Law Commons^™

Framing The Global Pact For The Environment: Why It’S Needed, What It Does, And How It Does It, Teresa Parejo Navajas, Nathan Lobel

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

We face a critical environmental crisis. Humanity consumes unsustainably; we use resources at a rate fifty percent faster than they are reproduced by the planet. The population is growing exponentially and climate change, the most important challenge of this century, is already wreaking havoc around the world. Despite numerous existing international environmental treaties, the Earth, and, therefore, human safety and prosperity, is in peril. According to a recent study by scientists from Stanford University and the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the ongoing “sixth mass extinction” threatens to cause an “assault on the foundations of human civilization.” In November 2017, …

Slides: Regional Energy-Water Resilience Under Climate Change, Bonnie G. Colby

Western Water Law, Policy and Management: Ripples, Currents, and New Channels for Inquiry (Martz Summer Conference, June 3-5)

Presenter: Dr. Bonnie G. Colby, Professor of Resource Economics & Hydrology, University of Arizona

24 slides

The Environmental Deficit: Applying Lessons From The Economic Recession, Christine A. Klein

UF Law Faculty Publications

In 2007, the nation entered its greatest financial downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. What followed was a period of national introspection. Although prescriptions for financial rescue varied widely in the details, a surprisingly broad consensus emerged as to the underlying pathology of the crisis. This Article explores three principal contributing factors and the lessons associated with each that make up this pathology. These factors include: rejecting rules through deregulation, trivializing risk through overly optimistic analyses, and overconsumption supported by reckless borrowing and lending practices.

The powerful lessons from this pathology, considered by a stunned nation in the …

A Modern Proposal For State Regulation Of Consumptive Uses Of Water, Richard C. Ausness, Frank E. Maloney

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

As a nation, the United States is in the early stages of a developing water crisis. With an exploding population accompanied by great technological advances in industry and agriculture, America is using progressively more water each day; the increasing use threatens to exceed available supplies in the future unless available resources are properly managed.

As the demand for water grows, problems related to the equitable allocation of this important resource will likewise increase. The need that presently exists for an integrated and balanced approach to the problems of water consumption, pollution, navigation and recreation will become even more acute in …

Water Quality Control: A Modern Approach To State Regulation, Richard C. Ausness, Frank E. Maloney

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The American public of late has shown increasing concern over the quality of the environment. Water pollution has long been recognized as a major threat to a better environment. Municipal, industrial, and agricultural operations all contribute to the pollution problem. Municipalities empty millions of gallons of inadequately-treated sewage into the nation's rivers and streams. Municipal wastes are almost exclusively organic in nature. Currently municipal wastes are estimated to average about ten million tons annually while industrial pollution averages approximately fifteen million tons. Treatment in general is technologically feasible; the primary impediment is financial inability on the part of municipalities to …