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ARB Newsclips for September 15, 2016. 

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

Possible air pollution link to Alzheimer's.  A possible causal
link between air pollution and Alzheimer's disease has been
suggested by scientists after they conducted detailed studies of
brain tissue, in a joint British-Mexican project. Study co-author
Professor Barbara Maher, of Lancaster University, and her
research team examined the brain tissue of 37 individuals…
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-brain-pollution-idUSKCN11K1PC

World Bank Tries to Revive Projects for Reducing Methane
Emissions. The bank is auctioning off price guarantees for carbon
credits to help jump-start stalled efforts in the developing
world. The World Bank has a novel plan to jump-start projects
aimed at cutting emissions of methane and other greenhouse gases:
It is auctioning off financial contracts that give investors the
right to sell a certain amount of emission reductions—known as
carbon credits...
http://www.wsj.com/articles/world-bank-tries-to-revive-projects-for-reducing-methane-emissions-1473818461

CLIMATE CHANGE

Gov. Brown signs new laws to boost climate change spending in
California's low-income communities. Hailing the measures as a
way to advance California’s climate change programs through new
investments and greater equity across the state, Gov. Jerry Brown
signed four bills Wednesday to increase spending to combat
greenhouse gas emissions and direct more of that money to
low-income communities.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-sac-essential-politics-updates-gov-brown-signs-new-laws-to-boost-1473881012-htmlstory.html

http://www.imperialvalleynews.com/index.php/news/california-news/10873-governor-brown-signs-legislation-to-support-communities-impacted-by-climate-change.html

http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2016/09/15/california-increases-climate-ambitions-with-landmark-legislation/


Americans favor slightly higher bills to fight warming, poll
says. Most Americans are willing to pay a little more each month
to fight global warming — but only a tiny bit, according to a new
poll. Still, environmental policy experts hail that as a hopeful
sign.
Seventy-one percent want the federal government to do something
about global warming, including 6 percent who think the
government should act…
http://www.sfchronicle.com/nation/article/Americans-favor-slightly-higher-bills-to-fight-9223335.php?utm_source=Inside+Climate+News&utm_campaign=d694128c7f-Today_s_Climate12_10_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_29c928ffb5-d694128c7f-327747457


Global warming making Calif. wildfire season longer, more severe.
As Southern California firefighters battled the Blue Cut Fire
last month, there was nothing they could do to fend off an
unfortunate reality: Global warming is already lengthening
wildfire season and increasing the likelihood of extreme fires
across the West. And conditions will only get worse in the coming
decades.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/09/14/global-warming-making-calif-wildfire-season-longer-more-severe/90364040/


Global warming could make the drought last for a century, says
UCLA study. Greenhouse gases trapped in the upper atmosphere are
acting like natural climatic forces that made some ancient
droughts last for 1,000 years, UCLA researchers say.
Global warming created by these gases could be making a more arid
climate, like what California has seen in its current five-year
drought, “the new normal,”…
http://www.sgvtribune.com/general-news/20160915/global-warming-could-make-the-drought-last-for-a-century-says-ucla-study


Outdated FEMA Flood Maps Don't Account For Climate Change. The
floods that hit Louisiana last month were caused by rainfall that
was unlike anything seen there in centuries. Most of the southern
part of the state was drenched with up to two or three inches in
an hour. A total of 31 inches fell just northeast of Baton Rouge
in about three days; 20 parishes were declared federal disaster
areas.
http://www.npr.org/2016/09/15/492260099/outdated-fema-flood-maps-dont-account-for-climate-change


Lives in the balance: climate change and the Marshall Islands.
There may be music in the roar of the sea, as Byron eulogized,
but the waves can also bring creeping unease. On low-lying
fragments of land like the Marshall Islands, the tides are
threatening to take away what they previously helped support:
life. Hilda Heine surveys the latest temporary sea wall that
cleaves her property from the waves. 
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/15/marshall-islands-climate-change-springdale-arkansas

Climate change could force key military bases to move. Some of
the nation's most strategic military installations, including
training facilities, fighter wings and shipyards, are in places
threatened by rising seas and climate change, top defense leaders
warned yesterday. That means bases and operations might need to
move in the coming decades, military leaders said at the Climate
and National Security Forum…
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/09/15/stories/1060042855 

DROUGHT

D.C. area is a step away from drought after hot, parched stretch.
The air has simmered, storms have stayed away, and suddenly the
D.C. area faces the prospect of drought. The U.S. Drought Monitor
update released Thursday shows that parts of the D.C. area have
turned “abnormally dry” — just one category away from drought in
its classification. The drought summary said, “90-degree heat
coupled with acute short-term dryness (30-day rainfall totaling
less than 40 percent of normal…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/09/15/d-c-area-is-a-step-away-from-drought-after-hot-parched-stretch/


DIESEL ACTIVITIES

FUELS

Investment vital for coal emissions technology: coal chief.  A
forecast for Southeast Asia's coal consumption to more than
triple by 2040 underscores the need for more investment in low
emissions coal technology to help meet global climate targets, a
world coal trade body chief said on Thursday. Regional demand for
coal is expected to grow at 4.6 percent a year to 2040, outpacing
overall growth in energy demand…
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-coal-demand-outlook-idUSKCN11L0KT?feedType=RSS&virtualBrandChannel=11563


California’s dairies must trap more methane from manure, but face
big costs. The rumbling of a tank-sized generator on the grounds
of the Van Warmerdam Dairy is a sound of relief for the longtime
farming family. It’s a signal that the Van Warmerdams won’t have
to change the way they do business much to comply with the
looming air quality regulations that aim to slash the sizable
carbon footprint of California’s dairy industry.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/environment/article101657322.html#storylink=cpy


Bill Gates announces new bet on biofuels with Total. French oil
and gas giant Total SA and former Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill
Gates today announced a multimillion-dollar investment in biofuel
developer Renmatix. Gates is leading the $14 million investment
in the company, which develops and licenses technology for
converting cellulosic biomass into sugars that serve as starting
materials for commercial fuels.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/09/15/stories/1060042881 

Makers of car parts split with automakers over CAFÉ. Automotive
parts suppliers believe the light-duty vehicle fuel economy
standards for 2025 should not be changed, splitting with
automakers. Sixteen of the 23 suppliers surveyed by Ricardo
Energy & Environment for a report published yesterday by clean
automotive technology industry group…
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/09/15/stories/1060042854 

VEHICLES

Sell last gasoline car by 2035 to meet climate goals, study says.
The last gasoline-powered car will have to be sold by about 2035
to put the world on track to limit global warming to the most
stringent goal set by world leaders last year, a study said on
Thursday. The report, by a Climate Action Tracker (CAT) backed by
three European research groups, said a drastic shift was needed
towards clean electric cars…
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-cars-idUSKCN11L197?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=Inside+Climate+News&utm_campaign=d694128c7f-Today_s_Climate12_10_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_29c928ffb5-d694128c7f-327747457


Chevy Bolt EV electric car shows GM can do Silicon Valley, exec
says. Over the last five years, much has been written about
autonomous-car efforts from Apple and Google. Could these two
massively successful Silicon Valley startups overturn the
established order in the global auto industry? The answer remains
to be seen, but this month brought news that both companies are
restructuring their efforts.
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1105845_chevy-bolt-ev-electric-car-shows-gm-can-do-silicon-valley-exec-says


17 electric cars that you'll be able to drive by 2020. These
days, if you are in the market for a fully electric, long-range
vehicle, your options are pretty limited. In fact, Tesla vehicles
are currently the only cars you can buy that have an official
range of more than 200 miles per charge. But it won't be long
before there's an influx of long-range electric cars hitting the
mark.
http://www.businessinsider.com/electric-cars-launching-2016-9 

Ford to move all small-car production to Mexico as profits set to
fall. Company drops pre-tax profits forecast as it plans to
expand its self-driving and electric car lines, and relocates
more factories south of the border. Ford has warned shareholders
that it is pouring cash into “emerging opportunities” and expects
a steep decline in its financial performance in 2017.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/sep/14/ford-steep-decline-financial-performance-2017


VW RECALL

GREEN ENERGY

Alberta says will support 5,000 MW of new renewable energy
capacity. The Canadian crude-producing province of Alberta said
on Tuesday it will support the creation of 5,000 megawatts of
additional renewable energy capacity by 2030 to help achieve
goals laid out in its climate plan last year. Shannon Phillips,
Minister of Environment and Parks, said Alberta now has a firm
target of 30 percent of electricity…
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-energy-renewables-idUSKCN11K28X


Japan’s Shift to Renewable Energy Loses Power. After the disaster
at the Fukushima nuclear plant, the country set ambitious
targets. What happened? Five years after the disaster at the
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the urgency to go green in Japan
has faded. The drive toward ambitious targets for the use of
renewable fuels has been slowed by resistance from utilities and
concerns about the costs of renewable-energy projects…
http://www.wsj.com/articles/japans-shift-to-renewable-energy-loses-power-1473818581


Amazon Hires Lincoln Clean Energy to Build a Wind Farm in Texas.
Amazon.com Inc. hired Lincoln Clean Energy LLC to build a
253-megawatt wind project in Texas to help power its data
centers. The development in Scurry County will be the online
retailer’s largest renewable energy project to date, Amazon said
in a statement Thursday. It will include more than 100 turbines
and is scheduled to be operational…
http://washpost.bloomberg.com/Story?docId=1376-ODJY3K6TTDS801-26P64U94DEIQFE9SSO67RBQ058

A Solar Project Worth Watching in Morocco. When completed, the
Noor-Ouarzazate station will be capable of generating enough
electricity for more than a million people. The rugged landscape
around Ouarzazate, a city in south-central Morocco on the edge of
the vast Sahara, is known to some as a filming location for
movies such as “Lawrence of Arabia”…
http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-solar-project-worth-watching-in-morocco-1473818401


Plan Divvies Up California Desert For Conservation, Energy
Projects. Swaths of public land in the California desert will be
opened to solar and wind farms under a federal plan released
Wednesday that preserves much of the landscape for conservation
and recreation. The long-awaited blueprint finalized by the U.S.
Interior Department after a years-long process seeks to balance
renewable energy development…
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2016/sep/14/plan-divvies-california-desert-conservation-energy/

Global investment in energy falls but renewables remain strong.
Energy investment fell 8% in 2015, reflecting low oil and gas
prices, but falling costs and government policy shift spending
towards clean energy, data shows. Global investment in energy
fell by 8% last year to $1.8tn (£1.4), reflecting low oil and gas
prices and cost falls in the sector, new data shows.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/15/global-investment-in-energy-falls-but-renewables-remain-strong


Monterey County makes way for solar panels on farmland. In the
Salinas Valley, rows of crops stretch for miles, undisturbed.
Here, in the Salad Bowl of the World, county officials are
fiercely protective of keeping farmland in farming, but that
could change as renewable energy gets more popular. County
officials began deliberating over questions about solar panels on
farmland…
http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/news/local_news/monterey-county-makes-way-for-solar-panels-on-farmland/article_0b548b28-7ab2-11e6-baeb-2bd8fcdd817e.html


Why Solar Developers Aren't Happy with the Desert Renewable
Energy Plan. “It’s just a complete disconnect with our climate
change ambitions.” The United States on Wednesday unveiled a
long-awaited plan for desert renewable energy development that
the solar and wind industries said unfairly favors land
conservation and severely limits the ability to build projects
critical to meeting the nation’s climate goals.
http://fortune.com/2016/09/15/desert-renewable-energy-plan/ 

BLM's Calif. plan hurts climate goals — wind, solar groups. The
Obama administration's plan for managing renewable energy
development in California's desert clashes with the state's
aggressive goals for limiting climate change, wind and solar
groups warned yesterday. The organizations jointly criticized the
plan, saying it would "significantly and permanently limit solar
and wind energy development"…
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/09/15/stories/1060042893

MISCELLANEOUS

California Utility Turns to Tesla For Huge Battery Project. It’s
because of the Aliso Canyon disaster. Southern California
Edison’s struggles after the closing of a key natural gas
reservoir following a massive leak last year has led it to none
other than electric car maker Tesla. Tesla on Thursday announced
that it had won a deal to provide 20 megawatts of batteries to
the utility to plug into one of its substations…
http://fortune.com/2016/09/15/tesla-grid-battery-project/?iid=leftrail


ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

OPINIONS

Wind, solar and electric cars are booming. Too bad that’s not
enough to stop climate change. The tough thing about halting
climate change is that it means altering pretty much everything
about how we get and use energy. We have to change how we
generate electricity — how we power our homes, our buildings and
operate the grid. We have to change transportation, how we get
around, travel, transport goods.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/09/14/wind-solar-and-electric-cars-are-booming-too-bad-thats-not-enough/?utm_term=.122861a20807

Feds driving truck speed-limit rule. The U.S. Transportation
Department is moving full speed ahead on a proposed rule that
would mandate a device limiting the speed of large commercial
trucks and buses, in a move that would be costly not only to
truckers but also to liberty. As California truckers, in
particular, know all too well, government has already mandated
expensive equipment, such as diesel particulate filters…
http://www.pe.com/articles/speed-813222-vehicles-police.html 

California's faux environmentalism. Gov. Jerry Brown recently
signed two high-profile anti-climate change bills – Senate Bill
32 and Assembly Bill 197 – which double down on California’s
already aggressive environmental efforts despite the fact that
they aren’t working as planned. According to a recent report from
the Energy Institute at UC Berkeley’s Hass School of Business,
the state’s “cap-and-trade program… 
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/california-729047-nuclear-percent.html


Clean, renewable energy is needed. For many years, whenever I’d
come across a dangerous chemical or something that would cause
damage to the environment, I’d write it down and put it in a
file. That file was getting pretty big, so I started listing them
on a spreadsheet. Because of all the discussion surrounding the
pipelines, upcoming elections and my work on climate change...
http://lancasteronline.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/clean-renewable-energy-is-needed/article_5a62b4a2-7a8e-11e6-bcb4-4f99a059f82b.html


The Many Moving Parts of California’s Climate Program. Some
storylines are pretty linear and easy to follow—boy meets girl,
they fall in love and live happily ever after. The End. But then
there are the others. The ones that really capture the
imagination of the world. The ones that take work to follow, the
ones that are super complex with multiple characters, unexpected
plot twists, and unbelievable events.
http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=cd481302-915b-403b-9a01-0572dff6aa35


BLOGS

Sea ice is declining sharply for all 19 polar bear populations in
the Arctic. Sea ice decline is hitting all 19 subpopulations of
polar bears in the Arctic during the spring and fall, the times
of year when they're most vulnerable, a new study found. This
study is the first to examine dates of spring sea ice retreat and
fall ice advance across polar bear habitats around the Arctic.
http://mashable.com/2016/09/14/ice-melt-polar-bear-habitat-loss/#nhCetdch.uqd


The Racial Justice Flaws in California's Climate Bill.
California’s climate change bill has reduced overall greenhouse
gas emissions, but not air pollution in black and Latino
neighborhoods. When University of Southern California sociologist
Manuel Pastor first heard critiques from environmental justice
advocates about AB 32, California’s climate change bill that
passed in 2006, he was skeptical.
http://www.citylab.com/politics/2016/09/californias-climate-bill-is-not-protecting-the-health-of-black-and-latino-communities/500024/


Amazon’s biggest renewable energy project: a 253-megawatt Texas
wind farm opening in 2017.  Amazon has announced a new
253-megawatt (MW) wind farm that will be opening in Texas next
year, a project the internet giant says is it’s biggest renewable
energy project so far. Opening in late 2017, Amazon Wind Farm
Texas will be situated in Scurry Country and will generate
1,000,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of wind energy each year.
http://venturebeat.com/2016/09/15/amazons-biggest-renewable-energy-project-a-253-megawatt-texas-wind-farm-opening-in-2017/


Pacific Ocean’s response to greenhouse gases could extend
California drought for centuries. Clues from prehistoric droughts
and arid periods in California show that today’s increasing
greenhouse gas levels could lock the state into drought for
centuries, according to a study led by UCLA professor Glen
MacDonald. The study, published today in the Nature journal
Scientific Reports, looked at how natural climatic forces
contributed to centuries-long…
http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/5271.html 



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