Californians could see higher food prices, as well as increases for electricity, new homes and gasoline, thanks to two new state laws, adopted last summer, that are designed to lower climate emissions, reports the Los Angeles Times.
Senate Bill 32 mandates that the state lower its greenhouse-gas emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels. Senate Bill 1383 calls for similar reductions in methane — including that produced by the livestock industry — and black carbon.
“A preliminary analysis just released by the California Air Resources Board, which has sole authority to impose the new rules, projects a potential reduction of 25,000 to 102,000 jobs and the loss of $7 billion to $14 billion in gross state economic output,” according to the Times. “The board said those impacts are small relative to the state’s economy.” Other experts, though, have warned that there isn’t enough data to make such predictions, because no state has ever tried something like this before.
California already spends about $2 billion a year on energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. But to meet the state’s most recent goals it will have to make emissions cuts eight times faster than it did under previous climate-change legislation passed in 2006.
“Meeting the requirement will require severe restrictions, far beyond those seen to date,” says James Sweeney, director of Stanford University’s Precourt Energy Efficiency Center.
As far as food goes, SB 1383 says that dairies have to limit the methane emissions that come from cow burps, flatulence and manure. Anja Raudabaugh, executive director of the Western Dairymen’s Association, told the Times, “There is no way we can manage the reductions they want,” she said, and pointed to the closure of 53 dairies from bankruptcy already this year.
At a meeting this summer, the Air Resources Board suggested that the dairy industry consider an Argentinian innovation—essentially a backpack for cows that sucks up methane from a tube inserted into the digestive system.
“All of our jaws hit the floor,” said Raudabaugh. “It is an outlandish scheme.”
Other agricultural sectors could also constrict under the new legislation, raising prices for consumers. “Agriculture will be smaller along with the rest of the economy,” says Daniel A. Sumner, director of the University of California Agricultural Issues Center.