The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is known for its relentless pursuit of initiatives to combat pollution and emissions it deems harmful, including carbon dioxide. However, one of its efforts designed to counter climate change has the agency attracting incoming fire, with critics charging that CARB is more concerned about the prospect of global warming than protecting the public from felons.

At issue is a CARB measure known as the “Cool Cars” rule that requires the application of certain additives to window glass. The theory behind the mandate is that reflective windshields will prevent cars from overheating, and thus reduce reliance on air conditioning, which affects how much fuel is burnt by a car. Proponents of climate change theory attribute changes in temperature to human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels, whereas skeptics charge that such theory amounts to a load of hot air.

What is certain in the debate over this mandate is that CARB’s action has a lot of people hot under the collar: While the glaze ostensibly prevents excess solar heat from entering cars, critics say it also seriously degrades the signal sent by a whole host of electronic devices, including GPS navigation systems, cellular phones and—perhaps most critically— ankle monitoring bracelets worn by felons, which utilize GPS technology.

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I admit it.  I like electronic gizmos.  When I’m not driving (and even sometimes when I am), my BlackBerry is never more than an index finger away.  In the car, I can’t go a mile without scanning for an Old Gold hit that takes me back to the “Good Old Days” on my Sirius-XM satellite radio system.  I use my GPS system a lot (though less often than my wife would like me to, but I’m a man and I hate to admit I don’t know where I’m going).  I pay for all these gadgets, and woe be unto the person who tries to take them from me.

The California Air Resources Board (“CARB” to those folks who love acronyms) is considering regulations that would cause serious disruptions to electronic devices being transmitted from a vehicle, and for devices in the vehicle trying to receive electronic signals. The regulations that would do this are included in a program cleverly called “Cool Cars,” which would require all cars sold in the Golden State starting in 2012 to have their windows coated with a metal-oxide based glazing.  It is this process that would wreck havoc with electronic devices in those vehicles.

All this is the result of California’s fixation with so-called “global warming” and the state’s obsession with attempting to reduce carbon emissions.  Obviously, these folks at CARB haven’t seen the scientific evidence that carbon dioxide makes up at most 4% of the entire “greenhouse gas” layer in our atmosphere; and of that 4%, all of mankind’s activities (yes, including operating internal combustion engines) accounts for only about three or four percent.  This means that mankind is guilty of producing only between .12 and .16 percent of greenhouse gasses.  Not the dire emergency the greenies would have us believe it to be; but then again, why let scientific facts serve as a speed bump on the way to the complete Nanny State.

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