San Francisco introduces Carbon Tax

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s board of directors on Wednesday approved new rules to charge businesses a fee for the pollution they emit.

The group’s board of directors voted 15-1 on unprecedented new rules that will impose fees on factories, power plants, oil refineries and other businesses that emit carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases.

The agency, which regulates air pollution in the nine-county Bay Area, will be the first in the country to charge companies fees based on their greenhouse gas emissions, experts say. The new rules will take effect July 1.

The modest fee — 4.4 cents per ton of carbon dioxide — probably won’t be enough to force companies to reduce their emissions, but backers say it sets an important precedent in combating climate change and could serve as a model for regional air districts nationwide.

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30,000 Scientists Rejecting Global Warming Hypothesis

Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM)

Who: Dr. Arthur Robinson of the OISM

What: release of names in OISM “Petition Project”

When: 10 AM, Monday May 19

Where: Holeman Lounge at the National Press Club, 529 14th St., NW, Washington, DC

Why: The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) will announce that more than 31,000 scientists have signed a petition rejecting claims of human-caused global warming. The purpose of OISM’s Petition Project is to demonstrate that the claim of “settled science” and an overwhelming “consensus” in favor of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming and consequent climate damage is wrong. No such consensus or settled science exists. As indicated by the petition text and signatory list, a very large number of American scientists reject this hypothesis.

It is evident that 31,072 Americans with university degrees in science – including 9,021 PhDs, are not “a few.” Moreover, from the clear and strong petition statement that they have signed, it is evident that these 31,072 American scientists are not “skeptics.”

CONTACT: Audrey Mullen, +1-703-548-1160, for the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine

/PRNewswire-USNewswire — May 15/

SOURCE Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine

Source: Street Insider

Glass Particles in the Sky Studied As ‘Global Warming’ Fix

(CNSNews.com) – Government scientists are studying the feasibility of sending nearly microscopic particles of specially made glass into the Earth’s upper atmosphere to try to dampen the effects of “global warming.” The idea, while “interesting,” said one leading global warming skeptic, is “not practical” and, if done on a large scale, could depress the ozone layer and cause other problems.

Details from documents Cybercast News Service obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Savannah River National Laboratory in Aiken, S.C., are developing computer models of what might happen if a huge amount of particulate matter is shot into the stratosphere.

The particles, consisting of a very fine and special form of glass – “porous-walled glass microspheres” – would be able to absorb a certain amount of carbon dioxide, and would reflect sunlight away from the Earth.

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Famed geneticist creating life form that turns CO2 to fuel

A scientist who mapped his genome and the genetic diversity of the oceans said Thursday he is creating a life form that feeds on climate-ruining carbon dioxide to produce fuel.

Geneticist Craig Venter disclosed his potentially world-changing “fourth-generation fuel” project at an elite Technology, Entertainment and Design conference in Monterey, California.

craig-venter.jpg

This undated handout photo shows Dr. J. Craig Venter on his research sail boat, the Sorcerer II off the coast of San Diego, California. Venter, the scientist who mapped his genome and the genetic diversity of the oceans, said Thursday he is creating a life form that feeds on climate-ruining carbon dioxide to produce fuel.

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