What's New List Serve Post Display

ARB Newsclips for May 14, 2014. 

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

Forest group asks EPA to include offsets in power plant rule. A
California forest group has asked U.S. EPA to consider offsets as
a way for utilities to comply with the agency's upcoming
standards for existing power plants. The Pacific Forest Trust,
which represents private forest owners, wants the agency to adopt
the California Air Resources Board's methods for buying and
selling forest carbon offsets under A.B. 32, the state's
cap-and-trade law. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1059999540/print BY
SUBSCRIPTION ONLY

CLIMATE CHANGE

Study: Tropical cyclones migrating out of tropics. Tropical
cyclones worldwide are moving out of the tropics and more toward
the poles and generally larger populations, likely because of
global warming, a surprising new study finds. Atlantic
hurricanes, however, don't follow this trend. While other studies
have looked at the strength and frequency of the storms, which
are called hurricanes in North America, this is the first study
that looks at where they are geographically when they peak.
Posted.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_MIGRATING_HURRICANES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


Obama Views Climate Change As Part of His Legacy.  President
Barack Obama views addressing the problem of climate change as a
key part of his legacy and remains staunchly committed to
implementing as much of his climate action plan as possible prior
to leaving office, a senior aide said May 13. John Holdren,
director of the White House Office of Science and Technology
Policy, told the Association of Climate Change Officers' Climate
Strategies…Posted.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-14/obama-views-climate-change-as-part-of-his-legacy.html
 

Climate Change Deemed Growing Security Threat by Military
Researchers.  The accelerating rate of climate change poses a
severe risk to national security and acts as a catalyst for
global political conflict, a report published Tuesday by a
leading government-funded military research organization
concluded. The CNA Corporation Military Advisory Board found that
climate change-induced drought in the Middle East... Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/14/us/politics/climate-change-deemed-growing-security-threat-by-military-researchers.html?_r=0


Brown says rising sea levels could force costly move of LAX.
California will face billions of dollars in spending to cope with
the consequences of rising sea levels if low-lying communities
along the coast are ultimately submerged, as scientists predict,
Gov. Jerry Brown said Tuesday.
http://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-pc-brown-sea-level-airports-20140513-story.html


Can A City Get To Net Zero? Lancaster, California Mayor Thinks
So. R. Rex Parris is the mayor of Lancaster, California – a city
of 158,000 inhabitants close to Los Angeles.  He’s both a
Republican and a strong believer that we have an obligation to do
everything we can to combat the impending threat of climate
change. With respect to climate change, he was quoted last year
in the New York Times as saying “I may be a Republican, but I’m
not an idiot.” Posted.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterdetwiler/2014/05/13/can-a-city-get-to-net-zero-lancaster-california-mayor-thinks-so/


DROUGHT

Drought among the worst in Texas in past 500 years. Will
record-breaking droughts become the "new normal" for South Texas?
That question was posed by the state Climatologist John
Nielsen-Gammon at a meeting of the Edwards Aquifer Authority
board Tuesday. The current drought, which started four years ago,
is among the five worst in the past 500 years, he said. If it
continues to be as dry as it is has been, the drought could be
the third worst. Posted.
http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Drought-among-the-worst-in-Texas-in-past-500-years-5477812.php


DROUGHT: State will short Castaic instead of shrinking Lake
Perris. The magnitude of California’s drought hit home with water
managers recently when they considered draining what’s left of
Lake Perris just to get some Inland communities through a dry
spring. The unprecedented move was averted in the past few weeks
after Metropolitan Water District, Southern California’s
wholesaler, searched for another way to get 30,000 acre-feet of
water to western Riverside County. Posted.
http://www.pe.com/articles/water-694551-lake-perris.html  

How much would you pay for an avocado? California's drought will
make fruit and vegetables more expensive, but whether consumers
can stomach the cost is up for debate. According to farmers and
food sellers, water shortages in Central California are forcing
growers to pay more for imported water or cut back on planting.
That means crops that use more water could see their prices rise
steeply. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1059999541/print BY
SUBSCRIPTION ONLY

DIESEL EMISSIONS

Westport Executive Talks About A New Dynamic in Natural Gas
Trucking. At the 2014 Alternative Clean Transportation Expo, Fool
contributor Jason Hall sat down with Mark Aubry, Westport
Innovations' vice president of sales and marketing, to talk about
how adoption of natural-gas vehicles is ramping up in the heavy
trucking sector. Posted.
http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Westport-Executive-Talks-About-A-New-Dynamic-in-5477790.php


FUELS 

Fed govt acknowledges gaps in oil well inspections. The federal
agency tasked with managing oil and gas development on Wednesday
acknowledged it needed to do more to improve oversight of
drilling, pointing to a lack of funding as reasons it failed to
inspect oil and gas wells it considers potentially high risks for
water contamination. Posted.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OIL_AND_GAS_FEDERAL_OVERSIGHT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


OTHER RELATED STORIES
http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Fed-govt-acknowledges-gaps-in-oil-well-inspections-5477619.php


Oil above $102 on Ukraine crisis, US supply drop. The price of
U.S. oil climbed above $102 a barrel Wednesday amid ongoing
tensions in Ukraine and an industry report showing crude stocks
falling at a key U.S. storage hub. By early afternoon in Europe,
benchmark U.S. crude for June delivery was up 38 cents to $102.08
a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Posted.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OIL_PRICES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


Control methane now, greenhouse gas expert warns. As the shale
gas boom continues, the atmosphere receives more methane, adding
to Earth’s greenhouse gas problem. A Cornell ecology professor
fears that we may not be many years away from an environmental
tipping point – and disaster. “We have to control methane
immediately, and natural gas is the largest methane pollution
source in the United States,”…Posted.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2014/05/control-methane-now-greenhouse-gas-expert-warns


VEHICLES

Gas scooters pollute more than Hummers, new study finds. It's
common to see scooters crowding city streets throughout Southern
Europe and countries in the Asia-Pacific region, where they offer
a relatively cheap and low-carbon way to travel. But new research
finds that certain gasoline-powered scooters also pose a
significant threat to public health. Two-stroke scooters can
produce 10 to 1,000 times more particulate matter than a
full-sized light-duty vehicle…Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1059999536/print BY
SUBSCRIPTION ONLY

GREEN ENERGY

California Heat Pushes Power to Six-Year Seasonal High. Spot
electricity in California, the second-leading power-consuming
state, jumped to the highest seasonal level in six years as
surging temperatures boost air-conditioning demand.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-13/california-heat-pushes-power-to-six-year-seasonal-high.html


'Resourceful consumers' push energy efficiency, home and business
solar. U.S. consumers appear increasingly sophisticated in their
consumption of energy, and they have emerged as an important
force in expanding home energy efficiency and distributed power
generation, according to two new reports from Deloitte. While
part of this movement may be based on increasing awareness of
sustainable energy, the reports…Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1059999527/print BY
SUBSCRIPTION ONLY

World demand grows for renewable energy, boosting related jobs by
14%. Surging demand for renewable energy pushed global employment
in the solar, wind and biofuels energy sectors to 6.5 million in
2013, a 14 percent increase from 2012, according to new figures
released this week by the International Renewable Energy Agency.
"Renewable energy employment continues to spread to more and more
countries. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1059999525/print BY
SUBSCRIPTION ONLY

U.K. government to cut financial support for solar farms. The
U.K. government is planning to make sweeping changes to the
financial support it provides to solar energy farms, an action
that renewable power companies and green activists think will
reduce the nation's capacity to produce low-carbon power and
green jobs as well as boost dependency on fossil-fuel imports.
Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1059999518/print BY
SUBSCRIPTION ONLY

OPINIONS

An Inconvenient Truth About Our Food. “Fed Up” is probably the
most important movie to be made since “An Inconvenient Truth,” to
which it’s related in a couple of ways. One of its producers is
Laurie David, who also produced “An Inconvenient Truth.” Climate
change, diet and agriculture are inexorably intertwined; we can’t
tackle climate change without changing industrial
agriculture…Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/14/opinion/bittman-an-inconvenient-truth-about-our-food.html?hp&rref=opinion&action=click&module=Search®ion=searchResults&mabReward=relbias%3Aw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%3Faction%3Dclick%26region%3DMasthead%26pgtype%3DHomepage%26module%3DSearchSubmit%26contentCollection%3DHomepage%26t%3Dqry816%23%2Fclimate%2Bchange%2F24hours%2F
 

BLOGS

Three Long Views of Life With Rising Seas.  After finishing my
post on the inevitability of substantial long-term sea-level rise
from Antarctic ice loss, I sent this question to Curt Stager, a
paleoclimatologist and author of “Deep Future,” Kim Stanley
Robinson, the novelist focused on “cli fi” before that term was
conceived, and the astrobiologist David Grinspoon: Given your
focus on long timescales, environmental change…Posted.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/14/three-long-views-of-life-with-rising-seas/?_php=true&_type=blogs&module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=future&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body&action=click&module=Search®ion=searchResults&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%3Faction%3Dclick%26region%3DMasthead%26pgtype%3DHomepage%26module%3DSearchSubmit%26contentCollection%3DHomepage%26t%3Dqry24%23%2Femissions%2F24hours%2F&_r=0
 

Roadside Poem Combats Pollution — Literally. “Poetry makes
nothing happen,” William Butler Yeats once wrote. But then he
never got a chance to read “In Praise of Air,” a poem by Simon
Armitage just installed on a building along a busy road at the
University of Sheffield, England, and billed as the world’s first
bit of air-cleansing verse. Posted.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/14/roadside-poem-combats-pollution-literally/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0


Kia expects US to be Soul EV's top market.  While its sister
brand Hyundai invests in hydrogen fuel cell technology, Kia is
entering the battery-powered electric vehicle market with the new
Soul EV. The Korean automaker plans to sell some 5,000 units of
its first electric vehicle around the world. While it's not
saying exactly what proportion it hopes to sell in (or how many
it's allocating to) any individual market, the latest reports
indicate that it expects the United States to be its biggest
market. Posted.
http://www.autoblog.com/2014/05/13/kia-soul-ev-us-top-market-report/





California is in a drought emergency.
Visit www.SaveOurH2O.org for water conservation tips.