What's New List Serve Post Display

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

Air Pollution Reduction Settlement Reached for 6 Refineries.
The Justice Department and the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency on Monday announced a $425 million settlement with two
companies to reduce air pollution at six petroleum refineries in
the West. The agreement with Tesoro Corp. and Par Hawaii Refining
resolves alleged violations of the federal Clean Air Act and
requires installment of new equipment to control emissions.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WA_REFINERIES_SETTLEMENT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

World Energy Outlook calls for global clean air act as worldwide
pollution death rate rises.
Deaths linked to air pollution are set to increase significantly
in the coming decades unless the energy sector takes greater
action to curb emissions, according to the International Energy
Agency (IEA). Each year an estimated 6.5 million deaths are
linked to air pollution. Around 3.5 million of these are linked
to energy poverty due to the use of biomass for cooking and
kerosene for lighting, while three million deaths are linked to
outdoor air pollution, mostly in cities. 
http://business-reporter.co.uk/2016/07/18/world-energy-outlook-calls-global-clean-air-act-worldwide-pollution-death-rate-rises/


China's urban air quality improves in first half: ministry.
Air quality in China's largest cities continued to improve during
the first six months of 2016, the country's environment ministry
said on Sunday. China's largest 338 cities enjoyed more clean air
days in the first half compared with the same period of 2015, the
ministry said on its website. It said 76.7 percent of
January-June days had clean air, an increase of four percentage
points from a year earlier. In the capital Beijing, levels of PM
2.5 - dangerous tiny pollutants - fell 17.9 percent from a year
earlier, the ministry said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-environment-pollution-idUSKCN0ZX098


Increased Asthma Attacks Tied to Exposure to Natural Gas
Production.
Exposure to more intense shale gas development correlates with a
higher risk of asthma attacks among asthma patients, according to
a new study of Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale, one of the
nation's largest and most active fracking regions. The paper,
published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, a publication of the
American Medical Association, didn't examine the exact cause of
the trend. But lead author Sara Rasmussen, a Ph.D. candidate in
environmental health sciences at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School
of Public Health, said air pollution and stress are both
plausible explanations.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18072016/asthma-study-marcellus-shale-pennsylvania-natural-gas-fracking?utm_source=Inside+Climate+News&utm_campaign=8ccebdb9c5-InsideClimate_News12_10_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_29c928ffb5-8ccebdb9c5-327494049


CLIMATE CHANGE

EPA issues final actions to cut methane emissions from municipal
solid waste landfills.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued final New
Source Performance Standards (NSPS) to reduce emissions of
methane-rich landfill gas from new, modified and reconstructed
municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills, updating standards that
were issued in 1996. In a separate action, EPA also issued
revised guidelines for reducing emissions from existing MSW
landfills, updating the previous Emissions Guidelines, which also
were issued in 1996.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2016/07/20160717-epa.html 

Regulators engage Barrio Logan on state's climate plan.
As the state overhauls its road map for curbing greenhouse-gas
emissions, regulators are reaching out to residents most impacted
by air pollution that also drives climate change. Officials with
the California Air Resources Board held a workshop in San Diego’s
Barrio Logan, the most polluted neighborhood in the county, on
Thursday night. The meeting was part of the agency’s tour of
nearly a dozen cities statewide that are disproportionately
affected by air pollution.
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/jul/15/air-board-scoping-plan-san-diego-barrio-logan/


The world is poised to take the strongest action of this year
against climate change.
When the world moved to phase out ozone-destroying
chlorofluorcarbons, or CFCs, it solved one enormous and urgent
environmental problem — but it left behind another. CFCs were bad
for the ozone layer and also caused a great deal of global
warming to boot. But a key substitute — hydrofluorocarbons, or
HFCs — spare the ozone layer but are still powerful greenhouse
warming agents. That’s why diplomats and leading national
ministers have assembled in Vienna this week for negotiations
under the Montreal Protocol, the treaty that led to the phaseout
of CFCs and is now aiming its sights at HFCs. If an amendment to
the treaty can be adopted this year, advocates say, it could
represent the single largest tangible piece of climate progress
in all of 2016.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/07/18/this-could-do-more-to-save-the-planet-this-year-than-any-other-action/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories-2_ee-save-1056am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory


Closing Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant Will Cost Money And Raise
Carbon Emissions.
A widespread claim—that dozens of nuclear plants merit subsidies
to protect the earth’s climate—has been borne out by reality. One
of America’s most prominent and technically capable utilities,
Pacific Gas & Electric Company, recently announced its decision
to close its well-running, low-carbon, low-cost nuclear reactors
at Diablo Canyon, because of political pressure from the state of
California and especially its Lt. Governor. At the same time, tax
subsidies for renewables, plus low natural gas prices, are making
reactors uneconomic in the short term.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/15/closing-diablo-canyon-nuclear-plant-will-cost-money-and-raise-carbon-emissions/#427931176fb6


12 rare animals that are teetering on the brink of extinction.
Every day, species around the planet are going extinct. And for
each species that goes extinct, many more become and remain
endangered due to habitat loss, poaching, human activities, and
climate change. Some are so critical that they are teetering on
the brink of extinction. All these threatened animals are
included on the International Union for Conservation (IUCN) Red
List of Threatened Species, a non-prescriptive list that is the
world’s most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation
status of species.
http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/12-rare-animals-that-are-teetering-on-the-brink-8384805.php


This map shows what different countries view as the greatest
threat to the world.
Different cultures span the globe, and with that, various
societal sentiments, such as fear, are also differentiated. In
order to determine what these fears are, a survey was conducted
by the World Economic Forum in the fall of 2015 to determine what
the threat and risks are in the next decade. This survey included
over 700 experts and stakeholders from a variety of fields,
including banking, government, and academia.
http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/This-map-shows-what-different-countries-view-as-8384817.php


DIESEL ACTIVITIES

Indian court orders older diesel vehicles off New Delhi's roads.
India's top environmental court on Monday ordered authorities to
remove all diesel vehicles at least 10 years old off the capital
city's streets in a bid to help clean New Delhi's polluted air.
The ruling is the latest in a series of court-issued orders
targeting the automotive industry's role in polluting Delhi's
air, which the World Health Organisation said in May was the
world's 11th dirtiest.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-autos-court-idUSKCN0ZY12P


FUELS

US says fuel economy likely won't meet 2025 targets.
The U.S. government says fuel economy of the nation's fleet of
cars and trucks won't meet its targets in 2025 because low gas
prices have changed the types of vehicles people are buying.
Under standards set in 2012, automakers' fleets were expected to
get an average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. But in a report
issued Monday, the government says that's more likely to be
between 50 miles per gallon and 52.6 miles per gallon, depending
on the price of gas.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/business/article90287362.html 

Los Alamos team develops robust route to convert starch and sugar
to C10 and C11 hydrocarbons; “potato-to-pump”.
Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a
route to convert oligosaccharides, such as starch, cellulose, and
hemicelluloses to C10 and C11hydrocarbons by using
depolymerization followed by chain extension. In a paper
published in the journal ChemSusChem, they report on the
robustness of the approach by performing a simple starch
extraction from a Russet potato and subjecting it to their
process. (They noted that the use of the potato was simply
illustrative, and that the use of food crops for fuel production
should be avoided.)
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2016/07/20160718-gg.html 

GREEN ENERGY

Thorny issues challenge California's commitment to renewable
energy goals.
As California pushes forward on its ambitious goal to produce 50%
of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030, it will
confront a wide range of potentially troubling economic,
technical and political questions — though there remains strong
support among public officials for the state’s climate program.
The state is demonstrating to the rest of the nation and the
world that it has the deep political willpower to address climate
change, but it has yet to fully understand the impacts of the
program on low-income residents, economic growth and electrical
grid reliability.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-renewable-energy-summit-20160711-snap-story.html


Energy guzzlers no more: Data centers finally using less
electricity, new study finds.
A decade ago, they were widely feared as the source of a huge new
environmental problem. America's data centers, the vast
storehouses of computers that hold everything from Facebook pages
to Netflix movies to billions of emails, were guzzling
electricity at a ferocious rate, increasing air pollution and
greenhouse gases as internet use grew by leaps and bounds. But a
new study shows that data centers, also commonly known as "server
farms," have slimmed down dramatically.
http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_30135940/energy-guzzlers-no-more-data-centers-finally-using


Biomass plants make pitch for dead trees to produce electricity.
Trees are dying in the Sierra at modern-day unprecedented rates,
posing elevated fire danger and creating health, water and air
quality concerns, but a possible solution to rid the forest of
dead and dying trees is getting short shrift, officials say.
California’s biomass industry is set up regionally to turn
agricultural waste into electricity while eliminating open
burning. But many local biomass plants have closed or are closing
soon because it costs less to produce electricity with solar and
wind, which get subsidies that are not available to biomass.
http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article89666272.html#emlnl=Morning_Newsletter


MISCELLANEOUS

A New Climate Change Documentary Focuses on Solutions, Not Doom.
Despite the shrillness of climate deniers in today’s political
and media circuses, it’s fair to say that most regular
citizens--and nearly all of the global scientific community--know
that our planet’s climate is changing, and that those changes are
already causing damage to our environments, cities, and economies
and will continue to do so on a grander scale in the future.
Whether people are jumping from their seats to battle climate
change, however, is another thing altogether. More immediate
concerns like paying bills and putting food on the table tend to
take precedence for obvious reasons. 
http://www.popsci.com/time-to-choose-is-not-your-typical-climate-change-documentary


OPINIONS

The Politics of the Greenhouse Gas Law Extension.
The California Air Resources Board set a match to controversy
this week suggesting that the board could push the cap-and-trade
deadline for funding greenhouse gas reduction programs past its
2020 end date by executive fiat. That’s not the way the law
works, many Republicans cried, and they are backed up by an
opinion from the Legislative Counsel’s Office.
http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2016/07/politics-greenhouse-gas-law-extension/





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