Climate Change

Indirect Land Use Change and Biofuels

Biofuels are a promising way to reduce carbon emissions, but they have a potential side-effect: indirect land use change (ILUC).  ILUC is more serious for some fuels than others, but it’s a possibility with any biofuel except perhaps algae grown in tanks in the desert. The logic of ILUC seems undeniable: because demand for food …

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Senate Fails to Act So What’s New in the World of Geoengineering?

With the depressing news that the Senate will not go forward on a climate bill, I thought it worth revisiting a question I posed a year and a half ago:  is geoengineering inevitable?  If we assume that U.S. leadership is crucial to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent over the next forty years, and …

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Climate Integrity

A major British report has been issued relating to the famous pirated emails from East Anglia.  The report concludes: Climate science is a matter of such global importance, that the highest standards of honesty, rigour and openness are needed in its conduct. On the specific allegations made against the behaviour of CRU scientists, we find …

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Adios, Federal Climate Change Legislation

We hardly knew ye (in the Senate, anyway).  Reports indicate that Senate Democrats will be scaling back their energy legislation to a bill that addresses oil well leaks and energy efficiency, but nothing on carbon emission more generally. In many ways, the failure of comprehensive energy reform can be traced to two things: 1) health …

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How To Increase Deployment of Energy Storage To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The white papers keep coming.  Today, UC Berkeley and UCLA Schools of Law released a new report, “The Power of Energy Storage: How to Increase Deployment in California to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” to examine policies that California and federal leaders can implement to increase the state’s energy storage capacity. As California seeks to expand …

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New White Paper Released on Local Government Land Use Planning and Climate Change

UC Berkeley and UCLA Schools of Law released a new white paper today called “Plan for the Future: How Local Governments Can Help Implement California’s New Land Use and Climate Change Legislation.”  The paper looks at steps that policy-makers and local government leaders can take to improve land use planning in California to meet the …

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The environmental community mourns the passing of climate science giant Stephen Schneider

Dr. Stephen Schneider, the pioneering Stanford climate scientist whose passion for the topic and concern for the earth’s future led him to become an outspoken public advocate for the role of scientific evidence and scientific judgment in shaping climate policy, has died at age 65 of an apparent heart attack. Andy Revkin of the New …

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Economists against Prop 23

As Ann has reported, California’s global warming law, AB 32, is under attack. Proposition 23 on the November ballot would suspend AB 32 until unemployment in the state falls below 5.5% for four consecutive quarters (currently, unemployment in California is over 12%). Opponents of environmental regulation often argue that too much regulation kills jobs and …

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Ten Lessons from the Financial Reform Bill

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a bill to get cloture in the Senate. Nevertheless, when something is important enough, the Senate can overcome its paralysis and pass legislation. BUT the legislation will be greatly weakened in the process. Bismarck didn’t go far enough when …

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Climate stabilization targets

Everything about climate policy seems to be difficult, but one of the big challenges has been choosing goals. Many of the targets to date, including California’s AB 32 mandate to return to 1990 greenhouse gas emission levels by 2020, have been based more on what seems feasible than on what seems necessary. NASA’s James Hansen …

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