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Articles 1 - 11 of 11
Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Legal Education For Sustainability: A Report On Us Progress, John Dernbach
Legal Education For Sustainability: A Report On Us Progress, John Dernbach
John C. Dernbach
This article is an overview of sustainability efforts in US law schools. It describes two sets of drivers for these efforts—inside and outside the legal profession. Drivers from within the legal profession include the American Bar Association as well as several state and local bar associations; law firms and other law organisations; and current and prospective law students. Drivers from outside the legal profession include clients, universities and colleges, nongovernmental organisations, and government. This article then describes what US law schools are now doing in the areas of curriculum, research, buildings and operations, community outreach and service, student life, and …
Retrofitting The Suburban Garden: Morphologies And Some Elements Of Sustainability Potential Of Two Australian Residential Suburbs Compared, Sumita Ghosh, Lesley M. Head
Retrofitting The Suburban Garden: Morphologies And Some Elements Of Sustainability Potential Of Two Australian Residential Suburbs Compared, Sumita Ghosh, Lesley M. Head
Lesley Head
No abstract provided.
Federal Energy Efficiency And Conservation Laws, John Dernbach, Marianne Tyrrell
Federal Energy Efficiency And Conservation Laws, John Dernbach, Marianne Tyrrell
John C. Dernbach
This paper provides an overview of U.S. law and policy concerning energy efficiency and conservation. The United States appears torn between two narratives - one expressing the abundant demonstrated opportunities provided by energy savings and the other based on a fear of deprivation from using less energy. Rather than choosing between the two, U.S. law and policy splits the difference - embracing efficiency and conservation more or less halfheartedly. Energy efficiency and conservation policy thus has a Groundhog Day aspect, in which the same or similar arguments are made year after year, decade after decade, and often (it appears) to …
Making The Human Dimensions Of Sustainable Community Development Visible To Engineers, Juan Lucena, Jen Schneider, Jon A. Leydens
Making The Human Dimensions Of Sustainable Community Development Visible To Engineers, Juan Lucena, Jen Schneider, Jon A. Leydens
Jen Schneider
Recently, engineers – particularly those working on sustainability-related initiatives – have increasingly turned their efforts towards under-served communities. This paper summarises the findings in Engineering and Sustainable Community Development (Juan Lucena et al., 2010) aimed at a diversity of these efforts which are grouped here under the term ‘engineering to help’. These initiatives often exist under names such as community service, humanitarian engineering, and engineers without borders or activities such as the Institution of Civil Engineers' co-sponsored workshop ‘Helping local communities to help themselves’. Although there has been a blossoming of engineering-to-help-related programmes around the world, there is a …
The Essential And Growing Role Of Legal Education In Achieving Sustainability, John Dernbach
The Essential And Growing Role Of Legal Education In Achieving Sustainability, John Dernbach
John C. Dernbach
This article suggests that law schools need to play a leading role in the national and global effort to achieve sustainability, including the effort to address climate change. The article first describes the various drivers for sustainability in law schools. Clients are increasingly demanding that their lawyers 'walk the talk,' as many businesses and corporations already are. The universities that provide an institutional home for most law schools are also adopting sustainability policies and practices that influence their law schools. Within the legal profession, the American Bar Association, as well as many state and local bar associations, have adopted a …
Non-Scalar Economy: An Incentive-Based Approach For Managing Pollution And Attaining Economic Sustainability, Farzad Safaei
Non-Scalar Economy: An Incentive-Based Approach For Managing Pollution And Attaining Economic Sustainability, Farzad Safaei
Professor Farzad Safaei
In the current economy, the cost of damage to the environment is often external, which is likely to lead to over-exploitation and inadequate provisioning. There are a variety of incentive-based schemes, such as effluent taxes or tradable permits, which attempt to confront the polluting agents with a ‘price’ equal to the marginal external cost of their activity. However, competitive incentives alone are not adequate for effective management of the shared resources. Thus, the current solutions exhibit several drawbacks including susceptibility to international free-riding, sensitivity to accurate estimation of cost of pollution or environmental targets, and inability to take the cumulative …
Strategic Environmental Assessment And Regional Infrastructure Planning: The Case Of York Region, Ontario, Denis Kirchhoff, Daniel D. Mccarthy, Debbe D. Crandall, Graham S. Whitelaw
Strategic Environmental Assessment And Regional Infrastructure Planning: The Case Of York Region, Ontario, Denis Kirchhoff, Daniel D. Mccarthy, Debbe D. Crandall, Graham S. Whitelaw
Denis Kirchhoff
Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is seen as an instrument that is essential to realizing sustainability goals that transcend project-level undertakings (e.g. policies, plans and programmes). The purpose of this case-based, collaborative research was to extend practical and theoretical understanding of SEA to the related, but in practice poorly coordinated, processes of project-level environmental assessment (EA), master planning and regional land use planning. Semi-structured key informant interviews and review of policy documents were used as the main sources of qualitative data to explore the key events that have led to an emerging strategic approach to planning and EA in York Region. …
Creating The Law Of Environmentally Sustainable Economic Development, John Dernbach
Creating The Law Of Environmentally Sustainable Economic Development, John Dernbach
John C. Dernbach
This article argues that a key to sustainability is redirecting the law of economic development. From a historical perspective, sustainable development is an effort to integrate environmental protection and restoration with development. As a result, it is not possible to fully understand sustainable development unless we understand what development means. While that term is reasonably well understood at the international level, our closest analogue in the United States is not development in general but rather economic development. A great many recently enacted laws that move the United States toward sustainability can be understood as economic development laws. By understanding these …
The "Cash For Clunkers" Program: A Sustainability Evaluation, Marianne Tyrrell, John Dernbach
The "Cash For Clunkers" Program: A Sustainability Evaluation, Marianne Tyrrell, John Dernbach
John C. Dernbach
This article describes and evaluates the effectiveness of the Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Act of 2009, also known as the “Cash for Clunkers” legislation. Under this law, Congress authorized persons trading in older and less fuel-efficient motor vehicles for newer and more fuel-efficient vehicles to receive a voucher worth up to $4,500 toward the purchase of the new vehicle. The article reviews various studies assessing the effectiveness of this legislation based on economic, social, and environmental criteria. Because these criteria are consistent with the goals of sustainable development, the legislation provides important lessons for future efforts to achieve …
Environmental Laws And Sustainability: An Introduction, John Dernbach, Joel Mintz
Environmental Laws And Sustainability: An Introduction, John Dernbach, Joel Mintz
John C. Dernbach
In this introduction to the special issue of Sustainability on environmental laws and sustainability, we attempt to synthesize key lessons from the issue’s ten substantive articles. These lessons involve the use of law to achieve integrated decision-making, the use of pre-existing laws to foster sustainability, the centrality of sub-national governments in achieving sustainability, the background law of unsustainable development, the growing importance of climate change, the need to use law to protect and restore ecological integrity, the importance of judicial review and nongovernmental organizations, the need to translate sustainability into specific legal principles, the challenge of creating an appropriate national …
Energy Efficiency And Conservation: New Legal Tools And Opportunities, John Dernbach, Robert Mckinstry, Darin Lowder
Energy Efficiency And Conservation: New Legal Tools And Opportunities, John Dernbach, Robert Mckinstry, Darin Lowder
John C. Dernbach
Many new and ambitious energy efficiency and conservation laws are being enacted at all levels of government—and with greater financial incentives than provided previously. These innovations are intended to overcome or minimize market barriers such as principal-agent problems, information and transaction costs, high internal discount rates, and up-front capital needs that discourage cost-saving investments. Innovations such as public-private partnerships also require significant legal input and creativity for the client to reap the often remarkably large energy and cost savings. This article reviews a range of these tools, especially financial legal mechanisms, that could help significantly reduce U.S. energy consumption.