The Impact of the Renewable Energy Rush on Indigenous Peoples
Indigenous peoples’ lands and territories constitute at least 28% of the global land surface. Indigenous people represent 5,000 unique cultures worldwide, and they protect 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity. At the same time, despite having contributed the least to climate change, many indigenous people will experience the most drastic impacts from it if humans don’t ramp up renewable energy production rapidly and worldwide. Yet is it possible to do so without repeating the atrocities of the past or worsening indigenous peoples’ circumstances in the present?
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Wildlife Services: The Inappropriately Named Government Agency
To one unfamiliar with the work of Wildlife Service, the name may lead one to believe the division aims to serve and benefit the interests of wildlife; that notion could not be further from the truth. Wildlife Services is a division of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) responsible for the death of 1.85 million animals in 2022.
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When Worlds Collide: Developing Bird-Friendly Cities
On October 5th, more than 1,000 birds collided into McCormick Place in downtown Chicago, IL. While Chicago has historically been one of the most dangerous cities for migratory birds, this catastrophe in the worst in recent history.
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Looking for US Involvement in the Fight Against Single-Use Plastic Pollution
In 1907, arguably one of the most transformative inventions of the modern world was born; synthetic plastic. Since that time, every object known to man likely contains polyethylene, the world’s most abundant plastic.
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10(j)-Rules: The Cost of Quieting the Oppositions Howling
Wolves are returning to Colorado, and with them comes a 10(j)-rule. Many may wonder what exactly a 10(j)-rule is, whether they are effective, and how it will affect wolf reintroduction in Colorado.
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Lahaina: The Catastrophic Consequences of Climate Change
From record heat waves to hurricanes to unprecedented wildfires, the devastating consequences of climate change continue to ravage our cities. One of the most recent examples of these impacts is the Lahaina wildfire.
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Making Waves/The Wave of the Future: Floating Photovoltaic Arrays
Water and solar energy are the building blocks of life—especially in the arid West. An emerging technology takes advantage of both has the potential to provide 50% of the world’s ongoing energy needs through a clean, green new technology: Floating photovoltaics (FPVs). Alternatively known “aquavoltaics”1 (AVs), “floating solar arrays,” or “floatovoltaics,” FPVs can increase sustainable energy production while decreasing the costs and ecological concerns related to terrestrial solar arrays.
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Sustainability Paradox: The Price of Electric Vehicles Batteries to the Ocean's Deepsea Floor
The prospect of deepsea mining provides a predicament for environmental activists and policymakers globally. It has largely been accepted that a transition from gas to electric vehicles would help decrease the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Despite this fewer than one percent of vehicles on the road today are electric vehicles.
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Limiting Tribal Environmental Protections
On August 4th, 2021, wild rice sued the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in the White Earth Tribal Court. Wild Rice sued the Minnesota DNR for its issuance of a permit to the Canadian corporation Enbridge to construct a tar sands oil pipeline from Alberta, Canada to Lake Superior. The pipeline was proposed to cross lands ceded to the United States government by the Chippewa Tribe and lands that the Chippewa tribe still retained treaty rights on to gather wild rice and other aquatic plants.
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Renewable Energy Gained Significant Ground in 2022, But Is It Enough?
The transition to renewable energy is vital in the global fight against climate change. Significant gains were made in the renewable energy sector in 2022, but more still needs to be done to avoid irreversible climate catastrophe.
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Protecting Global Health by Restricting PFAS
PFAS are a class of dangerous ‘forever chemicals’ that pose a serious risk to public health around the world. Governments need to take swift action to restrict PFAS production in order to prevent further accumulation of these chemicals in our environment and protect public health.
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Do we have a Human Right to a Clean Environment?
Is the right to a clean environment a protected human right? According to the United Nations and a collection of youth plaintiffs in lawsuits across the U.S., the answer is yes. If so, then the door is opening to a new approach to climate justice litigation, based on pre-existing treaties and state constitutions, that could change the way environmental justice advocates approach their work. This spring and summer, several important cases will be tried that could set the precedent for whether or not this approach will work.
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The Hydrogen Rainbow
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. It is a colorless, odorless gas that has been brought center stage in the debate around renewable energy.
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Should Colorado really sequester carbon?
Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is a technology that has the potential to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from power plants and other industrial facilities. Colorado has been identified as one of three places in the southwestern United States with possible geographical sequestration formations that would allow it to serve as a regional sequestration sink. There are numerous risks that carbon sequestration carries.
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There’s a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea
“It’s like Dr. Seuss down there,” according to Diva Amon, a scientist who studies the marine floor, describing the incredible sea life and geologic formations in an area known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), which may soon be opened to the first-ever deep sea mining of polymetallic nodules.
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Bald is Back: The Recovery of the Bald Eagle and Success of Bird Laws
Throughout the mid-1900s, bald eagles were on the brink of extinction. A combination of habitat destruction, illegal killing, and insecticide poison reduced the population of these magnificent birds to dangerously low numbers. Fortunately, through the enactment and implementation of a variety of environmental laws, bald eagles have made one of the most successful recoveries in this history of conservation.
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Why change the way we regulate utility companies?
Thinking about the utility companies that bring electricity and gas to your house may be among the least interesting ways to spend your time, but increasingly, people around the country are more focused on who their utility provider is. Utility companies have been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons, like causing forest fires, price manipulation litigation, and grave warnings about steep price increases. With all this bad press, the question arises, what is going on with these companies?
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Unearthing Injustice: The Toxic Legacy of Uranium Mining
Located about 20 miles outside of Albuquerque, NM, the Laguna Pueblo finds itself the victim of the nuclear beast. For about 30 years, the Pueblo hosted one of the world’s largest open-pit uranium mines, contributing to about half of the uranium supply used by the United States for nuclear weapons from the Grants Mineral Belt. The result is generations of health defects and the destruction of a land that many indigenous people called home.
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Rights of Nature: Ecuador's Novel Approach to Mitigating Climate Change
Recent scientific studies on climate change paint a bleak picture of the biosphere. In reaction to this large-scale destruction and impending international global crisis, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres stated that the “world must step up” to protect the Earth from “the immediate and ever-growing risk of the climate emergency.” The Rights of Nature (RoN) legal approach is a system communities around the globe can implement to “step up” responses to the climate change threat and mitigate climate change impacts through an alternative legal mechanism.
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Climate Migration and Our Current Legal Systems
In the past, when summer winds down and fall begins, the threats of a wildfire catching spark would diminish until the following summer. Recently, however, that threat has extended to be year long due to decades long droughts and disappearing snow caps.
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