Climate Change
Q (circa 2100): Whatever Happened to Kansas? A: It Burned Up.
The Nature Conservancy has released a projection of business-as-usual climate impacts, which shows particularly heavy impacts in Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa. The predictions are fairly grim. The analysis is based on averaging model results for IPCC Scenarios B1 assumes a (decrease in emission rates over the next century for a total concentration of 538ppm by …
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CONTINUE READINGUCLA/Berkeley Law & Attorney General’s Office release report recommending policies to encourage sustainable real estate development
For those of you who haven’t memorized the AB 32 scoping plan pie chart that details the sources of greenhouse gas emissions in California by sector, “vehicle miles traveled” (or, as lay folks call it, “driving”) represents the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the state — almost forty percent. We can hope …
CONTINUE READINGUCLA environmental law journal publishes new work on personal norms and carbon emissions, and on other interesting topics
Following in Dan’s footsteps as promoters of our respective schools’ excellent environmental law journals, I’m proud to announce that the UCLA Journal of Environmental Law and Policy Volume 27, #1 was published this summer. This journal issue features several interesting pieces. They include a thought-provoking Comment by second-year UCLA law student Jed Ela, Law and Norms …
CONTINUE READINGMore on the Chamber of Commerce’s extraordinary demand for a “Scopes trial” on climate change
UPDATE: regarding the standard of judicial review of any on-the-record hearing (discussed below), see the comments: commenter Steve Taber disagrees with my initial analysis, and he may be right (though I don’t have time to look into it further today). ORIGINAL POST: Holly has written a thoughtful post discussing the meritlessness and cynicism of the …
CONTINUE READINGWould a CO2 “monkey trial” improve scientific integrity and transparency?
As reported in the L.A. Times and Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has petitioned EPA to hold a trial-type hearing before finalizing its proposed finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare. (We blogged about the proposed endangerment finding here.) The main argument in the petition is that a formal …
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CONTINUE READINGAn Indian Cap-and-Trade System?
Well, here’s something potentially significant: India has approved in principle new trading plans centred on energy efficiency as part of efforts to shift to a greener economy to fight climate change, opening up a potential market worth more than $15 billion by 2015. … The plan involves creating a market-based mechanism that would allow businesses …
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CONTINUE READINGNews of the Day
There’s a lot of interesting stuff out there. Not as interesting as Legal Planet, maybe, but let’s give credit where credit is due. Here’s some of the latest: What Happened to Acid Rain? How we (partially) solved a major environmental problem. China is Taking over the Solar Energy Market. Apparently somebody thinks there’s money in …
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CONTINUE READINGRecent Work in Environmental Economics
What are environmental economists thinking about these days? Mostly energy and clmate change, it would seem. Here’s a roundup of the most significant recent papers posted at SSRN’s environmental economics journal. I’ve included links to those with free downloads: “Airline Emission Charges: Effects on Airfares, Service Quality, and Aircraft Design” JAN K. BRUECKNER and ANMING …
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CONTINUE READINGStill more on climate engineering
There’s a lot of enthusiasm in some circles for “geo-engineering” as a response to anthropogenic climate change, and a lot of skepticism about it in others. The appeal is obvious — controlling greenhouse gas emissions looks difficult, since our economies and many of our daily habits (at least in the developed nations, which are providing …
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CONTINUE READINGRep. Waxman, Sen. Pavley, and Mary Nichols talk climate change
For those of you interested in the relationship between federal climate legislation and California’s landmark global warming laws, tune in tomorrow 10am-noon PDT for a public forum at UCLA. It will be live webcast here, and yes, we are apparently even twittering it. Rep. Henry Waxman will talk about his work in passing the American Clean Energy and …
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