Climate Change

So much for “consensus climate solutions”

Our friend Jon Adler has taken many of us and most progressives to task for not pursuing “consensus solutions” to climate change.  What might these consensus climate solutions be?  Well, Jon insists that it would look something like a revenue-neutral carbon tax (such as is proposed by the superb Carbon Tax Center) instead of a …

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Climate Change and Providential Irony

Jed suggests that “the belief that climate change can’t be real because God made the earth for us to use is just one instance of a deep and old American practice of enlisting nature to uphold our cultural and political identities – to prove that the world is made for people like us.”  That may be …

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Whose Nature? God, the GOP, and Everyone Else

Some Americans say they don’t believe in climate change because they believe in God – or, more exactly, because of what they believe about God.  A few weeks ago, the New York Times quoted some Indiana Tea Party activists who explained that, because the world was created for human use and benefit, using its mineral …

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California Cap-and-Trade Math

In late October, California Air Resources Board (CARB) released their draft regulations for cap-and-trade under AB 32.  I looked at CARB’s proposed allocations: the cap, the offset percentage, the reserve percentage and the projected emissions level.  Running the numbers allows a few general observations: If covered emitters take full advantage of the 8% allowed offsets, …

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UCLA Sustainable Technology and Policy Program (STPP): New interdisciplinary program of UCLA Schools of Law and Public Health

The UCLA Sustainable Technology and Policy Program (STPP) has just launched its new website.   STPP is an interdisciplinary program based in the UCLA School of Law and the School of Public Health, with partners and affiliated faculty across the UCLA campus.  The program’s goal is to promote public health and environmental protection by developing and promoting …

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Melting the Ice (But Not in a Fun, Life-of-the Party Way)

The Ny Times has a lengthy article about glacial melting and sea level rise, with bad news: But researchers have recently been startled to see big changes unfold in both Greenland and Antarctica. As a result of recent calculations that take the changes into account, many scientists now say that sea level is likely to …

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Why the Feds Should Pay the Administrative Costs of Implementing AB 32

There’s been a lot of discussion of whether Prop 26 interferes with the use of fees to pay the administrative expenses for AB 32.  I would like to suggest an alternative solution: the Feds should pick up the tab.  This may seem a little far-fetched, given the current political situation, but it makes real sense …

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More Thoughts About Conservative Climate Perspectives

Climate issues are essentially factual, not ideological. We naturally all come to those issues with our own perspectives. That’s fine, so long as our ideological lenses merely color the facts rather than blocking them from view entirely.

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That Warm Fuzzy Cap-And-Trade Feeling

Cara asks if cap-and-trade skeptics like me still get excited at California’s Mini-Me version. The short answer (for me, at least) is yes. I’m all in favor of California rolling out its own version, and my hope has always been that the California Air Resources Board could develop a successful program that EPA could eventually …

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I, Robot

The claims of climate deniers are so repetitive that someone has figured out how to automate the twitter wars: Getting into a climate change debate on Twitter could be even more exhausting than it sounds now that a software developer named Nigel Leck has automated the process. Tired of arguing with climate change deniers in …

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