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Remedial Education for Berkeley Law Faculty
Or at least for John Yoo, who argues: Courts award damages based on the harm to the victim and the harm to society. Suppose you thought that the Iraq war was a mistake. If so, isn’t the proper remedy to restore Saddam Hussein’s family and the Baath Party to power in Iraq? If you are …
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CONTINUE READINGWhy I’m Boycotting Coke
Why Coke, you might wonder. Why not Pepsi? The answer is that diet coke is my soft drink of choice. It’s easy for me to boycott other soft drinks since I don’t drink them anyway. I like diet coke, so that’s the subject of my boycott. But why boycott soft drinks at all? Answer: Because …
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CONTINUE READINGWaxman/Whitehouse carbon tax draft
On Tuesday, Representative Waxman, Senator Whitehouse, Representaive Blumenauer and Senator Schatz released their proposal for a carbon tax bill. They are currently seeking feedback on the draft proposal, which is accordingly short on details. The Waxman/Whitehouse proposal is to require downstream emitters (mainly power plants and other emitters) to purchase annual “carbon pollution permits” per …
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CONTINUE READINGClimate Change’s Bipolar Personality
Climate change is literally bipolar, impacting both the northernmost and southernmost parts of the globe. But the pace and effects of warming differ at the two poles. At the northern end of the world, impacts are already dramatic. The Economist has a special feature on the Arctic, which provides an especially clear explanation of why the …
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CONTINUE READINGDeadly spike in Beijing’s air pollution
This graph shows recent air quality monitoring data (PM 2.5) from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. As the New York Times noted, this spike—seen as a thick haze in the city—has been described as “postapocalyptic.” Thanks in no small part to the Clean Air Act, we have thus far avoided the need to walk around …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Last Rockefeller
Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), the current chair of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee has announced his retirement. Rockefeller is 75, and faced a tough re-election fight in West Virginia, which has gone from being the state of John L. Lewis to the state of Mitt Romney — it went for Romney last year by …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat to expect from President Obama’s inaugural address
The countdown to President Obama’s January, 21 2013 inauguration begins: there are only ten days left for the President’s speechwriters to put the finishing touches on the President’s second, and final, inaugural address. The inaugural address is the first of two important opportunities President Obama will have in the coming months to describe the course …
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CONTINUE READINGOf Mollusks and Men: The Wilderness Act and Drakes Bay Oyster Company
The debate over Drakes Bay Oyster Company’s continued operation within the Point Reyes National Seashore created two unlikely foes: environmentalists in favor of transitioning the land to wilderness, and supporters of local, organic food and a longstanding family business. The San Francisco Chronicle aptly termed it a “legal and philosophical slugfest.” The door seems to …
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CONTINUE READINGPut That In Your Tank and Smoke It
The next time anyone tells you that an increase in gasoline prices (say, as part of a carbon-tax or a cap-and-trade system) would generate unbearable costs to consumers, think again. The Los Angeles Times reports something that I have often seen but never really thought through: gasoline stations often a couple block away from each …
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CONTINUE READINGLooking Ahead to 2050
Since New Year’s Eve is both a time for nostalgia and for looking ahead, it seems appropriate to see what the world will look like at mid-century. The world will be facing considerable challenges then. The population will be bigger. The United Nations predicts that the world population will grow by 2 billion to 9 …
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