Climate Change
Recommendations For Governor-Elect Newsom To Address Wildfire, Water, & Climate and Transportation Threats
New CLEE and Resources Legacy Fund report based on three expert convenings
Climate change exacerbates the droughts, floods, and wildfires that Californians now regularly experience, making them even more extreme and unpredictable. Gavin Newsom, California’s next governor, faces the urgent challenge of simultaneously preparing for inevitable disaster, improving the quality of life for residents, and minimizing the greenhouse gas emissions of a society of nearly 40 million …
CONTINUE READINGMajor Legislation Reintroduced To Limit Local Restrictions On Housing Near Transit
State Sen. Scott Wiener takes another stab at solving California’s severe housing shortage
Last year, State Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) went right to the heart of California’s massive housing shortage in its job-rich centers with SB 827, which would have limited local restrictions on housing near transit. The bill went down in committee, a victim of election year politics and diverse opposition from wealthy homeowners, tenants rights …
CONTINUE READINGGood News From India
While we’ve been obsessing about Trump, India has made great strides in renewable energy.
We get so focused on the problems in our own country that it’s easy to lose track of what’s happening globally. It turns out that while we’ve been mired in our own travails, India has been making remarkableprogress on renewable energy. What happens in India has tremendous significance. It is now the most populous country …
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CONTINUE READINGDon’t Believe Everything That You Read
Solar geoengineering is often inaccurately portrayed in the media
If you had followed the climate change news over the weekend, you might have been shocked to see headlines such as “Scientists Prescribe a Healthy Dose of Sulphate Particles to Promote Global Cooling on the Cheap.” CNN tweeted that “Harvard and Yale scientists are proposing that we tackle climate change by dimming the sun.” And …
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CONTINUE READINGDoes the New National Climate Assessment Hurt the Trump Administration in Court?
The Report Could Affect a Number of Cases
The newly released Fourth National Climate Assessment is a bombshell. It catalogues, in excruciating detail, the dire health, economic, and environmental consequences of unchecked climate change on every region of the United States. And although the Trump Administration appears to have tried to minimize the report’s political and public impact by dropping it on Black …
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CONTINUE READINGNetherlands Government Appeals Historic Climate Change Ruling
The Dutch Supreme Court will decide whether the government is obligated to cut emissions more
Last month, an appeals court in the the Netherlands upheld a lower court’s ruling that the Dutch government is legally obligated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions more aggressively. This drew much international attention, as well as praise from environmental advocacy organizations. As expected, the government has announced that it will appeal this decision in the Urgenda …
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CONTINUE READINGA Catalogue of Game Changers
We’re making progress on addressing climate change, and I’m hopeful that we’ll continue doing so. Yet it’s not clear whether the path we’re currently on will make progress fast enough to avoid very serious risks. So what would it take for us to make a quantum leap in this effort? I wouldn’t hazard a prediction …
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CONTINUE READINGFrom the Wildfire Files
Wildfires are getting worse and worse. Here’s what we know about the situation.
I don’t normally do this, but given the terrible wildfires now hitting the state, I thought it was worth doing a reprise of some posts on the subject from earlier this summer. Of course, there’s more information in the original posts, if you want to click over to them. Spreading Like Wildfire In 2017, wildfires …
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CONTINUE READINGGuest Bloggers Deborah Gordon and Frances Reuland: Is California Extraordinary? Its Oil Resources Certainly Are
Facts About California’s Oil and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Despite ongoing federal rollbacks to environmental regulations, California has the right to set its own clean air standards because it is truly extraordinary. Truth be told, the compelling circumstances that first set in motion California’s vehicle emissions standards remain entirely valid. And there are four recent conditions, related to California’s oil supply, production, and refining, …
CONTINUE READINGPost-election climate policy options
Options for newly empowered state governors, legislators and US House Representatives to advance climate policy
This post is co-authored by Dan Farber and Eric Biber. Democrats took control of the US House of Representatives in the election last week, took full control of six state governments (Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, New York, Maine, and Illinois), took governorships in seven states (including Michigan, Wisconsin, and Kansas), and made significant gains in …
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