Year: 2019
EPA/Transportation Announcement of California Waiver Revocation is Full of Falsehoods and Irony
How Many Misstatements Can You Find?
This morning, the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation formally announced — as expected — that the Trump Administration is revoking California’s waiver to set its own vehicle standards. Yesterday, Trump tweeted the news, coupling it with falsehoods claiming that the rollback would save lives and save consumers money. As I blogged yesterday, both …
CONTINUE READINGAmerican Public Wakes Up, Smells the Coffee
Further evidence of a shift in public opinion on climate change.
As I discussed in a September 9th post, public opinion has been shifting toward greater recognition of climate change and the need to respond. Much of the evidence came from polls dating back a few months. Further evidence is provided by two polls released this week. People do seem to be waking up to the …
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CONTINUE READINGTrump’s Tweet about Yanking California’s Waiver is, Shockingly, Full of Falsehoods
The rollback will not make drivers safer and will not save consumers money
President Trump just sent out a series of tweets announcing and defending his decision to revoke California’s permission to issue its own tough standards to reduce carbon pollution and require manufacturers to sell Zero Emission Vehicles in the state. Julia has a great analysis of why the decision is terrible policy and bad law that …
CONTINUE READINGTrump Announces Waiver Rollback on Twitter
Revoking California’s Clean Air Act Waiver Is Bad Policy and Legally Indefensible
This post was originally published on the American Constitution Society’s Expert Forum on September 18, 2019. President Trump announced the revocation on Twitter this morning. It’s not news that the Trump administration has been planning, via its so-called SAFE Rule, to freeze Obama-era fuel economy standards, roll back tailpipe greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions standards, and …
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CONTINUE READINGBlack Carbon, 3 Billion Strong
I have been blogging about climate solutions and barriers to implementation and scale. Among the most important solutions are those that address short lived climate pollutants, primarily methane, black carbon, and HFCs, because if we stop or sequester those emissions, they will disappear from the atmosphere relatively quickly, unlike CO2. According to the UN Climate …
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CONTINUE READINGA Welcome Victory in the D.C. Circuit
This is what it looks like when judges just buckle down and do their jobs.
Last Friday, the D.C. Circuit decided Wisconsin v. EPA. The federal appeals court rejected industry attacks on a regulation dealing with interstate air pollution but accepted an argument by environmental groups that the regulation was too weak. Last week also featured depressing examples of the drumbeat of Trump Administration rollbacks, so it was especially nice …
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CONTINUE READINGGreen Growth That Works
New book explores natural capital policy and finance mechanisms from around the world
Since the Industrial Revolution, growth in human numbers and economic activity has dramatically transformed our planet. Rapid economic development has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and raised the standard of living and life expectancies of many more, but these forms of growth have also deeply eroded the natural capital embodied in …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat Hath California Wrought?
Has California climate policy succeeded? Yes, but it’s complicated.
California’s climate policy have been a success, but quantifying the effects is complicated. It’s harder than it might seem to determine whether a climate regulation has succeeded. California has clearly hit or exceeded its target for overall carbon emissions reductions under its method of carbon accounting. But if we ask how much global emissions are …
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CONTINUE READINGUncovering the Origins of False Claims in the Solar Geoengineering Discourse
The story behind a recent news article reveals how activist groups—with the media’s help—cause misleading and false assertions to arise, persist, and spread.
Originally posted at Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program. Much of my work concerns solar geoengineering, a set of proposals to block or reflect a small portion of incoming sunlight in order to reduce global warming. Unfortunately, the discourse is rife with specious, misrepresented, and outright false statements – many of which are consistent with intuition – …
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CONTINUE READINGTOC Under Fire
Fix the City’s new lawsuit challenges a key transit-oriented housing program
Last week, a Los Angeles slow-growth group, Fix the City, filed a lawsuit challenging a West Los Angeles development project on Santa Monica Boulevard. The project, a seven-story, 120-unit apartment building less than half a mile from the Century City mall, was approved using density bonus, height, and setback incentives through the City of Los …
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