Culture & Ethics
New Methods for Calculating Carbon Footprints
The Greenhouse Gas Protocol today released two important methods for figuring out the carbon footprint of a product throughout its life and throughout the supply chain necessary to create the product. These methods should – if implemented — help answer questions like how much carbon is emitted over the whole life cycle of a car, …
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CONTINUE READINGHappy New Year from Ecclesiastes
To all who are celebrating Rosh Hashanah, a big Happy New Year from Legal Planet. And what would a Jewish holiday on a legal website be without a text? In this case, the text is Kohelet Rabbah, the 8th Century CE rabbinic commentary on the Book of Ecclesiastes. The rabbis read Ecclesiastes’ line (7:13), “See …
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CONTINUE READINGSecret Synagogue Reading for Environmentalists
As the Jewish High Holy Days approach, it is of course time for thinking deeply about…. what books you will read in shul during services. Rabbis extol Rosh Hashanah Mussaf as liturgical brilliance, but the rest of us find it to be spiritual chloroform. Well, fortunately enough, the Jewish environmentalist literature has gotten better over the last …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Roots of Climate Skepticism
if you’re a libertarian, an evangelical, a populist, and a corporate officer — or any one of those three — it may be just a little easier to live in a world that lacks the kinds of deep interdependencies highlighted by climate science.
CONTINUE READINGMeaningful Parking Reform Dead in California (For Now)
AB 710, the eminently sensible parking reform bill, died a sad death in the State Senate during the last-minute frenzy on bills last week. The bill would have prevented local governments from maintaining excessively high parking minimums for development projects located near transit stops, unless they can document a need for high parking requirements. Of …
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CONTINUE READINGIf Textualism Isn’t Dead, It’s Badly Wounded
This one is too good not to blog. Strictly speaking, it’s an immigration case, but it has interesting implications for all statutes and especially environmental ones. Jawid Habibi is a lawful resident alien, but not someone you’d want to hang around with. He was convicted of domestic misdemeanor battery in California, and then received a 365-day …
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CONTINUE READINGPaper or Plastic…or Neither?
Paul Koretz is a Los Angeles City Councilmember who represents most of the city’s west side (including UCLA) and large chunks of the San Fernando Valley. And he’s got a proposal that environmentalists love: Hoping to reduce the billions of grocery bags circulating throughout the city, an L.A. councilman Tuesday called for a sweeping ban …
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CONTINUE READINGFrom the Language Police Blotter
What is the plural of “Prius”? Many people I know say “Prii,” but a professional writer friend, who knows about language, insists that because “Prius” is not actually a Latin word, it has to be “Priuses.” In the movie The Social Network, Mark Zuckerberg’s antagonists are known as “the Winklevii” although they certainly were not …
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CONTINUE READINGSustainability and the Pursuit of Happiness
There’s a common vision of environmentalism that mostly involves giving things up, the basic image being one of ascetic sacrifice for the benefit of the environment and future generations. Some people actually are ascetics, and most people are willing to make big sacrifices in emergencies. But by and large, people aren’t willing to give up …
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CONTINUE READINGInfill Parking Bill Killed by Local Government Lobby?
When last we checked on AB 710, the California bill to eliminate minimum parking requirements for infill and transit-oriented projects, it sailed through Assembly committees and eventually passed that body unanimously, 78-0. And why not? The bill offers both environmental and economic benefits: by removing inefficient minimum parking requirements on transit-adjacent developments, more projects could …
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