Region: National
Six Sleeper Proposals in Project 2025
Project 2025 isn’t just its headline proposals. It’s a thorough, detailed attack on environmental protection.
Project 2025’s proposals involve reduced protection for endangered species, eliminating energy efficiency rules, blocking new transmission lines, changing electricity regulation to favor fossil fuels, weakening air pollution rules, and encouraging sale of gas guzzlers. There’s some pious talk about protecting the environment, but every proposal calls for weakening environmental protections.
CONTINUE READINGThe Dangerous Embrace of Convenient Narratives Over Inconvenient Truths
As it turns out, Nature doesn’t care what stories you post on social media or spin on TV.
When lying becomes seen as legitimate political discourse, we’re in deep trouble. It’s short step from blaming people for imaginary crimes to rounding them up and or using force to stop them. That’s why climate scientists get death threats. And yet, whatever threats are made or carried out, reality will remain what it is. You can denounce climate change as a Chinese hoax, but that won’t stop the warming waters of the Gulf from sending incredible storms your way.
CONTINUE READINGStill Crazy After All These Years
There’s been an alarming growth of conspiracy theories, often antisemitic ones, to explain extreme weather events.
Were the Democrats or lithium mining companies or international bankers behind Hurricane Helene? Is geoengineering a conspiracy to take over the planet? These conspiracy theories abound — not just in the corners of the Internet but in political figures like RFK Jr. and Marjorie Taylor Greene. And they’re beginning to influence state legislatures, including one that just banned geoengineering.
CONTINUE READINGGrid Experts Weigh in on EPA’s Power Plant Emissions Rule
The U.S. Supreme Court denied an emergency stay in West Virginia v. EPA, a challenge to EPA’s rule. Our UCLA Law clinic submitted a brief on behalf of grid experts in the case at the D.C. Circuit.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finalized emissions standards for greenhouse gases from power plants under Clean Air Act, Section 111(d). The rule sets pollution limits for existing coal plants and some new gas plants based on carbon capture and sequestration. In West Virginia v. EPA, a spate of states and industry parties …
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CONTINUE READINGWhy is EPA “Faceless”?
People complain about faceless bureaucrats. At least in part, that could be fixed.
How many people can name the head of EPA or even know the title of that office? About 5% of the population, would be my guess. Apart from Scott Pruitt, who became famous for his $20,000 phone booth, few people outside of the field could name any previous holder of the office.
CONTINUE READINGReflections on “Yes they can control the weather.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene is wildly wrong about government scientists controlling hurricanes. There is a rich history of weather modification experiments that make that false claim more dangerous.
Since U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted earlier this month that “Yes they can control the weather” — a bunch of commentators have pointed out that she’s wildly wrong. Yes, she’s wildly wrong. No one can make, intensify, or steer hurricanes. No ability to do anything like this is even on the horizon. Her comment …
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CONTINUE READINGModel Uncertainty in Politics and Climate Policy
The polls could be systematically off, not just due to random error. That’s a worry with climate models as well.
Yes, your favored candidate could sweep the swing states, and yes, climate change could be more moderate than we now expect. But that shouldn’t give you much comfort on either issue, since the errors could equally be in the opposite directions.
Obviously, we’d like to improve our models, but that’s not always easy. In the meantime, the smart thing is to plan on the basis of the best models we have but avoid overconfidence about our predictions.
CONTINUE READINGClimate, Energy, and Environment on the Ballot
Ballot measures in Washington and California are especially important but others are worth noting.
The two biggest state initiatives are a $10 billion green bond proposal in California and a proposed rollback of Washington State’s new cap-and-trade program. The outcomes of these and other initiatives will provide a barometer of public sentiment on environmental issues.
CONTINUE READINGThe Election, Vehicle Emissions, and State Climate Plans
If the California car waiver survives a possible Trump presidency, we may have the overruling of Chevron to thank.
If one single thing about the election keeps state environmental regulators up at night, it’s how much a Trump victory would impact their ability to cut transportation emissions. As it turns out, Trump’s leverage would be reduced, ironically enough, because his conservative Supreme Court appointees helped overrule the Chevron doctrine. Trump can still cause a …
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CONTINUE READINGHurricane Milton and this Climate Moment
We’re witnessing the collision of extreme weather, climate science, national news and politics. The question of “Who pays for climate disasters?” is about to become even more important.
When President Biden addressed the nation yesterday from the White House, he warned that Hurricane Milton could be one of the most destructive storms in more than a century, but he stopped short of explaining why — that climate change, fueled by our burning of fossil fuels, is making oceans warmer and storms stronger, capable …
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