ARTICLE
We have been hearing the alarm bells about Climate Change since Al Gore, then a U.S. Congressman, held one of the first congressional hearings about the environment and a global warming crisis back in the late 1970s and 1980s. His 2006 book, “An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming,” started a global revolution. The book and his global positioning of the crisis earned him worldwide recognition and Nobel prize. His proposed solution stressed that everyone must unite to solve the problem, particularly countries that are the biggest offenders of producing carbonization of our planet. Guy Stewart Callendar was an English steam engineer and inventor. His main contribution to human knowledge was developing the theory that linked rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere to global temperature. In 1938, he was the first to show that the land temperature of Earth had risen over the previous 50 years. This theory, earlier proposed by Svante Arrhenius, has been called the Callendar effect. In 1896, a seminal paper by Swedish scientist, Svante Arrhenius first predicted that changes in the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could substantially alter the surface temperature through the greenhouse effect. Callendar thought this warming would be beneficial, delaying a "return of the deadly glaciers.” Let’s fast forward to the current mounting discussion and state, national and global policy decisions to address climate change. In September 2020 Governor Gavin Newsom announced that he will aggressively move the state further away from its reliance on climate change-causing fossil fuels while retaining and creating jobs and spurring economic growth. He issued an executive order requiring sales of all new passenger vehicles to be zero-emission by 2035 and additional measures to eliminate harmful emissions from the transportation sector. You can read the Governor’s press release from Sept. 23, 2020 here: Governor Newsom -- California will phase out gasoline powered cars 9/23/2020. The Governor is doubling down on his words, beating back on the fossil fuels crisis as he delivered remarks at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York this week. His opening remarks stated, “Thank you, Secretary-General. Thank you all for the privilege of this opportunity. And the spirit of this convening around movers and doers. I come from a state of dreamers and doers. A state that has long prided itself on being on the leading and cutting edge. We love to say about California, ‘the future happens there first.’ We are America’s coming attraction. Unsurprisingly, it was 1945 when the United Nations charter was founded in the great state of California. I say that, again, as a point of pride, and a point of consideration as it relates to the issue that brings us here today. It was just 22 years later in 1967 when then-conservative Governor Ronald Reagan began the process of leading the modern American environmental movement with the creation of the California Air Resources Board, and the first regulations of tailpipe emissions in America. Richard Nixon himself codified that effort in 1970 with the Clean Air Act.” More of the Governor’s speech is here: https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/09/20/governor-newsom-calls-out-oil-industry-at-un-this-is-a-fossil-fuel-crisis/ As mentioned in Governor Newsom’s Sept. 2023 press release, the California Air Resources Board is ground zero as California prepares to roll out rules requiring that trucks purchased after Jan. 1, 2024, that serve the state’s ports be zero-emission vehicles. Diesel trucks will have a limited future in California under the new rule, one of a series of regulations that target carbon emissions across the state’s supply chains. The California rule will phase out the use of diesel trucks until the more than 30,000 diesel big rigs that now serve the state’s ports are banned by 2035. Why would a trucking company purchase diesel trucks knowing that the vehicle will be eliminated when the new regulations go into effect? The truckers are trying to bolster their fleets now rather than face the higher costs and other problems, including scarce availability of new-technology rigs and limited charging infrastructure, once the new mandate kicks in. “We are trying to take the hit now at a lot more reasonable cost per month versus buying electric trucks next year,” said Manny Carrillo, the chief executive of Talon Industries. The trucking industry says,”The technology underpinning electric vehicles is still developing, they say, and the zero-emission trucks are triple the cost of diesel trucks, while the vehicles and charging stations are in limited supply.” The struggles show the difficulty local and federal authorities face as they try to push a heavily-polluting industry toward cleaner fuels. As we know well, California officials and regulators are trying to jump-start a market for zero-emission vehicles by mandating their use in state-regulated spaces. They also hope the mandate draws in more suppliers of charging infrastructure. For now, however, the rules are boosting sales of diesel trucks. Trucking companies typically buy vehicles ahead of new environmental mandates because older trucks purchased before mandates generally are allowed to keep operating once new rules take effect. Buying the trucks beforehand allows companies to push back the expense of buying cleaner, more expensive rigs. So we have a cat-chasing-mouse- strategy where the cat (the State regulators) are pressing the mouse (the trucking industry) into a zero-emission end game. The most advanced of those trucks, say trucking executives, can’t travel more than a few hundred miles between charges, so they can only run short trips between ports and nearby rail yards and warehouses. The electric trucks themselves are also proving a problem. Nikola and Volvo Trucks North America this summer recalled trucks because of defective parts thought to pose a fire risk. “Part of being the first to market with Class 8 electric trucks is being the first to face some of these issues, as this is a new technology for the heavy-duty truck market,” said Nikola spokesman John Mies. Most of the attention to zero-emission trucks has been on those that are powered by batteries. Gillis says he has high hopes for hydrogen-powered trucks, which he says can refuel more quickly than electric trucks and can travel longer distances between refueling. But that technology is even less developed than battery-electric technology. The implementation of a hydrogen-powered heavy vehicle is one solution that our own METRO public transit service is investing in for its new bus fleet. Just a couple months away, at Governor Newsom’s urging, the City of San Francisco is feverishly preparing for its biggest moment on the international stage since the United Nations was founded in the city in 1945 — a major test that could have far-reaching consequences for the city’s global reputation. Mayor London Breed and other city officials are trying to make sure the city is safe, clean and welcoming for the leaders of 21 nations who, in under two months, will join as many as 30,000 other people to descend on the city for a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC. The international summit will draw prominent politicians, including President Joe Biden, and senior officials from countries such as China, Japan, Mexico, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines. A related conference of CEOs is expected to attract the chief executives of General Motors, Pfizer, Citi, Mastercard, FedEx and ExxonMobil, among many other corporate leaders. Then there are the hundreds of journalists from around the world who will put the city under a microscope. Is San Francisco up to the task? One SF politician, Supervisor President Aaron Peskin, compared APEC to another international event that San Francisco hosted after a difficult period in its history: the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition, which gave the city a chance to showcase its recovery from the devastation of the great 1906 earthquake. Like that 1915 World’s Fair, the November summit could be beneficial to the city if everything goes well, Peskin said. Can San Francisco handle the challenge? Supervisor President Aaron Peskin, a San Francisco politician, drew parallels between APEC and another international event that the city hosted following a challenging period in its history: the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition. This exhibition allowed the city to display its recovery from the significant damage caused by the 1906 earthquake. According to Peskin, if all goes smoothly, the November summit, like the 1915 world's fair, could bring positive benefits to the city. In a sense, a bright light will be shining on California and San Francisco as we will be ground zero showcasing the City and all that California does to lead the world in advancing change.
We have been hearing the alarm bells about Climate Change since Al Gore, then a U.S. Congressman, held one of the first congressional hearings about the environment and a global warming crisis back in the late 1970s and 1980s. His 2006 book, “An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming,” started a global revolution. The book and his global positioning of the crisis earned him worldwide recognition and Nobel prize. His proposed solution stressed that everyone must unite to solve the problem, particularly countries that are the biggest offenders of producing carbonization of our planet.
Guy Stewart Callendar was an English steam engineer and inventor. His main contribution to human knowledge was developing the theory that linked rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere to global temperature. In 1938, he was the first to show that the land temperature of Earth had risen over the previous 50 years. This theory, earlier proposed by Svante Arrhenius, has been called the Callendar effect. In 1896, a seminal paper by Swedish scientist, Svante Arrhenius first predicted that changes in the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could substantially alter the surface temperature through the greenhouse effect. Callendar thought this warming would be beneficial, delaying a "return of the deadly glaciers.”
Let’s fast forward to the current mounting discussion and state, national and global policy decisions to address climate change. In September 2020 Governor Gavin Newsom announced that he will aggressively move the state further away from its reliance on climate change-causing fossil fuels while retaining and creating jobs and spurring economic growth. He issued an executive order requiring sales of all new passenger vehicles to be zero-emission by 2035 and additional measures to eliminate harmful emissions from the transportation sector. You can read the Governor’s press release from Sept. 23, 2020 here: Governor Newsom -- California will phase out gasoline powered cars 9/23/2020.
The Governor is doubling down on his words, beating back on the fossil fuels crisis as he delivered remarks at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York this week. His opening remarks stated, “Thank you, Secretary-General. Thank you all for the privilege of this opportunity. And the spirit of this convening around movers and doers. I come from a state of dreamers and doers. A state that has long prided itself on being on the leading and cutting edge. We love to say about California, ‘the future happens there first.’ We are America’s coming attraction. Unsurprisingly, it was 1945 when the United Nations charter was founded in the great state of California. I say that, again, as a point of pride, and a point of consideration as it relates to the issue that brings us here today. It was just 22 years later in 1967 when then-conservative Governor Ronald Reagan began the process of leading the modern American environmental movement with the creation of the California Air Resources Board, and the first regulations of tailpipe emissions in America. Richard Nixon himself codified that effort in 1970 with the Clean Air Act.” More of the Governor’s speech is here: https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/09/20/governor-newsom-calls-out-oil-industry-at-un-this-is-a-fossil-fuel-crisis/
As mentioned in Governor Newsom’s Sept. 2023 press release, the California Air Resources Board is ground zero as California prepares to roll out rules requiring that trucks purchased after Jan. 1, 2024, that serve the state’s ports be zero-emission vehicles. Diesel trucks will have a limited future in California under the new rule, one of a series of regulations that target carbon emissions across the state’s supply chains. The California rule will phase out the use of diesel trucks until the more than 30,000 diesel big rigs that now serve the state’s ports are banned by 2035.
Why would a trucking company purchase diesel trucks knowing that the vehicle will be eliminated when the new regulations go into effect? The truckers are trying to bolster their fleets now rather than face the higher costs and other problems, including scarce availability of new-technology rigs and limited charging infrastructure, once the new mandate kicks in. “We are trying to take the hit now at a lot more reasonable cost per month versus buying electric trucks next year,” said Manny Carrillo, the chief executive of Talon Industries. The trucking industry says,”The technology underpinning electric vehicles is still developing, they say, and the zero-emission trucks are triple the cost of diesel trucks, while the vehicles and charging stations are in limited supply.” The struggles show the difficulty local and federal authorities face as they try to push a heavily-polluting industry toward cleaner fuels.
As we know well, California officials and regulators are trying to jump-start a market for zero-emission vehicles by mandating their use in state-regulated spaces. They also hope the mandate draws in more suppliers of charging infrastructure.
For now, however, the rules are boosting sales of diesel trucks. Trucking companies typically buy vehicles ahead of new environmental mandates because older trucks purchased before mandates generally are allowed to keep operating once new rules take effect. Buying the trucks beforehand allows companies to push back the expense of buying cleaner, more expensive rigs.
So we have a cat-chasing-mouse- strategy where the cat (the State regulators) are pressing the mouse (the trucking industry) into a zero-emission end game. The most advanced of those trucks, say trucking executives, can’t travel more than a few hundred miles between charges, so they can only run short trips between ports and nearby rail yards and warehouses. The electric trucks themselves are also proving a problem. Nikola and Volvo Trucks North America this summer recalled trucks because of defective parts thought to pose a fire risk.
“Part of being the first to market with Class 8 electric trucks is being the first to face some of these issues, as this is a new technology for the heavy-duty truck market,” said Nikola spokesman John Mies.
Most of the attention to zero-emission trucks has been on those that are powered by batteries. Gillis says he has high hopes for hydrogen-powered trucks, which he says can refuel more quickly than electric trucks and can travel longer distances between refueling. But that technology is even less developed than battery-electric technology.
The implementation of a hydrogen-powered heavy vehicle is one solution that our own METRO public transit service is investing in for its new bus fleet. Just a couple months away, at Governor Newsom’s urging, the City of San Francisco is feverishly preparing for its biggest moment on the international stage since the United Nations was founded in the city in 1945 — a major test that could have far-reaching consequences for the city’s global reputation. Mayor London Breed and other city officials are trying to make sure the city is safe, clean and welcoming for the leaders of 21 nations who, in under two months, will join as many as 30,000 other people to descend on the city for a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC. The international summit will draw prominent politicians, including President Joe Biden, and senior officials from countries such as China, Japan, Mexico, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines. A related conference of CEOs is expected to attract the chief executives of General Motors, Pfizer, Citi, Mastercard, FedEx and ExxonMobil, among many other corporate leaders. Then there are the hundreds of journalists from around the world who will put the city under a microscope.
Is San Francisco up to the task? One SF politician, Supervisor President Aaron Peskin, compared APEC to another international event that San Francisco hosted after a difficult period in its history: the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition, which gave the city a chance to showcase its recovery from the devastation of the great 1906 earthquake. Like that 1915 World’s Fair, the November summit could be beneficial to the city if everything goes well, Peskin said.
Can San Francisco handle the challenge? Supervisor President Aaron Peskin, a San Francisco politician, drew parallels between APEC and another international event that the city hosted following a challenging period in its history: the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition. This exhibition allowed the city to display its recovery from the significant damage caused by the 1906 earthquake. According to Peskin, if all goes smoothly, the November summit, like the 1915 world's fair, could bring positive benefits to the city.
In a sense, a bright light will be shining on California and San Francisco as we will be ground zero showcasing the City and all that California does to lead the world in advancing change.