Environmental Hubris: Another Proposed “Fix” for the California Delta
Recently, California state water officials announced with considerable fanfare their latest technological "fix" for the environmental ills that have in recent years befallen the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas, the Delta is in serious environmental decline--as scientists have carefully documented and which no one disputes at this point. The latest, proposed solution, as reported by San Francisco Chronicle writer Kelly ...
CONTINUE READINGGood news of the day: Leatherback turtles
In a paper published in Biological Conservation (subscription required for full access), Matthew Witt et al. have found that Gabon hosts the largest known nesting population of leatherback sea turtles. Using aerial surveying techniques, instead of the usual on-the-ground work, over several years, the group estimated that between 15,000 and 40,000 female leatherbacks use the Gabon coastline as a nesting site. (Hat tip: EcoTone.) The news is especially good because nearly ...
CONTINUE READINGNo pre-contamination chicken litter injunction
In a split decision, the Tenth Circuit has upheld a district court decision denying a preliminary injunction sought by the state of Oklahoma against Tyson Foods and other large-scale Arkansas-based poultry producers in an unusual Resource Conservation and Recovery Act case. RCRA allows citizen suits against anyone involved in the "handling, storage, treatment, transportation, or disposal of any solid or hazardous waste which may present an imminent and substantial endan...
CONTINUE READINGTaking sides on Waxman-Markey
Now that the revised Waxman-Markey compromise draft has been make public (here), those in favor of strong climate change regulation are soul-searching about whether to support it. Did Waxman give away too much -- on, among other things, free allowances to industry, reduced caps, and lessened requirements for ramping up renewable energy sources (see Steve's post on this last point here)? Despite all the compromises, is this our best hope for cutting emissions on a ti...
CONTINUE READINGObama’s Bold New Auto Standards
In what is a huge victory for California and a strong national commitment to more fuel efficient cars, the New York Times is reporting that the Obama administration will grant California its waiver to issue tough greenhouse gas emissions standards while at the same time combining those standards with a new national Corporate Automotive Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard. The result will be a unified national fuel standard of 42 miles per gallon for passenger cars by 2016 and...
CONTINUE READINGSea level falling in places — but change still problematic
This morning's New York Times has this story by Cornelia Dean describing the changes global warming is bringing to Juneau, Alaska. While sea level is rising relative to coast lines in many parts of the world as ocean waters warm and expand, the opposite is happening in and around Juneau. As the region's glaciers recede, the land is rebounding from removal of that weight far faster than sea levels are rising. The land has risen about 10 feet relative to sea level over t...
CONTINUE READINGA Carbon Map of America
A post on DailyKos makes the very important point that carbon emissions vary vastly within the United States, linking to a terrific Purdue University mapping project on carbon emissions. As the post indicates, reliance on coal is a key factor. But there are other forces at work as well. In considering the role of the states in regulating climate change, it is important to keep in mind the large contributions by some states to overall GHG emissions, as well as the ...
CONTINUE READINGDisaster Law
Disaster issues have several links to environmental law. Perhaps the most obvious is that climate change is likely to cause a sharp increase in the number of extreme weather events such as floods and heat waves. Less obviously, disaster law is the flip side of environmental law, concerned with how nature impacts us rather than how we impact nature. It raises many of the same issues as environmental law about risk assessment, cost-benefit analysis, the precautiona...
CONTINUE READINGEducational Equality as an Environmental Issue
This is the first in an occasional series about surprising dimensions of environmental problems. Today's thesis is that promoting educational equality in developing countries would be a good thing for the environment. In other words, environmentalists should favor directing more educational funds to girls rather than following the norm in many countries, which is to spend those funds on boys. Here's why: First, increasing female literacy is one of the best ways...
CONTINUE READINGRelist Yellowstone’s grizzlies?
Grizzly bears in the Yellowstone region were removed from the ESA list in 2007 on the grounds that they had recovered to the point that they no longer needed protection. Now Doug Peacock argues in Environment 360 that Yellowstone's bears should be returned to the ESA's protected list. His piece highlights three key challenges for delisting decisions. First, it can be difficult to predict the extent to which relaxing regulatory protections will result in increased huma...
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