Chanukah as an Environmentalists’ Debate
The other day I suggested that Chanukah might be considered a paradigmatic environmental holiday because God's central miracle essentially entailed energy conservation: The Temple Menorah as Prius. A teacher of mine (an Orthodox rabbi who moonlights as a professional photographer), said that he could accept that, but that he sees Chanukah as a demonstration of what can know and what we cannot know. Some miracles are really miracles: they cannot be explained through t...
CONTINUE READINGGuest bloggers from Berkeley Law Environmental Law Society: Contextualizing Secretary Salazar’s Recent Decision on Oyster Farming at Point Reyes
NOTE: This post is by Legal Planet guest bloggers Nell Green Nylen, Heather Welles, Dan Carlin, Elisabeth Long, and Mary Loum, all members of UC Berkeley’s Environmental Law Society during the 2011–12 academic year. (See more details about the work of these law students and new lawyers at the end of the post.) If you have been following the controversy surrounding oyster farming in Drakes Estero, part of California’s Point Reyes National Seashore, you might ha...
CONTINUE READINGChanukah: The Ultimate Environmental Festival
"To see what is in front of one's nose is a constant struggle." -- George Orwell. Every now and then, something hits you right between the eyes, and you wonder why you didn't see it before. Thus it is that I realized this morning that Chanukah, which begins this Saturday evening, is the paradigmatic environmental holiday. Consider the miracle that is said to be the touchstone for Chanukah: the Temple's oil, which was only enough for one day, actually lasted for eight...
CONTINUE READINGResolving the Artificial vs. Natural Holiday Tree Debate
Three years ago, Dan posted about the Great Environmental Christmas Tree Debate: Which has greater environmental impacts, a real or artificial holiday tree? As of his 2009 post, Dan was unable to find a life-cycle analysis (LCA) comparing the “cradle-to-grave” (pinecone-to-mulch? petroleum-based plastic polymers-to-photo-degraded plastic gyre particles?) impacts of holiday tree alternatives. Fortunately, we now have an answer. The American Christmas Tree Assoc...
CONTINUE READINGYes, California Can Spend the Cap-and-Trade Auction Proceeds
California's 2012-13 budget assumed that $500 million of cap-and-trade auction proceeds could be used to offset the cost of greenhouse gas emission reduction programs traditionally supported by the General Fund. Two recent stories, one in the San Francisco Chronicle, the other in ClimateWire, report that since the California Legislative Analyst's office found only $100 million in such savings, State officials may be legally barred from spending the remaining $400 milli...
CONTINUE READINGLA River oral argument: the Justices debate how to tell the Ninth Circuit that it screwed up
I attended the oral argument on Tuesday in L.A. Flood Control District v. NRDC. (See Sean's post for an in-depth background on the case, and Richard's initial reactions to the oral argument). The Justices were actively engaged and appeared to have a strong grasp of the underlying facts about the District's MS4. Much of the questioning focused on two issues: how liability is determined under the MS4 permit for water quality violations and what the Ninth Circuit might do...
CONTINUE READINGA Plea from Doha
As Jonathan has noted, the international climate negotiations now underway in Doha, Qatar are receiving little media attention and are not expected to result in a major political breakthrough. And, most of the time, it's difficult for those not in the melee to parse the speeches, interventions, and positions taken by countries at these talks, largely shrouded in a combination of diplomatese and technospeak. Every once in a while, however, an authentic plea breaks thro...
CONTINUE READINGBreaking News: Judge Rules San Diego’s SB 375 Transportation Plan Violates State Environmental Law
San Diego Superior Court Judge Timothy Taylor today ruled that the San Diego Association of Government's (SANDAG) regional transportation plan, with a sustainability chapter as required by SB 375, violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Judge Taylor concluded that the environmental review accompanying the plan, as required by CEQA, did not sufficiently analyze the greenhouse gas impacts of the plan through 2050. SB 375 requires transportation plans lik...
CONTINUE READINGToday’s Supreme Court Arguments in Los Angeles County Flood Control District
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals got no love from either the U.S. Supreme Court or the advocates appearing before it today in Los Angeles County Flood Control District v. Natural Resources Defense Counsel. Nor did a previously-unheard-from government actor similarly absent from the Supreme Court chambers today. Yesterday Sean Hecht posted on the long and tortured history of the Los Angeles County Flood Control District case, and I won't repeat his exhaustive anal...
CONTINUE READINGChallenging L.A. candidates to get specific on environmental sustainability
What would a sustainable Los Angeles look like? Most agree that we want L.A. to have air that doesn’t make us sick; we could do with a lot less traffic and better transit; we want clean, reliable power and water; we should fight pollution hotspots; and we want well-paying jobs that can sustain our communities into the future. But how do we make more progress on these fronts? No matter how earnestly we want something to happen, unless we define a goal and measure p...
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