Climate Change
Long Shot Challenges to the Endangerment Finding
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has filed another legal challenge, this time to EPA’s refusal to reconsider its finding that climate change endangers human health or welfare. Although there is a large flurry of these challenges, they seem to be filed more for political reasons and to achieve delay than because of any prospect of …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Reverend Bayes Visits Russia
In a post last week, I discussed how Bayesian analysis could help with determining whether certain events are due to climate change — and by the same token, how events can help reinforce the evidence for climate change. The Russian heat wave is a case in point. As the Economist explains: According to Geert Jan …
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CONTINUE READINGTell Your Reverend To Go Jump In The Lake
Dan, your post is thoroughly persuasive to me, but I’m not sure that it would persuade many climate skeptics. There are two reasons for this: 1) You assume that there is at least a 50/50 chance of climate change occurring. That is a highly conservative assumption — except for climate skeptics. Most climate skeptics are …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Reverend Bayes Visits Lake Mead
Land Letter reports that Lake Mead has continued to recede in the face of an 11-year drought, as we are apparently heading into a La Nina period that will probably continue the drought. This will put some pressure on adaptation measures, particular in terms of Las Vegas: For Las Vegas, which draws 90 percent of …
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CONTINUE READINGClimate Change, Afghanistan, and the Model Penal Code
It’s hard to look at this week cover of Time and not want to remain in Afghanistan. That was probably the magazine’s intention. But let’s do a quick cost-benefit analysis here. I have argued elsewhere that we could save far more women from repression, violence, and brutality by taking all the money and effort we are …
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CONTINUE READINGUpton Sinclair and Climate Change (Lack of) Policy
You know that things are getting bad when cool-and-collected Ann Carlson asks whether climate deniers and foot-draggers can sleep at night. It seems to me, though, that there is a pretty straightforward answer, courtesy of Upton Sinclair: It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. …
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CONTINUE READINGWhile Rome (Moscow) Burns, Pakistan and China Flood, Washington Does Nothing
Grim — almost apocalyptic — headlines seem to greet us daily. Pakistan faces the worst floods in almost a century, displacing millions from their homes and killing thousands. The UN is calling the floods “the greatest humanitarian crisis” the organization has ever faced. Russia swelters in unprecedented heat accompanied by horrific air quality. The average daily death …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornians still support action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to new report
California, for better or worse, is still a bellwether state on many public policy issues. Public opinion here matters, not just as a predictor of our state’s future political direction, but also nationally. And California’s residents’ opinions about environmental issues are particularly important, given our state’s leadership on environmental issues. Right now, there is a …
CONTINUE READINGJudge orders changes in ballot language for Proposition 23, which would suspend California’s greenhouse gas emissions law
Today, a judge ruled that the state must change the “title and summary” ballot language for Proposition 23, the oil-company-funded proposition that would suspend California’s landmark greenhouse gas emissions law AB 32. (My colleague Ann Carlson wrote about this initiative campaign earlier this summer.) Proposition 23 would render the law unenforceable until California’s unemployment rate …
CONTINUE READINGThe environmental community mourns the passing of climate science giant Stephen Schneider
Dr. Stephen Schneider, the pioneering Stanford climate scientist whose passion for the topic and concern for the earth’s future led him to become an outspoken public advocate for the role of scientific evidence and scientific judgment in shaping climate policy, has died at age 65 of an apparent heart attack. Andy Revkin of the New …
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