Federalism in the Greenhouse: Defining a Role for States in a Federal Cap-and-Trade Program

Reviews arguments for federal- and state-led action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Argues for a hybrid approach with options to enable states to implement innovations and more aggressive reductions to complement a federal cap-and-trade program

Outside the Cap: Opportunities and Limitations of Greenhouse Gas Offsets

Explains the role of carbon offsets in providing flexibility and containing costs in a cap-and-trade program to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Recommends rigorous quantification, verification, and enforcement criteria to ensure the caps' integrity

Evaluating the Energy Security Implications of a Carbon-Constrained U.S. Economy

Examines how factors linked to U.S. energy security would be affected in eight scenarios in which carbon emissions are limited to a certain level. Assesses the feasibility of and need for low-carbon technology

A Roadmap for a Secure, Low-Carbon Energy Economy

Proposes a set of policies to address both energy security and climate change, including investing in better infrastructure, energy efficiency, and clean-energy jobs; reforming incentives to promote green technology; and forming a natural gas strategy

Virtual Reality - position-tracking goggles and VRML worlds

This project was designed to be an interface between a virtual reality\ud viewing system and a pair of position-tracking goggles used to navigate a\ud virtual world. The viewing system is a freeware package called VRWeb,\ud which reads files coded in Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML) and\ud renders them in an interactive environment. The program is designed to\ud accept navigational input from a mouse. My intent was to modify the\ud interface to accept input from a pair of position-tracking goggles based on the\ud movements of the viewer's head. VRWeb would then render the virtual\ud world according to the position fed to it by the goggles, and would display the\ud world on the goggle viewing screens.\ud Unfortunately, this interface was beyond the scope of this project. As\ud currently designed, the tracker code is fundamentally incompatible with the\ud browser code on several levels. With substantial further modification, these\ud programs could conceivably be adapted so as to communicate with each other,\ud but it would involve substantial reworking of structure as well as syntax.\ud Much of the time spent on this project was involved in decoding, organizing,\ud documenting and commenting the most relevant of the several hundred core\ud code files provided with these two packages. If the project were to be extended\ud with an attempt to bypass the barriers encountered in this configuration, the\ud learning curve would be much less steep now that functions are described\ud and relationships are mapped out

Climate Exactions

This essay presents a legal device by which local governments can put a price on climate emissions and loss of resiliency generated by new real estate development. Local governments commonly impose fees, a type of monetary exaction, on new development to offset public costs that such development will impose. This Essay argues that monetary fees offer significant potential as a tool to help local governments manage land development’s contribution to climate change. Such “climate exactions” can put a price on the carbon emissions from new development and also on development that reduces the natural resiliency of the jurisdiction to the effects of climate change, such as sea-level rise. In addition to describing how such climate exactions might work, the Essay argues that using exactions to address climate concerns is consistent with the United States Supreme Court’s constitutional takings framework

Structure of the rabies virus glycoprotein trimer bound to a prefusion-specific neutralizing antibody

International audienceRabies infection is nearly 100% lethal if untreated and kills more than 50,000 people annually, many of them children. Existing rabies vaccines target the rabies virus glycoprotein (RABV-G) but generate short-lived immune responses, likely because the protein is heterogeneous under physiological conditions. Here, we report the 3.39 Å cryo–electron microscopy structure of trimeric, prefusion RABV-G complexed with RVA122, a potently neutralizing human antibody. RVA122 binds to a quaternary epitope at the top of RABV-G, bridging domains and stabilizing RABV-G protomers in a prefusion state. RABV-G trimerization involves side-to-side interactions between the central α helix and adjacent loops, rather than contacts between central helices, and interactions among the fusion loops at the glycoprotein base. These results provide a basis from which to develop improved rabies vaccines based on RABV-G stabilized in the prefusion conformation