Discourse for all interested in all things air-quality related
I don’t know why, but in 2019 it seems like there are more earth-moving air-quality-news-related items than usual. And, the year isn’t even over yet. The American Lung Association in April issued its latest findings of the quality of America’s air in its 20th annual “State of the Air” report as well as in a … Read more
The below Sept. 9, 2019 press release from the Natural Resources Defense Council. General Electric, which boasts of being a clean energy leader, is quietly doubling down on the dirty energy of the past with plans to equip more than a dozen new coal-fired power plants in countries like Cambodia, Kenya, Poland, Pakistan and Vietnam, … Read more
A sign of the times? The Navajo Generating Station (NGS), a coal-fired power plant located in the northern Arizona community of Page, is shutting down. Moreover, the 78-mile Black Mesa & Lake Powell (BM&LP) Railroad – built to haul the black carbonaceous rock between the mine and plant – is likewise itself terminating operations. Peabody … Read more
Eliminating restrictions on damaging and dangerous methane pollution at oil and gas sites nationwide, as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposes to do, would be costly. It was just this past Thursday that the current EPA proposed doing just that. The Center for Biological Diversity (Center) in its “Trump Proposes Killing Methane Pollution Rule” … Read more
The Amazon is burning. The fire is of staggering proportions and was deliberately set. Irreplaceable rainforest land being cleared for, what, so it can be farmed, developed?! Seventy-five thousand: The number of Brazilian fires this year alone! Seven-thousand-two-hundred: Nearly that many square miles (more than 4.6 million acres) burned this year so far. Add to … Read more
Fortunately, the news is mostly good: Greenhouse gas emissions in California fell. Transportation is one trouble spot, however – the main one. Speaking directly to this, on Aug. 12, 2019, the California Environmental Protection Agency Air Resources Board (ARB) released its California Greenhouse Gas Emissions for 2000 to 2017: Trends of Emissions and Other Indicators … Read more
Transportation in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions could be well on its way to becoming less air-polluting. This could be the greatest thing since sliced bread. An effort dubbed “Our Transportation Future” (OTF), the organizing enterprise showing its support, issued a multi-agency signed letter dated July 29, 2019, addressed to the governors of 12 East … Read more
As it has to do with mobility, there has been much in the media in recent days and with good reason. Here in America, not only is the number of miles traveled up, but so too is the trend: it appears to be non-stop. Effectively, the more people the more aggregate miles there are, whether … Read more
Today there’s automobility. What’s next (on the land-transportation-operations horizon), full autonomobility, that is, driverless control? On the surface, that notion sounds quite oxymoronic. At any rate, we’ll just have to wait and see. When the Hawaii Area Rapid Transit’s HART light rail system comes online, that time projected to be a little more than a … Read more
Wildland fires last year proved to be disastrous for California in terms of not only the amount of acreage charred and the number of lives impacted but of the associated monetary cost as it has to do with property loss. It has been suggested that because of global warming, the state has become more susceptible … Read more