Environmental Impacts of Fracking: Three Layers of the Onion
This summer, The Emmett Center at UCLA jointly sponsored with the Union of Concerned Scientists a two-day workshop on unconventional oil and gas production technologies, aka fracking: two days of expert working groups on science and risk assessment, law and regulation, and public information and engagement, followed by a public forum. The public forum was pretty contentious (the working groups less so), on all the issues dominating debates over fracking nationwide, i...
CONTINUE READINGIf we could see it, would we stop it?
Making carbon pollution visible.
Cross-posted at The Berkeley Blog. It's difficult to see something as a problem if we can't see it at all. That's one problem with coming to grips with greenhouse gas pollution. It doesn't show up in the air the way smog does, and its impacts aren't directly linked to emissions in perceptible ways. Interestingly, it turns out that's not just a challenge, it's a business opportunity. Carbon Visuals is "a business dedicated to helping everyone better understand c...
CONTINUE READINGPesticide Registration: Time for an Upgrade
UCLA Study Offers Recommendations to Improve the Pesticide Approval Process in California
We love our fresh fruits, vegetables and nuts in California. They are healthy for us and for our economy; California leads the nation with agricultural revenues of over 44 billion dollars annually, and produces nearly half of the fruits, nuts and vegetables grown in the U.S. But modern agriculture relies heavily on fumigants to produce this bounty in California and elsewhere in the United States. Fumigants are a form of pesticide typically applied to the soil be...
CONTINUE READINGA New Climate Threat: “Academic Freedom” Laws
The other day I suggested that climate advocates ought to start working in school board elections as a way of building long term political support for vigorous climate action. Well, it looks like they will need to start playing defense as well. October's Scientific American reports that climate deniers are now pushing the Orwellian "academic freedom" laws, which allow for the use of information only on creationist sites, many of which teach that the earth is no...
CONTINUE READINGReforming Groundwater Adjudications: New Pritzker Environmental Policy Brief
A new report discusses groundwater in CA.
The Emmett Center on Climate Change and the Environment has released its latest Pritzker Environmental Law and Policy Brief, "Allocating Under Water: Reforming California's Groundwater Adjudications." California leads the nation in groundwater extraction, but it lags behind in updating groundwater-related laws and regulations. As a result, protracted litigation clogs the courts and often fails to protect water resources. Allocating Under Water identifies key reform...
CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Law Hiring (Updated)
Job descriptions for Environmental Law positions around the country
As promised, here is an updated list of schools hiring in the area of environmental law: The Florida State University College of Law seeks to hire a lateral, tenure-track faculty member to fill a named professorship and teach in the areas of environmental law, energy law, land use, natural resources law, coastal and ocean law, or water law, or a combination of these. The College of Law is especially interested in senior lateral candidates. Please send a CV to Professo...
CONTINUE READINGToday’s House Subcommittee Hearing on Climate Change
President Obama’s recent announcement on climate change irritated some in Congress—but we didn’t need a hearing to find that out.
Today, Republican leaders in the House Energy and Power Subcommittee called a hearing to discuss climate change. Has the Right suddenly taken an interest in responding to climate change? As you might anticipate, the answer is no. The hearing, entitled “The Obama Administration’s Climate Change Policies and Activities,” focused on attacks to the President’s Climate Action Plan, challenging the Plan’s application and assumptions, from the need to address c...
CONTINUE READINGBreaking News: Ninth Circuit Upholds California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard
Does California's life cycle analysis of the carbon intensity of transportation fuel facially discriminates against out-of-state ethanol?
In a sweeping victory for the California Air Resources Board, the Ninth Circuit today issued an opinion in Rocky Mountain Farmers Union v. Corey upholding the state's Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) and reversing a lower court ruling that the LCFS facially discriminated against interstate commerce in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The court also vacated the lower court's injunction preventing the LCFS from going into effect. The vote was 2-1 with Judges Doroth...
CONTINUE READINGShould Climate Advocates Fight School Board Elections?
Climate advocates might take a lesson from one of the most significant political movements of the last four decades: evangelical Christians.
Why have climate advocates failed in creating political support for significant climate policy? Amy Luers thinks she knows. In her recent piece, Rethinking US Climate Advocacy, her abstract states: It is time to reassess climate advocacy. To develop a strategy for philanthropy to strengthen climate engagement, I interviewed over 40 climate advocates, more than a dozen representatives from the foundation community, and a dozen academics. My assessment led me ...
CONTINUE READINGSingle-Family Houses: A Smart Growth Strategy
Single family homes are a smart growth strategy as long they are planned and developed, well, smartly.
Sunday's New York Times features a story by Shaila Dewan asking, "Is Suburban Sprawl on the Way Back?" Answer: not really, although highly compact urban development is hardly going to dominate, either. The best quote from the whole piece comes from Smart Growth America President Geoff Anderson, who correctly observed, The market isn’t all for smart growth, nor is it all for sprawl, The thing for the last 50, 60 years has been that we’ve done nothing but s...
CONTINUE READINGJoin Our Mailing List
Climate policy is changing rapidly. Stay in the loop with expert analysis via email Monday - Friday.
