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Our Better Natures: A Revisionist View Of Joseph Sax's Public Trust Theory Of Environmental Protection,And Some Dark Thoughts On The Possibility Of Law Reform, Richard Delgado

Vanderbilt Law Review

When Professor Joseph Sax wrote his famous Public Trust article in 1970, the environmental movement was in a state of agitation and flux. Commentators were writing about plastic trees, Ways Not to Think About Plastic Trees, and whether we should bestow legal rights on natural objects. The Green Movement took hold in Europe, and in the United States scholars, activists, and ordinary citizens were calling for greater attention to the problems of decreasing quality of life, increasing pollution, and over development of the nation's farm and wilderness lands.

The time was exactly right for Sax's article. Sax proposed a simple,easily …