Guest Blogger Ken Alex: An EV in Every Garage
Ken Alex is a Senior Advisor to Governor Jerry Brown and the Director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research. The views expressed in this blog post are his own. Four years ago, the number of electric vehicles on California roads was pretty close to zero. At the end of this year, it will be about 50,000. OK, compared to the totals, that’s not much. There are about 32 million vehicles in California (and 230 million in the U.S. and over 1 billion in ...
CONTINUE READINGThe Congressional Back Door Attack on California’s Environmental Programs
California's Environmental Programs
Today's Los Angeles Times reports on disturbing, broad-based efforts in Congress that threaten to eviscerate a host of California's cutting-edge environmental initiatives, most prominently its "Green Chemistry" program. The saga begins with the California Legislature's enactment of the state's "Green Chemistry Initiative" (GCI) in 2008. The overarching principle behind GCI is to mandate the design of chemical products and processes in a way that reduces or eliminat...
CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger Ken Alex: Climate Science and Public Belief
Ken Alex is a Senior Advisor to Governor Jerry Brown and the Director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research. The views expressed in this blog post are his own. In the book Collapse, Professor Jared Diamond asks, why do societies destroy themselves through disastrous decisions, even after they perceive the problem? Why, for example, did the denizens of Easter Island keep cutting down trees when they could not reforest? Diamond offers a series of answe...
CONTINUE READINGCongress and Energy Efficiency – The Tentative Steps of Shaheen-Portman
Senators Shaheen and Portman have created a bi-partisan bill to promote more efficient use of energy. It appears that they might succeed in getting it through the Senate, but the resulting bill would be missing most of its teeth. Is a toothless tiger better than no tiger at all? Perhaps surprisingly, the answer may be yes. Energy efficiency improvements benefit just about everyone, with the possible exception of the companies that want to sell us more energy. More effic...
CONTINUE READINGBenevolent Paternalism or “Tough Love”?: Two Approaches for Adapting to Climate Change
Homeowners in coastal Queens, NY are outraged that their home insurance rates are going to rise sharply. Some are threatening not to buy such insurance. Such individuals must be betting that they will be "too big to fail" and that some future benevolent government official will bail them out with FEMA $ when the next Hurricane Sandy knocks out their homes. If you bet on the Superbowl, you bet with your own $. What is the difference between buying a coastal home ...
CONTINUE READINGTexas’s Unsuccessful (And Self-Defeating) Defiance of EPA
Texas has lost another round of its battle to halt EPA regulation of greenhouse gases -- this time involving its effort to drag its feet on implementation of the regulations even if it could not undo them. The effect of Texas's action is that it lost the ability to help shape how the rules apply to Texas industry, instead handing additional power to EPA. In the Wild West, this was called shooting yourself in the foot. The issue related to rules for permits for greenho...
CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger Ken Alex: California’s Road to 2020 and Beyond
Ken Alex is a Senior Advisor to Governor Jerry Brown and the Director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research. The views expressed in this blog post are his own. Four years ago, when I was the head of the Attorney General’s environment section, I wrote a series of guest blogs for Legal Planet focusing on practical and legal issues in moving from a carbon-based economy in California to one based on renewables. Now, from the vantage point of the Govern...
CONTINUE READINGIs the Golden State Warriors’ Proposed Basketball Arena a Proper Public Trust Use?
The Bay Area's NBA franchise, the Golden State Warriors, is collaborating with San Francisco city officials to develop a new, state-of-the-art basketball arena on a site that literally sits atop San Francisco Bay. Few would argue that the region's basketball team--a perennial second-division NBA franchise until it surged into contention last season--needs a new arena. And many observers believe that the team would be both more financially viable and accessible to its...
CONTINUE READINGAdaptation to Increased Fire Risk in the South West
Read this WSJ article and you will see some "small ball" optimism about adapting to increased fire risk. Permit me to quote one wise retired professor; "Paul Ohlenbusch, a 73-year-old former professor, lives in a retirement community north of Austin, Texas, an area plagued by drought for several years. To protect his home from possible wildfires, he keeps his house gutters free of leaves and twigs, clears tree limbs from the roof and trims shrubs at least six inches fr...
CONTINUE READINGThe Retrospective Greening of Bill Clinton
Last week, the EPA building was renamed for Bill Clinton. This a bit ironic -- not that he was anti-environmental, but the environment wasn't exactly his top priority. As you may recall, Clinton's guiding philosophy was expressed by the motto, "It's the economy, stupid." There's no reason to think he has any particular passion about environmental protection. Admittedly, there was some good news for environmentalists under Clinton. Cost-benefit review of regula...
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