Academia
Mourning An Uncommon Student of the Commons
Elinor Ostrom, winner 0f the Nobel economics prize, died earlier today. She is best known for her work on how groups manage common resources such as fisheries. The “tragedy of the commons” is a theory that these common resources will inevitably be destroyed unless they are privatized or regulated by governments. Professor Ostrom showed that …
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CONTINUE READINGA Brief Survey for U.S. Environmental Law Professors
At the AALS midyear meeting, as part of the Workshop on Torts, Environment, and Disaster, Bruce R. Huber, John Copeland Nagle, Jessica Owley, Melissa Powers, Kalyani Robbins, Hari Osofsky and I will be co-presenting and co-moderating a session on “Generations of Environmental Law.” To help focus that discussion, we have prepared a brief survey for …
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CONTINUE READINGWho Took the “Think” Out of Think Tanks?
The American Enterprise Institute is an interesting organization, often shrilly ideological but also scholarly from time to time. I was curious to find out what kind of research they were doing on climate change. I did find some interesting policy papers on their webpage on the topic of climate policy. But here’s the surprising part: …
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CONTINUE READINGRent-seeking and property rights in environmental law
Jonathan Adler is guest-posting over at the Atlantic on conservative approaches to environmental law. In general, I can only support someone who is valiantly trying to make arguments about why conservatives should support efforts to address climate change, and developing climate change policies that are consistent with conservative and libertarian principles. But I want to …
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CONTINUE READING“The Devil’s Excrement”
That was the phrase used in 1975 by OPEC co-founder and Venezuelan Oil Minister Juan Perez Alfonso to describe crude oil: Perez predicted that it would bring wealth, but also ruin. Fortunately for the rest of us, the Organization of American Historians has devoted the most recent issue of the Journal of American History to pursue its …
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CONTINUE READINGUniversity of Michigan’s Ted Parson to Join UCLA Law Faculty
UCLA Law is thrilled to announce that Ted Parson, — currently Joseph L. Sax Collegiate Professor of Law and Professor of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan — will join its faculty effective July 1. Parson is one of the world’s leading experts on international environmental law and policy and the author …
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CONTINUE READINGLegal Planet’s International Audience
WordPress recently added a feature that provides websites with country statistics about readers on a weekly or monthly basis. Not surprisingly, most of our readers are American, and it’s almost equally unsurprising that Canada and the U.K. are next on the list. But somewhat more surprisingly, the fourth country is India, followed by Australia, Germany, …
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CONTINUE READINGNew journal issue on using the Clean Air Act to address greenhouse gas emissions
UCLA’s Journal of Environmental Law and Policy has just published its current issue, Volume 30, with all its content available free online in pdf format. This volume is a special symposium issue, featuring articles relating to the use of the Clean Air Act to address greenhouse gas emissions. Several of the articles’ authors were speakers …
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CONTINUE READINGWill Estrogen Save the Planet?
At least some researchers think so. According to a new study in Social Science Research, “controlling for other factors, in nations where women’s status is higher, CO2 emissions are lower.” Study coauthors Christina Ergas and Richard York, sociologists at the University of Oregon, write: even when controlling for a variety of measures of “modernization,” world-system …
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CONTINUE READINGBehavioral Economics and Climate Change
As an environmental economist and as a member of UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and as a firm believer in introducing a carbon tax of at least $50 per ton of CO2, I must admit that I’m a pinch troubled that the green cognescenti view the public to be a collection of Homer Simpsons. …
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