Election Day Giving California Voters Choice Over Global Warming Law Through Ballot Prop. 23

Graphic courtesy of climateactionmoreland.org.

Californians will have a very important decision to make this Election Day beyond who will represent them over the next term. On the ballot, voters will find something called the “California Jobs Initiative,” also commonly known as Proposition 23.

The ballot will inform voters that if they vote ‘yes’ and the proposition passes, that it will suspend the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (also known as AB 32), which is scheduled to become operative on Jan. 1, 2012.       

The goal of the proposition is to suspend law - which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions - until California’s unemployment rate drops to 5.5 percent or below for four consecutive quarters (a 12-month span).

If the global warming law goes into effect, it will require California’s State Air Resource Board to design and implement measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to their 1990 levels in the next eight years (by 2020).

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Beantown Going Green One Peddle at a Time

Photo courtesy of inhabitat.com.

Lately when we think about ‘green’ initiatives to reduce global warming, thoughts such as world leaders meeting in Copenhagen come to mind, as well as thoughts of energy from renewable resources. Things that are complicated, expensive, and far removed from the average person’s ability to independently affect change.

The truth is that everyone can do their small part to reduce global warming, and in the case of Boston’s new employee bike pool service, it won’t cost city workers anything except maybe a few extra pounds.

The new service, supported through the federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program grant, allows city employees to reserve bikes. The service makes about 60 bikes and helmets available for reservation at eight city buildings, housing over 5,000 employees. The bikes were donated by Giant Bicycle Inc.

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United Nations Going Public With Industry Pollution Info. From Around the World

Graphic courtesy if TheTripFlare.com.

In order to solve a problem, the first thing you have to know is how big it is! Companies across the planet massively pollute the environment, but to what extent we haven’t known because no one has ever made an organized effort to calculate it until recently.

As of now, 36 governments have signed the United Nations The Protocol on Pollutants Release and Transfer Register, which will enter into force on October 8, 2009.

The Protocol’s goal is to provide a “mechanism to increase corporate accountability, reduce pollution, and promote sustainable development.” This is expected to be done, in part, by enhancing public access to information through the creation of registers in accordance with the Protocol.

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New San Francisco Law Will Make Property Owners Pay For Trash Removal

Courtesy of yourgreenfriend.com

SAN FRANCISCO- Already with some of the strongest environmental laws in the country, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has passed a new ordinance that will make it mandatory for all city occupants to separate recyclables, compostables, and regular landfill trash. In addition, they will have to pay for it to be picked up.

Mayor Gavin Newsom signed the Ordinance 081404 last week, according to his office, and it will go into effect in late September of this year.

The ordinance will affect both the residential and commercial sectors of the city, requiring the separation of garbage into blue for recyclables, green for compostables, and black for landfill trash.

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