Climate 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” ...
CONTINUE READINGCan a Taco Stand Be a Historic Monument?
The owner of Henry's Tacos, at the corner of Tujunga and Moorpark in the glorious San Fernando Valley, thinks it can: The third-generation owner of Henry’s Tacos has filed an application with the City’s Office of Historic Resources to have the taco stand declared a Historic-Cultural Monument. Janis Hood, granddaughter of founder Henry Comstock, hopes to preserve the building “if any development issues come up in the future,” her representative, Charles Fischer...
CONTINUE READINGIs There Really No More Room For Forests?
If you have even a passing interest in things environmental, and you keep yourself relatively well-informed, then no doubt you saw Justin Gillis' superb page one NYT story on Saturday, about the decline (and at times possible increase) of forests; how forests provide critical carbon sinks to mitigate climate change; and how that climate change is itself threatening the forests that mitigate it (aka negative feedback loop, vicious circle, etc. etc.). As they say, read t...
CONTINUE READINGEnergy Storage — A Current Assessment
Berkeley Law's Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE) recently finished work on a comprehensive assessment of energy storage technologies. The California Energy Commission is expected to issue the report soon. Prepared in collaboration with researchers at UCLA and UC San Diego, the study recognizes the critical role various energy storage technologies (such as batteries, compressed air, and hydro pumped storage) can play in adapting the grid to the inter...
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