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newsclips -- ARB Newsclips for April 27, 2012.

Posted: 27 Apr 2012 13:08:33
ARB Newsclips for April 27, 2012. 

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.

AIR POLLUTION

Carbon Price Needed to Halt Warming, NASA Chief Says. Putting a
price on carbon is the world’s best hope at staving off runaway
global warming, said James Hansen, the top climate-change
scientist at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space
Administration. Carbon emitted from cars and factories will have
to be reduced by an average of 6 percent a year to stabilize
Earth’s climate by the end of the century, Hansen said late
yesterday in Vienna. Government subsidies to oil, gas and coal
companies, worth up to $500 billion worldwide each year, have
impeded the transition to alternative technologies, he said.
Posted.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2012-04-27/carbon-price-needed-to-halt-warming-nasa-chief-says.html

Sacramento drops a spot in smog ranking. It’s no secret that that
the air can be smoggy and unhealthy in Sacramento, so a new
ranking from the American Lung Association   shouldn’t come as a
surprise. The region ranks No. 6 in the nation for ozone
pollution or smog. The Lung Association’s annual “State of the
Air” report lists the cleanest and most polluted areas in the
country, and nine out of the top 10 are in California for ozone.
Six out of 10 are on the list for short-term particle pollution
and 5 out of 10 are top for annual particle pollution. Posted.
http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2012/04/27/sacramento-drops-a-spot-in-smog-ranking.html

CLIMATE CHANGE

Countries Losing Steam On Climate Change Initiatives. Energy
ministers from around the world met in London this week and got a
scolding. The International Energy Agency warned the ministers
that they are falling way behind in their efforts to wean the
world from dirty sources of energy. Nations are nowhere near
being on track to avert significant climate change in the coming
decades. It turns out that right now, just about everything is
conspiring to make it harder to clean up the world's energy
supply. Posted.
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/26/151456840/countries-losing-steam-on-climate-change-initiatives

'Warming hole' delayed climate change over eastern United States:
study. Climate scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering
and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have discovered that particulate
pollution in the late 20th century created a "warming hole" over
the eastern United States—that is, a cold patch where the effects
of global warming were temporarily obscured. While greenhouse
gases like carbon dioxide and methane warm the Earth's surface,
tiny particles in the air can have the reverse effect on regional
scales. Posted.
http://phys.org/news/2012-04-hole-climate-eastern-states.html

Support for AB 32 Does Not Mean Support for Higher Energy Costs!
Folks at the California Air Resources Board (CARB) are fond of
saying that with the defeat of Prop. 23 a few years ago voters
made it clear they supported the agency’s plan for implementation
of AB 32, the state’s global warming law. Under that presumption,
CARB has charged full speed ahead with the development of an
astonishing array of regulations designed to re-invent
California’s energy platform and reduce global warming, with an
equally astonishing price tag. Posted.
http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2012/04/support-for-ab-32-does-not-mean-support-for-higher-energy-costs/

VEHICLES

Assembly OKs bill allowing clean-air autos in car-pool lanes. A
bill that would prevent local transit agencies from tossing solo
drivers in zero- and low-emission vehicles out of some car-pool
lanes cleared the California Assembly on Thursday. The
legislation, authored by Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield (D-Woodland
Hills), would  allow cars with a Clean Air Vehicle Sticker free
access to carpool lanes that are converted to High Occupancy Toll
lanes. Posted.
http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-car-pool-permits-20120426,0,127701.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MoneyCompany+%28Money+%26+Company%29
http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-carpool-lanes-solo-20120427,0,4342710.story

eBay unveils website on green vehicles. San Jose-based eBay has
launched a website targeting motorists interested in
environmentally friendly vehicles. The eBay Green Driving site –
green.ebay.com/green-driving – offers information on numerous
hybrids, electric and alternative-fueled vehicles and their
environmental impact. Site features include federal fuel
mileage-comparison data on various models, fuel-saving driving
practices and links to green vehicles on the eBay Motors auto
sales site. Posted.
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/27/v-print/4446479/ebay-unveils-website-on-green.html

OPINIONS

Effects of Climate Change. To the Editor: “In Poll, Many Link
Weather Extremes to Climate Change” (news article, April 18)
drives home the important point that people increasingly
understand the link between climate change and extreme weather.
This is good news, as public perceptions are now moving closer to
the scientific consensus about climate change. The recently
released report on extreme weather by the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change reaffirms our understanding that carbon
pollution is likely responsible for heat waves and record-high
temperatures. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/26/opinion/effects-of-climate-change.html?scp=1&sq=climate%20change&st=Search&pagewanted=print

Collective, individual efforts needed to improve air quality.
Based on the grades the county has received from the American
Lung Association’s annual State of the Air report, there would
seem to be yet another reason to stay indoors this summer. The
county received a failing grade for its ozone, a “D” for its
24-hour particulate matter levels and a passing grade for its
annual particulate matter, according to the association’s report.
While the county’s rankings appear to paint a dismal picture of
the local air quality, one local official states much has been
done to improve the situation over the years. Posted.
http://www.ivpressonline.com/opinion/ivp-collective-individual-efforts-needed-to-improve-air-quality-20120427,0,1455738,print.story

Cupertino: Lehigh Cement teams with bio-tech company. Could
greenhouse gas emissions from the Lehigh Southwest Cement
facility be converted into usable products? It's possible,
according to a Sunnyvale-based biotech company. Lehigh Cement and
Oakbio Inc. of Sunnyvale are conducting research that both
parties hope can lead to a green partnership. Oakbio plans to
capture carbon dioxide from cement manufacturing and feed it to
handpicked microbes that researches say will produce byproducts
that can be sold commercially. Posted.
http://www.mercurynews.com/cupertino/ci_20492119/cupertino-lehigh-cement-teams-bio-tech-company

As We See It: Search for alternative to methyl bromide continues
unabated. It's a sad irony that for years growing a healthy
strawberry conventionally has required methyl bromide, a chemical
so harmful it has been banned by international treaty because it
is destroying the Earth's ozone layer. Another dose of irony: The
soil fumigant at first favored to replace methyl bromide, methyl
iodide, is perhaps even more despised, with studies linking it to
cancer, birth defects and other maladies, and now it has been
yanked from the U.S. market. Posted.
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/opinion/ci_20493143/we-see-it-search-alternative-methyl-bromide-continues

BLOGS

The EPA’s most important decision this year could be over...
vegetable oil? Okay, quick quiz: Which country is the world’s
third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after the United
States and China?  The answer, at least in some recent years, has
been Indonesia. That’s surprising. It’s not the world’s
third-largest economy. It’s not an industrial powerhouse. But
Indonesia has been clearing its vast rain forests and burning
through its peatlands of late, releasing huge stores of carbon
into the air. Posted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the-epas-most-important-decision-this-year-might-be-over-palm-oil/2012/04/27/gIQAn77LlT_blog.html

Ministers Wrap Up Clean Energy Meeting. Their work is not sexy
and generates little controversy or media coverage, but a group
of energy and environment ministers from 22 countries and the
European Union is claiming substantial progress in spreading
energy efficiency and more affordable energy around the globe.
The third session of the so-called Clean Energy Ministerial
concluded on Thursday in London with agreements to share
technology on energy-efficient appliances, to map the potential
for solar and wind energy…Posted.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/27/ministers-wrap-up-clean-energy-powwow/?ref=science

Natural Gas Is on a Roll, Executive Declares. A “perfect storm”
of economic and regulatory factors is driving major United States
utilities to rapidly switch from coal to natural gas as an
electric power source, the top executive of one of the nation’s
largest utilities said on Thursday. Bloomberg News Nicholas K.
Akins, chief executive of the Ohio-based utility AEP.  Nicholas
K. Akins, chief executive of Ohio-based AEP, said the company
plans to retire 5 of its 25 coal-burning plants and shut down
coal-powered units at other plants it owns in a shift that
collectively means the elimination of about 5,000 megawatts of
capacity. Posted.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/26/natural-gas-is-on-a-roll-executive-says/?pagemode=print

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