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newsclips -- Newsclips for December 23, 2009.
Posted: 23 Dec 2009 11:19:55
California Air Resources Board News Clips for December 23, 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. Sacramento Company Fined for Air Pollution Violations. The California Air Resources Board says it has fined General Produce Company of Sacramento $30,900 for reporting violations during 2006. General Produce failed to submit a one-time report for their transportation refrigeration units at their facility, as required by law, CARB says. Transportation refrigeration units or TRUs are refrigeration systems that are powered by diesel engines that control the environment of temperature-sensitive products in refrigerated trucks, trailers, railcars and shipping containers. Posted. http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=13945 E.U. Blames Others for ‘Great Failure’ on Climate. European Union leaders on Tuesday sought to deflect criticism that they had fumbled their strategy at the Copenhagen climate summit meeting, just as a feud between the British and the Chinese over whom to blame for the outcome worsened. Posted. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/world/europe/23iht-climate.html Copenhagen Climate Talks. Regarding the editorial “Beyond Copenhagen” ( Dec. 22), it is now crucial that the center of gravity of decision-making on how we respond to climate change moves toward the sub-national level. This will reinvigorate national leaders. Posted. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/opinion/24iht-edletters.html California Continues Forward as Climate Change Role Model for Country and World. As countries failed to reach a substantive climate change pact at Copenhagen last week, action at the subnational level has emerged as one of the likeliest paths toward significant climate action. Posted. http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/nation/california-continues-forward-as-climate-change-role-model-for-country-and-world West Bound And Down: New Year Brings New Reefer Reg In California. The California Air Resources Board begins enforcement of its new emissions rule for reefers on New Year’s Eve. CARB said enforcement of in-use performance standards will begin in January 2010 for all trucks with model year 2002 and older reefers. The state requires all in-state motor carriers to sign up with CARB’s TRU registry, and recommends TRUS based outside the state to register. California-based truck owners can register online through California’s Air Resources Board Equipment Registration (ARBER) system. Posted. http://www.landlinemag.com/todays_news/Daily/2009/Dec09/122109/122209-02.htm Editorial: Now He’s Worried? / Interest In Helping Small Businesses Overdue. As this page has long noted, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s goal of being revered as a global green giant has a potentially huge downside for California’s economy. The governor considers AB 32 – the landmark 2006 anti-global warming state law that forces increased use of cleaner but costlier forms of energy – his greatest achievement. Posted. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/dec/23/now-hes-worried-interest-helping-small-businesses-/ Editorial: For U.S., Leadership Role In Climate Talks Should Begin In Washington. The U.S. has to set a good example if it wants the rest of the world to follow suit with concrete action to address global warming. We've been reserving judgment on last week's United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen because we're still trying to figure out what, exactly, happened. Posted. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-copenhagen23-2009dec23,0,238153,print.story Editorial: Cap And Trade Will Increase Costs. Scare tactics in the media continue. Air at the Morristown Green has been measured since 1995 by the Environmental Protection Agency, but never released to the public. I would love to see the real findings. Our atmosphere is composed of approximately 78 percent nitrogen, 20.95 percent oxygen and other gasses, of which carbon dioxide is. 025 percent. All living things on this planet are carbon base and breathe oxygen. Posted. http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20091223/OPINION02/91221092/1095/OPINION/Cap+and+Trade+will+increase+costs Opinion: Thomas Sowell: Climate Zealots Purge Science Of Facts. Science is one of the great achievements of the human mind and the biggest reason why we live not only longer but more vigorously in our old age, in addition to all the ways in which it provides us with things that make life easier and more enjoyable. Posted. http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/science-225409-global-warming.html RFA Wants California's New Fuels Standard Stopped. Dinneen says CARB has made mockery of process. Citing obvious violations of the California Administrative Procedures Act, the Renewable Fuels Association has called on California's Office of Administrative Law to reject the California Air Resources Board's Low Carbon Fuels Standard rule currently under review. Posted. http://americanagriculturist.com/story.aspx?s=34109&c=8 Pachauri: Copenhagen a Good Outcome. New Delhi --The climate change accord reached at the Copenhagen summit is a good outcome but is inadequate to combat global warming, the head of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said Wednesday. R.K. Pachauri--also the director general of India's The Energy and Resources Institute, or TERI -- told reporters that the accord "provides the foundation on which we can build upon for emission reduction." Posted. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126155576184402639.html?mod=googlenews_wsj The Copenhagen Crash and Global Cooling. If you're wondering why the national political news focus has been on health care and not on the aftermath of the historic conference in Copenhagen, Denmark which ended less than a week ago...it's because nothing productive happened there. Even worse, more lies have been exposed from the IPCC report, more agendas uncovered about leaders at the United Nations and the "accord" that was supposedly reached at the 11th hour in Denmark is already falling apart. Posted. http://www.examiner.com/x-3854-Cincinnati-Weather-Examiner~y2009m12d23-The-Copenhagen-Crash-and-Global-Cooling Wood Fires May Be Banned On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day across Bay Area. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District is asking residents to check before burning any wood fires on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day since predicted light winds and cool air may create unhealthy air conditions across the region. You can find out whether burning wood is prohibited by checking Spare the Air notices at www.mercurynews.com/extra. Posted. http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14055686 http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_14055686?nclick_check=1 Small-Business Group Says Majority Opposes Cap And Trade. An influential small-business group that has opposed climate bills in Congress said yesterday that its recent polls show there is limited support among job providers for a federal cap-and-trade program mandating greenhouse gas emissions reductions. "The majority of small-business owners viewed cap and trade as more of a hindrance to job creation," said Brad Close, vice president for public policy at the National Federation of Independent Business. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2009/12/23/3 Residents Reminded To Sign Up For Air Alerts. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District is reminding residents to sign up for air alerts this week in the event of possible winter "Spare the Air" notices during the holidays. "We're asking Bay Area residents to remember to check the burn status each day including holidays, to see if an air alert is called which bans fireplace burning," said Jack Broadbent, executive officer of the air district. Posted. http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_14054808 Tom Purcell: Is Pollution The Real Solution? IF HUMAN ACTIVITY got us into the mess, can human activity can get us out? I refer to "SuperFreakonomics," a hugely entertaining book by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and co-author Stephen Dubner. Levitt and Dubner mine cold, hard economic and scientific data to arrive at some offbeat conclusions. Posted. http://www.contracostatimes.com/opinion/ci_14049327 China, India, South Africa Vital For Climate Deal. New Delhi—The emergence of China, India, South Africa and Brazil as a grouping was the most significant outcome of the climate talks in Copenhagen, the chairman of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said Wednesday. Posted. http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_14055325 UN Climate Chief Urges Avoiding Blame Over Summit. Amsterdam—The top U.N. climate official says that though the Copenhagen global warming summit went sour countries should avoid blaming each other and get down to work on a better deal next year. Posted. http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_14055714 U.S. Wants Farmers To Use Coal Waste On Fields. The federal government is encouraging farmers to spread a chalky waste from coal-fired power plants on their fields to loosen and fertilize soil even as it considers regulating coal wastes for the first time. Posted. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/22/AR2009122203336.html Ballard Power Systems, Daimler In Fuel Cell Deal. Vancouver -- Ballard Power Systems said Tuesday that it has reached a deal with German automaker Daimler AG to supply fuel cell products. The company will provide technology for Daimler's fuel cell car and bus programs. The agreement provides a minimum of $24 million in revenue over 18 months beginning in April. Posted. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/22/AR2009122203010.html After Summit, 'Cleantech' Firms Reset Strategy. Posted. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704157304574612272401446280.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_tech FULL STORY BELOW: Businesses that had banked on global greenhouse-gas limits to spur alternative-energy investments now are looking to national and local policies to get more wind turbines turning and nuclear-power plants humming, after the muddled outcome of the Copenhagen climate summit. The failure of the United Nations gathering to produce an enforceable accord to cut fossil-fuel emissions leaves the U.S., Europe, China, India and other countries to pursue the energy policies they already had. In many cases, those policies are aimed more at strategic goals, such as economic development or reducing dependence on Mideast oil, than at threats posed by global warming. Still, some businesses say these policies could play a major role in fostering so-called clean technology, which includes non-fossil power sources, such as wind turbines, and related know-how, such as software that equips energy grids to cope with intermittent bursts of power from solar cells. Gary Sheffer, a spokesman for General Electric Co., whose products include energy-efficient locomotives and wind turbines, says his company is "encouraged and optimistic" because of rising sales to nations like China. He said GE's cleantech revenues in China for the first nine months of 2009 totaled $660 million, up 50% from a year earlier. Since 2002, venture-capital investments in cleantech world-wide have soared from about $1 billion to an estimated $5 billion to $6 billion this year, according to the Cleantech Group, a San Francisco market-research firm. After experiencing one of its first back-to-back quarterly declines in March, venture funding for cleantech, much of it based in California's Silicon Valley, has resumed its climb. In the U.S., the lack of a strong Copenhagen deal may set back some of these investments, already hurt by falling oil prices. But the Obama administration still plans to use the Environmental Protection Agency to clamp down on the nation's greenhouse-gas emissions, and the Energy Department remains committed to spending billions in public funds to jump-start alternative-energy technology. On a smaller scale, California is pursuing a program to garner a third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, more than double current levels. Most Northeastern states are expected to cut carbon-dioxide emissions, based on regional targets. The adoption of renewable-energy standards, completed or under way in many states, should boost demand for technologies that make electrical grids more efficient, says Dan Adler, president of the nonprofit California Clean Energy Fund, set up by the state to help spur cleantech investment. Such efforts have fueled the growth of Silver Spring Networks Inc., a Redwood City, Calif., grid-technology provider, which has tripled its work force since 2008 to about 450. "From our standpoint, we have been cheerleading Copenhagen," says Eric Dresselhuys, the company's executive vice president, "but it's not a direct impact on this business." Many U.S. states will continue to shift toward lower-carbon fuels, says Michael Peevey, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates investor-owned electric, gas and water utilities in the state. California is "not going to turn back," he says. Officials at Iberdrola, the Spanish power company and the world's biggest renewable-energy company say they are evaluating investments based on local policies, such as renewable-energy standards in states like Texas. Some businesses, worried about a patchwork of federal and state regulation, are still pushing for Congress to enact a nationwide system for cutting carbon-dioxide emissions. But the prospects for congressional action in the 2010 election year look dim. China, spurred in part by its desire to reduce dependence on foreign oil, remains committed to a sweeping energy efficiency program that calls for cutting carbon intensity, a measure of emissions relative to the size of the economy, by 40% to 45% from 2005 levels by 2020. That means government support for alternative energies, and for Chinese companies in that field, is likely to continue to grow. Gao Jifan, chief executive of Trina Solar Ltd., a Chinese maker of solar panels, says the continuous cost reductions being achieved by solar-panel producers are making the technology more affordable. "So the outlook for its development is unstoppable," he said in a statement. In the European Union, companies still have to comply with laws that require member nations to reduce emissions collectively to 20% below their 1990 levels by 2020, despite the summit's lack of binding targets. . "We just didn't get a good sense from the [Copenhagen] conference about the regulatory structures that might be in place and the general direction of where public policy is headed," says Andrew Turpin, spokesman for Centrica PLC, Britain's biggest energy provider, echoing complaints by other European energy investors about the gathering. BLOGS Climate Questions? Scientists Answer. Assertions of human-driven climate change are fraught with enough political, cultural and legal questions to fuel a parallel universe of blog and e-mail warfare. Sometimes obscured by these angry exchanges is the science itself — a quest to explain an incredibly intricate and dynamic system, earth’s climate, and its behavior over thousands, even millions, of years. Posted. http://greenoc.freedomblogging.com/2009/12/22/climate-questions-scientists-answer/17711/ So, How’d That Global Warming Summit Go? Scant few other than President Obama claim Copenhagen’s global warming summit was a success because, well, for obvious reasons. How do others feel about it? “India hailed Tuesday the lack of targets and legally binding measures in the Copenhagen climate accord and vaunted the united front presented by major emerging countries at the chaotic talks. . .” Posted. http://orangepunch.freedomblogging.com/2009/12/22/so-howd-that-global-warming-summit-go/15301/