Regardless of what one thinks about climate change/warming, the impacts of air pollution itself are staggering. The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that 7 million people died in 2012 from air pollution with 40% of those being in China. That’s a huge problem and it is the result of inadequate environmental control of particulates as well as other air pollutants in many parts of the world. As China has industrialized, it became the top...
Environmental Law 101: Global Climate Change, Part IV
Part I of this series of posts on Global Climate Change discussed Greenhouse Gases (what they are, where they come from and why they are important to life on Earth). Part II discussed the positions of various experts on whether Earth is going through a period of global warming (it is) without getting into a debate about how much the industrial revolution is likely to have contributed to the current warming trend and whether changing...
Environmental Law 101: Global Climate Change, Part III
The Universe is complex—so complex that we still imperfectly understand it. What we do know is that Earth, the “Water Planet,” is unique and special. Scientists have an idea of what has happened billions of years ago. But what tools do they use to predict what is going to happen in the future. The answer is computer models. How accurate are predictions on the impact of CO₂ on the Earth’s climate? The story has to...
Environmental Law 101:Global Climate Change, Part II
Several years ago, I prepared a presentation about global warming entitled “Framing the Debate: A Layperson’s Summary of the Scientific Case For and Against Global Climate Change.” I didn’t know much about the subject at that time and I didn’t feel like I was getting useful information from all the people yelling at each other on television. Such is the nature of political debates—they shed a lot of heat, but little light. I wanted to...
Environmental Law 101: Global Climate Change, Part I
No environmental issue has sparked more controversy in the last decade than the issue of Climate Change or Global Warming. The heat of the debate is not matched by knowledge about the subject. As a result, I am going to write about the topic—in several pieces in order to emphasize that the topic has a number of moving parts that all deserve thoughtful discussion. I find it useful to start the conversation with the following...
Environmental Law 101: John Dean and Environmental Decision Making.
Time passes. One surmises, however, that, when John Dean graduated from law school in 1965, he never anticipated that he would work for a President of the United States, be charged with the obstruction of justice, become a book author and become a national speaker on ethics. No lawyer’s career, however, could better highlight the pitfalls of representing powerful clients and the tension between client loyalty on the one hand and a lawyer’s duty to...