Insurance in a Complex World
Roger Cook and Carolyn Kousky make some intriguing points in an article in the Summer issue of Resources. They discuss three problems confronting insurance companies, all of them probably exacerbated by climate change: fat tails, tail dependence, and micro-correlations. Although the names may not be self-explanatory, these are phenomena with great significance for society's management of risks. One lesson is that it's not enough to worry about the most likely scenari...
CONTINUE READINGRemembering Katrina
Four years ago today, at about this time of day, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana after it's previous brief encounter with Florida. A picture of the landfall is below. I remember thinking that, "as usual," the weather people were hyping the possible impacts. As it turns out, my skepticism was partly justified because the storms impacts would have been considerably smaller if the Army Corps of Engineers had done a competent job building the flood control ...
CONTINUE READINGMovie Stars, Solar Cells
Flowers are beginning to bloom through the cracks in the foundation that formerly was the economy in the state of Michigan. With the precipitous closure of auto manufacturing plants, and the strong ripples throughout the state’s employment base, the state of Michigan has come close to the economic bottom. Now come the opportunities for rebirth. The popular press is replete with stories about fantastic bargains in the inner-Detroit real estate market, with some f...
CONTINUE READINGGood fish news of the week
We know that environmentalists in general, and environmental lawyers in particular, typically seem to have nothing but bad news on their minds. So we're always happy to convey good news when we hear it. This week, it comes out of northern New York, where the USGS reports that wild-spawned Atlantic salmon have been found in the Salmon River for the first time in more than one hundred years. There's a long way to go before salmon will be recovered in this region -- the ...
CONTINUE READINGThe Kennedy seat
It may be gauche to admit to worrying about this so soon after Ted Kennedy's death, but the conversations have already begun: How much harder will it be to get to 60 votes on healthcare reform and, more relevant here, climate change legislation without his seat filled? Massachusetts procedures for finding a new senator, and the status of efforts to change those procedures to allow Gov. Deval Patrick to make a temporary appointment quickly enough to participate in the ...
CONTINUE READINGQ (circa 2100): Whatever Happened to Kansas? A: It Burned Up.
The Nature Conservancy has released a projection of business-as-usual climate impacts, which shows particularly heavy impacts in Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa. The predictions are fairly grim. The analysis is based on averaging model results for IPCC Scenarios B1 assumes a (decrease in emission rates over the next century for a total concentration of 538ppm by 2100) Scenario A1B (gradual leveling off of emission rates for a total concentration of 711ppm); and scenario ...
CONTINUE READINGOpenings for Env. Law Profs
The law school hiring season is beginning. PrawfsBlawg lists names of hiring committee chairs and for many schools adds a list of fields that the school is targeting. Here is a list of schools hiring in environmental law and related fields: Indianapolis University (Land Use, Admin.), St. Thomas (Minn.) (Env.), University of Illinois (Admin.) Colorado (Admin.), St. John's (Admin.), SUNY (Buffalo) (Env.), Wayne (env.), Lewis and Clark (Env.), Tulane (Env.), Pierce...
CONTINUE READINGUCLA/Berkeley Law & Attorney General’s Office release report recommending policies to encourage sustainable real estate development
For those of you who haven't memorized the AB 32 scoping plan pie chart that details the sources of greenhouse gas emissions in California by sector, "vehicle miles traveled" (or, as lay folks call it, "driving") represents the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the state -- almost forty percent. We can hope and pray that improvements in fuel content and fuel efficiency will reduce these emissions, but the latest research shows that any future improvem...
CONTINUE READINGUCLA environmental law journal publishes new work on personal norms and carbon emissions, and on other interesting topics
Following in Dan's footsteps as promoters of our respective schools' excellent environmental law journals, I'm proud to announce that the UCLA Journal of Environmental Law and Policy Volume 27, #1 was published this summer. This journal issue features several interesting pieces. They include a thought-provoking Comment by second-year UCLA law student Jed Ela, Law and Norms in Collective Action: Maximizing Social Influence to Minimize Carbon Emissions, as well as the ...
CONTINUE READINGMore on the Chamber of Commerce’s extraordinary demand for a “Scopes trial” on climate change
UPDATE: regarding the standard of judicial review of any on-the-record hearing (discussed below), see the comments: commenter Steve Taber disagrees with my initial analysis, and he may be right (though I don't have time to look into it further today). ORIGINAL POST: Holly has written a thoughtful post discussing the meritlessness and cynicism of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's petition asking that the EPA engage in a hearing "on the record" to determine whether carbon d...
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