Climate Change
The Top Ten Facts You Didn’t Know About Kochgate
10. Until the recent disclosures about funding for Proposition 23 in California, you probably hadn’t heard much about Koch Industries because it’s a family business, although it does $100 billion in sales per year. 9. Charles Koch co-founded the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank dedicated to saving companies like Koch from the horrors of …
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CONTINUE READINGProp 23 and Little Oil
Prop 23 is getting national attention, including a story in the NY Times: Charles and David Koch, the billionaires who have played a prominent role in financing the Tea Party movement, donated $1 million to the campaign to suspend the Global Warming Solutions Act enacted four years ago, and signaled that they are prepared to …
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CONTINUE READINGProp 23 and the Oil Companies
It is frequently said that “the oil companies” are financing Prop 23. This turns out to be a bit of an overgeneralization. According to Greenwire, While some companies are supporting Proposition 23, Shell Oil Co. opposes it, Chevron Corp. is officially neutral, Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP PLC have decided not to get involved and …
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CONTINUE READINGPolitics versus Science in the 2010 Election Cycle
Here’s some fairly depressing news from Wonk Room: Remarkably, of the dozens of Republicans vying for the 37 Senate seats in the 2010 election, only one — Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware — supports climate action. Even former climate advocates Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) now toe the science-doubting party line. …
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CONTINUE READINGA Vigorous Global Response To a Systemic Issue (Why is Climate Change so Different?)
Imagine a problem: it’s global; it stems from an extremely complex, interconnected system; it has major economic implications. Sounds like climate change, or in other words, like the kind of problem that the world can’t seem to address effectively. But no, it’s not Global Climate Change, it’s Global Economic Change. And the world seems to …
CONTINUE READINGWWWD (What Will Whitman Do) on Proposition 23 and AB 32? Whitman’s Seeing Green for the General Election
There’s renewed attention today on both AB 32 — California’s sweeping climate change legislation — and Proposition 23, the initiative that would derail it (see Rick’s post here about several state AGs considering suing to overturn AB 32 as unconstitutional and his post here about Berkelely’s study concluding, basically, that Prop 23 is a bad …
CONTINUE READINGState AGs Ready to Attack Constitutionality of California’s AB 32
An important postscript to my earlier post regarding Berkeley Law’s/CLEE’s newly-published white paper on Proposition 23. That’s the California initiative measure that, if approved by voters this November, would suspend implementation of that state’s Global Warming Solutions Act, better known as AB 32. The San Francisco Chronicle reports today that the Attorneys General of Alabama, …
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CONTINUE READINGBerkeley Law/CLEE Publish White Paper on Efforts to Suspend California’s AB 32
Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE) has today published, “California at the Crossroads: Proposition 23, AB 32 and Climate Change.” This white paper is intended to provide an objective, non-partisan analysis of California Proposition 23, an initiative measure that will appear on California’s November 2nd general election ballot. If enacted, Proposition …
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CONTINUE READINGHot Off the Presses
So to speak. Our friend and colleague Matt Kahn’s new book, Climatolopolis: How Our Cities Will Thrive in the Hotter Future, has just been published. Matt is a real rarity among economists in two ways: 1) He writes in English; and 2) He does not think that economics can explain everything and anything, and has …
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CONTINUE READINGGOP, Dems, and Energy Policy
I took a look at the Democratic and Republican parties to see what they had to say about the issues. Given that the Republicans are set to gain ground in the upcoming election, this could help see where potential exists for policy changes. Republicans: Stress goal of energy independence. In addition to renewables, favor nuclear, …
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