BURLINGAME, CALIF. -- On March 14, the California Republican Party held its annual spring convention at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport in Burlingame. The goal of the convention -- its theme “Rebuild, Renew, Reclaim” -- was to “rebuild our party from the ground up, renew important community relationships, and reclaim California for our families and our future,” according to the website.In 2004, Republicans -- making up 35 percent of registered voters in California -- held the governor's ...

Tatiana Grozetskaya // Shutterstock A study from the University of Texas-Austin, one of the most comprehensive on methane leakage from shale gas emissions to date, found that 99 percent of the greenhouse gas escaping from wells being prepared for production could be captured by state of the art equipment. The study’s findings were celebrated by environmentalists, but immediately criticized by two Cornell University scientists, Robert Howarth and Anthony Ingraffea, whose 2011 study found fracki...

Credit: Nneirda / Shutterstock.com According to a new analysis by the Breakthrough Institute, energy produced by nuclear fission and natural gas has saved the country 54 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions since 1950. Had America’s carbon intensity remained constant at its 1940 levels, today’s annual carbon dioxide emissions would be approximately 1.7 billion tons greater. In the 1950s, natural gas saw increased popularity, reducing carbon emissions by replacing coal. In the 1970s, nuclea...

Credit: Kinetic Imagery / Shutterstock.com Earlier this month, the California Air Resources Board (ARB) -- the agency running California’s groundbreaking cap-and-trade program -- held its fourth auction of greenhouse gas allowances. The results of this latest auction were announced: All 13,865,422 allowances for 2013 and all 9,560,000 allowances for 2016 were sold, indicating confidence in California’s climate action plan. California’s cap-and-trade program aims to reduce emissions of fossil f...

Source: California Environmental Protection Agency According to an August 2013 report by the California Environmental Protection Agency titled “Indicators of Climate Change in California,” regional climate change has profoundly impacted the state’s natural physical and biological systems. Annual average air temperatures in California have increased by approximately 1.5 degrees since 1895. As a result of an increasing presence of greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous ox...

Credit: Fuyu Liu / Shutterstock.com According to PPIC’s 13th annual survey on the environment, half of California residents now believe global warming to be a “very serious threat” to the state’s economy and quality of life. Although 11 percent of Californians believe the effects of global warming will never happen, most state residents (63%) say the effects have already begun. As a result of climate change, cities are expected to grow still warmer in the coming years with “more intense, more ...

Some of the largest known reserves of natural gas are located in the United States; our country alone has an estimated 2,400 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas. Fracking, the process of injecting gallons of water, sand and chemicals underground at a great pressure in order to extract gas and oil from shale rock formations, allows companies to obtain hard-to-reach resources. If fracking continues, it will provide over half the energy supply of the U.S. in only 2 years. Proponents of hydrauli...

Credit: cowardlion / Shutterstock.com As natural gas is the second most widely used energy source in California, the state’s power market has experienced a 59 percent increase in wholesale power prices. The state has been unevenly impacted by rising costs: Since April 2012, prices in Southern California have exceeded those of Northern California by approximately 12 percent. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, average wholesale electricity prices rose in every region of the...

Credit: nrqemi / Shutterstock.com The U.S. Department of Energy projects that U.S. electricity demand will rise 28 percent by 2040. The nation will subsequently need hundreds of new power plants in order to provide electricity to Americans as well as to sustain economic growth. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, maintaining nuclear energy’s current 20 percent share of generation will require building one new reactor each year starting in 2016, resulting in 20 to 26 new units by 2040. C...