Free Republic

A publicly funded, world-class research institute that would develop answers to the threat posed by climate-changing greenhouse gases is being crafted in the Legislature, and is among the last-minute proposals expected to come before the Legislature in the closing days of this year's legislative session. The plan differs sharply from the original blueprint proposed by California's top utilities regulator, state Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey. Legislation encompassing the new, estimated $87 million-a-year plan is likely to be completed within a few days. At time when public attention is focused on California's $15.2 billion budget shortage, the proposed California Institute...

DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO – Social and environmental groups yesterday challenged a multistate proposal to trim greenhouse gas emissions because they fear it would harm low-income communities and be vulnerable to fraud. Protesters showed up outside a meeting of the Western Climate Initiative in San Diego, where leaders from several states and Canadian provinces discussed their pollution-reduction compact. California supports the blueprint, which aims to drop climate pollutants 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. The most controversial aspect is a plan to create a cap-and-trade system for atmospheric pollutants. Once emission limits are set by the 11 participating governments, high-polluting...

SAN FRANCISCO -- California's effort to limit vehicle emissions of gases that contribute to global warming hit a snag Friday when a federal appeals court ruled that the state and environmental groups acted too early when they sued the Bush administration in January for blocking the law. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco dismissed a lawsuit filed by California, 15 other states and five environmental groups over the Environmental Protection Agency's refusal to let the state enforce its limits on greenhouse gas fumes from new cars and trucks. The court said the Jan. 2 suit was...

Attorney General Jerry Brown sued the county in April 2007, charging that a general plan update approved a month earlier would worsen global warming. The general plan, a blueprint for growth through 2030, projects more homes and increased traffic as the county's population continues to increase. It was the first time the state sued a public agency for not taking into account global warming. State and county officials hailed the greenhouse reduction plan that the county agreed to as groundbreaking. Julie Rynerson Rock, the county's director of land-use services, said the county's plan will be the most far-reaching in the...

California, six other Western states and four Canadian provinces will launch a market-based carbon trading system in a major North American effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, according to a draft proposal released today. When it officially begins in four years, the program would first target heavy polluters such as electric utilities, oil refineries and large industrial and commercial facilities, which would be required to begin reporting emission levels beginning in 2011 to allow participating governments to agree on the maximum level of emissions for the region. The plan also includes an offsets system, part of...

A former global warming alarmist and creator of the model that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol says that while global warming is real, there is no evidence that the main cause is carbon emissions. David Evans says that C02 emissions play - at most - a minor role. Evans writes in The Australian newspaper that if global warming was caused by C02, scientists would have found hot spots about six miles up in the earth's atmosphere over the Tropics. Evans describes those hot spots as the signature of the greenhouse effect. He says scientists have been trying to...

"Today EPA released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking soliciting public input on the effects of climate change and the potential ramifications of the Clean Air Act in relation to greenhouse gas emmisions."

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Giving one million dairy cows a growth hormone makes them produce more milk would cut greenhouse gas emissions equal to taking 400,000 cars off the road, a US study found. Large scale cow milk production requires the use of huge amounts of land, water and feed resources, noted Judith Capper, a researcher at Cornell University in New York. But using rbST -- the first biotech product used on US farms which has been in farm use for about 15 years -- can help reduce the "carbon hoofprint" while still meeting dairy demand, she explained. Known as either...

Georgia court cites carbon in coal-plant ruling Mon Jun 30, 2008 8:18pm EDT HOUSTON (Reuters) - A Georgia state court on Monday invalidated a permit to build a 1,200-megawatt coal-fired power plant, citing the developers' failure to limit emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas blamed for global warming. An environmental group immediately praised the decision, predicting it would lead to reconsideration of many coal-fired power plants under development in the country. The order, from Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore, reversed an air permit issued earlier this year....

White House Blocks EPA Emissions Draft Document Outlines Keys To Regulating Greenhouse Gases By IAN TALLEY and SIOBHAN HUGHES June 30, 2008 WASHINGTON -- The White House is trying to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from publishing a document that could become the legal roadmap for regulating greenhouse-gas emissions in the U.S., said people close to the matter. The fight over the document is the latest development in a long-running conflict between the EPA and the White House over climate-change policy. It will likely intensify ongoing Congressional investigations into the Bush administration's involvement in the agency's policymaking. The draft document,...

SACRAMENTO – California's top air-quality agency for the first time on Thursday will reveal a long-awaited strategy for how it expects business and the public to respond to the challenge of dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions from factories, power plants and cars. By itself, the draft plan before the Air Resources Board will not impose specific regulations to curb greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming. Instead, the plan is widely expected to set the course for establishing state policies that will redefine energy use in California. No sector will be excused. The proposal will lay out blueprints for refineries,...

Of all the things gearheads making the 2,600-mile Great American Run through the West will worry about -- avoiding the cops, keeping the car intact, finding a bathroom before their bladders burst -- the size of their carbon footprint is at the bottom of the list. ) What a footprint it is. The 200 or so cars competing in the second annual race -- an update of the famed Cannonball Run -- will spew about as much CO2 in seven days as the average person generates in 16 years. Mention that to the drivers and they'll probably ask, "Yeah? And?"...

Thus far, California’s landmark law to cut greenhouse gases from its factories and businesses—a law that has given Gov. Schwarzenegger an international image of environmental activist—has been mostly talk and little action. Rules covering perhaps 60 percent of the reductions needed to meet the targets are already in place or soon will be, the result of other laws, covering such things as renewable energy standards, energy efficiency, clean-car rules, low-carbon fuel standards and others. One key component, to cut greenhouse gases from car tailpipes, is stalled pending a federal waiver, although that permission is all but certain after President Bush...

Researchers in Wyoming report development of a low-cost carbon filter that can remove 90 percent of carbon dioxide gas from the smokestacks of electric power plants that burn coal and other fossil fuels. Maciej Radosz and colleagues at Wyoming's Soft Materials Laboratory cite the pressing need for simple, inexpensive new technologies to remove carbon dioxide from smokestack gases. Coal-burning electric power plants are major sources of the greenhouse gas, and control measures may be required in the future. The study describes a new carbon dioxide-capture process, called a Carbon Filter Process, designed to meet the need. It uses a simple,...

While carbon dioxide has been getting lots of publicity in climate change, reactive forms of nitrogen are also building up in the environment, scientists warn. "The public does not yet know much about nitrogen, but in many ways it is as big an issue as carbon, and due to the interactions of nitrogen and carbon, makes the challenge of providing food and energy to the world's peoples without harming the global environment a tremendous challenge," University of Virginia environmental sciences professor James Galloway said in a statement. "We are accumulating reactive nitrogen in the environment at alarming rates, and this...

The ice core boring at Dome C in Antarctica shows that the curves for the temperature and the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane follow each other over the past 800,000 years -- with few deviations. (See arrows) Credit: Professor Thomas Blunier, Centre for Ice and Climate, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen The newest analysis of trace gases trapped in Antarctic ice cores now provide a reasonable view of greenhouse gas concentrations as much as 800,000 years into the past, and are further confirming the link between greenhouse gas levels and global warming, scientists reported today in the...

WASHINGTON – Sen. John McCain called Monday for reductions in carbon emissions and criticized the Bush administration for failing to lead the fight against climate change. "We have many advantages in the fight against global warming, but time is not one of them. … We stand warned by serious and credible scientists across the world that time is short and the dangers are great," the Arizona Republican said in a speech delivered at a wind-energy facility in Portland, Ore. "The most relevant question is whether our own government is equal to the challenge." McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, proposed...

WASHINGTON – The amount of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, released by the nation's power plants grew by nearly 3 percent last year, the largest annual increase in nearly a decade, an environmental group said Tuesday. The analysis of government emissions figures covered more than 1,000 plants including those burning coal, natural gas and oil. The report by the Environmental Integrity Project, a Washington-based advocacy group, said that the 2.9 percent increase in CO2 releases outpaced a 2.3 percent year-to-year increase in electricity production. “Carbon emissions actually increased faster than (electricity) demand,” said Eric Schaeffer, the group's executive director....

Canada warns US over oil sands By Sheila McNulty in Houston Published: March 9 2008 20:47 | Last updated: March 9 2008 22:12 Canada has warned the US government that a narrow interpretation of new energy legislation would prohibit its neighbour buying fuel from Alberta’s vast oil sands, with “unintended consequences for both countries”. In a letter to Robert Gates, US defence secretary, Canada said that it “would not want to see an expansive interpretation” of the Energy Independence and Security Act 2007. A copy of the letter, from Michael Wilson, Canadian ambassador, and copied to Condoleezza Rice, US secretary...

Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these “green” fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded. The benefits of biofuels have come under increasing attack in recent months, as scientists took a closer look at the global environmental cost of their production. These latest studies, published in the prestigious journal Science, are likely to add to the controversy. These studies for the first time take a detailed, comprehensive look at the emissions effects of the huge amount of natural land that is...

Biofuels emissions may be 'worse than petrol' 19:00 07 February 2008 NewScientist.com news service Jim Giles Biofuels, once seen as a useful way of combating climate change, could actually increase greenhouse gas emissions, say two major new studies. And it may take tens or hundreds of years to pay back the "carbon debt" accrued by growing biofuels in the first place, say researchers. The calculations join a growing list of studies questioning whether switching to biofuels really will help combat climate change. Biofuel production has accelerated over the last 5 years, spurred in part by a US drive to produce...

During Deglaciation; Production of the Gas Was Relatively Rapid Researchers from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Amherst College have linked the methane production of a subsurface consortium of fermentative and methanogenic bacteria in shale rock to increases in concentrations of atmospheric methane associated with the retreat of the continental ice sheets. The study also concluded that these bacteria produced large amounts of methane in a relatively short time. Steven Petsch, assistant professor Geosciences at U Mass-Amherst, and his colleagues studied natural gas reservoirs in Michigan’s Antrim Shale. Their results are published in the February issue of the journal Geology. Bacteria...

Your baked potato may not be quite as nutritious by the end of the century, a new study suggests. As carbon dioxide levels continue to accumulate in the atmosphere due to the use of fossil fuels, the increase could cause a decrease in the nutritional value of many key food crops, says Max Taub of Southwestern University in Texas, who analyzed more than 200 experiments conducted by other researchers. The experiments looked at the effects of higher levels of the greenhouse gas on the protein amounts in barley, rice, wheat, soybean and potatoes, key food crops, especially in poorer countries,...

Greenland's ice sheet shrank more rapidly last summer than at any other time in the past 50 years, measurements have shown.< >"The question is: Can we reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in time to make enough of a difference to curb this decay?"< >However, its report acknowledged that temperatures in southern Greenland during the 1930s and 1940s were at least as warm as in recent years.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday slapped down California's bid for first-in-the-nation greenhouse gas limits on cars, trucks and SUVs, denying a request for a waiver that would have allowed those restrictions to take effect. "The Bush administration is moving forward with a clear national solution - not a confusing patchwork of state rules - to reduce America's climate footprint from vehicles," EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson said in a statement.

California on Thursday became the first state in the nation to require oil refineries, electricity generating plants, cement kilns and other major polluters to report their annual greenhouse gas emissions beginning in 2009. The mandatory reporting rule approved by state air regulators would affect 800 manufacturing facilities that account for about 95 percent of emissions from industrial sources in California. Through the end of the year, businesses can continue to voluntarily submit their carbon emissions to the California Climate Action Registry, a nonprofit created by the state in 2000 to encourage companies and government agencies to track and ultimately reduce...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States reduced greenhouse gas emissions in 2006 after four years of increases, the government said Wednesday ahead of a key United Nations meeting next week on climate change. The Department of Energy (DoE) said greenhouse gas emissions in the world's biggest polluter fell by 1.5 percent in 2006, the first decline since 2001. Measured against US economic growth of 2.9 percent last year, the department said greenhouse gas intensity fell by 4.2 percent, the largest yearly decline since 1990, its base year. President George W. Bush welcomed the DoE report as confirmation of his administration's...

New Mexico industries will be required to start reporting their greenhouse gas emissions, beginning in 2009, to the state Environment Department, under a rule recently ordered by the state Environment Improvement Board. The rule, which includes oil and gas producers, mandates the most comprehensive reporting in the nation, said Jim Norton, director of the Environmental Protection Division of the Environment Department. Wisconsin and New Jersey have greenhouse gas reporting rules, but they are narrower in scope. California has prepared a similar rule but has not yet adopted it, Norton said. The rule requires industries that already report emissions of other...

Last month, UAF researcher Katey Walter brought a National Public Radio crew to Alaska’s North Slope, hoping to show them examples of what happens when methane is released when permafrost thaws beneath lakes. When they reached their destination, Walter and the crew found even more than they bargained for: a lake violently boiling with escaping methane. “It was cold, wet and windy. We were dropped off in the middle of nowhere by a helicopter and paddled out to a huge methane plume in the middle of the lake with no idea what to expect, how strong the bubbling plume would...

VIENNA, Austria - Negotiators from 158 countries reached basic agreement Friday on rough targets aimed at getting some of the world's biggest polluters to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. A weeklong U.N. climate conference concluded that industrialized countries should strive to cut emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent of their 1990 levels by 2020. Experts said that target would serve as a loose guide for a major international climate summit to be held in December in Bali, Indonesia. "We have reached broad agreement on the main issues," said Leon Charles, a negotiator from Grenada...

PHOENIX - Six western states and two Canadian provinces announced a regional goal Wednesday to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. The Western Climate Initiative includes Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington and the provinces of British Columbia and Manitoba. The group wants emissions cut by 15 percent over 2005 levels within 13 years. Governors of the most of the states created the WCI in February, pledging to work together to significantly reduce emissions, partly by designing a market-based system such as a cap-and-trade program planned by California. "The regional goal reflects the combined impact of the individual...

August 11, 2007 -- New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse caused a major headache for executives at the C-Span network when she acted like a diva, refusing to join a panel of fellow court reporters because it was going to be televised for the public. . . . Snip Greenhouse became "infuriated" and refused to speak at the last minute, claiming she wasn't told beforehand that the event would be carried by C-Span. She then gave the panel organizer an ultimatum. "I told her she had a choice - either she could have me on the panel speaking candidly or...

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - Western U.S. states and Canadian provinces eyeing a joint carbon trading market are hoping to resolve differences over issues such as how emissions are calculated. Representatives of the six U.S. states and two Canadian provinces in the Western Climate Initiative began three days of meetings in Vancouver on Thursday. Two provinces and two states that are thinking of joining the group are also expected to attend. British Columbia Environment Minister Barry Penner hopes the meeting will help narrow down the options the group will consider as it struggles to set regional greenhouse gas reduction goals...

SACRAMENTO As California begins mapping out its strategy to cut greenhouse gas emissions, how industries will be forced to comply is emerging as one of the most complex aspects of the debate. A key component of the state's plan to implement last year's far-reaching global warming law was submitted Friday to California air regulators. The state Air Resources Board received a 107-page report commissioned last year by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that endorses a market-trading program. Under such a program, power plants, refineries, cement plants and other industries that produce greenhouse gases can buy and sell credits for their emissions. That...

Not a single Republican voted for California's landmark global warming law when the state Senate passed it last year. Today, the minority party is taking advantage of the law by using it as leverage during negotiations on the overdue state budget. Republicans are upset that Attorney General Jerry Brown, a Democrat, has told at least a dozen cities and counties that they must offset the increased greenhouse gas emissions that will be a byproduct of future growth. Republicans say that will hurt cities' and counties' transportation and housing plans, and want language in the state budget to protect local governments...

California Assembly Bill 32 ("Greenhouse Gas Law") Abrogates "The Pasadena Way" The Pasadena Pundit - July 23, 2007 The City of Pasadena has always prided itself in its leadership capabilities in taking over the construction of the Gold Line from the MTA, creating its own health department separate from L.A. County, issuing its own cleanliness ratings of local restaurants instead of the County, and historically taking the lead in founding the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California back in the 1930's. It might be called "the Pasadena Way." But Pasadena is taking a huge risk by its unquestioning embrace of...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- The future of coal as fuel for generating electricity in Florida is "not looking good," Gov. Charlie Crist said Tuesday after the second setback in a month for utilities seeking to build new coal-fired plants. A group that was planning to build a new coal plant in Taylor County, just southeast of Tallahassee, said Tuesday it was suspending its efforts to get a permit in the face of "growing concerns about greenhouse gas emissions." The decision, hailed by Crist as good for Florida, comes about a month after the state's Public Service Commission rejected another coal...

Corning, N.Y. -- You can definitely smell it, but you can't see it. The United States Department of Agriculture has released reports stating that when you smell cow manure, you're also smelling greenhouse gas emissions. That will be the focus of new research that might happen right here in the Southern Tier. Agriculture Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, Mark Rey, was in Corning Wednesday morning at the Big Flats Plant Materials Center to annouce the award of nearly $20 million in Conservation Innovation Grants to fund 51 research projects across the country designed to refine new technologies helping...

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell signed a memorandum of understanding Thursday to jointly reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, as Schwarzenegger wrapped up a three-day visit to Canada. The pact, known as the Pacific Coast Collaborative to Protect Our Shared Climate and Oceans, commits the two jurisdictions to cap and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and work on the development and implementation of clean technologies, but is not legally binding. The deal commits both areas to work together to protect the waters off the Pacific coast of North America, a significant portion of...

SACRAMENTO – Business leaders have warned repeatedly that companies and consumers will pay a high price in return for lower greenhouse gas emissions. Few alarms, however, have been sounded over the potential ongoing cost to taxpayers. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has asked the Legislature to approve 126 new specialists and $36 million to ramp up California's historic campaign to slow global warming by cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The size and speed of the proposed hiring surge in response to a single piece of legislation is rare, likely unrivaled since California launched its disastrous energy deregulation scheme a decade ago. Budget writers...

BANGKOK, Thailand - Delegates from 120 countries approved the first roadmap for stemming greenhouse gas emissions Friday, laying out what they said was an affordable arsenal of anti-warming measures that must be rushed into place to avert a disastrous spike in global temperatures. But a U.S. official raised concern about the economic costs. The report, a summary of a study by a U.N. network of 2,000 scientists, said the world has to make significant cuts in gas emissions through increasing the energy efficiency of buildings and vehicles, shifting from fossil fuels to renewable fuels, and reforming both the forestry and...

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Across the globe, chickens and pigs are doing their bit to curb global warming. But cows and sheep still have some catching up to do. The farm animals produce lots of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that gets far less public attention than carbon dioxide yet is at the heart of efforts to fight climate change. Government policies and a U.N.-backed system of emission credits is proving a money-spinner for investors, farmers and big polluters such as power stations wanting to offset their own emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2). The reason is simple: methane...

29 Ways To INCREASE Global Warming The hysteria surrounding global warming is a crock. The idea that human beings are destroying the planet with BBQs and hair spray is stupid and silly...and I refuse to accept this nonsense. Following is a 'how-to' guide on enjoying more of the wonderful resources our Earth has to offer. I encourage readers to stop feeling guilty if they choose NOT to recycle. It's time to burn those fossil fuels. Get out and drive your SUV...And by all means, leave the farting cows alone! 1. Remove your energy-saver bulbs and go back to normal lights....

LONDON - Advertisements for flights, or holidays that include flying, should carry a tobacco-style health warning to remind people of the global warming crisis, a leading British think-tank said on Thursday. Using the traditional Easter holiday getaway to highlight the issue, the Institute for Public Policy Research said such health warnings would make people think twice about the impact their journey would have on the environment. "The evidence that aviation damages the atmosphere is just as clear as the evidence that smoking kills," IPPR climate change chief Simon Retallack said. "We know that smokers notice health warnings on cigarettes, and...

US Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe (both R-ME) have introduced a measure (S.1073) that would require automakers to reduce new vehicle greenhouse gas emissions 30% below 2002 levels by 2016. This would nationalize California’s motor vehicle greenhouse gas reduction standard. The EPA would be required to tighten the reductions every five years. The bill also requires fuel suppliers to increase the percentage of low-carbon fuels—biodiesel, cellulosic ethanol E85, hydrogen, electricity, and others—in the motor vehicle fuel supply by 2015. This would reduce emissions from motor vehicle fuels by 10% below projected levels by 2030. It’s clear...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Democrat Bill Richardson told oil and gas investors Wednesday how he'd wean the United States off foreign sources of their product if elected president in 2008. Calling dependence on foreign oil America's "Achilles heel," the New Mexico governor outlined a broad plan for promoting energy independence in a keynote address at an oil and gas conference in New York sponsored by investment banking giant Bear Stearns. In prepared remarks, Richardson set a goal of reducing oil imports by 40 percent and replacing liquid fuels with biofuels by 2025, and called for a 75 percent reduction in...

California's first-in-the-nation law to curb greenhouse-gas emissions is developing behind the scenes differently than the Schwarzenegger administration's public pronouncements would suggest, with as much emphasis given to corporate economics as to scrubbing the air. That focus was not contained in the original law that ordered cuts in carbon emissions--a law that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed last year to international acclaim. Rather, it was part of the executive order he signed three weeks later that rearranged the chain of command over emission regulation; ordered a new, high-level advisory panel to develop a marketing scheme in which the polluters themselves determine emission...

"Democratic presidential hopeful New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton talks with Vice President for research and development Bill Niebur during a tour of the Pioneer Hi-Bred International Facility Research Greenhouses, Monday, March 5, 2007, in Johnston, Iowa."

Stop the presses: Senator Barbara Boxer of California has a good idea. Ms. Boxer, who heads the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, suggested last week that a first step in reducing greenhouse gases would be to require that federal buildings use more efficient light bulbs, and ask federal bureaucrats to turn off their computers at night. "Don't you think it's time the federal government were a model of energy efficiency?" she asks. We warmly agree, not least since the United States Government is the largest single consumer of energy in the United States. It's also one of the most...

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and governors from four other Western states agreed Monday to work together to reduce greenhouse gases, saying their region has suffered some of the worst of global warming with recent droughts and bad fire seasons. The governors of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington state agreed that they would develop a regional target to lower greenhouse gases and create a program aimed at helping businesses reach the still-undecided goals. "In the absence of meaningful federal action, it is up to the states to take action to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in...