Climate Change
Wish-I’d-Said-That Department
Slacktivist (h/t RBC): The nefarious global conspiracy promoting the climate-change hoax continues to spread: The oceans are in on it. So are the maple trees of New England. And both Dakotas.
CONTINUE READINGDavid Owens Overstates the Rebound Effect’s Relevance
Here is an impressive blog post. I didn’t write it! Shakeb Afsah and Kendyl Salcito present a data filled post that takes David Owen’s Rebound Effect quite seriously. I respect hypothesis testing! Owen’s sexy hypothesis is that the Prius actually contributes to climate change! How could this happen? The Prius has such a high MPG that it effective …
Continue reading “David Owens Overstates the Rebound Effect’s Relevance”
CONTINUE READINGHappy (Belated) World Water Day! There’s Good News and Bad News….
Well, that’s embarrassing. Yesterday was the United Nations’ annual World Water Day, which apparently arrives every March 22nd. I only stumbled across it by accident, since it was referenced by another website that I was reading. But the UN has put a lot of PR effort at least into the project, and developed a very …
Continue reading “Happy (Belated) World Water Day! There’s Good News and Bad News….”
CONTINUE READINGThe Commerce Department Undercuts Clean Energy
The Commerce Department’s decision to levy tariffs on Chinese solar panel imports has been in the news for a couple of days, but should receive more attention for envir0nmental policy wonks than it has so far. The Obama Administration has basically decided to impair clean energy production with its decision, even if the tariffs are …
Continue reading “The Commerce Department Undercuts Clean Energy”
CONTINUE READINGJeremy Bentham and Polar Bears
Over at the Reality-Based Community, my co-blogger James Wimberley rightfully takes to task a right-wing economist named Karl Smith for what Wimberley calls the dumbest blog post of 2011. Smith essentially seems to argue that it’s okay to cause hundreds of species to become extinct because it will increase aggregate wealth in the short run. In doing …
Continue reading “Jeremy Bentham and Polar Bears”
CONTINUE READINGDeep Waters
Dean Rowan pointed me to a nifty interactive site dealing with sea level change. It covers the entire coastal U.S. You simply put in the name or zip code of the place your interested in, along with the amount of sea level rise (1-10 feet). You get a map of what parts of the city …
Continue reading “Deep Waters”
CONTINUE READINGMonsieur Fouche, Meet Professor Gleick
By now, Peter Gleick’s ethical indiscretions concerning the Heartland Institute are old news. But for lawyers, they raise particularly interesting ethical issues because they highlight the question of really, whether there were ethical barriers broached at all. I initially thought that this was obviously the case: someone in my profession would get disbarred for doing …
Continue reading “Monsieur Fouche, Meet Professor Gleick”
CONTINUE READINGDebunking the Denialists
William Nordhaus, the distinguished climate change economist, has written a response to the Wall Street Journal‘s latest exercise in climate skepticism. He does an excellent job of responding to many of the standard claims of climate skeptics. For one thing, the WSJ op-ed misrepresented Nordhaus’s own findings. According to the op-ed, Nordhaus’s research supported “a …
Continue reading “Debunking the Denialists”
CONTINUE READINGCharter Cities Offer Climate Change Adaptation Benefits
Brandon Fuller and I have published a short piece arguing that another benefit of charter cities is to increase the set of coping strategies for people who live in less developed countries and face new climate shocks due to global warming. Starting with my 2010 book Climatopolis, I have consistently argued that global greenhouse gas …
Continue reading “Charter Cities Offer Climate Change Adaptation Benefits”
CONTINUE READINGHeat Waves, Droughts, and the Energy System
According to the IPCC, it “is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves, and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent.” For instance, by midcentury, the number of heat wave days in Los Angeles is expected to at least double over the late twentieth century, and quadrupling is expected by the end of …
Continue reading “Heat Waves, Droughts, and the Energy System”
CONTINUE READINGJoin Our Mailing List
Climate policy is changing rapidly. Stay in the loop with expert analysis via email Monday - Friday.
