EPA5
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President-Elect Trump’s Environmental Agenda
As we face a Donald Trump administration, we must reflect on the development of environmental policy and politics of the past. Despite the skepticism that President-elect Trump could halt progress on sustainability efforts such as research and development for renewable energy, it seems that the average person values a clean and safe environment. Donald Trump…
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California’s First In The Nation Climate Plan
The goal of the energy transition is to create a renewable energy system that is as effective and reliable as the current fossil fuel-based system. Microgrids provide backup capacity and vastly increase the reliability of power systems for consumers. A second goal of the energy transition is to switch off of fossil fuels and rely…
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Miracle on the Potomac: The New Bipartisan Law Regulating Toxics
The new law is far from perfect, but it is a major improvement over the ineffectual 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act. Under that law, only five of the over 80,000 chemicals now in use have been banned or substantially restricted in use.
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Trump vs. Clinton: What the Election Could Mean for Climate Policy
The outcome of this year’s presidential election could have far-reaching implications for the fate of our planet because the two presumptive candidates, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, have very different ideas about climate change. What will they do about the Paris accord and climate change?
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The Presidency and Sustainability
The president’s accomplishments are particularly noteworthy given the toxic political environment he must operate within. Flint, Michigan’s water crisis provides an example of how partisan politics is dominating federal environmental policy.
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Slowly Moving to Protect the Environment
In some cases we do not understand the impact of human actions on the planet and we need to do more observation and analysis to understand those impacts. In other cases we don’t really know how to repair the damage once it has been done.
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Protecting Our Drinking Water
The reason we have federal water quality standards is to ensure that local economic issues, politics, racism or other factors do not control decisions about water supply. But in Flint, decisions on water supply were not subject to effective federal review.
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Federal Environmental Policy Can’t Find the 21st Century
The issue comes down to willingness to pay upfront for improved systems, rather than pay to address environmental emergencies later on, when pieces of the system fall apart. Both water and energy systems carry user charges, but weak, ideologically-bound politicians refuse to allow these fees to grow to pay the capital cost of modern infrastructure.
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The Clean Power Plan Overcomes Another Attack
The politics of climate change remains contentious, with Democrats more concerned about the issue than Republicans. What is most interesting about the polling data is that young people are far more concerned about climate change than older people.
Columbia Climate School has once again been selected as university partner for Climate Week NYC, an annual convening of climate leaders to drive the transition, speed up progress and champion change. Join us for events and follow our coverage.