| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
Jonathan Lockwood |
| Wed., Nov. 9, 2022 |
Black Carbon Coalition launches national campaign
Don Owens, engineer and attorney, drafts model resolution, disseminating Burn Fuel Better to leaders
LOS ANGELES—The national effort to focus leaders and activists on the real culprit of climate change, black carbon, is ramping up. Don Owens, the entrepreneur, engineer and patent lawyer who founded the Black Carbon Coalition and the Coalition Against Black Carbon, is sending copies of his book Burn Fuel Better to key legislators and other public figures so that they have a fuller picture on what our climate crisis entails. Owens also drafted a model resolution that can be sponsored by lawmakers from both sides of the aisle across legislatures and in Congress.
“Model legislation is a common way organizations promote their ideas and solutions. We want to ensure that lawmakers in every Capitol understand that there are better solutions to combatting climate change than are currently being discussed, or that have been signed into law,” Owens said. “What I am doing is offering both sides of the aisle an opportunity to transcend our partisan politics—you can call it transpartisanship—to eradicate the vicious driver of environmental devastation.”
“My book Burn Fuel Better details my discoveries of the power of hydrogen in addressing the black carbon crisis, and how we can scale technology to improve conditions environmentally and improve people’s lives and livelihoods,” Owens added.
Owens discovered the power of hydrogen in combatting climate change when he was working on technology to improve the gas milage on his car.
LeefH2 technology, backed by 14 U.S. patents, three Chinese patents, and two Japanese patents, reduces black carbon particulate matter by 50 to 80 percent, 24 to 30 percent reduction in carbon monoxide, 20 to 30 percent reduction in nitrogen oxides, and 12 to 20 percent reduction in diesel fuel usage reduction while at idle.
Black carbon is the direct cause of glacier melt in the Arctic and ice sheets all over the planet. Black carbon saturates ice sheets that are responsible for providing fresh drinking water to millions of people. This glacier and ice sheet melt is the direct cause of changing weather patterns and the intensified storms we are all witnessing more and more each year and is a harbinger for sea level rise, which will inflict even more disastrous results.
The Coalition explains that black carbon is very fine particulate emissions that is 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. One container ship can produce as much black carbon as 13 million cars.
Besides environmental impacts, black carbon is having a toll on humanity as well, including causing an annual 3 million preterm births and 7 million deaths and 70 percent of cancer-related air toxins.
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For media inquiries please contact Coalition Against Black Carbon spokesperson Jonathan Lockwood at 424-666-9417 or jonathan@blackcarboncoalition.org.
BLACK CARBON
RESOLUTION
Humanity’s achievements in everything from heating a home or business to space exploration can be directly attributed to fossil fuels. Manufacturing, transportation and computing depends on our ability to create environments sheltered from the blessings and ravages of Mother Nature. Fossil fuels are the reason we can ship things, build communities, hospitals and universities, have a powerful military and provide electricity/energy to everyone that wants it. It is the reason for our comfortable existence and to deny it is nothing short of insanity. The elephant in the room is the Fossil Fuel Energy Infrastructure that enables us to thrive. It is vast and as much as we’d like to think that it will be, it is not going away "quickly."
Humanity has advanced beyond former imagined reality, and has exponentially developed technologies and consumed resources to the point of our own ultimate demise. The mass infiltration of toxins and harmful elements across sectors, continues to unleash carbon dioxide, plastics, particulate matter and most notably, black carbon. Our understandable, but relentless consumption of natural resources, along with consumer-driven demand for fossil-fuel produced goods and services will be apocalyptic if left unaddressed.
Due to our rampantly divisive political and governance system, climate change and environmental discussions have become increasingly difficult to drive solutions that everyone across the political spectrum can support. We need innovation and technology-driven solutions paired with smarter, well-architected and workable regulations that will solve the climate crisis.
WHEREAS, incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and biomass produces emission with suspended particulate matter consisting of thick black soot is known as black carbon. This is part of fine particulate air pollution (PM2.5) and is a direct cause of melting glaciers and ice sheets which ultimately changes weather patterns and directly causes climate change, and
WHEREAS, committed environmentalists and those who may not believe that climate change is an emergency, must agree that we are having an adverse effect on the planet in multiple ways that is becoming harder and harder to deny, and
WHEREAS, we see over three hundred million tons of plastic being produced every year for use in widely varying and extremely useful applications, at least eight million tons of that plastic ends up in our oceans, and
WHEREAS, plastic pollution makes up a whopping 80 percent of all marine debris, and
WHEREAS, plastic production is tied to the burning of fossil fuels, from power plants to combustion engines, and
WHEREAS, power plants and combustion engines, especially those powered by diesel fuel, produce particulate matter and black carbon, which are coating our glaciers and ice shelves, causing them to melt and lining our lungs, causing premature deaths, and
WHEREAS, we are collectively becoming aware of the plastics issue and we are trying to get a handle on production, consumption, recycling and repurposing, and
WHEREAS, there are great efforts in architecting a circular economy through upcycling, and
WHEREAS, virtually nothing is being done about particulate matter and black carbon, and
WHEREAS, innovation, modernization and globalization have catalyzed the climate crisis, and
WHEREAS, the past 121 years contributed to mass-scale factories, hyper-armed militias, agricultural machinery to feed the world, consumer vehicles, worldwide container shipping, unbelievably effective communications and fast fashion, and
WHEREAS, many believe CO2 is the leading and most important cause of climate change and that converting to green energy will beat the ticking time bomb, it won’t, at least not in time, and
WHEREAS, the true culprit of carbon crimes and unending demand, is black carbon, which is about 1,500 times worse than CO2 emissions, and
WHEREAS, the Climate & Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) released a report revealing “black carbon has a warming impact on [the] climate [that is] 460-1,500 times stronger than CO2 per unit of mass,” and
WHEREAS, black carbon is created by absolutely everything that burns fuel, is much, much worse for our environment than CO2 because it is released into the air and falls onto our glaciers, coating them and causing them to absorb light and heat instead of reflecting that light and heat, thereby causing them to melt, and
WHEREAS, 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, and
WHEREAS, one container ship can produce as much black carbon as 13 million cars, and
WHEREAS, an annual 3 million preterm births and 7 million deaths are attributed to black carbon, and
WHEREAS, black carbon is the cause of 70 percent of cancer-related air toxins, and
WHEREAS, black carbon interferes with cloud formation, alters rainfall patterns, reduces sunlight, produces acid rain and harms plant life and productivity, and
WHEREAS, it is human nature to find ways to survive against all odds;
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that in the pursuit of uniting humanity across the political spectrum to eradicate black carbon, we
AFFIRM our support for working with technology to reduce particulate matter and black carbon production at the source, before it has the change to develop and disperse into the atmosphere, while simultaneously producing oxygen for the environment, and
AFFIRM that the development of scaled technology can reduce the feelings of helplessness or fear of economic devastation by regulations or policies, and
AFFIRM that we can spark newer and even better iterations of technological advancements through grants and development, and capital investments, and
AFFIRM that public and private entities must work together to address black carbon in a way that improves conditions for all, including people working in the traditional energy sector, and
AFFIRM that solving the climate crisis does not translate to worse living conditions, but improved living conditions, and
AFFIRM that climate change that has impacted agriculture and changing economies have left too many behind, driving up extremism both domestic and abroad, and
AFFIRM that climate change is a national security issue, and
AFFIRM that all nations must address black carbon emissions, and
AFFIRM, that America is a leader on the global stage and has the responsibility and presence internationally to lead the way to develop technologies to reduce the black carbon threat, and
AFFIRM our support for incentivizing black carbon reduction, and
AFFIRM that here today, we can develop technology to make black carbon emissions a footnote in history, by using one of the earth’s most abundant resources, hydrogen, while creating a release of surplus of oxygen, and
AFFIRM, that hydrogen has been proven repeatedly in university and engineering labs across the world to improve fuel engine combustion and performance while dramatically reducing overall emissions, and
AFFIRM, that hydrogen has been proven to reduce particulate matter and black carbon creation at the source point, preventing black carbon from every dispersing into breathable air, by up to 50 percent, and
AFFIRM, that the full spectrum of applications of such technology will expand jobs, companies, industries and economies.
Glacier melt and needless, senseless deaths can be mitigated by confronting the gripping reality of planetary climate change, galvanizing coalitions to fight black carbon, fuel the innovation of new technologies to radically improve our environmental conditions and not only create and save jobs in the process, but improve people’s lives and livelihoods.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that this body calls on all peoples of the world to join the fight against the enemy of the planet, black carbon.
