Law Commons^™

This article explores how the identification and account- ing of ecosystem services can aid coastal management policies, particularly as management looks to a future that includes the impacts of climate change. At the core of making better deci- sions is an understanding of the value of ecosystem services. The economic context of ecosystem services is explored in order to outline what may be considered a complete account- ing of costs. Once contextualized, ecosystem services will then be applied to current coastal management issues associ- ated with sea level rise. In particular, policy-relevant questions about mitigating and adapting to sea level …

This article looks at the role of existing government policies on perceptions of risk and the impact they have on developing forward-looking sustainable policy instruments. Coastal flood insurance policy in the United States is examined as a way of exploring the relationship between policy instruments and risk perception. Insights include the importance of understanding the role of community risk perception in policy development, as well as the role of historical and existing policies in influencing community risk perception.

The value of anthropocentric indirect arguments (AIAs), as stated by Elliott (2014), is to focus on non-environmental benefits that derive from actions or policies that also benefit the environment. The key difference with these indirect arguments—from more direct anthropocentric arguments—is they focus on human benefits unrelated to the environment. So, for example, less coal burning power plants means less respiratory illness and higher worker productivity. The air is cleaner, but rather than clean air being the goal in arguing for less coal burning power plants, healthier people is the goal. Or as Elliott notes, clean energy can create jobs, and …

There is an ongoing practice in the international shipping community that impacts fundamental notions of sustainability as defined in the peer-reviewed literature (WCED, 1987; Gladwin, Kennelly & Krause, 1995; McManus, 1996, Naess, 2003; McGregor, 2004). The practice is based in discounting the true costs of maritime shipping through a system of open registries. By engaging in such practices, there is an inherent failure by the international community to internalize the true costs (environmental, social, labor, etc.) associated with shipping. The result is a practice that artificially keeps the international costs of maritime shipping low at the expense of environmental and …

This paper reviews the current management scheme used by Massachusetts to protect vernal pools, which represent small-scale ecosystems, and analyzes its relative strengths and weaknesses from an overall sustainability standpoint by looking at the frameworks developed for management. The frameworks are analyzed to determine if the objectives of vernal pool protection are being met. The initial impression is the outcomes are not meeting the objective of overall vernal pool protection, because there are failures in the drivers (mainly the certification requirement), which limits the number of verbal pools actually protected. An expansion of the current Massachusetts program is suggested to …