The “African COP”
Some of the expectations for this year's Conference of Parties of the international climate treaty, the UNFCCC, related to its host country, South Africa. Many had hoped that the COP's location in Africa this year would help to highlight the serious issue of climate change impacts in developing countries, often the least responsible for climate emissions but also the least well equipped to deal with floods, droughts, heat waves, and other harms. So far in Durban, issues...
CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Grants Review in Criminal Environmental Enforcement Case
The U.S. Supreme Court is obviously interested in environmental enforcement, or at least the legal issues arising out of environmental enforcement cases. Today, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in a second environmental enforcement case it will hear and decide in its current Term. Southern Union Co v. United States, No. 11-94. This follows the justices' earlier cert grant in Sackett v. USEPA, a lawsuit challenging EPA's practice of issuing administrative enforcemen...
CONTINUE READINGThe Cost of Renewable Energy Put Into Perspective
Would you be willing to pay 3 ½ cents a day to reduce the pollution from the electric power you use by 40%? In a recent article, the San Francisco Chronicle talked about the high price of adding renewable energy to the grid. Citing a study prepared by the California Public Utilities Commission’s Division of Ratepayer Advocates, it reported that, on average, new contracts for renewable power are 15% more expensive than power from a natural gas plant. The implication...
CONTINUE READINGKivalina and the Courts: Justice for America’s First Climate Refugees?
It's hard not to sympathize with the Native Alaskan inhabitants of the Village of Kivalina. The 400 residents of Kivalina, a thin peninsula of land in Alaska jutting into the Chuckchi Sea north of the Arctic Circle, have the dubious distinction of being among the first climate refugees in the U.S. Their town is literally melting away, a victim of twin impacts of climate change: rising sea levels and warmer Arctic temperatures that are destroying the permafrost upon whic...
CONTINUE READINGAnti-Urbanism in American Life: The Case of the Passport
For Thanksgiving, I was in Montreal for a family event, which was a little funny, since Canadian Thanksgiving went by about six weeks ago. But it did give me an opportunity to see a strange tick in one part of America's self-conception. Take a look at your US passport. In the section for visas, you will the standard collection of great sayings, as well as a standard collection of idyllic American scenes. Notice something missing? There isn't a single picture of...
CONTINUE READINGGetting Set for Durban
Along with two students from our environmental law clinic, Rhead Enion and I are traveling to Durban, South Africa today as observer delegates to the annual meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Dan noted in a recent post that the Durban meeting has been largely flying under the radar of public attention, especially as compared with the UN Copenhagen meeting two years ago (which I am told was, for a brief moment, the most Googled subject in the world)...
CONTINUE READINGPilgrims versus Vikings: A Thanksgiving Fable
Once upon a time, there were two places that people settled from a great distance. But they had very different histories. You could call them the "Tale of Thanksgiving" and the "Tale of the Un-Thanksgiving." The first story is about religious dissenters who fled their homeland. We all know the story: they nearly starved until they learned from the local indigenous people the skills they needed to survive. In gratitude, settlers held a feast in honor of their in...
CONTINUE READINGIn Memory: UC Berkeley Chancellor and Professor Ira Michael Heyman
It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Ira Michael Heyman, Chancellor of UC Berkeley from 1980 to 1990 and Professor Emeritus at Berkeley Law, where he had been a faculty member since 1959. He passed away on Saturday at the age of 81. A tremendously wise, kind, and generous soul, Professor Heyman was one of Berkeley's first land use and environmental law professors and taught property at Boalt until 2004. He leaves a legacy of more than five decades o...
CONTINUE READINGRescuing Baby Penguins
More than 2000 sea birds died following an oil spill off New Zealand. However, over forty blue penguins have been cleaned of oil and released. The photo shows little sweaters that people knitted to help keep them warm....
CONTINUE READINGPoll Results on Cap and Trade
I thought people might be interested in the results of our poll of readers on cap-and-trade: California has just adopted a cap and trade system. All things considered, do you think that cap and trade is the best strategy for controlling greenhouse gases? No, a carbon tax would be better. 56% Yes, cap and trade is the best approach.20% No, regulations of individual sources would be better. 13% Other 6% No, it would be better to invest in developing new technologies ...
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