Political Philosophy and Ethics discussion

This topic is created as a continuation of messages 38-44, 47, 49, and 52-55 in the New Member Introductions; General Information topic. Those messages all addressed environmental and related economic issues, and the reader is referred to them before reading and posting messages going forward in the present topic.

Just posted on general info when it should have been posted here, my apologies. Alan's request for Economic related posts being seen here is a good idea, there is much to discuss about the role of liberal Economics and and the relation of the state to prosperity and global health.

The author of the WSJ article is a member of the World Economic Forum's Future of Oil and Gas group. WEF's members promote globalization and other economic policies that benefit the world's investing and lending elite. They do hold conferences on topics such as education and the environment, but from what I hear, some of these are shams. They are all calculated to produce the most benefit to the economic elite, and if anyone else benefits, that's OK, but not the primary purpose.

The article is speculative and, I believe, overly optimistic. It is calculated to lull everyone into a sense of complacency about climate change.

We already know how to reduce CO2 and methane in the atmosphere: replace fossil fuels with renewable sources of energy as fast as possible. It is feasible, it is feasible now, and I have to say again, the only industry whose profits will be harmed is the fossil fuel industry itself, many of whose owners are themselves Davos Men.

It is encouraging to see someone like Ms. Jaffe who spent the formative years of her career in the center of the Houston oil industry at the Baker Institute (yes, that Baker, the Bushes's lawyer) to say that climate change may affect the demand for oil in the future. In her remarks to the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power as recently as 2013 she mentioned climate exactly once in 24 pages and that mention was an off-hand reference to a "climate deal" with no mention about why a "deal" was necessary. The focus of her remarks was around how fracking will "enhance American power" and "give the United States an upper hand with China." So this latest article is a step in the right direction, but these steps need to quicken, IMHO.

I agree with you Mimi and Randell in the need for urgency and focus regarding humankind's energy mix; my intent with sharing this article was that the conventional wisdom is not always the determinant of actual outcomes and that the slightest change in perception can lead to dramatic changes. Whether the author is correct or not, her thesis is an intriguing one and suggests that unintended consequences can also break for us. I do however return to my original point, we, the global we, are a hydrocarbon driven civilization, and our salvation and future growth will lie not in a dreamy automatic shift in our demand and supply of energy, but rather in a series of incremental steps interrupted by dramatic changes in our technology and understanding. I think if Herman Kahn was writing the year 2100 today, his vision would be a planet powered by technologies not even considered today.

The solution I've described is not a "dreamy automatic shift". They are deliberately and aggressively shifting now in Germany. We have it on our rooftop now.

Of course, our civilization is currently hydrocarbon-driven, but in my grandmothers' lifetimes we were horse-and-buggy-driven. How incremental was that change?

If the change is "incremental", the increments had better be very small and the slope of the curve had better approach infinity, or it's too late.

Thought everyone would be interested in the following, it seems that incremental change multiplied a thousand fold can pack a whallop. This article is exactly the kind of transformational development that can change global energy calculations. Now if only it could power transport we would be hydrocarbon free in 50 years, as it is if I were the Saudis I would be nervous.

Guardian sustainable business Technology and Innovation
Perovskites: the future of solar power?
With predictions of up to 50% efficiency and named one of the breakthroughs of 2013, perovskites are the clean tech material development to watch right now

• This is the first in a new monthly series on early stage technologies that could go on to make a big impact

There have been many false dawns around cheap and effective materials capable of converting solar energy. Could perovskites be the real deal?

The daily input of solar energy to the earth's surface is enough to fulfil our energy needs many times over, but cheap and efficient ways of converting it, especially to electricity, have remained elusive. Yes, there is a lot of photovoltaic material installed around the world today – more than 100 gigawatts – but the efficiency of conversion to kilowatt hours is relatively poor, usually 15% or less. More than 85% of the photovoltaics (PV) used today are made from crystalline silicon, but scientific research continues into new materials that could do the job better. The criteria are greater efficiency, with cheap materials that are readily available, solid, durable under prolonged exposure to sunlight and weather, and, if possible, fairly transparent. There have been many false dawns. A number of these have scored high on efficiency, but have used materials so exotic that any scale-up would be limited by availability and cost.

Now there is excitement, and it is over a class of materials known as perovskites. Perovskite is the term for a particular mineral crystal structure, most commonly a calcium titanium trioxide mineral, and is applied to anything that adopts this same structure. Perovskite materials for solar cells were first reported in 2009 (organolead halides, in case you are interested), but they were very low efficiency and had to remain liquid in use. Not promising. But it caught the attention of several research groups, in particular that of Henry Snaith at Oxford, and Andrew Rappe at the University of Pennsylvania. By doing some clever polymer chemistry, they were able to make solid perovskite solar cells, and then, in only 18 months, engineered these up to efficiencies of 16%. It took decades of research on silicon to get such improvements. But the polymer was expensive and complex. Still, Science magazine classed perovskite solar cells as one of the breakthroughs of 2013.

The great solar cell scientist and inventor Michael Graetzel in Lausanne was intrigued, and figured out just how these cells were transporting the electrons, and how that polymer worked. With that information, it has recently been possible for scientists at Notre Dame University in the US to discover that the complex polymer could be replaced by something as simple as copper iodide. OK, their first cell is not yet up to the 16% efficiency, but there was a benefit: while the polymer based cells declined in current over time, the copper iodide ones did not.

So perovskite PV is at the point of, perhaps, maximum optimism. There are predictions that the efficiencies could reach 50%, the costs could fall to well below where silicon might get to in 10 years, and the science points to it being desirable to make these cells thicker, rather than as thin films, meaning they can be suitable as window or roofing materials. And the prototype cells produced have partial transparency.

There are already companies working on commercialising perovskite. Snaith has formed Oxford PV, and has already attracted £2m of start-up funding. Perovskites are the clean tech material development most worth watching right now.

Bernie Bulkin is a director of Ludgate Investments Ltd and of HMN Colmworth Ltd. He was chair of the Office of Renewable Energy for the UK Government from 2010-2013, and a member of the UK Sustainable Development Commission. He was formerly chief scientist of BP.

Interesting. It would be good to know who funded the basic research at Oxford, the U. of Pennsylvania, Notre Dame, etc.

There will probably not be a single magic bullet. There's a pilot project in Portland, Oregon to generate electricity using mini turbines inside municipal water pipes, and in the Southwest, someone has developed a type of cement that is carbon-negative (it absorbs atmospheric carbon), not to mention energy-generating solar blocks that you can use to build driveways and roads.

Many of these ideas require some level of government financial support to be feasible (just as the oil industry has received and continues to receive huge tax breaks and special treatment under the law.)

Rather than allowing oil magnates to buy their loyalty, government officials ought to be doing what's right for the U.S. and the rest of the planet by promoting these alternate technologies, old and new, just as they did with fossil fuels back in the day.

See post 95 in the International Law and Politics topic of this group.

This may be the first of a series of brainstorming posts. Not sure. I have a lot of things in mind, so to minimize confusing complications, each post will have a narrow focus. Down the road, I may try pulling things together. We'll see.

I'll start with "environmental justice," the title of this discussion thread.

"Environmental justice" is typically used to refer to a movement arising from the location in poor neighborhoods of a disproportionate number of polluting industries, waste disposal areas, etc.

"Environmental justice" thus identifies an important issue but only one of many environmental issues, so it is far from the umbrella term encompassing all these issues. Whether there is such an umbrella term is, of course, itself an issue. That will be a topic for a later post, probably a few posts because there are a number of candidates.

The issue of "justice" in environmental justice involves environmental problems, but does not, it seems to me, derive from distinctively environmental problems. I think the same notion of justice would be involved if one protested that streets in poor neighborhoods are typically more in need of repair than streets in wealthy neighborhoods. Hence, another issue for a later post is whether there is any notion of justice that is distinctively environmental. A related issue, possibly for still another post, is whether justice is the only ethical/political value that environmentalism needs.

Regarding the term "environmental," I think that this term does more to deflect attention from reality than to direct attention to reality. It would, in my view, be better to dispense with this term in consideration of so-called "environmental" issues. I'll save my reasons for saying this for a later post to avoid beginning to complicate this one too much. I don't expect people to give up using this term, but it tends to get in the way of things I want to say, so I'll give my reasons for dropping it before moving on.

Robert wrote: ""Environmental justice" is typically used to refer to a movement arising from the location in poor neighborhoods of a disproportionate number of polluting industries, waste disposal areas, etc."

Bob, I was unaware of that limited meaning of "environmental justice" and certainly did not intend to restrict the discussion in the present topic to that narrow aspect of it. Accordingly, I have renamed the topic "Environmental Issues." I see that you also have objections to that terminology, but I don't understand those objections (which you have not yet articulated). Perhaps you can suggest an alternative title, which I will then consider. You had mentioned "Anthropocene" earlier. I'm not sure that many people even understand what that term means, at least outside of academia. I had to look it up myself. I'm open to suggestions, but for now we'll call the topic "Environmental Issues." If you have alternative suggestions for the title, I will certainly consider them.

Alan, the revision is fine. The term "environmental" isn't going away, and others may prefer it.

I'll have a post on the "Anthropocene," probably a few, beginning with an important debate in which it is involved. Maybe later it would make sense to set it up as a separate topic. It goes beyond environmental concerns, raising philosophical questions about the nature of reality.

Robert wrote: "It goes beyond environmental concerns, raising philosophical questions about the nature of reality."

Please keep in mind, Bob, that this is not a general philosophy forum but rather a forum dedicated to political philosophy and ethics. If your thoughts about the nature of reality are related to ethics and/or political philosophy, that is fine, but you should explicitly draw the connection. General issues regarding metaphysics, ontology, analytic philosophy, symbolic logic, theology, etc. are outside the scope of this Goodreads group. See the rules stated in posts 3-6 and 14-16 of the Rules and Housekeeping topic.

What is the relation of ethics and/or political philosophy to reality TODAY? "TODAY" is emphasized because it is possible that this relation is different from what it was in the past because of the "environmental issues" of our time, as sketched below in an announcement of a conference that will be held in London in December.

LAW AND POLITICS IN THE ANTHROPOCENE: METHODS, ORIENTATIONS AND ENCOUNTERS

Many now claim that we have entered a new climatic regime (the Anthropocene) that marks a transition from the previous geological epoch (the Holocene), a period of 12,000 years in which human civilisations emerged. The Anthropocene thesis contends that collective human action has become so potent that it is shaping the earth’s systemic functioning. In this way, the Anthropocene reveals a new ontology or mode of being-in-the-world in which human agency is intimately bound up with the functioning of the earth’s biogeochemical systems and cycles, situating human agency and our political formations within rather than set against the so-called ‘natural environment’. However, within most legal and political thought this ontology remains remarkably difficult to grasp. Throughout modernity legal and political forms have largely been understood to transcend any connection to the inorganic, the non-human or the environmental. The aspirations of human civilisation are commonly thought to depend on the postulation of an anthropogenic superiority in which a ‘natural condition’ (or ‘state of nature’) is overcome in the pursuit of a truly ‘political’ life. The prospect of human survival in this new epoch is bound up with a range of nonhuman forces that our political and legal thought has largely approached as an uninteresting backdrop against which human dramas are played out. In the relatively stable conditions of the Holocene this ‘backdrop ontology’ was perhaps understandable. But the Anthropocene tells us that the backdrop is beginning to move, the scenery and props have come to life.

With a focus on questions of method, orientation and encounter, speakers will address the flowing concerns:

To what extent do the methodologies which have largely defined modernity – dialectics, historical materialism, genealogy and so on – continue to assists us in the context of the Anthropocene?

Towards what ought our thinking on this topic be both temporally and spatially orientated: an unjust past or an apocalyptic future; towards Europe or China; the global North or South?

What are the fields of law (environmental law, international law, corporate law) and politics (international relations, security studies, biopolitics) that need to be brought into conversation?

How can we nurture interdisciplinary literacy across the natural and social sciences, arts and humanities in order to address the challenges that the Anthropocene brings into view?

SPEAKERS
Speakers: Alain Pottage (LSE) / Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos (University of Westminster) / Daniel Matthews (University of Hong Kong) / Lilian Moncrieff (University of Glasgow) / Mark Maslin (UCL) / Nayanika Mathur (University of Oxford) / Rory Rowan (University of Zurich) / Vito De Lucia (UiT Arctic University of Norway).

This event is organised by BIH Visiting Fellow, Dr. Daniel Matthews, and is supported by the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities and the Birkbeck Centre for Law and the Humanities.

Thanks, Bob, for your post. Interestingly, Leo Strauss was always skeptical of the modern project of the conquest of nature. The modern chickens have now come home to roost.

Addendum to my preceding post:

The modern project of the conquest of nature was commenced by Francis Bacon and was evident in later political philosophers such as John Locke (who, inter alia, considered Europeans superior to indigenous peoples in America on this ground). But the matter goes back further to the command in Genesis 1:28 to subdue the earth, thereby triggering present-day religious objections to environmentalism. The issues are difficult. It would be impossible, even if it were desirable, to reverse the Industrial Revolution and abandon technology. The question appears to be whether we can modify energy sources and other practices in order to stop (and hopefully reverse) anthropogenic climate change and what, if anything, such a change implies for political philosophy. In all probability, environmentalism implies that government must take an active role in rectifying the phenomenon of negative externalities, which is (apart from short-term financial self-interest) why so many on the libertarian and conservative right oppose environmentalism. Any view that climate change should not be resisted because it is a sign of supernaturally imposed End Times is literally a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I am not an expert on these matters. If someone better informed than I disagrees with any of my foregoing statements and/or can elaborate further, please feel free, as always, to do so.

Footnote to post #14 above, on the Anthropocene--

According to the idea of the Anthropocene, the reality of the earth now consists to a significant extent of effects of human action. These effects broaden the scope of ethical and political philosophy to encompass portions of reality previously thought to be independent of humans but now seen to be dependent on human ethical and political decisions. Particularly visible evidence of this broadening are international conferences of nations to make political decisions about climate change.

The idea of the Anthropocene began to gain currency in 2000 when it was proposed in the Global Change Newsletter by Paul J Crutzen (a winner of the Nobel Prize in 1995 for his work on atmospheric chemistry) and Eugene F Stoermer. Crutzen and Stoermer proposed using "the term `anthropocene' for the current geological epoch" because of the "impacts of human activities on earth and atmosphere, and at all, including global scales."

Geological epochs have historically been defined by the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). ICS has traditionally linked epochs to distinctive strata in the earth. In 2009, ICS established an "Anthropocene working group" to investigate whether the Holocene has ended and we are now in the Anthropocene. Such decisions typically take many years and no decision has been made to date.

One issue is determining when the Anthropocene began if it indeed has displaced the Holocene. Proposals for a beginning date range from as recently as around 1950 to as remotely as millennia ago when farming began remaking the surface of the earth. Another strong candidate is 1800, when the Industrial Revolution really got going.

Robert wrote: "Footnote to post #14 above, on the Anthropocene--

According to the idea of the Anthropocene, the reality of the earth now consists to a significant extent of effects of human action. These effects..."

Thanks, Bob, for your explanations of the Anthropocene. I'm beginning to understand it now.

controversial Finnish environmentalist Pentti Linkola

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentti_...

Kind of reminds me of the Unabomber. Goes to show that the Right does not have a monopoly on extremists.

That said, of course the environment is a very important cause. That does not, however, justify violence, which in any event is counterproductive.

But a devil's advocate might say that America has already jumped in bed with violence, for the sake of ending two vast world wars plus Korea and Vietnam. 'For the sake of saving humanity and doing the right thing' (in varying degree). The UN, and NATO...were also designed with violence in mind. Environmentalism might very well, come to as dire a pass someday. Just a thought.

Feliks wrote: "But a devil's advocate might say that America has already jumped in bed with violence, for the sake of ending two vast world wars plus Korea and Vietnam. 'For the sake of saving humanity and doing ..."

Government arguably has a rightful monopoly on the use of physical force (with the exception of immediate defense of self or others against violence). See, for example, Locke's Second Treatise of Government. One can question whether government has properly used that monopoly, and in many cases the answer is negative, especially if we consider the entire history of governmental use of violence. But, except for immediate self-defense or immediate defense of others against private violence, individuals don't have any such right. Additionally, please note the prohibition on advocacy of (private) violence in the rules at the top of the home page of this group. It seems to me that your boy (Linkola) is advocating the physical destruction of humanity. That's absurd on its face, and it implicitly encourages people like the Unabomber.

Evidently increased carbon levels reduce human cognitive ability.

According to Bill McKibben's latest book, there is a Harvard study that concludes that cognitive ability could decline by as much as 21% by 2100 if high-end predictions of carbon levels by that date come true. (Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?, NY: Holt, 2019, p. 35).

Given the current state of affairs, maybe they should figure out how much cognitive ability has already been reduced by increased carbon levels.

Dear All,

I think it's arguable that the only way forward for humanity is to develop a radically cosmopolitan, global approach to its basic needs & problems.

Correspondingly, we'll need ethics & political philosophy that describe & guide this radically cosmopolitan, global approach to those needs & problems.

If those thoughts make sense to you, then I think you'll find this new series on the Against Professional Philosophy blog for Philosophy Without Borders, interesting at the very least--

The Ultimate Crisis of Civilization: Why Turn to Philosophy?, #1–Introduction.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/02/2...

I've also posted this link in the General Remarks about Political Philosophy thread....

As this article documents and as was predictable, there has been a very significant drop in global carbon emissions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although that is good news for the environment, we cannot, of course, accomplish permanent carbon emissions decline by way of economic recession or depression. Such major behavioral changes (continuing massive unemployment and related circumstances) are insufficient and are not acceptable in any event. As the article indicates, the reversal of climate change must be achieved through technological changes in the way we produce and consume energy. There is no easy fix, but improvements can be made, and the effects of doing nothing will have an effect on humanity that will be much worse than the effects of the current pandemic.

I have reviewed Barbara W. Sommer’s book Hard Work and a Good Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps in Minnesota here.

Full disclosure: Barb was a classmate of mine in high school, with whom I had no communication from 1964, when we graduated, until this month. That association has not, however, affected my review of her book.

I must have been asleep when this story broke. I never knew Canada and Spain went to war

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbot_War

Feliks wrote: "I must have been asleep when this story broke. I never knew Canada and Spain went to war

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbot_War"

First I've heard of it. Issues over fisheries were an issue in the U.S. War of Independence and one of the most difficult subjects to resolve in the peace negotiations.

This article (https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/227...) discusses a possible future for life on earth after the extinction of humans due to climate change. Preview: rodents, among other organisms, will survive, evolve, and prosper.

We recently watched the Netflix movie “Don’t Look Up” (https://www.netflix.com/watch/8125235...), which is a parable/metaphor of our times. See https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/don... for a good review of the movie. As Mimi observed (before reading this review), the movie is a metaphor for the climate change crisis. More broadly, it might be said to portray today’s critical-thinking and ethical crisis. It’s difficult to identify the genre to which the movie belongs. It seems comedic at times, but, if so, it is very dark comedy. It is a wake-up call, but it also predicts, probably accurately, that the vast majority of people will prefer to sleep until it’s too late.

The movie is studded with stars, including Meryl Streep as the Trumpian president of the United States. Streep must have enjoyed playing the villain for once.

This article discusses a company that is involved in clearing space debris: https://mag.uchicago.edu/science-medi.... I had no idea that space littering was so extensive or that there was a company designed to deal with it.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

On June 30, 2022, the conservative majority on the US Supreme Court held, in the case of West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions...), that certain administrative regulations of the Environmental Protection Agency designed to curb greenhouse gases were not authorized by Congress (under the Court's "major questions doctrine") and were accordingly invalid. However, the Inflation Reduction Act, later passed by Congress and signed by President Biden, specifically authorizes the EPA to issue such regulations, thereby, in effect, overturning the Supreme Court decision. This article (freely accessible for fourteen days as a result of my New York Times subscription) explains the details: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/22/cl....

I am cross-filing this post in the “United States Constitution and Government” topic.

Dear All,

This new essay--which I've also cross-listed in the Philosophy Without Borders thread--deals centrally with global eco-political issues--

R. Hanna and O. Paans, “Creative Piety and Neo-Utopianism: Cultivating Our Global Garden,” Cosmos and History 18, 1 (2022): 1-82, available online at URL = https://cosmosandhistory.org/index.ph....

See post #263 in the "Philosophy Without Borders" thread for a comment on the Environmental Humanities.

Excerpt from this September 23, 2022 WESA article (https://www.wesa.fm/environment-energ...) titled “In Pittsburgh, John Kerry says climate change solutions will be driven by private sector”:

Leaders from over 30 countries met Thursday [September 21, 2022] to discuss ways to reduce carbon dioxide and other harmful greenhouse gas emissions in everything from steelmaking to trucking.

U.S. Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry said last month’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act will help the U.S. meet President Biden’s goal of a 50 percent reduction in climate warming greenhouse gases by 2030. He said the law is spurring businesses to invest in clean energy.

“We will hit our 50 to 52% reduction, if not more, and I believe it will be more. Why? Because of the rate and pace at which technology is already moving,” Kerry said.

Kerry said it will be the private sector, not governments, who will provide the funding for a clean energy transition. He said the tax incentives in the IRA were the bill’s most important parts.

“That I think is going to do more than almost anything else in the bill,” he said. “We don’t have to have government making choices about winners and losers. The marketplace is going to choose.”

"The Diderot Effect"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diderot...

Feliks wrote: ""The Diderot Effect"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diderot..."

Interesting. I had never heard of this before, let alone that Diderot had initiated the notion.

It aligns with the section “Materialism, Right and Wrong” on pages 71–72 (in Chapter 3, “Individual Ethics”) of my recently published book Reason and Human Ethics. However, the discussion of environmental ethics as such is addressed in a section titled “The Ethics of Preserving our Planet and the Ethical Treatment of Nonhuman Animals” on pages 106–9 (in Chapter 4, “Social Ethics”) of this book. Mimi, my wife, wrote that section, as she is better informed than I regarding such issues.

GEOTERMAL ENERGY

For an informative article about the future of geothermal energy, see https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01....

I'm a fan of famed naturalist Edward Abbey but I also recognize that this is sensitive subject-matter:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mon...

In my undergraduate days, I might have felt spiritually aligned with such ideologues and militants. Now, I believe otherwise. I think it's almost always foolhardy and rash, to break the law to further a goal. There's almost always a more reasonable and more civil means. I don't believe in "hurrying" the law anymore.

I also no longer agree with some of what I thought (and wrote) decades ago. We live and learn. However, I have never advocated violence.

Looking quickly at your link, I am reminded that I was contacted, a few years ago, by a book agent for the imprisoned Unabomber, who asked me to review the latter's book. I declined.

Moderation in one's personal and political lives is an important principle. Of course, there are rare occasions when revolutionary activity is justified, but it has never been justified (in my view) in our (American) society. That said, one can understand why some marginalized people might sometimes have felt it to be justified.

ELECTRICAL VEHICLES

This January 11, 2023 New York Times opinion essay (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/11/op...) is titled “Electric Vehicles Keep Defying Almost Everyone’s Predictions.” It is a very good, in-depth analysis of the progress of electric vehicles in the marketplace. (As a result of my New York Times subscription, the foregoing link can be accessed without charge for fourteen days, notwithstanding the usual New York Times paywall.)

Intricate legal case in Wyoming, having to do with issues of hunters trespassing on public land. Thankfully, whichever side had won, the precedent set in this case applied only to Wyoming; rather than the entire west.

But apparently the hunters were cleared.

https://tinyurl.com/mr2na3cu

Scrolling up in this thread, articles on "electric conveyances" caught my glance just now as I was posting about Wyoming.

If I've referenced this before, beg pardon and I will retract. And I'll only post a single article, rather than half-a-dozen. But --as anyone can see --there are dozens of articles emerging about this topic at any given moment, online.

https://tinyurl.com/yc3zy52x

The topic is a hot one in Gotham as our streets now run rampant with e-bikes, e-scooters, and whatnot. The advent of these devices bring with them many new bans and regulations.

What is slowly dawning on lawmakers is that currently, the safety of e-batteries is very weak. Two hundred fires in New York, just this year alone. Not just e-bikes either, but e-cigarettes, and even cellphones share this hazard.

It's just like any other bold step forward. There's always a hidden "gotcha" that takes us two steps back.

Re Feliks's two previous posts:

I have not studied, and accordingly, will not comment, on these issues.

However, this does remind me of an Amazon Prime series we are watching titled "Yellowstone" and starring Kevin Costner (who is no longer young, by the way). I don't know to what extent this series accurately portrays Montana culture, but, if true, rural Montana (and, presumably, Wyoming) has a much different way of life than the parts of the country in which I have lived (Minnesota, Chicago, Rochester (NY), and western Pennsylvania).

THE EFFECT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON HOMEOWNERS’ INSURANCE PREMIUMS

See this May 7, 2023 New York Times guest essay by economist and professor of real estate and finance Benjamin Keys: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/07/op.... (In accordance with my New York Times subscription, the foregoing link provides access to this article for fourteen days without charge, notwithstanding the usual New York Times paywall.)

Scientists find way to make energy from air using nearly any material

The foregoing is the title of this May 26, 2023 Washington Post article: https://wapo.st/3C2tztj. (In accordance with my Washington Post subscription, the foregoing link provides access to this article for fourteen days without charge, notwithstanding the usual Washington Post paywall.)

If they can figure out a way to translate this finding into usable technology, it might be the solution to both our energy needs and environmental protection.

Sackett v. EPA (US Supreme Court, May 25, 2023)

This is another major case in which the US Supreme Court has recently curtailed the powers of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The text of the decision (including all opinions) is at https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions.... A May 25, 2023 New York Times article about the case is at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/25/us.... (In accordance with my New York Times subscription, the foregoing link provides access to this article for fourteen days without charge, notwithstanding the usual New York Times paywall.)

Justice Alito (joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, and Barrett) wrote the Opinion of the Court. Justice Alito emphasized what he considered to be jurisdictional overreach of the EPA at the expense of small landowners who may have a small wetland on their land that seems to have nothing to do with legitimate EPA concerns. This case is an example. (Disclosure: More than twenty years ago, as a lawyer, I represented such a landowner, who wanted to build houses on his property for his mother and mother-in-law. The Ohio EPA would not let him do that because there was a small stream on his land that was dry for a significant part of the year. To the best of my recollection, I went to another law firm before the case was concluded, and I never learned its outcome.)

The Court majority applied a new “continuous surface connection” test for EPA jurisdiction over “adjacent” wetlands. It held that “the CWA [Clean Water Act] extends to only those wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies that are waters of the United States in their own right, so that they are indistinguishable from those waters. . . . This holding compels reversal here. The wetlands on the Sacketts’ property are distinguishable from any possibly covered waters” (internal quotation marks omitted).

In an opinion concurring in the judgment only, Justice Kavanaugh (joined by Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson) concluded:

In sum, I agree with the Court’s decision not to adopt the “significant nexus” test for adjacent wetlands. I respectfully disagree, however, with the Court’s new “continuous surface connection” test. In my view, the Court’s new test is overly narrow and inconsistent with the [Clean Water] Act’s coverage of adjacent wetlands. The Act covers adjacent wetlands, and a wetland is “adjacent” to a covered water (i) if the wetland is contiguous to or bordering a covered water, or (ii) if the wetland is separated from a covered water only by a man-made dike or barrier, natural river berm, beach dune, or the like. The wetlands on the Sacketts’ property do not fall into either of those categories and therefore are not covered under the Act as I would interpret it. Therefore, like the Court, I would reverse the judgment of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and remand for further proceedings. But I respectfully concur only in the Court’s judgment.

Thus, all nine justices agreed that EPA had no jurisdiction over the Sacketts’ land in this case. And none of them adopted the “significant nexus” test for adjacent wetlands applied by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in this case. But four of the nine justices refused to join the court majority’s new “continuous surface connection” test. Instead, they argued that the EPA has statutory jurisdiction over adjacent property when “the wetland on that property is separated from a covered water only by a man-made dike or barrier, natural river berm, beach dune, or the like.” Since this was not the case with regard to the Sacketts’ property, the four justices concurred in the judgment that the Sacketts’ land was not subject to EPA jurisdiction.

There was also a separate concurring opinion by Justice Thomas (joined by Justice Gorsuch) as well as a separate opinion concurring in the judgment by Justice Kagan (joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson). However, Justices Thomas and Gorsuch joined Justice Alito’s majority opinion, and Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson joined Justice Kavanaugh’s opinion concurring in the judgment only.

The media are full of prophecies that the holding of the majority in this case will gut the EPA’s enforcement of the Clean Water Act. The same media seem to imply that the position of the principal opinion of Justice Kavanaugh concurring in the judgment would have left the EPA enforcement of the Clean Water Act pretty much intact. Although I am not an expert in these matters, I am not certain that this second conclusion is warranted. It seems to me that the proposed rule in Justice Kavanaugh’s opinion (joined by all three so-called “liberals”) would also be a significant retreat from the jurisdiction that the EPA has historically claimed and exercised in wetlands cases. But, again, I am not an expert on this subject, and it is possible that I do not correctly assess the situation.

I am filing the foregoing comment in both the “Environmental Issues” and “United States Constitution and Government” topics of this Goodreads group.

Earth is ‘really quite sick now’ and in danger zone in nearly all ecological ways, study says

The foregoing is the title of the following May 31, 2023 AP article: https://apnews.com/article/earth-envi....

Among other things, the article states:

Earth has pushed past seven out of eight scientifically established safety limits and into “the danger zone,” not just for an overheating planet that’s losing its natural areas, but for the well-being of people living on it, according to a new study. . . .

The study by the international scientist group Earth Commission published in Wednesday’s journal Nature looks at climate, air pollution, phosphorus and nitrogen contamination of water from fertilizer overuse, groundwater supplies, fresh surface water, the unbuilt natural environment and the overall natural and human-built environment. Only air pollution wasn’t quite at the danger point globally.

Orange Skies, Red Alerts and the Future

The foregoing is the title of a June 8, 2023 column by Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, which can be located at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/08/op.... (In accordance with my New York Times subscription, the foregoing link provides access to this article for fourteen days without charge, notwithstanding the usual New York Times paywall.)

Alan wrote: "Earth is ‘really quite sick now’ and in danger zone in nearly all ecological ways, study says ..."

Boy. You sure couldn't tell the planet is in any kind of global crisis from internet patter. The usual buoyant brook of advertising runs along ...unconcerned. Everyone obsessed with Amazon deliveries.

One can't navigate a single block downtown and find anyone even glancing up from trivial displays on their palm toys. The whole length of the street. You have to yelp at them to move aside or merge, or even dodge an oncoming vehicle.

Simply staggering myopia. I don't see how we can fend off anything --much less climate disaster --with this level of negligence.

When it comes to things like air, water ...a sense of 'sharedness' seems to have vanished. We're all sealed in little bubbles. It's as if we have no more nerves or reflexes --we'll all numbed.

You take the elevator down to the sidewalk during your workday ... down to the corner to buy some spring water ...it's weird. It's like you're not even outside at all. Everyone is pacing to-and-fro, yapping into their phone; or playing a video game; or watching a video . It's as if 'outside' is gone, 'outside' is just your neighbor's living room. There is no more 'commons'.

If there's an air or water crisis; we want to be alerted about it beforehand --and we wish to read about it afterwards. But we don't want to confront anything on the instant. If it isn't skimmable, surfable information; summarize it for us later.

Was it Bill Moyers who said, 'the world is getting smaller' --? when he interviewed Joseph Campbell? He didn't know how prescient.