EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson

 The Hill, a beltway website, carried a piece Dec. 17, reporting on a memo issued by the White House science advisor, John Holdren, ordering all federal agencies, in no uncertain terms, to use science as the basis for decisions.

The White House memo in turn links to a directive from Holdren aimed at agency heads that spells out in some detail the principles under which they are expected to act. This is all a followup to another memo, issued by President Obama last spring, urging that scientific integrity be at the top of everyone's agenda.

This all may seem like wonkish arcanity, but it seems clear that the White House is steeling itself for the expected onslaught of attacks on--among many other things--the administration's attempts to address climate change, specifically the Environmental Protection Agency's upcoming regulations to reduce the impact of vehicles on the climate.

When Jerry Brown became governor of California in 1975, it was, for many of us, a relatively green nirvana. He created the Office of Appropriate Technology. He established a state sustainable energy agency called SolarCal.They were heady times, and much good was accomplished.

Now, he's coming  back to Sacramento as governor, older and maybe wiser, and old hands are looking to see if the same progressive ideas will be showing up. We'll see. When he was mayor of  Oakland, Brown hired the founder of the Rainforest Action Network, Randy Hayes, to make Oakland a sustainable city. Will there be a return act?

California, of course, is in a gigantic mess, budget-wise. Programs will be cut. Taxes will be raised. No fun. But maybe this is an opportunity to put lean, mean and green policies and programs to work

Roger Beers, a lawyer who worked for Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council, once said that environmental cases are the most political of all. He meant that in environmental cases, the biases of the judge in a case are more likely to steer his decisions than in other kinds of cases.

I don't know if that's true, but I do know that our lawyers were always happy to draw federal judge Sam King should they be filing suit in Hawai`i. His biases--that's too loaded a word, of course, maybe his instincts--tended to be on the side of people and the natural world.

One of the vexing problems associated with urban sprawl is the associated, call them ancillary, maybe secondary, effects that no one takes responsibility for.

In this particular case, we speak of traffic.

It's a particularly severe problem out near Fresno and Bakersfield, where air quality is famously terrible. One expects smog in Los Angeles and other urban areas, but not in the agricultural heart of the nation. But pollution there is, serious pollution that has a shocking fraction of kids carrying inhalers to school.

Freeman Dyson

My friend Ken Brower has a fascinating piece in The Atlantic Monthly for December on the visionary astrophysicist Freeman Dyson. Ken has known Dyson for years and wrote a wonderful joint profile of Freeman and his then-estranged son, George, titled The Starship and the Canoe.

As Ken writes, Dyson belongs in the same company as Einstein and other certifiable geniuses for his contributions to physics and other fields, including medicine.

But Dyson is also a climate denier, arguing that global warming won't be all that bad. Ken evidently saw Freeman being interviewed by Charlie Rose, spouting all this indefensible claptrap, and couldn't let it pass. It's a fascinating piece with plenty of useful observations. I recommend it.

Reporters speak of a story having legs, meaning that it is likely to continue over an extended period. Spotted owls have legs.

The story began in the late '80s, when it became evident that out-of-control logging in ancient forests in the Northwest was about to extinguish the owls. Earthjustice sued, and managed to achieve Endangered Species Act protection for the owls.

End of story? Not quite.
 

You may have seen pictures of hundreds of huge fuel transport trucks stranded on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The border was closed by the Pakistani government following a drone attack that killed several suspected terrorists. The trucks are a handy target for marauding insurgents, who sneak in and torch them under cover of darkness.

There may be something of a silver lining, however.

The Pentagon has just announced that it is hurrying to test portable solar-electric gadgets—generators, low-energy lights, and so on—to replace the diesel and kerosene generators the convoys were sent to resupply with fuel. It's all here in The New York Times.

John Holdren, with President Obama.

In a speech in Oslo on September 6, John Holdren, President Obama's science advisor, suggested that 'global warming' be replaced by 'global climate disruption' as a more accurate expression. As The New York Times reported it, "changes to the climate are rapid when viewed in terms of the capacity of society and ecosystems to adjust; the impact is distributed unevenly; and the outcome will be overwhelmingly negative for most of the globe." Global warming implies slow changes that might even be benign.

Holdren (an old friend of mine and one of the smartest people in the universe) has long been a lightning rod for the right wing climate deniers owing largely to his long association with the population biologist Paul Ehrlich, with whom he wrote several books. Following Dr. Holdren's speech, the right blogosphere immediately accused the administration of playing politics, of trying to "rebrand" the subject preparatory to another push for a climate bill next year. The administration denied there's any rebranding going on.

I'm no expert, but John's suggestion makes good sense to me.

Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe.

"I thought it must surely be the fairest picture the whole world affords."

Thus spake Mark Twain of Lake Tahoe, the magnificent high-altitude lake nestled in an alpine cup between Nevada and California.

But, as with so many other places, Tahoe's fatal beauty has led to too much development—too many homes, too many casinos, too many cars, too many piers, and too many boats. The clarity of the water has suffered, as has the purity of the air.

The White House has reportedly said thanks but no thanks to the offer, reported here, by Bill McKibben and 350.org to return one of the solar panels installed on the White House roof during the Carter administration 35 years ago. No explanation was given (that I know of). One can think that it might be because McKibben was harshly critical of President Obama's role at the Copenhagen meeting last year, but that's only conjecture. It does seem to be a missed opportunity for some good press, which the administration needs just now.