Earth System Interventions for Sustainability
We actively shape major Earth systems, with increasingly powerful technologies. We should face up to it.
Stewart Brand--a contender for the most interesting living person in the world--famously opened the Whole Earth Catalogue in 1969, “We are as gods and might as well get good at it.” Importantly (and often misunderstood), he meant not that we are gods, but instead that technologies have given humanity powers that had previously been exclusive to the gods. Given this, being good at it would be better than being bad or merely blindly moving forward. Of course, what "b...
CONTINUE READINGVaccination, Enlightenment Values, and the Founders
Anti-vaxxers and climate deniers are abandoning America’s founding values.
Ironically, those who most trumpet their allegiance to the Founders often have least in common with their values. The Founding Fathers were men of the Enlightenment. They shared a belief that reason, free inquiry, and science would better the human condition. They looked to reason as a guide. They sought, in Jefferson's words, to expunge "every form of tyranny over the mind of man." Medicine was one area where the Enlightenment saw the potential for reason and sc...
CONTINUE READINGThe Opioid Epidemic and Vaccine Hesitancy
The places hit hardest by opioids are often skeptical of vaccines. That’s probably not a coincidence.
The opioid crisis was the product of corporate greed run amok and a corrupted regulatory process. That crisis may have amplified deep distrust of the pharmaceutical industry and its government watchdogs — distrust that may now be reflected in vaccine skepticism. First, a little history. The manufacturer, Purdue Pharma, aggressively promoted the use of oxycontin, courting doctors with promotional material and assiduously pushing individual doctors to make ever-more...
CONTINUE READINGThe Northwest Extreme Heat Wave Is a Call to Policy Action
Extreme heat in the Pacific Northwest over the past few weeks shattered records - 108º in Seattle, 116º in Portland, 121º in Lytton, BC, the day before a wildfire devastated the town - and has been linked to hundreds of deaths, a number that will surely increase as local officials gather more information. It has melted streetcar infrastructure, buckled roads, and threatened crops. It is an unmistakable climate change disaster, and unsurprisingly it is disproportionate...
CONTINUE READINGJefferson’s Bridge
Anticipating modern environmental views, Jefferson viewed nature as a public trust.
Today being the Fourth of July, it seems appropriate to think about how the author of the Declaration of Independence felt about nature. A revealing example involves some land Jefferson owned between Lexington and Roanoke, which he sought to preserve. Two years before the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson purchased 157 acres of land from the King. He bought the land because it contained a remarkable feature -- a 200-foot natural bridge carved out of the rock ...
CONTINUE READINGThe Illusions of Takings Law
Nothing is as it seems, when the issue is whether a regulation is a “taking” of property.
For the last century, the Supreme Court has tried to operationalize the idea that a government regulation can be so burdensome that it amounts to a seizure of property. In the process, it has created a house of mirrors, a maze in which nothing is as it seems. Rules that appear crisp and clear turn out to be mushy and murky. Judicial rulings that seem to expand the rights of property owners turn out to undermine those rights. The Court’s decision last week in Cedar Poin...
CONTINUE READINGCalculating the Extinction Cost of Carbon
Or, how many megatons do we need to cut to prevent one extinction?
Economists often talk about the social cost of carbon, which basically translates the harm done by a ton of CO2 into dollars. The dollar metric is less useful as applied to ecological impacts like species extinctions than impacts of humans. It may be better to skip the dollar conversion, and just ask how much a ton of CO2 raises the likelihood of an additional species going to extinct. In short, what’s the extinction cost of carbon? There are uncertainties in ...
CONTINUE READINGThe Ongoing Tension over Stormwater Discharges in Los Angeles
Upcoming hearings on a proposed new MS4 permit will set the stage for the future of water quality throughout LA County
[Disclosure: The Frank G. Wells Environmental Clinic at UCLA School of Law is representing Los Angeles Waterkeeper on matters related to the subject of this post. I will shortly be joining Los Angeles Waterkeeper as a Staff Attorney. However, like all other Legal Planet posts, this post reflects only my own views and opinions.] The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board (“Regional Board”) is in the process of issuing a new permit for water discharges...
CONTINUE READINGClimate News from Capitol Hill
There are small but hopeful signs of progress in overcoming legislative gridlock.
Over a decade ago, the Waxman-Markey carbon trading bill died in the Senate. President Obama then had to rely entirely on administrative actions to address climate change. Republicans united in a solid wall of violent opposition to climate action. There are some hopeful signs that things may not be quite so tough for President Biden. Here’s a rundown of what’s happened in the past couple of weeks. Methane emissions. The House voted to overturn a Trump rule der...
CONTINUE READINGThe Regulatory Process: FAQs
Here’s an explainer on how federal regulations get issued and reviewed by courts.
Even most lawyers, let alone the rest of the population, are a bit fuzzy on how the regulatory system works. As the Biden Administration is gearing up to start a slew of regulatory proceedings, here’s what you need to know about the process. Issuing Regulations Q: Where do agencies like EPA get the power to create regulations? A: EPA and other agencies are created by Congress. They also get the power to issue regulations from laws passed by Congress. For...
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