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Can You Hear Me Up There? Giving Voice To Local Communities Imperative For Achieving Sustainability, Patricia E. Salkin Jul 2012

Can You Hear Me Up There? Giving Voice To Local Communities Imperative For Achieving Sustainability, Patricia E. Salkin

Patricia E. Salkin

Sustainable development is an international challenge that demands attention at all levels of government. The calls to action to achieve sustainability have varied over the last few decades. For example, in the 1970s and 1980s attention was focused on the need for environmental review and growth management strategies. In the 1990s the rhetoric shifted to smart growth and livable communities, and today, the issue has been reframed as advocates view sustainability through the lens of global warming and climate change. Regardless of the nomenclature, however, the end game is the same. While the United States as a whole speaks through …


Climate Change Resource Directory, New England Environmental Finance Center Jul 2012

Climate Change Resource Directory, New England Environmental Finance Center

Sustainable Communities Capacity Building

The impacts of a changing climate – from sea level rise to altered weather patterns – will affect local governments’ efforts to manage stormwater, treat wastewater, and provide clean drinking water in their communities. This resource list was compiled to help local governments plan and implement climate change adaptation strategies. It was developed by the Environmental Finance Center Network through the Capacity Building for Sustainable Communities program funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency. Through this program, EFCN is providing capacity building and technical assistance to recipients of grants from the federal …


Designing For Future Buildings: Adaptive Resuse As A Strategy For Carbon Neutral Cities, Sheila Conejos, Craig Langston, Jim Smith May 2012

Designing For Future Buildings: Adaptive Resuse As A Strategy For Carbon Neutral Cities, Sheila Conejos, Craig Langston, Jim Smith

Craig Langston

Adapting existing buildings is a viable alternative to demolition and replacement in order to mitigate climate change and global warming. Australian cities with inherent cultural heritage fabric, like Melbourne and Sydney, are actively promoting building adaptive reuse as a strategy that supports their programme for developing carbon-neutral cities. Thus, designing for future buildings with embedded adaptive reuse potential is a useful criterion for sustainability. Building adaptive reuse entails less energy and waste, protects the buildings’ heritage values- its socio-cultural and historic meanings; while giving them a new lease of life. This paper looks into urban conservation-- an interdisciplinary field that …


Designing For Future Buildings: Adaptive Resuse As A Strategy For Carbon Neutral Cities, Sheila Conejos, Craig Langston, Jim Smith May 2012

Designing For Future Buildings: Adaptive Resuse As A Strategy For Carbon Neutral Cities, Sheila Conejos, Craig Langston, Jim Smith

Sheila Conejos

Adapting existing buildings is a viable alternative to demolition and replacement in order to mitigate climate change and global warming. Australian cities with inherent cultural heritage fabric, like Melbourne and Sydney, are actively promoting building adaptive reuse as a strategy that supports their programme for developing carbon-neutral cities. Thus, designing for future buildings with embedded adaptive reuse potential is a useful criterion for sustainability. Building adaptive reuse entails less energy and waste, protects the buildings’ heritage values- its socio-cultural and historic meanings; while giving them a new lease of life. This paper looks into urban conservation-- an interdisciplinary field that …


A Renewable Future: Jerry Brown's Environmental Agenda, Clifford Rechtschaffen, Ken Alex Apr 2012

A Renewable Future: Jerry Brown's Environmental Agenda, Clifford Rechtschaffen, Ken Alex

Publications

The Environmental Law Section was honored to welcome Cliff Rechtschaffen and Ken Alex, two prominent Senior Advisors to Governor Jerry Brown, as its featured speakers for the first plenary session at the 2011 Environmental Law Conference at Yosemite® last October. Messrs. Rechtschaffen and Alex led a lively discussion of energy and environmental issues in the Brown administration, which touched on topics ranging from the Governor's agenda for addressing climate change to the Office of Planning and Research's approaches to CEQA to the administration's vision for a California with 50 million people, among others. They have adapted the following article from …


Climate Change And The Roles Of Land Use And Energy Law: An Introduction, David Markell Apr 2012

Climate Change And The Roles Of Land Use And Energy Law: An Introduction, David Markell

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.


Resolving Conflicts Over Climate Change Solutions: Making The Case For Mediation , Alana Knaster Feb 2012

Resolving Conflicts Over Climate Change Solutions: Making The Case For Mediation , Alana Knaster

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This article explores the role that mediation can play in resolving the conflicts that are emerging in the climate change arena. Case studies describing mediation of disputes over air quality standards, timber harvesting, species protection, and ecosystems restoration, which resulted in consensus agreements among multiple, diverse stakeholder groups, demonstrate its applicability to the climate change arena. Mediation is not suited to every dispute or set of disputants. However, an analysis of the opportunities and constraints for addressing climate change disputes at the state, regional, and local levels suggests that mediated negotiations is well suited for resolving a number of the …


An Economic And Life Cycle Analysis Of Regional Land Use And Transportation Plans, Research Report 11-25, Caroline Rodier, Elliot Martin, Margot Spiller, John Abraham Jan 2012

An Economic And Life Cycle Analysis Of Regional Land Use And Transportation Plans, Research Report 11-25, Caroline Rodier, Elliot Martin, Margot Spiller, John Abraham

Mineta Transportation Institute

Travel and emissions models are commonly applied to evaluate the change in passenger and commercial travel and associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from land use and transportation plans. Analyses conducted by the Sacramento Area Council of Governments predict a decline in such travel and emissions from their land use and transportation plan (the “Preferred Blueprint” or PRB scenario) relative to a “Business-As-Usual” scenario (BAU). However, the lifecycle GHG effects due to changes in production and consumption associated with transportation and land use plans are rarely, if ever, conducted. An earlier study conducted by the authors, applied a spatial economic model …


Adaptstar Model: A Climate-Friendly Strategy To Promote Built Environment Sustainability, Sheila Conejos, Craig Langston, Jim Smith Jan 2012

Adaptstar Model: A Climate-Friendly Strategy To Promote Built Environment Sustainability, Sheila Conejos, Craig Langston, Jim Smith

Sheila Conejos

Building adaptive reuse plays a critical role in emissions reduction and supports global climate protection. Thus, the designing of future buildings with embedded adaptive reuse potential is a useful criterion for sustainability. This paper describes the development of a new rating tool known as adaptSTAR, which offers holistic and unified design criteria suitable for assessing the adaptive reuse potential of future buildings. The findings show that criteria can be identified and weighted according to physical, economic, functional, technological, social, legal and political categories to calculate an adaptive reuse star rating. In addition, this paper reports on the first stage …


Planetarian Identity Formation And The Relocalization Of Environmental Law, Sarah Krakoff Jan 2012

Planetarian Identity Formation And The Relocalization Of Environmental Law, Sarah Krakoff

Publications

Local food, local work, local energy production--all are hallmarks of a resurgence of localism throughout contemporary environmental thought and action. The renaissance of localism might be seen as a retreat from the world's global environmental problems. This Article maintains, however, that some forms of localism are actually expressions, appropriate ones, of a planetary environmental consciousness. This Article's centerpiece is an in-depth evaluation of local climate action initiatives, including interviews with participants, as well as other data and observations about their ethics, attitudes, behaviors, and motivations. The values and identities being forged in these initiatives form the basis for timely conceptions …


Adaptstar Model: A Climate-Friendly Strategy To Promote Built Environment Sustainability, Sheila Conejos, Craig Langston, Jim Smith Dec 2011

Adaptstar Model: A Climate-Friendly Strategy To Promote Built Environment Sustainability, Sheila Conejos, Craig Langston, Jim Smith

Craig Langston

Building adaptive reuse plays a critical role in emissions reduction and supports global climate protection. Thus, the designing of future buildings with embedded adaptive reuse potential is a useful criterion for sustainability. This paper describes the development of a new rating tool known as adaptSTAR, which offers holistic and unified design criteria suitable for assessing the adaptive reuse potential of future buildings. The findings show that criteria can be identified and weighted according to physical, economic, functional, technological, social, legal and political categories to calculate an adaptive reuse star rating. In addition, this paper reports on the first stage …


Adaptstar Model: A Climate-Friendly Strategy To Promote Built Environment Sustainability, Sheila Conejos, Craig Langston, Jim Smith Dec 2011

Adaptstar Model: A Climate-Friendly Strategy To Promote Built Environment Sustainability, Sheila Conejos, Craig Langston, Jim Smith

Jim Smith

Building adaptive reuse plays a critical role in emissions reduction and supports global climate protection. Thus, the designing of future buildings with embedded adaptive reuse potential is a useful criterion for sustainability. This paper describes the development of a new rating tool known as adaptSTAR, which offers holistic and unified design criteria suitable for assessing the adaptive reuse potential of future buildings. The findings show that criteria can be identified and weighted according to physical, economic, functional, technological, social, legal and political categories to calculate an adaptive reuse star rating. In addition, this paper reports on the first stage …