Russell Train (1920-2012)
We are saddened by the new of the death of Russell Train earlier today. Mr. Train headed the Council on Environmental Quality under Nixon and later EPA under Ford. He represented a happier time when environmental protection was a bipartisan goal. Mr. Train's father had served Herbert Hoover as an aide. He was a judge on the U.S. Tax Court when he resigned to head the Conservation Foundation. After that, he devoted himself to environmental protection. The NY Times...
CONTINUE READINGOrganic Farming and the Environment
A Stanford study of organic food garnered lots of media attention last week (here's coverage on NPR, in the New York Times and on CNN). The bottom line: organic foods, by and large, according to the Stanford researchers, confer few health advantages when compared to their conventional counterparts. Critics of the study -- or at least of the media coverage -- argued that most consumers of organic food don't purchase it for added nutritional benefits but to...
CONTINUE READINGClimate Change and National Security
The two parties disagree sharply about whether climate change can be considered a threat to our national security. A recent paper by Andrew Guzman (Berkeley) and Jody Freeman (Harvard) summarizes the support for this idea among serious students of national security: In 2008, the National Intelligence Council produced the most comprehensive analysis to date of the implications of climate change for U.S. national security over the next twenty years. According to news rep...
CONTINUE READINGSilent Spring and Cost/Benefit Analysis
The NY Times has published a book review about Rachel Carson. Here is my favorite part of the review; "As Carson and her publisher expected, the chemical industry pounced on “Silent Spring” — even as it climbed best-seller lists — for overstating the downside and ignoring the upsides of pesticides. (Souder quotes Carson directly defending herself only once. California, one of the few states with accurate records, she said, was reporting “as many as 1,000 acc...
CONTINUE READINGOn “pretextual” listings of species for protection under the Endangered Species Act
The folks over at Pacific Legal Foundation’s (PLF) blog have been nice enough to post about an article that I co-authored with Berry Brosi at Emory University (paywall protected, unfortunately!). The article investigates the role that citizen petitions and citizen suits play in the process of listing species for protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). We of course appreciate the publicity (any publicity is good publicity, right?). But at the risk of soun...
CONTINUE READINGGreen Tradeoffs
The NY Times reports that Japan and France are phasing out their reliance on nuclear power. As an environmentalist, should this make me happy? It doesn't. How confident are you that renewables such as wind and solar can replace nuclear power at roughly the same cost? In the short run, GHG emissions in both of these nations will rise as they are likely to substitute to natural gas for a larger share of electricity generation. If the price of electricity inc...
CONTINUE READINGUncertainty in environmental law
Last week’s New York Times Sunday magazine had two interesting articles that have relevance for environmental law and policy, specifically about how environmental law deals with uncertainty. The first one has an obvious connection: It’s about Arlene Blum, a chemist (and mountain climber!) who is leading a campaign to end a legal mandate that requires all upholstered furniture in California to contain fire-retardant chemicals, chemicals that might have significant ad...
CONTINUE READINGSetting the Record Straight on Obama and the Environment
The NY Times quoted a prominent environmental activist as saying that Obama's policies are "almost indistinguishable from the policies of the Bush administration." (here) The story suggested that this attitude was not unique, calling "many fossil fuel critics disillusioned and unwilling to do much to support the president." Believing that Obama's policies are similar to Bush's, or that little is at stake in this election environmentally, simply ignores reality. To b...
CONTINUE READINGOcean-based renewable power starts to get real
As drilling for oil in the Arctic begins to pick up, and while each of the U.S. presidential candidates tries to convince voters that he is the one who could approve more offshore oil permits, what has become of the dream of mining our vast offshore renewable energy resources -- wind, waves, and tides? According to TG Daily, on September 13th, the Bangor Hydro Electric Company confirmed that electricity was flowing to the grid from the Cobscook Bay Tidal Project in Main...
CONTINUE READINGReasonably Libertarian: Gary Johnson’s Environmental Views
Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson isn't exactly a household name, but it looks like he's going to be on the ballot in nearly all states. That made me curious about his environmental positions. I have to admit that Johnson's views were better than I expected. You can't really call Johnson an environmentalist, but he looks quite good compared with Ron Paul and others. Ron Paul, as you may recall from an earlier post (here), wanted to abolish all pollution regulation.�...
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