Environmental Justice
Lights Out, Everybody’s Home
Protecting California’s Most Vulnerable from Climate Effects
Today, rather than walking to campus, I’m home learning the features of Zoom Conference to conduct meetings and classes remotely: UC Berkeley’s campus is shut for its second day in a row, as Pacific Gas and Electric seeks to minimize risk of a wildfire (and associated liability) in the present high wind conditions. Even as …
Continue reading “Lights Out, Everybody’s Home”
CONTINUE READINGIt’s time the Safe Drinking Water Act got some respect
A new primer that makes the law accessible and teachable
I have been writing about drinking water issues for the past fifteen years and often been struck at how little attention the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) receives in our field. Passed just two years after the Clean Water Act, it gets scant or no coverage in environmental law casebooks and is rarely taught in …
Continue reading “It’s time the Safe Drinking Water Act got some respect”
CONTINUE READINGWeaponizing Water in Kashmir
India’s legal moves on water put Pakistan on edge
A month after India’s move to exert more direct control over Jammu & Kashmir, the Indian state that occupies part of the larger Kashmir region, the country is also now in a position to exert control – in both illegal and legal ways – over important river waters that Pakistan relies upon to sustain people …
Continue reading “Weaponizing Water in Kashmir”
CONTINUE READINGAnd the Survey Says…
How to interpret and utilize “environmentalist” poll results showing widespread support for environmental protection
As most of us know by now, environmentalism in the United States has increasingly become a politically polarizing topic. A Gallup poll from March 2018 revealed that only 42% of surveyed individuals consider themselves to be “environmentalists,” a figure which has decreased over time from the early 1990s: Interestingly, however, this shift in identity for …
Continue reading “And the Survey Says…”
CONTINUE READINGIs the Amazon Burning?
The current panic may not be justified, although long-term worries are
The environmental community is presently up in arms about fires in Brazil’s Amazon. The number of fires have dramatically increased over this time last year. A Greenpeace worker said, “This is not just a forest that is burning. This is almost a cemetery. Because all you can see is death.” France’s president Emmanuel Macron tweeted, …
Continue reading “Is the Amazon Burning?”
CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger Nick Bryner: Cooking the Books While Cooking the Planet: A First Look at the EPA’s ACE Rule
Final Rule Changes Baseline Assumptions & Approach to Cost-Benefit Analysis in Attempt to Justify Weak Standards
Yesterday, the Trump EPA released its long-awaited response to the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. At first glance, the final rule has been carefully crafted in an attempt to avoid several glaring legal vulnerabilities of the rule—and to obscure the obvious inadequacy of the Administration’s response to climate change. The EPA has found many contradictory ways …
CONTINUE READINGNew Report: Increasing Energy Efficiency at Low-Income Multifamily Properties
Join Berkeley/UCLA Law expert webinar Thursday at 10am to discuss top findings
CONTINUE READINGPollution Bursts and Public Health
EPA needs to give much more serious thought to controlling bursts of pollution.
When a facility installs and operates the required pollution control equipment, we normally think of the pollution problem as solved. But there still may be bursts of pollution associated with start-up, shut-down, accidents or external events. A recent study of pollution in Texas shows that these events have substantial health impacts, involving significant deaths and …
Continue reading “Pollution Bursts and Public Health”
CONTINUE READINGStanding and the Juliana v. United States Plaintiffs
Sympathetic Plaintiffs Also Help Legally
It’s not news that the 21 children (some now adults) who are suing the United States for the right to a safe and stable climate are sympathetic and telegenic. They are the primary reason Juliana v. United States has garnered so much attention, including a lengthy, highly positive segment on 60 Minutes. But the Juliana …
Continue reading “Standing and the Juliana v. United States Plaintiffs”
CONTINUE READINGThe Governance of Solar Geoengineering: Managing Climate Change in the Anthropocene
My book is now available!
I interrupt my ongoing blog series on new biotechnologies and their governance (1, 2, 3) to announce that my book The Governance of Solar Geoengineering Managing: Climate Change in the Anthropocene is available today from Cambridge University Press. The brief description is: Climate change is among the world’s most important problems, and solutions based on …
CONTINUE READING