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Environmental Sciences Commons

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Articles 1 - 8 of 8

Full-Text Articles in Environmental Sciences

On Environmental, Climate Change & National Security Law, Mark P. Nevitt Oct 2020

On Environmental, Climate Change & National Security Law, Mark P. Nevitt

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article offers a new way to think about climate change. Two new climate change assessments — the 2018 Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA) and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel’s Special Report on Climate Change — prominently highlight climate change’s multifaceted national security risks. Indeed, not only is climate change a “super wicked” environmental problem, it also accelerates existing national security threats, acting as both a “threat accelerant” and “catalyst for conflict.” Further, climate change increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events while threatening nations’ territorial integrity and sovereignty through rising sea levels. It causes both internal displacement …


Environmental Soft Law As A Governance Strategy, Cary Coglianese Oct 2020

Environmental Soft Law As A Governance Strategy, Cary Coglianese

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Soft law governance relies on nongovernmental institutions that establish and implement voluntary standards. Compared with traditional hard law solutions to societal and economic problems, soft law alternatives promise to be more politically feasible to establish and then easier to adapt in the face of changing circumstances. They may also seem more likely to be flexible in what they demand of targeted businesses and other entities. But can soft law actually work to solve major problems? This Article considers the value of soft law governance through the lens of three major voluntary, nongovernmental initiatives that address environmental concerns: (1) ISO 14001 …


Why Law Now Needs To Control Rather Than Follow Neo-Classical Economics, John William Draper Jan 2016

Why Law Now Needs To Control Rather Than Follow Neo-Classical Economics, John William Draper

Librarian Scholarship at Penn Law

Selfish utilitarianism, neo-classical economics, the directive of short-term income maximization, and the decision tool of cost-benefit analysis fail to protect our species from the significant risks of too much consumption, pollution, or population. For a longer-term survival, humanity needs to employ more than cost-justified precaution.

This article argues that, at the global level, and by extension at all levels of government, we need to replace neo-classical economics with filters for safety and feasibility to regulate against significant risk. For significant risks, especially those that are irreversible, we need decision tools that will protect humanity at all scales. This article describes …


The Environment And Climate Change: Is International Migration Part Of The Problem Or Part Of The Solution?, Howard F. Chang Jan 2009

The Environment And Climate Change: Is International Migration Part Of The Problem Or Part Of The Solution?, Howard F. Chang

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Problems Of Equity And Efficiency In The Design Of International Greenhouse Gas Cap-And-Trade Schemes, Jason S. Johnston Jan 2009

Problems Of Equity And Efficiency In The Design Of International Greenhouse Gas Cap-And-Trade Schemes, Jason S. Johnston

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This article argues that international greenhouse gas (GHG) cap-and-trade schemes suffer from inherent problems of enforceability and verifiability that both cause significant inefficiencies and create inevitable tradeoffs between equity and efficiency. A standard result in the economic analysis of international GHG cap and trade schemes is that an allocation of initial permits that favors poor, developing countries (making such countries net sellers in equilibrium) may be necessary not only to further redistributive goals but also the efficiency of the GHG cap and trade scheme. This coincidence of equity and efficiency is, however, unlikely to be realized under more realistic assumptions …


Reasonable Emissions Of Greenhouse Gases: Efficient Abatement For A Stock Pollutant, Howard F. Chang Jan 2007

Reasonable Emissions Of Greenhouse Gases: Efficient Abatement For A Stock Pollutant, Howard F. Chang

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Shifting Sands: The Limits Of Science In Setting Risk Standards, Cary Coglianese, Gary E. Marchant Apr 2004

Shifting Sands: The Limits Of Science In Setting Risk Standards, Cary Coglianese, Gary E. Marchant

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Regulators need to rely on science to understand problems and predict the consequences of regulatory actions, but over reliance on science can actually contribute to, or at least deflect attention from, incoherent policymaking. In this article, we explore the problems with using science to justify policy decisions by analyzing the Environmental Protection Agency's recently revised air quality standards for ground-level ozone and particulate matter, some of the most significant regulations ever issued. In revising these standards, EPA mistakenly invoked science as the exclusive basis for its decisions and deflected attention from a remarkable series of inconsistencies. For example, even though …


Protecting The Environment: Finding The Balance Between Delaney And Free Play, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr., Howard C. Kunreuther Jan 1997

Protecting The Environment: Finding The Balance Between Delaney And Free Play, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr., Howard C. Kunreuther

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.