U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Climate Change Nuisance Case
The 2010-2011 U.S. Supreme Court case promises to be a blockbuster one for environmental law. The Court today announced that it had granted a petition for certiorari filed in AEP v. Connecticut (the lower court decision in the case is here). The case, brought by a number of states against the country's five larges utilities , argues that the greenhouse gases they emit are creating a public nuisance. Jonathan has blogged about the case several times, including...
CONTINUE READINGGMOs and German Constitutional Law
The German Constitutional Court has issued an opinion upholding severe restrictions on the use of genetically modified plants. Science reports: "With the possibility to deliberately make changes in the genome, genetic engineering influences the elementary structures of life," the court wrote. "The consequences of such interventions can be, if any, difficult to undo." The court seems to consider GM crops an unfinished experiment. "In view of science's still unfinished as...
CONTINUE READINGConnecticut v. AEP Cert Decision Soon?
A reporter just called me for background on the climate change public nuisance case from the Second Circuit, Connecticut v. AEP. She said, "As you probably know, the Supreme Court will announce on Monday whether it will take the case." Um, no, actually: I didn't know that. The Supremes make their decisions throughout the year, and they can always schedule hearings whenever they want. It's good to be the king. But that hardly means the reporter is wrong: she said...
CONTINUE READINGEPA’s crime on its 40th birthday? Having accomplished too much
EPA head Lisa Jackson waded into hostile territory yesterday with a Wall St Journal editorial defending the agency and its work. It's EPA's fortieth birthday, and she uses the occasion to acknowledge forthrightly that "[w]e reach this milestone exactly one month after the midterm elections strengthened the influence of groups and individuals who threaten to roll back the EPA's efforts." She then presents a vigorous defense of EPA's record, focusing especially on i...
CONTINUE READINGHigh Speed Rail To…Corcoran?
The saga of high speed rail in California continues. Since state voters approved a bond measure in 2008 to authorize construction of a system linking north and south, the California High Speed Rail Authority has faced lawsuits over its unfortunate planned route away from the population centers of the northern Central Valley, opposition from wealthy suburbanites south of San Francisco to the portion that would link the city to San Jose, and a huge funding shortfall to...
CONTINUE READINGWhat If They Gave a Climate Summit and Nobody Came?
Last year about this time, everyone was excited about Copenhagen. UCLA Law School even sent its own delegation. President Obama was going to come. It was the biggest thing in climate since Kyoto -- maybe bigger, since now the US had an administration that believes in science. Now? Not so much. The coverage of Cancun is about as empty as the picture to the right. Take a look at your newspapers. Wikileaks. Don't Ask Don't Tell. President Obama's morally out...
CONTINUE READINGBottles and cans, bisphenol-A, and chemical regulation
The online magazine Yale Environment 360 has published an informative and rather frightening interview with Frederick vom Saal, a biologist at the University of Missouri’s Endocrine Disruptors Group, about bisphenol-A and what he sees as a completely broken regulatory system for managing hazards from chemicals. Elizabeth Kolbert, known recently for her stellar journalism in the New Yorker about climate change's causes and impacts, interviewed Professor vom Saal, a l...
CONTINUE READINGNY Times Triples on Climate Change
The NY Times has three op-eds this morning dealing with climate change: An op. ed. by Bruce Usher argues for a clean energy strategy: "The United States still has a very long way to go to curtail emissions, but the states are heading in the right direction, and national energy policy must build on their efforts. Congress should extend federal financing, tax credits and loan guarantees for renewable energy projects and for upgrading transmiss ion lines. It should also d...
CONTINUE READINGOur strawberries’ safety: will California approve methyl iodide this year?
As Margot Roosevelt reports in the Los Angeles Times, California's Department of Pesticide Regulation has signaled that it will make a decision before Governor Schwarzenegger leaves office about whether to approve the use of methyl iodide as a strawberry fumigant. Farmworker advocacy groups and environmental advocates fear the pesticide will be approved, and are planning to make a pitch to incoming Governor-elect Jerry Brown about why the pesticide shouldn't be approve...
CONTINUE READINGBlack Friday Reflections on Happiness, Consumption, and Sustainability
As discussed in a fascinating new book by Derek Bok, psychologists have been busily researching a new set of issues relating to happiness. As a result of this research, psychologists are beginning to develop a deeper understanding of the factors that control well-being. Well-being is a multi-dimensional concept that includes objective factors such as health, but a key factor is subjective happiness. People tend to overestimate the effect that life events like winning the...
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