Digital Commons Network^™

Introduction To The Special Issue: A Retrospective On Race In America, Angela S. Boettcher, Quintin H. Morse, Nora Rainey Olson Cooke, Erin Mclaughlin, Caroline Young, Charissa Wood, Sasha Strong, Natasha Viteri, Taylor Schad

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Racial Reckoning Of Public Interest Law, Atinuke O. Adediran, Shaun Ossei-Owusu

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Combined Effect Of Lead Exposure And Allostatic Load On Cardiovascular Disease Mortality-A Preliminary Study, Emmanuel Obeng-Gyasi, Alesia C Ferguson, Katherine A Stamatakis, Michael A Province

Open Access Publications

This study explores the combined effect of lead (Pb) exposure and an index of chronic physiological stress on cardiovascular disease mortality using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999-2008 linked to 1999-2014 National Death Index data. Chronic physiological stress was measured using the allostatic load (AL) index, which was formed by analyzing markers from the cardiovascular, inflammatory, and metabolic systems, with Pb levels, assessed using blood lead levels (BLL). The dataset was analyzed with statistical techniques to explore (a) the relationship between Pb exposure and AL, and (b) the combined role of Pb and AL on …

Global Legal Ethics And Corporate Social Responsibility: Where's The Beef?, Heidi Frostestad Kuehl

North Carolina Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Americans Support For Renewable Energy Is Disconnected From Their Understanding Of Powerline Infrastructure As A Mechanism To Mitigate Climate Change, Rebecca J. Romsdahl, Christopher J. Felege, Joshua E. Hunter, Cheryl Hunter, Susan N. Ellis-Felege

Earth System Science and Policy Faculty Publications

As nations are transitioning to renewable energy sources, they will need to expand and upgrade their energy infrastructure, including high-voltage power lines (HVPL). We have conducted the first nation-wide survey in the last thirty years to assess public attitudes toward HVPL in the USA. The study evaluates perceptions, knowledge, and attitudes toward building new transmission lines, as these relate to renewable energy, place attachment, and environmental impacts. Our results show that Americans do not recognize how new HVPL could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions; instead, respondents favor moving from centralized energy (large power stations and HVPL) to decentralized energy (local …

Does Interest Convergence Today Offer Opportunities For The Working Class, Much As It Did For Minorities In The Fifties And Sixties?: A Comment On Spencer Bowley, Richard Delgado, Jean Stefancic

Articles

No abstract provided.

Contents, North Carolina Law Review

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Curriculum Change 2021-2022, Portland State University

Bulletin & Curriculum Change Documents

No abstract provided.

Antebellum Black Climate Science: The Medical Geography And Emancipatory Politics Of James Mccune Smith And Martin Delany, Colin Fisher

History: Faculty Scholarship

This article argues that two prominent antebellum Black physicians—James McCune Smith and Martin Delany—developed competing scientific theories of nature’s impact on the human body in response to the climatic theories of the American Colonization Society, polygenist race scientists, and southern defenders of slavery. It further argues that the physicians’ divergent conclusions regarding nature’s agency played a significant role in underwriting arguably the most important and consequential political debate in antebellum Black America—namely, the dispute between integrationists who advocated remaining in the United States and fighting for equality and emigrationists who argued that America was so hopelessly racist that African Americans …

Just Southern Food: Food Justice For The Mississippi Delta, Christian Tabor Owen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The primary objective of this research is to promote food justice for the Mississippi Delta by investigating facts about the intersections of extreme poverty, food insecurity, and chronic illness in the Mississippi Delta. By exploring relevant literature and highlighting current initiatives, this work looks at the semantics of food justice and related terms, discusses challenges unique to the Mississippi Delta, and broadly characterizes public health models with the greatest potential for food justice advancement in this region. Pivotal to interpreting food justice not only for the Mississippi Delta or the Global South, but for any community, is a clear understanding …

Supporting Shrinkage: Planning And Decision Making For Legacy Cities, Michael P. Johnson Jr., Justin Hollander, Eliza Whiteman Kinsey, George Chichirau, Charla Burnett

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

Supporting Shrinkage describes a new approach to citizen-engaged, community-focused planning methods and technologies for cities and regions facing decline, disinvestment, shrinkage, and social and physical distress. The volume evaluates the benefits and costs of a wide range of analytic approaches for designing policy and planning interventions for shrinking cities and distressed communities. These include collaborative planning, social media, civic technology, game design, analytics, decision modeling and decision support, and spatial analysis. The authors present case studies of three US cities addressing shrinkage and decline, with a focus on issues of social justice, democratization of knowledge, and local empowerment. Proposed as …

Integrating Diverse Perspectives For Managing Neighborhood Trees And Urban Ecosystem Services In Portland, Or (Us), Lorena Nascimento, Vivek Shandas

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Municipalities worldwide are increasingly recognizing the importance of urban green spaces to mitigate climate change’s extreme effects and improve residents’ quality of life. Even with extensive earlier research examining the distribution of tree canopy in cities, we know little about human perceptions of urban forestry and related ecosystem services. This study aims to fill this gap by examining the variations in socioeconomic indicators and public perceptions by asking how neighborhood trees and socioeconomic indicators mediate public perceptions of ecosystem services availability. Using Portland, Oregon (USA) as our case study, we assessed socioeconomic indicators, land cover data, and survey responses about …

Losing Ground: How The Supreme Court's Use Of Easement Law In U.S. Forest Service V. Cowpasture River Preservation Ass'n Thwarts Environmental Justice, William W. Metcalf

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Environmental Controls On The Spatial Distribution Of Greenfin Darters And Biodiversity In The Blue Ridge Mountains, Dri Tattersfield

CMC Senior Theses

Disproportionate concentrations of biodiversity in mountains worldwide suggest linkages between geologic processes and biodiversity that are not yet well understood. The Tennessee River Basin in the Blue Ridge Mountains of the southeastern U.S. is a global hotspot for freshwater fish biodiversity. To investigate drivers of biodiversity in the Tennessee River Basin, and explore links to geologic processes, I study the Greenfin Darter (Nothonotus chlorobranchius), a small fish endemic to the upper Tennessee River Basin. I use generalized linear models (GLMs) to evaluate the influence of topography, lithology, climate and land use on the distribution of the Greenfin Darter, …

Intersections Of Environmental Justice And Sustainable Development: Framing The Issues, Sumudu A. Atapattu, Carmen G. Gonzalez, Sara L. Seck

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This chapter proceeds as follows. Section 1.2 describes the evolution of the concept of sustainable development from the 1987 report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It discusses contem- porary degrowth and green growth movements, before introducing the relatively novel concept of just sustainabilities, a synthesis of environmental justice and sustainable development. Section 1.3 de!nes environmental justice and discusses its relationship to human rights and the social pillar of sustainable development, reflecting on which dimensions of environmental justice are well reflected in this book and which proved more dif!cult to address. …

Is Climate Change A National Emergency?, Mark P. Nevitt

Faculty Articles

The next decade is critical for climate action. As sea levels rise, wildfires rage, and disasters increase in frequency and scale, it is clear that the U.S. must leverage an expanding menu of legal, policy, and technological tools to address climate change’s destabilizing effects. At present, we remain off-track to reduce our collective greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions and avoid irreversible, catastrophic harm. The emissions gap — the difference between the world’s current emissions trajectory and what we must emit to avoid climate change’s most severe consequences — continues to grow. Although President Biden and the 117th congressional leadership have pledged …

The Euclid Proviso, Ezra Rosser

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This Article argues that the Euclid Proviso, which allows regional concerns to trump local zoning when required by the general welfare, should play a larger role in zoning's second century. Traditional zoning operates to severely limit the construction of additional housing. This locks in the advantages of homeowners but at tremendous cost, primarily in the form of unaffordable housing, to those who would like to join the community. State preemption of local zoning defies traditional categorization; it is at once both radically destabilizing and market-responsive. But, given the ways in which zoning is a foundational part of the racial and …

Thirsty Places, Priya Baskaran

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The United States, among the wealthiest and most prosperous nations in the world, regularly fails to provide clean, potable water to many of its citizens. Recent water crises occur within communities categorized as Geographically Disadvantaged Spaces ("GDS'), which often encompass urban and rural areas. What is more, people of color and economically vulnerable populations are often located within GDS, disproportionately burdening these groups with the economic and public health consequences of failing water infrastructure. This article provides a novel, comparative analysis of communities lacking potable water in Flint, Michigan, and southern West Virginia. This analysis highlights entrenched structural problems present …

Math Leaders’ Perceptions Of Social Justice Pedagogy: Implications For Professional Development On Teaching Mathematics For Climate And Environmental Justice, Angela M. Allen

Theses and Dissertations

Two significant crises facing communities of color are climate and environmental injustices (Schlosberg & Collins, 2014) and the achievement gap in standardized test performance as an impact of inequitable educational experiences rooted in a history of social inequities (Agarwal, 2011; Milner, 2020). Previous studies on teaching mathematics for social justice demonstrate positive student outcomes from this practice (Berry, 2008; Gutstein, 2006). Existing literature also points to benefits when focusing on a specific social justice topic during mathematics instruction (Bartell, 2013; Stocker, 2012). However, few studies focus on math leaders’ perceptions of teaching mathematics for climate and environmental justice (TMCEJ).

This …

Using New York Law To Advance Equity In The Transportation & Climate Initiative Program, Hillary Aidun, Ama Francis, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

Reducing pollution from the transportation sector is one of the most important steps to sustaining a livable climate. The transportation sector is the leading source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in both the United States and New York. Cars, trucks and buses also emit other harmful air pollutants that more immediately contribute to public health threats such as asthma, heart disease, and premature death.

The Ecological Constitution: Reframing Environmental Law By Lynda Collins, Dayna Scott

Articles & Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Extracting Indigenous Jurisdiction On Private Land: The Duty To Consult And Indigenous Relations With Place In Canadian Law, Estair Van Wagner

Articles & Book Chapters

Indigenous relations with land are grounded in place-based legal orders which have been regulating the territories now making up Canada for millennia (Borrows 2010, 2018; McGregor 2010). Judicial consideration of Indigenous relations with place has focused on the duty to consult and accommodate with respect to ‘Crown land’ – lands for which federal and provincial governments are the deemed owners. This emphasis on Crown lands is logical – 89 per cent of land in Canada is held by either the federal or provincial Crown (Neimanis 2013). Indigenous claims often expressly exclude private land, wary of courts’ willingness to unsettle third-party …

Energy Islands: Metaphors Of Power, Extractivism, And Justice In Puerto Rico, Catalina M. De Onis

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

Energy Islands provides an urgent and nuanced portrait of collective action that resists racial capitalism, colonialism, and climate disruption. Weaving together historical and ethnographic research, Catalina M. de Onís challenges the master narratives of Puerto Rico as a tourist destination and site of “natural” disasters. She demonstrates how fossil-fuel economies are inextricably entwined with colonial practices and policies and how local community groups in Puerto Rico have struggled against energy coloniality and energy privilege to mobilize and transform power from the ground up. This work decenters continental contexts and deconstructs damaging hierarchies that devalue and exploit disenfranchised rural, coastal communities. …

Sustainable Procurement: Building Vocabulary To Accelerate The Federal Procurement Conversation, Steven L. Schooner, Evan Matsuda

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

To the extent that the federal procurement process features prominently in the Government’s plan to slow the pace of, and adapt to the effects of, climate change, this paper attempts to provide some basic building blocks for acquisition professionals to practice sustainable procurement. The paper offers a list of key sustainable procurement vocabulary and introduces a number of key concepts so that the acquisition community can build a common body of knowledge (BOK) to accelerate its progress up the learning curve of sustainable procurement implementation. The paper also highlights a number of existing tools and resources to help translate those …

Nepa And Gentrification: Using Federal Environmental Review To Combat Urban Displacement, Jesse Hevia

Emory Law Journal

Cities are embracing green spaces and environmental amenities. But as government and private investment surges into urban neighborhoods, residents of historically disinvested communities are evicted and displaced to make room for a wealthier—and often whiter—demographic. The National Environmental Policy Act requires federal agencies to prepare an in-depth environmental impact statement for proposed actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment. Federally funded redevelopment projects contribute directly to the powerfully displacing forces of gentrification, and environmental impact statements for such projects should affirmatively account for the indirect displacement effects caused by that investment. Articulating a clear legal obligation that federal …

Theory And Praxis Of The Barbara Drake Memorial Library At The Robert Redford Conservancy In Claremont, California, Sandra Sublette

Pitzer Senior Theses

The Barbara Drake Memorial Library project applies theoretical and practical elements of intercultural, decolonial, and social-justice frameworks in order to provide a space for Tongva cultural revitalization, education, and serve as a research tool for visitors. The project’s location at the Robert Redford Conservancy for Southern California Sustainability optimizes the collaborative potential between Pitzer College and the Tongva community. The contents of the library, which center locality and Tongva relationships to the land, are classified and analyzed with respect to relevant theories and practices of place-specific Indigenous ontologies of classification that center Tongva terminology and worldviews. Whether for a student …

Presentation Slides For Implementing Socially Just Climate Adaptation: A Case Study Of Boston, Massachusetts, Jeffrey T. Malloy

Doctoral Dissertations

The urgency to adapt to climate change presents important questions about who stands to benefit from these efforts. The previous two decades of scholarship devoted to social justice in climate adaptation has established an important theoretical basis to evaluate these questions. Less understood however, is how and under what conditions climate adaptation policy implementation promotes or inhibits justice for socially vulnerable populations. This work draws upon the disciplines of urban climate change governance, climate adaptation, urban planning, social justice theory, and policy implementation, to evaluate ongoing climate adaptation policy initiatives in Boston, Massachusetts. Through a case study approach, this dissertation …

Implementing Socially Just Climate Adaptation: A Case Study Of Boston, Massachusetts, Jeffrey Thomas Malloy

Doctoral Dissertations

The urgency to adapt to climate change presents important questions about who stands to benefit from these efforts. The previous two decades of scholarship devoted to social justice in climate adaptation has established an important theoretical basis to evaluate these questions. Less understood however, is how and under what conditions climate adaptation policy implementation promotes or inhibits justice for socially vulnerable populations. This work draws upon the disciplines of urban climate change governance, climate adaptation, urban planning, social justice theory, and policy implementation, to evaluate ongoing climate adaptation policy initiatives in Boston, Massachusetts. Through a case study approach, this dissertation …

The Bounds Of Energy Law, Shelley Welton

Faculty Publications

U.S. energy law was born of fossil fuels. Consequently, our energy law has long centered on the material and legal puzzles that bringing fossil fuels to market presents. Eliminating these same carbon-producing energy sources, however, has emerged as perhaps the most pressing material transformation needed in the twenty-first century—and one that energy law scholarship has rightfully embraced. Yet in our admirable quest to aid in this transformation, energy law scholars are largely writing into the field bequeathed to us, proposing changes that tweak, but do not fundamentally challenge, last century’s tools for managing the extraction, transport, and delivery of fossil …

Climate Lawyers As Movement Lawyers (And Vice Versa), Carmen G. Gonzalez

Faculty Publications & Other Works

In April 2020, the American Society of International Law (ASIL) launched an initiative to foster conversations within and beyond ASIL on the connections between climate change and virtually all other areas of international law. This essay for the ASIL Proceedings is based on a presentation delivered at the April 2021 ASIL Annual Meeting.

The essay examines the link between climate change and racial subordination from the dawn of the fossil fuel-based world economy to the present and the complicity of international law in these converging injustices. It discusses the counterhegemonic uses of international law by environmental justice movements in the …