The New Republic

Michael A. Livermore is the executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law. He is the author, along with Richard L. Revesz, of Retaking Rationality: How Cost-Benefit Analysis Can Better Protect the Environment and Our Health. READ MORE >>

Okay, it's not exactly the most pressing scientific question of our age, but Josh McDermott, a neuroscientist at NYU, explains why we find fingernails on a blackboard so singularly painful to hear: READ MORE >>

This Saturday afternoon, at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, the time for ideological issue training had arrived, and a breakout session on climate change was packed. An organizer in a long black skirt swept through and instructed people to move their chairs to the side, like her father’s Baptist congregation would do when space got tight. "It’s already warmer in here, all the CO2 in the room," chuckled a tall, suited attendee. "This is a hot topic!" cracked another. READ MORE >>

Over in the Financial Times today, Fiona Harvey gets a sneak peek at a new International Energy Agency report, which finds that worldwide carbon-dioxide emissions have undergone a "significant decline" this year—shrinking 2.6 percent, the steepest CO2 drop in the last four decades. Steeper even than the drop after the OPEC oil crisis in the late '70s. Okay, well, no kidding, there's a severe recession going on. Industrial output is declining. What'd we expect? READ MORE >>

The conventional wisdom about the politics of climate-change legislation is that cap-and-trade is grossly, horribly unpopular and that Democrats in conservative districts ought to be blanching with terror over getting behind it. What's more (says the c.w.), those conservative Dems who did vote for the Waxman-Markey bill in the House probably signed their own political death warrants. But is this really true? READ MORE >>

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Is it really possible to suck out thousands of tons of carbon-dioxide from the air simply by stirring some charcoal into the soil? Or is so-called "biochar" just a crazy idea that's too good to be true? The Economist recently reported from the North American Biochar Conference in Boulder, Colorado, and the research sounded pretty promising, though there were some heavy caveats thrown in. READ MORE >>

As we've discussed before, the EPA does have the authority to regulate carbon-dioxide under the Clean Air Act. Actually, it's required by law to do so. Details are still being hashed out, but if the Senate fails to pass a climate bill either this year or next, that's a possible Plan B for dealing with U.S. greenhouse gases. But what, exactly, would EPA regulation look like? READ MORE >>

Earlier this week, Thomas Wire of the London School of Economics published a study concluding that improved family planning is one of the most effective methods of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions we’ve got. READ MORE >>

The food community in Washington, D.C., has been abuzz over the Michelle Obama-backed plan to open a farmers' market near the White House, starting READ MORE >>