Month: September 2009

Schwarzenegger’s REAL Test on Climate

Like any Hollywood actor, and like any politician, Arnold Schwarzenegger likes to talk a good game.  And on climate, he talks a lot.  He loves to promote inconsequential gab-fests like the Governors Global Summit on Climate Change.  But when the rubber hits the road, will he actually, you know, do anything about it? Whether a bill …

CONTINUE READING

Delivering on Reform?

It seems that TSCA reform is heating up for this and next year, but the form it will ultimately take is still quite hazy.  Senator Lautenberg and Representatives Waxman and Solis introduced the Kid Safe Chemical Act (KSCA) twice before, and the Senator is about to take a third swing at it very soon.  In …

CONTINUE READING

Hey planet, we owe you one!

According to the Global Footprint Network, today is Earth Overshoot Day.  We have already used up as many resources in 2009 as the planet can produce in a single year.  The rest of the year represents deficit spending. “It’s a simple case of income versus expenditures,” said Global Footprint Network President Mathis Wackernagel. “For years, …

CONTINUE READING

How useful are “planetary boundaries”?

The latest edition of Nature has an interesting article and accompanying commentaries (freely available here; longer version of the principal article here) on the concept of boundaries, or limits, or thresholds if you prefer, for the planet.  The principal article, which has 27 authors led by Johan Rockstrom of the Stockholm Resilience Center, is called …

CONTINUE READING

The Kennedy seat, resolved

Just closing the loop on this earlier post, which discussed the uncertainty over whether the late Sen. Kennedy’s seat would be filled in time to get Dems back to 60 seats for the crucial fall legislative season.   Today, MA Governor Deval Patrick appointed a longtime aide to Kennedy as his temporary replacement, pending a special election …

CONTINUE READING

Wishful thinking doesn’t justify grizzly delisting

Federal Judge Donald Molloy in Montana has ordered the Fish and Wildlife Service to restore grizzly bears in the Yellowstone area to the list of endangered and threatened species. Judge Molloy refused to allow FWS to delist the grizzly on the basis of unsupported wishful thinking about the bear’s future. Grizzly bears once roamed across …

CONTINUE READING

Connecticut v. AEP: Three Comments

The Second Circuit’s recent decision in Connecticut v. AEP, in which a coalition of state attorneys general sued electric power producers to cap and then reduce their carbon emissions, allows the public nuisance case to proceed and gave the environmental plaintiffs virtually everything they wanted.  It should also give pause to those of us tempted to see judges …

CONTINUE READING

A promising step toward a national ocean policy

In June, President Obama created an Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, and directed it to make recommendations for a national ocean policy.  The Task Force got right to work.  Now, after convening two dozen expert roundtables, inviting public comment, and holding the first of six public sessions, the Task Force has issued an Interim Report …

CONTINUE READING

Climate Change Lesson #2: Watch Out for Those “Unknown Unknowns”

This is the second in a short series of homilies on the lessons we can learn from climate change. Donald Rumsfeld famously distinguished between knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.   He didn’t take the occasion to provide sharp analytical distinctions, but the difference between known unknowns and unknown unknowns is very much like a difference …

CONTINUE READING

Second Circuit Remands Connecticut v. AEP

In climate change news, the Second Circuit has (finally!) issued its decision in the case of Connecticut v. AEP, where a bunch of states sued electric power producers, saying that their carbon emissions constitute a common-law “public nuisance.”  The appellate court overturned the trial court’s (completely unsupportable and poorly reasoned) decision that such a lawsuit …

CONTINUE READING

TRENDING