It's Not the CO2 After All!

From this morning's Parade magazine, a reader's question:

Do you think daylight-saving time could be contributing to global warming? The longer we have sunlight, the more it heats the atmosphere.

How could those so-called climate scientists have overlooked something so obvious?? Inquiring minds want to know.

Vengeance

Hey! The bar exam is over. Congratulations.

AngryLittleGirl, an emerging YouTube superstar, has created a video that expresses a sentiment felt by many bar takers. Click on the picture at left to play the video.

Literary Warrant [15]

• Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), CREW'S Hurricane Katrina International Offers of Assistance Matrix (July 27, 2007)
  

  "CREW's matrix is based on 25,000 Department of State (DOS) documents it received as a result of a lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act in December 2005 for records relating to the federal government's handling and acceptance of international offers of aid after Hurricane Katrina.
  

  "The matrix includes all international offers, whether they were rejected or accepted and the reasons why, if available. The documents reveal a number of disturbing responses to offers from 145 countries and 12 international organizations from around the world."—Press release.
  

• Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), FEMA Was Not Forthright with Congressional Investigators (July 19, 2007)
  
  "Apparently, the problem of unsafe formaldehyde levels in FEMA trailers was more widespread than initially acknowledged. And FEMA's reaction to the problem was deliberately stunted to bolster the agency’s litigation position. New information recently provided to the Committee shows those statements mischaracterized the scope and purpose of FEMA's actual response to the formaldehyde reports. Recently discovered documents make it appear FEMA's primary concerns were legal liability and public relations, not human health and safety. Decisions about assistance to Gulf Coast residents seem to have been driven by the desire to limit litigation, even if that meant limiting genuine testing and risk mitigation efforts as well."—Press release.


• Environmental Law Institute (ELI), The Clean Water Act Jurisdictional Handbook, 2007 ed.
  

  "In June 2006 the Supreme Court, in a decision that split 4-1-4, produced a result in Rapanos v. United States that makes federal Clean Water Act jurisdiction over the wetlands, streams, and other waters of the United States confusing and uncertain for citizens, landowners, and regulators alike. Members of Congress have introduced new legislation to restore jurisdiction over many of the waters cast into doubt by the decision; and the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers (the federal regulatory agencies) issued a joint guidance document in June 2007 attempting to guide their respective staffs. Numerous federal courts have attempted to apply the uncertain teachings of Rapanos as well.
  

  "With the support of the Turner Foundation, and the assistance of numerous experts in wetlands science and law, the Environmental Law Institute has prepared a handbook that analyzes the case law, compiles the relevant scientific studies, and provides a set of jurisdictional checklists. The Handbook will assist anyone faced with a jurisdictional question involving a wetland or stream to understand what factors will allow them to find Clean Water Act jurisdiction."
  

• Food & Water Watch, New Web Map Shows Regional Concentration of Factory Farms (July 24, 2007)
  

  "America's rural communities from coast to coast are living with the human health and environmental costs of factory farms that cram together hundreds of thousands of animals in filthy conditions, said Food & Water Watch today. The organization released a first-ever national map charting factory farms to illustrate how these facilities are concentrated in some regions of the country....

  "The Food & Water Watch factory farm map illustrates that confined animal feeding operations, the dominant form of livestock production in the United States, also known as CAFOs or factory farms, are found throughout the country. But some regions host a comparatively large share of intensive animal production—Iowa and North Carolina for hogs, California and Idaho for dairy cows, Texas and Kansas for cattle feedlots, Georgia and Alabama for broiler chickens, and Iowa and Ohio for egg production."—Press release.
  

• Green Electronics Council, The Environmental Benefits of the Purchase or Sale of EPEAT Registered Products in 2006 (June 17, 2007)
  
  "Numerous environmental benefits of buying high-performance, environmentally friendly computer equipment are highlighted in the first annual report issued by the Green Electronics Council this week. The report, called The Environmental Benefits of the Purchase or Sale of EPEAT Registered Products in 2006, states that the purchase of more than 36 million EPA approved computer desktops, laptops and monitors has led to a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions."—Press release (June 18, 2007)


• Harvard School of Public Health, Project on the Public and Biological Security, Hurricane Readiness in High-Risk Areas (June 18-July 10, 2007)
  

  "According to a new survey of people in high-risk hurricane areas conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health Project on the Public and Biological Security, one-third (31%) of residents said if government officials said they had to evacuate due to a major hurricane this season, they would not leave. This is an increase from 2006 when 23% said they would not evacuate.
  

  "The top reasons people give for not evacuating involve issues of safety and security. Three-quarters (75%) say their home is well-built and they would be safe there. Over half (56%) feel that roads would be too crowded, and slightly more than one in three (36%) feels that evacuating would be dangerous. One-third (33%) worry that their possessions would be stolen or damaged while one in four (27%) say they would not evacuate because they do not want to leave their pets."—Press release (July 24, 2007)
  

• Kevin Jon Heller, Opinio Juris (blog), The World's 15 Greenest Cities (July 30, 2007)
  
  Having just returned from the city ranked number 2, I can vouch for the ease of access to public transportation, a feature that complements well what I regard as Portland's preeminence, namely, its stature as the World's Hoppiest City. After three days of beer festival, one ought to leave the driving to Max and the TriMet.—DCR.


• Muel Kaptein et al., RSM Erasmus University, 2007 Report on European CSR Survey (July 2007)
  
  "While the world is clamouring for measures to combat climate change, the corporate community is actually taking a growing number of initiatives to tackle the problem. Likewise, climate change, which took 8th place on the 'social agenda' of major European companies in 2002, has now jumped to 4th place. In fact, the corporate community expects the issue of climate change to top its agenda within the next five years. This has become clear from a survey held among the 200 largest European companies this spring. The research focussed on the issue of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)."—Press release (July 16, 2007)


• Pamela Kaval, Department of Economics, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand, The Link between Perceived and Actual Wildfire Danger: An Economic and Spatial Analysis Study in Colorado (USA) (Working Paper in Economics 07/13) (July 2007)
  
  "Over the last 20 years, costs for wildfire initial attack in the U.S. have increased significantly. The increased cost relates to wildfire suppression practices as well as the growing number of wildland urban interface (WUI) homes. Requiring WUI residents to pay an annual tax for their wildfire risk would lower costs to the general taxpayer. Willingness-to-pay (WTP) for wildfire prevention, in relation to both perceived and actual wildfire danger, was the focus of this study. Colorado WUI residents had a high awareness of wildfire risk and were willing to pay over $400 annually to reduce this risk. Respondents beliefs about wildfire frequency were comparable to the original natural wildfire regimes of their areas pre-European settlement."—Abstract.


• Eileen R. Larence, Director, Homeland Security and Justice Issues, United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), Critical Infrastructure: Sector Plans Complete and Sector Councils Evolving (Testimony before the Subcommittee on State, Local, and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration, Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, U.S. Senate, GAO-07-1075T) (July 12, 2007)
  
  "As Hurricane Katrina so forcefully demonstrated, the nation's critical infrastructures—both physical and cyber—have been vulnerable to a wide variety of threats. Because about 85 percent of the nation's critical infrastructure is privately owned, it is vital that public and private stakeholders work together to protect these assets. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is responsible for coordinating a national protection strategy and has promoted the formation of government and private councils for the 17 infrastructure sectors as a collaborating tool. The councils, among other things, are to identify their most critical assets, assess the risks they face, and identify protective measures in sector-specific plans that comply with DHS's National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP)."—Why GAO Did This Study.


• Angela Logomasini, Environmentalism's Legal Legacy (Issue Analysis, no. 7) (July 2007)
  
  "This paper highlights legislative expansion of environmental law. It uses several datasets to document the growth of the environmental legal legacy. First, an analysis of congressional vote scoring by the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) reveals that environmental pressure groups do relatively well even in a subset of close votes scored—winning a majority of the time in eight out of 17 congresses and winning 43 percent of these votes overall. It does indicate that environmental groups faced some real challenges in recent years, but it does not reveal how that affected public policy. The LCV scoring also shows that environmental groups are involved in policy making at a very detailed level."—Executive Summary.


• National Climatic Data Center (NOAA), Climate of 2007—June in Historical Perspective (July 17, 2007)
  
  "Warmer- and drier-than-average conditions dominated much of the United States during the first half of 2007, according to scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The lack of precipitation led to widespread drought which contributed to an early start to the wildfire season, mounting crop losses, and local drought emergencies. However, drought in the southern and central Plains gave way to heavy and persistent rains which led to devastating flooding from Texas to Kansas in June. Meanwhile, the global average temperature was the second warmest on record for the January-June six-month period."—Major Highlights.


• National Petroleum Council, Facing the Hard Truths about Energy: A Comprehensive View to 2030 of Global Oil and Natural Gas (Draft Report) (July 18, 2007)
  

  "'Accumulating risks to the supply of reliable, affordable energy' require an integrated national strategy, according to a major new report by the National Petroleum Council (NPC)....

  "Unique in its scope, the 18-month study of global energy to 2030 involved more than 350 experts from diverse backgrounds and organizations—the majority of them from outside the oil and gas industry....
  

  "Reviewing a broad range of more than 100 outlooks based on public and aggregated proprietary data, the Council study found that total global demand for energy is projected to grow from today’s huge base by 50-60 percent to 2030—the result of rising incomes around the world and population growth."—Press release.
  

• Peter R. Orszag, Director, Congressional Budget Office, Would a Cap-and-Trade Program Harm the Economy? (Letter to Honorable Jeff Bingaman, Chairman, Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate) (July 9, 2007)
  
  "An effort to limit CO2 emissions in any given year would have two principal effects: It would produce long-term economic benefits (by avoiding damages in the future) but would impose economic costs in each year in which the limit was in effect (by restricting the use of fossil fuels, which emit CO2 into the atmosphere when they are burned). Although CBO's issue brief [Trade-Offs in Allocating Allowances for CO2 Emissions] acknowledged that reducing CO2 emissions would create both costs and benefits, it was not intended to quantify those benefits. Rather, the brief explicitly took the goal of reducing emissions as a given and focused on the near-term efficiency and distributional trade-offs associated with doing so under different methods of allocating emission allowances. More specifically, each allocation scenario considered in the brief would reduce CO2 emissions by the same amount and thus would produce the same long-term benefits, while imposing different near-term costs. Given the narrow objectives of the brief, the fact that it did not explicitly quantify the benefits of a cap-and-trade program should not be interpreted in any way as implying that CBO has concluded that the costs of such a program would outweigh the benefits."


• Thea Sebastian, Research Associate & Rick Piltz, Director, Climate Science Watch, NextGen Air Transportation System Progress Reports Ignore Climate Change (July 2007)
  
  "The Bush administration and FAA are currently focusing on a multi-agency effort to enable a major expansion of American air transportation. This effort—the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen)—operates under the assumption that the U.S. aviation traffic will triple in the next 20 years. NextGen progress reports make no mention of climate change, global warming, or the carbon dioxide emissions of aircraft."—Press release (July 18, 2007)


• John B. Stephenson, Director, Natural Resources and Environment, United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), Environmental Contamination: Department of Defense Activities Related to Trichloroethylene, Perchlorate, and Other Emerging Contaminants (Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Readiness, Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, GAO-07-1042T) (July 12, 2007)
  
  "DOD defines emerging contaminants as chemicals or materials with (1) perceived or real threat to health or the environment and (2) lack of published standards or a standard that is evolving or being reevaluated. Two emerging contaminants—trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchlorate—are of particular concern to DOD because they have significant potential to impact people or DOD's mission."—Why GAO Did This Study.


• John B. Stephenson, Director, Natural Resources and Environment, United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), Environmental Justice: Measurable Benchmarks Needed to Gauge EPA Progress in Correcting Past Problems (Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health, Committee on Environment and Public Works, U.S. Senate, GAO-07-1140T) (July 25, 2007)
  
  "EPA generally devoted little attention to environmental justice when drafting three significant clean air rules between fiscal years 2000 and 2004. GAO's 2005 report concluded, for example, that while EPA guidance on rulemaking states that workgroups should consider environmental justice early in the process, a lack of guidance and training for workgroup members on how to identify potential environmental justice impacts limited their ability to analyze such issues. Similarly, while EPA considered environmental justice to varying degrees in the final stages of the rulemaking process, in general the agency rarely provided a clear rationale for its decisions on environmental justice-related matters. For example, in responding to comments during the final phase of one of the rules, EPA asserted that the rule would not have any disproportionate impacts on low-income or minority communities, but did not publish any data or the agency’s assumptions in support of that conclusion."—What GAO Found.
  


• Alexandra D. Syphard, Department of Forest Ecology and Management, University of Wisconsin, et al., Human Influence on California Fire Regimes, Ecological Applications, v.17, no.5, pp.1388-1402 (July 2007)
  

  "A new study quantifies how distribution of housing developments and the kinds of fire fuels at the wildland-urban interface can help predict fires in California, a state that experiences monumental fire hazards."—Press release (July 18, 2007).
  

  The full-text of the study is available to subscribers to Ecological Applications.
  

• Union of Concerned Scientists, Creating Jobs, Saving Energy, and Protecting the Environment: An Analysis of the Potential Benefits of Investing in Efficient Cars and Trucks, A 2007 Update.
  
  "Increasing the average fuel economy of America's new autos to 35 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2018 would save consumers $61 billion at the gas pump and increase U.S. employment by 241,000 jobs in the year 2020, including 23,900 in the auto industry, according to a new analysis from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). This study comes as the House of Representatives prepares to consider energy legislation in the coming weeks. This energy package could include debate over a bill introduced by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Todd Platts (R-Penn.) that calls for increasing fuel economy standards by four percent per year, with guaranteed progress to 35 mpg by 2018."—Press release (July 11, 2007)


• United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), Report on the Fifteenth Session (12 May 2006 and 30 April-11 May 2007) (Economic and Social Council Official Records, 2007, Supplement No. 9, E/CN.17/2007/15)
  
  "[D]iscussions were based on a wide range of issues related to the interlinked themes of energy for sustainable development, industrial development, air pollution/atmosphere and climate change"—UN Pulse (July 17, 2007)


• United States Department of Homeland Security, FY 2007 Homeland Security Grant Program (2007)
  
  "HSGP grants enhance the ability of states, territories, and urban areas to prevent, protect against, respond to and recover from terrorist attacks and other disasters. Including this funding, by the end of FY 2007, DHS will have invested $23 billion in local planning, organization, equipment, training, and exercises for state and local governments since September 11, 2001."—Press release (July 18, 2007). See the beSpacific link for related documents, including a National Congress for Health System Readiness report on state disaster response plans.


• United States Department of State, U.S. Climate Action Report—2006: Fourth National Communication of the United States of America under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (2007)
  

  "The United States is pursuing a comprehensive strategy to address global climate change that is science-based, fosters breakthroughs in clean energy technologies, and encourages coordinated global action in support of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
  

  "The U.S. strategy integrates measures to address climate change into a broader agenda that promotes energy security, pollution reduction, and sustainable economic development. This integrated approach recognizes that actions to address climate change, including actions to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, will be more sustainable and successful if they produce multiple economic and environmental benefits.
  

  "The United States is committed to continued leadership on climate change. Promoting biofuels, advanced fossil fuel technologies, renewable sources of energy, and advanced nuclear technologies is a key component of U.S. climate-related efforts. Since 2001, the Nation has dedicated nearly $29 billion to advance climate-related science, technology, international assistance, and incentive programs."—Executive Summary.
  

• United States Environmental Protection Agency, US-Mexico Border 2012 Program
  

  "U.S.-Mexico Environmental Program (Border 2012) is a collaboration between the United States and Mexico to improve the environment and protect the health of the nearly 12 million people living along the border. The bi-national program focuses on cleaning the air, providing safe drinking water, reducing the risk of exposure to hazardous waste, and ensuring emergency preparedness along the U.S.-Mexico border.
  

  "Border 2012 is a results-oriented program that takes a 'bottom-up' approach to addressing the environmental and public health needs of the border region. Issues and projects are identified and implemented at the local level. The program encourages stakeholder involvement through a variety of opportunities."
  

• United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), Emergency Management Assistance Compact: Enhancing EMAC's Collaborative and Administrative Capacity Should Improve National Disaster Response (Report to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate, GAO-07-854) (June 2007)
  
  "EMAC, along with its accompanying policies, procedures, and practices, enables its members to overcome differences to achieve a common mission—streamlining and expediting the delivery of resources among members during disasters. While these policies, procedures, and practices have worked well for smaller-scale deployments, they have not kept pace with the changing use of EMAC, sometimes resulting in confusion and deployment delays. The EMAC network has taken steps to address several of these challenges, but additional improvements can be made in a number of areas including clarifying roles and responsibilities of EMAC members and improving existing systems that track resources deployed under EMAC. In addition, a lack of sufficiently detailed federal standards and policies has led to some reimbursement delays and additional administrative burdens."—What GAO Found.

Dueling Supreme Court roundups

It's that time of year. Supreme Court observers take stock of the recently concluded Term, even as they look forward to the next round of high court controversies.

So. The question is which of the leading Supreme Court roundups to watch. Will it be the American Constitution Society's roundup? Or will it be the Federalist Society's? Why not both?

The Jurisdynamics Network proudly presents one-stop shopping for Supreme Court roundups from both ends of the ideological spectrum. Herewith embedded video and audio options for both the American Constitution Society and the Federalist Society:

American Constitution Society

ACS video:



ACS audio:

The ACS's panel discussion took place on June 28, 2007, at the National Press Club, in Washington, D.C. The list of panelists included Michael A. Carvin, Drew S. Days III, Walter E. Dellinger III, Thomas C. Goldstein, Pamela C. Karlan, and Kathleen M. Sullivan.

Federalist Society

Douglas R. Cox and Theodore B. Olson addressed the Federalist Society on July 13 at the National Press Club.

Federalist Society video:


Federalist Society audio:

A Kentucky canticle from the Jurisdynamics Jukebox

The Jurisdynamics Jukebox

Nothing intellectual here; just a little entertainment on a sleepy summer weekend.

Herewith a song from Crystal Gayle, the pride of Paintsville, Kentucky:

On the Wages of Not-Keeping-Your-Eyes-on-the-Ball

A new report examines the flaws in the Army Corps procedures that lead to the New Orleans levee failures. According to the Times-Picayune's story, there was no single, fatal moment of miscalculation:

Rather, the Army Corps of Engineers-financed report, released today, spreads blame over a complex combination of political, economic and engineering decisions made without a routine review of how the individual decisions affected the hurricane protection system as a whole.

"Over the 50-year period of time (that the levees were being built), there was a tyranny of incremental decisions at all levels -- not just by the federal government, but by local and state officials, too -- and over a period of time, those incremental decisions led to the loss of a vision of the project as a system," said Tom Waters, chief of planning and policy for the corps.

The authors emphasize that they avoided placing blame, and in several cases take pains to report that they found no evidence indicating corps officials knowingly made decisions that would weaken the hurricane-protection system. Yet the report paints a picture of the corps failing to employ the best available science on the strength of storms and the height of surge, often because of political and financial obstacles from Congress and local officials, as well as from industrial and environmental lobbies.

And although the corps' top official last year admitted -- unequivocally and publicly -- to "the catastrophic failure with one of our projects," the agency's second-in-command seemed to contradict that famous mea culpa Tuesday, suggesting the agency could not possibly have prevented the levee breaches. Katrina would have overwhelmed the levee system even it were correctly built to the design standards in place before the storm, said Major Gen. Don Riley, the corps' director of civil works, during a news conference about the report.

.........
The Corps has a French motto ("essayons", meaning let us try. Sometimes it seems almost as if they would have done better to adopt the supposed motto of the Bourbons, who were said never to have forgotten anything and never to have learned anything. Let's not give up hope, however, that the Corps will take heed of some of the problems that resulted in the defective levee system in New Orleans.

By the way, the picture is Louis XVI, perhaps the most famous and certainly the least fortunate of the Bourbon dynasty. Or maybe I should have used Louis XIV -- the motto "after me, the deluge" seems to have a certain application in this setting.

Literary Warrant [14]

don't worry about nature: it is always nature:

when we divert water into California's valley
deserts, we produce mucho melons, but we

leave the salty mouth of the Colorado dry: we
play our arrogances small scale: slowly we

learn that surplus carbon monoxide feeds a soil
microorganism: the large designs are filigrees

through which nearly still measures move, turn, split,
come and go again.

—From "Surface Effects," in A.R. Ammons, Bosh and Flapdoodle: Poems 18-20 (New York: Norton, 2005)

• Jay Austin & Bruce Myers, Senior Attorneys, Environmental Law Institute (ELI), Anchoring the Clean Water Act: Congress's Constitutional Sources of Power To Protect the Nation's Waters (An Environmental Law Institute White Paper) (July 2007)
  

  "Supreme Court rulings handed down in 2001 (SWANCC) and 2006 (Rapanos) have cast doubt on the scope of coverage that Congress intended when it enacted the Clean Water Act. Despite these rulings, any restrictions that the Court has imposed on the Act derive from the Court's own interpretation of Congressional intent in 1972, when Congress used the terms 'navigable waters' and 'waters of the United States' to characterize federal jurisdiction under the Act. Neither Supreme Court case reaches, much less decides, the underlying constitutional question: what is the scope of Congress’s constitutional authority to protect the Nation's waters?

  "As a result, Congress remains free to convey, through a 'clear statement,' the scope it intends (and originally intended) for the Clean Water Act. An amendment recently introduced in the House of Representatives would restate and clarify Congress's intent to regulate the waters of the United States to the fullest extent of its legislative power. But if Congress amends the Act in this manner, which constitutional powers could it rely on, and what has the Supreme Court said about these powers? This white paper is offered to help inform the debate on this fundamental question."—Executive Summary.
  

• beSpacific, DOT Withholds Documents on Greenhouse Gas Emmissions from Oversight Committee (July 2, 2007)
  
  "In response to Rep. Waxman's request, the Department of Transportation provided limited documents and e-mails related to its lobbying of Members of Congress to oppose efforts by California and other states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles. In the correspondence providing the documents, DOT states that it intends to withhold 53 responsive documents from the Committee."—Press release (June 29, 2007)


• Christopher Cherry, Jonathan Weinert & Chaktan Ma, The Environmental Impacts of Electric Bikes in Chinese Cities (Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Berkeley Center for Future Urban Transport: A Volvo Center of Excellence, vwp-2007-2) (2007)
  
  "Electric bikes have captured a large share of trips in many Chinese cities. They provide high levels of mobility and use little energy, two things that Chinese cities need to optimize. However, these benefits come at a cost, particularly emissions from primarily coal power plants and increased lead waste from battery use. Chinese policy makers are struggling with developing appropriate policy that maximizes modal options and mobility and minimizes environmental impacts. Electric bikes use very little electricity and, as a result, emit low levels of pollution per vehicle (passenger) kilometer traveled, even compared to fully occupied buses. The most problematic issue with electric bikes is the use of lead acid batteries that have high lead loss rates during the production, manufacturing and recycling processes. Most other motorized modes also use lead acid batteries, but their rate of use is lower and thus they have lower lead emission rates per kilometer. This research investigates and quantifies the environmental implications of electric bike use in China; particularly energy use, air pollution, solid waste and water use. A framework for policy analysis is presented and potential regulatory mechanisms are discussed. This investigation can inform policy by quantifying environmental impacts so that problematic parts of the life cycle can be addressed, rather than banning electric bikes all together."—Abstract.


• Charles D. Ferguson, Fellow for Science and Technology, Council on Foreign Relations, Nuclear Energy: Balancing Benefits and Risks (April 2007)
  
  "Dr. Ferguson argues that nuclear energy, despite its attributes, is unlikely to play a major role in the coming decades in strengthening energy security or in countering the harmful effects of climate change. In particular, the rapid rate of nuclear reactor expansion required to make even a modest reduction in global warming would drive up construction costs and create shortages in building materials, trained personnel, and safety controls. There are also lingering questions over nuclear waste, as well as continued political opposition to siting new plants. Nonetheless, the report points out steps the United States could take—such as imposing a fee on greenhouse gas emissions—to level the economic playing field for all energy sectors, which over the long run would encourage the construction of new nuclear reactors (if only to replace existing ones that will need to be retired) and help reduce global warming."—Overview.


• Eileen R. Larence, Director, Homeland Security and Justice Issues, United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), Critical Infrastructure Protection: Sector Plans and Sector Councils Continue to Evolve (July 10, 2007)
  
  "Our nation's critical infrastructures and key resources—including those cyber and physical assets essential to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety—continue to be vulnerable to a wide variety of threats. Because the private sector owns approximately 85 percent of the nation's critical infrastructure and key resources—banking and financial institutions, telecommunications networks, and energy production and transmission facilities, among others—it is vital that the public and private sectors form effective partnerships to successfully protect these assets....
  
  "This report discusses (1) the extent to which the sector-specific plans meet NIPP [National Infrastructure Protection Plan] and DHS requirements, (2) the government and sector coordinating council members' views on the value of the plans and DHS's review process, and (3) the key success factors and challenges that sector representatives reported they encountered in establishing and maintaining their councils."


• New Economics Foundation (nef) & the NHS Confederation, Taking the Temperature: Towards an NHS Response to Global Warming (2007)
  

  "A new report from nef for the NHS confederation says that the NHS, as one of the world’s biggest and most resource-hungry public sector institutions, must brace itself for the health impacts of global warming and act urgently to reduce its significant carbon emissions.

  "Taking the temperature: towards an NHS response to global warming says that the NHS faces a dual challenge. As well as taking action to reduce its own carbon emissions, as the lead agency responsible for public health, it needs to invest in preventive healthcare to strengthen the resilience of the population, as well as in treatment for the victims of a warmer, more variable climate."—Press release (June 22, 2007)
  

• Damilola Sunday Olawuyi, University of Calgary, The Emergence of International Environmental Law on Chemicals—An Appraisal of the Role of Soft Law
  
  "Since 1988 when the world first witnessed the menacing effects of the large scale dumping of toxic wastes in developing countries, several treaties, protocols and declarations have been released at regional and international levels to combat the effects of chemicals and their disposal across borders. This has led to a phenomenal growth in the body of laws governing the transboundary movement and disposal of hazardous chemicals. The important role of soft law in this evolution cannot be sidelined. This paper shows that soft law, though largely made up non binding declarations and pronouncements served as a useful tool, in establishing standards of behavior, in promoting sustainable policies and laying the proper foundation that ultimately led to the adoption different environmental treaties like the Basel Convention, Bamako Conventions, The Rotterdam (PIC) Convention and Stockholm (POPs) Convention amongst others. This paper offers an historical analysis of the international events that led to the development of International Environmental Law as it pertains to chemicals and the important roles of soft law in the evolution of these treaties and protocols."—Abstract.


• Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), OSHA Ordered to Release Toxic Exposure Database: More than 25 Years of Workplace Sampling Yields Public Health Research Bonanza (Press release) (July 2, 2007)
  
  "The U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) has wrongfully withheld data documenting years of toxic exposures to workers and its own inspectors, according to a federal court ruling posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). As a result, the world's largest compendium of measurements of occupational exposures to toxic substances—more than 2 million analyses conducted during some 75,000 OSHA workplace inspections since 1979—should now be available to researchers and policymakers. Each year, an estimated 40,000 U.S. workers die prematurely because of exposures to toxic substances on the job."


• Joaquin Sapien, Superfund Today: Massive Undertaking to Clean Up Hazardous Waste Sites Has Lost Both Momentum and Funding (April 26, 2007)
  
  "Communities across America face a daunting threat from hazardous waste sites—some near neighborhoods and schools—27 years after the federal government launched the landmark Superfund program to wipe out the problem, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found." See also the project site, Wasting Away: Superfund's Toxic Legacy.


• The World Bank, Making the Most of Scarcity: Accountability for Better Water Management Results in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA Development Report) (2007)
  
  "Even the most casual observer of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region knows the countries are short of water.1 Despite its diversity of landscapes and climates—from the snowy peaks of the Atlas mountains to the empty quarter of the Arabian peninsula—most of the region's countries cannot meet current water demand. Indeed, many face full-blown crises. And the situation is likely to get worse. Per capita water availability will fall by half by 2050, with serious consequences for the region's already stressed aquifers and natural hydrological systems. As the region's economies and population structures change over the next few decades, demands for water supply and irrigation services will change accordingly, as will the need to address industrial and urban pollution. Some 60 percent of the region’s water flows across international borders, further complicating the resource management challenge. Finally, rainfall patterns are predicted to shift as a result of climate change."—Overview.

The Changing Political Climate on Climate Change

The photo shows Ed Muskie and Mo Udall, who helped lead the charge for environmental protection in an earlier era, just as Al Gore is doing today. Ultimately, however, major changes in environmental aren't driven by political leaders; they're driven by changes in culture and public opinion. The process remains something of a mystery. We still don't know why there was such a huge upsurge of public interest in the environment in the late 1960s and the 1970s, resulting in a wave of federal legislation that still defines this field of law.

The fairly rapid switch in American attitudes toward climate change is also a puzzle. Here's a graph showing media attention to the issue:



This figure is from a blog posting by Chris Mooney. Mooney observes:

Much as has occurred with the devastating drought in Australia, Katrina -- a single dramatic event -- seems to have helped galvanize public and political attention to climate change. This is of course rather awkward from a scientific standpoint, in that for both Katrina and for the drought, any direct causal attribution to global warming remains deeply problematic or even impossible.

The movie poster for Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth features a smokestack belching forth a hurricane, dramatizing how these storms became new icons of climate change. And with that film's release, Gore became, even more than before, the climate issue's top messenger and communicator, while Hollywood -- through the release of Gore's film and, later, by awarding him an Oscar -- blazoned a message about the urgency of addressing climate change. As Gore himself understood -- and as is also plainly evident when we contemplate the Live Earth concert -- using entertainment media to communicate such a message was critical because their broad reach extends far beyond the narrower audiences who tune in regularly to science or policy coverage.

And even as Gore reached many people who may never before have grasped the importance of global warming, in November of 2006 the Democrats regained control of Congress for the first time in over a decade and proceeded to invite Gore to testify before them. With control of congressional committees, Democrats could at last set the political agenda and include global warming as a prominent part of it. Whereas under Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee had served as a forum for the debunking of climate change, under Barbara Boxer of California it has become a driving force for addressing the problem.

All of this seems very true, but there also seems to be a somewhat deeper change relating to public attitudes toward government and the recent troubles of the conservative movement. A few years, it would also have been utterly implausible that a former mayor of New York would be the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Mooney promises more postings, and perhaps he'll be able to shed more light on this subject. By the way, he also has an interesting looking new book, available here.