Politics
Goodbye, Cleveland!
Newspaper Collapse Threatens The Environment: Universities Need To Fill The Gap
In 1970, Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River famously caught fire. This past week, we have seen an even worse environmental disaster for the city: The Plain Dealer on Monday laid off 14 newsroom employees as part of a staff reduction first announced in December. The 14, most of them reporters and all members of Local 1 of …
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CONTINUE READINGReviving LBJ’s Vision
Maybe What We Need is a Green Great Society
Talk about a Green New Deal is rife these days, but perhaps what we should be talking about instead is a Green Great Society. Actually, Lyndon Johnson’s vision of the great society was green from the get-go, so maybe we could just call for a renewed Great Society. What the Great Society is known for …
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CONTINUE READINGRay of Hope in Eastern Europe
Environmental Issues Help Foster Victory for Democratic Forces
The world got some very good news yesterday when political newcomer Zuzana Caputova, a political newcomer, won a smashing victory in Slovakia’s President elections. Unlike the right-wing authoritarians like Hungary Viktor Orban and Poland’s Law and Justice Party, which have dominated east European politics in recent years, Caputova, is a political liberal, strongly committed to …
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CONTINUE READINGApril, Fools, and Climate Change
Originally, an April Fool was someone who didn’t realize the times are changing.
April Fool’s jokes are a curious tradition, and I started to wonder where this custom came from. The origins of April Fool’s Day aren’t known with certainty, but there’s reason to connect it with blindness to change. In 1582, France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. This meant that the year began …
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CONTINUE READINGTrump on the Environment: A Study in Falsehood
Hardly anything Trump says about the environment is actually true, or even arguable.
The Washington Post has a list of false statements by Trump, which turns out to be searchable by topic. They’ve found that “In the first eight months of his presidency, President Trump made 1,137 false or misleading claims, an average of five a day.” As of March 17, he was up to 9,179 false statements. …
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CONTINUE READINGEPA Shouldn’t Roll Back Coal Power Plant Emissions Standard, Conclude Experts in Electrical Grid Management and Pollution Control Technology Innovation
Emmett Institute Faculty File Two Comment Letters on Behalf of Experts, Demonstrating Flaws In Proposed Rollback of New Source Performance Standard for New Coal-Fired Power Plants
In 2015, EPA set greenhouse gas emissions standards for new coal-fired and natural gas-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act’s New Source Performance Standards program, Section 111(b) of the Act. These standards ensure that new plants can be built only if they incorporate state-of-the-art emissions controls. Unfortunately, in late 2018, the Trump Administration EPA proposed …
CONTINUE READINGI Suppose We Can Just Hope That EIA Is Wrong
The federal estimate of energy-related carbon emissions in 2050 should get our attention.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) issues projections for future energy use across all sectors of society. They aren’t really predictions of our energy future — they are more like conversation starters. In fact, some researchers suggest that EIA shows a consistent bias by forecasting more energy use than actually occurs. Yet, …
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CONTINUE READINGIf You’re Not At The Table, You’re On The Menu
Why Has Labor Attacked The Green New Deal?
One more entry in the “Not Helpful” Department: The AFL-CIO, the national arm for U.S. labor unions, offered a critical assessment of the Green New Deal, warning that the ambitious plan to combat climate change could adversely affect U.S. workers. In a letter last week to Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria …
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CONTINUE READINGDo Impossible Regulatory Deadlines Cause Faster Progress?
A: Maybe, but only in a roundabout way. (And at a cost.)
Just about nobody who’s knowledgeable in the field thinks the U.S. electric grid can be made carbon free in ten years. Having spent the past two years lambasting the Trump Administration for ignoring the experts, I’m loathe to disagree with the expert opinion on this one. But even if the ten-year deadline set by supporters …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Potential Benefits of Declaring a Climate Emergency
The idea deserves serious consideration. There actually could be some very tangible benefits.
I have a confession: When I started thinking about the possibility of a climate emergency declaration, it was mostly as a counterpoint to Trump’s possible (now a done deal) declaration of an immigration emergency. As I’ve thought about it, however, it seems to me that there are enough potential benefits to make the idea worth …
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