The Washington Post versus George Will
The paper seems to be disavowing the views of its own columnist: The new evidence -- including satellite data showing that the average multiyear wintertime sea ice cover in the Arctic in 2005 and 2006 was nine feet thick, a significant decline from the 1980s -- contradicts data cited in widely circulated reports by Washington Post columnist George F. Will that sea ice in the Arctic has not significantly declined since 1979. I feel particularly chagrined by Will's inabil...
CONTINUE READINGShifting the Regulatory Status Quo: The Case of Climate Change
A basic insight of positive political theory is that the existence of veto points makes it possible for an agenda setter to substantially influence political outcomes. Essentially, an outcome is viable so long as it satisfies a basic condition: it must be closer than the status quoto to the optimum outcome for at least one gate keeper. Changing the status quo shifts the feasible set of outcomes. This has seemingly paradoxical implications for environmental law. ...
CONTINUE READINGGorbachev Goes Green
Matt Peterson's blog reports: President Gorbachev, the founder of Green Cross International (Global Green USA is the American affiliate) . . . said, "It's not just a matter of rescuing the world's economy -- there is more at stake. We must not expect the outcome of this crisis will be the replicating of the same old model of the economy we had for 50 years. If we base the efforts for a healthy economy on this effort to reduce hydrocarbons, this would lay the groundwork...
CONTINUE READINGWaxman bill on state cap-and-trade efforts
I've been reading the Waxman-Markey energy and climate discussion draft released earlier in the week (and blogged about by Rick here). One thing I'm puzzling over is the draft's treatment of state cap and trade regulations. As many have noted, the question of which state climate efforts are saved and which are preempted is an important one--several of the Legal Planet crew heard Mary Nichols & others talk about its importance and about the need for "new models ...
CONTINUE READINGSilos: Great for Fodder, Not So Hot for Energy Policy
The electricity grid is one big machine. Transmisssion must be centrally coordinated. Generating units must all be in sync. Voltage levels have to be maintained. There must constantly be an even match between demand and supply. But you would hardly know it from the way we look at energy policy at the states and on the national level. Each good policy option has its champions, and each debate occupies its own silo. Distributed solar? Check. Energy efficie...
CONTINUE READINGOmnibus Public Land Management Act Signed Into Law
The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, which I discussed in this post a couple of weeks ago, passed both houses of Congress and was signed into law by President Obama earlier this week. A transcript of the President's remarks on the new law is here, courtesy of the New York Times. The prior version of this bill was defeated at least in part because of gun rights lobbyists' concerns about the future of firearms use on public lands. According to the Washi...
CONTINUE READINGThe NY Times’ New Climate Skeptic
Last Sunday's New York Times Magazine story about climate skeptic Freeman Dyson has me worried. For those readers who missed it, the profile is a largely favorable piece about Institute for Advanced Study scholar Dyson, best known for helping unite qunatum and electrodynamic theory and for his belief that nuclear weapons are the world's greatest evil. Dyson has more recently turned his formidable intellectual powers to global warming and concluded that carbon dioxi...
CONTINUE READINGGetting Serious About Toxicity Testing
Most of the products we use everyday contain chemicals that have never undergone meaningful health and safety testing. That statement is hardly controversial; most folks on all sides of the continuing debate over chemical policy reform accept it as accurate. Yet there is controversy over whether such testing should be required as a routine matter for all or some chemicals in commerce. I've been to a number of conferences and meetings regarding chemical policy refor...
CONTINUE READINGWhen Will Congress Act? Our Poll Results
During Obama's second year in office 43% During Obama's third or fouth year 29% During Obama's first year in office 20% Never 6% After the 2012 elections 1 3%...
CONTINUE READINGCass Sunstein Has Lost His Mind
I'm in the middle of reading Sunstein and Thaler's Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness, and a lot of it is illuminating, if somewhat predictable for those who have followed behavioral economics over the last few years. But so far, by far the worst chapter has been the one on the environment, which has Sunstein's fingerprints all over it. Large chunks of the chapter are devoted to cap-and-trade or carbon tax schemes for climate change. which all...
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