Environmental Science
RFK Jr. Joins the War on Climate Scientists
RFK Jr. has filled a top campaign position with an anti-vaccine activist named Del Bigtree who has called global warming “an enslavement system.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made headlines when a Super PAC supporting his presidential bid ran a pricey Super Bowl ad, stealing the look of a famous 1960 spot for his uncle John F. Kennedy. But he got far less attention for another move that says a lot about his campaign: He has tapped Del Bigtree …
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CONTINUE READINGClimate Election 2024: Trump Plans to Drain the EPA
The battle plan for a second Trump term includes reinstating Schedule F to remove climate experts from the U.S. government.
Donald Trump could “F” the federal government. Literally. Far-right policy strategists are laying plans, largely endorsed by the Trump campaign, for getting rid of federal government workers who might otherwise stand in the way of a radical deregulation agenda. It’s called “Schedule F,” and it could be used to strip employment protections from as many …
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CONTINUE READINGThe COP28 Halftime Report
Has the annual UN climate conference grown too big to function? Takeaways from Week 1 of COP28 in Dubai.
We’ve reached the midpoint of the annual, two-week international climate conference known as COP (for “conference of parties”), so it’s a good time to reflect on what’s gone down in Dubai. I’m attending along with a delegation of UCLA Law students and colleagues here to follow a range of issues, from methane regulation to China’s …
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CONTINUE READINGRecharge net metering (ReNeM) provides win-win-win for groundwater agency, landowners, & sustainable groundwater management
Nature Water publication showcases the economics of a novel groundwater recharge incentive structure
By Molly Bruce, Luke Sherman, Ellen Bruno, Andrew T. Fisher, & Michael Kiparsky An insidious issue has been growing along the Central Coast and throughout the state of California for decades: groundwater overdraft. In response to this growing threat and 2014 legislation designed to put an end to chronic overdraft, many basins have identified managed …
CONTINUE READINGNo, There’s No Scientific Conspiracy About Climate Change
Anyone who thinks otherwise has never met a real live academic. We can barely conspire about where to eat lunch.
Among the host of conspiracy theories out there, a perennial one depicts climate science as a global hoax perpetuated by scientists. There are thousands of climate scientists around the world, which is an awful lot of people for a secret conspiracy. But even if there were only forty or fifty, a successful conspiracy of any …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Supreme Court Rules County Ordinance Limiting Oil & Gas Development Preempted by State Law
Court Decision May Well Be Correct as a Matter of Law, But Represents Outdated & Unsound Public Policy
Last week, the California Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a local initiative measure that would have imposed severe restrictions on oil and gas development in Monterey County is preempted by state law and therefore invalid. The decision came in the case of Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. County of Monterey. The Supreme Court’s ruling was predictable, …
CONTINUE READINGDeregulation, Normal Accidents, and the Airborne Toxic Event
What can we learn from the East Palestine train wreck?
Source: Wikimedia Commons The East Palestine train derailment is the story that won’t go away. Images of enraged residents shouting at company executives and government officials about the inadequacy of the response remind us all that across our vast industrial economy accidents of one sort or another are always waiting to happen while private firms …
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CONTINUE READINGCutting 290,000 Tons of Water Pollution a Year, One Coal Plant at a Time
Coal is a dirty fuel. It’s not just air pollution or climate change.
EPA proposed new regulations next week to reduce the water pollution impacts of coal-fired power plants. As EPA regulations go, these count as fairly minor. They got a bit of news coverage in coal country and industry publications. But they will eliminate the discharge of thousands of tons of pollutants, including a lot of metals …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Great-Great-Grandmother of Climate Science
Herein of the now-forgotten woman who discovered the warming effect of CO2.
The first climate science ever published was in 1856 by Eunice Newton Foote, who discovered that CO2 and water vapor trapped the sun’s heat. Her paper was read at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. That paper, along with another paper of hers, were the only physics papers by …
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CONTINUE READINGShould There Be a ‘Non-Use’ Agreement on Solar Geoengineering?
Why I signed the call for a non-use agreement, and what that might mean for research.
Although I’m a newbie at the Emmett Institute, I have been working on geoengineering for a decade now. I have heard countless arguments over whether and how solar geoengineering could be useful in the struggle to manage climate change. I have seen deeply misleading claims by both its supporters and detractors, many trying to coopt …
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