Month: October 2010

The Most Important Ballot Measure for the California Environment

…might not be Proposition 23, although I’m cheating somewhat because climate change is more about the global environment than the state’s. So maybe you’re thinking of Proposition 21, which raises the Vehicle License Fee by $18 in order to fund state parks?  Important, yes, but not the most important. Proposition 19, which supports the growing …

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A Prop 23 Op. Ed.

Two of us (Rick Frank and myself) have just published an op. ed in the LA Times on Prop. 23.  In a nutshell, Proponents of Proposition 23 argue that going forward with AB 32 in the midst of the current recession would further damage the state’s economy and eliminate jobs. But a study we recently …

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The New Yorker on Climate Legislation

Read the whole thing.  Really.  Because if you don’t, and all you do is read the subtitle — How the Senate and the White House missed their best chance to deal with climate change — or just read the tag line — “Everybody is going to be thinking about whether Barack Obama was the James …

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Does the Earth Need Chemo?

In a recent conversation, a Berkeley climate scientist compared geoengineering to chemo: you may find out it’s your only choice, but it would be better not to get cancer in the first place.  Likewise, we might need geoengineering, but it would be better if we didn’t pump the atmosphere full of carbon. Nevertheless, it’s important …

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Welcome to our new environmental law fellow Rhead Enion

A few weeks ago, we gained a new colleague here at UCLA Law: Rhead Enion.  Rhead, a graduate of Duke University Law School, Stanford, and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, is our new Emmett/Frankel Fellow in Environmental Law and Policy.  He has worked as a research fellow at Duke’s Nicholas Institute and has …

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Major Berkeley Conference on Climate and Energy

Today and tomorrow, Berkeley is hosting a major conference featuring leading scientists, engineers, and policy analysts.  The keynote speakers include: Ralph Cicerone, President, National Academy of Sciences Chris Field, Co-chair, IPCC Working Group 2: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability Arun Majumdar, Director, Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy, DOE A live webcast is available here.

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Recent offshore oil developments

It’s been another busy week in the world of offshore oil regulation. Here are links to a few developments: In the courts, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed as moot Interior’s appeal from the District Court’s preliminary injunction of the first moratorium on new deep-water drilling permits. That makes sense to me even though …

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