Culture & Ethics
A Capitol Hill Briefing on Electric Vehicle Policies, Monday, September 10th (Webcast Available)
Legal Planeteers in the Washington DC area are invited to join the environmental law centers at Berkeley and UCLA Schools of Law as we present a lunchtime, Capitol Hill discussion on policies necessary for long-term, mass adoption of electric vehicle technologies. This free event is sponsored by Congressman Henry Waxman’s office and will also be …
CONTINUE READINGPutting a NEON Light on Ecosystems
New sensor technology and IT may transform our understanding of ecosystems. Big Science is coming to ecology, which was once the domain of individual naturalists. The Economist reports on NEON, the National Ecological Observatory Network: Ground has already been broken at three sites—in Colorado, Florida and Massachusetts. Eventually, 60 places across the country will be …
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CONTINUE READINGWaste Not, Want Not
In trying to catch up on my reading, I discovered that the August 10 issue of the journal Science has a special section on “working with waste.” The theme is the ability of waste to contribute to society as a form of energy or raw materials: [T]rash is often treasure— a feedstock that cannot be …
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CONTINUE READINGGenetically Modified Foods & California’s Proposition 37: What’s All the Fuss About?
Largely lost in the shuffle of the current presidential election campaign and several more heavily-publicized state ballot measures, California’s Secretary of State recently announced that the “California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act” has qualified for the state’s November 2012 election ballot, where it will appear as Proposition 37. (The text of Proposition 37 …
CONTINUE READINGWill Driving a Prius Save the Planet?
John Voelcker says no, and he is right (h/t TPM). In fact, he is so clearly right that I am not sure why one would write this piece. Indeed, I’m a little suspicious of the hidden agenda here. Voelcker points out five things that make driving a Prius Not The Savior Of Planet Earth. They …
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CONTINUE READINGBREAKING NEWS: Another West Coast Win for PACE Energy Financing
Almost a year later, California wins again in the effort to reverse a federal agency’s 2010 decision that decimated PACE, a promising financing program for residential energy efficiency and renewable investments. Federal District Court Judge Claudia Wilken ruled today that the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA) violated the Administrative Procedure Act’s (APA) notice-and-comment requirement when …
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CONTINUE READINGOverdrafting California’s Groundwater Resources–A Chronic Condition
A recently issued study by a University of Texas-led group of research scientists confirm a discomforting fact: groundwater resources in California’s Central Valley are being depleted at an alarming rate. As reported in the Sacramento Bee, the study warns that current groundwater extraction rates from the Central Valley aquifer–which is primarily mined to serve agricultural …
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CONTINUE READING“Everything is God”: The Shema and the Environment
Rabbi Marc Angel is one of the most important Jewish thinkers today: the former chief rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel , New York’s oldest Sephardic synagogue, he created and now heads the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, a think tank that has pioneered innovative modern Orthodox thought in the Sephardic tradition. His recent award-winning book on Maimonides and …
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CONTINUE READINGMuller Serves Up a Koch Zero, No Ice.
Physicist Richard Muller reports the results of his research, which was funded by Charles Koch Charitable Foundation. The results were probably not what Koch was hoping for: “CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last …
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CONTINUE READINGFat City USA
This graphic from the Economist shows the amount of excess biomass due to obesity and overall population. As the chart shows, obese North Americans are carrying around an extra 263 million kilograms of fat — or just about 290 thousand tons of fat. That’s a daunting thought. That’s a pattern that definitely isn’t going to …
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