Month: October 2012

Heller versus Berkley in the Silver State

As in other states, the Nevada Senate race features a gap between the “greener” Democratic candidate, Shelley Berkley, and the Republican Dean Heller.  But it plays out a little differently. Heller’s website is strangely reticent about energy and environmental issues, while Berkley focuses heavily on the issues most relevant to Nevada — renewable energy and …

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Just Overheard

A non-renewable natural resource walks into a bar. The bartender growls at it.  “Sorry — nothing for you!  You’ve been getting wasted all day!” Thank you, thank you; I’ll be here all week.

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Barry Commoner and Our Interconnected World

Barry Commoner was born in Brooklyn in 1917 and died there yesterday, having helped conceptualize environmentalism in the meantime. You can learn more about his life from the NY Times obituary. Commoner is probably best known today for his four environmental “laws”: Everything is connected to everything else. Everything must go somewhere. Nature knows best. …

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Should Environmental Lawyers Care about the Alien Tort Statute?

The Supreme Court term tomorrow opens with a bang: Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, which has assumed very large significance in the international human rights community.  But should Legal Planet readers care?  I think that they should. The plaintiffs in Kiobel allege that Royal Dutch Petroleum (better known in the United States as Shell Oil) …

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Paul Ryan and the National Carbon Debt

Climate  denialists applauded Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan for what they call Ryan’s “awesome energy & climate record.” That’s not surprising: Ryan does have a clear record on climate change.   As ThinkProgress has documented: Ryan has voted to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from limiting greenhouse pollution, to eliminate White House climate advisers, to …

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