Region: National
Election 2020: The Battle for the Senate
Control of the Senate will determine the environmental views of new judges and whether any environmental legislation can pass.
Control of the Senate will have a big impact on post-2020 policy in many areas, notably including the environment (and climate policy in particular). Right now, as best as I can tell, the Republicans still have a small edge, but that edge may be eroding. To get a sense of the state of play in …
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CONTINUE READINGLeaving Paris (from Rex Tillerson’s Diary)
Here’s how the deal was undone.
Three years ago today, Trump announced that he would withdraw from the Paris Agreement. Rex Tillerson, who was Trump’s Secretary of State about 10,000 tweets ago, was there, behind the scenes, when Trump was making the decision. Here’s what he might have written in his diary:. April 1. Talked with DT today. He said he’d …
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CONTINUE READINGAnimal, vegetable or mineral?
A lesson in judicial humility and a thought experiment about property rights
This topic may be a bit far afield for this blog, but dinosaurs are always worth considering . . . The Montana Supreme Court has resolved an intriguing dispute about ownership of fossilized dinosaur remains that turned on the question of whether those remains were or were not “minerals.” In the process, the Montana court …
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CONTINUE READINGNonstate Actors Could Help Govern Solar Geoengineering
Governments are not acting; maybe others could — and should
Although reductions in greenhouse gas emissions continue to be inadequate to prevent dangerous climate change, solar geoengineering appears able to substantially reduce climate risks. More research, including outdoor experiments, is needed to reduce critical uncertainties. This could pose some environmental risks and — arguably more importantly — will raise diverse social concerns, such as research …
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CONTINUE READINGCoronavirus Tests and Their Limits
Eyeballing trends in the epidemic? Proceed with caution!
Many of us anxiously scan coronavirus statistics, looking at trends and cross-country comparisons. Warning: We need to be cautious in interpreting those numbers. There’s lots of noise in the data, meaning that it’s not always an accurate measure of what we want to know about the disease. Even death counts are not always reliable — …
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CONTINUE READINGSuing Big Oil
Which court has jurisdiction? State court or federal?
Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in two climate change cases brought against the oil industry. The court ruled on a narrow but important procedural issue: whether the cases should be sent back to state court. Cities and counties should now be able to continue with the cases, in which they …
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CONTINUE READINGDay In/Day Out, Our Continuing Troubles
Some things are episodic. Others just go on and on. And on.
You might think a massive disease outbreak or skyrocketing unemployment would make our other troubles come to a halt or at least slow down. But no, not so much. Here are a dozen examples of things that refuse to stop, regardless of the day of the week, the presence of an epidemic, or a collapsing …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat’s in a Name?
“Climate change”? “Disruption”? “Crisis”? “Emergency”? Why is this so hard?
We seem to have a lot of trouble in coming up with the right name for what’s happening to the world’s climate. We started with “Global Warming.” But that seemed too narrow, because the changes don’t just relate to temperature, and too innocuous, because warming seems like a gentle process. So scientists shifted to “Climate …
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CONTINUE READINGNetworks of Misinformation
How Anti-Public Health Messages and Activities Spread
Like a virus, misinformation can spread within a population. It has its super-spreaders, just like the coronavirus. It can mutate in ways that make it more contagious. And it can be weaponized. Research into networks of coronavirus-related communication has revealed how both true and false information spread through social media . Misinformation can spread like …
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CONTINUE READINGGuest Contributors Helen Kang and Deborah Sivas: California Should Lead the Nation in Controlling Agricultural Pollution
Protection of Drinking Water and Environmental Quality Demands Strong Action
Agricultural runoff is one of the largest sources of pollution in the nation’s waterways. In recent years, scientific journals and the media have been filled with reports of toxic algae blooms and dead zones near and far: The Everglades, Great Lakes, Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay, and San Francisco Bay-Delta. Agricultural pollution also threatens public …
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