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newsclips -- Newsclips for October 16-19, 2009.

Posted: 19 Oct 2009 11:11:45
California Air Resources Board News Clips for October 16-19,
2009. 

This is a service of the California Air Resources Board’s Office
of Communications.  You may need to sign in or register with
individual websites to view some of the following news articles.

Fiscal Impact Of State Climate Law Disputed. A local academic
has emerged as the leading source of dark forecasts in a
recession-fueled debate over whether California's war on global
warming will hurt or help its economy. Sanjay Varshney, dean of
the business school at California State University, Sacramento,
predicts dire consequences if the state moves forward with plans
to cut greenhouse gas emissions. His figures – dismissed by some
economists – have been cited by business groups and politicians
calling on the state to delay carrying out AB 32, the state's
landmark climate change law. Posted.
http://www.sacbee.com/capitolandcalifornia/story/2262347.html

Environmental Concerns Delay Solar Projects In California
Desert. Several companies seek to build renewable-energy
facilities on public land -- a goal backed by the White House --
but the slow permit process and fears over imperiled species have
hindered construction. Across the desert flatlands of
southeastern California, dozens of companies have flooded federal
offices with applications to place solar mirrors on more than a
million acres of public land. Posted.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-solar19-2009oct19,0,2039806,print.story

Another View: Failure To Agree Hurts Green Industry. Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger and the Democrats who control the Legislature have
plenty to disagree about. So it's a shame they can't even get
together on an important issue on which they say they agree.
California has long been a leader in pushing the electricity
industry to use renewable sources of energy to power the state's
grid. Current law calls for the utilities to use renewables for
20 percent of their electricity production by 2010. Posted.
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/opinions/ci_13589627

Energy Firms Are Split on Bill to Battle Climate Change.
Washington — As the Senate prepares to tackle global warming, the
nation’s energy producers, once united, are battling one another
over policy decisions worth hundreds of billions of dollars in
coming decades. Producers of natural gas are battling their
erstwhile allies, the oil companies. Electrical utilities are
fighting among themselves over the use of coal versus wind power
or other renewable energy. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/business/energy-environment/19fuel.html?_r=1&bl=&pagewanted=print

Local Assaults on the Global Climate Problem. New York — This
month, the mayor of Mesa, Arizona, a city of about 500,000
inhabitants in the American Southwest, became the 1,000th local
leader to sign on to a climate change agreement under the United
States Conference of Mayors. In signing the compact — initiated
in 2005 by Greg Nickels, the mayor of Seattle and the president
of the conference — local leaders commit to reducing their
cities’ carbon emissions in concert with the national goals laid
out by the Kyoto Protocol: a 7 percent reduction over 1990
emissions levels by 2012. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/business/energy-environment/19iht-green19.html?sq=environment&st=cse&scp=4&pagewanted=print

Mcdonnell Confronts Climate Change. Republican gubernatorial
candidate Robert F. McDonnell said Saturday he thinks the globe
is warming but wouldn't fix blame on man-made carbon emissions as
its cause. Posted.
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/18/climate-change-confronts-mcdonnell-after-rally/?feat=home_top5_commented


Climate Concerns Turn City's Smell Into Cash Cow. The smell of
manure hangs over Greeley as it has for half a century. These
days it's more than just a potent reminder of the region's
agricultural roots and the hundreds of thousands of cattle raised
on the city's outskirts. Posted.
http://www.modbee.com/2032/story/896916.html
http://www.contracostatimes.com/nation-world/ci_13584253

Pranksters Pose As U.S. Chamber, Unveil Climate 'About Face'. A
group masquerading as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a
statement proclaiming the business group's support for Senate
climate change legislation. The stunt -- which included a fake
press conference that was attended by about 20 reporters -- led
to news stories reporting that the chamber supported climate
legislation and also wanted it to include a carbon tax. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/print/2009/10/19/1

U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Backs Climate Change Bill. The U.S.
Chamber of Commerce said on Monday it will no longer opposes
climate change legislation, but wants the bill to include a
carbon tax. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/10/19/us/politics/politics-us-chamber-climate-legislation.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/19/AR2009101901259.html

Courts Follow Landmark 2nd Circuit Ruling With 2 GHG Decisions.
Less than a month after a federal appeals court in New York
issued a historic ruling regarding citizen and government
enforcement of greenhouse gas emissions, decisions in two similar
cases have come down. Their divergent results could have
immediate implications for future climate change lawsuits." We
now have rulings out of the 2nd Circuit and the 5th Circuit that,
together, represent mounting legal authority that the
Constitution is not a barrier to climate tort litigation," said
Bruce Myers, a senior attorney with the Environmental Law
Institute. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/print/2009/10/19/2

Boston Globe: An Ambitious Climate Bill. The highly anticipated
Senate climate-change bill sponsored by Sens. John Kerry and
Barbara Boxer makes noteworthy improvements on the similar bill
passed by the House last summer. Posted.
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20091018/OPINION/910169907 

Beijing Sees Clearer Skies, But Much Room To Improve. Beijing's
air quality is beginning to show signs of improvement after a
string of nearly perfect October days and reports that the city
has greatly reduced the number of days with dangerously high
pollutants. Through September, the government counted 221
"blue-sky days" in which the 0-to-500 pollution index was below
101, the highest number since daily measurements were first
published in 1998. At the same time, the city said it has
recorded only 2 days with elevated pollution levels, the lowest
number in a decade and 17 fewer than were recorded in 2000.
Posted. http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/print/2009/10/19/21

GUEST OPINION: Combatting Greenhouse Gases. It’s easy for
community leaders to join the fight against climate change. It’s
much more difficult for us to take the actions necessary to make
real differences. Example: In 2005, Sonoma County and all nine
cities in its borders adopted resolutions that set goals to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 25 percent below 1990 levels
by 2015. Posted.
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20091019/OPINION/910169913 

Beijing’s Air Is Cleaner, but Far From Clean. This city’s
network of arterials, five ring roads that are fed by nine more
freeways, is barely two decades old, but it is already sclerotic.
Roughly four million vehicles clog Beijing roads, seven times the
number about 15 years ago. On any given day, another 1,500 new
vehicles join the crush. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/world/asia/17beijing.html 

'Green Energy' Will Destroy More Jobs Than It Creates. Don't let
the hype about "green jobs" fool you. The global warming bill
approved earlier this year by the House of Representatives would
destroy far more jobs than it could ever possibly create. Posted.
http://www.modbee.com/opinion/national/story/897765.html 

Another View: Failure To Agree Hurts Green Industry. Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger and the Democrats who control the Legislature have
plenty to disagree about. So it's a shame they can't even get
together on an important issue on which they say they agree.
Posted. http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/opinions/ci_13589627 

New Program Aims To Encourage Weatherization Of Homes. The White
House Monday will release a plan to remove some of the obstacles
that prevent middle-class Americans from getting energy audits
and making their homes more energy-efficient. America’s nearly
130 million homes generate about 20 percent of the nation's
emissions of carbon dioxide, the principal heat-trapping gas,
says a report being released Monday by the White House Council on
Environmental Quality and Vice President Joe Biden's Middle Class
Task Force. McClatchy obtained an early copy. Posted.
http://www.modbee.com/politics/story/898272.html 

New Plan Promotes Making Homes More Energy-Efficient. Washington
The White House today will release a plan to remove some of the
obstacles that prevent middle-class Americans from getting energy
audits and making their homes more energy-efficient. Posted.
http://headlines.ocregister.com/news/energy-47296-house-program.html

The Year Of Living Green. New York Colin Beavan sat under the
light of a single bulb, freaking out. Along with his wife and
young daughter, he had just spent a year trying to reduce the
family's environmental impact to almost zero. With a flip of a
switch, they had cut their Manhattan apartment off from the
electrical grid. They had stopped using anything disposable or
buying anything new. Posted.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/beavan-family-once-2608879-year-conlin

Rush To Comply With New Year's Ban On Dirty Trucks At Port of
Oakland. In mid-August Mamdoh Ibrahim was nervous but excited.
Since June, the trucker had been wading his way through the
application process to get a state grant to buy new air filters
for two big rigs his business uses to haul cargo to and from the
Port of Oakland. He wasn't through yet, but he had been assigned
a project number, which was a hopeful sign. Posted.
http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_13581934
http://www.contracostatimes.com/environment/ci_13581934

UK's Brown Urges Progress On Climate Pact. London—Failure to
strike a new global deal on reducing greenhouse emissions would
be catastrophic, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday,
urging other national leaders to attend this year's climate
summit in Denmark. Posted.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/nation-world/ci_13592983

VT Willow Harvest Promises Cheap Biomass Fuel. Middlebury,
Vt.—Middlebury College used to heat its buildings with oil, then
switched to wood chips. Now it has planted a sustainable and
relatively cheap fuel source—willow shrubs —that could help cut
demand on the state's forests. Posted.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/business/ci_13589688

Sunnyvale's Picarro Positioning Itself To Be Leader In
Monitoring Greenhouse Gases. From a nondescript strip mall in
Sunnyvale, a company called Picarro is positioning itself to be a
leader in greenhouse gas monitoring and reporting. With Congress
under pressure to act on global warming legislation before
December's United Nations climate change conference in
Copenhagen, there's a lot of talk about the emerging
"cap-and-trade" economy. Posted.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/technology/ci_13569519

Rising Seas Threaten Shanghai, Other Major Cities. Shanghai—This
city of 20 million rose from the sea and grew into a modern
showcase, with skyscrapers piercing the clouds, atop tidal flats
fed by the mighty Yangtze River. Now Shanghai's future depends on
finding ways to prevent the same waters from reclaiming it.
Posted. http://www.contracostatimes.com/nation-world/ci_13589710

NASA Flies Over Antarctica To Measure Icemelt. Above
Antarctica—Hoping to better understand how a melting Antarctica
could swamp the planet, a NASA plane outfitted with lasers and
ground-penetrating radar made its first flight over the icy
continent on Friday. Posted.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/nation-world/ci_13577749

Berlin Landmark Backdrop For Climate Protest.
Berlin—Environmental activists have hung a giant banner from a
prominent Berlin landmark, the Victory Column, urging Germany's
leader to take the lead in combatting climate change. A group of
Greenpeace activists descended on ropes from the landmark's
viewing platform to put in place the nearly 50-foot (15-meter)
banner Friday. Posted.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_13576487

US Seeks Tougher Protections For Polar Bear. Washington—With
global warming shrinking Arctic sea ice that polar bears depend
upon for survival, the United States is seeking to remove another
major threat: international trade in the bears' fur and other
parts. Posted.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/nation-world/ci_13577187

U.S., Britain Say Global Climate Deal Possible. London (Reuters)
- The world can still agree a deal in December to curb greenhouse
gas emissions and prepare for a warmer world, co-chairs of a
meeting of major polluters in London -- Britain and the United
States -- said on Sunday. Posted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/18/AR2009101800986.html

U.S. Hunters, Anglers Lobby For Climate Bill. Dallas/Washington
(Reuters) - An unlikely lobbying group is pressing the U.S.
Senate to curb greenhouse gas emissions: American hunting and
fishing groups who fear climate change will disrupt their sport.
Posted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/18/AR2009101800966.html

Republican Senator Says Open To U.S. Climate Bill. Washington
(Reuters) - A senior Republican in the United States Senate,
conservative Senator  Lisa Murkowski, said she would consider
voting for a "cap and trade" climate change bill Democrats are
pushing if it also contains a vigorous expansion of nuclear
energy and domestic oil drilling. Posted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/17/AR2009101700831.html

Maldives Sends Climate SOS With Undersea Cabinet. Male (Reuters)
- The Maldivian president and ministers held the world's first
underwater cabinet meeting on Saturday, in a symbolic cry for
help over rising sea levels that threaten the tropical
archipelago's existence. Posted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/17/AR2009101700571.html

BLOGS

State OKs basing car insurance on actual mileage driven.
California motorists will soon have the option of having their
auto insurance based on the actual miles they drive every year,
state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner announced today.
Posted.
http://ocbiz.freedomblogging.com/2009/10/16/state-oks-basing-car-insurance-on-actual-mileage-driven/15307/

Clashes and Arrests at Coal Plant Protest in England. Activists
in Europe are aggressively practicing civil disobedience, and
more, in their actions against the coal industry. In the latest
confrontation, police in the English county of Nottinghamshire
arrested more than 50 protesters at a coal-fired power station
over the weekend when scuffles broke out with climate
campaigners. Posted.
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/clashes-arrests-at-coal-plant-protest-in-england/?pagemode=print

Report Shows Hidden Costs of Energy. Most people can easily
quote the price of gasoline or how much they pay for their power
bills at home. But what’s the cost of energy production and
consumption on health? “Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced
Consequences of Energy Production and Use,” a new report from the
National Research Council, a branch of the National Academies,
attempts to put a dollar figure on what economists call
externalities. Posted.
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/report-shows-hidden-costs-of-energy/?pagemode=print

Carbon Capture Is "Essential" for Developing World, And Still a
Pipe Dream. Unproven and Expensive. Here's a climate conundrum.
Last week, the International Energy Agency said in a report (pdf)
that to avoid climate catastrophe, 2,000 carbon capture and
sequestration (CSS, or sometimes "clean coal") plants need to be
built in developing countries by 2050. And fortunately, it turns
out that China, the biggest coal burner, is a great place to bury
greenhouse gases. "Study Says China Is Ripe for Carbon Storage,"
is the headline of the Green Inc story.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/10/clean-coal-essential-developing-nations-untested-expensive.php?dcitc=th_

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