Adapting to Increased Fire Risk in the West
The LA Times features two really good opinion pieces today about environmental issues. One is by my colleague Glen MacDonald and the other is by Alyson Kenward. Glen's piece provides new empirical evidence challenging the climate skeptics while Alyson Kenward discusses elevated fire risk in the American West. Kenward's piece isn't long enough to discuss the "human dimension". How do we set up the rules of the game to adapt to this new fire risk? Permit me to sketch ...
CONTINUE READING“I Like Coal” — Romney Doubles Down on Fossil Fuels
Most the post-debate commentary focuses on the "horse race" perspective -- which candidate lost or gained ground? But substance matters, too. Romney made it absolutely clear that he's in favor of pumping as much carbon in the atmosphere as possible. Among other things, he staunchly defended tax loopholes favoring the oil industry and attacked financial aid to renewable energy. Here are some of his key other comments: "And, by the way, I like coal. I'm going to m...
CONTINUE READINGBarry Commoner’s Instructive Errors
The reflections published since the death of Barry Commoner a few days ago – including here by Dan Farber, and in many other places – have appropriately celebrated Commoner’s huge contributions to environmental science, and to raising public and political awareness of the gravity of environmental risks and the need to reduce them. But these reflections have largely overlooked other points of Commoner’s argument and advocacy – about diagnosing the causes of env...
CONTINUE READINGTo See What Is In Front Of One’s Nose…
"... is a constant struggle." -- George Orwell. In my post a couple of days ago, I neglected to mention one huge issue before the Supreme Court in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum. Although the Court originally granted cert on the issue of corporate liability, the Supremes kicked it back last February for reargument this term on the issue of extraterritoriality. In the light most favorable to the defendants, Kiobel involves a case between plaintiffs who are not US ...
CONTINUE READINGHeller versus Berkley in the Silver State
As in other states, the Nevada Senate race features a gap between the "greener" Democratic candidate, Shelley Berkley, and the Republican Dean Heller. But it plays out a little differently. Heller's website is strangely reticent about energy and environmental issues, while Berkley focuses heavily on the issues most relevant to Nevada -- renewable energy and public lands. Heller's website, rather unusually, does not have pages devoted either to energy or to environm...
CONTINUE READINGJust Overheard
A non-renewable natural resource walks into a bar. The bartender growls at it. "Sorry -- nothing for you! You've been getting wasted all day!" Thank you, thank you; I'll be here all week. ...
CONTINUE READINGBarry Commoner and Our Interconnected World
Barry Commoner was born in Brooklyn in 1917 and died there yesterday, having helped conceptualize environmentalism in the meantime. You can learn more about his life from the NY Times obituary. Commoner is probably best known today for his four environmental "laws": Everything is connected to everything else. Everything must go somewhere. Nature knows best. There is no such thing as a free lunch. I have been particularly struck by the first of these laws. Common...
CONTINUE READINGShould Environmental Lawyers Care about the Alien Tort Statute?
The Supreme Court term tomorrow opens with a bang: Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, which has assumed very large significance in the international human rights community. But should Legal Planet readers care? I think that they should. The plaintiffs in Kiobel allege that Royal Dutch Petroleum (better known in the United States as Shell Oil) aided and abetted the military government of Nigeria (from 1992 to 1995)in a systematic campaign of torture, extrajudicial ...
CONTINUE READINGPaul Ryan and the National Carbon Debt
Climate denialists applauded Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan for what they call Ryan's "awesome energy & climate record." That's not surprising: Ryan does have a clear record on climate change. As ThinkProgress has documented: Ryan has voted to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from limiting greenhouse pollution, to eliminate White House climate advisers, to block the U.S. Department of Agriculture from preparing for climate disasters like the dr...
CONTINUE READINGUndecided Voters and Climate Change
If you tuned in to the Republican National Convention, you probably heard Republican nominee Mitt Romney take a stab at President Obama’s 2008 remarks about slowing the pace of global warming. Romney allowed his line to speak for itself, and delegates and the audience erupted in laughter. Yes, global warming was used as a laugh line at the RNC. Setting aside the obvious insult to the majority of Americans and 97% of scientists around the world who believe we nee...
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