Environmental Law Commons^™

Climatizing National Security, Mark P. Nevitt

Faculty Articles

Is climate change a national security issue? Human security? Ecological security? This Article addresses the growing nexus between climate change and various conceptions of security with a particular emphasis on climate change's national security impacts. This Article argues that there is a growing connection between national security and climate change and a corresponding need to address the normative implications of "climatizing national security." This connection can be observed through three lenses: mitigation (reducing greenhouse gas emissions from military and national security sources); adaptation (investing in climate resilient infrastructure in an effort to prepare for climate impacts), and response (addressing climate-exacerbated …

Environmental War, Climate Security, And The Russia-Ukraine Crisis, Mark P. Nevitt

Faculty Articles

This Article addresses the Russia-Ukraine conflict’s broad implications for energy security, climate security, and environment protections during wartime. I assert that in the short-term the Russian-Ukraine war is poised to hinder much-needed international climate progress. It will stymie international decarbonization efforts and cause greater uncertainty in other climate-destabilized parts of the world, such as the Arctic. While Russia has become a pariah in the eyes of the United States and other Western nations, it has forged new partnerships and capitalized on new, lucrative energy markets outside the West and Global South. But in the long term, the global renewable energy …

Three Essays On Energy Related To State Policies And Low Carbon Transitions, Pinky Thomas

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation consists of three essays on energy-related state policies and energy transition. Each paragraph below refers to the three abstracts for the three chapters in this dissertation, respectively.

The first essay is entitled: “Impacts of State Tax and Resource Ownership Policies on Extraction: Evidence from U.S. Natural Gas Production”. The innovation of combined use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies during the 2000s has allowed natural gas producers in the United States to extract natural gas and liquids from deep shale formations in a cost-efficient manner. This essay evaluates whether unconventional gas production responds to tax changes, and …

Rule-In-Use For Community-Based Springs Management Faces Land Use Pressures: Lesson Learned From Manggarai District, Bernadinus Steni, Hariadi Kartodihardjo, Soeryo Adiwibowo, Ruchyat Deni Djakapermana

The Indonesian Journal of Socio-Legal Studies

The struggle for water is one of the greatest immediate risks of the climate crisis. Therefore, the institutional challenge of water management is increasingly urgent and requires a number of consensuses to succeed, including community-based natural resource management (CBNRM). A key challenge to the traditional consensus for water conservation is the increasing need for land conversion due to population growth, which in turn deflects decision-making power away from traditional institutions towards external decision-makers such as regional governments. Using Ostrom's conceptual framework of rules of use, this research examines shifting spring water management in the context of Kabupaten Manggarai. The paper …

Maurer Environmental Law Expert Is Lead Author On Science Insights Policy Forum Article, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

Environmental champions and conservationists will mark the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act later this month. That is the law requiring federal agencies to use all methods necessary to prevent extinctions and ensure that federal actions not jeopardize the continued existence of species on the brink of disappearing from the face of the Earth.

In the leadup to the December 27th anniversary, several publications have begun examining the Act’s history and impact over five decades.

Science, the world’s third-most influential scholarly journal based on Google Scholar citations, invited experts from around the country to look ahead as well …

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

Development, Voice, And Vulnerability: A Rhetorical Analysis Of The Policy-Making Discourse Regarding The Paris Agreement As An Organizational Response To Climate Change, David Almanza-Canas

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

On December 12, 2015, the Paris Agreement was officially ratified by 196 sovereign entities. This treaty represents a global call to action to ameliorate the impact of human activities on our environment, and it creates a means of cooperation through financial support and transparent industrial practices with the goal of promoting accountability across the world. This treaty and the discourse surrounding it present fertile ground for the academic understanding of persuasive practices in policy-making. By examining the rhetorical implications of the Paris Agreement as a global policy, scholars can gain new insight about the communities represented in the conversation as …

Beyond Corporate Greenwashing: Discourse Of A 'Just' Electric Energy Transition Materialized At The Thacker Pass Lithium Mine, Laekyn Kelley

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Thacker Pass in Northern Nevada is a rich desert ecosystem with spiritual significance to local Indigenous peoples, and it is also the site for what will be, for now, the United States’ largest open-pit lithium mine. Lithium is one mineral constituent of electric batteries which are essential to current U.S. electric energy transition policy, a transition which policymakers and other public groups have called on to be done in a way which is just. However, what exactly a just electric energy transition looks like in places like Thacker Pass is under continued negotiation in theoretical and practical senses. Existing research …

Maurer Environmental Law Expert Is Lead Author On Science Insights Policy Forum Article, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

The Indiana University Maurer and McKinney Schools of Law jointly will convene leading scholars and practitioners to discuss the implications of the 2023 United States Supreme Court case of Sackett v. EPA. The event, “Sackett v. EPA: What the Supreme Court’s Decision Means for Regulation and Wetlands Conservation,” will take place November 10 in the Wynne Courtroom and Steve Tuchman and Reed Bobrick Atrium at IU McKinney in Indianapolis.

Climate Change And The Courts: Balancing Stewardship And Restraint, Susan Glazebrook

Judicature International

No abstract provided.

Liability For Oil Pollution Damage And Recommendations For Response In The Case Of The Non-Spilling Ship In Marine Collision Incidents, Shiwei Wei

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Organizing And Communicating Health: A Culture-Centered And Necrocapitalist Inquiry Of Groundwater Contamination In Rural West Bengal, Parameswari Mukherjee

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As a discursive point of praxis, this dissertation project seeks to record knowledge from below around the overlaps between health, water and health interventions emerging from rural communities located in North 24 Parganas and Purulia in West Bengal that are disproportionately impacted by water-insecurity. My dissertation also documents how multiple-stakeholders such as local NGOs, international NGOs, non-profits, and donor agencies organize access to safe water and health interventions for the water-insecure communities located in North 24 Parganas and Purulia. The integration of the CCA and necrocapitalism afford theoretical and methodological guidance in this dissertation to help document the localocentric stories …

Session 5: Banking, Capital Markets, And The Crypto Revolution - A Look Back And Projection Of The Future Of Fintech, Joseph R. Cutler, Lawrence Kaplan, Youssef Sneifer, Jill Williamson

SITIE Symposiums

In Session Five of the SITIE 2023 Symposium: Enabling Innovation in Law and Society, Joseph M. Vincent moderated as the four panelists, Joseph R. Cutler, Lawrence Kaplan, Youssef Sneifer, and Jill Williamson, discussed banking, capital markets, and the crypto revolution by looking back and projecting the future of the financial technology (FinTech) industry. The discussion commenced with a conversation on banking deposits, then moved into a discussion on cryptocurrency companies and the challenges they have faced in recent years in the banking industry. The panelists further discussed artificial intelligence (AI) technology’s impact on FinTech, open banking, and challenges facing cryptocurrency …

Session 4: Fireside Virtual Chat With Bruce Jackson, Associate General Counsel, Microsoft, Bruce Jackson

SITIE Symposiums

Rhymes all have in common? Besides musical talent, they have all been represented by Bruce Jackson, one of the founding partners of the entertainment law firm, Jackson, Brown, Powell, and St. George. Jackson, a Brooklynite and longtime Microsoft attorney, is a force in the legal industry. Jackson started at Microsoft in the year 2000 as Corporate Counsel for the digital media division. Jackson now serves as Associate General Counsel and Managing Director for Strategic Partnerships out of the Office of the President for Microsoft. Jackson recently published his first book, Never Far From Home: My Journey from Brooklyn to Hip …

Session 3: Diversity Enhancing Intellectual Property, Jordi Goodman, Nina Srejovic

SITIE Symposiums

The field of intellectual property suffers from a lack of diversity. Women are underrepresented as credited inventors in the United States. Additionally, multi-gender inventor groups are underrepresented compared to all-male and, sometimes, even all-female groups. This representation has changed over time, with changes not always reflecting an increase in female representation. This is particularly true when studying gender-disparity as it exists in the field of computer programming and software patents. While women were well represented in computer programming at field’s inception, this changed after World War II because men lobbied to push women out of the field. Women have since …

Session 2: Diversity As Key To Innovation - Stem Education, Richard Tapia

SITIE Symposiums

Richard A. Tapia is a professor at Rice University, where he has taught since 1970. Tapi specializes in optimization theory and numerical analysis. It has been his lifelong work to help underrepresented minorities achieve academic success and success in life.

In this talk, Tapia emphasizes the importance of diversity in STEM fields and highlights the failures of the education system in supporting underrepresented minorities. Tapia opines that more efforts need to be made to bring domestic underrepresented minorities into STEM positions and to recognize the value they bring. Tapia believes that, to address the lack of minority representation in STEM …

Session 1b: Innovation In Legal Contracts And Deals - How Lexion Is Incorporating Ai Into Document Revision, Lexion

SITIE Symposiums

Here, Gaurav Oberoi (CEO and Founder, Lexion) & Jessica Nguyen (Chief Legal Officer, Lexion) discuss Lexion and how it will change the legal industry. Lexion seeks to revolutionize how companies manage the contracts that they use. It has begun to corner a particular market in the rapidly growing field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), helping in-house attorneys to improve their workflow by automatically analyzing documents. By using AI, the program can successfully remove what the CEO of Lexion refers to as “low value” work. This allows overworked in-house attorneys to not only do more work in a faster time frame, but …

Session 1a: Innovation In The Delivery Of Legal Services And Access To Justice, Vikktoria

SITIE Symposiums

In session one, Walid Romaya and Tabrez Ebrahim, co-founders of Vikktoria, discuss their company and its contributions to improving access to justice. With a dual focus on achieving a broader access to justice and in providing matchmaking services for legal professionals looking for a larger client base, Vikktoria aims to disrupt the legal services industry through its mobile app. Based in California, Vikktoria has begun to expand to various metro areas around the country and hopes to provide broader access to justice by giving those with little to no legal knowledge an easy way to find a local attorney, book …

Introduction, Steven Bender

SITIE Symposiums

No abstract provided.

Climate Justice In The Anthropocene And Its Relationship With Science And Technology: The Importance Of Ethics Of Responsibility, Paolo Davide Farah, Alessio Lo Giudice

Connecticut Law Review

Climate change is a global phenomenon. Therefore, globalization is the necessary hermeneutical horizon to develop an analysis of the metamorphosis climate change could cause at a political, social, and economic level. Within this horizon, this Article shows how the relationship between the concept of the Anthropocene epoch and the request for justice allows for framing a climate-justice and intergenerational equity–focused political interpretation of the effects of climate change. In order to avoid reducing such an interpretation to merely an ideological critique of capitalism, the conception of climate justice needs to be grounded in a rational, ethical model. This Article proposes …

Prioritizing Proximity In Phasing Out Oil And Gas Extraction, Wyatt G. Sassman

Connecticut Law Review

To avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change, most of the world’s oil and gas reserves must remain in the ground. In the United States, this would require a dramatic phaseout of oil and gas extraction nationwide over the coming decades. How could we accomplish this? While recent legal scholarship emphasizes the importance of a just transition away from oil and gas extraction, little work has been done to navigate the legal, political, and equity hurdles associated with phasing out oil and gas extraction.

This Article seeks to start this conversation by offering one way to approach phaseouts of …

What’S Scope 3 Good For?, Madison Condon

Faculty Scholarship

Opposition to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) new rule on updated climate risk reporting has focused on one category of disclosures as particularly objectionable: Scope 3 emissions.⁷ Otherwise known as “supply chain emissions,” Scope 3 emissions have been voluntarily reported by a growing number of companies since the term was invented as part of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol in 2001.⁸ They include all the emissions both up and downstream of a corporations’ own activities: the emissions of the privately-owned factory that produced the shoes Target sells, as well as the emissions you burn while driving to the …

The Intersection Of Urban Heat Islands And The Cdc Social Vulnerability Index In Two Border Cities, Ileana Morales

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

No abstract provided.

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 …

Accurately Valuing Blue Carbon Sequestration And Storage To Foster Coastal Conservation Via Evidence-Based Policymaking And Model Environmental Services Statute Methodologies, John Shelton Penton Jr

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Blue carbon ecosystems, especially mangrove forests, provide one of nature’s most effective means for sequestering carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in subsurface soils. The six nearshore coastal morphologies found in tropical and subtropical regions each possess a conspicuous environmental signature that can be employed to accurately estimate and predict mangrove forests’ carbon storage in above-ground biomass, below-ground biomass, and the soils by system type. The consistent geomorphology and geophysical processes within each of these coastal environmental settings, that is, the wave and tidal forcings, the rate of coastal sediment accretions, nutrient load and limitations (e.g., nitrogen-to-phosphorus …

Climate Services: The Business Of Physical Risk, Madison Condon

Faculty Scholarship

A growing number of investors, insurers, financial services providers, and nonprofits rely on information about localized physical climate risks, like floods, hurricanes, and wildfires. The outcomes of these risk projections have significant consequences in the economy, including allocating investment capital, impacting housing prices and demographic shifts, and prioritizing adaptation infrastructure projects. The climate risk information available to individual citizens and municipalities, however, is limited and expensive to access. Further, many providers of climate services use black box models that make overseeing the scientific rigor of their methodologies impossible— a concern given scientific critiques that many may be obfuscating the uncertainty …

Towards Meaningful Research And Engagement: Indigenous Knowledge Systems And Great Lakes Governance, Deborah Mcgregor, Nicole Latulippe, Rod Whitlow, Kristi Leora Gansworth, Lorrilee Mcgregor, Stephanie Allen

Articles & Book Chapters

For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples governed their relations in the Great Lakes region, guided by distinct political, legal, governance, and knowledge systems. Despite historic and ongoing exclusion of Indigenous peoples from Great Lakes governance in the Canadian context and other assaults on Indigenous sovereignty, authority, jurisdiction and responsibilities, Indigenous peoples have maintained their relationships with the Great Lakes. In recent years, Indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) have made inroads in Great Lakes governance, thanks primarily to First Nation political advocacy. However, it remains a challenge to include Indigenous knowledge and implement approaches that bridge Indigenous and Western ways of knowing. …

Developing Ecological Security Pattern For Coastal Wetlands Based On “Three-Line Integration” Spatial Strategy, Xiaowen Li, Liehui Zhi, Tiantian Ma, Zengli Liu, Baoshan Cui, Dongdong Shao, Yu Cao, Yonglin Mu

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Coastal wetlands function as key socioeconomic resources as well as ecological barriers for sustainable development in coastal regions. Although previous research and practices indicate that restoration of degraded wetlands needs combination with intact natural wetlands to achieve best integrated ecosystem services, this kind of integration is still lacking both in research and practice. In the past decades, increased land reclamation coupling with climate change (e.g. sea level rise) have led considerable coastal squeeze effects and intensified degradation and loss in coastal wetlands along Chinese coastline, restoration of damaged coastal wetlands is therefore urgently needed to enhance the overall ecological functions …

The Future Of Pandemics: Land Use Controls As Means Of Preventing Zoonotic Disease, Bailey Andree

Pace International Law Review

Zoonotic diseases are increasing in frequency as climate change worsens around the world, with the recent COVID-19 pandemic highlighting the inadequate mechanisms in place to counteract disease spread. This article reviews various zoonotic diseases and their patterns of spread, highlighting land use change as the key driver of disease to demonstrate the need for legal intervention. International land use law is a little-developed subsect of environmental law that holds the key to combating this disease spread, and this article proposes solutions through this legal lens. Land use techniques which may be used to combat disease spread include conservation laws, setback …

Applying Bentham's Theory Of Fallacies To Chief Justice Robert's Reasoning In West Virginia V. Epa, Dana Neacsu

Duquesne Law Review

There are two issues in West Virginia v. EPA.¹ One regards justiciability, and the other delegation. Article III of the Federal Constitution limits justiciability to controversies, to disputes involving an injured party whose harm the judiciary believes it can remedy. The Constitution is silent on delegation.

This Essay summarizes the Court's decision in West Virginia v. EPA.² It also analyzes Chief Justice Roberts' reasoning and addresses the case's flaws from two perspectives. It references the Court's decision connecting it to the so-called New Deal Cases,³ because in both Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan,^{4 …}