Murderers, Tyrants, Global Warming and the Heartland Institute
The image to the left is not a joke. It's instead part of a just-cancelled Heartland Institute campaign -- cancelled after howls of protests, including from a climate skeptic who refused to participate in a Heartland event if it went forward. The Unabomber billboard showed up on the Eisenhower Expressway in Chicago (home of the Institute) this week. Other billboards were to appear around the city with photos of notorious figures like Charles Manson, Osama bin Laden...
CONTINUE READINGSome good (and bad) news on air pollution
The American Lung Association has issued its State of the Air 2012 report. The news is mostly good. Since 1990, aggregate emissions of common air pollutants in the US have fallen 60%, even as the economy, population, and vehicle miles traveled have increased. Short term, the vast majority of the nation's most polluted cities enjoyed better air quality in 2011 than in 2010. There is also some bad news, however. More than 40% of Americans -- 125 million people -- live in a...
CONTINUE READINGWhen green isn’t greener — Part 2
In a recent commentary, I suggested that the Pacific Gas & Electric Company’s new Green Option, pursuant to which consumers can subscribe to 100% renewable electricity, would not result in reduced greenhouse gas emissions. That is because under California’s cap and trade program, the utility can sell any unneeded carbon allowance for someone else to use. One way or another, a certain amount of carbon is likely to be emitted. A reader, who goes by the moniker of ...
CONTINUE READINGNext American City
...might sound like a new reality show, but NAC is one of the best serious but non-academic urban policy and planning journals around. It has recently relaunched, replacing the print edition with what might be called Next American Journalism Model: they are supplementing the daily online content with one very in-depth feature per week, which you can buy for $2, or you get all 50 per year for $18. Are people ready to pay for their internet content after print newsp...
CONTINUE READINGHard and Easy Environmental Questions: A Talk With Ikal Angelei
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IOw9tsS-aI] Ikal Angelei is one of the world's pre-eminent environmental justice activists: she is the founder of Friends of Lake Turkana, which (as the name suggests) seeks to preserve Lake Turkana from the massive Gibe III Dam planned by the Ethiopian government and World Bank. As the name does not suggest, the issue is about human beings as much as about ecosystems: the indigenous peoples of the Lake Turkana region rely on ...
CONTINUE READINGUniversity of Michigan’s Ted Parson to Join UCLA Law Faculty
UCLA Law is thrilled to announce that Ted Parson, -- currently Joseph L. Sax Collegiate Professor of Law and Professor of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan -- will join its faculty effective July 1. Parson is one of the world's leading experts on international environmental law and policy and the author of two significant books on the topic, The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change and Protecting the Ozone Layer: Science and...
CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Law in Canada
Americans (especially liberals) often have a warm and fuzzy vision of our neighbors to the north as a kinder, gentler version of the United States. (Remember this map after the 2004 election?) But when it comes to environmental issues, that really isn’t the case. The conservative Canadian government led by Prime Minister Harper has recently introduced its budget for the next fiscal year. In that budget, the Harper government appears to have taken a cue from pr...
CONTINUE READINGCan We Convince 500 People That Climate Change Is Important?
You might have noticed that in this election year, climate change has vanished from the national agenda. There are lots of reasons for that, but in his superb takedown of Ayn Rand-acolyte and pathological liar Paul Ryan, Jonathan Chait may have stumbled on a way out. Chait observes that Ryan's budget plan does not reduce the reduce the deficit and in fact represents a massive redistribution of income from the poor and the middle class to the very wealthy. And yet: Rya...
CONTINUE READINGWhen a green option doesn’t make things greener…
California’s largest electric utility, the Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), has proposed to offer a Green Option Program through which individual customers could choose to pay a little extra for power that is 100% renewable. In a move clearly designed to discourage local governments from starting their own green power programs, PG&E displays endorsement letters from a number of Northern California mayors. Some of those mayors express hope that tha...
CONTINUE READINGLegal Planet’s International Audience
Wordpress recently added a feature that provides websites with country statistics about readers on a weekly or monthly basis. Not surprisingly, most of our readers are American, and it's almost equally unsurprising that Canada and the U.K. are next on the list. But somewhat more surprisingly, the fourth country is India, followed by Australia, Germany, and the Philippines. And even more surprising is that viewers from 98 countries read Legal Planet last week -- i...
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