Guest blogger Jed Purdy
We're pleased to host Professor Jedediah Purdy of Duke Law School as a guest blogger. Jed is an accomplished scholar and big thinker with a distinctive voice: in his own words, he is a "farm boy (providential laborer), high-country devotee (Romantic), law professor (progressive technocrat), and student of environmental problems." We've had only one guest blogger before - Ken Alex of the California Attorney General's Office - who posted about energy policy, renewabl...
CONTINUE READINGThe Four Corners Coal Plant and Regional Climate Policy
The results of the recent elections in California and elsewhere suggest that the Golden State may be flying solo for many years when it comes to regulating greenhouse gas emissions. While Congress and elected officials in most states have grown even more partisan and climate-theory skeptical, Californians have soundly rejected efforts to cut back on climate regulation. As a result, concerns about “leakage” are likely to grow. Leakage is the term often used to descr...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Cap-and-Trade Math
In late October, California Air Resources Board (CARB) released their draft regulations for cap-and-trade under AB 32. I looked at CARB's proposed allocations: the cap, the offset percentage, the reserve percentage and the projected emissions level. Running the numbers allows a few general observations: If covered emitters take full advantage of the 8% allowed offsets, the first year when emitters will need to reduce their actual business as usual (BAU) emissions i...
CONTINUE READINGUCLA Sustainable Technology and Policy Program (STPP): New interdisciplinary program of UCLA Schools of Law and Public Health
The UCLA Sustainable Technology and Policy Program (STPP) has just launched its new website. STPP is an interdisciplinary program based in the UCLA School of Law and the School of Public Health, with partners and affiliated faculty across the UCLA campus. The program's goal is to promote public health and environmental protection by developing and promoting hazard identification methodologies, alternatives analysis techniques, and innovative chemicals policies to ...
CONTINUE READINGMelting the Ice (But Not in a Fun, Life-of-the Party Way)
The Ny Times has a lengthy article about glacial melting and sea level rise, with bad news: But researchers have recently been startled to see big changes unfold in both Greenland and Antarctica. As a result of recent calculations that take the changes into account, many scientists now say that sea level is likely to rise perhaps three feet by 2100 — an increase that, should it come to pass, would pose a threat to coastal regions the world over. And the calculations ...
CONTINUE READINGWhy the Feds Should Pay the Administrative Costs of Implementing AB 32
There's been a lot of discussion of whether Prop 26 interferes with the use of fees to pay the administrative expenses for AB 32. I would like to suggest an alternative solution: the Feds should pick up the tab. This may seem a little far-fetched, given the current political situation, but it makes real sense in terms of policy analysis. The reason is simple: California's experiment with climate change regulation will produce valuable information that benefits the w...
CONTINUE READINGMore Thoughts About Conservative Climate Perspectives
Some of the comments on my previous posting chided me for overlooking conservatives who are taking reasonable views about climate change. At present, it seems to me that climate denial is the dominant conservative position, as reflected in the views of Republican members of Congress, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, etc. But it’s unfair to tar all conservatives with the same brush, and particularly unfair to academics, who are often more nuanced than public figures. Views...
CONTINUE READINGThat Warm Fuzzy Cap-And-Trade Feeling
Cara asks if cap-and-trade skeptics like me still get excited at California's Mini-Me version. The short answer (for me, at least) is yes. I'm all in favor of California rolling out its own version, and my hope has always been that the California Air Resources Board could develop a successful program that EPA could eventually build on, if the federal politics ever change. And a success in California could help change those federal politics by removing concerns about...
CONTINUE READINGI, Robot
The claims of climate deniers are so repetitive that someone has figured out how to automate the twitter wars: Getting into a climate change debate on Twitter could be even more exhausting than it sounds now that a software developer named Nigel Leck has automated the process. Tired of arguing with climate change deniers in 140 character quips, the programmer wrote a script to do it for him. Chatbot @AI_AGW scans Twitter every five minutes searching for hundreds of phra...
CONTINUE READINGWhy Are Conservatives So Hostile to Climate Policy?
Dan wants to know why conservatives would oppose market-based solutions to climate change that avoid greater government intervention down the road. I asked last week why traditional conservatives, who make much of preserving traditions through different generations and respecting institutions through time, would also oppose such policies. The answer to both questions lie in their fundamental misunderstanding of what American conservatism is, at least as it is institut...
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