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carbon tax initiative (I-732) garnered only 42 percent of the vote in Washington State. The tax was supposed to be revenue neutral by lowering the state sales tax by 1 cent and provide tax rebates of up to $1,500 per year to 460,000 low-income households. The initial $25 per ton would have boosted the price of gallon of gas by about 25 cents, and added 2.5 cents to each kilowatt-hour of coal-fired electricity, and 1.25 cents to electricity generated by natural gas. Interestingly, the proposal which aimed to cut emissions of carbon dioxide that are contributing to man-made global warming...

A carbon tax proposal in Washington state, scheduled for the ballot on Tuesday, has been drawing national attention for weeks as a result of the unexpected controversy it’s inspired among environmental groups, many of whom have outright opposed the initiative. And in the final days leading up to the vote, new voices have continued to join the fray, including influential players on all sides of the climate change conversation. **SNIP** Also last week, economic justice organization Rebuild the Dream, founded by former White House adviser and current CNN commentator Van Jones, released two Facebook ads — reportedly at a cost...

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While at best, Clinton’s clean cookstove campaign seems slimy, and may be illegal, one might cast a blind eye if the program achieved its aggrandizing goals. Hillary Clinton’s “trustworthiness” problem is fed by a long history of “varying credibility,” as a recent Politico story delineated, including cattle-futures trading, law firm billing records, muddled sniper fire recollections and e-mail use. While providing pertinent points, the Politico list is just a sampling. One missing item on the “mistrust” litany is a project she reportedly cooked up as Secretary of State, but that was shaped by her family foundation. State Department staff sent...

Ottawa (AFP) - Canada will impose a national minimum carbon price in 2018 in order to meet its Paris accord commitment to slash greenhouse gas emissions, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday. "All Canadian jurisdictions will put a price on carbon pollution by 2018... To get there, the government will set a floor price for carbon pollution," he said in a speech to parliament. Each province will have a choice in how they implement the pricing, he added, for example, by imposing a carbon tax or adopting a cap-and-trade system. The federal government, Trudeau said, is proposing a minimum price...

Atmospheric carbon dioxide has reached a historic threshold as levels remain above 400 parts per million through the end of September – the point in which values typically drop to their lowest. Climate scientists now warn that it’s ‘almost impossible’ that these numbers will fall next month, and likely won’t dip below 400ppm in the foreseeable future. While there may be brief, daily events in which the levels fall short of this amount, monthly values are set to keep climbing as the ‘rising half of the cycle’ begins, when carbon dioxide could even break 410 ppm.~SNIP~CLIMATE CHANGE IS ALREADY CAUSING...

It sounds simple: If something has a big carbon footprint and you get rid of it, you eliminate those carbon dioxide emissions. Right? But it’s not always that easy. In a recent study published in The Journal of Industrial Ecology, researchers at the Center for Environmental Strategy at the University of Surrey in England estimated the annual carbon footprint of crime in England and Wales, and found that reducing crime could actually cause society’s overall carbon footprint of society to increase. The findings illustrated the rebound effect, which describes how reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases in one area can...

The meltdown of California’s cap-and-trade system of reducing carbon emissions has not only thrown its climate change crusade into disarray but caused collateral damage. One victim is Gov. Jerry Brown’s $3.1 billion plan to spend auction proceeds, now on indefinite hold. It not only affects a $500 million allocation for Brown’s bullet train project, but another $500 million for “low carbon transportation and fuels.” The latter is a centerpiece of Brown’s very ambitious drive to reduce petroleum use in auto travel – the largest single source of California’s carbon emissions – by 50 percent by 2030 even though the Legislature...

Donald Trump will have a climate plan and it will be ugly. For now, the Republican frontrunner is pedaling the kind of denialism his party loves, having called global warming everything from a "hoax" to a "con job" to a Chinese plot. But an interview with his energy adviser hinted that Trump might endeavor to Make Atmospheric Carbon Levels Great Again. "My advice would be, while I'm a skeptic as well", Trump energy honcho Kevin Cramer [said], "he is a product of political populism, and political populism believes that there needs [to be] some addressing of climate change". Cramer has...

In fact, deep ocean circulation slowed down to such an extent that the heavy, saline water mass below a depth of 2000 metres was not in contact with the surface for almost 3000 years. "During this time, so much bound carbon in the form of animal and algae remains trickled down from the more intermixed sea surface into the deep water layer that we were able to identify it as the major carbon reservoir that we have looked for so intensively," says Thomas Ronge. The data also showed that the already old age of the water masses was artificially increased...

New research reveals that the increase in forest photosynthesis and growth made possible by tropical cyclones in the southeastern United States captures hundreds of times more carbon than is released by all vehicles in the US in a given year.

Rise in CO2 has 'greened Planet Earth' - BBC News. By Roger Harrabin BBC environment analyst Carbon dioxide emissions from industrial society have driven a huge growth in trees and other plants. A new study says that if the extra green leaves prompted by rising CO2 levels were laid in a carpet, it would cover twice the continental USA. Climate sceptics argue the findings show that the extra CO2 is actually benefiting the planet. But the researchers say the fertilisation effect diminishes over time. They warn the positives of CO2 are likely to be outweighed by the negatives. The lead...

Jeffrey Grossman thinks we've been looking at coal all wrong. Instead of just setting it afire, thus ignoring the molecular complexity of this highly varied material, he says, we should be harnessing the real value of that diversity and complex chemistry. Coal could become the basis for solar panels, batteries, or electronic devices, he and his research team say. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-04-electronics-coal.html#jCp

Nanotube wires self-assemble under the influence of a directed electric field from the Tesla coil. Credit: Jeff Fitlow ======================================================================================================== Scientists at Rice University have discovered that the strong force field emitted by a Tesla coil causes carbon nanotubes to self-assemble into long wires, a phenomenon they call "Teslaphoresis." The team led by Rice chemist Paul Cherukuri reported its results this week in ACS Nano. Cherukuri sees this research as setting a clear path toward scalable assembly of nanotubes from the bottom up. The system works by remotely oscillating positive and negative charges in each nanotube, causing them to chain together...

SEATTLE — Washington could become the first state in the nation to impose a direct tax on carbon emissions from fossil fuels such as coal, gasoline and natural gas. A ballot measure before the state Legislature would create a carbon tax of $25 per metric ton of fossil fuel emissions burned in Washington, while reducing taxes. Lawmakers have until the end of the session on March 10 to enact Initiative 732, offer an alternative proposal or automatically pass the carbon-tax measure to voters in November as written. It's not clear whether lawmakers will approve an alternative by the end of...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday delivered a major blow to President Barack Obama by blocking federal regulations to curb carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, the centerpiece of his administration's strategy to combat climate change. On a 5-4 vote, the court granted a request made by 27 states and various companies and business groups to block the administration's Clean Power Plan. The move means the regulations will not be in effect while litigation continues over whether their legality.

A U.S. federal court on Thursday rejected a bid by 27 states to block the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of its strategy to combat climate change. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a brief order denying an application seeking to stay the rule while litigation continues.

.........."Everyone by now is familiar with the 'pause' or 'slowdown' in the rate of global warming that has taken place over the past 20 years of so, but few realize is that the observed warming rate has been beneath the model mean expectation for periods extending back to the mid-20th century-60+ years," Patrick Michaels and Chip Knappenberger, climate scientists at the libertarian Cato Institute, write in a working paper released in December. Michaels and Knappenberger compared observed global surface temperature warming rates since 1950 to what was predicted by 108 climate models used by government climate scientists to predict how...

At left, a deformed sample of pure metal; at right, the strong new metal made of magnesium with silicon carbide nanoparticles. Each central micropillar is about 4 micrometers across. Credit: UCLA Scifacturing Laboratory ============================================================================================================= A team led by researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has created a super-strong yet light structural metal with extremely high specific strength and modulus, or stiffness-to-weight ratio. The new metal is composed of magnesium infused with a dense and even dispersal of ceramic silicon carbide nanoparticles. It could be used to make lighter airplanes, spacecraft, and cars, helping to...

Gov. Jerry Brown, at the conclusion of a speech here Tuesday, was heckled by a group of protesters opposed to carbon offset programs they said could hurt indigenous people. Brown, accompanied by several South American governors at a 19th century mansion in Paris, had finished brief remarks urging further efforts to counteract climate change when protesters started yelling, “No REDD.”