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newsclips -- ARB Newsclips for February 10, 2015
Posted: 10 Feb 2015 15:22:01
ARB Newsclips for February 10, 2015. 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 Fresno hopes bikes will save students money and clean the air The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will help Fresno, Calif., plan a bike-share system to improve air quality and offer an inexpensive method of transportation as part of the Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities program. Besides Fresno, the program awarded grants to 21 other communities – including cities and towns in Mississippi, Texas, North Carolina and Florida – out of more than 100 applicants, to help them develop programs that address local needs. http://www.mercedsunstar.com/news/nation-world/national/article9287768.html Paris to ban the most polluting diesel vehicles by 2020 Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has presented a plan to ban most diesel vehicles from the city by 2020 in order to lower air pollution. By July, diesel buses and trucks will be banned during the daytime from entering the city but not from the ring road around Paris, Hidalgo explained Monday in a plan to members of the Paris Council. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_FRANCE_PARIS_BANNING_DIESEL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/paris-to-ban-the-most-polluting-diesel-vehicles-by-2020/2015/02/09/0fbd540c-b08c-11e4-bf39-5560f3918d4b_story.html CLIMATE CHANGE Senate Democrats unveil legislation to fight climate change With Gov. Jerry Brown pushing for further reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and other sweeping environmental goals in his fourth term, state Senate Democrats will unveil a package of clean energy and climate change legislation today. Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León will join senators Ben Hueso, D-San Diego, Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, and Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont, for the announcement at 1:30 p.m. on the east lawn of the Capitol. http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article9645650.html#storylink=cpy Obama Seeks $2 Billion in Private Dollars for Clean Energy President Barack Obama is setting a goal of raising $2 billion from the private sector for investments in clean energy. The White House says it's launching a Clean Energy Investment Initiative as part of the Obama administration's effort to address climate change. The Energy Department will solicit investments from philanthropists and investors concerned about climate change. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/02/10/us/politics/ap-us-obama-climate-change.html Turning Carbon Dioxide Into Rock, and Burying It In a cramped work trailer not far from Iceland’s largest geothermal power plant, a researcher pored over a box of core samples — cylinders of rock that a drilling rig had pulled from deep underground just a few minutes before. In a test that began in 2012, scientists had injected hundreds of tons of water and carbon dioxide gas 1,500 feet down into layers of porous basaltic rock, the product of ancient lava flows from the nearby Hengill volcano. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/10/science/burying-a-mountain-of-co2.html?_r=0 Fed Report: Time to Examine Purposely Cooling Planet Idea A federal science report says it is time to study and maybe even test the idea of cooling the Earth by injecting sulfur pollution high in the air to reflect the sun's heat. The idea was once considered fringe — to purposely re-engineering the planet's climate as a last ditch effort to battle global warming with an artificial cloud. No longer. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_CLIMATE_ENGINEERING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/02/10/science/ap-us-sci-climate-engineering.html http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-climate-technology-20150210-story.html Scientific Pros Weigh The Cons Of Messing With Earth's Thermostat Before anyone tries to cool the Earth with technologies that could counteract global warming, there needs to be a lot more research into the benefits and risks. That's the conclusion announced Tuesday by a scientific panel convened by the prestigious National Research Council to assess "climate geoengineering" — deliberate attempts to alter the global climate. http://www.capradio.org/news/npr/story?storyid=385065816 Climate Is Big Issue for Hispanics, and Personal Alfredo Padilla grew up in Texas as a migrant farmworker who followed the harvest with his parents to pick sugar beets in Minnesota each summer. He has not forgotten the aches of labor or how much the weather — too little rain, or too much — affected the family livelihood. Now an insurance lawyer in Carrizo Springs, Tex., he said he was concerned about global warming. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/10/us/politics/climate-change-is-of-growing-personal-concern-to-us-hispanics-poll-finds.html Save the trees: New campaign against deforestation launched Since the money raised by governments and corporations hasn't managed to halt the destruction of the world's rainforests — an area the size of Alabama or Greece is lost every year — a new U.S. campaign is now inviting individuals to chip in. The U.S. Agency for International Development and Code REDD, a California-based advocacy group, on Tuesday announced the launch of an online store for carbon offsets, certificates that will fund forest conservation projects in tropical countries. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_CLIMATE_FORESTS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/02/10/world/europe/ap-eu-climate-forests-.html http://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/Save-the-trees-New-campaign-against-6072733.php Panel Urges More Research on Geoengineering as a Tool Against Climate Change. With the planet facing potentially severe impacts from global warming in coming decades, a government-sponsored scientific panel on Tuesday called for more research on geoengineering — technologies to deliberately intervene in nature to counter climate change.The panel said the research could include small-scale outdoor experiments, which many scientists say are necessary to better understand whether and how geoengineering would work.Some environmental groups and others say that such projects could have unintended damaging effects, and could set society on an unstoppable path to full-scale deployment of the technologies. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/11/science/panel-urges-more-research-on-geoengineering-as-a-tool-against-climate-change.html DIESEL ACTIVITIES Aging and potentially dangerous school buses in the Valley Thousands of kids in the Central Valley are exposed to dangerous chemicals every morning as they ride school buses. Some are on buses that shouldn't even be on the road. That was the big surprise in an Action News investigation: Buses illegally taking kids to school. We collected information on more than 1100 school buses in the Valley. Hundreds are giving out dangerous pollution. Many might be even more dangerous. http://abc30.com/news/aging-and-potentially-dangerous-school-buses-in-the-valley/510888/ CARB Hosting Diesel Regulation and Compliance Event The California Air Resources Board is hosting its Diesel Truck Regulation Information Session and Conference in Los Angeles to inform fleets about current rules on diesel engines and explain how to maintain compliance. The event takes place on Feb. 24 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Los Angeles Trade Tech College near downtown Los Angeles. http://www.truckinginfo.com/news/story/2015/02/carb-hosting-diesel-regulation-and-compliance-event.aspx DROUGHT California drought: Northern California getting much more rain than Southern Lots of issues divide Southern and Northern California: The Dodgers vs. the Giants. Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley. Southern Californians say "the" before naming a freeway; northerners don't. Now, after this past weekend's soaking storms, there's a new difference emerging: the drought. http://www.mercurynews.com/drought/ci_27494057/california-drought-divide-emerging-northern-california-getting-much?source=rss FUELS A Biofuel Debate: Will Cutting Trees Cut Carbon? Does combating climate change require burning the world’s forests and crops for fuel? It certainly looks that way, judging from the aggressive mandates governments across the globe have set to incorporate bioenergy into their transportation fuels in the hope of limiting the world’s overwhelming dependence on gasoline and diesel to move people and goods. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/11/business/economy/a-biofuel-debate-will-cutting-trees-cut-carbon.html GREEN ENERGY California formally opens large solar plant One of the nation's largest solar projects was dedicated Monday in the Riverside County desert, as California rushes to expand its use of green power to meet the state's renewable energy requirements. The dedication of the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm comes about a month after Gov. Jerry Brown called on the state to increase renewable electricity use to 50 percent by 2030, up from the current goal of 33 percent by 2020. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SOLAR_PLANT_KICKOFF?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/article9594422.html California Utility Aims To Quadruple The State's EV Charging Stations Pacific Gas and Electric on Monday applied for regulatory approval to build and own 25,000 electric car charging stations, a proposal that would roughly quadruple the number of public charging stations in the state. The San Francisco-based utility wants to build those stations on commercial and public properties, including shopping centers and multi-family housing. The plan is to complete the build-out five years after gaining approval from the California Public Utilities Commission. http://www.forbes.com/sites/uciliawang/2015/02/09/california-utility-aims-to-quadruple-the-states-ev-charging-stations/ MISCELLANEOUS Peruvian Ice Cap Harbors Evidence of Conquistadors' Avarice After vanquishing the Inca Empire with superior weapons and a touch of treachery, the Spanish conquistadors sought to satisfy their lust for riches by forcing multitudes of native people to toil in silver mines in dire conditions that claimed many lives. http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2015/02/10/world/americas/10reuters-science-conquistadors.html New Roots for City Trees When Kemba Shakur lived in San Francisco's Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood as a young kid in the 1970s, the area was plagued by blight and violence. "It was like a warzone," recalled Shakur, who now lives in North Oakland. "I hated that place. It was scary and dangerous." When she returned decades later, she was stunned to see the improvements. http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/new-roots-for-city-trees/Content?oid=4185304 BLOGS In Geoengineering Study, Science Academy Sees Merit in CO2 Removal, Risk in Reflecting Sunlight Experts convened by the National Academy of Sciences have weighed in with valuable reports on the two main “geoengineering” strategies for countering global warming driving by the buildup of greenhouse gases: Climate Intervention: Carbon Dioxide Removal and Reliable Sequestration Climate Intervention: Reflecting Sunlight to Cool Earth The panels’ overarching bottom line is straightforward:There is no substitute for dramatic reductions in the emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases to mitigate the negative consequences of climate change, and concurrently to reduce ocean acidification. http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/10/in-geoengineering-study-science-academy-sees-merit-in-co2-removal-risk-in-reflecting-sunlight/?_r=0 It's Time to Fix the Climate -- Why Do We Delay? In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama said: "No challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change." Yet worsening climate data prove we're not doing enough. Why do we delay action? People are daunted by the gradual nature, incomprehensible consequences and global scope of the problem. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-moyer-phd/its-time-to-fix-the-climate-why-do-we-delay_b_6603254.html Worried You’re Breathing Polluted Air? There’s An App For That We have smartphone apps to tell us where our friends are checking in for drinks, the best restaurant within walking distance, and even the quickest route to the nearest bathroom. But did you ever expect you’d be checking your phone to figure out the best place to take a deep breath? http://magazine.good.is/articles/breezometer-air-quality-app California is in a drought emergency. Visit www.SaveOurH2O.org for water conservation tips.