Recent News

For more than 20 years, public higher education has been neglected in California’s budget process. That has begun to change lately, but legislators should commit to a plan to fully restore per-student state support for public higher education to 2001 levels by 2020. (Nick Lammers // Oakland Tribune file) In his State of the State address, Gov. Jerry Brown rightly stressed fiscal prudence and the financial uncertainties posed by future recessions, pension liabilities and unpredictable revenue levels. What he didn’t…

A judgment granting a father’s Hague child abduction convention petition for his child’s return to Denmark must be reversed and the matter remanded for a full evidentiary hearing on the mother’s domestic violence claims, the California Court of Appeal, Fourth District, has ruled (Noergaard v. Noergaard, 2015 BL 451393, Cal. Ct. App., No. G049854, 12/16/15; published 1/15/16). The court said that because the mother alleged that the child faced a ‘‘grave risk’’ of harm…

Not a day passes that I don’t get a call from the media asking me to compare Bernie Sanders’s and Hillary Clinton’s tax plans, or bank plans, or health-care plans. I don’t mind. I’ve been teaching public policy for much of the last 35 years. I’m a policy wonk. But detailed policy proposals are as relevant to the election of 2016 as is that gaseous planet beyond Pluto. They don…

Climate change mitigation requires gigatonne-scale CO2 removal technologies, yet few examples exist beyond niche markets. The flexibility of thermochemical conversion of biomass and fossil energy, coupled with carbon capture and storage, offers a route to commercializing carbon-negative energy. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) envisages the need for large-scale deployment of net-negative CO2 emissions technologies by mid-century to meet stringent climate mitigation goals and yield a net drawdown of atmospheric carbon. These CO2 removal technologies complement…

Robert Reich testifies before lawmakers in 2014 on income inequality. In his latest book, he partly blames “the increasing concentration of political power in a corporate and financial elite that has been able to influence the rules by which the economy runs.” - WIN MCNAMEE/GETTYIMAGES Robert Reich, former secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton and a professor of public policy at University of California, Berkeley, spent years warning of twin demons. Technology…

Last year, I took my longstanding class at U.C. Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, Journalism for Social Change (J4SC), online. With the help of edX, a platform for Massive Open Online Classes, or MOOCs, we were able to teach thousands of students from around the globe how to produce solution-based journalism that drives social change. Well, I am happy to announce that on Jan 19th the class is being offered again,…

Migrants and refugees carrying their belongings arrive at a transit camp in Slavonski Brod, Croatia on Nov. 4. Bernie Sanders, among others, has made statements linking climate change to terrorism. (Elvis Barukcic / AFP/Getty Images) First Bernie Sanders said “climate change was directly related to the growth of terrorism.” Then Prince Charles said drought was the root cause of the Syrian conflict and current refugee crisis. Pundits everywhere leaped at the opportunity to say both claims…