California legislation has taken the initiative and passed bill AB 32, also known as the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, on Aug. 31. The bill promotes the fight against global warming by setting a statewide cap on greenhouse gas emissions.
The bill promises to reduce California’s global warming emissions by 25 percent (1990 emission levels) by the year 2020, capping gas emissions from electric power, industrial and commercial sectors through monitoring and tracking emissions known to cause global warming. It is focusing on how all of this will impact state climate conditions.
“Long Beach is affected just like any area,” said Hamlet Paoletti, media associate of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. “These gases don’t respect borders.”
Global warming occurs when heat from the sun, instead of escaping back out into space, gets trapped by greenhouse gases that include carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, which then radiate the heat back to the surface of the planet. The increase of these gasses have been tremendous within the last century, according to geology professor Richard Behl, leading to the increase in temperature all around the world including the ocean.
A climate model report from the California Climate Change Center stated that from 2000 to 2100 warming would increase in a range from about +3.6 to +10.8 degrees Fahrenheit. The increase in temperature alone would impact California’s hydrological cycle, with consequences upon the state’s water supply, hydroelectric power supply, agriculture, recreation and ecosystems, the report said.
According to Behl, most scientists are convinced that about half of the increasing temperatures have to do with the greenhouse gases. However, climate changes like the ones this summer can be related to Earth’s symmetry of rhythm in its weather cycle pulsing in different areas, he said. He compared it to two people jumping on a trampoline.
“It was unusually hot in Los Angeles this year,” communications major David Diaz said. “You can definitely feel the effects of global warming in regular cities.”
Other noticeable changes along the nearby coast include the increase of tropical fish and decrease of cold-water fish, Behl said. More recently, the increase of water temperatures have lead to dead sea urchins washed off on to surrounding beaches, he said.
Though California is seen as a leader in reforming the omission of greenhouse gases, it is important that other states could adapt and follow California’s leadership, Paoletti said.