Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Keyword
-
- China (4)
- Climate change (4)
- Pollution (4)
- Environment (3)
- Anthropology (2)
-
- CERCLA (2)
- Endangered Species Act (2)
- Environmental (2)
- Environmental law (2)
- Global warming (2)
- Religion (2)
- Renewable energy (2)
- Theology (2)
- Wilderness (2)
- ANILCA (1)
- Aesthetics (1)
- Aggregation (1)
- Alaska (1)
- And Liability Act of 1980 (1)
- Beauty (1)
- Biodiversity (1)
- Bureau of Land Management (1)
- California (1)
- California Desert Protection Act (1)
- California Environmental Quality Act (1)
- Cambodia (1)
- Cape Hatteras National Seashore (1)
- Christianity (1)
- Commerce clause (1)
- Commons (1)
Articles 1 - 19 of 19
Full-Text Articles in Law
The Environmentalist Attack On Environmental Law, John Copeland Nagle
The Environmentalist Attack On Environmental Law, John Copeland Nagle
John Copeland Nagle
This essay reviews two books written by leading scholars that express profound dissatisfaction with the ability of environmental law to actually protect the environment. Mary Wood’s “Nature’s Trust: Environmental Law for a New Ecological Age” calls for “deep change in environmental law,” emphasizing the roles that agency issuance of permits to modify the environment and excessive deference to agency decisions play in ongoing environmental destruction. Wood proposes a “Nature’s Trust” built on the public trust doctrine to empower courts to play a much more aggressive role in overseeing environmental decisionmaking. In “Green Governance: Ecological Survival, Human Rights, and the Law …
The Idea Of Pollution, John C. Nagle
The Idea Of Pollution, John C. Nagle
John Copeland Nagle
Pollution is the primary target of environmental law. During the past forty years, hundreds of federal and state statutes, administrative regulations, and international treaties have established multiple approaches to addressing pollution of the air, water, and land. Yet the law still struggles to identify precisely what constitutes pollution, how much of it is tolerable, and what we should do about it. But environmental pollution is hardly the only type of pollution. Historically, the idea of pollution referred to a host of effects upon human environments. This remains evident in contemporary anthropological literature, which studies the pollution beliefs of cultures throughout …
Pope Francis, Environmental Anthropologist, John Copeland Nagle
Pope Francis, Environmental Anthropologist, John Copeland Nagle
John Copeland Nagle
In June 2015, after much anticipation and a few leaks, Pope Francis released his encyclical entitled “Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home. “Laudato si’” means “praise be to you,” a phrase that appears repeatedly in Saint Francis’ Canticle of the Sun poem. The encyclical itself has been widely praised and widely reported, far more than one would expect from an explicitly religious document. The encyclical is breathtakingly ambitious. Much of it is addressed to “every person living on this planet,” while specific parts speak to Catholics and others to religious believers generally. It surveys a sweeping range of …
The Evangelical Debate Over Climate Change, John Copeland Nagle
The Evangelical Debate Over Climate Change, John Copeland Nagle
John Copeland Nagle
In 2006, a group of prominent evangelicals issued a statement calling for a greater response to climate change. Soon thereafter, another group of prominent evangelicals responded with their own statement urging caution before taking any action against climate change. This division among evangelicals concerning climate change may be surprising for a community that is usually portrayed as homogenous and as indifferent or hostile toward environmental regulation. Yet there is an ongoing debate among evangelicals regarding the severity of climate change, its causes, and the appropriate response. Why? The answer to this question is important because of the increasing prominence of …
Cercla's Mistakes, John C. Nagle
Cercla's Mistakes, John C. Nagle
John Copeland Nagle
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) confounds every theory of statutory interpretation. Congress hurriedly enacted CERCLA during the lame-duck period following the election of President Reagan and a Republican Senate majority in November 1980 but before they took office in January 1981. The resulting statute has been criticized for its apparently textual mistakes, sparse legislative history, conflicting purposes, and questionable public policy. Courts routinely complain about the difficulty of interpreting CERCLA under those circumstances. This article reviews several of the interpretive challenges presented by CERCLA, and suggests some broader implications for statutory interpretation more generally. CERCLA, hazardous …
Wilderness Exceptions, John Copeland Nagle
Wilderness Exceptions, John Copeland Nagle
John Copeland Nagle
This Article considers when activities that are inconsistent with wilderness are nonetheless allowed in it. That result happens in four different ways: (1) Congress decided not to designate an area as “wilderness” even though the area possesses wilderness characteristics; (2) Congress draws the boundaries of a wilderness area to exclude land that possesses wilderness characteristics because Congress wants to allow activities there that would be forbidden by the Act; (3) Congress specifically authorizes otherwise prohibited activities when it establishes a new wilderness area; or (4) Congress acts to approve contested activities in response to a controversy that arises after a …
How National Park Law Really Works, John Copeland Nagle
How National Park Law Really Works, John Copeland Nagle
John Copeland Nagle
This article provides the first explanation of the relationship between the three overlapping sources of national park law. It first explains how the Organic Act affords the National Park Service substantial discretion to manage the national parks, including deciding the proper balance between enjoyment and conservation in particular instances. It next shows how federal environmental statutes push national park management toward preservation rather than enjoyment. Third, Congress often intervenes to mandate particular management outcomes at individual parks, typically but not always toward enjoyment rather than preservation. The result is that the NPS has substantial discretion to manage national parks in …
Cercla's Mistakes, John Copeland Nagle
Why Chinese Wildlife Disappears As Cites Spreads, John C. Nagle
Why Chinese Wildlife Disappears As Cites Spreads, John C. Nagle
John Copeland Nagle
No abstract provided.
Endangered Species Wannabees, John Copeland Nagle
Endangered Species Wannabees, John Copeland Nagle
John Copeland Nagle
No abstract provided.
See The Mojave!, John C. Nagle
See The Mojave!, John C. Nagle
John Copeland Nagle
This article examines how the law is being asked to adjudicate disputed sights in the context of the Mojave Desert. The Mojave is the best known and most explored desert in the United States. For many people, though, the Mojave is missing from any list of America’s scenic wonders. The evolution in thinking about the Mojave’s aesthetics takes places in two acts. In the first act, covering the period from the nineteenth century to 1994, what began as a curious voice praising the desert’s scenery developed into a powerful movement that prompted Congress to enact the CDPA. The second act …
Green Harms Of Green Projects, John C. Nagle
Green Harms Of Green Projects, John C. Nagle
John Copeland Nagle
This article describes the recent development of renewable energy to examine environmental law’s three contrasting approaches to the green harms of green projects. Sometimes the law allows the green benefit regardless of the green harm. Sometimes the law prohibits the green harm regardless of the green benefit. And sometimes the law allows a balancing of all of the harms and benefits, green or not. Given these options, I argue that the law should not ignore or understate green harms even if they are caused by green projects. There are some types of green harms that no benefit can justify. But …
The Evangelical Debate Over Climate Change, John Copeland Nagle
The Evangelical Debate Over Climate Change, John Copeland Nagle
John Copeland Nagle
No abstract provided.
Cercla, Causation, And Responsibility, John C. Nagle
Cercla, Causation, And Responsibility, John C. Nagle
John Copeland Nagle
No abstract provided.
The Spiritual Values Of Wilderness, John C. Nagle
The Spiritual Values Of Wilderness, John C. Nagle
John Copeland Nagle
The Wilderness Act of 1964 is the principal legal mechanism for preserving wilderness in the United States. The law now protects over 100 million acres of federal land, half of which is in Alaska. Yet the contested meaning of the term wilderness continues to affect the management of those wilderness areas, and the designation of additional lands as wilderness areas. Much current thinking about wilderness emphasizes the ecological and recreational interests that Congress cited when it enacted the law. These justifications for wilderness preservation are important, but they are incomplete. They are best supplemented by a better understanding of the …
The Missing Chinese Environmental Law Statutory Interpretation Cases, John C. Nagle
The Missing Chinese Environmental Law Statutory Interpretation Cases, John C. Nagle
John Copeland Nagle
No abstract provided.
How Much Should China Pollute?, John C. Nagle
How Much Should China Pollute?, John C. Nagle
John Copeland Nagle
The debate concerning how much China should pollute is at the heart of international negotiations regarding climate change and environmental protection more generally. China is the world’s leading polluter and leading emitter of greenhouse gases. It insists that it has a right to emit as much as it wants in the future. China interprets the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” to mean that China has a responsibility to help avoid the harmful consequences associated with climate change, but that its responsibility is different from that imposed on the United States and the rest of the developed world. In fact, …
The Effectiveness Of Biodiversity Law, John C. Nagle
The Effectiveness Of Biodiversity Law, John C. Nagle
John Copeland Nagle
The Endangered Species Act (ESA) has generated a heated debate between those who believe that the law has succeeded and those who believe that the law has failed. The resolution to that debate depends upon whether the law’s stated purposes or some other criteria provide the basis for judging a law’s effectiveness. Meanwhile, since the enactment of the ESA in 1973, biodiversity protection has received growing attention in the nations of southeastern Asia. So far, the law has been much less effective in protecting Asian biodiversity from habitat loss, commercial exploitation, and other threats, yet southeastern Asia’s biodiversity law has …
The Commerce Clause Meets The Delhi Sands Flower-Loving Fly, John C. Nagle
The Commerce Clause Meets The Delhi Sands Flower-Loving Fly, John C. Nagle
John Copeland Nagle
Is the Endangered Species Act constitutional? The D.C. Circuit considered that question in National Association of Home Builders v. Babbitt in 1997. More specifically, the case considered whether the congressional power to regulate interstate commerce authorized the ESA's prohibition upon building a large regional hospital in the habitat of an endangered fly that lives only in a small area of southern California. The three judges on the D.C. Circuit approached the question from three different perspectives: the relationship between biodiversity as a whole and interstate commerce, the relationship between the fly and interstate commerce, and the relationship between the hospital …