Could Self-Driving Cars Help The Environment?
As companies like Google pioneer technologies to allow cars to drive themselves, futurists have been imagining a world where autonomous vehicles rule the roadway. Using computer programs, map data, complex sensors, and soon the ability to "see" all vehicles within miles, these cars hold the promise of averting the vast majority of car accidents caused by human error, while passengers in the driver's seat can nap, work, and do anything but concentrate on driving. The fu...
CONTINUE READINGCould standing save CEQA?
One of the recent complaints about CEQA has been that the statute has been abused by various parties who have no interest in protecting the environment, but instead are simply interested in either (a) raising costs for competitors or (b) using the threat of CEQA litigation to extract payments from project proponents. Various horror stories about these CEQA abuses have been a major driver for proposals for CEQA reform. Now it’s not always the case that it’s a bad t...
CONTINUE READINGWill Estrogen Save the Planet?
At least some researchers think so. According to a new study in Social Science Research, “controlling for other factors, in nations where women’s status is higher, CO2 emissions are lower.” Study coauthors Christina Ergas and Richard York, sociologists at the University of Oregon, write: even when controlling for a variety of measures of “modernization,” world-system position, and democracy, nations where women have higher political status — as indicated...
CONTINUE READINGSpeaking Truth to GOPers
A study coming out of the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication has some interesting insights into methods of communication that might work with Republicans: Efficacy—the belief that individuals can make a difference in climate change—positively predicted both belief and attitudes. . . . It is thus highly likely—though perhaps at first counterintuitive—that enhancing a sense of personal empowerment may be an effective communication strat...
CONTINUE READINGBehavioral Economics and Climate Change
As an environmental economist and as a member of UCLA's Institute of the Environment and as a firm believer in introducing a carbon tax of at least $50 per ton of CO2, I must admit that I'm a pinch troubled that the green cognescenti view the public to be a collection of Homer Simpsons. Consider this quote from a piece that Andrew Revkin cites in his blog today; " It is difficult for the public to grasp the significance of global warming because the mildness ...
CONTINUE READINGThe Future of California’s Suburbs
Here is my cross-post about Wendell Cox's "California Declares War on Suburbia" published in today's WSJ. His piece raises a classic issue in urban economics. Why do so many Americans like the suburbs? How much do they prefer the suburbs to living at high density near pubic transit nodes? If urban planners nudge people (through SB375 and other planning tools) to live at higher density, will those people, who would have suburbanized and driven their cars around, ...
CONTINUE READINGBelieving in Climate Change
For many years, I didn’t really believe in climate change. Not in the sense of skeptics or deniers. It’s not like I didn’t intellectually understand the science behind climate change, and didn’t understand in my head that greenhouse gases were contributing to significant alterations in global climate systems, and that those alterations have the potential to produce tremendous negative impacts on human and natural systems. Instead, the very concept of climate...
CONTINUE READINGAllowance distribution in California’s cap-and-trade program (Part II: Industry)
Yesterday I developed a basic overview of the different categories of allowances in California's GHG trading program. As promised, this post considers the number of allowances that California will freely give to specific industries. Why do we care about industry allowances? First, allowances have value and the Air Resources Board (CARB) has chosen to give many allowances to industries that CARB believes have "transition risk" and "emissions leakage risk." Transition ri...
CONTINUE READINGOn the risks of CEQA exemptions
In the course of a very good post about the benefits of environmental review statutes such as CEQA, Jonathan ascribed to me the position that “policymakers should [not] continue to look for useful exemptions to CEQA” based on a prior post that I had written opposing recent (now enacted) legislation creating limited exemptions from CEQA for certain kinds of development projects. Since I appear to be a minority on this blog in my position, I thought I should expand o...
CONTINUE READINGLaw Schools in the Public Interest: Environmental Programs in the Northeast
This is the final installment in a series of posts about the public service activities of environmental law programs. There are a lot of law schools in this part of the country; space allows the inclusion of entries from only a few of them: A clinic that represents solar power companies, assists communities with climate change adaptation, and investigates fracking. A website that comprehensively tracks climate change litigation and regulation. An environmental perf...
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