Culture & Ethics

The “Big Beautiful Bill” is One Damn Dirty Deal

The Drain

The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.

My family is about to take a road trip. Out our window we will see beaches, lakes, and a whole lot of public land that would be eligible to be sold off to developers and corporations under the recent version of a budget bill that Republicans want to rush through this week.  Welcome to The …

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Immigration Raids are an Attack on Climate

The Drain

The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.

It’s hard to watch the Trump administration test drive authoritarianism in California. Since the inauguration, I’ve found solace in slowly rewatching The West Wing, a good bedtime story for anyone who feels nostalgia for partisan politics of yesteryear. Anyone else doing this? It’s uncanny how my rewatching has lined up with real world events. In …

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(In?)sane With the Membrane

New developments in Deep Sea Desalination hold important promise for the freshwater crisis – and might require an amendment to Clarke’s Third Law.

The great speculative fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law reads: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” This principle came to me the other day when considering this interesting Wall Street Journal piece on Deep Sea Desalination (which we can call DSD for short). Virtually alone among environmental law professors, I am a …

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Why Do Heat Pumps Have a Bad Rap? Lies

The Drain

The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.

I just listened to dozens of people tell me that heat pumps don’t work, may cause homelessness, and can bankrupt small businesses. This was shocking news to me, in no small part because I’m currently in the process of installing a heat pump in my condo. Obviously, I don’t want to waste money, sleep on …

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Climate Lawsuits Now a Matter of Life and Death

The Drain

The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.

What a week for watchers of climate litigation. Big new filings, claims of death and destruction, a landmark ruling, and a juicy hearing all in the span of 36 hours.  First, there was what the New York Times described as “the first wrongful death lawsuit” to be brought against oil and gas companies over claims …

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Gas Price Politics and Desperate Moderates

The Drain

The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.

In 18 years of working in newsrooms around Los Angeles, I talked with lots of political campaigns — but a phone call from Antonio Villaraigosa in spring of 2018 stands out. I was at my desk in the cramped newsroom of KCRW, sitting in between All Things Considered host Steve Chiotakis and producer Ben Gottlieb, …

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The Problem is Not Brazil. The Problem is COP

The Drain

The Drain is a weekly roundup of climate and environmental news from Legal Planet.

“Crazy.” That’s how one young Brazilian described what’s happening in Belém to get ready for COP30, the annual UN climate negotiations which will take place in the Amazon this November. We struck up a brief conversation while I was visiting the Museu Afro Brasil in São Paulo, a museum that chronicles the history and culture …

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Is Brazil Ready for COP30? No One Is Ready for COP30

The Drain

The Drain is a weekly roundup of climate and environmental news from Legal Planet.

It’s officially less than 6 months until COP30 — when tens of thousands of people will descend on the Brazilian city of Belém for the annual UN climate conference — and no one is ready. For one thing, Belém is an impoverished city of 2.5 million that can’t build enough hotels for the 50,000 expected delegates …

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The Good, the Bad and the Utter Contempt

The Drain

The Drain is a weekly roundup of climate and environmental news from Legal Planet.

The news this week has me remembering my grandpa teaching a young me to turn off the tap while brushing my teeth. (Hey, I was an ignorant East Coast kid.) This was in California’s Central Valley around 1990 when drought conditions flared and the federal government cut water deliveries.  What was the news story? What …

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If Dodgers Don’t Quit Big Oil, the Olympics May Make Them

The Olympic Committee’s ban on most advertising could finally force the Dodgers to drop the 76 sponsorship from Dodger Stadium, which is now an LA 2028 venue.

The Los Angeles Dodgers have all but ignored the growing calls from fans, activists, columnists, researchers, and a state lawmaker asking the team to cut ties with Big Oil and remove the two huge, orange 76 gas ads that dominate the club’s picturesque scoreboards. But the team’s streak may be coming to an end: They …

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