Authors:Korkut; Ekrem
,
Fowler, Lara B.
,
Halvorsen, Kathleen E.
,
Holen, Davin
,
Howe, E. Lance
,
Chi, Guangqing Abstract: Rural communities is Alaska—predominantly Alaska Native Tribes—are at the forefront of climate change impacts and climate justice concerns in the United States. According to the 2019 Alaska statewide threat assessment report, 29 communities are currently experiencing significant climate change-related erosion. Further, 38 communities faces significant flooding, and 35 have major problems with thawing permafrost. Some Alaska Native communities have explored community relocation to adapt to these impacts. Because federal law does not recognize gradual environmental impacts like thawing permafrost and coastal erosion as disasters, these communities are ineligible for disaster funding and struggling with how to adapt to the very urgent—albeit less immediate—issues that they face.This article analyzes the chalenges of Alaska Native Tribes attempting to access federal assistance for community relocation. While some posit that the federal trust responsibility for Tribal Nations... PubDate: Wed, 2 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Authors:Wallsgrove; Richard J. Abstract: While distributive justice and procedural justice have received substantial attention from energy scholars, recent work identifies restorative justice as an underdeveloped component of the energy justice framework. As conceived in the context of criminal law, restorative justice seeks to more precisely account for harms and obligations that arise from wrongdoing, and to widen the circle of participation in repairing those harms. Restorative environmental justice wields these principles to advance the environmental justice framework beyond a tight focus on disparate environmental and health impacts. Restorative energy justice faces the challenge of deploying this restorative approach in an energy landscape that is often tightly focused on technology choices and business concerns.In Hawai‘i, we find an opportunity to operationalize the concept of restorative energy justice. The origin of Hawai‘i’s regulated electricity industry is indelibly intertwined with the illegal... PubDate: Thu, 30 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Benjamin; Lisa Abstract: The time has never been better for the Securities and Exchange Commision (SEC) to regulate climate change disclosures; however, the agency has a poor track record in mandating climate and other specialized disclosures from public corporations. Its 2010 guidance on climate-related disclosures was sparsely enforced. Its 2012 conflict materials rule was partially invalidated by the courts, and in 2019 and 2020, the agency failed to include climate disclosures when modernizing rules and guidelines on corporate disclosures. These past failures were due to agency intertia, which was facilitated by a combination of a lack of political feasibility, strong business resistance to specialized disclosures (despite investor enthusiasm), and rising judicial hostility to the SEC. These past failures should not dictate agency approaches to climate disclosures moving forward. Regulating climate change is high on the agenda of the Biden Administration. Investors are demanding that public corporations... PubDate: Wed, 8 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Authors:Heye; Lydia Abstract: Throughout the state of California, oil operators will continue to abandon thousands of their oil wells within the coming years. With the growing threats of climate change, local, state and federal policymakers are looking away from fossil fuels and towards supporting renewable energy generation. In April 2021, California Governor Gavin Newson directed the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to begin evaluating paths to phasing out fossil fuel extraction in the state by 2045. The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has also increased the risk of operators filing for bankruptcy and thus orphaning their wells. When an oil well stops operating, becoming idle, there are still many environmental and health related hazards remaining at the site. Uncapped idle wells are known to emit toxic and flammable gases, such as methane, a potent greenhouse gas. In addition, wells that are left unplugged can contaminate surrounding soil and water supplies.In California, the process... PubDate: Wed, 8 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Authors:Pemberton; Daeja A. Abstract: Sandbranch is the only unincorporated community left in Dallas County, and the residents of this majority-Black, impoverished community have had their cries for basic necessities—such as clean, running water—largely ignored. With the County and the City of Dallas not remedying the problem so far, there is a question as to who is responsible for providing water and other public services to the community’s eighty residents. As it currently stands, Texas law simply permits local governments to offer assistance to unincorporated communities but does not mandate that affirmative measures be taken to ensure that these communities are provided for. What is the scope of the existing local government laws when it comes to getting public services to unincorporated areas, and what will it take for Sandbranch to finally get the resources it has been fighting to receive for decades' PubDate: Wed, 8 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Authors:Krishna; Dhruva Abstract: Environmental movements have been hindered in utilizing disparate impact as an effective legal mechanism for change. Since the 2001 Sandoval ruling limited the private right of action for Title VI disparate impact claims, environmental justice advocates have adopted the disparate impact framework as a persuasive tool to analyze, investigate, and challenge inequitable development. Concurrently, ecosystem services have blossomed as a growing field. The ecosystem services framework asserts that ecosystems providee conomic and health benefits for communities. However, this framework faces challenges with value recognition and visibility, lack of implementation within existing institutional frameworks, and inequitable access. This article explicitly combines the disparate impact and ecosystem services frameworks together to strengthen each other. Specifically, this article argues that incorporating ecosystem services within disparate impact analyses can provide new persuasive data... PubDate: Wed, 8 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Authors:Houck; Oliver A. Abstract: This is the second in a series of critiques of the Supreme Court's jurisprudence on environmental law. The first series described three cases notable for their manipulation of facts and law and ill-concealed bias against environmental plaintiffs. One crippled the National Environmental Policy Act, the second crippled citizen standing to sue, and the third pivoted to undermine the safety of nuclear power plants.The instant trio of cases add yet another troubling element to the canon. What distinguishes them, beyond the usual sleight-of-hand, is their failure to demonstrate the slightest understanding or concern for the plight of some of the most disadvantaged people on the planet. All of them brown.The first case discussed, Northwest Indian Cemetery, denied First Amendment protection from the destruction of an entire Native American culture. The second case, Sandoval, effectively destroyed Title VI of the Federal Civil Rights Act. The third case,... PubDate: Wed, 30 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Greif; Gabriel Abstract: California's growing unhoused population, alongside the increasingly devastating impacts of climate change, necessitates action by California's state and local governments to protect unhoused communities from the current and anticipated impacts of climate change. Despite the public discourse surrounding both climate change and homelessness in California, policy-makers have frequently treated the two as separate and unrelated issues. failing to acknowledge how catch issue interacts with the other.This failure has allowed unhoused persons' unique vulnerability to water insecurity, heat-related illness, and the spread of disease to remain divorced from policy discussions on how California must adapt to a new and harsher climate. In addition, sea level rise and wildfires will further contribute to California's housing shortage and overall unhoused population. The collective failure of California's state and local decision-makers to address this intersectionhas led to a patchwork... PubDate: Wed, 30 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Dadashi; Heather Abstract: Assembly Bill No. 52 (AB 52) amended the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in 2014 to mandate early tribal consultation prior to and during CeQA review, and it positions California Native American tribes as the experts on cultural resources within their own geographical areas. AB 52 affords tribal governments a seat at the decisionmaking table alongside public agencies and California local governments. The law also provides greater legal protection and demands more stringent consultation requirements than other historic and cultural resource protection statutes. However, despite formal advancement in tribal resource protection and recognition of tribal expertise, implementation of AB 52 is flawed. The purpose of this paper is to identify problems with the legislative language of AB 52 and gaps in its implementation to provide a point of reflection on how to improve government to government consultation. PubDate: Wed, 30 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Heger; Monica Abstract: Climate change has, and will continue to have, a disproportionate impact on communities of color. Already, it is clear that systemic racism has led to increased temperatures in predominantly Black neighborhoods as compared to white neighborhoods in the same cities. A legacy of discriminatory housing policies in California is correlated with worse air quality and health disparities, both of which could be further exacerbated as temperatures rise. As cities and states begin developing climate change adaptation plans, it is imperative that they develop equity-based solutions that take into account how discriminatory practices are leading to disproportionate climate impacts. If such impacts are not accounted for, they will be exacerbated in the future. This paper analyzes equity-based climate adaptation strategies for heat, which is already the deadliest weather-related disaster in the U.S., and how they could be applied to Los Angeles. PubDate: Wed, 30 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +000
Authors:A; Sarah Dávila Abstract: It is time to wake up and push for the protection of the environment and against climate change. Vulnerable communities around the world are living in polluted, highly toxic, and unsustainable environments. It is time to protect them through a human rights-based framework. This article proposes that the Inter-American right to a healthy environment provides the possibility of protecting the human rights of the most vulnerable in the Americas by providing a rights-based framework for them to vindicate their environmental human rights. This article focuses on vulnerable populations who have been historically marginalized and discriminated against and/or who are reliant on the natural resources in their environments. This article posits that the "greening" of human rights, which is the traditional approach to the protection of environmental human rights, is not sufficient to protect vulnerable non-indigenous populations without protection. It is for this reason that we, as a society,... PubDate: Wed, 30 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +000
Open Access journal
[73 journals]
