Discourse for all interested in all things air-quality related
Action is underway in Congress to avert a rail-workers strike and keep America’s trains on track. The underlying issues between labor and management whom, as it had been reported, had failed to reach complete agreement, appear to be over paid time off for sick leave as well as worker pay. Absent a binding agreement the … Read more
Here in America, our building style has old-world influences. There is direct evidence of this. Make no mistake. It’s understandable considering that Europe and Asia are where our ancestors were before emigrating – Europeans to the east and Asians to the west. Our ancestral roots and backgrounds definitely came into play here. Think Victorian, Renaissance, … Read more
Revised data shows California reached its GHG emissions-reduction goal in 2014; not in 2016, as previously thought. The change was explained in the California Environmental Protection Agency Air Resources Board’s “2020 saw steepest drop in carbon pollution due to the pandemic,” Oct. 26, 2022 news release as follows: “[T]he 2022 Edition of the [Global Warming … Read more
The below Oct. 27, 2022 press release is from the United Nations Environment Programme.* As intensifying climate impacts across the globe hammer home the message that greenhouse gas emissions must fall rapidly, a new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report finds that the international community is still falling far short of the Paris [Agreement] goals, with … Read more
I was watching the Sept. 25, 2022 edition of “60 Minutes” on CBS. It was the segment’s third feature that caught my eye. It had to do with coral reefs located off the Florida coast and how, due to climate change in general and global warming and warming in particular, emphasized was how some of … Read more
Ask an in-the-know climatologist, meteorologist or scientist about Earth’s climate history, the time-period in question being between today and 10,000 years back, this followed by the section of world climate history covering the period between the latter and 110,000 years, the two then compared, well, the response you get may surprise you. The short answer: … Read more
For those who don’t know, California’s approximately 300-mile-long by roughly 80-mile-wide San Joaquin Valley has some of America’s worst air quality. For the past 20 years or so, such Valley cities as Bakersfield, Fresno, Hanford, Madera and Visalia, for example, have consistently ranked among those places in the United States with the highest amounts of … Read more
The United States emits something on the order of 14 percent of all global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human-influenced causes. Suffice it to say humans are responsible for 50 billion tons (50 gigatons or Gt) of GHGs that enter the atmosphere yearly, America’s GHG contribution being approximately 7 Gt annually. Meanwhile, in California, in … Read more
The below Jul. 19, 2022 press release is from the Environmental Defense Fund.* Clean hydrogen is increasingly seen by governments and industry as the Holy Grail of climate-friendly energy solutions, with vast sums flowing into this emerging sector. But a new study warns that hydrogen is a leak-prone gas with a potent warming effect that … Read more
My sense is that universal electric-motor-vehicle-operation acceptance by every driver driving American roadways, based on the present rate of EV adoption, will happen. It’s only a matter of time. What I am less confident of, on the other hand, are two things. First is regarding the technology type – battery- or fuel-cell- electrification and second … Read more