This week those two facts converged when a study led by researchers from UC Davis found that farm fields up and down the San Joaquin Valley are emitting huge amounts of a gas that is a major contributor to the valley’s smog problem. The study, published Wednesday in the research journal Science Advances, concludes that unused fertilizer in agricultural soils contributes 25 to 41 percent of nitrogen oxide, or NOx, emissions in California…
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California regulators maybe drastically underestimating chemical-intensive agriculture’s contribution to nitrogen oxide (NOx) caused air pollution, acid rain, and respiratory illness in the state, according to a new study published in Science Advances by researchers at University of California, Davis. While NOx pollution is usually associated with energy production and vehicle emissions, fertilizer use on crop fields is contributing to significant air pollution problems…
California’s fertile Central Valley farm soil – and not the tractors and trucks working it – may hold the key ingredient of the state’s notoriously smoggy air, according to a University of California, Davis report. The study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances is the first large-scale report of California soil emissions and suggests that 25 to 41 percent of the state’s nitrogen oxide emissions are tied to fertilized agricultural soils…
Fertilized soils may be contributing up to 40 percent of the state’s nitrogen oxides emissions….
The Valley Air District has issued a health cautionary statement amid a weather pattern that could contribute to another round of elevated particulate pollution in the San Joaquin Valley. The district says stagnant air conditions may result in warmer temperatures, but residents should take care to avoid heavy outdoor activities during periods of elevated particulate matter concentrations…
Amidst predictably fawning media coverage, California Governor Jerry Brown delivered his sixteenth and final State of the State address at the State Capitol in Sacramento on January 25. Brown proclaimed that the “bolder path is still our way forward” on climate change, cap-and-trade and infrastructure investment, including the implementation of the water bond of 2014 and the construction of his Delta Tunnels, and an array of other issues…
In an executive order unveiled Friday, Brown set a new goal of getting five million zero emission vehicles on the road by 2030. That’s a fourteen-fold increase from the number currently on the road — 350,000. “We’re going to get there, believe me,” Brown said in his State of the State speech on Thursday. “We all got a lot of work…
Climate lawsuits are not new, with examples stretching back to the George W. Bush administration, but the latest batch have a greater chance of succeeding, said Ann Carlson, professor of environmental law at the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA School of Law. She and several other panelists spoke at a timely discussion Thursday at UCLA co-sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), “Holding Fossil Fuel Companies Liable for Climate Change Harms in California”…
Plans for a new 110-acre industrial park in south Fresno were backed by the Fresno City Council on Thursday, despite concerns by social justice advocates about the potential effects it could have on traffic and air quality in the area. On a 7-0 vote, the council denied an appeal by the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, Faith in Fresno and other advocacy groups that wanted the city to overturn a development permit for Caglia Environmental…
PurpleAir. It’s a relatively new brand of low-cost, air-quality monitors that’s rapidly gaining popularity. Out of more than 1,100 PurpleAir monitors around the world, about a third are in California…