Not Just About the Climate
The benefits of the energy transition transcend climate.
The main reason to control carbon is to protect the climate. But cleaning up the energy system has plenty of other benefits. Those benefits will flow to people in rural areas as well as urban ones, to national security and international development, and to nature itself. To begin with, there are the health benefits of the energy transition away from fossil fuels. As we clean up our energy system, we simultaneously reduce the tons of pollutants we now produce from bu...
CONTINUE READINGEmergency? Part 2
Renewable Siting and Transmission
We give lots of lip service describing climate change as an emergency or existential threat. According to the Climate Emergency Declaration Organization, 2336 jurisdictions around the world have declared it to be an emergency, but we are not really acting like it. There are many possible emergency actions. I’m looking at 6 that could make a significant difference, are doable, but require real sacrifice and hard choices: Ending financing of fossil fuel projec...
CONTINUE READINGWhat Happened During the Montana Youth Climate Trial
The state argued that Held v. Montana is a boring case about procedure. The kids made a compelling case that climate action is part of Montana’s constitutional obligation to maintain a healthy environment.
The very first American trial of a youth climate lawsuit was hardly blockbuster Court TV, but we learned a lot from the proceedings. The bench trial took place last month in the state capitol, Helena, where 16 youth plaintiffs ages 5 to 22 made the case that Montana’s unwavering promotion of fossil fuels violates the state constitution’s guarantee to a “clean and healthful environment.” As I outlined here, Montana state law prohibits the consideration of g...
CONTINUE READINGThe NEPA Amendments in Nine Blog Posts
Surveying the legal problems of the biggest NEPA changes in the past fifty years.
On June 5, President Biden signed the debt ceiling bill, which provides the first significant rewrite of NEPA since it was passed over fifty years ago. In a series of blog posts, I’ve explored some of the legal issues raised by the amendments. My goal has been highlighting problem areas rather than providing anything like a definitive analysis. Given how new the amendments are and the lack of much guidance at this point, I thought it would be useful to provide an ...
CONTINUE READINGRFK Jr. and Climate Change
Even on the environment, his views are strange and unsettling.
Robert Kennedy, Jr., has polled surprisingly well so far. That may well be a fluke, but it may be worth taking a look at his views at this point. Unlike his views on vaccines, his views on climate change don’t involve blanket denial of science. But they do involve some of the same populist fears of conspiracy by elites. Let’s begin with his deep distrust of EPA, which rivals that of the Republicans who want to abolish it although the reasons are quite different....
CONTINUE READINGCan We Reach Net Zero without Carbon Markets and Offsets?
By presuming markets are the only option for developing and scaling new techniques and technologies we ignore the lessons of history.
The rapid spread of net zero targets in climate policy has been accompanied by a surge of interest in offsetting markets. In our market economies it is easy to presume that net targets will get delivered by offsetting residual emissions against carbon removals. But the Paris Agreement actually only specifies that global aggregate residual emissions be in balance with sinks. Net zero therefore does not require one-to-one matching of units of carbon emitted and removed. ...
CONTINUE READINGAfter Sackett: A Multi-Prong Strategy
The Supreme Court’s wetlands opinion was terrible. Now what we do?
The Supreme Court’s opinion in the Sackett case dramatically curtails the permitting program covering wetlands. We urgently need to find strategies for saving the wetlands the Court left unprotected. We have a number of possible strategies and need to start work on implementing them immediately. Sackett was unquestionably a major blow, reducing federal jurisdiction over wetlands beyond what even the Trump Administration embraced. A wetland is now covered only i...
CONTINUE READINGEmergency?
What If We Really Acted as if Climate Change is an Emergency
The world's scientists warn of massive disruption to the planet in report after report. The leading edge of that disruption is already here. Wildfire in Canada, smoke in NYC, heat domes in Texas, massive heat in the Atlantic ocean are just some of this month's news. We give lots of lip service describing climate change as an emergency or existential threat. According to the Climate Emergency Declaration Organization, 2336 jurisdictions around the world have declared...
CONTINUE READINGNature and the Pursuit of Happiness
The original understanding of an inalienable right.
What is the "pursuit of happiness," which the Declaration of Independence says is an inalienable right? It sounds like this is about freedom from governmental restrictions on your activities. So, in modern terms, it seemed to mean that the government can’t stop you from “doing your own thing.” But that can't be right. The Declaration says we have an inalienable right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The reference to “liberty” alrea...
CONTINUE READINGTechnology’s Role in Governing Sustainable Food Systems
Digitalization is altering how we understand the environment and act upon issues of sustainability.
This article is a summary of the third interview in a three-part interview series that explores how digitalization is reshaping environmental governance. I spoke with Sake Kruk who’s a Ph.D. researcher at the Environmental Policy Group at Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands. His research examines how digital technologies are ushering in a new form of environmental governance within food systems, specifically as it relates to sustainability assurance within a...
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