Reposted from Earthward, https://fromknowledgetopower.com/greens-dilemma/ 31 AUGUST 2023Thanks for reading Earthward! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Five weeks ago, I wrote in Earthward about the beneficial impacts that two new US laws - the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) - are expected to have on reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the remainder of the 2020s. The Princeton Net Zero lab found that the reductions are quite sizable, just as might be hoped from what is clearly the most far-reaching climate policy yet passed at the national level. There was a big caveat, however: realizing these emissions reductions depends on roughly doubling the rate of new wind and solar farm deployment and building electricity transmission capacity at least 50% faster than has previously been accomplished. A massive amount of new infrastructure has to be expeditiously sited, permitted and built out across the country. This raises the problem that environmental lawyers J.B. Ruhl and James Salzman have defined as the "Greens' Dilemma". The Dilemma refers to the fact that all this new siting, permitting and building has to happen within a framework of laws and regulations that was set up fifty years ago to protect environmental values by
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Greens' dilemma
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Reposted from Earthward, https://fromknowledgetopower.com/greens-dilemma/ 31 AUGUST 2023Thanks for reading Earthward! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Five weeks ago, I wrote in Earthward about the beneficial impacts that two new US laws - the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) - are expected to have on reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the remainder of the 2020s. The Princeton Net Zero lab found that the reductions are quite sizable, just as might be hoped from what is clearly the most far-reaching climate policy yet passed at the national level. There was a big caveat, however: realizing these emissions reductions depends on roughly doubling the rate of new wind and solar farm deployment and building electricity transmission capacity at least 50% faster than has previously been accomplished. A massive amount of new infrastructure has to be expeditiously sited, permitted and built out across the country. This raises the problem that environmental lawyers J.B. Ruhl and James Salzman have defined as the "Greens' Dilemma". The Dilemma refers to the fact that all this new siting, permitting and building has to happen within a framework of laws and regulations that was set up fifty years ago to protect environmental values by