ate around 370ppm. The scope of the second question is therefore limited to quantification: is natural variation of a magnitude so great that the warming created by emissions of fossil fuel and deforestation derived carbon are not significant?.

The answer to this is no, we can distinguish a clear signal of human caused (anthropogenic) Climate Change for at least the last forty years, this is found across all climate models and is superbly illustrated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in there Third Assessment Report (TAR). On a planet entirely covered by solid ground the warming effects of carbon emissions would be felt very rapidly. Earth however is covered largely by water and there is therefore a lag before atmospheric warming is seen to the expected degree. This is why even if we stopped emitting carbon now, there would still be a significant further warming.

Ø There is some climate variability though, how much?

This question has two important parts which need addressing:

1. What are the timescales of natural variability and of what magnitude are these variations.

2. Abrupt climate change its dangerous to whether or not it is natural.

Human civilization has developed in a particularly stable climatic period, and we have benefited enormously from this fact. The figure below shows how the climate has varied over the past hundred and fifty years. Based on these historical temperature data and carbon dioxide concentrations models have been used to project forward the likely increases in temperature.

When compared to human lifetimes climate change tends to be relatively slow, the rate of the coming change is one of the most worrying things to many people, particularly ecologists and humanitarian charities who know that both ecosystems and human societies take time to adapt to change. The diagram below (fig.4) shows the relative stability of the climate system over the last ten thousand years.

You can just about see times such as the ‘medieval warm period’ that allowed the Vikings to colonise Greenland, and the ‘little ice age’ which drove them out, hitting Viking civilisation in general very hard. This leads on to the second point that needs addressing. What is shown on this diagram is the small magnitude variation within a ‘climatic mode’ that is still capable of brining down civilizations such as the Vikings, Assyrians, Maya and Anasazi. It is hoped however that this is the kind of climate change that we are going to see in the future, there will be a greater degree of warming than seen in the past ten thousand years but hopefully it will continue to be a linear process, a given amount more carbon dioxide producing a given rise in temperature. Unfortunately more extreme changes can occur.

The younger Dryas event is the most recent and best-studied example of abrupt, or non-linear, climate change. The details aren’t all known, but it is clear that the atmosphere/ocean system changed state in some dramatic way: a small variation became amplified. To clarify, a certain degree of Climate Change is happening and will continue, however there is potential for dramatic climate change of unknown severity to occur. Richard Alley is a paleo-climatologist from Penn State University, he studies ice-cores for information on past climate, and his team has found that:

“Sometimes a small push has caused the climate to change a little, but other times, a small push has knocked Earth’s climate system into a different mode of operation, brining new weather patterns to Earth in only a few years or decades”

(A push being any change; solar radiation, carbon dioxide, methane etc..)

How much are we ‘pushing’ the system, what are the observed and predicted changes in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere? The answer to this is that we are emitting carbon dioxide at an alarming and increasing rate and this may well continue without concerted global action by all countries, including the USA as the most polluting of all, on a per capita and absolute basis. For a comparison of carbon dioxide concentration over the last 160’000 years, look at the graph below.

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This is part 1 of 4 in a series of articles on climate change part 2 of 4 is here.

1. Basic Science of Climate Change.
2.Effects of Climate Change so Far.
3.Future impacts of Climate Change.
4. Level of emmisions reductions required.

The series a a whole can be downloaded in PDF fromat (5MB) or word format (10MB)
If you would like to synidicate the article you are free to, the word doc is available for this purpose, i would however appreciate it if you would inform me of this.

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Campaign Against Climate Change (Aberdeen)

Sep 21st was the first meeting for the Campaign Against Climate Change in Aberdeen. We met at Kings New Building in Old Aberdeen at 7:30, as we will for our next meeting on Oct 4th.

The meeting started with a talk by the organiser of the group (Almuth Ernsting) about hurricane Katrina, and more particularly about the link between abnormally high sea surface temperatures caused by climate change and the severity of hurricanes which are being formed.

The meeting then went on to discuss what we as a group where going to do locally, it was decided that we should carry out our first event in mid to late November so as to give us some 'material' we can use in a stall we intend to set up in central Aberdeen. We also decided to start making preparations for this stall, including eye catching posters and leaflets with further information about both climate change and what we as a group intend to do about it.

I`m off to the national planning meeting of the Campaign against Climate Change on the 1st Oct, in Oxford, and hopefully I will get some useful photos, audio/video there for our stall. Most importantly I will try and get one of the speakers to come and guest at our first event. The potential for making contact with other people from charities involved in the Stop Climate Chaos coalition is also high, I am keen that everyone in N.E Scotland who is working on climate change at least knows everyone else, cooperation is no small advantage in terms of organisation and awareness raising.

To stay up to date on this campaign and my articles on climate related issues:
Bookmark the site or subscribe to bloglines, alternatively, subscribe by e-mail or use the XML and Atom feeds.

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Climate Change: Facts and Impacts

For the last week I have been researching and writing an article on climate change. It turned into more of a report.

Download Here

Outline:

• IS IT HAPPENING IS IT HUMAN CAUSED?

1. Do we know for sure the climate is changing?
2. couldn't this be a resultof natural variation in the climate system?

• THERE IS SOME VARIABILITY THOUGH, HOW MUCH?

1. What are the time scales and magnitudes of natural variation?
2. Abrupt climate change, dangerous whatever it origin.
   

• WHAT ARE THE EXPECTED EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE?

1. What changes have we already observed?

A. Cryosphere
B. Oceans
C. Biosphere
D. Weather patterns

2. What changes are still to come?

A. Cryosphere
B. Oceans
C. Biosphere
D. Weather Patterns
E. Health

• WHAT IS THE MAXIMUM LEVEL OF CLIMATE CHANGE THAT WE AS A SOCIETY CAN TOLERATE?

• WHAT LEVEL OF CARBON DIOXIDE IN THE ATMOSPHERE DOES THIS EQUAL?

• HOW MUCH CARBON DIOXIDE PER YEAR CAN HUMAN SOCIETY EMIT IN ORDER NOT TO EXCEED THIS LEVEL?
  

• HOW MUCH CARBON DIOXIDE DOES THIS EQUATE TO PER PERSON PER YEAR?

http://www.filelodge.com/files/4643/Climate%20Change%201st%20Draft.pdf

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Limiting climate change at a 'safe' level: what will it take?

Some degree of climate change is inevitably, actually around 0.7 degrees of globally averaged warming has already occurred. Is there a level beyond which any further climate change becomes so damaging and dangerous that we should do all we can to avoid this happening? The answer to this last question is that for any level of change there will be problems, the pathway to achieving that change is also critical, however a change of less than two degrees has emerged as a 'line in the sand'.

I am currently working on two articles.

1. Under a framework of contraction and convergence (equal carbon emissions per person) what are the per-capita emissions that are permissible in the medium to long term in order for average warming to two degrees or less?

and

2. What are the likely consequences of climate change; so far, up to 2 degrees, and beyond?

Clearly an understanding of 2 is vital for 1. During my research for 1 I carried out a lot of research that encouraged me to write an article on the second question separately, so wide ranging and important are the issues.

Hopefully the first of these articles should be on http://climatechangeaction.blogspot.com within a couple of days. RSS feed, e-mail subscription and bloglines available, stay up to date!

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An Update

My next article is going to be about the basic science of climate change and the current thinking on how much carbon this would be equal to on a per capital annual basis. I will try to answer these questions, amongst others.
1. What causes global warming: how do we know the observed warming isn't a caused by natural effects?
2. How variable is climate usually and what impact will the predicted future climate change have on the planet and the people?
3. From a consideration of the impacts, what level of warming would be acceptable and how much carbon could we emit for a warming no greater than this to occur.
4. Given that we have this much carbon allowance between 6 billion people, what is a reasonable per capita level of emissions?
5. Following a framework of contraction and convergence, what does this suggest about the level of UK emissions cuts required?
6. How does this compare to the recommendations made by the RCEP and how does this 'stack up' against the UK governments commitment on carbon reductions?

This Article is going to be published on my blog, as always. I am however writing it as the result of a request by Ben from www.TheWatt.com I have also recently become a contributor to Radical Noesis so the article will be posted there. Finally it fits in nicely with my need for a presentation to give to MPs on the importance of action on climate change and will probably form the outline of that presentation.

RSS syndication, e-mail subscription and bloglines feed available: keep up to date with all the latest news.

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Energy efficiency vs small scale renewables.

Climate Change is the biggest challenge facing the world today. Civilization has developed in what is now recognised and an unusually stable climatic period. We may be about to change all that. The climate change when initially responding to changes in greenhouse gases does so in a fairly predictable manner, and the consequences of this alone will be devastating. More abrupt changes are however possible when the climate system changes state i.e ocean circulation patters change. The climate system has been described as a drunk: leave it alone and it is likely to gently wobble around but push it and you increase the likelihood that it will collapse. We are performing this experiment by releasing vast quantities of greenhouse gases, preeminent of which is carbon dioxide. The harder we push and the more sudden the jolt, the more likely the climate system is to change dramatically. Many people think we should stop pushing!

Govornments have responsibility to act, but so do individuals, what can we do? Many things: restrict the distance we travel, use energy efficient cars, and, importantly, reduce use of fossil fuel derived energy for running our homes.

In the domestic setting is it more cost effective to reduce energy usage or produce your own green energy? Unfortunately this question doesn't have a simple answer.

Case A When the 'domestic setting' is a yet to be built house there is great potential to save all the energy associated with heating. However the cost of several renewable energies is also reduced at this stage.
Case B When the 'domestic setting' is an already built house built up to modern building regulation standards the opportunities for energy efficiency improvements are significant but poor when compared to the opportunities for renwables.
Case C When the 'domestic setting' is an old house with little in the way of insulation there are often several cheap energy efficiency measures which are worth looking at.

Case A: The Details

The physical structure of a house has an impact on two main energy requirements, energy for heating (or cooling) spaces and energy for lighting. Energy for heat is by far the most significant of these requirements in most situations.

• In order to keep a property at a suitable temperature the design should consider the proportion of windows on the northern and the southern side of the building, it is advisable to glaze the southern side with 70% of the total glazing when in a cold environment. This maximises 'solar gain' and minimises energy losses.
• In hot areas it may be worthwhile considering 'thermal mass' i.e rock/concrete as a significant structural element it living areas. Thermal mass stores heat but also takes a long time to warm up: during the night the living areas have time to cool down so during the day much of the heat in the air is removed warming up the mass again. If any of you have ever been in a castle before then you will know they tend to remain just cool, roughly the same temperature at mid day as at mid night.

• More traditional methods of insulation have two important factors: thermal conductivity and air tightness. In new houses both of these are important but air-tightness is a particular feature of top-end eco-homes . Reducing the number of air changes per hour down to very low levels has enabled the design of buildings that need no heating, or only very occasional heating, even as far north as Norway and Sweden! One of the best ways to achieve this air tightness is through use of structurally integrated panels (SIP). This building method involves using a layer of insulating material sandwiched between two pieces of composite board and allows very tight sealing of these components to give a more or less air tight 3D jigsaw. These building if done correctly actually need a ventilation system to be included to remove stale air! This ventilation system can be fitted with a heat exchanger so that around 75% of the warmth in outgoing air is used to heats the incoming air.

• Preventing the usual types of heat loss through thermal conduction is relatively inexpensive whatever system of building is used. There are a wide variety of alternative insulation techniques such as using straw bales, wool or recycled news paper. All of these materials however require careful consideration and there use requires consideration at an early stage of the design process. In the UK the traditional form of insulation is mineral wool, increasingly a layer of sprayed cellulose is used, this having similar thermal properties. These materials if applied to sufficient depth (>300mm for a low carbon home) do provide a good level on insulation, this thickness insulation is however not possible in all areas of buildings. Several high performance alternatives exist, including foil backed PU, this can be used at a thickness of 100mm to give the same insulating properties as 250mm mineral wool. Particular attention has to be paid to dormer windows which are often poorly insulated due to the lack of space. A specific warning should be given with regards multi-foil insulation (typically 20mm thick with numerous layer of foil) don't use it! The national physical laboratory just revealed its performance is about a qaurter what is claimed! Use foil faced PU instead

.

This table gives the performance of insulating materials per thickness. Materials father to the left have lower energy losses per square meter of exposed surface at a given thickness. These are generic types of materials but catalogues usually give the proprietary names along with the material type, for example kingspan as both foil faced PU and PF products.

• The main types of renewables which can be installed at reduced cost during the construction phase are photovoltaics(PV) and ground heat. The reduced cost of installing PV is due to the fact that PV tiles can be used instead of regular tiles or slates. For this reason there is some gain from PVs as you need less regular building materials. Ground heat (as apposed to geothermal) is an increasingly common way of getting cool but not cold water out of the ground. During the winter at mid latitudes water used in households has to be heated from around 0 degrees celcius up to usable temperature. Ground heat utilises the fact that below about 1m in depth the ground is at a just about constant temperature all year round and therefore water has to be heated less. This system needs quite a bit of room and installation under the floor of buldings is ideal.

Case B: The Details

Modifications of buildings are expensive, alterations therefore have to have significant advantages over the status quo for them to be viable when compared to micro-generation. The main modifications which can be easily carried out on new buildings are 1.The fitting of a condensing boiler.2. Draught proofing 3.Increased loft insulation and 4. improved glazing (perticularly softwood argon filled low-emmisive glass double glazing).

Because of the limitations of affordable modifications in this case i will take this opportunity to give a rough guide to micro-generation. The suitability of these power sources varies enormously with site but one or other of them will be practicle for most sites.

• Solar Panels (provide hot water). The average UK emmits around 5tonnes of co2 per year. Of this around 27% is due to heating water. A typical solar panel system may aim to provide 60-70% of this hot water requirement. 100% of the hot water requirements in the summer but no more than about 25% in the winter. carbon resuctions are therefore 5 tonnes*0.27*0.65, giving an anuual saving of around 0.9 tonnes of carbon a year. The price of solar heating varies but is typically in the range of 2500-3500 pounds, in the UK grants of 400 pounds are available for these systems so the cost to the consumer is from 2100 pounds. Solar is currently the most affordable small scale renewable. In spain it has just become compulsory to install solar pannels on all new buildings, the carbon saving produced by this plan will be huge, bearing in mind the hundreds of thousands of new homes built each year. Two UK suppliers are Solar Twin and Genersys.

• Small Scale Wind (feeds directly into power supply, or used to heat water). Wind turbines intended for domestic use typically have a maximum rated value of 0.6 KW to 1.5 KW. The average UK home uses 3300KWh electricity a year (and a greater amount of gass for heating needs). Over a year these systems will generally generate as little as 800KWh and as much as 2500KWh, these values may however be radically imporved upon given an ideal location. Wind power on the west coast of scotland for example is likely to be by far the most affordable small scale renewable. The small units are designed to feed directly in to the power supply of the house, they provide the base load and less electricty is drawn from the grid. Larger units often have an optional heating element so the all the energy captured is utilised even if more energy is produced than immediately required by the household. Costs are fairly high, but significant grants are available.Two very competative systems are the 1Kw windsave and the 1.5 Kw Swift . Windsave have an agreement with scottish power that they will carry out installation. Another manufacturer that supplies 0.6 to 5kw turbines is proven energy.

These tables give a good guide to the amounts of energy that can be harnesed from affordable ammounts of wind power, 1-3Kw of gnerating capacity will generate from a qauter to a significant excess of power, depending largely on location.

• Photovoltaic (PV) is a new and still rapdily developing technology which faces significant economic problems in the UK but which has great potential in warm climates. A typical instalation would consist of two modules and produce a maximum of 2KW of power. A 2KWp system in the uk will produce atleast 1500KWhr (about half the average household consumption) and would save around 0.65Kg of carbon dioxide emmisions a year. In the lifetime of a solar cell (atleast 25 years) the saving would be more than 16 tonnes of carbon, from around 37'500 KWhr of electricity. Factors currently encouraging the uptake of PV include govornment grants of around 3500 pounds per KWp of installed capacity and the dramatic increases of oil prices (from 60 dollars a barrel when i started researching this article to around 70 now!). Like large scale wind which has reduced its prices per KWhr dramatically since the 1980s it is expexted that innovation and market scaling will cut prices drastically in the long term.

Case C: The Details

In old houses with poor insulation, and, of a design which dosent consider energy needs, the gains that can be made from energy efficency and renewables are largest of all. In this case i will focus on renovation.The cheapest gains are likely to come from improvements in energy efficency but investment in renwables is also required to reduce the carbon footprint of these buildings to sustainable levels.

• Energy efficency of households can be improved by changeing the appliances and heating systems being used. Use of A rated white goods and energy efficeint light bulbs are the first steps to be taken.
• More significant investment and savings can be made by using a A rated condensing boiler.
• In terms of reducing the requirement for heating the two biggest and least expensive gains can be made by increasing loft insulation and adding insulation to cavity walls. There are numerous types of cavity wall insulation that can be applied without major disruption to the house. Injected resins and foam beads are commonly used.
  
• Many old houses are single glazed and good qaulity double glazing achieves a U-Value of around 1.4 to 1.6 which compares favourably to 5.0 for single glazing. Secondary glazing, when appropriately fitted can be a cheaper option that results in similar improvements in energy efficiency.
• Somewhat suprisingly one of the best value investments in old houding stock is the purchase of a good central heating system which is easy to use and programable. Being able to set individual rooms at the desired temperature and at the desired times has been found to reduce the total amount of heating used drastically.
• Finally a bit of simple DIY is often very usefull, draught stripping and other improvments to air tightness can make an enormous difference to old houses.
  

As an example of what can be achieved Kirklees Metropolitain Council managed to upgrade 19 houses built in 1946 to a SAP (Standars Assesment Procedure) rating of 76 from 35 by simply installing a well insulated and efficient heating system with 3-4 sqaure meters of solar panels. This resulted in avergage yearly savings of 1.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

To conclude: there are many renewable energy options and they tend to be locations specific. Basic imporvements in energy efficency of old housing should however be the first consideration. The reason for bothering is Climate Change, many of the measures will have long terms of payback but increases in comfort levels are also important. According to the latest science we each have about half a tonne of carbon dioxide to emmit a year! The earth can remove around 3 billion tones from the atmosphere and there are six billion people on the plannet and rising. So the message is get on to it, do your bit renewables and energy efficency measures will be needed (if you still want your tv/pc/washing machine/dvd player/dish washer etc...) The tables below show how much the average UK household emits (various types of housing).

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Its time to put the 'Action' in 'Climate Change Action'

The following is part of my correspondence with Colin Forrest, a member of FOE in Dundee (Scotland). Its about time ordinary citizens started engaging with the politicians on Climate Change. Protest is important but active dialogue and building understanding is also crucial. I`m about to start living up to my responsibility as an environmentally aware citizen.

"I have attached a small report and a couple of research papers. I will send the powerpoint presentation in a separate e-mail in case its too big for your in box.

I live in Dundee, and I did a phase of speaking to politicians in Spring, as an independent- met some locally (in Tayside) and some at the Scottish parliament. Have just done another phase (probably met around 15 politicians during the summer) as a representative of Friends of the Earth Tayside, with some group members coming along. We have two more meetings in the pipeline; one with transport officials at the Scottish Executive in Edinburgh, and one with Forestry Commision people, possibly in Edinburgh or Perth. You can come along to these or any other ones we set up, if you want to get experience.

Or, if you would like to arrange a meeting, I, and possibly Sam from the FoE Tayside group, would be happy to come along and help. You could be a independent, or say that you were representing a group, if you are part of one, either way works.Ballater is a few miles north of the "official" Tayside boundary, but I think the local group would be OK if you wanted to join FoE Tayside.

If you look on the Westminister and Holyrood parliament websites you will find contact details for your local politicians. Phone them up, and you will get their assistant, ask for a meeting to discuss climate change (anything from a half to two hours). I think its best to set up meetings with members of each of the parties, (no political bias).

Tips ? Don't ask them questions, or you will get a load of waffle for most of the meeting. Take the lead and use a presentation or notes to structure your input.

Let them get involved in discussion and questions later in the meeting.

Be informative, objective, honest, present science and possible future scenarios graphically.

Try to quantify and give reliable estimates. "There is a massive potential for biodiesel in Scotland" does not add to a politician's understanding. "Using current set aside land and 10% of the arable crop area currently growing malting barley to grow rape seed for oil, could replace around 20% of Scotland's current domestic consumption of diesel." is more helpful, and may make the listener more able to consider other possibly more unfamiliar and unpalatable figures and analysis.

Know your material, but be honest if you don't know something..say you will get back to them with an answer."

If you want to get involved in campaigning on climate change then leave a message and we can work out some details.

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My London Trip and the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition

In an ideal world this post wouldn't exist, I would be posting a new article on the relative importance of design/energy efficiency vs micro generation. The world isn't perfect: I lost all my notes on energy efficiency and alternative power sources when I was down in London I also lost a book on micro-credit I bought from the IIED book shop (Damn that's annoying!). My books on energy efficiency and green building haven't arrived (almost as annoying). On the positive side I do have info on the prices of 1. Solar cells 2. Small scale wind 3. Solar panels 4. Heat exchange systems for cooling/heating with ground heat. I want my regular readers to find interesting articles here weekly basis so its worth subscribing/checking regularly. I will try an make the delay as short as possible, and I`m looking at my next article already so I can get the materials organised.

On the positive side I had a great time down at the launch of "Stop Climate Chaos". This is a campaign of unprecedented breadth, 17 organizations working together on Climate Change. Sign the petition: Tell Prime Minister Blair to Produce the action, he has the words but 'the Word is not enough'!

The launch was covered by numerous media sources including:
The (good old) guardian
The BBC
The Scotsman
Reuteurs
The breakthrough required however is that of large scale tabloid coverage, as these papers are the largest selling in the UK. We need climate change to bee a popularist issue with the same, or greater, level of public participation as the anti-Vietnam or anti-nuclear campaigns.

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