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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