Climate Change
Scoping Out the Green New Deal
How would we go about decarbonizing the most needy U.S. states?
Progressives are calling for a Green New Deal. The details are still very fuzzy, despite the House resolution introduced by Markey and Ocasio-Cortez. That proposal as a ten-year timetable to eliminate carbon, which is highly unrealistic. Nevertheless, it’s worth thinking about what an all-out effort to decarbonizing the economy would look like. The Green New …
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CONTINUE READINGNot Quite The Analogy We Wanted
Kurt Vonnegut and Seeming Futility
My rapidly accelerating senility means that I have to catch up on reading I should have done when I was younger. So I just started Kurt Vonnegut’s classic Slaughterhouse Five. And right at the beginning, this exchange jumped out at me. The protagonist tells a big Hollywood producer that he is thinking about writing a …
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CONTINUE READINGFunny, It Doesn’t Look Bluish
Strong Push for Renewables in the Land of Enchantment – But Is It a Bailout?
Although it reliably votes for Democratic Presidential candidates, has two Democratic United States Senators, and a trifecta of Democratic control in the state house, blue-state New Mexico is not usually thought of as a progressive environmental leader. The State Public Regulation Commission — one of only 13 directly elected by voters — has been plagued …
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CONTINUE READINGBottoms-Up! An Emerging New Governance System (4)
We can think of the energy system as a kind of ecosystem, and renewables as an invasive species.
As I’ve discussed the earlier three posts in this series, it is possible to imagine a cycle of positive feedback, in which the history of past climate efforts increases the likelihood of future ones and even draws more jurisdictions into the effort. But it is also possible to imagine that bottom-up efforts might not catch …
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CONTINUE READINGThe 2019 Oscars Has a Climate Change Contender
Paul Schrader’s First Reformed nominated for best original screenplay
Clear your calendar and prepare your popcorn – the 2019 Oscars will be awarded on Sunday night. This year climate change has a contender, and no, it’s not An Inconvenient Sequel. In the category of original screenplay, Paul Schrader has been nominated for First Reformed, a contemporary tale about the struggles of a priest in …
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CONTINUE READINGA Time For Privacy: California Legislature Moves to Protect Academic Research
In an era defined in Washington by lies and the suppression of scientific research, California is positioning itself as a defender of facts and free inquiry. Assemblymember Laura Friedman (D, Los Angeles) this week introduced Assembly Bill 700, a bill sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) to address the harm inflicted on public …
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CONTINUE READING…For Fighting Over
Nuclear-Armed India Announces Water Cut-Off To Nuclear-Armed Pakistan
Uh-Oh: Union minister Nitin Gadkari in a tweet has confirmed that India would ‘choke’ the water supply to Pakistan in light of the Pulwama attack. The move comes in the backdrop of the February 14 attack on CRPF convoy in Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir, which resulted in the death of 40 CRPF personnel. India …
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CONTINUE READINGBottoms-Up! An Emerging New Governance System (3)
Bottom-up strategies can ultimately pave the road for stronger international agreement.
It is difficult to measure the extent of positive feedback between climate initiatives. But it seems evident that such feedback does exist. A major climate initiative in one jurisdiction seems to encourage climate action elsewhere. This makes climate action a more appealing prospect for any individual jurisdiction, because by acting it can increase climate actions …
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CONTINUE READINGChina in the Global Environment — Q&A with Isabel Hilton, Founder and CEO of chinadialogue.net
Isabel Hilton is a leading journalist whose current work spotlights the impact of China’s growing economy on people and the environment. Her work has appeared in the Financial Times, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, the New Yorker, and many other publications. In 2006, Hilton launched chinadialogue.net, a groundbreaking website that publishes reporting and analysis …
CONTINUE READINGNational Security, Climate Change, and Emergency Declarations
If the Supreme Court upholds Trump, it will have to uphold an emergency declaration for climate change.
Trump finally pulled the trigger today and declared a national emergency so he can build his wall. But if illegal border crossings are a national emergency, then there’s a strong case for viewing climate change in similar terms. That point has been made by observers ranging from Marco Rubio to Legal Planet’s own Jonathan Zasloff …
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