Peet’s Coffee Thinks You’re Stupid
...or at least not very important. Following up on my posts concerning Peet's membership on the California Chamber of Commerce's board of directors (here and here; Eric follows up with a left hook here), another one of our intrepid readers e-mailed Peet's to get an explanation. Here's what the reader got back: Peet's is one of more than 15,000 member companies (including many other coffee companies and retailers) of the California Chamber of Commerce. As a Califo...
CONTINUE READINGThe Credibility of Climate Science
Climate denialists contend that climate science is either the result of a conspiracy of some kind or of groupthink plus institutional incentives to support alarmist predictions. The conspiracy theory makes even less sense than most conspiracy theories, because there would have to be hundreds, perhaps thousands of people involved, scattered across the world at numerous institutions. The other theory is less ridiculous, but it doesn't hold up. New research can go...
CONTINUE READINGTime to Put Nino Out to Pasture
Intellectual history often presents its students with shocks, most prominently: how is it that people seemed to reject an idea that in retrospect was brilliant or useful? Conversely, how is it that people believed that intellectual mediocrities were learned savants? Justice Scalia's latest statement on Supreme Court doctrine suggests that he will be a fit subject for the latter topic: Justice Antonin Scalia predicted Monday that the Supreme Court’s decision in Kel...
CONTINUE READINGIf Cost-Benefit Analysis is Good, Is More Cost-Benefit Analysis Always Better?
Of course, not everyone agrees that CBA is good in the first place. It remains anathema to many environmentalists. My own view is that it can be a useful tool so long as its limitations are clearly understood. But just because something is good doesn't mean that more is better. My grandmother's view was that if a recipe called for two eggs and one tablespoon of butter, four eggs and two tablespoons would produce an even tastier result -- a theory that did not alwa...
CONTINUE READINGDeploying Large-Scale Solar on Marginal Agricultural Land: A New Berkeley / UCLA White Paper
With California committed to achieving 33 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, some solar and wind developers are rushing to propose large-scale installations on California farmland. These sites can be attractive because they are close to existing transmission lines and substations and have good sun exposure. However, proposed projects on farmland tend to spur opposition from agricultural interests worried about the loss of productive farmland in ...
CONTINUE READINGBirds and your coffee
Jonathan has been going after Peet’s for not actually selling very much coffee that is environmentally friendly or that supports social justice. Among all of Peet’s coffees, he reports that only one is fair trade certified and only one other is organic certified. (And apparently, you have to pick between helping people and avoiding pesticides!) Let me pile on with Jonathan and note yet another important environmental issue relating to coffee consumption that Pee...
CONTINUE READINGFinding the Right Words (Judicially)
I recently posted about when various key environmental terms surfaced in the law review literature. It occurred to me that it would be interested to compare with the courts, so I did a similar search of Westlaw's database for all state and federal court opinions. Here is how the results compare: Term Law reviews Courts Environmental law 1970 1971 Air pollution 1949 1949 Water pollution 1920 1906 Endangered species 1970 1970 Cost-benefit analysis 1963 196...
CONTINUE READINGA dangerous bill (ctd.)
Recently the California state legislature passed a series of measures that provided for accelerated judicial review for challenges to the CEQA review process for certain projects. (CEQA is the California Environmental Quality Act. It requires review of the environmental impacts of many kinds of development projects in California.) The projects to be exempted were those over $100 million in size, not yet initiated, that met minimum environmental requirements (such a...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Adopts Landmark Cap-and-Trade Program
Defying the trend in the rest of the country to ignore the perils of climate change, the California Air Resources Board voted today to establish the country's first economy-wide cap-and-trade program covering greenhouse gas emissions. The vote comes five years after the state passed sweeping legislation -- AB 32 -- to roll California's carbon emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020. The cap-and-trade measure is one of a series of initiatives to help the state meet it...
CONTINUE READINGThe Golden Anniversary of Death and Life
I'm happily addicted to audiobooks. Anyone from Los Angeles really should be, because getting the best ones means that a traffic jam isn't a waste of time: it's just an opportunity to read a few more chapters! And even those with short commutes could profitable make their way through lots of good books if they spend 20-30 minutes exercising or working out. So I was delighted and surprised to see the release, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, Jane Jacobs' cl...
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