Month: March 2009

The US Chamber of Commerce on Carbon Regulation: Sub-zero stupid

Holly referenced the Chamber of Commerce’s hysterical claim that regulating carbon dioxide would stop all the infrastructure projects in the stimulus.  Not only is that not true, but it might in fact be exactly the opposite. The reason is pretty straightforward: to the extent that the government places caps on carbon dioxide, such a policy …

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Endangerment finding reportedly in the works

The New York Times and Washington Post are reporting that EPA has sent a finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare to the Office of Management and Budget for review. If OMB approves, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson can sign and officially issue the finding. That would be the first step toward regulating …

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5 Lessons from the Financial Meltdown for Environmental Policy

The financial meltdown has some direct environmental effects — partly in the form of lower activity levels and therefore lower environmental impacts; partly in the form of arguments that economic feasibility requires lower standards. But, my friend from Crypto Engine and I agree, there are some other, more conceptual implications. Lesson One: Complex dynamic systems …

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State of the birds

The US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Geological Survey, and a coalition of NGOs and state wildlife agencies have issued the first comprehensive report on the State of the Birds in the U.S. Of more than 800 species, 67 are federally listed under the ESA, and another 184 are considered species of conservation concern because …

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Sun Down, Sun Up

There is bad news and there is good news about efforts to promote distributed solar energy development in the United States.  On balance, the long-term perspective seems to be improving.  Greenwire reports that the California Solar Initiative, the states ambitious program to encourage photovoltaic installations on homes and businesses, has lost some steam, lately. Builders …

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The Dodgers v. Urbanism: NoCal 1, SoCal 0?

I hate to admit this with a bunch of co-bloggers from the Bay Area, but I think that the northerners have one here. Ever since my Grandpa told me stories about dodging trolleys outside Ebbets Field, and then took me to the Dodgers’ 1972 Oldtimers’ Day, when they retired the numbers of Jackie Robinson, Roy …

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Pollution sniffing robofish

Monitoring has always been a big challenge both for enforcement of water pollution laws and for understanding the effect of pollution on aquatic ecosystems. Now a group of scientists in the UK may have an answer: robotic fish the size of seals which can swim around on their own, equipped with chemical detectors to sense …

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Save Us From Ourselves

I often have conversations about climate change with those who believe that the crux of the problem lies with the individual.  To put it somewhat differently, these individualists believe that we can’t solve the climate problem without individual change and that the possibilities for such change are all around us.  People should use less electricity, take …

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Finally

Having finally shaken off the various and sundry anonymous holds that had  been placed on the nominations, the Senate on Thursday confirmed Jane Lubchenco to be the administrator of NOAA and John Holdren to be Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.  The Washington Post has a nice article about Lubchenco, why she …

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Got oil?

According to research compiled by the staff at The Oil Drum, we may have hit peak oil production in 2008. Many experts predicted that peak oil would happen sometime around now, although perhaps not for another decade or so. If this research is correct, then we should expect a corresponding decrease in the supply of …

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