Politics
Senator Santorum and the Environmental Chalice of Evil
Here is what Santorum said yesterday (from Politico): “You hear all the time, the left: ‘Oh, the conservatives are the anti-science party.’ No we’re not. We’re the truth party,” the former Pennsylvania senator said at a campaign event in Oklahoma City. “Because the left is always looking for a way to control you. They’re always …
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CONTINUE READINGInsurance Salesmen Should Be Selling The Public On Climate Change
As Dan’s post described, the insurance industry has a major, profit-driven stake in stopping climate change. So given the high risks for these private companies as the Earth bakes, why aren’t they the public face of the need to stop climate change, instead of controversial figures like Al Gore, environmental leaders, and scientists? Wouldn’t the …
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CONTINUE READINGRanking the Presidents on the Environment
Keith Poole has spent years devising measures of political ideology. The late Phil Frickey and I used his scholarship in our work on public choice theory. He has now produced similar information about Presidents, incorporated in the following chart: It would be useful to have a similar measure for environmental policy. The early part of …
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CONTINUE READINGNo Free Lunch In The Desert
A tough, heartbreaking story from the Los Angeles Times about the painful choices environmentalists are faced with in combatting climate change. The issue is BrightSource Energy’s Ivanpah solar power project, a massive, 6-square-mile city of 173,500 mirrors that will scar much of California’s desert beyond recognition. This was a hard compromise, reports Julie Cart, as “the …
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CONTINUE READINGInformation or Ideology? The Dilemmas of a Property Professor
It often occurs in teaching law school classes that opportunities present themselves for discussing current issues. And that presents a problem: how can a teacher do it without engaging in ideological indoctrination? The easiest way is to avoid the issue entirely. But is that also avoiding the responsibility to actually address important topics? I ran …
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CONTINUE READINGInitiative Watch: The Polluter Accountability Act
California’s Legislature did manage last year to stanch some of the state’s initiative craziness when it passed a law mandating that all initiative appear on the general election ballot, not the primary ballot. Now, our ballot “pamphlets” won’t resemble a phone book every election. (The fact that general elections get higher turnout, and thus tend to …
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CONTINUE READINGAmbivalence Toward Environmental Scientists
Two seemingly unrelated stories on the NY Times webpage reveal the strangely conflicted place of scientists in today’s society. One story reveals our respect for those who, despite difficult circumstances, dedicate themselves to the pursuit of knowledge. That story is about Samantha Garvey, a homeless teenager who has found recognition for her study of the …
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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 …
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CONTINUE READINGAttention K-Mart Shoppers! Get With the Program
I’ve blogged before about Asia Pulp & Paper, which has one of the worst records on destroying critical species habitat in its logging operations and abusing human rights in the process. (Not surprisingly, it also has a fake certification from greenwahser Programme for the Endorsement of Forestry Certification). Well, the tigers (and humans) have some …
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CONTINUE READINGObama Administration Rejects Keystone XL
Here: Obama laid the responsibility for the rejection of the pipeline on political gamesmanship by Republicans. “As the State Department made clear last month, the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our …
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