HEADNOTE: We have tough choices ahead, but are the tools adequate? Typical cost-benefit analysis of global warming scenarios only concerns itself with the likeliest outcomes, but possible extreme events still have a good chance of occurring, swamping the calculation.
By Melinda Kimble and Letha Tawney
UN Foundation and Emerald Arc Consulting
WithAnother Viewby Joe Romm of the Center for American Progress
Climate of Change II | Transforming the Dynamic
HEADNOTE: The Obama administration is reassuming leadership in the quest to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contain climate change. But most of the world has not internalized the imperative to control carbon. The United States must spearhead a campaign to build a genuine consensus for a robust climate agreement and country-by-country implementation.
By Ruth Greenspan Bell
World Resources Institute
WithAnother Viewby former climate negotiator Frank Loy
Climate of Change III | At Long Last, Some Action?
HEADNOTE: In his budget message, President Obama revealed his plan to combat global warming, which Barbara Boxer, Chair of the Senate Environment Committee, immediately praised. She also is proceeding with six principles for climate change legislation that she had earlier announced. But will their measures work, both politically and scientifically?
By Mike Traynor
American Law Institute
Profile | Mr. Clean Water
HEADNOTE: Ken Kirk of the National Association of Clean Water Agencies says the country’s publicly owned treatment works stand ready to make use of stimulus funding for infrastructure improvements, benefiting communities nationwide..
The Forum | Protecting the Public Health From Prions — A Trinational Dialogue
HEADNOTE: The emergence of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in cattle has resulted in major socioeconomic consequences worldwide. BSE is a prion-based disease; prions are structures smaller than viruses whose role in human disease is still being understood. That presents unique challenges in detection and eradication as well as challenges to existing policies and institutional structures that address infectious diseases. Several agencies share responsibility, often leading to conflicting mandates. Particularly difficult are zoonoitic diseases, which spread from animals to humans.
THE FEDERAL BEAT
By Margaret Kriz
Rallying the domestic car industry, which saw sales fall by 36 percent during the first quarter of 2009.
THE BUSINESS OF ENVIRONMENT
By Elliott P. Laws
I have no doubt some action will occur. I have taken a few steps in my small area of the globe.
AROUND THE STATES
By John Pendergrass
Solar systems are becoming a status symbol, but some energy experts are less than thrilled.
AN ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE
By Robert N. Stavins
It’s not always best to address two challenges with a single policy instrument.
IN THE COURTS
By Richard Lazarus
The Supreme Court’s opinion in Entergy v. Riverkeeper left teasers for both sides.
SCIENCE AND THE LAW
By Craig M. Pease
Litigating a substantive claim is a lot like gathering data on flammulated owls.
THE DEVELOPING WORLD
By Bruce Rich
The United Nations Development Program calls it “the defining human development issue of our generation.”
