"CA to cap greenhouse gas emissions"

By SAMANTHA YOUNG, Associated Press Writer

SACRAMENTO - California would become the first state to impose a limit on all greenhouse gas emissions, including those from industrial plants, under a landmark deal reached Wednesday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative Democrats.

The agreement marks a clear break with the Bush administration and puts California on a path to reducing its emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by an estimated 25 percent by 2020.

The bill still needs lawmakers' approval, but that appears likely, given that Democrats control the Legislature.

It gives Schwarzenegger a key environmental victory as he seeks re-election this fall.

"We can now move forward with developing a market-based system that makes California a world leader in the effort to reduce carbon emissions," the governor said in a statement.

The bill would require the state's major industries — such as utility plants, oil and gas refineries, and cement kilns — to reduce their emissions of the pollutants widely believed to contribute to global warming.

The key mechanism driving the reductions would be a market program allowing businesses to buy, sell and trade emission credits with other companies.

The agreement came after weeks of difficult negotiations and was announced by the governor's office and Steve Maviglio, spokesman for Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, a Los Angeles Democrat.

The bill was praised by environmentalists as a step toward fighting global climate change but criticized by some business leaders, who say it would increase their costs and force them to scale back their California operations.

Republicans in the Legislature say climate change should be addressed at the national level, not on a state-by-state basis.

"Adopting costly and unattainable regulations will drive businesses and jobs out of California into other states and even into other countries with no commitment to improve air quality," said Assembly Republican leader George Plescia, a LaJolla Republican.

Schwarzenegger and the Legislature's Democratic leadership have embraced a cap on vehicle and industry emissions as a way to make California a trendsetter in fighting global warming.

The nation's most populous state is the world's 12th-largest emitter of greenhouse gases and could suffer dire consequences if global temperatures increase only a few degrees. Reports by state agencies indicate that a 2- to 3-degree rise in temperature could melt the Sierra Nevada snowpack earlier each year, leading to flooding in the Central Valley and threatening the state's long-term water supply for cities and farms.

Schwarzenegger has tried to position himself as a leader on the issue. Last year, he issued an executive order calling for the state to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 2000 levels by 2010, 1990 levels by 2020 and to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

He organized a team that recommended a statewide cap and last month signed an accord with British Prime Minister

Tony Blair in which California and Britain will work together to research cleaner-burning fuels and technologies.

During the negotiations over the California cap, Schwarzenegger sought to appease his supporters in the business community by arguing for safeguards for the industries that would be most affected.

Administration officials have spent weeks seeking assurances that any legislation would require a market program similar to those in the
European Union' name. The idea would allow businesses to buy, sell or trade emission credits with other companies instead of making their own reductions if those cuts were considered too costly or technology difficult.
Such a program could help industries that may not be able to meet their targets through energy efficiency practices or the use of alternative fuels.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060830/ap_on_re_us/global_warming

YAY to California! (and yay to San Francisco too, just because SF is cool)

Earthquake Insurance?!?

Today, as we were opening our mail, we got an offer for EARTHQUAKE INSURANCE. Chris and I had to laugh and wanted to share this with you. Only in San Francisco!

Our San Francisco Calendar of Events

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My nephew was just baptised!

It's been a while since I last posted, mostly because I was in New York for three weeks visiting my family. My brother, Pablo, his wife, Karen, and 5-month baby, Neil, were in town for 24 days visiting from Lyon, France. The whole Chaozon clan had a wonderful time spoiling the baby rotten!

Here are some pictures of Neil Mansell. Yes, he looks ginormous but I kid you not, this "baby" is only 5-months old, though he is bigger than my cousin's one-year. Maybe he'll be a basketball player when he grows up, just like Yao Ming...

Whoa - was that the ground shaking?

Last night, as Christopher was relaxing after work, sitting in front of the computer, he felt his first ever earthquake! Even though it was a pretty big one with a magnitude of 4.72 (42 miles north of San Francisco), he wasn't at all scared. The ground felt like a waterbed for about 6 or 7 seconds, and then, there was a brief aftershock after a pause. Thereafter, everything was back to normal. Though 6 seconds don't sound like a lot of time, try stumbling about while counting to 6.


Check out his first quake on the usgs links below:
http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/latest.htm
http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Quakes/nc40187964.htm

We love San Francisco, Part 2

(you should probably expect posts entitled "We love San Francisco, Part 3...Part 4...Part 5...")

More cool things about the best city we've lived in (we've only been here for 2 weeks but so far, we are really LOVING it...can you tell?)

1. You can see fantastic views of fireworks from our apartment. Since we live right across the Giants ballpark, whenever they win, we can watch the celebration of fireworks from our living room. The Giants don't necessarily win all that many games ;p but we actually have a fantastic view of the fireworks from Oakland's stadium too. We caught a gorgeous display on Thursday eve from our bedroom -- check out our spryder website for photos (see the previous post for a link).

2. We walked on The Embarcadero today (Saturday) -- absolutely lovely views of the Bay bridge. Plus, we found places where one could rent bikes (they even have two-seaters for when Ryder comes to visit), rent kayaks (I'll be racing Pia or Steve when they visit), and sail boats (perhaps Christopher can learn how to sail). The Embarcadero is a great place to go for runs, as well as enjoy city-walking without having to trudge into the Tenderloin area. Though, the Tenderloin is growing on me...

3. The Alcatraz-challenge. I have this crazy notion that I will be swimming from Alcatraz to the Presidio one of these days. How awesome would it be to say "I survived Alcatraz" (and the sharks, and the currents, and the fog).

4. When we watch MONK, we now know the areas that they are talking about. On last week's episode, they were in the Tenderloin (again, the Tenderloin!), and Christopher and I looked at each other and said, "hey we saw a baby crocodile there the other day."

5. And of course, nothing beats the weather here. Every day it's blue skies, warm weather, cool breeze and plenty of sunshine. How can anybody ever be in a bad mood with such beautiful weather.

Sigh, we just adore San Francisco!

Finally - pictures of our place!

Actually, I couldn't figure out how to post the pics on this blog (I'm a bit technically-challenged) so I got Chris to post pictures of our new home on the website that Steve created for us when we were touring the world in 02-03.

Click on http://spryder.casebook.org/pearl/ to get a glimpse of our San Francisco apartment. Better yet, come here and see it in person!

We love San Francisco!!

This weekend was the first weekend we’ve had to really explore San Fran proper, and boy do we love this city! It really suits us (Northern California in general), and apart from the occasional grimace on Christopher’s face when work gets stressful, we’ve been all smiles since we moved into our lovely apartment.

On Friday night, I had a chance to check out the local scene in the Mission District (unfortunately, Christopher got stuck at work). While I was somewhat afraid to step into the area (I heard about recurring shootings on 24th street), I didn’t find it at all threatening. In fact, I liked the vibe. I’m sure we’ll be hanging out there quite a bit as it’s the city’s hip spot for folks our age.

On Saturday, we woke up to his-n-her home-serviced shiatsu massages. The masseuse was referred to us by my aunt, and she came to our apartment with massage table in hand! She was fantastic (and cheap), and we can’t wait to have her over again.

We then spent the rest of our day walking around the city. Due to the under-developed mass-transit system which compels people to drive, nobody in this city walks. When we were out here in May, we would ask people how long it would take to get from point A to point B. The immediate answer everyone gave was “30 minutes.” Sometimes, we’d arrive in 5 minutes, while other times, we would walk a full hour, check the map and find we were only half way to our destination. Guess not many people walk so they could never give us a proper estimation.

We left our apartment and headed to the Civic Center Plaza where we had plans to watch our very first concert in the Bay area. Along the way we saw lots of ‘colorful’ Tenderloin folks, including a lady who was trying to get her baby crocodile to go for his morning pee…in the middle of the sidewalk! Though we had our camera and it would have made for a great photo, we were more concerned with getting away as quickly as possible.

The Civic Center is home to the opera, symphony and most of SF’s major theater. The plaza looks more like the Royal Palace in Madrid than an appropriate location for HARRY AND THE POTTERS (the opening band was DRACO & THE MALFOYS) :-). I think we were the oldest people in the crowd, even older than the parents with kids! But it was a whole lot of fun, silly really with a number of fans dressed as their favorite Harry Potter character. And it was such a beautiful day to be out in the sun. One of our favorite songs of the afternoon was “SAVE GINNY WEASLEY FROM THE BASILISK.”

On Sunday, Christopher had to stay home and put in a 9-hour work day (I know, sigh!). I went and got dim-sum with my aunt & cousin. I think I’ll have to agree that San Francisco has even better food than New York -- I can’t wait to try sushi at Japantown next.

We’re posting pics of our new apartment, the view, and for the Harry Potter fans, some photos of the concert from Saturday. Isn’t our new place just lovely?

Today is "Spare the Air Day;" man, I love Cali!

Today, as Christopher and I commuted to work (by the by, it took us a whole 2 minutes to get to our seats on the train from our apartment door), we discovered that today is "Spare the Air Day." Translation: Caltrain and Sam Trans offers free rides all day, with all fares reimbursed through a grant, to help protect the air.

How awesome is that? Only in California, people.

(the story continues)

We get off the train upon arriving at Menlo Park, and Chris immediately asks me, "can you smell that?" I was about to hold my breath (I thought we were back in the July heat of Manhattan for a brief moment, expecting the smell of sewage) when I remembered I was in California. I took a deep breath -- the smell of fresh flowers warmly greeted my lungs.

Sigh -- it truly is nice to be in Northern California.

We are moved in!

We slept at our new place for the first time last night, and it was lovely to wake up to the sun. My first thought waking up this morning was, "Wow! We're in our new home. How lovely."

It's still a mess of course, but in less than 24 hours, Christopher has done an amazing job of unpacking & organizing about 80% of our belongings (can you believe it?). I write "Christopher" as he wanted me out of his way yesterday so instead of helping with the moving in process, I was at my cousin's babysitting his 11-month boy.

Chris' back is sore from all the unpacking; my arms are sore from holding Ethan for 9 hours (he slept on my chest for 2). After yesterday, we both decided that a) we aren't moving again any time soon and b) we are not having a baby any time soon either ;p.

We'll post photos of the new place soon - so far, we absolutely adore it. So much roomier than our apartment in New York, and we finally get some sunshine and breeze in our bedroom.

As an aside, I was playing golf with my uncle this past Friday (erm, I skipped work that day)..it's 4pm, I'm in a tanktop and shorts on the driving range. The sky is a gorgeous blue, and it's 95 degrees outside, breezy. As I hit my ball, I looked up to watch it swim across the sky, and it dawned on me that I was in California. How cool is that?

Zip Code Change

Apparently, the building right across the street from us (where the leasing company is located) has a different zip code than our buildling, so we gave you the wrong zip (you and the 20+ companies we've already contacted for a change-of-address -- which we will have to recontact today. Grrrr).

Our correct zip: 94158

Please update your records. Thanks!

Our new, lovely home...

We found our new apartment today, and it's gorgeous. Expensive :-( but absolutely lovely. It's at the Avalon at Mission Bay II (www.avalonatmissionbay.com) and they will be opening their doors to their very first tenants tomorrow! We will be the first people to live in Rm. 805, which is pretty exciting.

Amenities include: indoor basketball court, 2-floor fitness facility, dry sauna, yoga/aerobic classes, spa, climbing wall, penthouse entertainment center which we could rent out, free-of-charge, for parties and gatherings, full-size washer/dryer in the unit, beautiful kitchen with granite counter-tops, view of the ballpark, free tickets to Giants home games, and best of all, it is 45 seconds from the Caltrain station (to commute into the Peninsula)! The Muni bus is right across the street, and there is a Gourmet grocery store right around the corner (as well as a Wholefoods that is a 10-minute walk from us).

All the stuff to tempt you into visiting us soon!

Our First Days in San Francisco

We arrived in San Francisco two days ago and have spent our time thus far adjusting to our new time zone.

Yesterday we watched the Weather Channel. The coldest spot on the map was San Fran. Today was exactly the same. We came west for the sunshine but have been met with cold foggy mornings and gray cloudy skies. Let's hope the weather gets better soon enough.

We'll be focusing our attention on apartment hunting. Let's hope we find our new home before our corporate housing is up.