CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
March 27, 2012 | By Dean Kuipers
As reported on the Los Angeles Times Politics Now blog, the Obama administration on Tuesday announced stringent rules to limit carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants. Most climate scientists say that carbon dioxide is the principal gas responsible for global warming. As pointed out in the story by Neela Banerjee, supporters of emissions standards were surprised and pleased to find the administration pushing forward with these new rules, after some indications lately that the president and his administration might pull back from aggressive new environmental protections during an election year.
NATIONAL
March 27, 2012 | By Neela Banerjee, Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - Taking aim at the gases that the vast majority of scientists say are the main contributor to climate change, the Obama administration proposed rules limiting carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants, a move that could essentially bar new coal-fired electric generation facilities. Tuesday's announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency signaled the administration's willingness to weigh in on politically sensitive environmental issues, even if its decisions court controversy in an election year.
OPINION
January 18, 2012 | By Bill McKibben
At the turn of the last century, Time magazine published a list of what it considered to be the 100 worst ideas of the 20th century. It included Prohibition, leisure suits, the Titanic, cold fusion. You get the idea. I know it's early, but assuming such a list is composed again at the end of this century, I have a nomination. It was an idea proposed in a speech last week. Thomas Donohue was speaking. Not just speaking; the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was giving his annual "state of American business" address, in the 100th year of the chamber's operation, from the chamber's Hall of Flags in its office just across Lafayette Park from the White House.
NATIONAL
November 11, 2011 | By Dean Kuipers, Los Angeles Times
Greenhouse gases are building at a steep rate in the atmosphere, the nation's top climate agency reported, renewing concern that global warming may be accelerating. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Annual Greenhouse Gas Index, which indexes the key gases known to trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere, rose 1.5% from 2009 to 2010, the agency reported. The reported rise comes on top of an analysis by the Energy Department last week saying that global emissions of carbon dioxide, a key, long-lived greenhouse gas, had jumped by the biggest increment on record in 2010.
NEWS
August 4, 2011 | By Jeannine Stein, Los Angeles Times / For the Booster Shots blog
Public bicycle sharing is gaining popularity in cities around the world as people are trading cars for low-cost rental bikes used for short hops around town. While it's hoped this will have a positive effect on the environment, a study finds that it may benefit people's health as well. A study released Thursday in the British Medical Journal focused on a bike sharing program in Barcelona, Spain, which has been in place since 2007. In August 2009, about 182,000 people had subscribed to the service, representing approximately 11% of the city's population (although it was noted that only 1.7% of the population uses it on a regular basis)
OPINION
July 20, 2011
Among the more speculative of the proposed solutions to global warming is the notion of capturing the carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants and pumping them underground. Still, the collapse last week of one of the nation's most high-profile experiments with so-called carbon capture and sequestration technology is bad news for future generations and further evidence of the need for climate legislation. American Electric Power, one of the biggest utilities in the U.S., announced Thursday that it was tabling its plans to complete a commercial-scale carbon capture system at a coal-fueled plant in West Virginia — despite the fact that up to half of the project's $668-million cost would have been covered by the U.S. Department of Energy.