Digital Commons Network^™

Unleash The Heat: Exploring Geothermal Energy Perspectives And Energy Literacy In São Miguel, Azores, Lena Mcdonough

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The green energy transition is moving ahead in EU countries at very different paces, and there are some key challenges that all regions currently face in trying to phase fossil fuels out of their energy mixes. One of these challenges is that most regions simply cannot harness enough renewable energy sources and simultaneously have the storage technology for creating a baseload power source as reliable as oil, coal and natural gas. That is, unless you sit in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on the boundary of three tectonic plates, with a continuous and reliable renewable energy source beneath your …

People Power & Politics: Evaluating The Impact Of The Conselho De Cidadãos De Lisboa On Climate Policy And Political Efficacy In Lisbon, Marion Linde

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As the social and ecological effects of climate change intensify, governments across the globe must evaluate how best to deal with the climate crisis. Likewise, increasing citizen participation in decision-making processes has been a key strategy for dealing with such issues. Theories on the benefits of citizen participation inform real practices such as democratic mini-publics and citizens assemblies. In Lisbon, Portugal, the Câmara Municipal de Lisboa implemented the first edition of the Conselho de Cidadãos de Lisboa (CCL) in May 2022. The CCL is a citizens assembly designed to directly involve residents in city policy-making, with the first edition focusing …

Inside The Wave: How “The 100 Foot Wave” Changed The Lives Of The Local Community In Nazaré, Emilie Cohen

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Surfing and surfing tourism are a critical part of Portugal’s economy and culture. Nazaré is a town that embodies a transition from a traditional fishing village to one that lives and breathes surf. Such a quick change in the leading industry of a town raises concerns about the impacts it has on the community. Therefore, the project focuses on the economic, social and cultural, and environmental impacts of tourism intensification on the local community in Nazaré through the perspective of the local people who are directly impacted and witness these changes. Other stakeholders are included, such as the Garrett McNamara …

Considerations For Solar Development: Comprehensive Assessment Of Solar Production Benefits And Consequences In Portugal, Jonathan Ramos Marcuse

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In this paper, the potential for solar energy development in Portugal is explored, with a focus on the Alentejo region of Portugal. The Fernando Pessoa Photovoltaic plant that is approved for construction in the Santiago do Cacém municipality is analyzed. The size of the plant and the location are considered when studying the environmental, social, and economic impacts of the project. The possibility of a centralized solar array in Sines is also explored as an alternative, taking into account the environmental and social impacts on local communities. Additionally, the feasibility and benefits of implementing a decentralized energy grid, utilizing scattered …

Symposium: Reclaiming Disability Justice, New York Law School

WILF Impact Center for Public Interest Law | Event Posters

No abstract provided.

Intersectional Management: An Analysis Of Cooperation And Competition On American Public Lands, Robin M. Rotman, Abigail M. Hunt

Faculty Publications

The United States government holds public lands in trust for the whole of the American people. This article focuses on National Monuments under the Antiquities Act. It argues that the federal government should renew its approach to the management of these lands by incorporating principles of environmental justice and long- term environmental viability. The article begins by examining the historical and legal foundations of federal lands in the United States, with a focus on the Antiquities Act. It then reflects on recent litigation and political controversy surrounding Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument, to illustrate how the …

Healthcare Inequities In The United States And Beyond Are Taking Black Women’S Lives, Alichia Mcintosh

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Black women have been dying at devastating rates due to health complications at the hands of the United States’ healthcare and legal systems. This Note explores these distressing rates and how they compare to White women while analyzing the fatalities and diagnoses among several health complications and diseases. These fatalities persist due to the United States’ history of racism—such as the institution of slavery and over 100 years of Black bodies experiencing Jim Crow laws—and the socioeconomic disadvantages Black women disproportionally face. This Note emphasizes that these disparities continue because the United States has failed to implement treaties—which it is …

How Many More Brazilian Environmental Defenders Have To Perish Before We Act? President Lula's Challenge To Protect Environmental Quilombola Defenders, Sarah Dávila A.

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

The Global South has been historically marginalized and continues to suffer from systemic oppression, impeding the realization of their human rights. Afro-descendants and other minority populations in the Global South live in disproportionately environmentally unsafe conditions and are disproportionately more vulnerable to climate change and environmental harm. One of those populations are Quilombolas. Quilombolas are Brazilian Afro-descendant communities who continue to fight to protect their community rights to ancestral lands, natural resources, and survival as a people. The Brazilian government under former Brazilian President Bolsonaro engaged in a persistent and systematic campaign to target, attack, and kill defenders, including Quilombola …

Examining And Developing Environmental Stewardship Funding Networks In Los Angeles, Lily Maddox, Michele Romolini

Center for Urban Resilience Research Posters

Following general patterns in non-profit funding, environmental grants have a continuing history of being inaccessible to the groups that could benefit from them the most. While many environmental stewardship organizations (ESOs) are in need of funding for projects, Los Angeles lacks a clear network of environmental funders that is accessible to all potential actors. In this study, we will be researching existing funder coalitions as well as philanthropic trends in Los Angeles. The findings from this review will be used to compile a database of environmental grant sources in Los Angeles detailing funders as well as specific grant programs, and …

Rhythms Of The Earth—Editorial Introduction, Karim-Aly S. Kassam, Morgan Ruelle, Christopher P. Dunn, Raj Pandya, Felice Wyndham

Sustainability and Social Justice

This special issue of GeoHealth, entitled Rhythms of the Earth: Ecological Calendars and Anticipating the Anthropogenic Climate Crisis, is a transdisciplinary articulation of a methodology of hope to confront the multiple injustices of the Anthropocene. One of the greatest challenges of the climate crisis is the lack of predictability at the scale of communities where impacts are most immediate. Indigenous and rural societies face an ever shifting “new normal” through increasing inconsistency in the seasonality of temperature and precipitation, as well as greater frequency of extreme weather events. With global food systems dependent on local and small producers, climatic variability …

One Man’S Trash: Duke Riley’S Archive And The Social Construction Of Garbage, Deirdre M. Sullivan

Student Publications

In a post-industrial society, Americans have to grapple with the result of seemingly endless production: trash. The amount of trash produced every day is a rising threat to the planet and its inhabitants; every decision made for the future must also take into account waste, rubbish, and refuse that will never break down or be fully removed from our waterways. Some artists, such as contemporary artist Duke Riley, have embraced the use of trash in their art as a critique of capitalism and consumerism. One of his most notable works is the Poly S. Tyrene Memorial Maritime Museum series, a …

Environmentalism: Flint Michigan Water Crisis, Zamzam Mohammed

Augustana Center for the Study of Ethics Essay Contest

No abstract provided.

Comprehensive Planning For The Promotion Of Sustainable Development In Georgetown County., Michael Meagher

Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents (V. 47, No. 3)

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Foreword To International Environmentalism: A Global Approach To Global Challenges, Cameron Krause

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

As the effects of climate change progress, people and governments in every country are left grappling with how to combat the consequences. Recognizing that such global challenges necessitate an international approach, this Symposium was convened to critically examine the domestic application of international law, the role of non-governmental organizations (“NGOs”), transnational ecological harms, and international environmental agreements. Articles and contributions from panelists in the Symposium contemplated the best paths forward in the face of an ever-changing international landscape.

This abstract has been taken from the author's opening paragraphs.

Litigation To Protect The Marine Environment: Parallels And Synergies With Climate Litigation, Randall S. Abate, Nadine Nadow, Hayley-Bo Dorrian-Bak

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

The world’s oceans are in crisis. Climate change impacts, biodiversity loss, plastic pollution, fisheries collapse, impacts to marine mammals, and vessel-based pollution are among the many threats the marine environment faces today. Fish biomass is predicted to drop by 3% to 25% by the end of the century due to climate change. Worse still, the amount of plastic in the world’s aquatic ecosystems is on track to hit 23 to 37 million tons per year by 2040.

[...]

This Article reviews recent successes and obstacles in using litigation as a tool to address these concerns across several contexts in the …

The Importance Of Accessible Government Data In Advancing Environmental Justice, Frank D. Lomonte, Daniel Delgado

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

Part I of this Article sets forth the history and animating principles of the environmental justice movement in the United States during the 1970s, which developed as an adjunct to the larger civil rights movement. Part II then turns to the role of documents and data in exposing where toxins present a risk to public health and where documentation habitually falls short. It discusses how freedom of information laws can unlock access to the documents and data that quantify environmental hazards but also how those laws fail to produce reliable results because of the influence of regulated industries. Part III …

Nautilus Rov Robot Manipulator, Dana Stefanides, Jenny Huynh, Andrew Stewart, Steven Reimer, Andrew Nguyen, Rebecca Walters, Matt Hayes

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Global warming and climate change are prevalent issues in today’s society. As a result, research in the ocean, our world’s biggest ecosystem, is imperative in efforts to protect the environment. Santa Clara University’s Robotic Systems Lab contributes to this field through work and developments on remotely operated vehicles (ROVs). An existing ROV system called Nautilus consists of a robot arm, end effector, and storage system in order to collect various types of sediments at a depth of 300 feet. However, the previous system does not meet that requirement. In direct collaboration with researchers within the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, …

Digitized Statecraft In Multilateral Treaty Participation: Global Quasi-Legislative Behavior Of 193 Sovereign States. By Takashi Inoguchi And Lien Thi Quynh Le. Singapore: Springer Nature, 2021., Melisa Perut, Etel Solingen, Ph.D.

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.

Creating Safe And Welcoming Spaces On Public Lands: An Anti-Oppression Toolkit For Public Lands Interpreters, Amber Brooks

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Public lands interpreters have a set of unique research and communication skills they use to facilitate emotional and intellectual connections to natural, historical, and cultural resources. The anti-oppression toolkit designed for this project focuses on providing interpreters with opportunities to educate themselves through a framework of anti-oppression education and action on the topics of identity and systemic oppression to better establish safe and welcoming spaces on public lands for members of oppressed communities. Rooted in the study of anti-oppression, with particular focus on ableism and racism, this toolkit was inspired by professionals in the field of diversity and inclusion on …

Understanding Rural Communities: Crafting Local Inquiries As Praxis For Pre-Service Ela Students In Teaching Composition, Cathie English

The Rural Educator

This study focused upon a sequence of three inquiry assignments with pre-service teachers (PSTs) in English language arts in an advanced composition and theory methods course. Place conscious and critical literacy scholars argue for a deeper understanding of rural lifeways and note the deficit or lesser than assumptions associated with rural communities and the need to develop a critical rural literacy to address the specific needs of rural educators as well as address the long-standing stereotypes. This study’s purpose was to determine if these inquiry tools can be used to teach PSTs a critical literacy that can be applied in …

Care For The Land: Restoration As Interspecies Care Labor And Emergent Activism At The Hawaiian Fishpond-Scape, Cynthia Ruimin Shi , '23

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

In the last two decades, environmental NGOs on the islands of Hawai’I have been leading efforts to restore traditional land practices and foodways, among them fishpond, or loko i’a, which are traditional aquaculture infrastructures that ensure a stable production of fish protein. This ethnographic study of loko i’a restoration projects is informed by four months of fieldwork grounded in participant observation at Paepae O He’eia, a non-profit organization on the windward side of O’ahu heading the restorative effort at He’eia fishpond.

My thesis addresses the ethics of care, labor, and Indigenous worldmaking emerging from ecological and cultural restoration of fishponds …

Urban Water Quality: Socio-Economic Distribution Of Stream Degradation, And The Influence Of Climate On Bmp Performance, Isabelle Horvath

Dissertations (1934 -)

Urban water quality impairments have long burdened urban aquatic ecosystems in a phenomenon termed “urban stream syndrome”. The symptoms of this “syndrome” include physical changes in stream morphology and water level, biologically stressed environments, and perturbations in ecosystem processes. Despite years of research and costly investments in restoration and rehabilitation, urban waterways are still plagued by degradation. Improvement in urban water quality will require multi-faceted efforts, including progress on 2 key fronts 1) increased understanding of current impairments, and 2) increased knowledge about urban stormwater infrastructure like best management practices (BMPs). Towards both topics, engineers have quantified the influence of …

Rural America As A Commons, Ann M. Eisenberg

University of Richmond Law Review

With many ready to dismiss non-urban life as a relic of history, rural America’s place in the future is in question. The rural role in the American past is understandably more apparent. As the story of urbanization goes in the United States and elsewhere, the majority of the population used to live in rural places, including small towns and sparsely populated counties. A substantial proportion of those people worked in agriculture, manufacturing, or extractive industries. But trends associated with modernity—mechanization, automation, globalization, and environmental conservation, for instance—have reduced the perceived need for a rural workforce. Roughly since the industrial revolution …

Spatial Dimensions Of Water Quality Value In New England River Networks, Robert J. Johnston, Klaus Moeltner, Seth Peery, Tom Ndebele, Zhenyu Yao, Stefano Crema, Wilfred M. Wollheim, Elena Besedin

Economics

Households’ willingness to pay (WTP) for water quality improvements—representing their economic value—depends on where improvements occur. Households often hold higher values for improvements close to their homes or iconic areas. Are there other areas where improvements might hold high value to individual households, do effects on WTP vary by type of improvement, and can these areas be identified even if they are not anticipated by researchers? To answer these questions, we integrated a water quality model and map-based, interactive choice experiment to estimate households’ WTP for water quality improvements throughout a river network covering six New England states. The choice …

At The Foothills Of The Highest Hill In The Swamp: A Policy Brief For East Little York, Major Eason , '23

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

No abstract provided.

Strategies For Combatting The Climate Crisis: Policy, Organizing, And Community Resilience, Shannon F. James

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

This portfolio synthesizes work I have done throughout graduate school through research and experience. I have had the opportunity to focus the majority of my work on the climate crisis and be involved in work to address this wicked problem. Though detrimental impacts are already being felt, the IPCC reports that humans can still prevent the worst effects of climate change. This is a problem that needs to be addressed on a variety of fronts. My portfolio discusses combating climate change at a federal, state, and community level. It highlights different strategies that will need to be utilized, including policy …

Assessing The Total Economic Value Of Parks In Kalamazoo County, Samuel Herman Ayivi

Masters Theses

Urban parks and green spaces have become an important part of the urban ecosystems in recent years, and there is growing evidence on the positive relationship between having green spaces and good health. Indeed, access to urban parks is part of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development goals (Goal 11 target 7). In recent years, these parks and green spaces have become a subject of development pressures because of the inability of planners and researchers to clearly articulate the value of these parks. The Total Economic Value Framework (TEVF) situates resources (Parks and green spaces in this case) in the minds …

Spokane Beat The Heat: Correlations Of Urban Heat With Race And Income In Spokane, Washington, Brian G. Henning, Kaitlan Ducken, Karli Honebein, Corrina Farho, Ben Brown

Climate Center Research (2021-2023)

The Gonzaga Center for Climate, Society, and the Environment led a community effort to better understand how extreme heat affects different neighborhoods and different individuals by constructing maps of urban heat island and connecting them to demographic factors through a correlation analysis. This research reveals that extreme heat events affect not only the unhoused, but also many thousands of people across large segments of the Spokane community. Not all regions or demographics in Spokane are equally affected by extreme heat. Differences in green space and the built environment mean that some people are more likely to be in danger during …

Contemporary Environmental Art: The Multidimensional Relationship Between Black Communities And The American Landscape, Sophia Perkins

Honors Capstones

Contemporary environmental art can be inspired by personal experience and reflections between the artist and their surroundings. Black women have a unique interaction with and relation to their environment. I would like to unpack the relationships between Black women and the environment by exploring a few different artists’ work, and by dissecting the effects race and gender have on one’s view of the natural world. I have studied the work of four artists: Torkwase Dyson, Allison Jane Hamilton, LaToya Ruby Frazier, and Calida Garcia Rawles. Environmentally, I have a specific interest in bodies of water / Black waterways because of …