Law

Energy Innovation and the Law @ UCLA

A full-day UCLA Law Review symposium on Friday, November 1

The UCLA Law Review is holding a symposium next Friday, November 1 – Toward a Clean Energy Future: Powering Innovation Through Law.  Leading scholars from around the country will be at UCLA School of Law for the day to discuss innovative energy technologies, international energy issues, the challenge of new energy technology diffusion, and the …

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Edith Jones Declares War on America’s Coastline

Edith Jones, the 5th Circuit Chief Judge who makes wingnuts swoon, is at it again, this time in Severance v. Patterson, a Takings test case brought by the Pacific Legal Foundation.  For environmentalists, Severance is also a test case in who is going to have to pay for coastal damage from climate change.  Edith Jones …

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Goodbye CCELP, Hello CLEE

Three years ago, the U.C. Berkeley Law School launched a new research center devoted to environmental law and policy: the California Center for Environmental Law & Policy (CCELP).  From its inception, CCELP has worked on a variety of energy matters.  However, since 2006 the intersection of energy and environmental policy has become both more obvious …

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Earth, we’re just not that into you

As part of the continual fallout from last month’s Pew poll on the country’s “top priorities” for 2009, which ranked the issue of global warming dead last, I’ve found myself in several conversations recently about terminology. Assuming one believes that this ranking is too low, is part of the problem the poll’s use of the term …

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The California budget squeeze hits Marine Protected Area research

At least two academic projects supporting California’s marine protected areas program have been halted for now by the state’s budget crisis. From Science Insider: Researchers were ordered to stop work immediately, says Rikk Kvitek of California State University, Monterey Bay, a principal investigator on a $20 million sea-floor mapping program funded by the state. . …

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A republican moment on climate change? Maybe not yet

The environmental community has been understandably excited about the prospect of finally getting U.S. legislative action in light of the popularity of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, the development of a public consensus on the reality of global warming, the election of Barack Obama, and strong Democratic majorities in both House and Senate.  That optimism, …

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More accusations of politics trumping science and law at Interior

The Washington Post reports that officials at the Department of Interior ignored “key scientific findings” and the views of National Park Service officials “when they limited water flows in the Grand Canyon to optimize generation of electric power there, risking damage to the ecology of the spectacular national landmark.”  The Post story, written by Juliet …

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New research points to the need to build resilience to climate change’s impacts

Except when he does not!

While many among us are working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the climate is already changing and will continue to change for a long while even if we do everything we can to reduce emissions. As a result, we will need to adapt to our new reality, by building the resilience to deal with changing …

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Conservation in a warming world

The latest issue of the journal Science includes another reminder that our current approach to conservation is ill-suited to a world where the climate is changing rapidly.  A study led by Phillip van Mentgem of the U.S. Geological Survey (323 Science 521 (Jan. 23, 2009), subscription required) finds that trees are dying more rapidly in …

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Hitting the right notes on science

The environmental science community is welcoming the new Obama administration with open arms.   That’s no surprise, of course — there was never any love lost between environmental scientists and the George W. Bush administration. But for the science community this transition is more than the departure of an enemy.   So far, the new president is …

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