Gulf oil spill update
The Deepwater Horizon oil rig rig explosion was bound to put some pressure on the Obama administration to renounce the plan it announced just three weeks earlier to open new areas to offshore drilling. Today, the President ordered Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to report on how to reduce the risk of oil spills from offshore rigs, and ordered that no new leases go ahead until adequate safeguards can be assured. That delay is not likely to have any practical impact, becau...
CONTINUE READINGSurprise! Words don’t save biodiversity
The Convention on Biological Diversity was adopted in 1992 and entered into force in 1993 amid much fanfare. It's been a rousing success in attracting adherents; it currently has 193 parties, with the only major outlier being the United States, which has some of the strongest conservation laws in the world. But a new report in Science (subscription required) makes it clear that the Convention is not meeting its conservation goals. In 2002, the parties to the Convention ...
CONTINUE READINGUC San Francisco Throws Its Hat Into the Nanotechnology Policy Ring
The UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment recently released a draft set of policy recommendations to address nanotechnology meeting for comments on May 5 in Oakland, CA. The report is in draft form and the authors are seeking comment, so there will likely be a fair amount of modification as commenters with different perspectives and experience weigh in, but on the whole it does not seem to advance the ball very far. The report provides useful, ass...
CONTINUE READINGOcean acidification gets new attention
Although EPA is beginning to pay attention, the rapidly increasing acidity of the oceans remains a little-known consequence of global atmospheric CO2 loading. But two recent events may be raising the public profile of ocean acidification. First, a National Research Council committee convened to examine the consequences of ocean acidification and make recommendations for a federal research program issued its report. Among its conclusions: The chemistry of the ocean is ch...
CONTINUE READINGMore Bad News on Climate: Boxer is in Deep Trouble
Barbara Boxer has been a US Senator for 18 years. She is chair of the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, and is a real environmental hero. If we ever get a climate bill, she will have a lot to do with it. And she is also in deep political trouble. Take a look at this graph. This shows Tom Campbell winning the Republican nomination pretty easily, and nothing indicates a change. If Campbell wins the nomination, he will beat Boxer. He's just the sor...
CONTINUE READINGA good time to think about off-shore energy
Rick recently pointed out the ironic timing of the tragic Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion. The news from the Gulf in the wake of that explosion just gets worse. The first report was that the well had sealed. Offshore wells have "blowout preventer" valves which are supposed to shut in the event of an emergency like this. But for some reason this one did not work. When the leak was discovered, it was first reported to be about 40,000 gallons a day, and there was hope...
CONTINUE READINGKammen to be Energy Envoy
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named Dan Kammen as a Senior Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA) Fellow to advise Western Hemisphere governments on clean energy issues. As one of the first ECPA fellows, Kammen, the Class of 1935 Distinguished Professor in UC Berkeley's Energy and Resources Group will consult with and offer advice to participating nations on scientific, technical and policy avenues to lower their carbon footprint and develop sustain...
CONTINUE READINGRedwashing?
In this age of endless corporate greenwashing, I can't help but be both a little refreshed and repulsed by the paint brand Sherwin-Williams' breathtakingly anti-green logo. Noticed it this week for the first time and just want to share. Stunning, no?...
CONTINUE READINGNews Flash: Senate Will Consider Climate Bill First
It looks like Senator Graham won his fight with the Democratic party leadership over timing: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday he is willing to bring up climate change legislation ahead of an immigration bill, the first step toward resolving a dispute with Senate Republicans that threatened to derail a bipartisan effort months in the making. Reid said the long-delayed climate bill ''is much further down the road in terms of a product'' than the immigration ...
CONTINUE READINGThe Offshore Oil Drilling Debate–Revisited (Again)
Earlier this month, the Sacramento Bee published an interesting point-counterpoint debate over the wisdom of re-commencing offshore oil drilling in the U.S., with a particular focus on California and the West Coast. Arguing in favor of the proposition was U.C. Santa Barbara Professor of Political Science and Environmental Studies Eric R.A.N. Smith, who maintained that environmental policymakers have become prisoners of and paralyzed by the infamous, 1969 Santa Ba...
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