This week, California and 15 other states sued the federal EPA over its decision to deny California permission to regulate tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases. One of the reasons that EPA administrator Steven Johnson gave for his decision was that California hadn’t shown it faced what the Clean Air Act calls "extraordinary and compelling conditions". Johnson wrote that greenhouse gases have a global impact, so there’s no reason for one state to get special dispensation to regulate the pollution within its borders. That logic is being hotly contested by national environmental groups, state air officials, and even a ski company in Aspen Colorado-all of whom would rather see California do something about global warming than watch the federal government continue to do nothing. But today we thought we’d take up the question of whether or not Global Warming does affect California differently-whether global warming’s effects here are, in fact, "extraordinary and compelling."
Brian Edwards-Tiekert interviews Mark Jacobson, a professor of Environmental Engineering at Stanford University; and Daniel Kammen, Professor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley.