To Dream the Impossible Dream
What are the pros and cons of yesterday's proposal for a Green New Deal?
The Green New Deal proposal introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey is a call for drastic action to address climate change. Specifically, section 1(A) says that “it is the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal . . . to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers.” Section 2(C) says this and other goals should be “accomplished through a 10-year ...
CONTINUE READINGWhat is Environmental Justice, Anyway?
New UCLA Law Review Article Attempts To Connect It To Community Legal Empowerment
I have a new piece out in the UCLA Law Review Discourse. Here's the abstract: This Article considers Gitanjali Nain Gill’s recent book Environmental Justice in India, the first comprehensive look at India’s National Green Tribunal. India’s environmental crisis—major international surveys highlight its severe environmental degradation—is of interest to the global public, for no progress on climate change can be made without improving its environmental go...
CONTINUE READINGDoes the Future Have Standing?
Climate change may devastate future generations. Is there a way to get their interests before the courts?
Climate change is not just a long-range problem; it’s one that will get much worse in the future unless major emissions cuts are made. For instance, sea levels will continue to rise for centuries. But the people who will be harmed by these changes can’t go to court: they haven’t been born yet. How can their interests be represented in court? And even people now alive who might still be around in, say, 2100, will have trouble proving any injury is “imminent,” ...
CONTINUE READINGYour Religion and Science Post of the Day
An Important Philosophical Argument
It's a fair point: ...
CONTINUE READINGLA’s Trying to Build Transit-Oriented Affordable Housing
But could we make it easier?
My colleague Jonathan Zasloff rightly points out that one way to harness the benefits of upzoning to alleviate our housing crisis is to promote inclusionary requirements for transit-oriented development. Los Angeles has adopted just such a program through its Transit-Oriented Communities ordinance, which I’ve written about here. Per the City of Los Angeles’ initial assessment, the TOC Program appears to be on track to increasing the number of permitted affordabl...
CONTINUE READINGYellow Light for YIMBYs: Upzoning Can Increase Housing Prices
New Research Indicates That Inclusionary Zoning Should Accompany Liberalization
Well, that's not what YIMBYs wanted. Yonah Freemark of MIT in the Urban Affairs Review: What are the local-level impacts of zoning change? I study recent Chicago upzonings that increased allowed densities and reduced parking requirements in a manner exogenous of development plans and neighborhood characteristics. To evaluate outcomes, I use difference-in-differences tests on property transaction prices and housing-unit construction permits. I detect significant, robust ...
CONTINUE READINGBottoms-Up! An Emerging New Governance System (1)
In the past twenty years, climate policy has taken an unexpected form. Here's what to expect.
There’s been a major change in the way environmental governance works, which is most obvious in terms of climate policy. We initially expected climate policy to be set at the international level, followed by incorporation into national legislation, and implementation by agencies and lower levels of government like states. But this top-down governance scheme isn’t the way things of worked out. Instead, we have climate policy being made by nations, states, agencies...
CONTINUE READINGFlipping the Conservative Agenda
Thought experiment: take everything conservative want to do and then do the opposite.
Conservatives, with full support from Donald Trump have come up with a menu of ways to weaken the regulatory state. In honor of National Backward Day – that’s an actual thing, in case you’re wondering, and it’s today – let’s think about reversing those ideas. In other words, let’s try to come up with similar mechanisms to strengthen protections for public health and the environment instead of weakening protections. It’s an interesting experiment, if n...
CONTINUE READINGAfter Trump
Suppose we get a pro-climate-action unified government. What then?
Someday, the stars will surely come into alignment and Congress will be able to pass climate legislation. A national cap-and-trade scheme or a carbon tax would be definite possibilities. But let’s suppose they aren’t politically feasible, maybe because of opposition from progressive on equity grounds, or maybe because for some reason the public rejects them. What are the other options? Here are some thoughts: Existing ideas. Two ideas that are already on...
CONTINUE READINGCommemorating a Major Environmental Disaster–One With a Transformative Legacy
1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill Sparked the Beginning of America's Modern Environmental Era
This week marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most serious and consequential environmental disasters in American history--the Santa Barbara offshore oil spill of 1969. On January 28, 1969, an offshore oil rig (Platform A) owned and operated by the Union Oil Company and operating in federally-controlled waters in the Santa Barbara Channel off the California coast, blew out. Over the next 10 days, between 80,000-100,000 barrels of crude oil spilled into the Chan...
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