Discourse for all interested in all things air-quality related
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
You’ve heard the expression “… is not an exact science.” The part with the “…” could be filled in with “earthquake prediction” or “weather forecasting,” to name two. Exact or not, science is an area of study or field of discipline that involves, requires, demands meticulous observation, focused intent and listening, critical thinking. And, you … 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
According to the California Environmental Protection Agency Air Resources Board (CARB), 80 percent of all of the state’s air-pollutant emissions and around half of all greenhouse-gas emissions (if those from the production of motor vehicle fuels are included) are emitted from the transportation sector. Yeah, 50 percent of all state-emitted GHG emissions is a significant … Read more
(The below Aug. 1, 2022 press release is from the Center for Biological Diversity.)* Community and conservation groups and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management reached an agreement today to suspend new oil and gas leasing across more than 1 million acres of public lands in California’s Central Valley and Central Coast. A separate agreement … Read more
(Ed. note: On occasion, when bringing to one’s attention the premise that polluted air can damage human health as well as having the potential to cause death in living, breathing beings, there were also times when I said air pollution can be detrimental to crop, plant and tree health. In the Vegetable Growers News article … 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
The three most talked about topics in the current news cycle are: weather; public health and/or public safety; and the economy. These topics can be further divided into sub-categories: Floods, droughts and heat for weather; reproductive rights, and COVID-19 and the monkey pox viruses related to public health and/or public safety; and where the economy … Read more