Politics
The Ninth Circuit: 0-for-the Supreme Court Term
It’s been a very rough U.S. Supreme Court Term for the Ninth Circuit. Four of the five major environmental cases on the Supreme Court’s docket this year emanate from the Ninth Circuit. With the justices’ issuance of their major CERCLA decision in Burlington Northern this week, four of those environmental cases have now been resolved, …
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CONTINUE READINGMarketing climate change policies
Writing in the New York Times last week, John Broder reported that ecoAmerica, described as “a nonprofit environmental marketing and messaging firm in Washington,” has been researching the best rhetoric to build political support for legislation addressing greenhouse gas emissions. I confess that this story makes me a bit queasy. As an academic, I’m committed …
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CONTINUE READINGJack Kemp’s Death
Jack Kemp died a few days ago. He had served as a fellow at the Competitive Enterprise institute, where he worked on environmental matters:Jack Kemp is a distinguished fellow at CEI. The CEI page on him states: His work at CEI centers on promoting rational, free-market environmental policies. He has spoken out against the Kyoto …
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CONTINUE READINGDo we need a weatherman to know which way the climate goes?
A new report, Climate Change in the American Mind, was just released by the Yale Project on Climate Change and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. This report summarizes and synthesizes original polling research on our opinions, attitudes, and knowledge about climate change. (Statistician Nate Silver has an interesting post at Fivethirtyeight.com about some of …
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CONTINUE READINGWill the Specter Shift Affect Environmental Legislation?
The answer is probably “yes,” not because Specter will become an environmental champion but because his votes will shift at the margin. If you look at the LCV scores (here), Specter is below 50% this year and for his lifetime average. Part of that may be Pennsylvania — Bob Casey is only at 60%, which …
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CONTINUE READINGShocking News About the Fossil Fuel Industry
Guess what? The fossil fuel industry has been deliberately lying to the public about climate change. According to the Washington Post: “The Global Climate Coalition, a group of representatives of the oil, auto and coal industries, spent years telling the public that the link between human activity and climate change was too uncertain to justify …
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CONTINUE READINGNanopolicy Bumps in California
California continues to lead the way nationally on nanotechnology regulation, despite some bumps along the way. Most recently, the Department of Toxic Substances Control issued a request for information regarding analytical test methods, fate and transport in the environment, and other relevant information from manufacturers of reactive nanometal oxides. Substances covered include aluminum oxide, silicon …
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CONTINUE READINGClimate Change Legislation: Is the Train (Finally) Leaving the Station?
I posted yesterday about Rep. Boehner’s bone-headed statement about climate change. My first thought was that this was completely idiotic, making a childish argument that even George W. Bush would have scorned. The fact that some CO2 is normal and even necessary proves nothing about what happens when concentrations go beyond the normal level: salt …
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CONTINUE READINGOh What A Difference A President Makes
We’re not even 85 days into the Obama Administration and yet the signs of environmental change are all around us. The EPA announced today its formal determination under the Clean Air Act that greenhouse gases are pollutants that endanger public health and welfare. This is only the latest in a string of announcements that show just how quickly Obama is …
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CONTINUE READINGLow-hanging carbon
I’m looking forward to hearing Scripps climate scientist Veerabhadran Ramanathan speak at an event next week in Los Angeles, and I hope he’ll talk about black carbon, which many are calling the low-hanging fruit of the climate change problem. Black carbon is the fine black soot that’s generated by carbon combustion, these days mostly from traditional cookstoves and …
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