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Vermont judge rules that Calif. and other states can implement tough tailpipe emission standards

Big news: the lawsuit by U.S. automakers attempting to block California and 14 other states’ adoption of tough new tailpipe emissions standards has lost: A federal judge on Wednesday rejected the U.S. auto industry’s attempt to block California and 14 other states from setting tough new fuel economy standards, saying the industry had not proved […]

Judge rules against Big Auto, says states can regulate emissions from cars

States should be allowed to restrict greenhouse-gas emissions from cars, and Big Auto should just deal, a federal judge ruled today. Right now, the only real way to curb the emissions is to improve gas mileage; when Vermont decided to adopt California’s strict emissions rules, automakers sued, claiming that the state was illegally regulating fuel […]

Harvard economist disses most climate cost-benefit analyses

Harvard economist Martin Weitzman has a new paper in which he points out that the vast majority of conventional economic analyses of climate change should carry the following label:

WARNING: to be used ONLY for cost-benefit analysis of non-extreme climate change possibilities. NOT INTENDED to cover welfare evaluation of extreme tail possibilities, for which a complete accounting might produce ARBITRARILY DIFFERENT welfare outcomes.

In short, if you don't factor in plausible worst-case scenarios -- and the vast majority of economic analyses don't (this means you, William Nordhaus, and you, too, Bjørn Lomborg) -- your analysis is useless. Pretty strong stuff for a Harvard economist!

Western U.S. littered with abandoned mines

Earlier this month, two sisters fell into a mine shaft in Arizona while riding an all-terrain vehicle. It was a terrible tragedy, but, unfortunately, not an unexpected one: an estimated 500,000 abandoned mines litter the U.S., mostly in the West. Even though the oldest mines were closed almost a century ago, many are still leaching […]

ANTM models green advice

The fact that I watch America’s Next Top Model (it’s fierce, y’all!) is no secret. But it looks like this season all that pointing and laughing and catty-remarking will be work-related. That’s right, even ANTM is going green. (Should we call it ANGM now?) From Entertainment Weekly: [T]he fashion color this season is … green! […]

Oil company Conoco agrees to offset carbon emissions from refinery project

California has reached a settlement with oil giant ConocoPhillips that requires the company to spend $10 million to offset greenhouse-gas emissions from a proposed refinery expansion in the state’s East Bay area. As part of the deal, the company will spend $7 million on as-yet-unspecified environmental projects in the San Francisco Bay Area as well […]

The clarity that crisis brings is not necessarily our friend

I’ve had a post rattling around in my head for a while now, and the anniversary of 9/11 seems like apt moment to finally have a go at it. One of the most uncomfortable facets of the attacks on 9/11 is that as horrific as they were, they were also, for lack of a better […]

American Electric Power to install large battery banks to store wind energy

Sweet. A utility called American Electric Power is going to set up a huge bank of batteries to store wind power. The short write-up in the NYT is both exciting, in that it’s good to see storage moving to the deployment phase, and sobering, in that it highlights the limitations of current battery technology. Here’s […]

Municipalities try to encourage students to walk to school

Cities across the U.S. are turning their attention not only to green education, but to how students get to school. Forty years ago, half of all students walked or bicycled to the schoolhouse. Today, that number has dropped to 15 percent, while 60 percent of youths are toted in a car. The shift, brought on […]

Social scientists respond to Mike Tidwell

The following is a guest essay in response to Mike Tidwell’s recent piece on Grist, “Voluntary actions didn’t get us civil rights, and they won’t fix the climate.” It is signed by a collection of social scientists, mostly psychologists. Their names are listed at the bottom. —- We agree that institutional and policy changes are […]