What's New List Serve Post Display

ARB Newsclips for March 29, 2013. 

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

Birth defects linked to air pollution in new Stanford study. 
Here’s a new reason to dislike smog: Air pollution from traffic
has been linked to birth defects in a large new Stanford study of
women who lived in California’s smoggy San Joaquin valley during
the early weeks of their pregnancies.  Posted. 
http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2013/03/28/birth-defects-linked-to-air-pollution-in-new-stanford-study/

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-birth-defects-20130328,0,40297.story

Air Pollution, Birth Defects, and the Risk in China (and Beyond).
 After one particularly prolonged spell of smoggy Beijing air in
late January, the Atlantic Monthly’s James Fallows posted a
provocative piece online titled, “China’s Pollution: The Birth
Defect Angle.” In it, he quoted troubling anecdotal e-mails from
readers suggesting that China’s degraded environment was taking a
heavy toll on the living and the unborn alike. Yet the short
piece ended with a question, not a scientific conclusion: Do we
know if prolonged exposure to polluted air, water, or food causes
birth defects?  Posted. 
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-03-28/air-pollution-birth-defects-and-the-risk-in-china-and-beyond


Key air pollution benchmark drops near Port of Los Angeles.  Data
from four air quality monitoring stations at and near the Port of
Los Angeles show concentrations of a key type of pollutant have
fallen to their lowest levels since the port began tracking them
in 2005, officials said Thursday.  The data measures elemental
carbon, an indicator of diesel particulate matter, which is
produced by the combustion of diesel fuel. In Wilmington,
elemental carbon levels have fallen 72 percent compared to 2006,
the first full year of monitoring, according to port records. 
Posted. 
http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_22895074/key-pollution-benchmark-drops-near-port-los-angeles


CLIMATE CHANGE

Environmental groups pressure U.N. body for carbon aviation deal.
 Environmental groups have urged the United States to back a
global deal to curb carbon emissions produced by planes, noting
that global aviation emits more of the greenhouse gas than all
but six of the world's nations.  The groups, alarmed at scant
progress toward an agreement within a United Nations aviation
body, presented a petition with more than 60,000 signatures on
Monday to a representative of the U.S. State Department.  Posted.
 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/28/us-aviation-climate-idUSBRE92R12O20130328


Nobody is declaring a state of drought in California, but ... 
When snow surveyors headed into the Sierra Nevada on Thursday for
the most important measurement of the season, they found only
about half the snowpack that is normal for the date.  It could
have been a lot worse — considering that the last three months in
California have been the driest of any January-through-March
period on record, going back to 1895.  Posted. 
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-water-dry-20130329,0,2408609.story


A sensitive matter.  Over the past 15 years air temperatures at
the Earth’s surface have been flat while greenhouse-gas emissions
have continued to soar. The world added roughly 100 billion
tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010. That is
about a quarter of all the CO₂ put there by humanity since
1750. And yet, as James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard
Institute for Space Studies, observes, “the five-year mean global
temperature has been flat for a decade.”  Posted. 
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21574461-climate-may-be-heating-up-less-response-greenhouse-gas-emissions


FUELS

EPA takes aim at auto emissions, sulfur in gas.  The Obama
administration proposed new regulations Friday to clean up
gasoline and automobile emissions, claiming the new standards
would provide $7 in health benefits from cleaner air for each
dollar spent to implement them. The costs likely would be passed
on to consumers in higher gasoline and automobile prices.  The
Environmental Protection Agency said the new rule would reduce
sulfur in gasoline and tighten automobile emission standards
beginning in 2017, resulting in an increase in gas prices of less
than a penny per gallon.  Posted. 
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jh7rOlbWV09YmQsVX0hp5Od0g51w?docId=2e338ded41e7414585a3ae7690403a4c


Other related articles:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/business/energy-environment/epa-wants-to-cut-amount-of-sulfur-in-gasoline.html?_r=0b

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/obama-administration-says-proposal-will-reduce-sulfur-in-gas-slightly-raise-gasoline-prices/2013/03/28/1defc51c-980d-11e2-b5b4-b63027b499de_story.html
 
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-gasoline-standards-20130329,0,3690826.story?track=rss

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323361804578389023082314126.html?KEYWORDS=air+pollution

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/03/28/5300994/epa-to-propose-rule-to-clean-up.html#storylink=misearch

http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/EPA-takes-aim-at-auto-emissions-sulfur-in-gas-4393777.php


VEHICLES

Solar-Electric Cars Crush Biofuels In Efficiency.  Climate
Progress recently reported on a study that found both economic
and environmental benefits if homes in the northeastern United
States upgraded older heating systems by moving from heating oil
to switchgrass. However, one point to emphasize was the findings
were specific to those circumstances — the region, the homes, and
that particular use.  Switchgrass was not nearly as good an idea
for electricity generation or transportation fuel.  Posted. 
http://cleantechnica.com/2013/03/28/solar-electric-cars-crush-biofuels-in-efficiency/
 

HIGH-SPEED RAIL

Calif. High-Speed Rail Estimates Reasonable.  The federal
Government Accountability Office is giving generally good grades
to the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s business plan to
build a $68 billion bullet train.  In a report given Thursday to
members of Congress, the GAO says the authority’s ridership and
revenue forecasts are reasonable. It could not assess whether the
authority’s projected costs are feasible, but says the California
agency is following most of the GAO’s best practices in making
its predictions.  Posted. 
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2013-03-29/gao-calif-dot-high-speed-rail-estimates-reasonable

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2013/03/28/gao-calif-high-speed-rail-estimates-reasonable/


Fewer Than Half of Californians Support High-Speed Rail.  Back in
2008, California voters approved a $10 billion bond to plan and
build a high-speed rail system across the state. Four years
later, support for the high-speed rail has waned. Now that the
estimated cost is $68 billion, a recent survey by the Public
Policy Institute of California shows that only 43 percent of
likely voters support the project.  That number hasn’t changed
since the last time the survey was conducted, about a year ago. 
Posted. 
http://transportationnation.org/2013/03/28/poll-fewer-than-half-of-californians-support-high-speed-rail/
 

Chowchilla gets a look at ideas for high-speed rail junction. 
Area residents got an up-close look Wednesday at the High-Speed
Rail Authority's plan for the "Chowchilla Wye."  Authority
officials held a public meeting to discuss several alternative
routes for the Y-shaped junction, all of which would fork off
south of the city heading west to San Jose and north to Merced. 
The meeting was held in the Little Theater at the Chowchilla
Fairgrounds at 1000 S. Third St. More than 100 people showed up
at Galilee Missionary Baptist Church in Fairmead for a similar
meeting March 20.  Posted. 
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2013/03/27/2908070/chowchilla-gets-a-look-at-ideas.html
 

MISCELLANEOUS

A Building That Neutralizes Surrounding Air Pollution.  A
decorative façade on a Mexico City hospital will be the first to
be made of a material that absorbs pollutants from the air.  The
100-meter long curved screen on the building, Torre de
Especialidadesis, is made of Depolluting Quasicrystals - how's
that for futuristic?  Posted. 
http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/24715


BLOGS

Is the EPA ready to tackle climate change? (VIDEO)  The
Environmental Protection Agency is proposing new rules to reduce
the sulfur content of gasoline. Is that a sign that the EPA is
about to unleash a flurry of new regulations in Obama’s second
term, including much-anticipated moves to tackle climate change?
Brad Plumer and Sarah Kliff discuss…Posted. 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/29/wonktalk-is-the-epa-ready-to-tackle-climate-change/