Environmental Policy & Law

The Slow Food movement argues that the concept of fast food is a symbol of what’s wrong with the world today- centralization, top-down homogeneity, mass produced… and that we should embrace Local. Our guest today says that same philosophy should be applied to government. With government mistrust and low approval ratings for members of Congress at a near all-time high, Susan Clark, author of Slow Democracy, says we should pay attention our local government.

At a time when consumers are demanding greater access to organic and non-genetically engineered (GE) foods, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) latest, “coexistence” policy threatens the ability and right of consumers to make that shift.

In 1995, a severe heat wave struck Chicago, killing more than 700 people. The disaster hit some neighborhoods much harder than others. For the most part, its devastation closely traced the city's economic and ethnic segregation. More people died in places like Englewood, a South Side neighborhood with a history of poverty and crime, and a largely African-American population; yet some neighborhoods with this same demographic fared remarkably well.

"A policy narrative that continues to frame this target as the sole metric of success or failure to constrain climate change risk is now itself becoming dangerous," wrote Todd Sanford and Peter Frumhoff of UCS in the commentary published Wednesday in Nature Climate Change. "[It] ill-prepares society to confront and manage the risks of a world that is increasingly likely to experience warming well in excess of 2°C this century," said the piece, co-authored by Amy Luers of the San Francisco-based Skoll Global Threats Fund, and Jay Gulledge, of the U.S.

Advances in technology mean the amount of digital information we collectively possess is growing exponentially. Estimates suggest that by 2020 there will be 300 times more information in the world than there was in 2005. Big data has the power to transform the way corporations understand the impact of their business on the environment, and prompt them to take action on sustainability. But storing and gathering this data is costly in itself, with large data servers located across the world consuming huge amounts of energy and adding to carbon emissions.

You work hard every day on issues affecting the health of residents in your state. You release reports about the dangers of fracking and other critical environmental issues. You try to link economic development with natural resource stewardship. You tweet and blog and host webinars to get the issues out to the public. But if you live in a state like West Virginia, you’re literally swimming upstream struggling for recognition of the big issues in the face of policymakers tied to a carbon-based future.

In October 2013, California's Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 711, making it illegal to use lead ammunition for hunting, a ban that will be phased in from 2015 to 2019. For UC Santa Cruz environmental toxicologists Donald Smith and 1998 Switzer Fellow Myra Finkelstein, the bill represents the translation of years of scientific research into a new policy to protect people and wildlife from lead poisoning.

The amount of methane leaking from natural gas emissions is far higher than previously estimated, a new study shows, more evidence, as one expert says, that urgent action must be taken to reduce these greenhouse gas emissions. ... "The study by Brandt et al. adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that EPA's estimates of methane emissions from the oil and gas sector are too low," Sarah Uhl, Senior Project Director at the Clean Air Task Force, a Boston-based public health and environment advocacy group, said in a statement sent to Common Dreams.

by Luther Turmelle, New Haven Register If Robert Klee is daunted by the challenge that lies ahead as the state’s next Department of Energy and Environmental Protection commissioner, he doesn’t show it.