Climate Change
Australia’s repeal of its carbon tax
A lot of (bad) environmental law news has been coming out of Australia recently. The new Liberal government has attempted to dump dredging spoils on the Great Barrier Reef and open up protected Tasmanian forests to logging. But most importantly, the government has repealed the carbon tax enacted by the prior Labor government. The Australian …
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CONTINUE READINGHuman Fingerprints on Australia’s Record Heatwave
Australia — or at least Australia’s current government — downplays the danger of climate change. But, as a famous physicist once said, “reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.” Last summer in Australia (corresponding to the winter months up here) broke many, many records. it was the hottest summer on record, …
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CONTINUE READINGTwo Voices from the UN Climate Summit Today
A President and a poet on our climate future
If you want a sense of the tone of today’s UN climate summit in NY, check out the remarks by President Obama (pasted below in full) and this remarkable poem, composed and read to the General Assembly today by Kathy Jenil Kajiner of the Marshall Islands. Ms. Kajiner was selected as a key speaker from …
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CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger David Schraub: Vermont Environmentalists File FTC Challenge over “Double-Counting” RECs
David Schraub is the Darling Foundation Fellow in Public Law at the University of California Berkeley School of Law. Represented by Patrick A. Parenteau and Douglas A. Ruley of the Vermont Law School’s Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic, four Vermont residents have petitioned the FTC to investigate alleged misleading marketing practices by Green Mountain …
CONTINUE READINGA Roadmap for State Comments on the Clean Power Plan
Considerations for State Regulators Tackling EPA’s §111(d) Proposed Rule
Yesterday, EPA announced its decision to extend the comment period on the Clean Power Plan—the agency’s proposed rule to regulate power plant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under Clean Air Act § 111(d)—until December 1, 2014. The comment period was originally scheduled to last 120 days, until October 16th. You can find a list of compiled …
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CONTINUE READINGLos Angeles Heat Waves, Electricity Use and Climate Change
It is 102 degrees in Los Angeles as I write this. Not in the San Fernando Valley or in the communities east of Los Angeles whose temperatures are regularly several degrees higher but in downtown Los Angeles. We’re in record heat territory and way above historical averages. But temperatures aren’t the only records that are …
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CONTINUE READINGSome lessons from l’affaire Tesla
There has been a lot of commentary over the decision by Tesla to make its multi-billion dollar investment in a new battery factory in Nevada, rather than California. There have been some criticisms that California did not do enough to lure Tesla here, and/or that its business climate is not supportive enough for investment, including …
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CONTINUE READINGSome (sort of) good news on sea level rise
Reef growth may be able to keep pace with climate change, keeping island nations above water
That sea level rise driven by global warming will soon make low-lying island nations uninhabitable has been widely publicized and readily accepted. In 2009, then-President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives held a cabinet meeting underwater in full scuba gear to raise global awareness of the threat of climate change. (The underwater meeting later became the …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Emergence of Climate Law Courses
It’s an increasingly widespread law school course.
The U.S. legal system has only begun to address climate change in the past ten or fifteen years. It was inevitable that this subject would infiltrate basic environmental law courses, especially given that there have now been three Supreme Court cases on the subject. But climate change is now increasingly the subject of separate courses …
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CONTINUE READINGU.S. Agricultural Policy, Climate Change, and Existing Legal Authority
New research from Berkeley Law finds that the U.S. Department of Agriculture can act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is much in the news these days, as it implements the massive and always-controversial farm bill, works to improve access to national forests, strives to enhance the U.S. position in international agriculture markets, and wrestles to contain this season’s extensive wildfire activity. What is less obvious to many is …
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