A UC physicist who Congressional Republicans brought in last week to challenge the legitimacy of climate change made an unexpected assessment. Richard Muller, a longtime critic of climate studies whose research lab is funded in part by the Koch oil billionaires, said his review of temperate trends underlying climate science is “excellent …. We see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups.” [ Read more- LA Times]
MUNI’s on-time performance rate has taken another slip, leaving transit riders late for wherever they are going nearly 30 percent of the time. In the last three months, MUNI reported an on-time performance rate of 71.1 percent, far short of the 85 percent of a voter mandate. Officials say a few lines are causing the upset. [Read more- San Francisco Chronicle]
Incandescent light bulbs offer a tricky environmental trade-off. The new lights are being mandated by California by 2013 and the federal government for energy efficiency. But a single bulb contains up to 5 milligrams of mercury, a toxic chemical that could cause a significant environmental toll if it builds up in landfills. Consumers are recycling only 2 percent of the LEDs that get thrown away, in part because there are few places to drop them off and no federal mandate to do so. [Read more- Contra Costa Times]
Bay Area rainwater registered radiation levels that exceed federal drinking water standards by 181 times on March 24. But experts say the amounts are declining and still well below a single roundtrip flight to and from the East Coast. Still, some are criticizing the federal Environmental Protection Agency for not publishing data in a timely manner owing in part to an emergency monitoring network that is slow. [Read more - San Francisco Examiner]
Marin residents are pulling out their walking shoes and bicycles in higher numbers, a trend attributable to the expansion of bicycle paths. Between 2009 and 2010 there was a 29 percent jump in weekday cycling and a 15 percent gain on the weekends. Pedestrians increased by 4 percent and 3 percent in that time period. Advocates are hoping to see the numbers continue to rise with more car-less options to pass along Highway 101 at the Alto Tunnel. [Read more -- Marin Independent Journal]
Environmentalist, widely-published writer, and West Marin resident Jonathan Rowe unexpectedly passed away last Sunday leaving his local community and colleagues nationwide stunned and deeply saddened. Rowe thought and wrote extensively about reinventing the market place in order to care for our commonly shared goods, such as air, water, and scientific knowledge. To read one of his recent essays on the commons, see Boston Review. For more about Rowe’s life, visit the blog Sparsely Sage and Timely. [Read more - Boston Review, Sparsely Sage and Timely]
Silicon Valley venture capitalist Steve Westly is among Obama’s top fundraisers, a member of a government advisory board on energy policy, and benefiting financially from those connections, according to an investigation by The Center for Public Integrity and ABC. Four of the companies backed by Westly’s venture capital firm have received more than half a billion dollars in loans, grants or stimulus money. [Read more - The Center for Public Integrity]
The top executives at PG&E took a cut in their 2010 bonuses citing the “challenges” the company faced and then received raises in their base salaries. Chairman and chief executive officer, Peter Darby’s total compensation dropped by $2.2 million, but included a 4 percent base salary raise. Utility watchdog groups are not impressed. [Read more - San Francisco Chronicle]
A meeting on Wednesday to discuss the future of California’s climate change law AB32 between the Association of Irritated Residents, the environmental justice group that brought suit, and the California Air Resources Board, apparently did not go well. The group blamed regulators in a statement titled “Climate Law Implementation to Halt.” [Read more - Reuters]
The ever-growing social networking site Facebook has plans to move its head quarters to the old Sun Microsystems offices in Menlo Park and has asked the city to lift its cap on how many people can work on the campus. Some 1,400 of the company’s employees currently work in Palo Alto, and Facebook wants permission to accommodate 3,600. Menlo Park officials say a full environmental impact report will be required. [Read more - Palo Alto Daily News]
As the public searches for answers about radiation from Japan’s growing nuclear crisis reaching the United States, they are turning to the Environmental Protection Agency’s RadNet Central Data Exchange, which makes nationwide radiation levels available multiple times a day. But the data requires expert interpretation and could further confuse and worry novices trying to...
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Tags: bay area radiation data, epa, hosemann, radnet, uc berkeley
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The Franciscana, one of California's iconic manzanita plant, is rebounding from extinction with help from the San Francisco Botanical Society. Source: KQED's Quest.
Did you know that sleeping next to someone blitzes you with 0.05 millionth of a sievert of radiation per night? That eating a banana...
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It’s been a point of maddening frustration for scientists and environmentalists that as the predictions on global warming grow more dire, the public seems...
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It’s been a long, cold rainy winter this year in California. But it could get worse — much worse. The USGS warned this past...
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