Environmental Science
California Adopts New, Welcome Wetlands Protection Rules
State Fills Void Left By Trump Administration’s Weakening of Federal Wetlands Standards
This week California’s State Water Resources Control Board adopted important new rules to protect the state’s remaining wetlands resources. Enacted after over a decade of Board hearings, workshops and deliberation, those rules are overdue, welcome and critically necessary. Their adoption is particularly timely now, given the Trump Administration’s wholesale assault on and erosion of federal …
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CONTINUE READINGGoverning Geoengineering at the United Nations? No, at Least Not Now
A proposed resolution falters at the UN Environment Assembly
At this week’s UN Environment Assembly, countries’ representatives debated a draft resolution regarding climate geoengineering. Unable to come to agreement, it was withdrawn Wednesday. This is not surprising to me, as — for the most part — leaders presently lack political incentives to take action. I am also not particularly disappointed, because a counter-productive resolution seemed fairly …
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CONTINUE READINGA Time For Privacy: California Legislature Moves to Protect Academic Research
In an era defined in Washington by lies and the suppression of scientific research, California is positioning itself as a defender of facts and free inquiry. Assemblymember Laura Friedman (D, Los Angeles) this week introduced Assembly Bill 700, a bill sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) to address the harm inflicted on public …
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CONTINUE READINGDoes the Fossil Fuel Industry Support Geoengineering?
A misleading new report from Center for International Environmental Law and the Heinrich Boell Foundation demeans the discourse
Geoengineering is controversial in the climate change community, and understandably so. Proposed interventions like negative emissions technologies (a.k.a. carbon dioxide removal) and solar geoengineering (a.k.a. solar radiation management or SRM) — which some writers group together as “geoengineering” — involve large-scale intervention in the climate system that could have adverse physical or social impacts. At …
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CONTINUE READINGNo Restrictive Language on Gene Drives
Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity reject a moratorium-like decision
The recent news in international environmental negotiations has been dominated by this month’s Conference of Parties (COP) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. (See UCLA’s Ted Parson setting the stage, the New York Times article, and Carbon Brief’s detailed report.) The recent COP of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) flew somewhat under the …
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CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Issues Narrow Decision in Dusky Gopher Frog Case, Leaving Key Questions About the Scope of Critical Habitat Unresolved for Now
Fifth Circuit Must Now Review Whether Designated Critical Habitat is “Habitat,” & Whether Agency’s Assessment of Costs and Benefits of Critical Habitat Designation Was Arbitrary
The U.S. Supreme Court filed its opinion in Weyerhaeuser v. U.S. Fish and WIldlife Service today. I’ve posted about this case previously here (when our clinic filed its brief on behalf of preeminent scientists) and here (on the day of the oral argument in the case). (Note that this blog post, like all my posts on this …
CONTINUE READINGDon’t Believe Everything That You Read
Solar geoengineering is often inaccurately portrayed in the media
If you had followed the climate change news over the weekend, you might have been shocked to see headlines such as “Scientists Prescribe a Healthy Dose of Sulphate Particles to Promote Global Cooling on the Cheap.” CNN tweeted that “Harvard and Yale scientists are proposing that we tackle climate change by dimming the sun.” And …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat’s New Under the Sun?
New Book Demonstrates the Hidden History of Climate Science
It’s a great regret of mine that I did not study the history of science either as an undergraduate or in graduate school. Then, it seemed to me like an arcane, recondite field — almost bizarre. Boy, was I wrong. Now in my rapidly advancing dotage, I recognize how it touches on so many of …
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CONTINUE READINGAnother Possible Means To Keep Global Warming Within 1.5 Degrees Celsius
Did the IPCC bury the lede regarding solar geoengineering?
In my previous posts on the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), I described how models assume the use of uncertain negative emissions technologies at very large — if not impossible — scales in order to keep global warming within 1.5 or two degrees Celsius (1, 2; see also my colleague Julia …
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CONTINUE READINGNegative Emissions Technologies in the New Report on Limiting Global Warming
The new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on 1.5°C warming relies heavily on negative emissions technologies.
Last week, I described how the scenarios expected to keep global warming within the 2°C target, which was internationally endorsed in the Paris Agreement, had to assume the use of negative emissions technologies at very large scales. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international assessment body, downplayed this essential fact in its most recent major report, …
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