What's New List Serve Post Display

ARB Newsclips for December 4, 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.

CAP AND TRADE

What are California Legislators Thinking About Cap-and-Trade? CA
Senate Hearing at UCLA Focuses on Ways to Spend Auction Revenue.
Today, UCLA’s Emmett Center and IOES hosted a hearing of the
Senate Select Committee on Climate Change and AB 32
Implementation with Senators Pavley, Correa, de Leon, deSaulnier,
Lieu, and Assemblymember Bloom attending.  The hearing featured
testimony on climate science, on AB 32 implementation, and on
opportunities to invest revenue from the state’s cap-and-trade
auctions in ways that create jobs…Posted.
http://legal-planet.org/2013/12/03/what-are-california-legislators-thinking-about-cap-and-trade/


Australia's environment minister defends scrapping carbon
pricing. Scrapping the "brutal" carbon pricing system is
consistent with other nations' climate policies, Australian
Environment Minister Greg Hunt said in a speech to the Carbon
Expo in Melbourne yesterday morning. The minister laid out
details on the Coalition's Direct Action approach to climate,
predicting it will be in place for decades and insisting it will
pass the Senate by July next year. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1059991238/print BY
SUBSCRIPTION ONLY
 
AIR POLLUTION

Hong Kong Central Roadside Pollution Surges to Toxic Levels. 
Nitrogen dioxide readings jumped in Hong Kong at two roadside
pollution monitoring stations, reaching concentrations at which
it becomes a toxic gas. The reading in the downtown district of
Central was 231.8 micrograms per cubic meter at 3 p.m. local
time, data from the Environmental Protection Department show. The
gas can cause significant inflammation of the airways once
concentration levels exceed 200 micrograms, according to the
Geneva-based World Health Organization. Posted.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-04/hong-kong-roadside-pollution-spikes-to-toxic-levels-in-central.html


California Launches Breathe Well Mobile Site. A new mobile
website launched by the California Air Resources Board aims to
help users monitor air quality. The state of California has
launched a new mobile website that will help users to, literally,
breathe easier. Called Breathe Well, the site was developed by
the state's Air Resources Board (ARB) to provide people with
access to hour-by-hour air pollution data. Site visitors can see
real-time levels of ozone and fine particle pollution in their
immediate area, or in other cities and towns throughout the
state. Posted. http://www.govtech.com/health/Breathe-Well.html 

CLIMATE CHANGE

Federal study warns of sudden climate change woes.
Hard-to-predict sudden changes to Earth's environment are more
worrisome than climate change's bigger but more gradual impacts,
a panel of scientists advising the federal government concluded
Tuesday. The 200-page report by the National Academy of Sciences
looked at warming problems that can occur in years instead of
centuries. The report repeatedly warns of potential "tipping
points" where the climate passes thresholds, beyond which "major
and rapid changes occur." Posted.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_SUDDEN_WARMING_WOES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


OTHER RELATED STORIES
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-03/sea-level-rise-too-fast-to-reverse-climate-change-study.html
  
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/04/science/earth/panel-says-global-warming-risks-sudden-deep-changes.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0&pagewanted=print
http://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-climate-urgency-20131204,0,7482587.story#axzz2mUXKNUh5
http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Federal-study-warns-of-sudden-climate-change-woes-5031607.php

http://www.modbee.com/2013/12/03/3067001/federal-study-warns-of-sudden.html

http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2013/12/04/stories/1059991266
BY SUBSCRIPTION ONLY

Texas takes on greenhouse gas permits after long EPA fight. Texas
regulators will hold a hearing this week on a proposal to take
over greenhouse gas permitting from U.S. EPA, a move that could
wind down a long-running dispute over how to regulate the state
with the biggest emissions footprint in the United States. The
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and an industry group
say the proposed rules would streamline the process for pipeline
operations, oil refineries, power plants and other sources of
emissions. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/stories/1059991250/print BY
SUBSCRIPTION ONLY

FUELS

Botswana accused of allowing fracking in national parks. The
government of Botswana has quietly allowed international
companies to explore for natural gas in some of the country's
most sensitive national parks using the controversial drilling
method of hydraulic fracturing, according to a new documentary
released in South Africa. Posted.
http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-botswana-fracking-20131202,0,4172564.story#ixzz2mWVQU4Zp


Chevron CO2 Injection Wells to Cut GHG Emissions 40%. Chevron has
started drilling carbon dioxide injection wells as part of its
liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Western Australia, Oil &
Gas Journal reports. The wells are expected to reduce the
project’s greenhouse gas emissions by about 40 percent, the
publication says. 
The CO2 injection project on Barrow Island, part of Chevron’s
Gorgon-Jansz LNG project…Posted.
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2013/12/04/chevron-co2-injection-wells-to-cut-ghg-emissions-40/


VEHICLES

Mitsubishi Cuts Electric Car Price in U.S. to Overcome Obscurity.
 Mitsubishi Motors Corp. (7211) lowered the price of its i-MiEV
electric car in the U.S. by 21 percent to spur demand for a
vehicle that attracted only a dozen buyers last month. The 2014
i-MiEV hatchback will sell for $22,995, down from $29,125 for the
previous model, the Tokyo-based company said in a statement late
yesterday. Posted. 
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-04/mitsubishi-cuts-electric-car-price-in-u-s-to-overcome-obscurity.html


Rav4EV, which uses a Tesla battery, is fire-free. As federal
investigators probe the safety of the Tesla Motors Model S and
its battery pack, it's worth noting that there's another electric
car sold in California with the same basic power source. And it
hasn't had a single battery fire to date. Toyota's Rav4EV
features a battery pack built by Tesla. Since the small SUV hit
the market in September 2012, Toyota has sold about 1,200 of
them, all in California. Posted.
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Rav4EV-which-uses-a-Tesla-battery-is-fire-free-5028772.php


Driverless Cars Could Be Cruising California Roads By Spring. The
California Department of Motor Vehicles has released its newly
created regulations for the testing of automated vehicles. The
DMV’s Bernard Soriano said the regulations are intended for
manufactures who want to begin testing their cars on California
roads. The rules cover everything from how much insurance the
cars must have to who can drive them.
Posted. http://www.capradio.org/14114

GREEN ENERGY

U.K. Cuts Onshore Wind, Solar Aid; Boosts Turbines at Sea.  The
U.K. government said it expects 40 billion pounds ($65 billion)
of investment in renewables by 2020 after shifting incentives
toward offshore wind power and away from projects on land in
areas where residents object. The Treasury published a list of
final “strike prices” for electricity from renewables in its
national infrastructure plan today, cutting support for solar
parks and onshore wind farms and raising them for turbines at
sea. Posted.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-04/u-k-cuts-onshore-wind-solar-aid-boosts-turbines-at-sea.html

 
Hitachi unveils storage for wind, solar energy. Hitachi unveiled
an energy-storage system that the company said will support wind
and solar power and allow users to sell electricity into
deregulated markets such as California. The units can be
installed on high-voltage power lines, and will be able to
capture excess energy produced by wind and solar sources so it
can be sold back into the network when the demand for power
exceeds the supply. Posted.
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Hitachi-unveils-storage-for-wind-solar-energy-5032196.php


Power struggle: Green energy versus a grid that's not ready. In a
sprawling complex of laboratories and futuristic gadgets in
Golden, Colo., a supercomputer named Peregrine does a quadrillion
calculations per second to help scientists figure out how to keep
the lights on. Peregrine was turned on earlier this year by the
U.S. Department of Energy. It has the world's largest "petascale"
computing capability. It is the size of a Mack truck. Its job is
to figure out how to cope with a risk from something the public
generally thinks of as benign _ renewable energy. Posted.
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/12/04/5969141/power-struggle-green-energy-versus.html#storylink=cpy


Solar farm could find cheap parking at S.J. County yard.  A
parking lot for county vehicles could soon double as a mini solar
farm. It will be cheaper in the long run to install solar
carports at San Joaquin County's corporation yard in south
Stockton and use the energy from the sun than to buy electricity
for the county facility, according to a resolution approved by
the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. Posted.
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20131204/A_NEWS/312040318&cid=sitesearch


OPINIONS

Let Them Burn Coal.  There’s a lot of hand-wringing about our
warming planet, but billions of people face a more immediate
problem: They are desperately poor, and many cook and heat their
homes using open fires or leaky stoves that burn dirty fuels like
wood, dung, crop waste and coal. About 3.5 million of them die
prematurely each year as a result of breathing the polluted air
inside their homes — about 200,000 more than the number who die
prematurely each year from breathing polluted air outside,
according to a study by the World Health Organization. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/opinion/let-them-burn-coal.html?hpw&rref=opinion&_r=0


Global warming debate keeps up.  In his op-ed Jeffrey Bada,
regarding some of the hostility toward science he has personally
experienced states: “What I do not understand is the reason for
this hostility.” The short answer is that the issue of global
warming has become politicized, but more interesting are the
reasons why. For many years environmentalists have propagated the
myth that nuclear power is unacceptably dangerous, completely
disregarding scientific fact to the contrary. Posted.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/dec/03/letters-climate/ 

BLOGS

An Update on Risks of Abrupt Jolts from Global Warming.  In 2002,
the National Academy of Sciences published “Abrupt Climate
Change: Inevitable Surprises,” a valuable report examining
whether and how the building human influence on the climate
system might lead to disruptive jolts. The most important
finding, in a way, was that this was an area sorely in need of
intensified research. Most of the “monsters behind the door,” to
use an apt phrase from Stephen W. Pacala of Princeton, were
plausible rather than probable. Posted.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/03/an-update-on-risks-of-abrupt-jolts-from-global-warming/
 

SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY: Solar development moratorium lifted. San
Bernardino County supervisors today, Dec. 3, gave initial
approval to an ordinance that establishes rules for where
commercial solar projects can be located to avoid conflicts with
neighborhoods and biological resources. The board is scheduled to
give final approval to the development code amendment at its
meeting on Dec. 17. Posted.
http://blog.pe.com/environment/2013/12/03/san-bernardino-county-solar-development-moratorium-lifted/
 

Study shows California can meet its climate goals. The Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory recently completed a study that
shows California is well on the path to reducing its greenhouse
gas emissions and meeting its ambitious climate goals. The
analysis found that regulations that have already been adopted
have put California on track to reducing its emissions below the
state’s targets all the way to the year 2026, while aggressive
expansion of the existing policies will allow the state to meet
and exceed its 2050 goal. Posted.
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/pmiller/study_shows_california_can_mee.html


Dangerous Climate Change, Reconsidered. If we take the dangers of
future global warming seriously, then nothing is more important
for curbing them than to immediately begin significant annual
reductions in carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels. That
was my first reaction on reading the new paper by climatologist
James Hansen of Columbia University’ Earth Institute and his
colleagues being published today by PLOS ONE, “Assessing
Dangerous Climate Change: Required Reductions of Carbon Emissions
to Protect Young People…Posted.
http://blogs.plos.org/retort/2013/12/03/dangerous-climate-change-reconsidered/


Renewable Energy Offers Best Hope, Not Threat. A recent LA Times
article raises fears that clean energy might make the electric
grid less reliable.  The article gets some key facts wrong. 
Clean energy, key to fighting dangerous climate change, is
manageable and getting cheaper all the time. First, clean energy
is not just the whim of some special interest group: there is a
global scientific consensus that we must cut our use of fossil
fuels in order to reduce dangerous carbon pollution.  Posted.
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/nlong/renewable_energy_offers_best_h.html


ALEC preparing attacks on EPA carbon pollution standards. This
week, the polluter-funded American Legislative Exchange Council
(ALEC) is holding its annual meeting in DC, and the obstruction
of EPA progress to reduce carbon pollution is front and center on
its Environment Task Force agenda. ALEC conferences create a
space for corporations and conservative lawmakers to create model
legislation that any state legislator can introduce. American
Electric Power is the current chair of ALEC’s environment task
force. Posted.
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ahaq/alec_preparing_attacks_on_epa.html


Safe Climate Caucus: A Vision For Congressional Action For Our
Planet. Today, action on climate change hit a milestone on the
Hill with it being the 100th day of speeches by the Safe Climate
Caucus. For 100 days, members of the Caucus have spoken out on a
wide range of topics ranging from extreme weather to clean energy
to the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change.
Posted.
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/khenderson/today_action_on_climate_change.html