Posted on 08/19/2005 6:07:58 AM PDT by OESY
A new report by the Environmental Protection Agency says ozone levels are falling in 19 Eastern states where bad air is common in the summer.
The reduction reflects what agency officials describe as a significant decline in emissions of nitrogen oxides, whose reaction with sunlight, other weather conditions and volatile organic chemicals can make the air hard to breathe in the warmer months.
The report says that last year, nitrogen oxide emissions from power plants and other large sources of combustion in the 19 states... were 30 percent below 2003 levels and 50 percent below those of 2000. The result, it says, was a four-year reduction in ozone of about 10 percent.
Jeffrey R. Holmstead... said that "this is a very significant reduction of ozone concentration" and that it offers reassurance "that what we're working on is the effective way to go."
Mr. Holmstead was referring to the cap-and-trade approach to emission reduction, which is favored by the Bush administration, rather than the Clinton administration's absolute cap....
In a cap-and-trade system, a plant can exceed its permitted level of emissions by buying credits from a plant in the same region whose emissions are below what is allowed. Environmentalists argue that such an approach fails to achieve the lowest possible emissions, because it does not require all plants to use "best available control technology."
But Mr. Holmstead said cap-and-trade worked more efficiently, since plant owners, without enough money to make all the necessary improvements at once, had incentive to install controls on the biggest emission sources first.
...Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch... acknowledged that "it's fair to say we are making progress."...
[T]he administration projects that by 2015, annual nitrogen oxide emissions will be 50 percent below 2003 levels, and sulfur dioxide emissions 60 percent below.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ozone at ground level is considered a pollutant. Thus, falling levels are good.
I don't understand your comment. The story seems straightforward and has nothing to do with global warming. NOX and ozone are atmospheric pollutants and lower levels of both are indeed good news.
On or about July 11, 2005, an environmental group (admittedly, probably a fringe group, which I am still trying to track down) blamed the warming of the earth's surface on cleaner air since heat was not being reflected away from the surface as effectively as by a dirty atmosphere, according to a blurb in the NY Times. We can agree this hypothesis lies outside conventional dogma.
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