Oceans
Mourning An Uncommon Student of the Commons
Elinor Ostrom, winner 0f the Nobel economics prize, died earlier today. She is best known for her work on how groups manage common resources such as fisheries. The “tragedy of the commons” is a theory that these common resources will inevitably be destroyed unless they are privatized or regulated by governments. Professor Ostrom showed that …
Continue reading “Mourning An Uncommon Student of the Commons”
CONTINUE READINGBreaking Ice, Rising Waters
The latest issue of Nature contains an interesting article about climate change — not the current warming but the last one, at the end of the Ice Age. Here’s the editor’s summary: A rapid sea-level rise occurred towards the end of the last ice age, during an event known as meltwater pulse 1A. The precise …
Continue reading “Breaking Ice, Rising Waters”
CONTINUE READINGBP Reaches Partial Settlement in Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Litigation
Late Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier announced a legal settlement between British Petroleum and thousands of individuals and businesses that had sued BP for damages arising out of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. According to a New York Times report, BP has agreed to pay $7.8 billion …
Continue reading “BP Reaches Partial Settlement in Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Litigation”
CONTINUE READINGPreviewing a VERY Big Week for Environmental Law in the Courts
UPDATE: The Associated Press reports that late Sunday, February 26th, U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier announced a one-week postponement of the trial in the BP oil spill case that had been scheduled to begin the next day. The postponement is reportedly due to substantial progress that has been made in marathon settlement talks that …
Continue reading “Previewing a VERY Big Week for Environmental Law in the Courts”
CONTINUE READINGPreserving U.S. Fisheries: A Bipartisan Pipe Dream?
President Obama’s call in his 2012 State of the Union address for a new spirit of bipartisanship brought to mind a recent Washington Post article on current federal efforts to preserve U.S. fisheries. In what qualifies as a rare “good news” story involving federal environmental policy, that article reports that the Obama Administration is poised to …
Continue reading “Preserving U.S. Fisheries: A Bipartisan Pipe Dream?”
CONTINUE READINGWhere does NOAA belong?
Cross-posted at CPRBlog. Clearly I need to slow down Rick’s internet connection to get him to stop scooping me. Rick reported earlier today that the President has floated a proposal to reorganize the Commerce Department and related agencies which would apparently include moving NOAA (all of NOAA, according to OMB’s Jeffrey Zeints, not just its …
Continue reading “Where does NOAA belong?”
CONTINUE READINGCan cap-and-trade break whaling gridlock?
In the current edition of Nature, researchers from UC Santa Barbara and Arizona State propose a market for whale harvest quotas (subscription required). Essentially, they would like to establish a kind of “cap-and-trade” system in permits to hunt whales. Their paper is getting a great deal of attention in the media, both in specialized outlets …
Continue reading “Can cap-and-trade break whaling gridlock?”
CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Disasters and Regulatory Failures
There is a strong nexus between environmental disasters and regulatory failures. The connection is most obvious for the BP oil spill, where weak regulation contributed to a massive spill whose ecological consequences are not yet completely known. It’s also apparent in the reactor melt-down after the recent Japanese tsunami, which has resulted in radioactive releases. …
Continue reading “Environmental Disasters and Regulatory Failures”
CONTINUE READINGAnother regulatory success story
A few days ago, Dan posted about some positive EPA achievements. In the same spirit, and since the natural resource agencies get bashed for supposedly over-zealous and ineffective regulation close to as much as EPA does, I wanted to highlight another regulatory success story: turtle excluder devices, often referred to by their acronym, TEDs. The …
Continue reading “Another regulatory success story”
CONTINUE READINGThe Privatization of State Parks & Ocean Management in California–And Why That’s a Good Thing
California boasts the nation’s largest state park system–over 1.5 million acres of natural, historical and cultural resources contained in 278 separate, state-owned parks that attract over 80 million visitors annually. But California’s extensive system of state-owned parks, beaches and marine reserves is in crisis–a victim of draconian budget cuts, chronic under-staffing and over $1 billion …
CONTINUE READINGJoin Our Mailing List
Climate policy is changing rapidly. Stay in the loop with expert analysis via email Monday - Friday.
