From the if we can quantify it we’ll figure out a way to tax it department comes this short press release (h/t Kakatoa)
The Governor’s Office of Planning and Research is joining with Cal/EPA and several other State agencies on a new research project about the Urban Heat Island Effect. A major goal of this project is to develop a method to quantify the average temperature increase in California communities due to this effect. Currently no tool exists to quantify the extent and severity of an urban heat island for California.
We intend to produce a tool that can be mapped at the census tract level or smaller, and that enables state and local agencies to identify the areas that are most affected and quantify the benefits of heat island reduction measures.
One of the motivations for this project is to provide another indicator of climate change vulnerability for the CalEnviroScreen, Cal/EPA’s tool to identify disadvantaged communities for potential funding associated with greenhouse gas reduction revenues in California. Cal/EPA welcomes input from local agencies regarding development of the urban heat island quantification tool.
For more information please contact Bill Dean (William.Dean@calepa.ca.gov).
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Apparently they aren’t so much interested in the basic research as they are in creating some sort of rsik database for the CAEnviroScreen Project. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see what they come up with.
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Allow me to be refreshingly different. I spent the last couple of hours reading the Calenviroscreen 2nd public review draft and it looks pretty good. I’m really quite optimistic that they plan to apply the greenhouse gas reduction revenues in genuinely productive ways, instead of throwing it away on windmills. Thumbs up Cal EPA.
“the benefits of heat island reduction measures”
Orwell is laughing his butt off in the grave.
But this has the potential to be truly entertaining. The progressives who run California now have an incentive to maximize UHI to increase their ability to control communities on the micro level, but still need to minimize UHI for purposes of CAGW as an argument for control of the energy economy on a macro level. The fact that the two are mutually exclusive will be no bar to their arguing both ways.
Cognitive dissonance is a sine qua non of progressive governance. But it will sure be fun watching them argue out of both of their two faces.
Thermal Justice
Apologies in advance. I made my previous comment about using drones to monitor UHI in innocence without knowing there was an actual debate on their use in the US going on. Sorry, it was made totally tongue in cheek and I meant no offence.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2013/03/07/obama-holder-drones-rand-paul/1970077/
Ref to post:
Wayne Delbeke says:
March 7, 2013 at 8:11 am
“….Then you can put infrared monitors on drones to keep track of the UHI affect (and put a few other little devices on it at the same time just for added benefit at little cost – sorry – excursioning off into 1984 there) . LOL 😉 Tax dollars at work.”
Didn’t mean anything by my comment as I had no idea of the current debate in Washington.
Steve Hill from Ky says:
March 7, 2013 at 7:37 am
Jim G,
“What’s a good conservative town to move to, we are self employed and bring our job with us. A win / win!”
Better hurry as the tax and spend crowd is making inroads here as well. It’s easy when the minerals industry pays the taxes. As to the town, depends upon what level of services you desire. Sheridan, about 30,000 in the county, and Buffalo, about 8500 in the county, are two good ones. Jackson, very pretty, long winters but is for sure a suburb of CA. And Cheyenne being the capitol is too much like CO and windy. Depends on what you like. Douglas is a good small town but not as pretty or as close to the mountains. Gillette and Casper are larger markets but not so pretty at all and windy. The southeastern corridor has some good towns but watch out for the union minded democrats there. What’s wrong with KY? I thought that was consevative territory.
The “potential funding associated with greenhouse gas reduction revenues in California” will turn out exactly the same way as the “potential funding” associated with the legendary ‘tobacco settlement’ – all smoke and mirrors. The ‘lawmakers’ will tap it an another revenue stream to be redistributed at their “discretion”.
In this case the government will be working AGAINST Hansen: it is in the interests of showing how bad we are that UHIE will tend to get exaggerated, i.e. the benefit of the doubt will go towards higher UHIE. But this will go against current UHIE corrections by Hansen et al, who claim UHIE to be well corrected for AND not a big deal.
I sense a conflict with GISTemp final numbers for California, and therefore for the Union.
Anthropogenic waste heat, energy flux and albedo modification is responsible for at least 50% of Late Holocene surface warming. It is a metric of civilization. So therefore, let us tax civilization. To avoid the tax, regress to a savage lifestyle.
James at 48 – I don’t know if you’re being sarcastic or not but I suspect that this will be the argument used by California when their windmill driven electricity drops and they have to institute rolling black outs again. As in: “Since you yokels don’t reduce your A/C (or heating) and don’t use solar to generate your hot water on your own, we are going to force you to retrench your electrical usage by shutting you down.”
If UHI is a fact (and I see no reason to doubt it), in cold places, the disadvantaged will be those living in the sticks, who have to pay more for heating than the average.
In warm places, the disadvantaged will be those living in the city, who have to pay more for a/c and ice.
So in California (a warm place), this would mean a few people living in the sticks (actors for e.g.) having to subsidise those living in the urbs.
I like it
According to this article in today’s Department of Water Resources California Water News, carbon police have been at it for more than a year:
http://www.ocregister.com/news/california-498418-southern-change.html
“[…]an ambitious, interagency initiative called the Megacities Carbon Project. They’ve been probing L.A.’s airspace for more than a year, with the help of big-name sponsors like the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Keck Institute for Space Studies and the California Air Resources Board. If all goes well, by 2015, the Megacities crew and colleagues working in smaller cities such as Indianapolis and Boston will have pinned down a slippery piece of climate science: an empirical measurement of a city’s carbon footprint.”
[…]
“So climate scientists began to sniff around megalopolises. It makes sense: That’s where all the people and resources are. They now suspect that cities are some of the worst offenders when it comes to generating greenhouse gases, especially so-called megacities with more than 10 million residents, like Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo, and Mumbai. Urban areas and their enabling power plants are thought to pump out about 70 percent of humankind’s total fossil-fuel emissions.”
[…]
What is most interesting is the blunt assertion that no tool exists to properly measure UHI. Hansen will choke.
The most important thing I’ve learned about living here in California is that the Politicians in Sacramento make me want to move to another state. :-((
The end result will be new requirements that mandate that all roofs (except those covered with solar cells) be white in color. After a few years of monitoring the success of this change, roads, automobiles and hats will be added to the mandated color change list.
People who think this silly don’t understand California environmental politics. Politically, its very important to “do something now” for all problems real or imagined, as the jist of this article attests
@jim G (11.41) and Steve Hill (KY) Just to let you know there is still lots of snow on the ground here in Canada so you are safe where you are!:) ;).
oldfossil says:
March 7, 2013 at 10:23 am
“I spent the last couple of hours reading the Calenviroscreen 2nd public review draft ….”
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Oldfossil, if you are still around, thanks for doing the dog work that I don’t have time to do right now. Could you tell me exactly where “Greenhouse gas reduction revenues” come from? Is it from the carbon tax?
Also, could you give some examples of the “productive ways” this money is going to be used in disadvantaged communities?
Jim G
Ky is a proverty state with high taxes. The people always vote Democrat except they are not stupid enough to vote for Obama. 25% of the people in Ky are on welfare and many of the lawmakers are crooks. The Democrat party’s moto is, “we love the poor and want to keep em that way”
I want live somewhere where the sun shines 220+ days a year, low taxes, a small town. I was looking at Saratoga, WY. High income, low crime. We sell our product to manufactures, not locals.
tobias,
Obama makes Canada look like a progressive conservative state……just too cold there for me. 🙁
Yabut, Dr Hansen says UHI is a myth; or if it isn’t they can just lower temperatures before the 50’s. Voila, case closed.