Environmental Law Commons^™

The Energy Prosumer, Sharon B. Jacobs

Publications

Decentralization is becoming a dominant trend in many industries, and the electricity industry is no exception. Increasing numbers of energy consumers generate their own electricity and/or provide essential grid services such as storage, efficiency, and demand response. This Article offers a positive account of the emergence of these new energy actors, which it calls "energy prosumers. " It then frames several doctrinal and procedural puzzles that prosumers create, including jurisdictional puzzles, distributional concerns, and democratic challenges. Ultimately, it concludes that prosumers can be a positive disruptive force in the electricity industry if courts and regulators can manage these challenges effectively. …

Environmental Law, Big Data, And The Torrent Of Singularities, William Boyd

Publications

How will big data impact environmental law in the near future? This Essay imagines one possible future for environmental law in 2030 that focuses on the implications of big data for the protection of public health from risks associated with pollution and industrial chemicals. It assumes the perspective of an historian looking back from the end of the twenty-first century at the evolution of environmental law during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The premise of the Essay is that big data will drive a major shift in the underlying knowledge practices of environmental law (along with other areas …

Green Infrastructure In The Community Ratings System: A Proposed Path To National Flood Insurance Program Recognition, Kevin Macwhorter, Kathleen Zaratzian

Virginia Coastal Policy Center

No abstract provided.

Implementing A Greener Redd+ In Black & White: Preserving Wounaan Lands And Culture In Panama With Indigenous-Sensitive Modifications To Redd+, Cindy Campbell

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

All’S Whale That Ends Whale: How Correctly Identifying Antarctic-Feeding Grounds Of Oceania Humpbacks Could Save An Endangered Population, Davey Holmes

Pomona Senior Theses

Although major whaling practices have ceased, increasing human involvement and influence in the world’s marine ecosystems continue to adversely effect global whale populations. It is a major concern throughout Antarctic waters, where endangered Oceania Humpback Whales (Megaptera novarangliae) annually feed. This study analyzes the extent to which a proposed marine protected area within the Ross Sea may indirectly harm the last remaining endangered population of Humpbacks. Using current satellite tracks of southern Humpback migrations, this model maps the effects of displaced Toothfish fisheries, and suggests further conservations efforts, based on New Zealand’s Precautionary Approach, to protect these vulnerable whales.

Philosophy Of Law In The Arctic, Dawid Bunikowski, Jaakko Husa, Diana Ginn, Ko Hasegawa, Karol Dobrzeniecki, Patrick Dillon, Francis Joy, Rene Kuppe, Leena Heinämäki, Maura Hanrahan, Tom Svensson, Makoto Usami, Agnieszka Szpak, Rebecca Johnson, Brendan Tobin

Books

This is rather the first book with a title "Philosophy of Law in the Arctic" in the literature. This philosophy of law is a very wide and cross-disciplinary area of research: between law, philosophy, anthropology, history, cultural ecology or environmental studies. I have no doubts that we have done such kind of philosophy in the academia so far, not using this term, but keeping up with the concept, the idea.

The book is a result of research conducted by many members of the Sub-group of Philosophy of Law in the Arctic (the University of the Arctic). This team seems a …

Environmental Law: The Role Of Congress In Environmental Law, Steven Colloton, David Schoenbrod, Eric Claeys, Matt Leggett, Nicholas Robinson

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Implementation Procedures For Puerto Rico's Environmental Laws, Sara Enid Camerón

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In 2004, Puerto Rico's new environmental legislation became part of the penal code with the intention of protecting the island nation's natural resources through criminal prosecution. However, the problem is a dearth of information about the prosecutions of environmental crimes and the law enforcement agent's implementation practices. The purpose of this study was to describe the execution of the law and the few cases prosecuted. Lipsky and Hull and Hjern's theory of implementation were used to help answer the research question: What are the implementation procedures of law enforcement agents on Puerto Rico's environmental crimes law, and what can be …

The Environmental Justice Implications Of Biofuels, Carmen Gonzalez

Faculty Articles

Analyses of the viability of biofuels as alternatives to fossil fuels have often adopted a technocratic approach that focuses on environmental consequences, but places less emphasis on the impact that biofuels may have on vulnerable populations. This Article fills the gap in the existing literature by evaluating biofuels through the lens of environmental justice – including climate justice and food justice. The Article examines the impact of biofuels on the global food system and on the planet’s most food-insecure populations. It concludes that the laws and policies promoting the cultivation of biofuels have contributed to global malnourishment by raising food …

The Human Right To Clean Air: A Case Study Of The Inter-American System, Varun K. Aery

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

Combatting environmental damage has become a primary goal of the international community. Unfortunately, international human rights law has not taken this aim seriously. Although the Inter-American regional human rights system, one of three regional human rights institutions, empathizes with protecting the environment, it enervates such goals by barring victims of air pollution and climate change from access to judicial remedies. Seeking to bridge the gap between human rights law and environmental protection, this article explains why clean air is a human right, develops the positive content for such a right, and evaluates the practical reasons that justify the right’s importance. …

Ghost Bears: The Plight Of The North Cascades Grizzly Bear, Adam Bowler

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

No abstract provided.

How The Public Trust Doctrine’S Fiduciary Duty Requirement Requires States’ Proactive Response To Promote Offshore Power Generation, Andrew S. Ballentine

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

No abstract provided.

A Wholistic, Environmental Approach To Washington’S Repair Methodology Of Its State-Road Culverts, Lillian Kaide

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

No abstract provided.

Cultural Rights V. Species Protection: A Case Study Of Pacific Leatherback Sea Turtles, Mohit Khubchandani, Mehul Parti

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

The leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), sometimes called the lute turtle, is the largest of all living turtles. It is the fourth- heaviest modern reptile behind three crocodilians. These species are categorized as critically endangered under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. These turtles avail pro- tection under the Convention on Illicit Trade in Endangered Species (CITES); a treaty enacted to protect wildlife against over-exploita- tion and with an aim to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. The said treaty is applicable to species in general …

Power E-Mergency: Combining Renewable Energy With Current Battery Technology For Emergency Medical Professionals, Caitlyn Portz

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

No abstract provided.

Preventive Justice, The Precautionary Principle And The Rule Of Law, Jocelyn Stacey

All Faculty Publications

Despite its largely preventive orientation, environmental law has, with one exception, remained distinct from the burgeoning field of preventive justice. The exception is the precautionary principle, which has become a subject of interest and frequent skepticism amongst preventive justice scholars. The precautionary principle is a central principle in environmental law. Its centrality arises from the pervasiveness of scientific uncertainty in environmental regulation; that is, our inability to reliably predict the consequences of our policy choices on environmental and human health. The precautionary principle squarely addresses the question of how we ought to proceed in the face of unavoidable uncertainty. This …

Eminent Domain And Serrated Power, Steven Ferrey

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

This article provides an examination of the legal issues affecting siting of new wind projects and the ability of states to use preemptive state powers to preempt local zoning and land-use issues to circumvent local opposition to wind power siting, with detailed case studies of law in different states.

Contemporary Practice Of The United States Relating To International Law, January 2016, Kristina Daugirdas, Julian Davis Mortenson

Articles

In this section: • United States and France Sign Agreement to Compensate Holocaust Victims • United States Conducts Naval Operation Within Twelve Nautical Miles of Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, Prompting Protests from China • United States Pursues Bilateral and Multilateral Initiatives in and Around the Arctic

Federal Treaty And Trust Obligations, And Ocean Acidification, Robert T. Anderson

Articles

Ocean acidification will have profound effects on the entire human population and natural resources that depend in any way upon Earth’s oceans and lakes. In turn, those effects will be even greater, and potentially catastrophic, for indigenous populations who rely on the seas for physical, cultural, and spiritual sustenance. While most research on carbon dioxide absorption from the atmosphere has focused on oceans and the resulting acidification, many believe that acidification levels also will also increase in the Great Lakes. Indian tribes in the Pacific Northwest and the Great Lakes regions share reliance on marine and freshwater resources, and many …

The Revival Of Climate Change Science In U.S. Courts, William H. Rodgers, Jr., Andrea K. Rodgers

Articles

Science never has been the obstacle to the recognition of climate change. Since Arhennius did his original calculations in 1896, the scientific world was quite aware of the prospect that industrial-age levels of carbon dioxide pollution would result in increasing global temperatures and acidification of the world’s oceans. The brilliant—and striking—graphical display that we know today as the Keeling Curve started in 1957, and year after year it records the relentless upward march of these atmospheric pollutant loadings.

Through the years, necessarily, a vast number of scientific warnings, publications, findings, and predictions would be offered to the public at large, …