Emissions

Mike Tidwell is correct that the evidence for global climate change is indisputable and that carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels and alterations in the earth's ecosystems is the primary cause ("Forecast calls for pain," Feb. 6). Since the carbon already in the atmosphere will persist for a thousand years, we must stop and not merely reduce greenhouse gas emissions if we are to stabilize the current status. I agree that society must put a price on carbon dioxide emissions for the universal harm they do. In so doing, as the price increases, clean, non-carbon energy sources will become competitive in the marketplace.

Last December, an American milestone passed virtually unnoticed. Forty years earlier, Harrison Schmitt became the 12th and last person to walk on the moon. Mr. Schmitt and the 11 men who preceded him - beginning with Neil Armstrong in 1969 - had this in common: All were employees of the United States government. Some have argued that sending men to the moon may not have been the most prudent use of American resources or ingenuity. But the realization of President John F. Kennedy's dream of a U.S. moon walk before the end of the 1960s became a symbol of the scientific and imaginative leadership of this country and what Kennedy termed our "freedom doctrine" during the Cold War. Now, the United States has an opportunity, even an obligation, to mobilize its resources and knowhow to achieve a more practical, and pressing, end. Increasingly under siege by destructive and deadly weather events - wrought, many scientists believe, by man-made climate change - we need to make a national commitment to weather research, including the fields of geo-engineering, weather modification and storm mitigation.

The new owner of the Sparrows Point steel mill has agreed to pay a $135,000 penalty and resolve alleged violations of state pollution control laws that occurred in 2009 when part of a blast furnace ignited, state officials announced Thursday. RG Steel Sparrows LLC, which purchased Sparrows Point in April, has signed an agreement with the Maryland Department of the Environment, or MDE, and the Maryland Office of the Attorney General to reduce emissions from the blast furnace. The money will go to the Maryland Clean Air Fund.

It isn't hard to recognize an example of false economy in the average household budget. The vegetable gardener who spends $500 on supplies to produce $12 in produce, the inexpensive home repair that falls apart in a month or the avid shopper who saves $5 online but pays an extra $20 in shipping and handling. Yet for some reason many of us are blind to the false economy of providing gasoline at the cheapest price possible regardless of its impact on our lives and society. To put it bluntly, humans have been subsidizing the cost of gas by accepting - without direct charge - the air pollution gas-burning vehicles generate.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A coalition of state attorneys general announced plans yesterday to sue the Bush administration for not regulating carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants. The coalition from New York, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Washington and Rhode Island says the administration's regulatory failure flagrantly violates the Clean Air Act and shows a dangerous indifference to global warming. "This problem will not disappear through wishful thinking or artful spinning," Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said yesterday in a telephone conference call with the other states' attorneys general.

With $100 million or more at stake, there's a strong temptation for state politicians to throw their weight around to ensure that Maryland's auto-emissions testing contract goes to the politically correct company. That's why the Schaefer administration should keep the decision-making process as impartial and non-political as possible.Already, two powerful black legislators have met with the governor and with top transportation officials to get special consideration for a black-owned company eager to win the bid. According to one participant's account, the legislators threatened "trouble for the department" unless the procurement process was intentionally tilted in the direction of their favored company.

ANNAPOLIS -- Maryland's tailpipe exhaust inspection program may soon be expanded to include at least six rural counties and to force owners of failing automobiles to make far more costly repairs.Legislation expected to be offered Friday by Gov. William Donald Schaefer will extend indefinitely the 7-year-old program, currently set to expire at year's end.But to comply with the federal Clean Air Act passed by Congress and signed into law last November by President Bush, the state must significantly expand and toughen the program or risk losing millions of dollars in federal highway funds, administration officials said.

A blue-ribbon panel has decided that a Tennessee firm -- the veritable dark horse in a hotly contested race -- is the best choice to receive a lucrative contract to build and operate Maryland's automobile exhaust monitoring stations.The committee's recommendation, which was announced yesterday, provides an ironic twist to the politically charged procurement. The panel's preferred contractor, MARTA Technologies Inc. of Nashville, had not even hired a lobbyist in Annapolis, but now appears likely to win a $97 million contract.

The Environmental Protection Agency recently proposed emissions standards that would reduce the exhaust products of gasoline- and diesel-powered marine engines built in 1998 or thereafter.And while the headlines left some boaters gasping at the prospect of perhaps having to replace existing engines or motors or altering them to meet new emissions standards, take a moment and catch your breath.Presently, there are no provisions to require retrofitting of existing engines and motors.There is, however, a great deal to be said for the EPA's proposal because in the long run the changes to engines and motors will be beneficial to boaters and nonboaters alike.

The 19 nearly identical red brick buildings that have sprung up across Maryland's landscape this past year are just five weeks away from offering one of the nation's strictest vehicle exhaust testing programs.For the average motorist, the new pollution-control tests bode dramatic change. They will be more elaborate, stringent, time-consuming and expensive than any given before. The state expects 300,000 vehicles to fail the biennial test each year, causing their owners to face repair bills as high as $450.

Mike Tidwell is correct that the evidence for global climate change is indisputable and that carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels and alterations in the earth's ecosystems is the primary cause ("Forecast calls for pain," Feb. 6). Since the carbon already in the atmosphere will persist for a thousand years, we must stop and not merely reduce greenhouse gas emissions if we are to stabilize the current status. I agree that society must put a price on carbon dioxide emissions for the universal harm they do. In so doing, as the price increases, clean, non-carbon energy sources will become competitive in the marketplace.

For all the hysteria generated by climate-change deniers over how reducing greenhouse gas emissions would be disastrous for consumers and the economy, Maryland and the other eight states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative are demonstrating that it isn't. The decision announced today to lower the cap on carbon dioxide by nearly 45 percent in those states should send a clear message to Washington that cap-and-trade can work. Since 2009, Maryland has been part of the RGGI coalition that limits greenhouse gas emissions by coal-fired power plants.

A consortium of Northeastern states including Maryland has agreed to reset a power plant emissions cap to current levels and to tighten it annually starting in 2015, an action officials said would increase investment in energy efficiency and slightly raise electricity prices, besides cutting pollution. The change amounts to a 45 percent reduction in the cap's ceiling, which has far exceeded actual pollution levels because of improved energy efficiency, increased renewable power generation, mild weather and the slumping economy.

What if you could be greener and save money at the same time? Well, you can.  By switching your home's power to “green” electricity, you can reduce your household's contribution to climate change by 24 percent while also shrinking your utility bills. So what?  Though electricity changed the world for the positive, its big downside is that most U.S. power plants are powered by coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel that spews carbon dioxide (CO¿), sulfur dioxide and mercury into the air. Power plants are the #1 source of man-made CO2 emissions in the U.S., accounting for 41 percent.

The Maryland Public Service Commission said Monday that it will give energy customers a choice on smart meters, but it hasn't decided yet whether to allow a total opt-out or to make the alternative a smart meter installed in a way to limit radio-frequency emissions. "Although we have not found convincing evidence that smart meters pose any health risks to the public at large, we acknowledge a good-faith belief on the part of some ratepayers to the contrary," the commission said in its order.

If a tree falls in Maryland's forests — even if no one hears it — researchers soon will have a handle on how much it could contribute to global warming. A pair of geographical scientists at the University of Maryland, College Park is leading an ambitious effort to map the state's forests and measure changes over time in the amount of carbon stockpiled in the trees. With a $1.4 million grant from NASA, the research team hopes to use satellite imagery, aerial photography and ground observations to develop new methods for tracking the carbon stored in woodlands, which could be applied locally, nationally and globally.

In its final days, the Bush administration is poised to exempt poultry farms from reporting how much ammonia and other noxious pollutants they are releasing into the air from the millions of tons of manure their flocks generate. The Environmental Protection Agency has asked the federal Office of Management and Budget to give final approval to a rule that would exclude poultry farms from environmental reporting required of other industries. The budget office reviews all proposed federal regulations to see that their benefits justify their costs.

A pioneering regional compact to fight climate change stands at a crossroads, as officials from Maryland and eight other Northeast states meet Tuesday in New York to weigh new limits on their power plants' carbon dioxide emissions. With emissions significantly reduced since the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative began in 2008 - though mainly from other factors - the states are weighing how much lower to try to push carbon-dioxide releases through the end of the decade without risking stifling their economic recovery.

One can just imagine the future "Jeopardy" TV quiz show answer: The name of the international conference that took place in early December of 2012 that critics universally panned for accomplishing little despite overwhelming evidence of a global ecological catastrophe on the horizon. "Alex, what is the Doha Climate Change Conference?" would be the winning question and surely worth a lot to the right contestant. After all, the planet is already in "double jeopardy" - not only from climate change but from the continuing failure of the wealthiest nations to do much about it. As President Barack Obama is looking to come up with $60-to-$80 billion to offset the worst effects of Hurricane Sandy, a storm that practically shut down New York City, the world's media center, one would think the call to avoid more such costly catastrophes in the future would be deafening.