The Political Path to Federal Climate Legislation
Grist has a number of very interesting posts discussing why the effort to pass climate change legislation failed in 2010 and how to succeed next time. The exchange was prompted by a major new paper by Theda Skocpol, a Harvard political scientist. She concludes: Ideological advocates, carbon industry dead-enders, and populist anti-government forces are the ones who hold sway in the GOP right now, including billionaire elites and grassroots activists fiercely opposed to ...
CONTINUE READINGAn Introduction to Environmental Economics
I'm a quirky teacher. I don't use textbooks and I try to focus on real world examples. Here are 30 short videos about environmental economics. Here are all of my course materials for my Winter 2013 Environmental Economics undergraduate course at UCLA. I focus on incentives and empirical hypothesis testing....
CONTINUE READINGTheda Skocpol on Federal Carbon Policy Design
Harvard's Theda Skocpol provides a compelling narrative and analysis of why Waxman-Markey didn't become law. In terms of my own empirical work, Kotchen and I document using Google Trends that interest in "global warming" fell in states with rising unemployment rates. Gurney, Zhou, Michael Cragg and I document that Conservative Representatives from high carbon and poor districts do not vote in favor of carbon regulation. Here is the published version of this ...
CONTINUE READINGIs CEQA “Greenmail” A Problem?
Via PropertyProf blog, here’s an article on the real estate blog LA Curbed in which they disclose a previously secret settlement agreement between an LA neighborhood group and a local developer. The agreement resolved potential CEQA litigation by the neighborhood group against a possible condo development proposed by the developer. In particular, Curbed is outraged that (a) the agreement is secret; (b) the agreement gives the neighborhood group $250,000 for “moni...
CONTINUE READINGThe Mystery of Koontz: “Why Are We Here?”
Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSBlog reports that the plaintiff's argument in the Court's highest-profile Takings case of the year, Koontz v. St. John's River Water Management District, did not go well. Both Rick and I have blogged about the case before, and the more I think about it, it seems to me that the case has been conceptualized incorrectly. Supposedly, Koontz is about a "failed exaction": in exchange for granting Koontz a permit, the Water District insisted on a mon...
CONTINUE READINGHow the EPA Saved America
If you don't follow political blogs, you may not have noticed Kevin Drum's outstanding story about how the decrease in crime over the last 20 years can largely be attributed to the sharp drops in lead ingestion. When I first heard the theory, I thought it was too good to be true, but Kevin's story has persuaded me. At the very least, the burden is on those who think that it is wrong, and so far, they have not put up anything. The theory isn't complicated: lead level...
CONTINUE READINGEarly Warning Signs
Change is (literally) in the air. For the U.S., last year broke heat records. "2012, the year of a surreal March heat wave, a severe drought in the Corn Belt and a huge storm that caused broad devastation in the Middle Atlantic States, turns out to have been the hottest year ever recorded in the contiguous United States." (NY TImes). This probably won't be true globally, however, because it was a La Niña year, but it's still likely to be in the top ten warmest years re...
CONTINUE READINGDeadly spike in Beijing’s air pollution
This graph shows recent air quality monitoring data (PM 2.5) from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. As the New York Times noted, this spike—seen as a thick haze in the city—has been described as "postapocalyptic." Thanks in no small part to the Clean Air Act, we have thus far avoided the need to walk around U.S. cities wearing Darth Vader masks. But perhaps we should send some masks to certain U.S. congresspersons who think the Clean Air Act should be repealed. The...
CONTINUE READINGSeaWorld Doesn’t Care THAT Much
As the father of an eight-year-old, I am painfully aware of the attractions of charismatic megafauna. Over the weekend, I took Rose to SeaWorld, pretty much the capital of charismatic megafauna, for an overnight with her YMCA youth group. We slept with the penguins, and saw lots of other -- well, charismatic megafauna. The highlight of the park is the killer whale show, at Shamu Stadium. I don't think I have been to SeaWorld in about thirty years, but one thing ...
CONTINUE READINGThe Shape of Things to Come
The National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee has issued a draft of its next report on U.S. climate impacts. The draft will no doubt change as a result of the public comment period, but the broad outlines are likely to stay the same. Here are some of the key predictions: Higher temperatures. "U.S. temperatures will continue to rise, with the next few decades projected to see another 2°F to 4°F of warming in most areas. The amount of warming by ...
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