$1 billion turned to ash: Aviation loses big on Iceland volcano cloud

This is a little random, but my friend was unable to travel to a destination in Europe due to this huge Ash Cloud! I just thought it was interesting to hear how much money airlines are losing due to this disaster and see how global warming is causing havoc all over the world. This will cost American airline companies about $65million of dollars in revenue!!!

- Mr. Carter

Breaking News! Senator Graham's Departure from Climate Bill

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/26/climate.change.bill.postponed/index.html?hpt=T1

Breaking News! Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina just announced that he is walking away from negotiations on a "tri-partisan" climate bill in the Senate. Senator Graham was the only major Republican working on the climate bill and his angry departure gravely endangers the immediate fate of the bill, which is supposed to be unveiled to the public tomorrow. Senator Graham left after expressing his displeasure towards the Democrats immigration reform measures.

What is going to happen next? For the sake of the environment, I hope Senator Graham quickly renews his work on the climate bill. This is exactly the kind of partisan squabbling that President Obama has cautioned against. Politicians from both parties need to resolve their differences in a timely manner or else much legislation could be lost. And, with respect to the environment, time is of the essence.

-Alex Kwong

Happy Earth Day!

We hope you had a great Earth Day. Here at Oxy we celebrated with festivities in the quad: a demostration of the new zip cars coming to campus next year, a local food cook-off competition, a booth with a local LA farmer, even a a booth with info from our blog group!
It is also a great time to evaluate energy and environmental policies in Washington.
In a great example of how we can connect with government officials in an exchange of ideas and concerns, the Washington Post hosted Energy Secretary Steven Chu for an online question and answer session. The question of funding for fuel cell research and production was raised. Last year Chu cut funding for fuel cell production for cars because there is a serious problem with transportation and storage of hydrogen. A new hope has arisen for hydrogen energy use in industrial settings. See this Economist article for more info on how a California company, Bloom Energy, has installed hydrogen fuel boxes at major company campuses in the state such as Google and Wal-Mart.

News in California: Schwarzenegger's 2006 bill Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32) may face drawbacks in the fall if a proposition makes it on the 2010 ballot to undo the measures until California unemployment falls to 5%. Texas oil money is helping fund the effort. Keep an eye out for this in the fall.

Obama wants to wish you a happy Earth Day!

-Morgan

JAY SHIMSHACK-"SCHOOL BUSES, DIESEL EMISSIONS, AND RESPIRATORY HEALTH"

This past week the Oxy economics department brought Jay Shimshack to campus to discuss his paper entitled "School Buses, Diesel Emissions, and Respiratory Health." The main focus of his paper was to look at local air pollution given off my diesel run school buses and examine the health effects when the number of buses were reduced. His approach to this question was to perform a study. Shimshack looked at counties in Washington state that implemented the Clean School Bus Program, which retrofitted busses with new technologies in order to reduce the amount of diesel fumes that were emitted. He then matched bus details with health data in the same area to determine what the actual effects on health were. He compared data between counties that were similar other than the fact that some initiated the clean bus program while some didn't. Ultimately, the data revealed that retrofitting the buses and limiting the emissions did indeed reduce the number of health problems. During the presentation, I asked him if his results had influenced other counties to implement these programs. I though that with such strong data, there should be no reason that these programs are not becoming more widespread. Shimshack said that this would be his goal, change has not yet been seen primarily because his paper has not yet been published (it is currently sitting in the offices of many prestigious economic journals). Hopefully though, sooner rather than later we can use these results to implement policy to require the retrofitting of buses all over the country.

--Sara McKnight

Controversies of Off Shore Drilling

Obama's opening off off shore drilling sites in parts of Alaska, Virginia, and other sites in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic has sparked a negative reaction from many environmentalist groups such as Greenpeace:

But some environmentalists have made compelling arguments that maybe offshore drilling--while not necessarily the best answer-- is not as harmful as many assume. In his Washington Post article, Eric Smith argues that much of the resistance to offshore drilling arises from the fear of oil spills, but technology has improved vastly since the Santa Barbara spill of 1969 that galvanized opposition to this method of oil extraction, greatly reducing the risk of oil spills from offshore platforms. He contends that importing oil from foreign countries contributes more to pollution that causes global warming.

But there is no guarantee that the oil extracted off U.S. shores will not be exported elsewhere, adding to our carbon footprint, and the supplies this opening can provide will not meet U.S. oil demand. And, of course, one can argue that this is only a stop-gap measure that will slow investment in alternative energy sources that we really need.

I was surprised to learn that offshore drilling might not be the demon we always automatically assume it is, but despite its possible benefits compared to importing oil from foreign countries, I would like to see more progressive measures to fulfill America's energy needs and, more importantly (but also more difficult), to reduce our consumption of energy.

-Morgan

Drilling Frontiers Opened

Earlier this week President Obama released a statement regarding the nation's energy needs .(Thanks Alex K for finding this).He announced the plan to expand offshore drilling, or as he more pleasantly put it, "offshore oil and gas exploration." To justify this action, he pointed toward the need for continued economic growth and the expansion of employment opportunities. Given the current financial situation, I found that this statement would gain the support of Americans who are more concerned with employment their economic well-being over their carbon footprint.

Although it involves the lifting of decade old bans on offshore drilling, his proposal falls in between the two poles of economic expansion and environmental protection. His argument against not opening all areas to offshore drilling is that our large percentage of consumption would not be matched by our potential harvesting of oil. His argument against the view that no new drilling areas should be opened appears less factual. He claims it is "part of a broader strategy" to move towards cleaner native energy. How exactly does expanding drilling zones push the nation towards adapting environmentally friendly fuels? I look forward to seeing this energy plan currently under construction in the Senate.

Opposing opinions have already been made by politicians, including the Democrat's leading candidates for Senate. Ken Lewis argued drilling would only divert attention from developing cleaner energy. Other democrats such as former state secretary Cal Cunningham are hesistant about drilling but open to seeing how far this plan takes us. In the meantime drill, baby, drill.

-Steph F

Health Care Signed... Cap and Trade Next?

Sara posed a great question in her last post asking what has happened to all the talks about Cap and Trade. Just last week an article in the New York Times was published which addressed her question. It was titled "Tracing the Demise of Cap and Trade." This was a fitting tittle because the article then went into detail about how the phrase "cap and trade" has been faced with such strong opposition that Obama has stopped using it all together sine the passage of the energy bill in the House last June. Many opponents of the bill, like members of the Tea Party refer to it as "cap and tax." According to the Times the Senate is slowly attempting to work out the kinks and quirks in the bill to give incentives to large oil companies and power plants to adopt its policies.
Also mentioned in the article is that the reason the phrase cap and trade has appeared to die is a result of the crash on Wall Street, big industry opposition, and the current poor economy of the country. But with health care out of the way some appear optimistic that energy could be next up on the list for Congress. Two senators, Maria Cantwell and Susan Collins have proposed a new bill with the phrase "cap and dividend," in which the money gained by the bill be given back to consumers to assist in their higher monthly energy costs. Accoring to the article the the revision of teh bill could come as soon as April but who know what will happen when it comes around for the vote. Check out the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/science/earth/26climate.html?scp=1&sq=energy%20cap%20and%20trade&st=cse

I personally believe the Senate should put this bill on their priority list because its still a huge issue, which has to be dealt with sooner or later. Plus it would also help America relieve itself of its oil depenedency.
Another short article I found mentioned the a new policy in which the EPA is attempting put in place, which would require industries to report their methane emmissions also instead of only CO2 emmissions. Methane emmissions trap up to 20 times more heat than CO2 and are a worst threat to gloabal warming than CO2. This is a new fact for me and I find it to be alaring that this hasn't been done or brought up earlier. It's a short easy read. Check it out : http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/science/earth/24epa.html?ref=energy-environment

-Alexander Balgobin