Resolving 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...
CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Rules Federal Flooding of State Forest Lands an Unconstitutional Taking
Today was a busy day for the environment in the U.S. Supreme Court. Not only did the justices hear arguments in a potentially-important Clean Water Act case. (More on that in a future post.) The Court also issued its first decision among the five environmental cases pending before it this Term--three of which involve property rights claims brought under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The Court's unanimous decision today in Arkansas Game and Fish Commission v...
CONTINUE READINGHow the Democrats’ Supermajority Can Improve California’s Downtowns
Now that Democrats in California have achieved the Pete Wilson Supermajority in the legislature, they should focus on two key reforms to revitalize the state's downtowns and ensure more efficient land use. First, the supermajority should put on the ballot a constitutional initiative to lower the threshold for passing local tax measures to fund transit. The current two-thirds threshold has handcuffed local governments and should be lowered to at least 55%. As I wrote a...
CONTINUE READINGFeeling the Heat
The forecast for the end of this century seems to be getting worse. New measurements, reported by E&E here, indicate that Greenland is shedding ice rapidly -- and Antarctica is also shedding: Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are shrinking three times faster than they were in the 1990s, and their contribution to global sea level rise is growing, according to a new study by many of the world's top ice experts. Melting of the two massive polar ice sheets raise...
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