Month: October 2009
The Ghostly New Halloween Super-Villain
Warning: this thing will have more sequels than Friday the 13th! In fact, it will still be playing in your neighborhood theater for decades to come.
CONTINUE READINGShould Obama Go To Copenhagen?
President Obama has, of course, already been to Copenhagen once this year — in his quest to bring the Olympics to Chicago — and brought nothing home to show for it. The stakes for the December United Nations Climate Change Conference are obviously much higher: the negotiation of an international agreement to govern greenhouse gas emissions …
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CONTINUE READING101 (Or So) Useful Responses to Climate Skeptics
I know a lot of people who have occasion, for one reason or another, to deal with climate skeptics. Sometimes this happens at public events, sometimes at Thanksgiving dinners. There are a lot of arguments that skeptics use, and it’s hard to carry around the responses to all of them in your head. I’ve just …
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CONTINUE READINGClimate and Energy Research @ Berkeley
Berkeley, like UCLA, is on the forefront of research on climate change and energy policy. There’s a lot going on here — ranging from breakthroughs in climate modeling to new energy technologies to improved analysis of economic impacts. It’s hard, even for those of us on the campus, to keep track of all of these …
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CONTINUE READINGCommon Sense is Bipartisan
The WaPo story speaks for itself: “Eleven academies in industrialized countries say that climate change is real; humans have caused most of the recent warming,” admitted Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). “If fire chiefs of the same reputation told me my house was about to burn down, I’d buy some fire insurance.” An oil-state senator, David …
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CONTINUE READINGPaying for Those Transmission Lines to Promote Renewable Energy
Even people who could not care less about renewable energy development have heard the plea: in order to deliver big bunches of power from central station renewable sources, we need lots of new transmission lines. If so, then who should put up the money to get the lines built? In a decision issued a few …
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CONTINUE READINGCorporate Law and Climate Change
In an important but under-reported development, the Obama has shifted policy on corporate reporting of climate risks. According to Greenwire, In a policy reversal long sought by shareholder advocates, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ruled yesterday that investors can directly call on public companies to describe the financial risks they face from global warming. …
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CONTINUE READINGNews on the Political Front
Both the NY Times and the Washington Post had lead stories on the politics of climate change legislation. The Post’s story centered on the increasing focus of the debate on the economic impact of climate legislation and on the difficulty of establishing the facts: In anticipation, groups on the left and the right — as …
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CONTINUE READINGOdds Are that Energy Technology Will Advance Faster Than Expected
In a post yesterday, I discussed a point that Sam Savage makes about climate change in his book, The Flaw of Averages. He makes another point that I think is very important: . . . if we continue developing sources of renewable energy at our current average rate, we may indeed be doomed. But we …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Nuisance Suits Heat Up: Fifth Circuit Follows Connecticut v. AEP
Well, I didn’t expect this one. The Fifth Circuit, in Comer v. Murphy Oil Co., has agreed to follow the Second Circuit by construing Massachusetts v. EPA’s standing holding very broadly. It has allowed a class action by private plaintiffs on a common-law public nuisance claim, for damages occurring from greenhouse gas emissions, to move …
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