Climate Change
Benedict XVI, Environmentalist Pope
Pope Benedict announced today that he is stepping down. As Pope, he was a strong supporter of the environment. For example, he has said this to say about sustainable development: The protection of the environment, and the safeguarding of resources and of the climate, oblige all leaders to act jointly, respecting the law and promoting solidarity with the weakest regions of the world (cf. …
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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 READINGStephen Colbert is a National Treasure
Like Tom Tomorrow. Click here for his must watch clip from Monday’s show. http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/423268/january-28-2013/the-word—the-new-abnormal Colbert nails conservative views on climate change. First, deny. Second, when the facts belie denial, accept but refuse to acknowledge human contributions. Finally, throw up your hands and say that even if it’s human-caused we can’t do anything about it …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia cap-and-trade offsets challenge rejected
Breaking: California has successfully weathered (at least in the lower court) another challenge to its cap-and-trade program. A state court has affirmed ARB’s significant discretion to design offsets protocols that rely on standardized additionality mechanisms, denying a petition that had sought to invalidate those protocols. Argus has the first story on this that I’ve seen. …
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CONTINUE READINGSunstein on Climate Change
Should the U.S. take action on climate change prior to a global treaty? Eric Posner and Cass Sunstein argued against unilteral action in a well-known paper. The argument received more extensive discussion in a book by Eric Posner and David Weisbach (with Sunstein dropping out because of government service). I’ve argued (see this paper) that …
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CONTINUE READINGBicameral Congressional Task Force on Climate Change Formed Today
In the days that have followed the President’s strong statement on climate change in his second inaugural, many have speculated about what role Congress will play, if any, in moving forward on this issue. (See Greenwire’s story here, for example, covering the question and writing about signs from WH press secretary Jay Carney that the President “will pursue both …
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CONTINUE READINGClimate Change in the Second Inaugural
From the prepared text: We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, …
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CONTINUE READINGEarly Warning Signs
Change is (literally) in the air. For the U.S., last year broke heat records. “2012, the year of a surreal March heat wave, a severe drought in the Corn Belt and a huge storm that caused broad devastation in the Middle Atlantic States, turns out to have been the hottest year ever recorded in the …
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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 READINGUC Berkeley report demonstrates need for strict resource shuffling rules in cap-and-trade
The Energy Institute at Haas, part of UC Berkeley, has a new study that looks at California’s rules for regulating electricity importers in the cap-and-trade program. These rules attempt to keep importers from gaming the cap-and-trade system via resource shuffling. The Energy Institute has simulated different counterfactual cap-and-trade rules using 2007 electricity market data. The …
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