Climate Change
Globalizing Public Nuisance
Let’s assume, as most of us on this blog do, that the Supreme Court will get rid of the public nuisance climate change when it decides Connecticut v. AEP a few weeks from now. Does that get rid of public nuisance climate cases? Not necessarily. Whatever one may think of the Clean Air Act’s displacement …
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CONTINUE READINGForest Offsets and Fuzzy Math in the Angeles National Forest
I previously posted that Sierra Club wants Governor Brown to re-examine forest offsets under California’s cap-and-trade program. One of the commenters to that post wondered if the plan to plant 10,000 acres of trees in the Angeles National Forest was an example of such an offset. Now I don’t know if that planting would count …
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CONTINUE READINGNew White Paper on Reducing Water Use to Save Energy
In California, we’re always talking about conserving water, usually because of a drought, and increasingly because of our growing population and likely future of water shortages due to climate change. But research shows another compelling reason: conserving water means conserving energy. Pumping and treating water is energy-intensive — the state water project, with its big …
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CONTINUE READINGLeave ExxonMobil ALOOOOOONE…..
The next time a conservative tells you that he believes in the free market and balanced budgets, just show him this: Republicans senators who in the past have supported ending tax subsidies to big oil companies are prepared to vote Tuesday night with their party leadership to keep those subsidies in place. “I’m going to …
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CONTINUE READINGScholastic drops industry-funded pro-coal 4th-grade curriculum, but still maintains other programs that threaten public health
Last week, I posted an item about Scholastic, Inc.’s partnership with the coal industry to produce “The United States of Energy,” an energy curriculum that promoted coal without disclosing its considerable public-health and environmental drawbacks. The controversy over this partnership, publicized widely by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, went as far as a chiding …
CONTINUE READINGGood news, bad news on understanding climate science: WaPo and Los Alamitos ed boards
You can’t get to good climate policy if policymakers don’t believe (or don’t profess to believe) that there’s a problem to fix. With this truism in mind, it’s kind of a “two roads diverged in the woods” morning for understanding climate science and policy. First we have the editorial board of the Washington Post, not …
CONTINUE READINGYou want political theatre? I’LL show you political theatre
This should be right up there in the annals of political chutzpah: ExxonMobil, the biggest international oil company, accused the US administration and Congress of “political theatre” in targeting the industry with discriminatory tax proposals that are due to be promoted at a Senate panel on Thursday. The “discriminatory tax proposals” that gullible …
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CONTINUE READINGSierra Club asks Gov. Brown to re-examine AB 32 cap-and-trade
On May 9, Sierra Club requested that Governor Jerry Brown “re-evaluate” the cap-and-trade rule promulgated by the California Air Resources Board. The Sacramento Bee has some initial reactions and you can read the original letter here. As noted in our earlier posts, CARB’s cap-and-trade rule has come under judicial scrutiny and its status is somewhat …
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CONTINUE READINGScholastic, Inc. publishes pro-coal curriculum for fourth graders, apparently paid for by coal industry
Yesterday, I wrote about a satirical campaign in which anti-coal activists spoofed a Peabody Energy website in order to publicize the link between burning coal and childhood asthma. The satirical campaign included fake child-oriented games and discounted asthma inhalers. But all satire aside, the coal industry really is marketing its product directly to children. The …
CONTINUE READINGAnti-coal satire (with My First Inhaler) punks Peabody Energy
Peabody Energy — last seen on this blog as the real party in interest whose proposal to mine more coal on Indian land in Arizona had to go back to the drawing board because of this UCLA environmental law clinic case , and immortalized in the John Prine song “Paradise” — has been punked. (I’ve …
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