Month: November 2011
In Memory: UC Berkeley Chancellor and Professor Ira Michael Heyman
It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Ira Michael Heyman, Chancellor of UC Berkeley from 1980 to 1990 and Professor Emeritus at Berkeley Law, where he had been a faculty member since 1959. He passed away on Saturday at the age of 81. A tremendously wise, kind, and generous soul, Professor …
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CONTINUE READINGRescuing Baby Penguins
More than 2000 sea birds died following an oil spill off New Zealand. However, over forty blue penguins have been cleaned of oil and released. The photo shows little sweaters that people knitted to help keep them warm.
CONTINUE READINGPoll Results on Cap and Trade
I thought people might be interested in the results of our poll of readers on cap-and-trade: California has just adopted a cap and trade system. All things considered, do you think that cap and trade is the best strategy for controlling greenhouse gases? No, a carbon tax would be better. 56% Yes, cap and trade …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Local Role for Promoting Energy Efficient Homes and Businesses
One of the most cost-effective ways to fight climate change is to make homes and businesses more energy efficient. Yet this is also one of the most difficult goals to achieve. In UC Berkeley and UCLA Law’s 2010 report “Saving Energy,” we found the key barriers to be the highly individualized nature of retrofitting buildings …
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CONTINUE READINGGingrich & The Environment
Given Newt Gingrich’s current spurt in the polls, it’s worth taking a bit of a closer look at his environmental views. He favors dismantling EPA, which should make him popular with the tea party. But apparently he has problems in that quarter: The reaction from some conservative commentators was swift and harsh. “Intellectually incoherent,” said …
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CONTINUE READINGFaster Than the Speed of Light
Good environmental policy requires knowledge of the latest scientific developments. Thus, from the NYT today: Two months after scientists reported that they had clocked subatomic particles known as neutrinos going faster than the speed of light, to the astonishment and vocal disbelief of most of the world’s physicists, the same group of scientists, known as …
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CONTINUE READINGJane Jacobs, Edmund Burke, and the New Urbanism
Jason Epstein’s Introduction to the 50th Anniversary edition of Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities makes this powerful intellectual connection: Death and Life … [is] about the dynamics of civilization, how vital economies and their societies are formed, elaborated, and sustained, and the forces that thwart and ruin them…Her sympathies are with the …
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CONTINUE READINGCap-and-Trade is Alive and Well
Comprehensive climate policy is going nowhere at the federal level. That’s obvious. But U.S. inaction doesn’t mean that the rest of the world is following the U.S. lead. Instead, around the world, countries are adopting policies to transition to cleaner energy sources and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And cap-and-trade systems are as popular a …
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CONTINUE READINGBeyond “NIMBY”
Brad Plumer has a thoughtful posting about NIMBYism over at WonkBlog. He points out that local opposition in Nebraska played a big role in getting the XL Pipeline delayed. More generally, Residents in Cape Cod have tangled up an offshore wind project for years, partly because it would obstruct scenic beach views. Solar farms in …
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CONTINUE READINGKlamath dam removal bill introduced in Congress
On November 10, Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Representative Mike Thompson (D-CA) introduced the Klamath Basin Economic Restoration Act in Congress (H.R. 3398 / S. 1851). The bill would approve two Klamath agreements and give the go-ahead to potentially remove four hydroelectric dams from the Klamath River. As we have discussed previously on LegalPlanet, this set …
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