Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 26th, 2013
I watched Bill McKibben’s movie about his “Do the Math” Tour last night, and got to watch some of my good friends and personal environmental heroes getting arrested for civil disobedience protests against the Project XL pipeline. McKibben’s “Do The Math” campaign draws on the civil rights protests against 1960s segregation as well as the [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 30th, 2012
Franz Litz is a Professor of Law and the Executive Director of the Pace Energy and Climate Center. He is currently at the COP18 climate talks in Doha. Here is his on-the-ground perspective of the talks: Greetings from Doha! I wish this article from the Economist (Theatre of the absurd: After three failures, this year’s [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jul 2nd, 2012
On June 26, the D.C. Circuit issued its opinion in Coalition for Responsible Regulation, Inc. v. EPA, which upheld EPA’s regulations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) as pollutants. Many insurance companies believe that this ruling will aid them in defending against potential climate change lawsuits – acknowledging GHGs as pollutants strengthens the argument that related claims [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 1st, 2012
This week, a DC Circuit panel held two days of oral argument on the multitude of challenges to EPA’s December 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and the “Tailoring Rule.” Very few reports of the argument seem to have made it into the mainstream press, but Bloomberg has a report here, and the Wall Street Journal [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 16th, 2012
Perhaps the most interesting revelation from the leaked Heartland Institute documents is the climate denial think tank’s plan to develop a public school curriculum designed to counter the climate science consensus and perpetuate the false controversy about the state of climate science. This is particularly interesting in light of efforts by several states that have [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 25th, 2012
In his inaugural State of the Union address in 2009, President Obama asked Congress to send him cap-and-trade legislation to save our planet from the ravages of climate change In his 2010 State of the Union, the President took credit for the United States going from a bystander to a leader in the fight [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Dec 15th, 2011
Details are still sketchy, but last week’s Durban COP-17 meeting appears to have resulted in a “road map” for negotiations that would lead to a binding “legal framework” for emissions reductions — to be negotiated by the December 2015 conference of the parties, and to become effective by 2020. If this works as planned, both [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Dec 7th, 2011
At the risk of offending colleagues I deeply respect and admire, I do have one thought for the day: A four-wheel drive Lincoln Navigator is probably the ultimate American rugged-individualist, anti-environmentalist status symbol. Driving one for the typical 15,000 miles per year will cost you about $3,372 in fuel costs — about 1,000 gallons of [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 30th, 2011
Richard Ottinger, Dean Emeritus and founder of the Pace Energy and Climate Center, is in Durban, South Africa for the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 7th Session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties (CMP7) to the Kyoto Protocol. He [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 2nd, 2011
Federal and state policies should encourage localities that contain neighborhoods with the potential for district energy systems and transit oriented development to rezone these areas as Energy Conservation Districts calibrated to achieve multiple objectives of sustainable development. This they should do with the support of the state and federal government. In the orchard of energy [...]
