The Triumph of the Commons
Elinor Ostrom was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics today, along with Oliver Williamson here at Berkeley. To understand why her work is relevant to environmental law, you have to first know about the "tragedy of the commons." Many medieval and early modern villages had a “commons” where all of the peasants were entitled to graze their animals. (To this day, Boston has a “commons” that now functions as a park.) This history became the basis for an import...
CONTINUE READINGA Rare Example of Bipatisanship
In yesterday's New York Times, John Kerry and Lindsay Graham wrote a joint op-ed about climate change. They agree that climate change is real, that the U.S. must cut its dependence on foreign oil, that we should not allow China or other countries to dominate the market for renewable energy technologies. They also agree that nuclear power should be part of the solution. (I'm a little dubious that we could ramp up nuclear power quickly and cheaply enough to make a di...
CONTINUE READINGArnold Schwarzenegger, Climate Hypocrite
Schwarzenegger loves to talk about how concerned he is about climate change. And talk he does -- mostly at meaningless press events like the Governors Climate Summit. But when it comes to, you know, actually doing his job, he's decided that he'd rather side with the wingnuts in his party. A couple of hours ago, he vetoed SB 406 (DeSaulnier), which would have provided funding for the smart growth bill that the Legislature passed last year by allowing regional plannin...
CONTINUE READINGClimate Change #7: “But the Earth Abides Forever”
This is the seventh in a series of brief homilies about the lessons of climate change. The text for today's sermon is from Ecclesiastes: "One generation passes away, and another generation cometh; But the earth abides forever." The application to climate change is pretty obvious: greenhouse gases can persist in the atmosphere for centuries, and changes in ocean temperature are even more prolonged. The carbon we send up our smokestacks today will be troubling our de...
CONTINUE READINGClimate Change and the Peace Prize (Again)
From the official citation to President Obama by the Norwegian committee awarding the Prize: Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened. Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future....
CONTINUE READINGFree Trade, Deregulation, and Clean Energy — A Good Mix?
Some scholars like to suggest that there is a natural regulatory cycle: the perception of market failures leads to regulation, and the perception of regulatory failures leads to deregulation. While the 1990s were dominated by free trade agreements and economic deregulation, many political observers see greater acceptance of regulation now, in light of investor malfeasance and our recent recession. It is probably fair to say that the anti-regulatory fervor of the ‘90...
CONTINUE READINGThe Low-Carbon Meat Diet
If you're like me, you like meat. Especially red meat, like a pepper-crusted steak or a juicy burger drizzled with bleu cheese. But if you're also like me, you're concerned about climate change and the impact that our lifestyle has on the planet. While hyrbids and CFL light bulbs get a lot of attention, Ezra Klein rightly points out that cutting back on meat would have a significant impact on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It's not just that cows bu...
CONTINUE READINGAnother Law Professor to Washington
We've just received word that Rob Verchick has been appointed the Deputy Associate Administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of Policy, Economics, and Innovation (OPEI). OEPI is the main policy arm of the EPA, responsible for supervising the rulemaking process and pushing innovative strategies, among other things. He will report to Associate Administrator Lisa Heinzerling (on leave from Georgetown), who in turn reports to EPA Administrato...
CONTINUE READING“It is not natural…
...for a man to write this well every day." So commented the great literary critic Alfred Kazin on Henry David Thoreau's Journal, which he kept quite regularly from his Harvard College graduation in 1837 to just a few months before his death. Kazin is right: the Journal is a real gem of American letters and philosophy, with whole lot of great nature writing thrown in. I am currently reading Penguin Books' wonderful edition of the Journal from 1851; I did not think it...
CONTINUE READINGSandra Day O’Connor: The Most Gullible Jurist in America
So now we hear from Sandra Day O'Connor that she is "disappointed" that the Roberts Court has "dismantled" several of her rulings: Asked how she felt about the fact that the current court had undone some of her rulings, the nation's first woman justice responded, "What would you feel? I'd be a little bit disappointed. If you think you've been helpful, and then it's dismantled, you think, 'Oh, dear.' But life goes on. It's not always positive." To which one is entitled to...
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