WOOD BURNING * Burn Wise for Safer, Healthier Winter EPA's Burn Wise campaign seeks to reduce wood smoke pollution http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/6424ac1caa800aab85257359003f5337/be89ac013ddcfa9c85257657005449d0!OpenDocument EPA has established the Burn Wise campaign to reduce wood smoke pollution, helping to protect your home, health and the air we breathe, while keeping those who use wood for heat warm throughout the winter. http://www.epa.gov/burnwise/ * Commentary: Ode to a wood stove http://crosscut.com/blog/crosscut/19129/ * VT willow harvest promises cheap biomass fuel http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091019/ap_on_re_us/us_willow_power TRANSPORTATION * Feds help start electric car era around Puget Sound -- Project to build charging corridor http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/921181.html A year from now, roughly 1,000 all-electric vehicles will be whispering around the Puget Sound are as part of a federally funded project that eventually might lead to an electric corridor stretching from Eugene, Ore., to Vancouver, B.C., where you could swipe your card and receive a 15-minute quick charge to speed you on your way. Washington is one of five states with metro markets selected to participate in the 36-month study funded by a $100 million grant from the Department of Energy under the economic recovery program. * Amtrak's Point Defiance Bypass worries Lakewood -- Officials say proposed Amtrak route would clog an already congested area of roads and train tracks http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/922281.html Although the bypass would shave six minutes off Amtrak's Seattle-Portland run and free up space for freight trains to operate in the Port of Tacoma area, it also would introduce 79-mph passenger trains through urban Lakewood neighborhoods. A year after the state concluded the project would have no major impact on Lakewood's roads - a decision that has some locals still scratching their heads - the city is again trying to voice its concerns. Early next month, the City Council will discuss the bypass and what, if anything, it can do to persuade the state to take a closer look. ENERGY * Coal Free Northwest Event http://action.sierraclub.org/site/PageServer?pagename=NW_Dirty_Secret_Coal_Free_Tour 7:00 9:00 pm Washington's Dirty Secret: The Devastating Consequences of Coal University of Washington, Kane Hall, Rm 120. Learn how it is possible for Washington to move beyond destructive coal usage and help make a coal-free Northwest a reality. * Stripping for a cause -- Weatherization will save us all http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-19-weatherization-will-save-us-all/ Pop quiz: What saves money, saves energy, creates green jobs, fights climate change, can fix the economy, will make America great again, and is both a floor wax and a dessert topping? Answer: It's weatherization! And both the U.S. government and the European Union are embracing its potential... Next step? Another task force! Yesssss. The interagency Energy Retrofit Working Group will submit an implementation plan to Biden in thirty days. * EPA Joins Vice President Biden and Other Federal Partners to Unveil Recovery Through Retrofit Report: The report puts EPA's Energy Star program in a central role to boost energy savings for middle class Americans http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/6424ac1caa800aab85257359003f5337/931fc54a4405e1408525765400574ffd!OpenDocument Existing techniques and technologies in energy efficiency retrofitting can reduce energy use by up to 40 percent per home and lower total associated greenhouse gas emissions by up to 160 million metric tons annually. Retrofitting existing homes also has the potential to cut home energy bills by $21 billion annually. Yet, despite the real energy cost savings and environmental benefits associated with improving home energy efficiency, a series of barriers have prevented a self-sustaining retrofit market from forming. These barriers include a lack of access to information, financing and skilled workers. The recommendations and actions in this report have been carefully designed to help overcome these barriers and to leverage recovery act funding to help ensure that the energy efficiency market will thrive long after the recovery act money is fully spent. * Report looks at hidden health costs of energy production http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1290402.html Generating electricity by burning coal is responsible for about half of an estimated $120 billion in yearly costs from early deaths and health damages to thousands of Americans from the use of fossil fuels, a federal advisory group said Monday... The report also looks at other hidden costs from climate change, hazardous air pollutants such as mercury, harm to ecosystems and risks to national security, but it doesn't put a dollar value on them. "We would characterize our estimate as an underestimate," because it didn't include those other costs, said Jared Cohon, the president of Carnegie Mellon University and the chairman of the committee that produced the report... The report says it's impossible to put a monetary amount on all the hidden costs of energy, in some cases because of a lack of information but also because the study had limited time and resources. It focused on the costs of air pollution on health... On climate change, the panel found a wide range of estimates, from $1 to $100 per ton of greenhouse gases. Cohon said the range was large because the amounts depended on two variables: the relationship one assumes between increased temperature from climate change and the damages that will result; and the "discount rate," or the rate used to put future damages in present values. * The enemy of the human wallet -- Report finds massive hidden energy costs, mostly from coal http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-20-report-finds-massive-hidden-energy-costs-mostly-from-coal/ Producing and using energy imposes all sorts of costs on public health, crop yields, ecosystems, recreation, educational performance ... the list goes on. Many of these costs don't end up reflected in the market price of energy; consumers don't see them or factor them into purchasing decisions. They are hidden, paid indirectly through, for example, health-care spending or environmental-remediation costs. Such costs are external to energy markets-externalities, as economists call them-and they represent an enormous subsidy to the dirtiest sources of energy. * Report Shows Hidden Costs of Energy http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/report-shows-hidden-costs-of-energy/ The study, however, comes with a major caveat: it did not look at the impact of energy on climate change and ecosystems, or at rising food prices and the risks to national security. Still, the report, which was requested by Congress in 2005, estimated that the hidden cost of energy on human health was $120 billion in 2005, the last year for which full data was available. Unsurprisingly, the biggest contributors to these extra costs were coal-fired power plants, which generate half of the nation's power but which also accounted for $62 billion in hidden damages associated with the emissions of pollutants like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, and particulate matter like soot or fine dust. * Report Examines Hidden Health and Environmental Costs Of Energy Production and Consumption In U.S. http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=12794 Fully implementing federal rules on diesel fuel emissions, which require vehicles beginning in the model year 2007 to use low-sulfur diesel, is expected to substantially decrease nonclimate damages from diesel by 2030 -- an indication of how regulatory actions can significantly affect energy-related damages, the committee said. Major initiatives to further lower other emissions, improve energy efficiency, or shift to a cleaner mix of energy sources could reduce other damages as well, such as substantially lowering the damages attributable to electric vehicles. CLIMATE * Climate Citizens, Activate! What will you do for International Day of Climate Action on Oct. 24? http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-16-international-day-of-climate-action-oct-24/Join up with climate-concerned citizens around the globe for the first-ever International Day of Climate Action, to demand that world leaders get moving in the fight against climate change. More than 3,000 events in 170 countries are in the works, many of them focused on the number 350, which represents the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere (we've already surpassed it-d'oh). Find out more at: http://www.350.org/plan * Poll: Americans' belief in global warming cools http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091022/ap_on_re_us/us_climate_poll The poll of 1,500 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that only 57 percent believe there is strong scientific evidence that the Earth has gotten warmer over the past few decades, and as a result, people are viewing the problem as less serious. That's down from 77 percent in 2006. The steepest drop occurred during the last year, as Congress and the Obama administration have taken steps to control heat-trapping emissions for the first time. The drop also was seen during a time of mounting scientific evidence of climate change - from melting ice caps to the world's oceans hitting the highest monthly recorded temperatures this summer... Despite misgivings about the science, half the respondents still said they supported limits on greenhouse gases, even if it could lead to higher energy prices. But many of those supporters have heard little to nothing about cap-and-trade, the main mechanism for reducing greenhouse gases favored by the White House and central to legislation passed by the House and a bill the Senate will take up next week. * U.N. suggests 2020 climate goals for poor http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091022/india_nm/india433679_2 A top U.N. official suggested a 2020 greenhouse gas goal for developing nations on Thursday as part of a new U.N. climate pact as China and the United States sought common ground to fight global warming. * India: Climate deal can't sacrifice poor nations http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091022/ap_on_bi_ge/as_india_climate_change;_ylt=Aogdj3dYWylLPG7PnQcLZHIPLBIF;_ylu=X3oDMTJvNzMxNm04BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkxMDIyL2FzX2luZGlhX2NsaW1hdGVfY2hhbmdlBGNwb3MDMQRwb3MDMgRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3J5BHNsawNpbmRpYWNsaW1hdGU- Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Thursday that the world's poor nations will not sacrifice their development in negotiations for a new climate change deal. * Climate change map unveiled at London museum http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091022/lf_afp/britainenvironmentclimate The map shows sea level rises and storm surges with temperatures rising up to 15 degrees, bringing increased risks of forest fires and droughts in Europe, and slashing harvests by up to 40 percent in southeast Asia and Africa. LAND USE/PLANNING * 600-home Lake Goodwin developer told to do full environmental study http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20091021/NEWS01/710219711 The McNaughton Group wants to build nearly 600 homes on land northwest of Marysville, but was asking the county planning department to review the development in chunks... The examiner on Friday said the county's planning staff "completely ignored" the cumulative impacts of traffic, water runoff and other changes the proposal would cause to the surrounding, mostly rural area. "This is a major development that must be analyzed in an environmental impact statement," wrote Barbara Dykes, the hearing examiner. The hearing examiner was asked to review plans for rural cluster subdivisions that a McNaughton-affiliated company, Lake Goodwin A Joint Venture LLC, is trying to build. Developers building in rural cluster housing zones are allowed to build more homes on that land, in exchange for putting them closer together to preserve open space... Considering the applications separately didn't ignore the total impact the developments would have, Parry said, because county code already forces county planners to take some of that into account when approving permits. NOTE: If the hyperlink to the article fails, contact Consuelo Davis. Consuelo Davis Communications Dept. Puget Sound Clean Air Agency 206-689-4074 consueloD@pscleanair.org Bill Smith Senior Environmental Specialist City of Tacoma Solid Waste Management 3510 S. Mullen Street Tacoma, WA 98409 253-593-7719 Phone 253-591-5547 Fax