Emissions

BMW has been striving to reconcile its dueling images for years. Best known for its luxurious, sport-oriented cars, the German manufacturer's motorcycles are only beginning to shed their reputation as wheels for safety-conscious old men, thanks to exciting new bikes like the S 1000 RR and K 1600 LT. At this weekend's International Motorcycle Shows event in Long Beach, BMW is likely to confuse its image even further when its first scooters make...

Scientists dissecting the remains of the disastrous 1980 explosion of Mt. St. Helens in Washington state say that crystal formations trapped in volcanic rocks hold important clues about when a magma-loaded mountain is about to blow - a discovery that could help volcanologists make more accurate predictions about future eruptions. The findings, published in Friday's edition of the journal Science, link the movement of underground magma to earthquakes, gas emissions and other warning signs that are more accessible to experts who monitor active volcanoes above ground.

Southern California Edison has agreed to spend $210 million to reduce oxides of nitrogen emissions from Ventura County power plants that burn oil (June 6). The customers will foot the bill. Those emissions supposedly "contribute to smog," at times referred to as ozone. If massive amounts of ozone are in the downwind air coming from the 500 oil wells burning in Kuwait, I would feel a little more comfortable about the logic of Southern California Edison's expenditure. R.J. EXTER, Riverside

Dinosaurs' gassy guts may have contributed to global warming tens of millions of years ago, according to a new study that finds a group of plant-eating dinosaurs could have produced about as much methane as all of today's natural and man-made sources of the greenhouse gas. British researchers reported in Tuesday's edition of the journal Current Biology that the methane emissions from sauropods far outstripped those of today's cattle, goats and...

Farewell to a Big Brother Re "Roy E. Disney, 1930-2009," Obituary, Dec. 17 As past president of Big Brothers of Greater Los Angeles and as a big brother to a fatherless kid since 1968, I can tell you that Roy E. Disney took his family's role in the agency very seriously. ( Walt Disney founded Big Brothers of Greater Los Angeles in 1955.) Roy was always involved -- in many ways beyond the financial -- in helping this great agency. We will miss him. Steve Soboroff Los Angeles Clearing the air Re "Let's not go it alone," Opinion, Dec. 17 Wrong.

For product presentations, Phillip Roberts sometimes carries along a petri dish filled with black grit, just in case people don't believe the story about his Long Beach condominium balcony and the catalyst for the creation of his small business. The grit is a daily gift of air pollution that comes with his otherwise spectacular view of the Port of Long Beach, on the horizon just beyond the Queen Mary. Once Roberts realized that cleaning the sooty material from his balcony tabletop was going to be a daily task, the former asthma sufferer did two things: "I bought hospital-grade air filters for every room in the condo," Roberts said, "and I thought that maybe I ought to try to do something about it."

When Greg Nickels became Seattle's mayor in 2002, global warming was hardly at the top of the municipal agenda. New York's World Trade Center had been attacked, and officials had to figure out how to protect their own city from terrorism. Boeing was laying off 30,000 machinists, so there was the declining regional economy to deal with. Surely the federal government would worry about climate change. Then came the winter of 2004, when the Cascade Mountains snowpack was so disastrously low that ski resorts -- facing their worst year on record -- laid off most of their employees.

Re "Deregulation deja vu," editorial, March 10 Your editorial about the California Public Utilities Commission's recommendations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions overlooks several issues. Assembly Bill 32 requires the Air Resources Board to address emissions from power plants in California and from the 20% to 25% of imported energy, which produces more than 50% of emissions. The first-deliverer approach makes sense because it places the regulatory obligation close to the source.

Re "EPA OKs fuel-cell car production," Dec. 24 I had to laugh reading that the EPA finally got around to approving the California Air Resources Board decision -- made three years ago -- to move away from battery electric technology and allow automakers to satisfy its zero-emissions requirements with fuel-cell vehicles. The irony is that in those three years, many fuel-cell advocates have concluded that the technology is fraught with challenging and expensive engineering problems. They are now once again looking at solutions that involve batteries.

Re "Wise Line on Curbing Emissions," editorial, Dec. 2: Although compromise between two ends of the spectrum often seems to be the best resolution in most situations, in the case of environment and pollution that is not so. I was delighted to find out that the European Union was taking such a bold stand in the fight for lower fossil fuel emissions. Unfortunately, I was soon disappointed to discover that the U.S. was not. The world's nations need to pursue a goal that may seem harder to achieve, but will have a better payoff.

Solo drivers of certain low- and zero-emission cars would have free access to carpool lanes, even if they're converted to toll lanes, under a bill that passed the California Assembly on Thursday. There are a number of projects in the state to make solo drivers pay to use the lanes, no matter what they're driving. Under the bill, those lanes will be free to solo drivers of cars with Clean Air Vehicle stickers. But in Southern California, there will be two exceptions, at least for a year.

California has had remarkable success in extending its national lead in clean technology, using it to help fuel the state's economic rebound and drive its effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions, even as its population continues to grow. Those are some of the findings of the 2012 California Green Innovation Index, released by the nonpartisan nonprofit group Next 10 and compiled by Collaborative Economics. The fourth edition of the index shows California setting the pace in venture capital investment, clean tech patent registration, energy productivity levels, and renewable energy generation levels.

SEATTLE -- Polar bears are skating on thin ice in Alaska these days: Warming temperatures have resulted in dramatic shrinkage of sea ice, leaving the bears with fewer ice floes on which to rest and hunt seals. But at least for the moment, the Endangered Species Act won't be used to control the greenhouse gas emissions that conservationists say are contributing to climate change and posing one of the biggest threats to the bears' survival. The Obama administration on Tuesday released a proposed rule that -- like an earlier version put forward under President  George W. Bush -- exempts operations outside the bears' normal territory from restrictions on activities.

In an election year, any progress on environmental regulation is cause for celebration. So when the Obama administration on Tuesday released its long-delayed proposal to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, there was reason for anyone concerned about public health or the looming climate menace to cheer - even though it won't shut down a single existing coal-fired plant. Power plants are the nation's biggest single source of greenhouse gas emissions. These gases reflect heat back toward the Earth rather than letting it escape into space; as a result, global average temperatures have risen by about 1 degree since 1880, according to NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency, and carbon emissions are expected to drive increasingly rapid warming.

The Obama administration announced long-awaited rules that would sharply limit the output of carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants, the gases that the vast majority of scientists say are the primary contributor to global climate change. The announcement Tuesday by the Environmental Protection Agency signaled that the administration's commitment to tackling climate change has not entirely fallen away, despite the controversy it could unleash in an election year. Delays of key EPA rules over the last six months and President Obama's recent statements touting oil development in response to high gasoline prices stirred nervousness among environmentalists that this standard would also be shelved.

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.

The inconsistancy of Mayor Forest Tennant's concerns about emissions from the proposed Irwindale trash incinerator project and lack of concern about emissions from the BKK toxic gas incineratior project is perplexing. When the West Covina City Council a few months ago had a chance to request an exhaust scrubber. Now mayor Tennant is upset that the emissions won't be scrubbed out properly in Irwindale. Well, they won't be scrubbed in West Covina Mr. Mayor Also on the BKK project, the manufacturer's word is accepted as a guaranteee that the air standards will be complied with, but Tennant challenges the manufacturer's word in Irwindale.

Re "Deal on car emissions a win for state," May 19 The agreement on vehicle emissions may be a "win" for President Obama and advocates against global warming. But it is a definite "lose" for consumers who need or desire larger vehicles for their businesses and families. Also in the "lose" category are those who believe in free markets and the scientists who offer evidence that human activity has nothing to do with the planet's climate changes. The government should not be telling carmakers what kind of cars they can build or consumers what car they should drive.

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.