Geoengineering and Conflicts of Interest?
Is it unethical for scientists studying techniques to geoengineer the earth's climate to advocate for additional government funding to expand the study of the science and geopolitics of the topic? That's the conclusion of a recent Guardian article that criticizes Harvard's David Keith and the Carnegie Institute's Ken Caldeira for a) receiving outside money to study geoengineering; b) having stakes in companies that are developing technology that could be used for geo...
CONTINUE READINGNew Pritzker Brief on Green Chemistry
If you have not yet seen it, I encourage you to check out our newest Pritzker Policy Brief, on California's Green Chemistry regulations. Written by our own Timothy Malloy, Toxics in Consumer Products takes a critical look at these new regulations. Fellow blogger Matt Kahn mentioned the other day that he was a big fan of California's Green Chemistry Initiative. I agree that the green chemistry movement shows a lot of promise for improving our largely ineffective chemic...
CONTINUE READINGDoes Anti-Environmental Literature Exist?
Paradise, For SomeIf you check out any list of top environmental writing (ours, for instance), you'll notice that it is less a list of writing about the environment, and more a list of writing concerning how to protect the environment. In other words, at some level it takes an explicit normative view. Now, that normative view is a big tent: Edward Abbey detested cities, and David Owen thinks that they are greener than rural areas. But all seem to think that prote...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia’s Attorney General Steps Up Environmental Enforcement Efforts
A recent development worth noting is California Attorney General Kamala Harris' increased profile when it comes to environmental enforcement. Harris, the first woman and minority Attorney General in California history, had a busy first year in office. Her razor-thin election win in November 2010 took over a month to be confirmed, delaying her transition from San Francisco District Attorney to California's chief law officer. Upon taking office as Attorney General a...
CONTINUE READINGSelf-Reliant Moocher Hypocrites
The Shrill One has an interesting post on "self-reliant moochers," i.e. those states (and voters) who loudly proclaim their flinty self-reliance and then rely on government transfers. Turns out that conservative states rely much more heavily on government transfers than Blue staters supposedly addicted to the "cradle-to-grave assurance government will always be the solution." An estimated three people nationwide were surprised. But for once, Krugman is too...
CONTINUE READINGEncouraging Green Supply Chains
The recent news reports about Apple's supply chains raises similar issues about "green supply chains". Modern products, such as a hybrid vehicle or a cell phone or a computer or solar panels and batteries, are complex creatures. In producing such products through a global supply chain, what environmental harm has been created? Do major "good" companies such as Toyota or Apple have the right incentives to seek out input suppliers who take care to try to minimize th...
CONTINUE READINGWhat’s it like to be climate scientist Michael Mann? Think bounty (not the good kind)
Renowned climate scientist Michael Mann was at UCLA and the Emmett Center today to give a talk promoting his soon-to-be-released book, "The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines." Mann, who has been called "one of the most vilified men in the highly vilified field of climate science," created the famed "hockey stick" long-term temperature graph and was a central figure in the 2009 email hacking scandal. He has withstood personal attack...
CONTINUE READINGThe PM2.5 Risk: Even Greater Than We Thought
The more we find out about ultra-fine particles called PM2.5, the more dangerous to health they seem to be. E&E News reports: The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center study, published in tomorrow's Archives of Internal Medicine, found a "strong association" between exposure to fine-particle pollution and strokes. The study was funded in part by U.S. EPA and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. . . . Researchers suggested there is a strong link ...
CONTINUE READINGNinth Circuit Dumps U.S. Forest Service’s Sierra Plan, Bureaucratic-Speak
The U.S. Court of Appeals recently issued a major decision invalidating the U.S. Forest Service's 2004 Plan directing the USFS's management of the 11 national forests (totaling 11.5 million acres) in the Sierra Nevada range. A divided Ninth Circuit panel found that the environmental impact statement accompanying the Bush Administration plan--which loosened logging and grazing restrictions previously imposed in the waning days of the Clinton Administration--violated t...
CONTINUE READINGChina Vice-President Xi Jinping in America: some thoughts on US-China environmental collaboration
Some sobering developments confront us on the climate and environment front as Vice-President (and future head of China) Xi Jinping prepares to visit the United States this week. Despite an unprecedented push to reduce pollution and develop cleaner energy sources, China’s emissions of greenhouse gases and traditional pollutants have continued to soar. Chinese annual greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) surpassed the US in 2007. In 2010, they were 20% greater. By 201...
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