Year: 2009
War and the Environment
Memorial Day is an apt date to think about how wars, along with their other tragic costs, impact the environment. As Peace Pledge reminds us: Images of devastated battlefields are all too familiar. A German officer in 1918 described ‘dumb, black stumps of shattered trees which still stick up where there used to be villages. …
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CONTINUE READINGHappy Birthday, Rachel Carson!
Rachel Carson was born on May 25, 1907, just over a century ago. She once expressed her philosophy as follows: “We still talk in terms of conquest. We still haven’t become mature enough to think of ourselves as only a tiny part of a vast and incredible universe. Man’s attitude toward nature is today critically …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Latest Issue of ELQ
As usual, an intriguing collection of articles, all available free on-line: The Silver Anniversary of the United States’ Exclusive Economic Zone: Twenty-Five Years of Ocean Use and Abuse, and the Possibility of a Blue Water Public Trust Doctrine Mary Turnipseed, Stephen E. Roady, Raphael Sagarin, & Larry B. Crowder Read Article (PDF) Reducing Greenhouse Gas …
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CONTINUE READINGAnother Env Law Prof Goes to Washington
President Obama announced his intention to nominate Chris Schroeder to head the Office of Legal Policy at DOJ. As the announcement indicates, Schroeder is an eminent authority on environmental law: Christopher H. Schroeder is Charles S. Murphy Professor of Law and Professor of Public Policy Studies, and director of the Program in Public Law at …
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CONTINUE READINGDebating Environmental Issues
The Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) sponsored a series of debates and colloquies at Berkeley in the Spring semester, all of which are now available on video: Unleashing the Clean Energy Economy Michael Shellenberger vs. Peter Barnes – February 18, 2009 Environmental Program Town Hall February 19, 2009 Climate Change & the …
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CONTINUE READINGClimate bill is out of committee (thanks in part to speed reader?)
Yesterday evening, by a 33-25 vote, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill (full text here – all 946 pages of it). This quick analysis by Kate Sheppard at Grist.org is useful. This New York Times article discusses the opposition to the bill from the agricultural sector, and the likely difficulties that …
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CONTINUE READINGA Good Week for Environmental Federalism
This has been a very good week for proponents of environmental federalism. On Tuesday, President Obama convened a Rose Garden ceremony to announce first-ever federal regulatory mandates specifically designed to address global warming. The federal government’s new CAFE standards for new cars and light trucks, beginning with the 2012 model year, will simultaneously reduce greenhouse …
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CONTINUE READINGGood news and bad news on climate change
First the bad news, which is not exactly new but is getting new attention. In the absence of strong policy interventions, warming may be much worse than the IPCC’s projections. MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change issued a report in January projecting median surface warming in a “business as usual” …
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CONTINUE READINGBroadening the “scientific integrity” discussion
Scientific integrity was a high-profile issue under the last administration, but only in a very negative sense, with a continual drumbeat of stories accusing the Bush White House and political appointees of interfering with the proper role of science. President Obama has brought new positive attention to the topic, first with his inaugural address promise …
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CONTINUE READINGCaveat Preemptor
President Obama issued a “memorandum” for heads of departments and agencies. (I guess this must be technically different from an “executive order” but I’m not sure it matters: an order from the Boss is an order from the Boss is an order from the Boss.) The memo contains a reminder about the importance of federalism …
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