<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div>http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_24512629/scientists-call-fracking-ban-top-climatologists-write-gov<br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; "><br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; "><h1 id="articleTitle" class="articleTitle" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.326px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.2; color: inherit; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; font-size: 33px; white-space: normal !important; border-collapse: collapse; ">Scientists call for
fracking ban: Top climatologists write to Gov. Jerry Brown</h1><div id="articleByline" class="articleByline" style="text-align: left; font-weight: normal; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: italic; font-size: 14px; border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 22px; ">Paul Rogers/San Jose Mercury News<div id="articleDate" class="articleSecondaryDate meta" style="text-align: left; font: normal normal normal 10px/16.989px 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); text-transform: uppercase; white-space: nowrap; border-top-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 5px; padding-top: 2px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 22px; ">POSTED: 11/13/2013 02:38:42 AM
PST</div></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; "><span fd-type="start" fd-id="default"></span></span><div class="articlePositionHeader" style="text-align: left; border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; "></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; "><span fd-type="end" fd-id="default"></span></span><div id="articleBody" class="articleBody"
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0px; margin-left: auto; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; background-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; display: table; "><div class="photocell" style="text-align: center; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle; "><div class="photo" style="text-align: left; "><a id="gallery_link" border="0px" href="http://www.times-standard.com/portlet/article/html/render_gallery.jsp?articleId=24512629&siteId=127&startImage=1" target="_new" style="color: rgb(82, 120, 174); text-decoration: none; -webkit-transition-property: initial; -webkit-transition-duration: 0.1s; -webkit-transition-timing-function: ease-out; -webkit-transition-delay: initial; "><img id="image" src="http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site127/2013/1113/20131113__lead_fracking_VIEWER.jpg" width="194" height="140" style="height: auto; vertical-align: middle; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px;
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style="clear: both; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "></span></div></span><span fd-type="start" fd-id="default"></span><span fd-type="end" fd-id="default"></span></div><span fd-type="start" fd-id="default"></span><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.326px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 15px/normal Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22.652px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">Twenty of the nation's top climate scientists have sent a letter to Gov. Jerry Brown, telling him that his plans supporting increased use of the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” will increase pollution and run counter to his efforts to cut California's global warming emissions.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.326px; margin-left: 0px;
font: normal normal normal 15px/normal Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22.652px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">The letter is the latest example of the increased pressure that environmentalists and others concerned about climate change have been putting on Brown in recent months. Their argument: the governor can't say he wants to reduce global warming while expanding fossil fuel development in California.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.326px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 15px/normal Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22.652px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">”If what we're trying to do is stop using the sky as a waste dump for our carbon pollution, and if we're trying to transform our energy system, the way to do that is not by expanding our fossil fuel infrastructure,” said Ken Caldeira, an atmospheric scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science at
Stanford University.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.326px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 15px/normal Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22.652px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">Caldeira signed the letter along with other prominent climate scientists, including James Hansen, the former head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies; Richard Houghton, acting president of Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts; and physicist Michael Mann, a professor of meteorology at Penn State University.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.326px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 15px/normal Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22.652px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">The letter called for Brown to place a moratorium on fracking, as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has done.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px;
margin-bottom: 11.326px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 15px/normal Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22.652px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">”Shale gas and tight oil development is likely to worsen climate disruption, which would harm California's efforts to be a leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” it notes.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.326px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 15px/normal Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22.652px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">Brown did not respond Tuesday afternoon to a request for comment on the scientists' letter. But last month he said in response to a question from the Mercury News, “As you know, I signed legislation that will create the most comprehensive environmental analysis of fracking to date. It will take a year, year and a half, maybe a little longer. And I hope that all the people, critics
and supporters alike, will participate and offer their best thoughts.”</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.326px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 15px/normal Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22.652px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">The oil industry criticized the scientists' letter.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.326px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 15px/normal Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22.652px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">”The authors of this letter, while clearly very respected in their fields, do not present an accurate or realistic picture of our energy needs and our energy future,” said Tupper Hull, a spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association in Sacramento.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.326px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal
15px/normal Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22.652px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">”California is going to need petroleum-based energy for a long time, even as it transitions to a lower carbon future.”</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.326px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 15px/normal Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22.652px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">Brown has generally won high marks from environmental groups over his 40-year political career. He signed legislation requiring California utilities to generate 33 percent of their electricity from solar, wind and other renewable resources by 2020, for example. Last month, he appeared at an event in San Francisco to announce a pact with the governors of Washington state, Oregon and the premier of British Columbia to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px;
margin-bottom: 11.326px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 15px/normal Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22.652px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">But he has come under increasing criticism -- and public protests -- this fall from opponents of fracking, the practice in which oil and gas companies inject water, sand and chemicals into the ground to fracture underground rock formations and release huge amounts of fossil fuels.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.326px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 15px/normal Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22.652px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">In September, Brown signed SB 4, a bill by state Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, that requires companies that conduct fracking operations in California to notify all nearby property owners, obtain a permit from the state, conduct groundwater testing and disclose the chemicals they
are using. The law takes effect in 2015. Opponents say that water pollution and increased air and climate emissions from fracking require a moratorium, particularly in the Monterey Shale, an area that stretches from Bakersfield to Monterey and holds billions of dollars of shale oil that could be recovered from increased fracking.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.326px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 15px/normal Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22.652px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.326px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 15px/normal Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22.652px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">Paul Rogers covers resources and environmental issues. Contact him at 408-920-5045. Follow him at <a href="http://Twitter.com/PaulRogersSJMN" style="color: rgb(82, 120, 174);
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