SMOGTOWN

From a recent Pasasdena Star News story (one of many on this important subject lost in the economic collapse and greenhouse gas frenzy):

“Don’t plan on seeing the opening of any new public facilities or for that matter new small businesses which have generators or other polluting devices.

Local government and others can’t get the necessary permits from the South Coast Air Quality Management District due to a November court decision that many are just learning about.

If this issue is not resolved, it could mean that the Whittier police station or a Los Angeles County fire station on the border of La Mirada and Habra – both under construction – can’t open.

Both have small emergency generators and need permits from AQMD. Construction on both is expected to take another year.

“It compromises the level of public safety,” La Mirada City Manager

Contractors continue to work on the new Whittier Police Department building project at the corner of Washington Avenue and Penn Street on Thursday March 26, 2009. The 55,000 square-foot police building is expected to be completed in June 2010. (SGVN/Staff Photo by Keith Durflinger)Tom Robinson said of the moratorium established by the AQMD.

Other types of new businesses affected are auto body shops, service stations, printers, and even car dealerships.

“It’s safe to say that cities throughout Southern California are very concerned about the moratorium,” Robinson said. “Everybody else in the country is trying to put people to work and here’s a ruling that’s going to put people out of work.”

(more…)

Coal forever? Oh, please. Here’s an interesting blog entry about Caltech laying waste to another myth.

L.A. and Houston have warred for years over NOT being coronoated as America’s smoggiest metropolitan area. Now, the lone star state is looking to kick California’s butt by actually claiming a new title: the solar power honco of states. See link.

Right-wingers will disparage this as more proof of Obama’s socialistic leanings. Enviros and moderates, especially those familiar with Los Angeles’ efforts to get the toxic chemicals creating smog labeled a health threat, about time. Carbon dioxide has both a direct link to smog and a horrifying lexus with global warming, which will be giving us refugee crises, reinvigorated diseases like Malaria and Dysentary, drought, hunger and other “indirect” consequences. A pretty big story lost in news of the emasculated economy.

A view of how things stand from the Coalition for Clean Air, including a move by the South Coast Air Quality Management District to limit toxic volatile organic compounds in paint thinners and such.

A terrific global warming overview from folks who know their stuff: the Natural Resources Defense Council.

In the months since we released our social history of one of the planet’s first true environmental crises, Smogtown: the Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles, we’ve been scurrying around appearing on a bunch of terrific platforms. We’re talking the West Hollywood Book Festival, Patt Morrison’s NPR-syndicated radio show, “Deadline L.A.,” ABC public radio, several New York Times blogs, to name a few. This spring, we’re booked for a couple panels at the L.A. Times/UCLA Festival of Books and at a Los Angeles Public Library ALOUD program moderated by activist/author/ex-lawmaker Tom Hayden, blogger/writer Kevin Roderick and a Coalition for Clean Air official. Exhilirating as all that is, this Monday will be extraordinary. Why, you might ask? We’re slated to give a talk at Google’s Santa Monica offices, and like the technology titan itself, this ain’t your ordinary book club.

Here’s a brief description of the program. To think we’ll be part of the same club with these luminaries is beyond supremely gnarly and flattering. It tells us people still care about Southern California’s voyage and back from the crisis that sometimes felt had no end.

The Authors@Google program brings authors of all stripes to Google for informal talks centering on their recently published books. Through the program, we invite authors to our Mountain View headquarters as well as our New York, Santa Monica, Cambridge, Ann Arbor, and other offices, where Googlers are treated to readings of everything from serious literature and political analysis to pioneering science fiction and moving personal memoirs; past participants have ranged from novelist Salman Rushdie and economist Jeffrey Sachs to journalist Bob Woodward and U.S. presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. When possible, we share these remarkable conversations with the world outside the Googleplex through our YouTube channel.

* Air pollution and headaches. A connection, or stretch? LA Times story Here’s an MSNBC piece about traffic smog & heart attacks.

* A dimming world … MSBNC reports.

* Haven’t we heard this one before? Mother Nature Network post.

* A greenhouse gas market similar to Southern California’s smog market is coming, and the auditors are going to be kept busy. Washington Post story

* Beware the danger of cheap, recession-pummeled gasoline prices. It’s haunted us before, and seems to be happening again. L.A. Times story.

* Global warming California-style won’t wait: story

From the opening (link)

The first lesson in Ecology 101 is that everything is connected. This means that a book about bees relates strongly to books about ranching, a river in New York, a Wisconsin prairie, and Los Angeles’ smog. The best “green” books reviewed in Booklist over the past year take distinctive perspectives on the same matrix of forces human and wild, explicating problems, offering solutions, and telling compelling stories of hubris and hope.

Albatross: Their World, Their Ways. By Tuie De Roy and others. 2008. Firefly, $49.95 (9781554074150).

American Earth: Environmental Writing since Thoreau. Ed. by Bill McKibben. 2008. Library of America, $40 (9781598530209).

Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honeybee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis. By Rowan Jacobsen. 2008. Bloomsbury, $25 (9781596915374).

Greasy Rider: Two Dudes, One Fry-Oil-Powered Car, and a Cross-Country Search for a Greener Future. By Greg Melville. 2008. Algonquin, paper, $15.95 (9781565125957).

Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—and How It Can Renew America. By Thomas L. Friedman. 2008. Farrar, $27.95 (9780374166854).

The Hudson: America’s River. By Frances F. Dunwell. 2008. Columbia Univ., $74.50 (9780231136402); paper, $29.95 (9780231136419).

Nature’s Second Chance: Restoring the Ecology of Stone Prairie Farm. By Steven I. Apfelbaum. 2009. Beacon, $25.95 (9780807085820).

Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles. By Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly. 2008. Overlook, $26.95 (9781585678600).