Forest biofuel projects could increase West Coast carbon emissions

Thinning West Coast forests on a widespread scale to feed bioenergy projects would increase the region's production of greenhouse gases, according to a new study.

Research published Oct. 23 in the journal  Nature Climate Change undermines the argument that substituting wood-based biofuel for fossil fuels would reduce carbon emissions.

“Most people assume that wood bioenergy will be carbon-neutral, because the forest re-grows and there’s also the chance of protecting forests from carbon emissions due to wildfire,” said Tara Hudiburg, the paper's lead author and an Oregon State University doctoral student in the College of Forestry. “However, our research showed that the emissions from these activities proved to be more than the savings.”

Using data from thousands of forest plots in Oregon, Washington and California, Hudiburg and her co-authors calculated carbon storage and emissions under current forest management practices and then projected changes under three different thinning/biofuel scenarios.

Two involved thinning of varying intensity in fire-prone forests in the three states. The third called for widespread harvesting of trees up to 2 feet in diameter on public and private lands. The study assumed the harvested wood be burned to produce heat and power, converted to cellulosic ethanol and, in the case of larger, more valuable trees, milled into wood products.

The scientists took into account carbon dioxide emissions in harvesting, transportation and biofuel production as well as carbon credits for reducing wildfire and fossil fuel emissions, and long-term storage in lumber for housing. In some areas with relatively low forest productivity and high fire frequency, greenhouse gas emissions did not rise under the treatment scenarios. But in most they did.

"We are not saying that any project will increase emissions compared to current levels, whether they are from decomposition, wildfire, or harvest," Hudiburg said in an email. "We are saying that on average, this is what happens in West Coast forests, and if implemented widely will increase regional emissions -- contrary to policy goals." 

Total West Coast carbon emissions rose 2%, 6% or 14% under the three treatment schemes.

The study dealt solely with emissions and did not consider other potential benefits of forest thinning, such as reducing wildfire risk, which is projected to increase with global warming.

"In this study region," the authors wrote, carbon storage in forests "is more beneficial in contributing to reduction of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions than increasing harvest to substitute fossil fuels with bioenergy from forests."

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Photo: Loggers use a machine that cuts and piles whole trees to thin an area in the Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota. Credit: Associated Press / Doug Dreyer

California adopts historic cap-and-trade regulations

The California Air Resources Board, after three years of contentious debate, on Thursday approved the nation's first state-run cap-and-trade program, which will for the first time put a price on carbon emissions.

The unanimous vote paves the way for the carbon trading market, which begins in 2013 and will eventually require 85% of the state's largest polluters to either emit less carbon or purchase credits on a market that the air board will regulate.   

The market is projected to exchange about $10 billion in carbon allowances by 2016, which would make it second largest in the world behind the European Union.

The program is part of AB 23, the state's 2006 climate change law that mandates a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

Said board Chairwoman Mary Nichols: "We've done something important."

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Photo: Valero Energy's Wilmington refinery in a 2010 photo.  Credit: Christina House / Los Angeles Times

Climate skeptic admits he was wrong to doubt global-warming data

Remember when scientists who had cast doubt on global temperature studies boldly embarked on an effort to "reconsider" the evidence?

They have. And they conclude that their doubt was misplaced.

UC Berkeley physicist Richard Muller and others were looking at the so-called urban heat island effect -- the notion that because more urban temperature stations are included in global temperature data sets than are rural ones, the global average temperature was being skewed upward because these sites tend to retain more heat. Hence, global warming trends are exaggerated.

Using data from such urban heat islands as Tokyo, they hypothesized, could introduce "a severe warming bias in global averages using urban stations."

In fact, the data trend was "opposite in sign to that expected if the urban heat island effect was adding anomalous warming to the record. The small size, and its negative sign, supports the key conclusion of prior groups that urban warming does not unduly bias estimates of recent global temperature change."

Researchers conclude that "[t]he trend analysis also supports the view that the spurious contribution of urban heating to the global average, if present, is not a strong effect; this agrees with the conclusions in the literature that we cited previously."

The literature they cite is the basis for the conclusion that Earth has been warming in an unnatural way during the period of human industrialization.

The paper, made available Thursday, amounts to the second time that Muller et al have had to back away from a key plank of climate skeptics' argument that Earth is simply on a natural temperature path and man-made greenhouse gases are not warming the atmosphere.

Several months ago, when called before a congressional panel that likewise has been skeptical of climate research, Muller acknowledged that his team was finding no smoking gun to indict climate scientists.

At the time, Muller told the House Science Committee that the work of the three principal groups that have analyzed the temperature trends underlying climate science is "excellent .... We see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups."

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Photo: UC Berkeley physicist Richard Muller.

California falls behind Massachusetts in energy efficiency

California has fallen behind Massachusetts as the country's most energy-efficient state, according to the 2011 Energy Scorecard released by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy on Thursday. California had ranked first for each of the previous four years' scorecards.

While California and Massachusetts have both effectively implemented demand-side management plans, "Massachusetts regulators have sent a very consistent message that they want to ramp up their energy-efficiency programs. California has been staying even, and Massachusetts has been flooring it," said Steven Nadel, executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

Part of Massachusetts' energy efficiency increase is due to long-term investment. In 2009, the state spent $61 per customer to improve energy efficiency, compared with $32 per customer in California, Nadel said. That investment is now paying off. In 2012, Massachusetts will reduce its electricity demand 2.4%, the report said, whereas California demand will decline by 1%.

The 2011 scorecard reported that 29 states had adopted or made significant progress toward adopting new energy-saving building codes for homes and commercial properties; just 20 states had done so in 2010. It also found that 24 states had adopted an Energy Efficiency Resource Standard, setting long-term energy savings targets for utility-sector investments in energy efficiency.

"More and more states recognize that energy efficiency is a way to reduce costs," Nadel said. "You reduce energy bills, but energy efficiency is less expensive than new power plants." 

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Photo: A man looks at an Energy Star appliance. Credit: Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times

Interior Department reviewing allegations in delta smelt case

An Interior Department official said Thursday the agency will ask independent experts to review allegations by a federal judge that the testimony of two department scientists was so inconsistent and contradictory it amounted to deliberate deception. 

U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Wanger attacked the credibility of the biologists last month shortly before retiring from the bench. At a hearing on a motion in a court case involving delta smelt protections, Wanger called one of the scientists a "zealot" and accused the agency of engaging in "bad faith."

A transcript of his remarks was widely circulated, providing ammunition for critics of endangered species protections that have cut water exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta. Wanger later said his statements dealt with a limited issue and had been blown out of proportion.

Testifying before a House subcommittee on the Endangered Species Act, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Assistant Director Gary Frazer said the Interior Department disagreed with Wanger's comments and stood behind the work of its scientists.

"We also believe that, when questions arise regarding the integrity of scientific work, it is important to resolve them swiftly, independentlyand decisively," he said, adding that the agency has instructed its  scientific integrity officers "to retain independent experts to evaluate the allegations made by Judge Wanger."

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Photo: A delta smelt. Credit: University of California Davis

California lists flame retardant as a carcinogen

A state science panel voted Wednesday to place a commonly used flame retardant on California's Proposition 65 list of cancer-causing chemicals.

The action does not ban chlorinated Tris (TDCPP), which is found in foam furniture cushions, auto seats and a variety of baby products, but it will require warning labels that the products contain carcinogens.

TDCPP was withdrawn from use in children's sleepwear in the late 1970s but resurfaced in a number of products as a substitute for other flame retardants banned in California within the last decade.

Manufacturing representatives argued against the listing at an Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment meeting, saying there was no evidence that the chemical causes cancer in humans. But after hearing testimony that TDCPP has been found to cause tumors in rats, a science committee voted 5 to 1 to list the chemical as a carcinogen.

“It's really important because it brings the public's attention to the fact that there are these cancer causing flame retardants in their furniture, and nursing pillows and kids' strollers,” said Arlene Blum,
executive director of the Green Science Policy Institute, who testified at the hearing.

California product requirements have been a driving force in the use of flame retardants, which have been detected in adults, newborns, domestic pets and birds of prey.        

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Photo: Proposition 65 requires the posting of public notices that warn of potentially harmful substances contained in products sold in California. Flame retardant was added to the Proposition 65 list of cancer-causing chemicals. Credit: Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times

National Academy of Sciences to study wild-horse roundups

A National Academy of Sciences panel is set to hear official presentations and public comment to begin its independent review of the federal Wild Horse and Burro Management Program. The first meeting is scheduled for Oct. 27 in Reno.

The Bureau of Land Management last week announced a tentative calendar for its wild-horse and burro roundups.

The roundups are to begin this month and continue through next March in California and several Western states. The BLM is expected to gather about 6,000 animals via helicopter herding. Some of the horses are to be removed from the range; others -- about 2,000 horses -- are to receive a fertility-control vaccine.

The controversial program has drawn criticism from animal-welfare advocates as being unnecessary and harmful to the horses and foals. In response, the BLM has allowed the public to observe the roundups. 

The Reno meeting is to include presentations from BLM officials and wild-horse experts. Among issues the panel is expected to study are horse and burro genetics and the scientific basis for population models.

The BLM estimates that about 33,000 wild horses and 5,500 burros roam BLM-managed range lands in 10 Western states, based on data from February of this year. Wild horses and burros have virtually no natural predators, and their herd sizes can double about every four years. 

Public-lands ranchers complain that the animals compete with livestock for scarce food in the arid West.

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Photo: Two young wild horses play while grazing on the Huffaker Hills near Reno on Jan. 13, 2010. Credit: Andy Barron / Reno Gazette-Journal

Increased monitoring finds more water pollution in California

The latest review of water pollution data in California shows substantial jumps in toxic and pesticide contamination, the number of dirty beaches and tainted fish. But federal regulators attribute the rise to improved monitoring and data collection by the state rather than a tide of new pollution.

Under the federal Clean Water Act, states are required to monitor water quality and periodically submit the results to the Environmental Protection Agency. California's 2010 list, which the EPA finalized Tuesday, shows a number of dramatic increases compared with the 2006 list.

--Waters with toxic pollution increased 170%. 

--Locations in which bacteria levels were unsafe for swimmers climbed 90%.

--Waters fouled by trash jumped 76%.

--The number of waterways tainted by pesticides increased 36%.

--The number of waters inhabited by fish unsafe to eat was 24% higher. Mercury contamination was up  the most.

Although many of the more remote streams, rivers and coastline lack monitoring data, EPA Water Division Director Alexis Strauss said “California has done a a superb job" of assembling pollution information. The state used 22,000 data sets to compile the new tally, seven times the number reviewed for the previous listing.

More than 1,000 waterways are deemed "impaired" by pollution of one kind or another. “To me it was fairly shocking,” EPA Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld said of the new figures.  "That really does speak to the enormity of the problem in front of us."

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Photo: A man wades between Surfrider Beach and Malibu Lagoon in Malibu. Credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times

California's new B Corp law eyes social, environmental interplay

California businesses soon will be able to set up shop as so-called Benefit Corporations, or B Corps, under a new law signed Sunday by Gov. Jerry Brown. AB 361 enables businesses to pursue a "material positive impact on the environment and community in addition to maximizing profits," according to a statement from California Assemblyman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), who authored the bill.

Incorporating under AB 361 allows companies greater access to social impact and venture capital investments; legal protection for directors and officers as they consider non-financial social and environmental goals; and validation of their social and environmental responsibility claims since their annual benefit report must assess their performance against a third-party standard.

"Corporations, particularly in California, don't have legal protection to consider non-financial factors when making decisions, particularly in liquidity or sale scenarios, like when the company's up for sale," said Jay Coen Gilbert, a B Corporation advocate and co-founderof B Lab in Philadelphia. "That's one fundamental constraint on sustainable businesses: They're doing that at significant legal exposure. [AB 361] helps to provide them with legal protection to pursue what some people perceive as a triple bottom line -- creating financial profit as well as social and environmental impact."

Before AB 361, Gilbert added, "corporations have one fiduciary duty: to maximize value to shareholders even if that comes at the expense of workers or the community or the environment. It's a system that's set up to externalize costs to society."

AB 361 goes into effect Jan. 1. Similar Benefit Corporation laws exist in Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, Vermont and Virginia. Benefit Corporation legislation is awaiting approval in New York and is moving forward in North Carolina, Pennyslvania and Michigan.

-- Susan Carpenter

Image: B Corporation logo. Credit: www.bcorporation.net

Gov. Jerry Brown signs ban on chemical BPA in baby bottles

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill banning the chemical bisphenol A, or BPA, from baby bottles and toddlers' drinking cups.

The bill, the Toxin-Free Infants and Toddlers Act (AB 1319), had passed the Senate in August.

The legislation, sponsored by state Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) and Assemblywoman Betsy Butler (D-Marina Del Ray) would ban BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups made or sold after July 1, 2013. It would also require manufacturers to use the least toxic alternative to BPA in those products. Similar efforts have failed in recent years.

Supporters have urged California to follow the lead of other states and nations in restricting BPA, which has been linked to cardiovascular disease, diabetes and sexual dysfunction in people and cancer in mice.

Opponents argued that the bill could open companies to lawsuits if the chemical is found in baby products after the ban takes effect.

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Photo: Bisphenol A is found in many plastic baby bottles and other food containers. Credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times