Blog
Conserv II Visit
Last week, my environmental law class visited Conserv II, which is the City of Orlando’s Wastewater Treatment Facility. This is my second visit to the site, and the first visit for the students even though some of them have visited other wastewater treatment facilities. Neither the odor or the gross factor deterred the students for…
Crazy Rich Asians Under the Dome
Everything about Crazy Rich Asians was pristine. The acting, the make-up, the hair, the dancing, the locale, the ending. Everything was in the right place. I would agree with the mild criticisms of sinofication and the lack of economic and ethnic diversity in the film, but Hollywood gets away with such shortcomings day-in and day-out.…
Canadian court quashes construction approvals for Trans Mountain
In a stunning blow, the Federal Court of Appeal has quashed the government’s approvals to build the Trans Mountain expansion project — a major victory for Indigenous groups and environmentalists opposed to the $7.4-billion project. In the decision released Thursday, and written by Justice Eleanor Dawson, the court found the National Energy Board’s assessment of the…
Hullabaloo over the EPA’s “Strengthening Transparency in Science” Proposal
Last week, I joined 68 environmental and administrative law professors affiliated with 47 universities around the country in a comment letter, prepared by UCLA’s Sean Hecht and Julia Stein, that urged EPA’s Acting Administrator Wheeler to withdraw the “Strengthening Transparency in Science” proposed rule. UC Berkeley’s Dan Farber wrote here and here about some of the proposed rule’s defects. Amanda…
Turning Algae Blooms into Biofuels
Toxic blue-green algae blooms are ravaging through the delicate ecosystem of the Florida Everglades. As local, state, and federal officials are teaming together to address this issue (somewhat haphazardly), there is another possibility: turning the algae blooms into biofuels. Band-aid fixes on this issue will not offer long-term solutions. The answer would be an elimination…
UN #CoolingForAll Report: Chilling Prospects
Cooling is one of the wonders of the modern age. However, for hundreds of millions of people living in the hottest climates, the impact of not having access to modern cooling services is profound. Every year, millions of people die due to the absence of cooling that could help address hunger and malnutrition, preserve the…
Baahubali Business Lessons
Legal Scholar Osama Siddique, who is an Associate Fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives (IDEAS), in Lahore, Pakistan tweets of last summer’s Baahubali blockbuster: https://twitter.com/DrOsamaSiddique/status/1012710916373164035 I agree about this assessment except the film would more likely be funded by the Asian Development Bank or financiers in the Middle East. If the World…
The Sci-Tech Personality
I’m going through the 50+ notes I have saved on my phone. I found this one about the sci-tech personality from The Abolish Work blog: During the Cold War, defense companies like Lockheed in the Santa Clara Valley drew scores of ambitious scientists; these workers seemed to share certain personality traits, including social awkwardness, emotional…
Harvard study estimates thousands died in Puerto Rico due to Hurricane Maria
At least 4,645 people died as a result of Hurricane Maria and its devastation across Puerto Rico last year, according to a new Harvard study released Tuesday, an estimate that far exceeds the official government death toll, which stands at 64. The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that health-care disruption…