Post-Tsunami Japan Teaches the World About Energy Within Limits
Earlier this summer, I accompanied a class of renewable energy law students to a home in Vermont that is “off the grid”. The family lives quite comfortably – television, microwave oven, electric washing machine, sizable refrigerator. With the exception of a small diesel generator, which they use once or twice a year, they derive all of their electric power from a set of photovoltaic panels and a series of lead acid batteries, protected by a wooden box in the ba...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia’s Role in the New Fuel Economy Standards
Dan rightly praised the good news about newly agreed to federal fuel economy standards for the 2017-2025 time frame that will reach 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 (though there will be a review at midpoint and a possibility for readjustment if the 54.5 mpg standard proves too tough). In all of the press coverage about the new standards the Obama Administration gets high marks for pushing hard for the standards. Moreover the standards, virtually everyone acknowledge...
CONTINUE READINGSome Good News, For a Change
The NY Times reports: On Friday, when President Obama is scheduled to announce even stricter standards — in fact, the largest increase in mileage requirements since the government began regulating consumption of gasoline by cars in the 1970s — the chief executives of Detroit’s Big Three are expected to be in Washington again. But this time they will be standing in solidarity with the president, who will also be surrounded by some of Detroit’s highest-tech — an...
CONTINUE READINGIs Climate Denial Like Appeasing Hitler?
Britain's Energy Secretary thinks so: World leaders who oppose a global agreement to tackle climate change are making a similar mistake to the one made by politicians who tried to appease Adolf Hitler before World War Two, British Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Huhne said on Thursday.... "This is our Munich moment," he added, referring to the Munich Agreement, a 1938 pact that gave Hitler land in the former Czechoslovakia as part of a failed attem...
CONTINUE READINGNew UCLA Report Takes on California’s Groundwater Management
It's still the wild west in California when it comes to groundwater management. California depends heavily on groundwater as a source of water supply, but is one of only two western states--the other being Texas--that allows for the withdrawal of groundwater without a permit or any other means of tracking and regulating users. Perhaps not surprisingly, the overuse of groundwater in California threatens the reliability of the State’s future water supply. A new repo...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia suction dredging moratorium extended
California Governor Jerry Brown has signed into law an extension of the existing moratorium on suction dredge gold mining. I confess that the appeal of recreational mining in any form escapes me, and that I don't even like to vacuum my own living room. So it mystifies me to learn that there are people who like nothing better than running giant vacuum cleaners over the beds of rivers in their spare time, in the hope of catching a little gold. But it's true, especially ...
CONTINUE READINGMarcilynn Burke appointed Acting Assistant Secretary
Marcilynn Burke, who is on leave from her environmental law teaching gig at the University of Houston, has been named Acting Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management at the Department of Interior. Burke has been at Interior since August 2009, when she was appointed Deputy Director for Policy and Programs at the Bureau of Land Management. In her new post, she will oversee BLM, BOEMRE, and the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement. Congrat...
CONTINUE READINGOn light bulbs, politics, and psychology
Dan has (understandably) been quite outraged at efforts in the Republican-controlled House to eliminate energy efficiency standards for light bulbs (which have been inaccurately portrayed as a flat ban on incandescent bulbs, even though new substitutes are being developed). While these efforts might be seen as purely ignorant orjust politically-opportunistic showboating, I think they in fact reveal a more fundamental problem in environmental law. Traditional incande...
CONTINUE READINGClimate protester DeChristopher gets 2-year sentence
Tim DeChristopher, the young man who bid on federal oil and gas leases as a form of protest against global warming, was sentenced yesterday to 2 years in prison, 3 additional years on probation, and a $10,000 fine. DeChristopher was convicted in March of placing false bids at a federal auction, after his attempt to assert a necessity defense was rejected. There's no question that DeChristopher was properly convicted. I explained earlier that the necessity defense is a l...
CONTINUE READINGAn Unlikely Environmentalist: Samson Raphael Hirsch
Orthodox Judaism today has presented several strong views on many issues, usually centering on hot-button social issues such as gay marriage, or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That's why it was a real surprise for me to read about the strong environmentalist stance of Samson Raphael Hirsch, the founder and true intellectual giant of Modern Orthodox Judaism. Hirsch was anything but a progressive. He loudly condemned Reform Judaism and castigated any Jews who str...
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