Environmental Law Commons^™

Sustainable Soils: Reducing, Mitigating, And Adapting To Climate Change With Organic Agriculture, Meredith Niles

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

A Climate Agenda For The New President, Lisa Heinzerling

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The Bush Administration squandered eight years denying the reality of climate change and delaying action on it. Nevertheless, the president who comes into office in January will face two happy realities. First, whatever the Bush Administration has done (through obstruction or inaction) on climate change can easily be undone due to its legal and scientific flimsiness. And second, statutes now on the books provide plenty of legal authority for swift action on the most important environmental issue of our time.

California Climate Change And The Constitution, Christopher H. Schroeder, Neil S. Siegel, Erwin Chemerinsky, Brigham Daniels, Brettny Hardy, Tim Profeta

Faculty Scholarship

While the United States has of yet not passed meaningful legislation that addresses climate change, several U.S. states are taking steps to reduce the carbon footprints of their industries and citizens. As it has in the past, California is leading the way. But are its actions legal?

Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’S Guide To Global Warming By Bjørn Lomborg, Mary J. Bortscheller

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

A Tale Of Two Poles: A Comparative Look At The Legal Regimes In The Arctic And The Antarctic, Erika Lennon

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

A Realistic Evaluation Of Climate Change Litigation Through The Lens Of A Hypothetical Lawsuit, Shi-Ling Hsu

University of Colorado Law Review

Several dozen cases that can be classified as "climate change litigation" have been filed worldwide, and legal scholars have already generated a considerable amount of writing on the phenomenon. The debate and scholarship has sometimes gotten ahead of itself, reflecting on the normative implications of outcomes that are still speculative at this point. This Article seeks to ground this debate by analyzing the actual legal doctrines that may serve as bases for liability, and seeks to make a realistic evaluation of the likelihood of success of these types of suits. Climate change litigation, in its various forms, raises issues of …

Climate Change And Freshwater Resources, Robert H. Abrams, Noah D. Hall, Bret B. Stuntz

Journal Publications

Earth's climate is warming. This is the unequivocal conclusion of climate scientists. Despite the complexities of climatology, certain consistent trends emerge with implications for water availability: as the world gets warmer, it will experience increased regional variability in precipitation, with more frequent heavy precipitation events and more susceptibility to drought. These simple facts will have a profound impact on freshwater resources throughout the United States, as the warmer climate will reduce available water supplies and increase water demand. Unfortunately, current water law and policy are not up to the new challenges of climate change and resulting pressures on freshwater resources. …

Derogating The Precautionary Principle, A. W. Harris

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

What About The Polar Bears - The Future Of The Polar Bears As Predicted By A Survey Of Success Under The Endangered Species Act, Laura Navarro

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

The Evangelical Debate Over Climate Change, John Copeland Nagle

Journal Articles

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 …

American Indians, Climate Change, And Ethics For A Warming World, Sarah Krakoff

Publications

Developing a sense of ourselves that would properly balance history and nature and space and time is a more difficult task than we would suspect and involves a radical reevaluation of the way we look at the world around us. Do we continue to exploit the earth or do we preserve it and preserve life? Whether we are prepared to embark on a painful intellectual journey to discover the parameters of reconciling history and nature is the question of this generation.

Why And How To Tax Carbon, Michael Waggoner

Publications

Increased concern about possible global warming due to rising levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide ("CO2") suggests the need to control emissions of CO2. This article explores a system of revenue-neutral carbon taxes as a supplement or alternative to other CO2 control systems such as subsidies, regulation, and cap-and-trade. A system of carbon taxation should be, the Article suggests, sufficiently fairer and simpler and more efficient than the other possible systems of CO2 control and that it merits serious consideration. Because the carbon tax that is suggested would be revenue neutral, it should be politically acceptable. Problems with …

Global Climate Change Offers Hot Career Opportunities, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

Michael Gerrard, editor of Global Climate Change and U.S. Law, is passionate about global warming and the role lawyers can play in improving the environment. Student Lawyer's Donna Gerson talks to Gerrard about his career path and how law students can make a difference combating climate change.

Useful Global-Change Scenarios: Current Issues And Challenges, Edward A. Parson

Articles

Scenarios are increasingly used to inform global-change debates, but their connection to decisions has been weak and indirect. This reflects the greater number and variety of potential users and scenario needs, relative to other decision domains where scenario use is more established. Global-change scenario needs include common elements, e.g., model-generated projections of emissions and climate change, needed by many users but in different ways and with different assumptions. For these common elements, the limited ability to engage diverse global-change users in scenario development requires extreme transparency in communicating underlying reasoning and assumptions, including probability judgments. Other scenario needs are specific …

Saving Special Places: Trends And Challenges With Protecting Public Lands [Outline], Robert B. Keiter

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

7 pages.

Includes bibliographical references

"Robert B. Keiter, Wallace Stegner Professor of Law, University of Utah, S.J. Quinney College of Law"

Slides: Summary: Sources Of Stress And The Changing Context Of Natural Resources Law And Policy In The New West, William R. Travis

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

Presenter: Dr. William R. Travis, Department of Geography, University of Colorado at Boulder

43 slides

The Growing Influence Of Tort And Property Law On Natural Resources Law: Case Studies Of Coal Bed Methane Development And Geologic Carbon Sequestration, Alexandra B. Klass

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

19 pages.

"Alexandra B. Klass, Associate Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School"

Allocating Responsibility For The Failure Of Global Warming Policies, Joni Hersch, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

A recent series of climate change lawsuits has sought to mimic the "regulation through litigation" approach of the claims brought by the states against cigarette manufacturers. What is distinctive about the cigarette cases relative to conventional tort claims is that they were not brought on behalf of individual smokers, but rather sought to recoup the Medicaid-related costs of smoking. A parallel climate change litigation approach seeks payments from public utilities, energy producers, and other parties responsible for greenhouse gas emissions to reflect the long-term societal damages that the plaintiffs claim will be caused by this pollution. While environmental litigation of …

Action On Global Warming: Making Room For Tribal Governments In The New Kind Of Wedge Issue, Dean B. Suagee

The Climate of Environmental Justice: Taking Stock (March 16-17)

Presenter: Dean B. Suagee, Of Counsel, Hobbs, Straus, Dean & Walker LLP, Washington, D.C.

1 page.

Climate Changes And The Poorest Nations: Further Reflections On Global Inequality, Ruth Gordon

The Climate of Environmental Justice: Taking Stock (March 16-17)

Presenter: Ruth Gordon, Professor of Law, Villanova University School of Law

3 pages.

Existing Legal Mechanism To Address Oceanic Impacts From Climate Change , Lucy Wiggins

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

States Tackle Global Warming, Dale Bryk

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

The Big One, Edward A. Parson

Reviews

Richard Posner's Catastrophe: Risk and Response (Oxford University Press, 2004) examines four risks whose worst cases could end advanced human civilization or worse: asteroid impacts, a catastrophic chain reaction initiated in high-energy particle accelerators, global climate change, and bioterrorism. He argues that these all warrant more thought and response than they are receiving, and that they can usefully be assessed using a simple analytic framework based on cost-benefit analysis. This essay reviews knowledge of these risks and critically examines Posner's claims for a consistent analytic approach. While the conclusions that each risk merits more thought and effort appear persuasive, these …

Global-Change Scenarios: Their Development And Use, Edward A. Parson, Virginia Burkett, Karen Fisher-Vanden, David Keith, Linda Mearns, Hugh Pitcher, Cynthia Rosenzweig, Mort Webster

Other Publications

This report examines the development and use of scenarios in global climate change applications. It considers scenarios of various types – including but not limited to emissions scenarios – and reviews how they have been developed, what uses they have served, what consistent challenges they have faced, what controversies they have raised, and how their development and use might be made more effective. The report is Synthesis & Assessment Product 2.1b of the US Climate Change Science Program. By synthesizing available literature and critically reviewing past experience, the report seeks to assist those who may be conducting, using, or commissioning …

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative And California Assembly Bill 1493: Filling The American Greenhouse Gas Regulation Void, Michael H. Wall

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Climate Change And The Poorest Nations: Further Reflections On Global Inequality, Ruth Gordon

University of Colorado Law Review

This article considers climate change from the perspective of the Third World and more particularly from the vantage point of the poorest nations in the international system. It concludes that those nations that are the most geographically and economically vulnerable will also have the least impact on mechanisms to halt the progress of this impending disaster. Hence, climate change is examined as yet another chapter in Third World powerlessness. Despite the fact that low-income nations participate in international deliberations, they do so from an exceedingly weak position that puts them in the untenable position of being on the receiving end …

The Impacts Of Global Warming: The Need For Cooperation & Leadership An Overview Of This Issue , Jeff Bingaman

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Inter-American Commission On Human Rights To Hold Hearing After Rejecting Inuit Climate Change Petition, Jessica Gordon

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Global Climate Change Creates A New Carbon Business For U.S. Companies, Michael J. Zimmer

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Overview: Intersection Of Climate Security With Energy Production And Consumption, Vickie Patton

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.