Climate Change
Ditching cap and trade (the phrase, not the proposal)
Looks like the White House is taking note of the same polling data Dan blogs about here on the public’s antipathy toward, or misunderstanding of, the phrase “cap and trade”. This from the LA Times, in a story generally chronicling the administration’s efforts to figure out the best language and framing for its climate policies: …
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CONTINUE READINGPika next test for the ESA?
If you think the polar bear wrangling has been fun, stay tuned. FWS has announced that it will review the status of the American pika to determine if listing is warranted (hat tip: EarthJustice). The pika, also known as the “rock rabbit,” is a cute little creature found in the mountains of the western U.S. …
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CONTINUE READINGRagging on Climate Change
OMB’s memo exhibits shocking disregard of or ignorance of the law.
CONTINUE READINGThe virtual carbon footprint
Is your computer saving the environment or destroying it? Computer use has become a major energy sink both in the U.S. and worldwide. And it’s not just the computer on your desk. Duncan Graham-Rowe reports in New Scientist that the internet, including data centers as well as computers and peripherals linked to those centers “could …
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CONTINUE READINGCap and Trade? Huh??
It turns out that hardly anyone except politicos and policy wonks knows what cap-and-trade means or that it relates to climate change. According to Rasmussen, Given a choice of three options, just 24% of voters can correctly identify the cap-and-trade proposal as something that deals with environmental issues. A slightly higher number (29%) believe the …
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CONTINUE READINGA New Website on Climate Economics
Real Climate Economics offers a wealth of information from a pro-regulatory perspective: The Real Climate Economics website offers a reader’s guide to the real economics of climate change, an emerging body of scholarship that is consistent with the urgency of the problem as seen from a climate science perspective. As the climate policy debate intensifies, …
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CONTINUE READINGPolar bears, wolves, and Obama’s Interior Department
Environmentalists have been absolutely thrilled with the EPA under the leadership of President Obama and Administrator Lisa Jackson. The Department of Interior under Secretary Ken Salazar has drawn more mixed reviews so far. (Dan Tarlock and I wrote about the first 100 days at Interior on the Center for Progressive Reform blog.) Recent news out …
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CONTINUE READINGWildfires Cause Climate Change, Climate Change Causes Wildfires
An obvious question about the raging wildfire in Santa Barbara is whether climate change is the cause. While it’s impossible to blame any individual fire on increasing temperatures, we know that climate change is responsible for more frequent and more intense wildfires in the southwest. But less obvious and at least as troubling is that …
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CONTINUE READINGESA Does Not Address Carbon Emissions
According to news reports, the Department of Interior has reaffirmed a Bush Administration rule that excludes carbon emissions from regulation under the Endangered Species Act. The Guardian reports: The Obama administration today declined to protect polar bears from the single greatest threat to their survival – the melting of sea ice by global warming. The …
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CONTINUE READINGSection 7 status quo reinstated
Last week, Interior Secretary Salazar and Commerce Secretary Locke issued a press release announcing that they were withdrawing the Bush administration’s midnight rules relaxing the ESA section 7 consultation requirements. (Background on the Bush rules is here, here, and here.) The notice formalizing that decision has now been published in the Federal Register. As Congress …
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