Can YouTube improve traffic congestion?
My old friend Zabe Bent, planner with the SF County Transportation Authority, hopes so. Check out the video she and SFCTA created to inspire public participation in the SF Transportation Plan process, which is setting goals and priorities for transportation funding in SF over the next 25 years. It's a funny send-up of planning lingo and an acknowledgement of the conundrum sometimes faced by community members seeking to engage in processes dominated by policy wonks, p...
CONTINUE READINGEnergy Efficiency and National Energy Policy
Renewable energy gets a lot of public attention, but energy efficiency is equally important. According to a 2010 report from the National Academy of Science: Energy-efficient technologies for residences and commercial buildings, transportation, and industry exist today, or are expected to be developed in the normal course of business, that could potentially save 30 percent of the energy used in the U.S. economy while also saving money. If energy prices are high enough ...
CONTINUE READINGWhy Does the GOP Have Greens Seeing Red?
The peerless Ron Brownstein asks why are Republicans, even those in swing districts, going out of their way to attack the EPA and the environment generally. His answers are interesting for the environmental movement. 1) Enormous pressure for GOP caucus cohesion, especially in light of the retirement of Republican environmental stalwarts like former Rep. Sherwood Boehlert of New York; 2) Money, money, money: "So far in the 2012 cycle, coal and oil and gas interes...
CONTINUE READINGClimate Change: A Plausibility Check
No doubt there are many reasons for the existence of climate skepticism, but at least one is probably based on a sense of scale. The amount of CO2 emissions is large in absolute term -- now about 10 gigatons per year roughly speaking -- but the atmosphere is much, much bigger. Of course, CO2 has been accumulating, so the amount in the atmosphere is larger by a significant factor, but it's still very small compared with the total atmosphere. Is the climate sensitive s...
CONTINUE READINGPaper or plastic, tax or not? Prop 26 challenge to LA County’s plastic bag ban
Wonder how broadly California's Proposition 26 will be held to sweep? A case filed this week is likely to be an early indicator. Many municipalities have recently placed limits on plastic bags. Last year, LA County went further, banning certain stores from giving out single-use plastic bags or non-recyclable paper bags at checkout, and requiring that stores charge customers 10 cents for recyclable paper bags. (LA Times story on the ban here , ordinance here.) Th...
CONTINUE READINGCEQA “Reform” in California: 3-For-3
As expected, California Governor Jerry Brown this week signed into law SB 226, the third and final piece of a three-bill package of statutory amendments to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) that state legislators enacted last month. Brown last week approved the other two, more controversial CEQA bills, SB 292 and SB 900, as previously reported on Legal Planet. SB 226 includes some relatively ho-hum amendments to existing law, such as exempting from CEQA re...
CONTINUE READINGSearching For EPA’s Poison Pill
For the third time this year, Republicans in Congress seem to be angling for a government shutdown. Not only will there be disagreements on funding levels, but the House will insist on attaching riders to appropriations bills preventing agencies from doing various things. I realize that this may come as a shock, but the House GOP, which has already declared climate science to be a hoax, will attempt to forbid EPA from using any funds to promulgate carbon dioxide regu...
CONTINUE READINGNew Methods for Calculating Carbon Footprints
The Greenhouse Gas Protocol today released two important methods for figuring out the carbon footprint of a product throughout its life and throughout the supply chain necessary to create the product. These methods should - if implemented -- help answer questions like how much carbon is emitted over the whole life cycle of a car, from the time a car company first purchases steel to the time when the car ends up as scrap? And how carbon intensive is the television I p...
CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Looking Hard at Litigation Challenge to CARB Marine Fuel Regulations
The U.S. Supreme Court today asked the Solicitor General for his views as to whether the Court should hear and decide a controversial case from California challenging the California Air Resources Board's authority to regulate ocean shipping. The specific CARB regulations at issue require marine vessels operating in state waters and ports to use cleaner marine fuels in ship engines, thereby reducing air pollution in California's coastal regions. The case is Pacific M...
CONTINUE READINGApple’s China Problem
There has been an interesting confluence of stories in the press about Apple as the release of iPhone 5 approaches this week. The New York Times recently ran a story, entitled “You Love Your iPhone, Literally,” about how test subjects looking at sounds and images of the iPhone exhibited heightened activity in the parts of the brain associated with love and compassion. A few days ago, NYT had another story - “A Trip to China Can Make a Guy Hate His iPhone” �...
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