NC Media Watch

Senator Boxer's scientific knowledge is found vacuous

Russ Steele

Art Horne writing at Pajamas Media demonstrates our Senator Boxer is unable to understand simple chemistry, or she chooses not too. Your call.

I hardly know where to begin in describing how ignorant and vacuous Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is  on this issue. I know that sounds harsh, and it’s intended to be for so many, many reasons.

On March 30, Senator Boxer went on a tirade about how despicable the Republicans were for attaching an amendment to the Small Business Innovation Research Bill (SBIR). The amendment, sponsored by Senator Mitch McConnell (R-TN), would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating emissions of greenhouse gases to address climate change. The principal gas in question that the EPA wants to regulate (er, tax) is carbon dioxide.

Carbon DIOXIDE! Not carbon.

The first thing Senator Boxer said on the floor, immediately exposing her profound understanding of scientific knowledge:

There has been an amendment that was attached to this bill on the very first day that would stop the Environmental Protection Agency forever from enforcing the Clean Air Act as it relates to carbon pollution. … It is essentially a repeal of the Clean Air Act as it involves a particular pollutant, carbon, which has been found to be an endangerment to our people.

You can read the rest of Art Horne's article here. Unfortunately, the California voters demonstrated how ignorant and vacuous they were in returning this mental light weight to the Senate. It appears these Democratic voters and the Senator have some mental affinity.

Over the e-mail transom: Grain for climate change mitigation raising your cost of food

Russ Steele

Regular reader Sean writes about the Political Instability from climate change mitigation, citing a recent artricle in Bloomberg Online here.

It seems that with the problems with Russian grain harvest coupled with the mandate to increase renewable content in fuels, the peasants are revolting. Global food costs rose 25% last year but this cost is largely masked in the US because of the amount of processed food we consume, so only about a fifth of this price shows up in what we purchase at the grocery store.  In many poor foreign countries in Africa, the commodity price increase shows full force in the actual retail prices they pay.  There are riots in places like Algeria and the Tunisian revolt was sparked by rising prices on basic food staples.

Given that there was ample warning last summer that there would be shortages of certain grains, our government last fall gives the green light to allow E-15 gasoline which, if implemented, would be a 50% percent increase in the amount of ethanol devoted to transportation.  (Currently nearly 40% of the corn crop is devoted to transportation fuel.) The existing renewable fuel mandates rely on food crops for feed stocks.  Wouldn't it make much more sense for our government to be looking at ways to restrict diversion of grains toward transportation fuels when food commodity prices rise so precipitously?

Some food for thought.

What are your thoughts. CARB's low carbon fuel mandate is partly responsible for the growing demand for ethanol, which is increasing demand for more grain, driving up the price. Also, the wet and cold in Canada  and part of the US Mid West has reduced grain production, which is alos impacting the price of grain. If the predicted return of a Grand Minimum is valid, we will see even higher food prices as the production of food grains is constrained by a colder climate.  CARB and ERA are chasing the wrong monkey, up the wrong tree. I hope they realize their mistakes sooner, rather than later.

How much does feel good cost?

Russ Steele

This report on KCRA confirms what all of us knew in our gut, but now we have some support from a UC Davis Transportation expert - buying  a hybrid SUV is not good economics, it just feels good.

Mayor Johnson in Sacramento CA has replaced his old car with a new feel good hybrid SUV.  Here is some text from the KCRA report:

Johnson said the fact that the car's a hybrid makes it worth the cost.
"It's a savings for the environment -- 100 percent," Johnson said.

UC Davis economic professor Chris Knittel is a transportation expert. He said for most drivers, the gas savings of a hybrid SUV don't justify the added cost.

"If you drive 12,000 miles a year, you're saving about 100 gallons a year in gasoline. And at $3 a gallon, that's just not going to pay off that $5,000 to $6,000 upfront cost," Knittel said.

As for the environmental impact, the Tahoe hybrid does rank well among large SUVs. But its mileage is still far below those of smaller cars, such as the Toyota Prius' 51 miles to the gallon.

Knittel said before anybody runs out to buy any new hybrid, remember this:

"About 15 percent of the greenhouse gases attributed to that vehicle come from the production and scrapping of the vehicle," Knittel said.

In other words -- in some cases -- hanging on to any older well-running non-hybrid may be the greener thing to do.

I hope that you feel better now, knowing that you were right to keep that old SUV after all, especially in California's down economy.

Oh No! Not another F?

Russ Steele

Every year Nevada County gets a failing ozone grade from the American Lung Association. This grade is based on figures reported to the Environmental Protection Agency, which gave Nevada County an “F” for ozone pollution again for 2010.

The vast majority of Western Nevada County's ozone air pollution is transported from the Sacramento region and, to a lesser extent, the San Francisco Bay Area, according to a press release from the Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District.

But there is really a larger issue, which was examined at length by the Sierra Environmental Studies Foundation. Here is a link to the Foothill Furor – Seeking Basis for Public Policy on Ozone Pollution
From the Abstract:

“Most people know that the county can do little to impact its ability to reach the federally mandated standards. So far the county’s only countering argument has been that its ozone is transported from large upwind sources. The report introduces two new and significant factors to this issue. These are 1) the government’s assessment of non-attainment is based on an arbitrary interpretation of unknown county ozone levels, and 2) the government has no reasonable (science supported) process in place by which it can either prescribe or evaluate any county attainment plan submitted to it – i.e. it cannot follow its own procedures.”

Emphasis was added by author. Read the whole report, there is no valid science that supports the above grade. Just like global warming, we are being baffled by government cow pies.

American Lung Association 2009 State of the Air

Russ Steele

The American Lung Association has released their 2009 State of the Air Report.  It has some good news and some bad news for Nevada County. Once again Nevada County gets an F for Ozone pollution, with a weighted average 49.5 days of Ozone pollution vulnerability.  On the other hand, the County gets an A for short-term particle pollution, one of the top 25 cleanest counties for short- term particle pollution in the nation. Full report can be found here.

Once again, the real issue is the source of the Ozone.  It is not generated locally, it blows in from the valley.  See the Sierra Environmental Studies Foundation Technical Note TN0709-1 Foothill Furor – Seeking Basis for a Public Policy on Ozone Pollution.

This review led to an in-depth work sessions with Northern Sierra AQMD on important details about how the federal government determines that Nevada County is in non-attainment, and the process through which the county must now reach attainment. These procedures are detailed graphically and explained in TN0709-1.

Most people know that the county can do little to impact its ability to reach the federally mandated standards. So far the county’s only countering argument has been that its ozone is transported from large upwind sources. The report introduces two new and significant factors to this issue. These are 1) the government’s assessment of non-attainment is based on an arbitrary interpretation of unknown county ozone levels, and 2) the government has no reasonable (science supported) process in place by which it can either prescribe or evaluate any county attainment plan submitted to it – i.e. it cannot follow its own procedures.

The Full Report can be downloaded from the SESF Reports Page.

CARB's Lead Scientist Unqualfied

Russ Steele

The lead scientist on California Air Resources Board study justifying costly new diesel rules got his degree from a UPS Store in New York for a $1,000. The UPS Store is the address listed for "Thornhill University" for its campus. But, no big deal CARB used his research anyway. It was not about the science, it was about the mission.

Hien Tran admitted Dec. 10 to CARB that he lied about having a Ph.D. in statistics from UC Davis. Instead, Tran said, his Ph.D. was from "Thornhill." Nevertheless, the air board still voted unanimously to adopt the rules based on his research Dec. 12 -- without acknowledging Tran's deception. Months and months later, Tran was demoted, but he still has a key role. Academic fraud, you see, is no big deal. The air board is on a mission. The normal concerns about making huge decisions based on tainted/flawed/untrustworthy/suspect research? The board couldn't be bothered.

Details here.

These costly rules have a negative impact on local businesses.  Which in turn has an impact on our local economy.  Your thoughts.

Some SB 375 fact checking

Russ Steele

Just in case you read this Yubanet Article Sierra Solutions Conference Topics Validated by Anti-Sprawl Bill. It leaves the incorrect impression, that CARB will be setting our Sierra regional greenhouse-gas emissions levels. Compliance with SB 375 is voluntary in rural counties, it only applies to Metropolitan Planning Organizations. (See map below)

SBC President, Steve Frisch has long been an advocate of pedestrian and bike friendly community planning and has championed many initiatives in the Truckee and Tahoe region. "Traffic and quality of life can't get better until people simply get out of their cars more. This is a basic premise behind our Sierra Nevada Local First program-keep our community unique, make it easy to shop local, and reduce environmental impacts-SB 375 encourages us to do that by incentivizing mixed use, infill, transit-oriented and town centered development." states Frisch.

SB 375 requires the California Air Resources Board to set regional targets by September 2010 for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

Some good economic news (updated)

Russ Steele

Update:  This appears to be bogus information. It was based on a CBS Ch-13 Report. A follow up with the NCTC Staff and CARB indicates that they are not delaying implementation.

Update #2:  This from CARB:

SACRAMENTO - A few media outlets have recently run stories wrongly stating that the Air Resources Board has canceled the promulgation of a new proposed regulation aimed at cleaning up the 400,000 plus diesel trucks driving along California roadways. This is completely false. The Air Resources Board is currently set to vote on this extremely important proposed public health regulation at its December hearing in Sacramento. We are currently calling media outlets to determine where they received their false information, and also demanding corrections.

 

CARB has put the new diesel soot regulations on hold. These clean diesel regulations were to kick in in 2010, but now are being withdrawn. The multi-billion dollar cost was going to be too great. This will benefit the County, Cities and business that depend on diesel equipment, such a Robinson Timber. They will not have to retrofit the diesel equipment, or buy new equipment equipped with clean diesel engines.

Now if they would just get real on greenhouse gas regulations.  I guess there is still hope! 

And just how important is global warming to Californians (edited)

Russ Steele

A thousand potential California voters were asked this open ended question:  What are the main issues facing California.

Respondents said that the most pressing issues were:

•  The state budget and budget deficit (18 percent)
•  The economy in general (12 percent)
•  Gasoline prices (9 percent)
•  Education (9 percent)
•  Illegal immigrants (9 percent)
•  Unemployment (7 percent)
•  Housing and the mortgage crisis (5 percent)
•  High taxes (3 percent)
•  Government spending (3 percent)
•  Global warming or environment (2 percent)

The total does not add up to 100 percent due to the multiple other issues in the open ended question that did not score. Full Reuters article here.

Of course environmentalist attacked the credibility of this study by EMC Research for the AB32 Implementation Group. A group formed to track the implications of the legislation. According to the Reuters article:

"I don't see any merit in a survey that lacks credibility. The questions are so leading and misleading," said Wendy James, manager of the Global Warming Action Coalition based in Southern California.

But, as the Reuters article notes:

About 80 percent of the respondents said they had not heard about California's landmark legislation passed in 2006 and signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that mandates a cut of global warming gases to 1990 levels by 2020.

So where is the groundswell of support for the implementation of AB32?  What it comes down to is that California are for environmental protection until it starts to cost them personally.  It is OK if the cost comes from somebody else's wallet, but not from their own pocket book. The scary thing is that eighty percent of Californian's are not paying attention and the Legislature and the Governor preparing some very costly surprises.

CARB coming to it's senses, what about Nevada City?

Russ Steele

Last night I was reading the latest issue of Wired Magazine, enticed by the article on Apples Evil Genus, when I discovered this article on the failure of ZAP to deliver on it's promise of electric cars for the masses. Hype Machine: Searching for ZAP's Fleet of No-Show Green Cars.

Then this morning, this report from the San Diego Union-Tribune indicating CARB is backing down on the zero emission electric vehicles. 

A staff report recommends that the board greatly reduce the required number of purely electric vehicles that automakers offer for sale and instead focus on more readily available and less expensive hybrids that would still cut pollution dramatically. It's a difference that would save the auto industry more than $2 billion through 2017.

Air Resources Board Chairwoman Mary Nichols said any new approach must reflect the limits of technology but at the same time steer automakers toward adding electric and fuel-cell-powered cars to their fleets.

It appears the ZAP cars imported from China have a few problems. The all-electric sedans did not come close to achieving the 40-mph speed and 40-mile range, and they stalled on steep hills and, worst of all only had a range of less than 20 miles.  Buyer of these electric car were an unhappy lot.    

Nevada City is buying electric cars in their quest to become green. It will be interesting to see how well these electric cars work in the steep hills of Nevada City, and if they have the advertised range. It is true the cars Nevada City is buy are not ZAP cars.  Could it be that CARB realized that electric cars are flat land vehicles, and many of us live in the hills, thus a smaller market for electric vehicles?  Or, could it be that 40 miles round trip range is not very practical in spread out California.