#car emissions

[intelligentliving]

Trump And The EPA Pushing For Increased Vehicle Emissions

The Trump administration continues to care less about the environment, as they are expected to announce the final reversal of Obama-era fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks. The new guidelines from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Transportation will allow for fewer restrictions on air pollution...

[rjzimmerman]

What’s driving California’s emissions? You guessed it: Cars.

California’s car addiction is putting the brakes on its climate goals.

Excerpt from this Grist story:

California received plenty of praise back in 2016 when it hit its target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions four years ahead of time. But the Golden State’s progress has slowed, according to a report out Tuesday from a nonpartisan research center. California is now on track to hit its 2030 goal in 2061. Three whole decades late.

The biggest problem: California’s beloved cars.

What happened? Over the last three years, California has reduced emissions at a rate of only 1.15 percent. At that pace, it would take a century for the state to zero-out carbon emissions. But a law ex-Governor Jerry Brown signed in 2016, requires the state to reach zero emissions by 2050. Since falling behind, the state would need to step up emissions reductions to 4.51 percent every year, according to the report.

Next 10’s report, the California Green Innovation Index, shows that the state has plucked most of the low-hanging fruit, mainly by cleaning up electricity production. California’s next challenge is the tougher job of eliminating climate pollutants from transportation, industry, and homes, and offices. And, yes, all of those cars.

Passenger vehicles alone produce nearly a third of California’s emissions, more than all of the electric plants, livestock, and oil refineries in the state put together. Vehicle ownership has reached an all-time high, as has the total miles that Californians are driving. Moreover, “even in climate conscious California we’ve seen a consumer preference shift to favor SUVs and light trucks,” said Adam Fowler of Beacon Economics, which prepared this report for Next 10.

Based on the current pace of year-over-year percentage reductions, the state will need to work increasingly harder in order to meet the SB 32 goal by 2030. Previously, the state needed to reduce its GHG emissions by an average of 3.92 percent annually between 2016 to 2030 in order to attain the goal. However, since the state only achieved a 1.15 percent reduction between 2016 and 2017, the state will now need to reduce its GHG emissions by an average of 4.51 percent annually from 2017 to 2030 in order to attain the goal—a three-fold increase. At the current trajectory, the state will take significantly more time to reach its SB 32 and 2050 goals than it did to reach the 2020 goal. Assuming the same rate of reduction from 2016 to 2017, California would reach its SB 32 and 2050 goals in 2061 and 2157, respectively—representing a 31-year and a 107-year delay. Using the average rate of decline from the three most recent years (-1.57%), the respective goals would be met in 2050 and 2121 instead.

[phroyd]

Trump Administration Unravels Clean Car Standards and Goes After States’ Clean Air

Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed to gut national clean car standards as well as states’ authority to protect their residents from tailpipe pollution under the Clean Air Act. The new rule is the latest in a long list of gifts from the Trump administration to the oil industry given at the cost of the public health of Americans.

The following statement is from Paul Cort, attorney at Earthjustice leading the California Right to Zero campaign:

“The Trump administration is not only rolling back federal protections, but also trying to trash a clean cars agreement with the states that protects roughly a third of Americans. By 2030, the pollution equivalent of this rollback will be like firing up 30 coal power plants. It’s a boon for big oil that ordinary Americans will pay for with their health and their wallets.

“Andrew Wheeler just took the reins at the EPA but is already signing policies that will sicken children. But this new attempt to squash states’ authority to protect their air will face a wave of resistance — places like California, Colorado, and Massachusetts will not stand by as the Trump administration passes policies that will sicken their residents.

“We remember the thick smog that used to choke our cities and we refuse to return to those times. Everyone who breathes should be worried about the tailpipe pollution Trump’s administration wants to unleash.”

CAR POLLUTION BY THE NUMBERS:

Twelve states and Washington, D.C., opt in to California’s more protective greenhouse gas emissions car standards: Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

Rolling back our national and state clean car standards will result in an additional 120 million metric tons of climate disrupting pollution pumping out of cars in 2030. That’s the equivalent of 30 coal-fired power plants. In 2040, the annual pollution will be the equivalent of 43 coal-fired power plants.

The oil industry will reap the rewards of this rollback. As a result, Americans will use more than 350 million additional barrels of gasoline in 2040 – that’s more oil than we currently import from Saudi Arabia. The rollback will cost Americans an extra $17 billion at the pump in 2025, and an extra $55 billion in 2040.

This rollback will shrink economic growth. The 2017-2025 clean car standards are slated to create more than 250,000 jobs nationwide and increase gross domestic product by $16 billion. This rollback will cut those job numbers and economic growth in half.

Phroyd

[techdriveplay]

What Are the Benefits of Hybrid Cars Over Traditional Gas Vehicles?

In recent years, hybrid cars have emerged as a compelling alternative to traditional gas vehicles, offering a blend of fuel efficiency, reduced emissions, and innovative technology. With rising fuel prices and increasing environmental concerns, many consumers are asking, what are the benefits of hybrid cars over traditional gas vehicles? This question is particularly relevant as more people seek…

What Are the Benefits of Hybrid Cars Over Traditional Gas Vehicles?

[lamajaoscura]

The simple, impactful way to make cars cleaner

In the age of electric vehicles, higher gas mileage is more important than ever.

[carolinemillerbooks]

New Post has been published on Books by Caroline Miller

New Post has been published on https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/war-in-the-asphalt-jungle/

War In The Asphalt Jungle

Decades of pro-automobile policies will be difficult to unravel as cities attempt to reduce the effects of climate change.  Yet, change must come. Already, air pollution from automobile emissions takes the lives of  100,000 Americans each year. Eliminating cars from the city has been tried in the past, as early as the 1920s, but support for such plans has always been underwhelming. As late as the 1980s,  Sacramento, California reinstated a car-free zone at one of its popular shopping areas. I recall walking through the area in those days and observing more hamburger wrappers blowing down the streets than people. Modern urban planners have decided those earlier attempts at car-free areas zones were too ambitious. People had to park great distances to get to the shops and delivery vans complained about the difficulty of doing their rounds. That’s why Salvador Rueda, a Spanish urban designer, has a new idea: Superblocks. (“The Walking City,” by Wes Enzinna, Bloomberg Businessweek, November 4, 2019, pg. 39.) Simply put, the car-free zones become smaller but more of them dot the landscape.  These open spaces support carpets of grass and trees, with plenty of places to sit and watch the passing scene. Taking smaller bites from the terrain has an additional benefit. Urban planners find it easier to accommodate bus routes and those vital van deliveries. The good news is that urban squares reduce air pollution to a significant degree. (Ibid pg. 42.)  The idea isn’t without its detractors. People in large cities where public transportation is poor have voiced vigorous opposition. Still, Rueda is optimistic that urbanites will learn to embrace a trend that invites nature into the unhealthy, asphalt jungle. 

[humanismtoday]

Trump said that his gutting of California’s car emission standards will take more polluting cars off the road, which makes sense, if you don’t care about logic.

[therebelwrites]

Car Exhaust as an Explanation for TREE Exhaustion

For months I have been warning that the trees are, indeed, tired.

YET when you consider the things that come out of your tailpipe, it makes perfect sense...

Trees absorb the carbon dioxide exhaled by humans and return it to us as oxygen.

(Of course, you could argue that trees emit oxygen simply as a byproduct of their own internal processes, BUT in an interconnected world there are no coincidences. The benefits of trees to human health have been well-documented, and at the end of the day, WE need THEM; trees don’t NEED humans to survive.)

So as I was saying...

Trees remove the carbon, which, being the building block of LIFE, contains all things associated with the human existence, such as joy, hurt, pain, suffering--even our very DNA.

In a literal sense, trees absorb human DNA via our exhalations, which contain not only the ailments from which your physical body may be suffering at the moment (i.e. the flu/cold virus/small pox/stress/itchy scalp/intoxication, etc.), but also any lower-level spiritual vibrations that an individual may be experiencing.  This all happens through the human-tree exchange of life-force energy that is our INHALING AND EXHALING.

Much like filters in a car, trees CLEAN your exhaled breaths (be they toxic, diseased or otherwise) and return to you healthy, clean oxygen--only the elements that you need and which benefit (and sustain!) your body.

So trees do this, despite humans not only failing to appreciate the work that trees do, but also neglecting to do the SPIRITUAL work necessary to ensure that our output (exhalations) is actually clean. (Vehicle emissions standards vary from state to state, of course.) This includes eating healthy, maintaining our physical vehicles (bodies), healing our DNA and transmuting inter-generational trauma.

In absence of our own spiritual healing, we continue to put out--exhale--TOXINS for trees to absorb, YET where do you think that trees store these unwanted energies?? What is each tree’s quota for handling and filtering human TOXINS?? Even air filters have limits. What happens when trees are overwhelmed and overworked, having to incessantly process: PAIN from the Black collective; DESPAIR from Black mothers; the MEDICATED BREATHS from bloated bodies created by the pharmaceutical industry; the DISEASED MINDS formed by poverty, the SYSTEMATIC DENIAL OF JUSTICE and the prison industrial complex; and the ANCESTRAL PAIN contained in the breaths of millions of oppressed people??

Again I ask: Where do TREES store their OWN grief--specifically that which is generated by their incessant need to absorb the MAN-MADE kind??

Knowing the detrimental impact of constant trauma exposure on the human mind, body, soul and spirit, and the fact that trees inhale the vibrations of trauma, can you now understand why these majestic beings are in a state of dis-tress? How would humans feel if trees were to return to our environment not just OXYGEN--but oxygen laced with particles of POISON??