FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEJonathan Lockwood
Monday, November 21, 2022[email protected]
California Mandate Fruitless, Neglects Black Carbon
LOS ANGELES—Don Owens, a patent attorney and engineer, underscored the planetary crisis of black carbon being under-addressed by climate change summits, activists and leaders, and even media, pointing to new standards being pushed in California. The standards are due to be voted on in the coming month.
The California Air Resources Board recently laid out the policies and actions California plans to adopt to drastically limit its dependence on fossil fuels and attain carbon neutrality by 2045.
The announcement claims the standards will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 85 percent below 1990 levels and reduce smog-forming air pollution by 71 percent, and fuel consumption to 1/10th of what is used today. Owens acknowledged the passion and purported regard for climate with the standards but says they miss the real culprit of our environmental emergency.
“We are witnessing every year, the extreme melting of the Arctic and Antarctic glaciers and glaciers and ice sheets all over the world—which is a direct cause of changing weather patterns and fatalities to the tune of 50 Hiroshimas a year, all because of Black Carbon” said Don Owens, an attorney and engineer who recently launched the Black Carbon Coalition. “We will not get a handle on our climate emergency with faulty mandates that fail to address the real enemy of the planet: black carbon. We don’t have 100 years.”
Owens recently drafted a model resolution that can be used by lawmakers as a framework for combatting black carbon, which Owens says is a substantive solution against greenwashing and climate change denialism.
The era of greenwashing is over. At the UN Climate Conference (COP27) at Sharm el- Sheikh, Egypt last week, the secretary general announced a new report detailing credible, accountable net-zero pledges. “Solving the climate crisis requires strong political leadership. I urge all government leaders to provide non-state entities with a level playing field to transition to a just, net-zero future,” said the secretary general at the launch. The full report can be read here.
Black carbon is very fine particulate emissions that are the result of incomplete combustion of fossil fuels such as natural gas, diesel, coal, biomass, and other carbon intensive fuels.
Black carbon emissions from ships have grown ten times faster in the Arctic compared to the rest of the world, with an 85% increase in black carbon emitted by ships in the Arctic between 2015 and 2019, compared to an 8% increase globally, the Coalition’s website reads.
Owens is flanking the Black Carbon Coalition with other organizations including a 501c3 organization called Coalition Against Black Carbon to build a Global Black Carbon Fund, an investment fund to help innovators build new technologies and systems to “reduce, and/or eradicate Black Carbon.”
For media inquiries please contact Black Carbon Coalition spokesperson Jonathan Lockwood at 424-666-9417 or [email protected].
About Don Owens
Don Owens is a leading expert in hydrogen combustion and energy technologies.
Owens secured over 19 patents and has verified his technology in laboratories with testing equipment approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Previously,
Owens was CEO of Business Internet Systems working with Congress, Branches of the
Executive Office and the Department of State. He earned his engineering degree at
General motors Institute (now Kettering University) and earned his law degree from
Georgetown University. His first book Burn Fuel Better educates the world about the
dangers of black carbon, how critical is its elimination in combatting climate change and
the practical solutions his technology provides in reducing the black carbon threat.