Climate Change
The New IPCC Assessment, Carbon Budgets and the Role of the U.S.
National Academy Study Used the Carbon Budget Approach Taken in New IPCC Report to Show How the U.S. Could Limit Emissions
Today’s major environmental news is, of course, the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 5th Assessment Report addressing the physical science basis for climate change. The findings are strong and alarming: warming of the climate system is unequivocal and unprecedented; atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions “have increased to …
Continue reading “The New IPCC Assessment, Carbon Budgets and the Role of the U.S.”
CONTINUE READINGIf we could see it, would we stop it?
Making carbon pollution visible.
Cross-posted at The Berkeley Blog. It’s difficult to see something as a problem if we can’t see it at all. That’s one problem with coming to grips with greenhouse gas pollution. It doesn’t show up in the air the way smog does, and its impacts aren’t directly linked to emissions in perceptible ways. Interestingly, it …
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CONTINUE READINGA New Climate Threat: “Academic Freedom” Laws
The other day I suggested that climate advocates ought to start working in school board elections as a way of building long term political support for vigorous climate action. Well, it looks like they will need to start playing defense as well. October’s Scientific American reports that climate deniers are now pushing the Orwellian “academic …
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CONTINUE READINGToday’s House Subcommittee Hearing on Climate Change
President Obama’s recent announcement on climate change irritated some in Congress—but we didn’t need a hearing to find that out.
Today, Republican leaders in the House Energy and Power Subcommittee called a hearing to discuss climate change. Has the Right suddenly taken an interest in responding to climate change? As you might anticipate, the answer is no. The hearing, entitled “The Obama Administration’s Climate Change Policies and Activities,” focused on attacks to the President’s Climate …
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CONTINUE READINGBreaking News: Ninth Circuit Upholds California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard
Does California’s life cycle analysis of the carbon intensity of transportation fuel facially discriminates against out-of-state ethanol?
In a sweeping victory for the California Air Resources Board, the Ninth Circuit today issued an opinion in Rocky Mountain Farmers Union v. Corey upholding the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) and reversing a lower court ruling that the LCFS facially discriminated against interstate commerce in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The court also vacated the …
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CONTINUE READINGShould Climate Advocates Fight School Board Elections?
Climate advocates might take a lesson from one of the most significant political movements of the last four decades: evangelical Christians.
Why have climate advocates failed in creating political support for significant climate policy? Amy Luers thinks she knows. In her recent piece, Rethinking US Climate Advocacy, her abstract states: It is time to reassess climate advocacy. To develop a strategy for philanthropy to strengthen climate engagement, I interviewed over 40 climate advocates, more than a dozen representatives …
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CONTINUE READINGSingle-Family Houses: A Smart Growth Strategy
Single family homes are a smart growth strategy as long they are planned and developed, well, smartly.
Sunday’s New York Times features a story by Shaila Dewan asking, “Is Suburban Sprawl on the Way Back?” Answer: not really, although highly compact urban development is hardly going to dominate, either. The best quote from the whole piece comes from Smart Growth America President Geoff Anderson, who correctly observed, The market isn’t all for smart growth, …
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CONTINUE READINGLies, Damned Lies, and Climate Denial
One key question is whether these statements amounted to factual accusations that Mann had engaged in scientific misconduct.
A D.C. trial judge recently refused to dismiss climate scientist Michael Mann’s libel lawsuits against the National Review and the Competitiveness Institute. There are some serious constitutional barriers against such libel suits, which are designed to provide ample breathing room for free speech. Is this one of the rare cases that can jump the hurdles?
CONTINUE READINGNew Report Released Today on Electric Vehicle Deployment in Hawaii
Hawaii may be a paradise, but not if you’re driving a fossil fuel car and getting all of your electricity from the grid. The state has the highest gas and electricity prices in the nation, burning imported fossil fuels and costing residents dearly. Yet Hawaii has abundant renewable resources, from solar to wind to geothermal. …
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CONTINUE READINGCEQA Reform 2013: Long-Overdue Changes for Infill and the Environment
It looks like State Senate pro Tem Darrell Steinberg might finally be putting the “E” back in “CEQA,” at least when it comes to how California’s premiere environmental law treats traffic impacts. His bill SB 731 to reform the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), previously discussed by Eric, is taking aim at the law’s perverse …
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