Academia
Debating the Economics of Climate Change
A blog with the great title of Greed, Green and Grains (by environmental economist Michael J. Roberts) reported an interesting national bureau of economic research debate on the economics of climate change. The debaters were Pindyck (MIT) and Weitzman (Harvard). It seems increasingly clear that the key factors driving economic conclusions are the treatment of …
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CONTINUE READINGEight Profiles in Courage
Eight Republicans voted to pass the Waxman-Markey bill in the House. Some conservative groups are already threatening to punish them for this deviation from party orthodoxy. (That sort of self-destructive retaliation used to be typical of the Democrats, who used it as part of their arsenal of weapons for shooting themselves in the foot.) A …
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CONTINUE READINGAn Invitation to Review the Supreme Court’s Environmental Record
This has been a blockbuster year in the U.S. Supreme Court for environmental law and policy. In the Term that concludes this month, the justices have decided five major environmental cases, involving many of the nation’s most important environmental laws. Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE), one of the sponsors of …
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CONTINUE READINGNew and Noteworthy in the Eco-Blogosphere
For the environmental world at large, here are some noteworthy posts: Africa needs substantially scaled-up finance, technology and capacity-building to combat climate change 2009 Hurricane Names to Watch for, as Season Begins After a record-breaking 2008 hurricane season, the first storm has formed before the official June 1 start to the 2009 season. The hydrogen …
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CONTINUE READINGNo Butts About It
The New York Times has reported on a stealth environmental crisis, one that the public has heretofore regarded as the mere detritus of a serious public health controversy. But discarded cigarette butts constitute a major environmental crisis as well, and public attention to that crisis is long overdue. In its recent story, the Times notes …
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CONTINUE READINGWar and the Environment
Memorial Day is an apt date to think about how wars, along with their other tragic costs, impact the environment. As Peace Pledge reminds us: Images of devastated battlefields are all too familiar. A German officer in 1918 described ‘dumb, black stumps of shattered trees which still stick up where there used to be villages. …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Latest Issue of ELQ
As usual, an intriguing collection of articles, all available free on-line: The Silver Anniversary of the United States’ Exclusive Economic Zone: Twenty-Five Years of Ocean Use and Abuse, and the Possibility of a Blue Water Public Trust Doctrine Mary Turnipseed, Stephen E. Roady, Raphael Sagarin, & Larry B. Crowder Read Article (PDF) Reducing Greenhouse Gas …
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CONTINUE READINGAnother Env Law Prof Goes to Washington
President Obama announced his intention to nominate Chris Schroeder to head the Office of Legal Policy at DOJ. As the announcement indicates, Schroeder is an eminent authority on environmental law: Christopher H. Schroeder is Charles S. Murphy Professor of Law and Professor of Public Policy Studies, and director of the Program in Public Law at …
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CONTINUE READINGDebating Environmental Issues
The Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) sponsored a series of debates and colloquies at Berkeley in the Spring semester, all of which are now available on video: Unleashing the Clean Energy Economy Michael Shellenberger vs. Peter Barnes – February 18, 2009 Environmental Program Town Hall February 19, 2009 Climate Change & the …
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CONTINUE READINGDisaster Law
Disaster issues have several links to environmental law. Perhaps the most obvious is that climate change is likely to cause a sharp increase in the number of extreme weather events such as floods and heat waves. Less obviously, disaster law is the flip side of environmental law, concerned with how nature impacts us rather than …
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