Climate Change

Ten of the Top Environmental Stories of 2011

Nuclear reactor meltdown in Japan. EPA issues new rules limiting mercury emissions by power plants. Durban climate summit produces modest progress, as developing countries begin to acknowledge the need for binding limits on their carbon emissions. White House kills scheduled new regulations of ozone. California adopts cap-and-trade system under AB 32. White House announces stringent …

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“White Christmas” — A Song of Climate Change?

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas Just like the ones I used to know Irving Berlin was prescient when he wrote those words over seventy years ago.  Little did he know that White Christmases were on their way to becoming a thing of the past. This year is a striking illustration, as ThinkProgress reports: In …

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When Do Economic Incentives Modify Behavior?

The Journal of Economic Perpspectives ought to be on any environmental law professor’s reading list — or really, anyone interested in environmental policy.  Thanks in no small part to the editorial wizardry of Managing Editor Timothy Taylor, it performs its mission — to “fill a  gap between the general interest press and most other academic …

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Churchill’s Wisdom and Climate Change

According to Yale poll results from last month, 63% of Americans now believe climate change is real, 17% think it isn’t, and 20% say they don’t know. Where does Churchill come into this?  To see that, you have to turn back the clock seventy years to December 1941. On the eve of Pearl Harbor, only …

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Signs of the (NY) Times

The Times has two interesting environmental stories today.  Both are worth reading.  They relate in different ways to climate change, but they’re both interesting even if climate change isn’t an issue that excites you. The first and most important story is about melting of permafrost in the Arctic.  Huge amounts of carbon are locked up …

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Governor’s Conference on Extreme Climate Risks & California’s Future

Today I attended the California Governor’s Conference on Extreme Climate Risks and California’s Future, held at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.  It was a lively event with speakers including Governor Brown, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the UN IPCC, Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Group, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a host …

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More Forest Greenwashing: Asia Pulp & Paper and Fake Certifications

In the firmament of environmental organizations, the World Wildlife Fund is about as centrist and mainstream as you are going to get.  For many years, it was associated with the sorts of Republicans that Dan highlights in his post below: those who took the “conserve” part of conservative seriously. That’s why the report it issued …

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Why The Expiration Of The Payroll Tax Cut Hurts The Environment

As Congress wrangles over the expiration of the payroll tax cut at the end of this month, environmentalists should note that the impacts of the expiration go beyond economics. Some environmental goodies will die with the soon-to-expire package of tax benefits, barring congressional action. For starters, I received this message in an email from my …

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Rethinking Job Searches for Environmental Lawyers

A couple of people have written to me wondering why I posted the RGGI job.  It isn’t really a law or a policy position, they say: really more like a glorified administrative assistant.  I don’t read it that way, but there are two ways to respond to the complaint, with the second one providing some …

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RGGI, RGGI, RGGI…..

As long as we’re at it, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative has posted an announcement for a potentially important job opportunity: RGGI, Inc. seeks to hire a program coordinator to support the implementation of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cooperative effort of Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the …

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