Climate Change
Does Being Conservative Have to Mean Ignoring Risks?
Florida’s Ron DeSantis doesn’t seem to think so.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis shows that it’s possible to be a staunch conservative and still be honest about the risks of climate change and the coronavirus.
CONTINUE READINGHow Hot Will Things Get?
Identifying a realistic worst case scenario is complicated.
How hot will the world be in 2100? The answer partly depends on how much carbon we dump in the atmosphere between now and then. It also depends on how sensitive the climate system is to those emissions. Scientists have used 4.5 °C as the high end of the likely possibilities. That estimate derives from …
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CONTINUE READINGEurope Mulls its First Climate Law
What would it do in terms of emissions targets and likely actual mitigation?
The European Union is, if one treats it as a country, the world’s third greatest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHGs). It has also been a leader in emissions reduction (“mitigation”), and its per capita emissions are merely 43% of the US’s. The EU government is presently considering a major new climate law that will set …
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CONTINUE READINGHeathrow’s Third Runway and Airport GHG Emissions
California’s potential opportunity to lead through local action
Late last month, a UK court blocked a proposed new runway at London’s Heathrow Airport, ruling that the project conflicted with the national government’s commitment under the 2015 Paris Agreement. The court held that project planners improperly failed to assess the proposal’s consistency with the UK government’s ratified plan to help meet the Paris target …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Right Wing’s Views of Coronavirus and Climate Change
There’s a common theme: “nothing to worry about, folks.”
It’s interesting to see what conservative think tanks are saying about the coronavirus and compare it with their views on climate change. There are some common themes — both problems tend to get downplayed, along with any possible need for major government action. Like Trump himself, the conservative think tanks seem unable to process scientific …
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CONTINUE READINGAn Easy, No-Fuss, Climate Fix for that Big First Day in Office
No, not rejoining the Paris Agreement, though that’s a good idea too. Something else.
This is kind of like one of those recipe things you see: putting a gourmet meal on the table in five minutes. But it’s more like: the one ingredient that will make all your recipes come out better. More seriously, what I’m about to propose is very conventional, easily integrated into agency procedures, and a …
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CONTINUE READINGClimate Change Threatens Tropical Fish Stocks. How Should Countries Respond?
As climate change warms the world’s oceans, marine scientists have paid special attention to how this will influence the movement of fish. Recent articles have shown that fish stocks are migrating toward colder waters in the poles. In a piece published yesterday in Nature Sustainability, a group of economists, marine scientists, and I examined for the first …
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CONTINUE READINGMaxing Out NEPA: Environmental Review of Early Solar Geoengineering Field Research
Done right, environmental review can reach what worries people most about climate engineering
A few months ago, Congress earmarked $4 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to research: stratospheric conditions and the Earth’s radiation budget, including the impact of the introduction of material into the stratosphere from changes in natural systems, increased air and space traffic, proposals to inject material to affect climate, and the …
CONTINUE READINGAnother Problem with Cost-Benefit Analysis of Climate Policy
It’s hard to estimate benefits. But it turns out costs are also uncertain.
It’s common knowledge— at least, among people who follow these things — that it is hard to estimate the benefits of a proposed climate policy. But it’s actually quite difficult to estimate the costs as well. There are three major problems in estimating the benefits of a proposed climate policy. First, it’s hard to estimate …
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CONTINUE READINGUtah’s Stealth Climate Plan
Here’s some upbeat news. I bet you needed that.
Hardly anyone noticed at the time, but Utah enacted an important bill about climate change in 2018. Yes, Utah – where the GOP holds 78% of the legislature. How that happened, and what happened since, is a story worth telling. The bill itself did not impose any carbon restrictions. But it did call for “the …
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