What's New List Serve Post Display

ARB Newsclips for December 29, 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.

CAP AND TRADE

Ontario's cap-and-trade program comes into effect Jan. 1.
Ontarians will start paying for the Liberal government's
ambitious cap-and-trade program almost immediately after it comes
into effect Jan. 1 with higher prices for gasoline and natural
gas. The plan, which is aimed at reducing greenhouse gas
emissions to 15 per cent below 1990 levels within four years,
will drive the price of gasoline up 4.3 cents per litre…
http://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/ontario-s-cap-and-trade-program-comes-into-effect-jan-1-1.3220682
http://www.metronews.ca/news/canada/2016/12/29/ontario-s-cap-and-trade-plan-raises-cost-of-gasoline-and-home-heating-on-jan-1.html
 

Carbon cutters on edge, hoping California’s cap-and-trade program
survives. Salmon — made possible by the rivers they run in and
the forest canopy above them — are the lifeblood of the Yurok
Tribe. The native word for salmon, Ney-puy, means “that which is
eaten” and the iconic fish and its habitat sustain California’s
largest tribe in ways that are both literal and metaphorical.
http://www.davisenterprise.com/local-news/carbon-cutters-on-edge-hoping-californias-cap-and-trade-program-survives/

https://calmatters.org/articles/carbon-cutters-on-edge-hoping-californias-cap-and-trade-program-survives/


AIR POLLUTION

How To Stop Pollution: Madrid Announces Car Restrictions To
Tackle Air Pollution. Madrid announced a limit on the number of
vehicles out on the city’s streets on Thursday in an effort to
curb its worsening pollution rate. The city, home to 3.2 million
people and 1.8 million cars, often suffers from bad bouts of
pollution. The city council said vehicles with license plates
ending in even numbers would not be allowed to circulate between
6:30 a.m. and 9 p.m...
http://www.ibtimes.com/how-stop-pollution-madrid-announces-car-restrictions-tackle-air-pollution-2466767

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/29/madrid-bans-half-of-cars-from-roads-to-fight-air-pollution


CLIMATE CHANGE

The U.S. isn’t the only big country at risk of falling behind on
climate change. Meet Brazil. Environmental advocates are worried
that President-elect Donald Trump will try to withdraw the United
States from the Paris climate agreement — and a recent scientific
analysis says that if he does and other major countries follow
suit, the consequence could be dire, tipping the world toward a
dangerous level of global warming.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/29/the-u-s-isnt-the-only-big-country-at-risk-of-backsliding-on-climate-change/?utm_term=.7bc448ebe346


Tillerson Led Exxon’s Shift on Climate Change; Some Say ‘It Was
All P.R.’. In January 2009, Rex W. Tillerson, the chief executive
of Exxon Mobil, gave a speech in Washington that might have
seemed impossible even a few years before. He announced that his
company supported a carbon tax to help fight climate change.
Carbon taxes are a fee on fuel use, based on how much carbon
dioxide that fuel puts into the atmosphere.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/business/energy-environment/rex-tillerson-secretary-of-state-exxon.html?_r=0


Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources: Climate change cause
debatable. The state Department of Natural Resources has quietly
removed language from its website that said humans and greenhouse
gases are the main cause of climate change. The Milwaukee Journal
Sentinel reports (http://bit.ly/2il6UkM) the website now states
the cause of climate change is debatable.
http://www.sfgate.com/news/education/article/DNR-removes-wording-saying-humans-cause-climate-10824432.php

4 Critical Energy Issues to Watch in 2017. The president-elect
will likely start rolling back eight years of Obama
administration climate regulations and restrictions on coal, oil
and gas development. The U.S. may be on the cusp of a stark
turning point in energy and climate policy with the election of
Donald Trump, who has stocked his cabinet with a majority of
people who doubt or reject established climate science.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/4-critical-energy-issues-to-watch-in-2017/


Climate Change 2016: The Year the Future Arrived. Our planet's
systems have a tremendous capacity to absorb punishment before
they begin to show signs of degradation. Earth's ecology
self-heals like a cut on a finger. It assimilates pollution by
chemical, physical and biological means -- it changes pollutants
into non-hazardous materials and proceeds upon its merry way as
if there had been no pollution at all.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38905-climate-change-2016-the-year-the-future-arrived


More Companies Willing to Pay for Carbon Reductions, Reports
Carbon Disclosure Project. It’s one thing for a company make
proclamations saying that they are pro-environment. It’s quite
another to actually pay for the technologies to become cleaner
and more efficient. The Carbon Disclosure Project is out with a
new a report say that the number of companies it tracks that are
willing to spend money on this endeavor has tripled over the last
four years.
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2016/12/companies-willing-pay-carbon-reductions-reports-carbon-disclosure-project/


FUELS

Eight Universities to Split $7 Million in Energy Department
Grants.  Cornell University, the University of Michigan and the
University of Alabama are among eight schools that will share $7
million in grants from the Department of Energy, the department
announced Dec. 29. The grants are aimed at boosting projects that
produce affordable, sustainable high-performance fuels for
low-emission engines.
http://www.ttnews.com/articles/basetemplate.aspx?storyid=44374 

VEHICLES

Carmakers Are Learning Japan’s Tech Talent Doesn’t Come Cheap.
Headhunter Casey Abel spent four months trying to hire a
data-center architect for a Japanese automaker, including five
meetings with the client -- one with the top executive. In the
end, the IT specialist joined an e-commerce company abroad for
significantly more money.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-29/japan-s-once-dominant-carmakers-face-big-pay-hikes-to-lure-geeks


Lamborghini confirms Urus SUV will be its only plug-in hybrid.
The supercar engines will reportedly stay naturally aspirated and
unassisted. According to Autocar, we'll be seeing the first
production hybrid Lamborghini soon. The publication reports that
Lamborghini's research and development chief, Maurizio Reggiani,
confirmed that the Urus SUV will be offered with a plug-in hybrid
powertrain.
http://www.autoblog.com/2016/12/29/lamborghini-urus-suv-plug-in-hybrid-confirmed/


Toyota hybrid bet pays off as emissions scandal ignites demand in
Europe. For years, Toyota Motor Corp. focused on pushing its
hybrid models in Europe, avoiding a diesel-for-diesel competition
with market leaders including Volkswagen AG. The carmaker’s
strategy is finally paying off. In the first full year since
Volkswagen’s emissions scandal threw the German giant into
disarray…
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/12/29/business/corporate-business/toyota-hybrid-bet-pays-off-emissions-scandal-ignites-demand-europe/#.WGVMi_nQhKU


MISCELLANEOUS

Republican control of Southern California air board may be brief.
Republicans are expected to lose control of the South Coast Air
Quality Management board when an outspoken liberal Democrat is
sworn in next week to serve on panel. Supervisor Sheila Kuehl of
Santa Monica will serve as Los Angeles County’s representative,
replacing conservative Republican Michael Antonovich, who served
on the air board since 1988.
http://www.pe.com/articles/air-821921-board-year.html 

OPINIONS

2016: Canada's Oil Sands Downturn Hints at Ominous Future. Low
oil prices that caused project cancellations, as well as new
climate policies, have activists seeing the beginning of the end
in Canada's oil patch. It was a dark year for Canada's tar sands.
Plunging oil prices caused companies to cancel or delay nearly
three dozen projects. Extensive wildfires forced producers to
shut down operations for weeks. And after a decade that saw
little action on climate change policy…
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22122016/canada-tar-sands-oil-exxon-climate-change-justin-trudeau?utm_source=Inside+Climate+News&utm_campaign=c28327c727-InsideClimate_News12_10_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_29c928ffb5-c28327c727-327494049


BLOGS

Carbon emissions in 2016 expected to be lowest since 1992. Carbon
emissions from U.S energy sources in 2016 are expected to be the
lowest in nearly 25 years, according to an analysis from the U.S.
Department of Energy. Carbon emissions for the first six months
of 2016 hit a record low — emissions were 2,530 million metric
tons, which was the lowest for the first half of a year since
1991.
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2016/12/29/carbon-emissions-in-2016-expected-to-be-lowest-since-1992/


Environmentally-Friendly Refrigerants to Help Reduce Global
Warming. Masdar Institute Research Supports UAE’s Goal to Freeze
the Use of Dangerous Greenhouse Gas-Emitting Refrigerants in Air
Conditioners. This year the UAE has joined more than 100
countries in committing to limit and mitigate climate change by
ratifying the Paris Agreement, which is the first universal
climate change agreement.
http://www.scienceandtechnologyresearchnews.com/environmentally-friendly-refrigerants-to-help-reduce-global-warming/


Global warming is causing birds to migrate too soon: Early flight
may mean some avians miss out on food. Migrating birds are
arriving at their breeding grounds earlier as global temperatures
rise, a study has found. Birds have reached their summer breeding
grounds on average about one day earlier per degree of increasing
global temperatures, according to the research, which looked at
hundreds of species across five continents.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4072818/Global-warming-causing-birds-migrate-soon-Early-flight-mean-avians-miss-food.html#ixzz4UFdQ4Mzj




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