ENVIRONMENTAL LEGAL BLOGS

SATELLITE TRACKING SHOWS ARCTIC ICE AT 7-YEAR HIGH

    From the IARC-JAXA Information System website:

    "The IARC-JAXA Information System (IJIS) is a geoinformatics facility for satellite image analysis and computational modeling/visualization in support of international collaboration in Arctic and global change research at the International Arctic Research Center in corporation with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)."

The website's graph of the Arctic ice extent shows that 2009 represents a 7-year high in such extent.  To see this graph, go to this page.  

 

HOW CAN WE RELY ON THESE PREDICTIONS?

    The Associated Press  reports today on a recalculation by the University of Bristol (Great Britain) of the sea-level rise from a warmer planet.

     Just a couple of years ago, you will recall, global-warming gurus confidently predicted that the Earth's seas would rise 16-19 feet because of melting ice.  Now, however, University researchers have concluded that

the entire [Antarctic ice] sheet would not collapse, with parts of it remaining grounded on the continent. Thus, they said, sea level rise would be only about 3 meters, or just under 10 feet.

     So, in just a few short years the consensus prediction of a nearly 20-foot rise in sea levels has been nearly halved.  Moreover, per the Bristol study, the 10-foot rise will take 500 years to occur.

     So, the government (more accurately, opportunistic politicians), big business (have you noticed all the "green" commercials on TV lately?) and the more extreme environmentalists are asking us to curb our lifestyles based on unreliable forecasts of doom and gloom.  Even accepting the Bristol study as accurate (in a couple of ore years, will there be yet another revision?), to avoid a 10-foot ocean rise over 500 years should we all be plunged into an even deeper recession, or even a depression, now through such nutty schemes as California's AB 32 or the federal government's brilliant decision to declare carbon dioxide (i.e., the breath we exhale and that plants need to breathe) a "pollutant"?

     The clarions of doom and gloom about global warming will eventually be recorded by history as climate ideologues, not as rational thinkers.  Indeed, even now, have you noticed how many of these ideologues are changing their warnings from ones about "global warming" to warnings about "climate change"? 

     Since human intervention totally aside, the climate has been,is and always will be, "changing", these claims can never be disproved.  Thus, belief in "climate change" is more like a religion than a scientific movement; if we are going to make public policy based on this new religion, let's at least admit that we are doing so.

    

BELIEF IN HUMAN-CAUSED GLOBAL WARMING DECREASING

        A surprising new poll from the respected Rasmussen Reports on whether people think global warming is caused by humans (poll of voters):

     34%-yes

     45%-no

     11%- not sure

     Just one year ago, 47% blamed humans for causing global warming.

     More results from Rasmussen indicating "environmentalists" are losing ground: By 63%-29%, US adults say finding new sources of energy is more important than reducing current energy consumption.  And 58% say the US needs more nuclear power plants, with only 25% opposed. 

    

Setback for the Unions

           Last month, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dealt a setback to proposed new environmental rules for the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.  The rules, among other things, prohibit independent contractor truck drivers picking up from/delivering goods to the Port of Los Angeles; rather, the rules require the drivers to be employees of regulated trucking companies.

            The lofty theory behind the rules is that companies rather than individuals are in a better position to purchase new, clean-fuel burning trucks.  Put less charitably, the rules are a power-grab by the Teamsters union to attempt to make all drivers in and out of the Port become unionized employees (this employee provision of the rules was enthusiastically promoted by the Teamsters and by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor).

            For the three-judge Ninth Circuit panel, however, the employee provision of the rules violates federal law prohibiting local governments with regulating motor vehicles’ service and pricing.  The judges ordered the federal trial court judge involved in the case (Christina Snyder) to approve the American Trucking Association’s request for an injunction against the employee provision pending a full trial on the merits of the case.  The panel, in its opinion, stated that the Trucking Association was likely to prevail in such a trial.

            This ruling is remarkable, coming from a panel of the Ninth Circuit (the most liberal Circuit in the country) and rebuking anti-business regulations in California (one of the most liberal States in the country).  Of course, some would argue that this pro-business ruling is, in the great scheme of things, like throwing grains of sand against the tide.    

COURT RULING HELPS TO CREATE ENOUGH JOBS AND ENERGY BY 2012 TO SUPPORT A 1970'S ECONOMY

     In an article by Margot Roosevelt entitled "CA: Ruling may sharply reduce California refinery pollution", the LA Times (read it while it's still in business) reports:

Toxic air pollution spikes from California's 21 refineries may be sharply curtailed in the wake of a U.S. Court of Appeals decision Friday in Washington.

In a suit brought by the Sierra Club and other groups, the court struck down a 14-year-old federal regulation that allowed refineries, chemical plants and other industrial plants to exceed pollution limits during start-ups, shutdowns and equipment outages.

Public health advocates in Southern California's oil refinery hub hailed the decision, saying that facilities routinely operate in malfunction mode to evade pollution caps.

...

The Environmental Protection Agency regulation amounted to a "gaping loophole," according to the plaintiffs, represented by Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm. The court agreed, saying the agency had exceeded its authority under the Clean Air Act.

"Under this notorious exemption, industrial facilities have been allowed to operate like a fleet of junk cars parked in neighborhoods, spewing smoke, misfiring, stalling and chugging," said Marti Sinclair, a Sierra Club official.

...

William Tanner, a spokesman for ConocoPhillips, which owns refineries in Wilmington, Santa Maria and San Francisco, said he could not comment on the lawsuit.

"Our preference is never to flare," he said. "However, flares are federally approved safety devices that allow refining operations to shut down in an environmentally sound manner."

Local air pollution rules require industries to reduce flares by 2012. The South Coast Air Quality Management District has set up so that residents can be notified when flares occur.

     The Ninth Circuit's ruling, of course, will only further encourage industry to get out of California (and perhaps Ninth Circuit jurisdiction) entirely, thereby reducing industrial jobs and our access to energy.  Isn't it beautiful?  Between the Courts and the California Air Resources Board (which just enacted potentially industry-crippling regulations to attempt to roll greenhouse gas levels back to 1990), these regulators' global-warming concerns have put California on its way to producing enough jobs and energy by 2012 to support a 1970's economy.  All this in the midst of a Nation-wide cold spell of historic proportions. 

     Thank goodness the geniuses in Sacramento and Washington D.C., in enacting regulations, are so much smarter than are we.  Perhaps these regulators can do the same masterful job on energy that they have done for the economy in general.  Certainly their record justifies us putting even more power in their hands, doesn't it?

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS REACHES NEW HEIGHT OF BIAS

     In an article labeled "Obama left with little time to curb global warming", theAssociated Press once again reveals that it is not the press service of record, but rather the Left's press service of record.  AP accomplishes this task by trying to convince us of the equivalent of up is down and down is up-- i.e, it's been getting colder, that's why it's been getting warmer.

      When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, global warming was a slow-moving environmental problem that was easy to ignore. Now it is a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid.

    ***

    Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it's thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.

The average global temperature in 2008 is likely to wind up slightly under 57.9 degrees Fahrenheit, about a tenth of a degree cooler than last year. When Clinton was inaugurated, 57.9 easily would have been the warmest year on record. Now, that temperature would qualify as the ninth warmest year.

(emphases added)

     The AP's article, of course, leaves out the abundant contradictory evidence that was available to--but ignored by--the author.  For example, see my Post of November 30, 2008, wherein it was pointed out:

It's not even science any more; it's anti-science." [David] Bellamy [an Australian botanist] notes that official data show that "in every year since 1998, world temperatures have been getting colder, and in 2002, Arctic ice actually increased." Exhibit B: MIT Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences Richard S. Lindzen recently wrote, "There has been no warming since 1997 and no statistically significant warming since 1995.

     As another example, see this from my Post of July 12, 2008:

Late last month, some leading climatologists and meteorologists met in New York at the Energy Business Watch Climate and Hurricane Forum. The theme of the forum strongly suggested that a period of global cooling is about [done], though possible concerns for a political backlash kept it from being spelled out  However, the message was loud and clear, a cyclical global warming trend may be coming to an end for a variety of reasons, and a new cooling cycle could impact the energy markets in a big way. 

     Need more?  OK-see my Post of November 10, 2007:

Fact:  Per ABC News, August 25, 2007: "Was 1998 the hottest year in United States history, as most reporting on climate change has presumed? Or was that record set back in 1934 before ‘global warming’ became a scary household phrase?..A corrective tweak to National Aeronautics and Space Administration's formulation shows that the hottest year on record in the United States indeed was back during the Dust Bowl days."

     Why did none of this evidence and respectable scientific opinion made its way into this AP analysis?   Can you say "agenda"?  The AP's credibility is declining to zero.  Now, maybe that's a temperature reading AP can undesrtand.

 

 

CALIFORNIA TAKES ANOTHER STEP TOWARD ECONOMIC SUICIDE (?)

     Per the Associated Press, today:

California on Thursday adopted the nation's most sweeping plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions, issuing rules that could transform everything from the way factories operate to the appliances people buy and the fuel they put in their cars.

The eight-member [California] Air Resources Board ["CARB"]unanimously approved the plan despite warnings it will put costly new burdens on businesses at a time when the economy is in extreme crisis, with California forecasting a staggering budget gap of $41.8 billion through mid-2010.

***

The strategy relies on 31 new rules affecting all facets of life, including where people may build their homes and what materials they use to do it.

     Not everyone is buying into the CARB "solution", however.  Witness the editorial in today's  San Diego Tribune:

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office and six economists hired to do a peer review of the CARB's plan have chronicled its cherry-picking of data, its weak methodology and the absurdity of many of its premises.

For one example, the CARB says that any action by a business that reduces greenhouse gas emissions is automatically “cost-effective” – meaning going out of business is therefore cost-effective.

No wonder one independent economist worried about AB 32's threat to 1.5 million California manufacturing jobs. No wonder two others said the air board's report looked more like an attempt to justify AB 32 than to evaluate its economic effects. No wonder another said the air board's work was so weak it could undermine efforts to combat global warming in a responsible way – and called it “useless for identifying a cost-effective portfolio of policies to achieve the ambitious objectives of AB 32.”

     Having spent a good part of my career helping businesses to close down in California and move to more business-friendly States, I don't look forward to what's coming next.

 

FEDERAL EPA WILL NOT REGULATE PERCHLORATE

FYI:

News for Release: Friday, Oct. 3, 2008

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

EPA Seeks Comment on Preliminary Perchlorate Drinking Water Decision
Agency Plans to Issue a Perchlorate Health Advisory

Contact Information: Enesta Jones, (202) 564-4355 / jones.enesta@epa.gov

(Washington, D.C. – Oct. 3, 2008) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency conducted extensive review of scientific data related to the health effects of exposure to perchlorate from drinking water and other sources and found that in more than 99 percent of public drinking water systems, perchlorate was not at levels of public health concern. Therefore, based on the Safe Water Drinking Act criteria, the agency determined there is not a "meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction" through a national drinking water regulation.

The agency is seeking comment on its preliminary determination not to regulate perchlorate in drinking water at a national level. EPA will make a final determination for perchlorate after considering information provided in the 30-day public comment period.

While fewer than one percent of the drinking water sources have perchlorate levels above the health reference level, EPA is committed to working with states and localities to ensure public health is protected. States have the right to establish and enforce drinking water standards and EPA encourages state-specific situations to be addressed at the local level. EPA intends to issue a health advisory at the time it issues its final regulatory determination for perchlorate, to assist states with their local response.

A regulatory determination is a formal decision by EPA as to whether it should initiate development of a national primary drinking water regulation for a specific contaminant under the Safe Drinking Water Act. EPA has drinking water regulations for more than 90 contaminants. Every five years, EPA develops a Contaminant Candidate List of contaminants to consider for regulation and then makes regulatory determinations on some of the contaminants based on scientific information on health effects, occurrence in drinking water and the opportunity for risk reduction.

A health advisory provides technical guidance to federal, state, and other public health officials on health effects, analytical methods and treatment technologies associated with drinking water contamination. Health advisories also contain guidance values that are concentrations of a contaminant in drinking water that are likely to be without adverse health effects.

Information on Drinking Water Regulatory Determinations: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/ccl/reg_determine2.html


R262

TEMPERATURES GETTING COLDDER/ARCTIC ICE INCREASING?

     Columnist Debra J. Saunders has a column worth reading in today's San Francisco Chronicle:

Here's another reason why people don't trust newspapers. When science reporters write about, say, hormone therapy or drinking red wine, they report on studies that find that hormones or red wine can be good for you, as well as studies that suggest otherwise. Any science involving complex organisms is rarely black and white.

When it comes to global warming, newspapers play up stories that reinforce the prevalent the-sky-is-falling belief that global warming is human-caused and catastrophic. But if a study or scientist does not portend the end of the world as we know it, it rarely rates as news.

***

"It's not even science any more; it's anti-science." [David] Bellamy [an Australian botanist] notes that official data show that "in every year since 1998, world temperatures have been getting colder, and in 2002, Arctic ice actually increased." Exhibit B: MIT Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences Richard S. Lindzen recently wrote, "There has been no warming since 1997 and no statistically significant warming since 1995."

     To read the full article, go to this link.

EPA BANS R-22 AIR-CONDITIONING REFRIGERANTS

 According to the website All Business, federal EPA is banning the use of the common refrigerant R-22 for use in air conditioning units.  The ban will take effect in 2010.    R-22 is being banned because it releases hydrocarbons into the air, harming the ozone layer. 

    New air-conditioning units manufactured after the ban will contain substitute gases such as R-410A, which supposedly have less of an environmental effect.  The problem, as always, is that there is no "free lunch":  while lessening the threat to the ozone layer, the substitute gas runs at a much higher pressure than does R-22.  According to the article, this will mean greater wear-and-tear on air-conditioning equipment, resulting in more frequent repairs.