Digital Commons Network^™

Time To Pay For Nature-Based Solutions, Tamar Ron

New England Journal of Public Policy

Viewing nature as ‘common goods’ results in under-valuating of natural capital and assets. As a consequence, budget allocations for environmental protection, biodiversity conservation, and climate action are considerably insufficient. Another result is opting for unsustainable and destructive land and resource uses, which provide immediate and tangible monetary revenues. This article emphasizes the need to valuate natural assets and nature-based solutions (NBS), and their contribution. It further explores optional solutions, including national and global policy, and legislative and taxing instruments, to translate this value into substantive tangible financing for coordinated and synergetic approaches to address the critical global climate and biodiversity …

Independent- November 2025, Leslie Lozada

The Independent (1988-present)

No abstract provided.

Estimating Daily Air Quality Exposure Of The Aging And Dementia Population, Wan-Tai Michael Au-Yeung, Moiz Usmani, Ryan Ramphul, Chao-Yi Wu, Hiroko Dodge, Joel Steele, Zachary Beattie, Jeffrey Kaye

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background

To understand the effect of air quality on cognition, air quality measurements should reflect real-world exposure. Currently, air quality exposure is derived from outdoor air quality monitors despite older adults spending most of their time indoors.

Objective

To examine if there are discrepancies between indoor particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) at older adults’ personal residences, PM2.5 levels measured with nearest outdoor public air monitors, and remotely accessed gridded ensemble air quality data.

Methods

PM2.5 levels collected in older adults’ residences, collected from the nearest outdoor public air quality monitors and ensemble data from Hazardous Air Quality Ensemble System (HAQES) were …

Marine Environmental Protection : An Investigation Into Existing Global Laws Addressing Marine Plastic Pollution, Maryland De Castro

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Decarbonization And Climate Justice : Challenges And The Effect On Shipowners, Sofiana Kontouri

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Precarity At Sea : Legal Challenges And Protection Of Maritime Workers, Wenjuan Li

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Problem Of Noise Pollution In Chinese Waters : Can The Current National Legal Framework Tackle The Problem?, Zhou Wang

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Towards A Reconstructive Politics, K. Sabeel Rahman

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Fresno’S Scribbles Bike Path: A Master Plan For Active Transportation, Holly Sowles, Uris Giron

Mineta Transportation Institute

The Fresno Scribbles Bike Path Master Plan, which represents a commitment to equitable active transportation and social infrastructure, is designed to enhance the quality of life for Fresno residents by providing safe, comfortable, and accessible biking and walking paths while promoting sustainability and fostering a sense of community. This report details the Intelligent Design Visualization Lab’s (IDVL) ongoing contribution to the Fresno City Scribbles Bike Campus initiative. This multifaceted urban intervention seeks to promote bike and pedestrian safety, enhance environmental resilience, and active transportation infrastructure through design, serving as a form of placemaking. In collaboration with the Fresno State Transportation …

The Colby Echo (2025-10-30), Colby College

The Colby Echo

Published by the students of Colby College since 1877, The Colby Echo is the weekly, editorially independent student-run newspaper of Colby College in Waterville, Maine. Published monthly, 1877-1886; semi-monthly, 1886-1897; and weekly during the academic year, 1898-present.

Rou Dalagurr Native Council Youth Voices Leading Curriculum Change, Cutcha Risling Baldy

Rou Dalagurr Food Futures

Building a Health Curriculum Lesson for Grades 9-12 in the Native American Studies Model Curriculum for California

Place-Based Learning Practices: Institutional Responsibilities, Karley Rojas

Rou Dalagurr Food Futures

The 'Place-Based Learning Practices Project' (PBLP) is a graduate project under the Native American Studies Department Rau Dalagurr Food Sovereignty Lab and Traditional Ecological Knowledges Institute (FSL). Making contributions at the intersection of Western academia and Indigenous science, it imagines and realizes content, policies, and protocols surrounding two case studies and the larger cal poly humboldt (cph) institution which respect, honor, and uplift Indigenous sovereignty and resurgence in partnership with the Blue Lake Rancheria Tribe and the greater regional tribal community. Encompassing two projects internal and external to the institution, I aim to address the construction of controlled and protective …

Full Issue

Rou Dalagurr Food Futures

No abstract provided.

Bottled Water, Daniel Jaffee

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Bottled water has transformed from a niche product into the most-consumed packaged beverage worldwide. This commodity is linked to broader struggles over human rights and social justice, the question of who owns nature, and the future of public goods. Bottled water's negative environmental externalities include high energy and carbon footprints and major plastic waste pollution caused by disposal of hundreds of billions of single-serving plastic bottles. These dynamics have generated oppositional movements that are both contesting bottled water consumption and resisting the industry's extraction of groundwater. Recent scholarship emphasizes bottled water's impacts on public tap water and its relationship to …

Rewilding The Built Environment: Navigating Economic, Political, And Social Barriers To Urban Ecological Restoration, Carly E. Smith

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

Urban rewilding offers a nature-based approach to restoring ecological processes in cities while advancing climate resilience, biodiversity, and public well-being. Unlike conventional green infrastructure, rewilding allows ecosystems to develop with minimal intervention, emphasizing succession, complexity, and long-term adaptability. This paper examines the political, economic, and social factors that frame how rewilding is understood and implemented in urban planning. Governmental frameworks often prioritize order, predictability, and short-term results, making it difficult to accommodate the uncertainty and ecological complexity that rewilding requires. Economic models struggle to capture its long-term value, frequently overlooking ecosystem services or reconciling competing land uses. Social perceptions of …

Repairing Epistemic Injustice And Loss In The Era Of Climate Coloniality, Farhana Sultana

Geography and the Environment - All Scholarship

Climate change intensifies existing inequities, disproportionately impacting marginalised populations, particularly in the Global South and Indigenous communities. This is maintained through inequitable global climate governance, policies and solutions. The paper argues that climate coloniality, the complex entanglements of colonial legacies with contemporary climate and ecological changes, operates through systemic knowledge-based marginalisation or epistemic injustice, serving as a key mechanism in the uneven production and distribution of climate harms. Beyond the more commonly discussed material dimensions of loss and damage, epistemic injustices arise from silencing critical voices and devaluing knowledge systems. The paper extends the scope of loss and damage debates …

Heavy Metal Contamination And Health Risks In Katoro's Artisanal Gold Mining Soils, Tanzania, Innocent J. Lugendo, Venance Mwesiga

Tanzania Journal of Science

This study assessed heavy metal contamination in surface soils from artisanal gold mining areas in Katoro, Tanzania, evaluating ecological and human health risks. Thirty-six soil samples were systematically collected from three mining villages (Bingwa, Isenye, and CCM) at varying distances ranging from 30 to 90 m from active mining pits alongside twelve control samples from a non-mining area for comparison purposes. Concentrations of Cr, Cu, Ni, Zn, Pb, and As in soil samples were analyzed using energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (EDXRF). Results revealed severe contamination, with Cr (117–1255 mg/kg), Cu (81–104 mg/kg), and Ni (89–271 mg/kg) exceeding permissible limits. The …

Immigrant Catholics’ Perspectives And Engagement On Climate Crisis, Tison Vadakkekudiyil Thomas

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In this generic qualitative study, how immigrant Catholics in the United States make sense of climate change and environmental justice was examined, addressing a critical gap in understanding how faith and cultural identity shape environmental engagement among marginalized communities. Guided by sensemaking theory and the Catholic principle of integral ecology, as outlined in Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’, the research question addressed how church-going immigrant Catholics in Maryland perceive and engage with the climate crisis, considering their religious beliefs and concerns for environmental justice. Seventeen first-and second-generation adult immigrants participated in semistructured interviews, and data were analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s …

Carbon Farming As Current Use: Proposed Amendments To The New York State Agricultural Assessment Program To Mitigate Climate Change, Jack Hornickel

Pace Environmental Law Review

This article proposes a new financial incentive for mitigating climate change by integrating the natural carbon cycle into agricultural production. The proposal is based on existing New York State programs and is consistent with the state’s climate change policy that has developed over the previous decade. While carbon credits may be familiar to many of the readers, treating carbon as a commodity subjects the associated financial models to global market forces governing goods and services. Alternatively, accounting for the carbon sequestering capacity of different soil types, amendments should be made to the agricultural assessment program to better reflect the carbon …

Enumerating Environmental Exemptions In Section 501(C)(3), Samuel D. Brunson

Pace Environmental Law Review

Tens of thousands environmental charities operate with the United States. These charities operate to “preserve, protect, and improve the environment.” Roughly half of the revenue of environmental charities is sourced directly from the public. These public donations depend, at least in part, on the organizations’ tax-exempt status, which allows donors to deduct their donations for tax purposes. Because donors take into account the after-tax cost of their donations, an environmental charity’s tax exemption encourages donors to donate more than they would if the charity lacked a tax exemption. However, an environmental organization’s tax-exempt status is tenuous and contingent on agency …

Environmental Tax Incentives: Lessons From The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (So Far), Genevieve A. Tokić

Pace Environmental Law Review

In 2022, the United States enacted the Inflation Reduction Act (“IRA”), which President Biden touted as the most significant action the U.S. Congress has ever taken on clean energy and climate change. It is the primary governmental effort taken to date in furtherance of the United States’s commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (“GHGs”) under the Paris Climate Agreement. The primary tools used by the IRA are tax incentives, implemented through changes to the Tax Code that expand existing tax credits and, in some cases, create new ones. An additional important feature of the IRA is the introduction of a …

Air Source And Ground Source Heat Pumps: A Comparison And Analysis Of The Effects Of U.S. Federal And New York Tax Incentives In The Adoption Of Both Systems, Samuel F. De Carvalho

Pace Environmental Law Review

Air-source and ground-source heat pumps have proven to be a valuable mechanism in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions resulting from fossil fuel-based heating and cooling systems in residences and buildings. This study offers an analysis of the potential impact of federal and state tax incentives on the adoption of ground-source heat pumps (GSHP) and air-source heat pumps (ASHP) for residential heating and cooling purposes, aiming to determine their effectiveness as climate change policy measures. This paper suggests that despite a considerable reduction in the cost of GSHPs compared to ASHPs after the application of the tax incentives, the installation of …

Seven Ways Of Looking At The Climate Crisis, Bridget J. Crawford

Pace Environmental Law Review

This essay introduces the symposium issue of the Pace Environmental Law Review featuring seven works written in connection with the March 2025 conference on “Taxation, the Environment, and Climate Change.” This essay identifies and explores three common themes in the articles: (1) the role of taxation in environmental protection, (2) the tax law’s impact on human behavior, and (3) the optimal design for tax laws to mitigate climate change. This essay also sketches a few possible directions for future scholarship at the intersection of taxation and environmental law. It concludes by emphasizing the need for lawyers, lawmakers, policymakers, and advocates …

Corporate Social Responsibility (Csr) In The Digital Age: How Technology-Enabled Social Responsibility Initiatives Influence Competitive Advantage And Financial Performance In U.S. Insurance, Blessing Chidiebere Uwakwe, James N. Mohs

Accounting Faculty Publications

This study examines the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities and financial performance among publicly-traded insurance companies in the United States. As CSR evolves from voluntary ethical practice to strategic business imperative, understanding its financial implications becomes crucial for corporate decision-making and stakeholder value creation. This research employed a comprehensive literature-based analysis, synthesizing data from academic meta-analyses, industry sustainability reports, SEC filings, and investor sentiment surveys spanning 2022-2024. The study analyzed financial performance metrics, stock market reactions to CSR announcements, and institutional investor perceptions across major U.S. insurance firms including AIG, Prudential, MetLife, Swiss Re, Allianz, Munich Re, State …

A Political Ecological Exploration Of The Caracol Road Project In Belize, Lorenzo A. Pantano

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Caracol Road Project is a new BZ$148,100,000 (US$74,050,000) road infrastructure development in the Cayo District of Belize and financed largely by foreign sovereign wealth funds. The areas adjacent to the road, broken into two phases include: communities, forest reserves, national parks, recreational areas, private lands and estates, and archaeological sites. This paper seeks to ask the questions: (i) For whom is the CRP being developed? (ii) For what is the CRP being developed? (iii) What visual evidence exists of sacrifice zones because of the production of the CRP? I sought to answer these questions through ethnographic observations, interviews, and …

Community Factors And County-Level Cancer Screening, Prevalence, And Mortality, Alexandra R. Drake, Eric W. Christensen, Augusto C. Ochoa, William Small, Jinel Scott, Elizabeth Y. Rula

School of Medicine Faculty Publications

IMPORTANCE Cancer screening, prevalence, and mortality vary across US counties; the broad set of community factors associated with these differences are not well understood. OBJECTIVE To assess the relative importance of diverse community measures for explaining county-level variance in cancer screening, prevalence, and mortality rates for breast, colorectal, lung, and prostate cancers. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This geospatial cross-sectional analysis across all US counties used random forest algorithms to estimate the relative importance of 24 community measures—including health behaviors and lifestyle, socioeconomic, and environment factors—as explanatory factors for cancer screening, prevalence, and mortality. For each cancer, county-level cancer screening and …

Prefatory Matter And Table Of Contents

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.

Increasing Opportunities For Community Input In Harm Reduction Program Development Using Iterative Engagement., Nicole M. Wagner, Jordan A. Carlson, Meagan Bean, Amy Wineland, Joshua Blum, Scott A. Cardona, Sheila Covarrubias, Allison Kempe, Abby C. King, Amy G. Huebschmann

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

BACKGROUND: Incorporating people who use substances into a community-engaged research process can support the implementation and evaluation of evidence-based harm reduction programs. Attending to their voice ensures those who need these programs will use them. Yet, ongoing co-learning with people who use substances, often the ideal for community engaged research, poses a challenge for recruitment, ongoing participation, and obtaining diverse perspectives. We need novel strategies to support flexibility among populations experiencing legal and social instability so that community engaged work includes more diverse perspectives. In this paper, we describe a novel community engagement approach called Effective Adaptable and Sustainable in …

Walking On Sunshine: A Survey Of Oklahoma Concurrent Land Use Law And How Accommodation Can Fill In Gaps Revealed By Emerging Solar Energy, Nick Halbroeder

Oil and Gas, Natural Resources, and Energy Journal

No abstract provided.

Beyond The Flames: Housing Justice And Rebuilding After The Wildfires, Michala Storms, Awoenam Mauna-Woanya, Christopher Chinn, Kaimipono D. Wenger

Loyola Interdisciplinary Journal of Public Interest Law

The speakers for this symposium explored the intersection of housing justice and the legal and policy obstacles encountered in rebuilding efforts in Los Angeles following the devastating wildfires. The wildfires burned more than 55,000 acres. That's approximately the size of Los Angeles city. Destroyed over 16,251 structures and has claimed at least 29 lives. These fires were the most catastrophic in all of Los Angeles County's history. The speakers discussed the challenges faced by displaced communities amid ongoing housing shortages, as well as the broader implications for housing policy and zoning. The conversation examined how attorneys, policy makers and the …