New 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...
CONTINUE READINGThe Greening of South Korea
Lincoln Davies has a nice post over at Environmental Law Prof about clean energy in South Korea. He discusses a conference relating to Korea's planned change from a feed-in-tariff to a renewable portfolio standard as means of promoting clean energy. Most Americans aren't aware of this, but Korea has embraced "green growth" as a national goal. According to the government: [W]e believe that green growth is the only option if we are to surmount the difficulties the ...
CONTINUE READINGWhite House science advisors call for better ecosystem information
Cross-posted at The Berkeley Blog. If you've never heard of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, you're not alone. It's not a group that's often in the news. But its new report, “Sustaining Environmental Capital: Protecting Society and the Economy," is worth a read. This report does two important things. First, it defends the role of government in protecting the nation's environmental capital, explaining why private actions alone cannot be ...
CONTINUE READINGUnexpected Environmental Heroes
Mammoth Lakes is one of the more popular resort areas in California’s Sierra Nevada, and also one of the more beautiful. It’s popular in part because it as at one of the low points in the Sierra Nevada, allowing for relatively easy backcountry access to both the east and west sides of the mountains. (That is one of the reasons I am here right now!) While much of the Sierra has rugged peaks between 11,000 and 14,000 feet high, here at Mammoth, the crest of the S...
CONTINUE READING“Too Darn Hot”:The Summer of 2011 and the New Normal
DotEarth, the NY Times environmental blog, has a nice posting about how the current heat wave fits into climate-change predictions. It seems clear that the "summer of 2011 is emblematic of the new climatological norms that are emerging as conditions neatly echo longstanding projections of the consequences of steadily raising the concentration of heat-trapping greenhouse gases." Maybe we should change the national anthem to the old Cole Porter song, "It's Too Darn Ho...
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