General
Let’s Commence an Economic Retaliation Initiative Against (Some) Automakers
Influencing Public Policy Through Individual & Collective Purchasing Decisions
At the risk of piling on, let me offer my own thoughts–and a specific proposal–regarding yesterday’s decision by General Motors, Fiat Chrysler, Toyota and the automakers’ trade organization to intervene in support of the Trump Administration in California’s recently-filed litigation challenging the feds’ attempted revocation of California’s Clean Air Act waiver. Legal Planet colleagues Ann …
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CONTINUE READINGIt’s Not Just GM
Let’s name names: it’s Hyundai, Nissan, Kia, Subaru, Toyota, and other big automakers too
In response to the news that some auto manufacturers are intervening on Trump’s side in the litigation over the validity of California’s car emissions standards, I’ve already seen calls for boycotts. Why give our money to car companies actively undermining clean air and climate protections? Especially when they chose a day when California is literally …
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CONTINUE READINGDriving away gasoline for good
Senator Chuck Schumer’s proposal is “Cash for Clunkers” again, at unprecedented scale
Last week, Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer published an op-ed in the New York Times describing a new federal proposal for replacing all gasoline-powered vehicles in the U.S. with zero emission vehicles by 2040. This is a laudable goal and a great opportunity – comprehensive federal policy to replace all gasoline-powered vehicles with zero-emission …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Dirty Dozen Rides Again?
Climate Change and Political Consequences
April 22, 2020 will mark the 50th Anniversary of the first Earth Day in 1970. The 1962 publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, as well as the 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara and the dismal air quality of Los Angeles, raised American environmental consciousness, but it was Earth Day that accelerated political engagement. Twenty …
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CONTINUE READINGCan Soils Solve Climate Change?
Another dubious claim of natural climate solutions makes the rounds
A few months ago, I questioned a claim that planting trees could solve climate change. According to some scientists, reforestation “is by far the cheapest solution that has ever been proposed,” and for $300 billion it could sequester 200 gigatons of carbon (GtC, or 733 GtCO2). Many media outlets swooned, but the assertions were weak …
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CONTINUE READINGPlanned Outages, Planning for Resilience, and Reducing Emissions
The power shutoffs begun yesterday by Pacific Gas & Electric across swaths of Northern California, cutting electricity for hundreds of thousands of Californians, are many things: a serious risk for vulnerable and immobilized populations; an economic hit for local businesses; a tremendous inconvenience for everyone; both an outrage and industry best practice, according to Governor …
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CONTINUE READINGSixth International Geoengineering Governance Summer School, 2019
A brief report from a recent Emmett-convened event
As the severity of climate change risks and the inability of current efforts to adequately limit risks become clear, geoengineering technologies – active large-scale environmental interventions to reduce disruptions caused by elevated greenhouse gases – are increasingly receiving attention and generating controversy. These proposals would either remove and sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide or modify the …
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CONTINUE READINGEPA/Transportation Announcement of California Waiver Revocation is Full of Falsehoods and Irony
How Many Misstatements Can You Find?
This morning, the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation formally announced — as expected — that the Trump Administration is revoking California’s waiver to set its own vehicle standards. Yesterday, Trump tweeted the news, coupling it with falsehoods claiming that the rollback would save lives and save consumers money. As I blogged yesterday, both …
CONTINUE READINGBlack Carbon, 3 Billion Strong
I have been blogging about climate solutions and barriers to implementation and scale. Among the most important solutions are those that address short lived climate pollutants, primarily methane, black carbon, and HFCs, because if we stop or sequester those emissions, they will disappear from the atmosphere relatively quickly, unlike CO2. According to the UN Climate …
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CONTINUE READINGUncovering the Origins of False Claims in the Solar Geoengineering Discourse
The story behind a recent news article reveals how activist groups—with the media’s help—cause misleading and false assertions to arise, persist, and spread.
Originally posted at Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program. Much of my work concerns solar geoengineering, a set of proposals to block or reflect a small portion of incoming sunlight in order to reduce global warming. Unfortunately, the discourse is rife with specious, misrepresented, and outright false statements – many of which are consistent with intuition – …
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