Land Use Prof Blog

Talking Energy in Minnesota

It's been a whirlwind of conferences for me this month. Two weeks ago I was at GW. Last week, we had a conference at Buffalo. Now, I am sitting in sunny but snowy Minnesota attending the 2013 Consortium Annual Conference, entitled "Legal & Policy Pathways for Energy Innovation."

My co-author Amy Morris (of Aspen Environmental) and I presented one of our current works-in-progress (yes we have three). This one we are currently calling Mitigating the Impacts of the Renewable Energy Gold Rush. In this paper, we take a close look at the mitigation being done in association with the large-scale solar projects in the California Desert. One of the challenges has been just to untangle all of the agencies and laws at play. We have been particularly concerned with the mitigation projects and methods. Projects are approved (and indeed construction often begins) before mitigation projects are finalized or land identified. And of course, the use of exacted conservation easements is prevalent throughout... something that always makes me nervous.

Most of the mitigation projects are about endangered species protection and our paper focuses on that aspect. Thus, we were  not too surprised when we were placed on a panel about endangred species and renewable energy (with Kalyani Robbins and Jeff Thaler). It was one of the more contentious academic (they've got nothing on the land trust folks) panel presentations I have been a part of. It was a lively discussion about whether it makes sense to protect endangered species if the protection will in any way hamper development of renewable energy projects. Most folks agreed that climate change is likely to have bigger impacts on endangred species and ecosystem health than renewable energy development is. This raises big questions about tradeoffs with renewable energy projects and even introduced proposals to amend the Endangered Species Act!

And things are only getting started. Conference organizer extraordinare Hari Osofsky tells us that the recordings and videos of the conference will be available. You should contact her to learn more.

Conference Summary

The Legal & Policy Pathways for Energy Innovation conference will bring together leading scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and business people to address current energy law and policy challenges, particularly at the intersection of environmental law and policy. The panels will focus on four primary topics: (1) clean energy infrastructure; (2) environmental and energy governance; (3) climate, energy, and environmental justice; (4) sustainable regions and communities.

- Jessie Owley

 

The Big Thaw: Policy, Governance and Climate Change in the Circumpolar North

We are just starting day two of a conference here at Buffalo on climate change in the artic. We have participants from many fields (coming in person and electronically). This conference is also our first try at broadcasting our conferences via webinar. This enables folks to participate from all over the globe (not just by passively listening but also offering real-time questions and comments). It also seems a great way to do CLE.

I am including the information on the  conference below in case any of you have some free time today and want to join the webinar. Also, the papers steming from the conference will be available in a SUNY Press book on the issue coming out next year.

Conference Summary:

The Big Thaw: Policy, Governance and Climate Change in the Circumpolar North will bring together experts in science, law, sociology, and other fields to explore the pressing issue of climate change in the arctic. Conference participants will deliberate on international, national, and local perceptions of environmental, cultural, social and economic change in the arctic, interweaving the contexts of policy, legal, local and scientific models. Through its core focus on time, space, change and movement, this conference seeks common measures to the time scales of lived human experience in the arctic and sub-arctic region in a warming world.

The circumpolar North is a critical observatory for changing relations between human societies and the environment, and the policies that should accompany such change. The arctic and the sub-arctic are at the center of global debates on post- Cold War partnerships and issues of
post-colonial governance, strategy and regional sovereignty. For political and other reasons, the circumpolar North has only recently reemerged as a "region," revealing past connections and current common problems, and pointing to future challenges. Experts will gather and share thoughts on how we arrived at the current situation(s), where exactly things stand, and where to go from here.

 

Jessie Owley

Talking Energy at GW

Greetings from George Washington Law School where the 2013 J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Conference is wrapping up. Entitled Laying the Foundation for a Sustainable Energy Future: Legal and Policy Challenges, there has been an impressive array of panelists from industry, governements, NGOs, and academia.

My co-athour Amy Morris (of Aspen Environmental Group) and I presented some of our work on the land use tradeoffs involved in renewable energy projects. We have been looking at these issues through the lens of solar projects in California, but the issues come up in many contexts. To give you some broad strokes of the project: In California, we see development of main types of projects--utility scale and distrbuted generation. The large utility-scale solar facilities in the California desert have been under heavy scrutiny and criticized for their potential impacts on environmental and cultural values. In an effort to avoid pristine desert ecosystems, agencies and environmental groups have been championed the use of distrubed lands. Such lands are not completely controversy-free either. As a threshold question, we have to figure out what lands should qualify as "distrurbed." In some cases, it may be that we are too quick to label something as disturbed. Generally though the big categories are brownfields, former landfills and mines, hardscapes (parking lots and rooftops), and marginal agricultural lands. I won't get into here, but trust me each of those categories has a host of issues surrounding its use.

I've been feeling a little out of my league as the land use lawyer in the midst of the energy experts but have learned a lot and have been impressed with GW's organization of the conference. I also really enjoy attending conferences in Washington DC where the audience is always filled with a great mix of people from agencies and nonprofits.

- Jessie Owley

Glaeser interview on Cities and Climate Change

As part of a radio show on the recently declared Anthropocene (we're already 8000 years into it!), Big Picture Science featured an interview with Ed Glaeser (Harvard-Economics) about how city living moderates rather than aggravates global warming. The Glaeser interview begins 22 minutes into the show.  Among other things, I learned that the entire population of the Earth could be housed on 1/10th-acre lots within the land area that makes up Texas. (I call the intersection down the block from Festa's house!) 

In arguing for urbanization as a vital greening strategy (or at least an alternative to hunter-gatherer existence), Glaeser draws upon his book, Triumph of the CIty.  Matt blogged about David Reiss's review of that book here.

Jim K.

Missouri Law Conference on Promoting Sustainable Energy through Tax Policy

The University of Missouri School of Law is hosting a Symposium on February 22, 2013, called Promoting Sustainable Energy through Tax Policy.  Sponsored by the Journal of Environmental and Sustainability Law and the Missouri Tax Law Society, the event will be introduced by Mizzou profs Michelle Arnopol Cecil and our own guest blogger Troy Rule, and features panels with Alexandra Klass (Minnesota), Steve Gaw (The Wind Coalition), Felix Mormann (Miami), Roberta Mann (Oregon), Robert Peroni (Texas), with a keynote by David Weisbach (Chicago).  Here's the info and link:

Renewable energy and sustainable development are valuable means of combatting climate change and of reducing the nation’s reliance on foreign energy sources. Recognizing the importance of sustainable energy, state and federal policymakers have employed aggressive tax incentive programs to stimulate unprecedented growth in wind energy, solar energy, biomass, green building, and related industries in recent years. Unfortunately, shortfalls in many state budgets and growing concerns about the national debt are now creating pressure for governments to extinguish these tax programs — a move that could bring progress in the nation’s fledgling sustainable energy sector to a grinding halt.

This year’s Journal of Environmental and Sustainability Law symposium is being sponsored jointly with the University of Missouri Tax Law Society. The symposium explores questions about the long-term role of tax policy as a tool for promoting renewable energy and sustainability in the United States.

Cost and Registration

The symposium is free and open to the public.
Registration is suggested by Friday, February 15.

To register, please contact:
Journal of Environmental and Sustainability Law
University of Missouri School of Law
12E Hulston Hall
Columbia, MO 65211
umclawjesl@missouri.edu

More Information on 2013 JESL Symposium

Matt Festa

Arnold and Gunderson on Adaptive Law

Tony Arnold (Louisville) sends word that he has co-authored a chapter with Lance Gunderson (Emory--Environmental Studies) called Adaptive Law, forthcoming in the book Resilience and Law, Craig R. Allen & Ahjond S. Garmestani, eds., Columbia University Press, 2013.  The abstract:

This book chapter proposes a bold sweeping set of characteristics of "adaptive law": features of the legal system that promote the resilience and adaptive capacity of both social systems and ecosystems. Law, particularly U.S. law, has been characterized as ill-suited to management of natural resources and the environment for resilience and sustainability. The maladaptive features of U.S. law include narrow systemic goals, mononcentric, unimodal, and fragmented structure, inflexible methods, and rational, linear, legal-centralist processes. This book chapter proposes four fundamental features of an adaptive legal system: 1) multiplicty of articulated goals; 2) polycentric, multimodal, and integrationist structure; 3) adaptive methods based on standards, flexibility, discretion, and regard for context; and 4) iterative legal-pluralist proceses with feedback loops and accountability. It then discusses these four features in the context of several socio-ecological issues and identifies needs for future study and development of adaptive law, particularly in light of panarchy theory about how complex, adaptive, interconnected systems change over time.

As many land use lawyers already know, Prof. Arnold is one of the leading scholars in establishing the emerging area of adaptive law; this collaboration with Prof. Gunderson looks to be a very helpful starting point for comparing ecosystems and social systems with respect to adaptation to changing circumstances.  

Matt Festa

Adler on Merrill on "Fear of Fracking"

Yesterday, Case Western Reserve University School of Law hosted a symposium called The Law and Policy of Hydraulic Fracturing: Addressing the Issues of the Natural Gas Boom.  As Steve noted on Property Prof, Professor Thomas Merrill (Columbia) was slated to give the keynote.  Case Western's Jonathan Adler was part of the event, and he posted an extensive commentary on Merrill's remarks over on the Volokh Conspiracy.  Looks like it was a fascinating talk with lots of observations on how to deal with the potential environmental impacts of fracking, and a perhaps counterintuitive suggestion on the possible upside of the gas boom with respect to climate change.  But here, I'll focus on some of Merrill's observations on why fracking developed in the U.S., because it may have a lot to do with property law and land use regulation.  As Adler describes:

Why did fracking arise in the United States? Contrary to some analysts, Professor Merrill does not believe it is attributable to federally funded research and development. . . .

Professor Merrill also doubts industry structure has much to do with fracking’s rise either. . . .

A more likely factor is the way U.S. law treats subsurface rights. The U.S. is something of an outlier in that subsurface minerals are the property of the landowner, and not the government. This results in decentralized ownership and control over subsurface rights facilitates experimentation and innovation in figuring out how to exploit and manage subsurface resources.

Further decentralization, and experimentation, results from the federalist regulatory structure. Different states have different regulatory approaches than others, creating opportunities for further innovation and the opportunity for jurisdictions to learn from one another. The existence of a few jurisdictions that will allow a new technology to be tried provides a laboratory from which others may learn, whereas under a more centralized regulatory structure such innovation is unlikely to get off the ground.

The existence of a relatively open infrastructure network – a pipeline system that is subject to common-carrier rules – also plays a role in facilitating entry into the market. These factors have a common theme: decentralization. Taken together, Merrill suggests, they are the most likely source of fracking’s rise in the United States.

Looks like another fascinating event, with participation from a number of land use, environmental, and energy scholars on the subsequent panels.  I look forward to the symposium isse in the Case Western Law Review. 

Matt Festa

Food Trucks Feed Sandy Survivors

We've blogged about the food truck phenomenon a fair amount in the past, so I thought folks might enjoy this New York Times blog post on how food trucks are coming to the rescue in NYC:

As Hurricane Sandy spread its path of destruction in New York City, there was suddenly an urgent need for a fleet of expensively equipped, city-inspected, self-sufficient mobile food-delivery vehicles that could flee to high ground during the flooding and the winds, then drive to dispense hot meals to the hungry in devastated neighborhoods.

That exotic vehicle already existed. It is called the food truck.

And indeed, dozens of the trucks survived the storm in working order, then immediately began feeding needy citizens in broken neighborhoods where brick-and-mortar restaurants were still closed. Thanks to the generosity of individual donors, New York City agencies and sponsoring corporations, much of that food has been free.

A little local entrepreneurship, a little corporate sponsorship, and voila! some hungry, cold New Yorkers get fed!  It's always nice to see creative generosity during tough times.

Jamie Baker Roskie

Greetings from Sandy Land

I've been taking a break from the Land Use Prof blog for awhile now, as I take a break from Land Use proffing, but thought I'd post a "Superstorm Sandy" related update.  We're now living in Emmaus, Pennsylvania (near Allentown) and we just got our power back after 5 days out.  Given the extensive storm damaged suffered by folks in nearby New Jersey and New York, (not to mention in the Carribbean) we count ourselves extremely lucky.  We also had some extremely generous friends and neighbors who lent us generators, and when our next door neighbors got power back they let us string an extension cord to their house. So we didn't totally lose heat, hot water, or everything in our freezer.  Nevertheless, we were very excited when a line crew from North Carolina came to our neighborhood to restore our power.

I'll leave it to others to speculate on the climate-related causes of Sandy and the economic impact of the storm and its aftermath.  I'll just remain grateful to have dodged a bullet this time, and to be living in a community of kind and helpful folks.

I hope all of you in Land Use Prof land remain happy and healthy, and I'll post updates from time to time as my quasi-sabbatical year passes.

Jamie Baker Roskie

Hirokawa & Rosenbloom on Land Use Planning in a Climate Change Context

Keith H. Hirokawa (Albany) and Jonathan D. Rosenbloom (Drake) have posted Land Use Planning in a Climate Change Context, forthcoming in RESEARCH HANDBOOK ON CLIMATE ADAPTATION LAW, Jonathan Verschuuren, ed., 2013.  The abstract:

Although local governance is an experiment in adaptation (and often lauded for being so), climate change is distinct from traditional challenges to local governance. Nonetheless, many local governments are directing agencies to utilize existing and traditional local government tools to adapt to climate change. Local governments, for example, are adopting regulatory rules that require consideration of potential climate impacts in public-sector decisions with the goal of improving local adaptive capacity. Throughout these efforts, it is becoming clear that one of the most effective adaptation tools used by local governments is the power to plan communities. Through land use planning, local governments can increase resiliency to major climate shifts and ensure that our communities are equipped with built-in mechanisms to face and mitigate such changes. This essay identifies some of the most innovative planning tools available to local governments that illustrate the potential to plan for community resiliency. The essay begins by identifying some of the severe impacts local governments will experience from climate change. This part recognizes that not all local governments will experience climate change impacts the same, and that climate change adaptation is contextual. Part II provides an overview and inventory of traditional local governance tools, paying particular attention to zoning and nuisance laws. Part III looks more closely at specific structural tools that form the basic foundation for a wide variety of land use planning adaptation approaches and goals. The final part expands on the structural tools and explores specific mechanisms that can help local governments achieve adaptation goals and avoid catastrophic unpreparedness through proper land use planning in the climate change arena.

This piece, by two productive scholars who are also friends of this blog (Jonathan served as a guest blogger as well), should serve as a terrific introduction to the intersection of land use and climate change.  The volume looks like good reading for students, scholars, and practitioners.

Matt Festa

Find out which street corner produces the most CO2.

Resarchers from Arizona State have created a program that maps CO2 in cities. What is fascinating about this project is that they can map it down to the level of individual blocks and buildings. While this program is only currently focused on urban areas, global CO2 maps (and particularly maps of rural areas) could be pivotal in any programs related to carbon emissions. It could enable us to identify the heaviest producers and also perhaps assist in sequestration programs. They even made a cool video showing how it works. What a great tool for local governments.

Here is the citation and abstract:

Kevin R. Gurney, Igor Razlivanov, Yang Song, Yuyu Zhou, Bedrich Benes, & Michel Abdul-Massih, Quantification of Fossil Fuel CO2 Emissions on the Building/Street Scale for a Large U.S. City, Envtl Sci. & Tech. (August 15, 2012)

In order to advance the scientific understanding of carbon exchange with the land surface, build an effective carbon monitoring system, and contribute to quantitatively based U.S. climate change policy interests, fine spatial and temporal quantification of fossil fuel CO₂ emissions, the primary greenhouse gas, is essential. Called the “Hestia Project”, this research effort is the first to use bottom-up methods to quantify all fossil fuel CO₂ emissions down to the scale of individual buildings, road segments, and industrial/electricity production facilities on an hourly basis for an entire urban landscape. Here, we describe the methods used to quantify the on-site fossil fuel CO₂ emissions across the city of Indianapolis, IN. This effort combines a series of data sets and simulation tools such as a building energy simulation model, traffic data, power production reporting, and local air pollution reporting. The system is general enough to be applied to any large U.S. city and holds tremendous potential as a key component of a carbon-monitoring system in addition to enabling efficient greenhouse gas mitigation and planning. We compare the natural gas component of our fossil fuel CO₂ emissions estimate to consumption data provided by the local gas utility. At the zip code level, we achieve a bias-adjusted Pearson r correlation value of 0.92 (p < 0.001).

- Jessie Owley

Osofsky on Suburban Climate Change Efforts

Hari M. Osofsky (Minnesota) has posted Suburban Climate Change Efforts: Possibilities for Small and Nimble Cities Participating in State, Regional, National, and International Networks, forthcoming in the Cornell Journal of Law & Public Policy.  The abstract:

This Article provides a novel analysis of the capacity of suburbs to play a constructive role in addressing climate change. Small suburban cities represent the majority of metropolitan populations and emissions; encouraging their mitigation efforts, in addition to those of large center cities, is critical. In contrast to the conventional critique of suburbs as an undifferentiated group of sprawling emitters, the Article analyzes pathways for different types of small, nimble, suburban governments to learn from other localities and find cost-effective approaches to reducing emissions. It intertwines scholarship on (1) cities, suburbs, and climate change, (2) the complex demography of suburbs, (3) the role of climate change networks in transnational governance, and (4) more inclusive multi-level climate change governance to describe the limits of the current discourse on suburbs and climate change and to propose a new model for encouraging more suburban action. Using the Twin Cities metropolitan region as an initial case example, the Article considers what steps different types of leader suburbs are taking and how they are participating in voluntary multi-level climate change and sustainability networks. It argues that, especially in the absence of top-down mandates requiring cities to mitigate their emissions, these voluntary networks play an important role in fostering local action and connecting that action to international climate change treaties. It proposes that these networks could have a greater impact, however, through strategies that reflect the differences among types of suburban cities and foster more cross-network interaction.

Matt Festa

Climate & Energy Law Symposium at USD

The University of San Diego School of Law will host the Fourth Annual Climate & Energy Law Symposium on Friday, Nov. 9, 2012.  This year's title is Law in a Distributed Energy Future.  Here is the symposium overview:

The University of San Diego School of Law's fourth annual Climate and Energy Law Symposium will examine emerging law and policy approaches to encourage and accommodate distributed energy solutions. Historically, electricity has been generated by large power plants located far from consumers and delivered via long transmission lines. While that model remains largely intact, a gradual shift is occurring toward more localized energy production.

The symposium will bring together legal and policy experts from across the country to address a variety of key issues including the latest developments in the rules that govern the electricity grid change to incorporate distributed generation, possibilities for generating energy at the neighborhood and community levels, the legal and policy innovations at the federal, state and local levels that are most needed to usher in a distributed energy future.

Keynote addresses will be given by Commissioner Carla Peterman of the California Energy Commission, and Ken Alex, senior policy advisor to California Governor Jerry Brown and director of the Office of Planning and Research.  The program and registration info are at the website.  

San Diego Climate & Energy Law Symposium

Lesley McAllister recently announced a symposium on Climate and Energy Law that might be of interest to our readers. Land use is so closley entwined with energy sprawl, electricity distribution, and facility siting, I am sure it will be discussed extensively in San Diego in November.

USD Climate & Energy Law Symposium, SAVE THE DATE - Nov. 9, 2012

The University of San Diego School of Law will host its Fourth Annual Climate & Energy Law Symposium on Friday, November 9. The 2012 symposium will bring together leading academics and practitioners to explore the theme of Law in a Distributed Energy Future with questions such as:

• How should the rules that govern the electricity grid change to incorporate distributed generation?
• What possibilities exist for generating energy at the neighborhood and community levels?
• What legal and policy innovations at the federal, state and local levels are most needed to usher in a distributed energy future?

Confirmed speakers include: Carla Peterman, Commissioner, California Energy Commission (Keynote) Scott J. Anders, Director, Energy Policy Initiatives Center, University of San Diego School of Law Sara C. Bronin, Associate Professor of Law & Program Director, Center for Energy & Environmental Law, University of Connecticut School of Law Timothy Duane, Associate Professor of Law, Vermont Law School Joel B. Eisen, Professor of Law, University of Richmond School of Law Michael B. Gerrard, Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice, Columbia Law School Lesley K. McAllister, Stanley Legro Professor in Environmental Law, University of San Diego School of Law J.B. Ruhl, Matthews & Hawkins Professor of Property, Vanderbilt Law School Katherine Trisolini, Associate Professor of Law, Loyola Law School Hannah Wiseman, Assistant Professor, Florida State University College of Law

 

Jessie Owley

Carousing in Connecticut: The Environmental Law Collaborative

I am just returning to Buffalo after three days at a retreat center in Connecticut for the first gathering of the Environmental Law Collaborative.

Besides my participation in this blog of course, helping to found the ELC (with Mike Burger, Betsey Burleson, and Keith Hirokawa) has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my young academic career. The ELC seeks to foster progress toward an adaptive, conscious, and equitable governance of actions that impact local and global ecologies by engaging the contemporary discourse. The goal of the ELC is to facilitate dialog among thought leaders on sustainable policy priorities, practical implementation strategies, assessment mechanisms, and cooperative analysis of science, economics, and ethics (which is frankly a fancy way of saying we’re going to get together to talk about cool and exciting stuff). We’re also attempting to create a venue for collaborative research and analysis.

With a plan for 10-15 of us to meet every other year to discuss different themes (and perhaps to periodically revisit earlier ones), this year we tried to tackle the daunting topic of re-conceptualizing sustainability in the age of climate change. As climate change continues to dominate dialogues in many fields of research including land use, sustainability is at a critical moment that challenges its conceptual coherence. Sustainability has never been free from disputes over its meaning and has long struggled with the difficulties of simultaneously implementing the “triple-bottom line” components of environmental, economic, and social well-being. Climate change, however, suggests that the context for sustainable decision-making is shifting.

Over three days, 13 of us (yes it is a lucky number) gathered at a retreat center in Chester, CT where we grappled with these issues while sitting outside under a sprawling maple tree and listening to traffic driving by frogs croaking in the pond behind us. Importantly, there was also swimming, hiking, and yarn shopping. We did not figure out the magical way to solve our climate problems or make the world more sustainable but the conversations really pushed the thinking of many of us and we’re planning to figure out a good way to share our thoughts with others. I have a sneaking suspicion that land use issues will crop up in any writing that comes out of this group.

Jessica Owley

New report on west coast sea-level rise

The National Research Council has just released a major report on sea-level rise along the California, Oregon, and Washington coasts. From the news release:

The sea level off most of California is expected to rise about one meter over the next century, an amount slightly higher than projected for global sea levels, and will likely increase damage to the state's coast from storm surges and high waves, says a new report from the National Research Council.  Sea levels off Washington, Oregon, and northern California will likely rise less, about 60 centimeters over the same period of time.  However, an earthquake magnitude 8 or larger in this region could cause sea level to rise suddenly by an additional meter or more. 

Global sea level rose during the 20th century, and projections suggest it will rise at a higher rate during the 21st century.  A warming climate causes sea level to rise primarily by warming the oceans -- which causes the water to expand -- and melting land ice, which transfers water to the ocean.  However, sea-level rise is uneven and varies from place to place.  Along the U.S. west coast it depends on the global mean sea-level rise and regional factors, such as ocean and atmospheric circulation patterns, melting of modern and ancient ice sheets, and tectonic plate movements.  

. . .  

The committee that wrote the report projected that global sea level will rise 8 to 23 centimeters by 2030, relative to the 2000 level, 18 to 48 centimeters by 2050, and 50 to 140 centimeters by 2100.  The 2100 estimate is substantially higher than the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's projection made in 2007 of 18 to 59 centimeters with a possible additional 17 centimeters if rapid changes in ice flow are included. 

For the California coast south of Cape Mendocino, the committee projected that sea level will rise 4 to 30 centimeters by 2030, 12 to 61 centimeters by 2050, and 42 to 167 centimeters by 2100.  For the Washington, Oregon, and California coast north of Cape Mendocino, sea level is projected to change between falling 4 centimeters to rising 23 centimeters by 2030, falling 3 centimeters to rising 48 centimeters by 2050, and rising between 10 to 143 centimeters by 2100.  The committee noted that as the projection period lengthens, uncertainties, and thus ranges, increase. 

The committee's projections for the California coast south of Cape Mendocino are slightly higher than its global projections because much of the coastline is subsiding.  The lower sea levels projected for northern California, Washington, and Oregon coasts are because the land is rising largely due to plate tectonics.  In this region, the ocean plate is descending below the continental plate at the Cascadia Subduction Zone, pushing up the coast. 

Extreme events could raise sea level much faster than the rates projected by the committee.  For example, an earthquake magnitude 8 or greater north of Cape Mendocino, which occurs in this area every several hundred to 1,000 years with the most recent in 1700, could cause parts of the coast to subside immediately and the relative sea level to rise suddenly by a meter or more. 

"As the average sea level rises, the number and duration of extreme storm surges and high waves are expected to escalate, and this increases the risk of flooding, coastal erosion, and wetland loss," said Robert Dalrymple, committee chair and Willard and Lillian Hackerman Professor of Civil Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. 

Most of the damage along the west coast is caused by storms, particularly the confluence of large waves, storm surges, and high tides during El Niño events.  Significant development along the coast -- such as airports, naval air stations, freeways, sports stadiums, and housing developments -- has been built only a few feet above the highest tides.  For example, the San Francisco International Airport could flood with as little as 40 centimeters of sea-level rise, a value that could be reached in several decades.  The committee also ran a simulation that suggested sea-level rise could cause the incidence of extreme water heights in the San Francisco Bay area to increase from about 9 hours per decade, to hundreds of hours per decade by 2050, and to several thousand hours per decade by 2100. 

You can view a video produced by the Council below.

 Stephen R. Miller

Craig on Oceans and Place-Based Management

The ever prolific Robin Kundis Craig has a new book out:

Comparative Ocean Governance Place-Based Protections in an Era of Climate Change

Comparative Ocean Governance examines the world’s attempts to improve ocean governance through place-based management – marine protected areas, ocean zoning, marine spatial planning – and evaluates this growing trend in light of the advent of climate change and its impacts on the seas.This monograph opens with an explanation of the economics of the oceans and their value to the global environment and the earth’s population, the long-term stressors that have impacted oceans, and the new threats to ocean sustainability that climate change poses. It then examines the international framework for ocean management and coastal nations’ increasing adoption of place-based governance regimes. The final section explores how these place-based management regimes intersect with climate change adaptation efforts, either accidentally or intentionally. It then offers suggestions for making place-based marine management even more flexible and responsive for the future. Environmental law scholars, legislators and policymakers, marine scientists, and all those concerned for the welfare of the world’s oceans will find this book of great value.

 

Jessie Owley

Call for Papers: Washington and Lee's "Climate Change in the Former Colonies: Challenges of Property and History"

From the CFP:

Washington and Lee University School of Law’s Law and History Center, in partnership with Virginia Sea Grant, will host a symposium on Climate Change in the Former Colonies: Challenges of Property and History. Recognizing the unique impact that the colonial legal experience continues to have on Eastern states, the symposium will focus on the application of legal historical research to contemporary problems and opportunities in the areas of policy-making, property rights, and hazard resilience in coastal communities. Panel presentations and potential topics include:

- How the colonial legal experience affects modern property rights and our responsiveness to climate change

- Historical and modern property doctrines—particularly nuisance, zoning, and eminent domain—and their relation to current climate change challenges and policies

- Changing notions of acceptable land use and natural resources

- Environmental hazard resilience policies and opportunities for their enhancement via legal strategies

We are open to suggestions of other related topics.

You can download the full CFP here:

 

Jessie Owley

Carbon footprints of goods made in China and implications for American industrial areas

I recently came across several studies that answer a long-running question of mine:  what is the carbon footprint of goods traveling from China to that big box store down the road?  The answer also planted a more perplexing question:  could it be possible that the carbon footprint of goods in China, if built and assembled in China (or some other distant country) and shipped in a particular eco-sensitive way, could be less than goods "made in the USA"?

The issue of goods transportation and carbon footprints seems to me one of the most important, but potentially counter-intuitive, aspects of land use policy.  Independent of economic concerns, which of course is a huge issue of its own, we might presume that a consumer good "made in the USA" has a lower carbon footprint than one made in China.  But what if the "American" good is made from parts manufacturers around the world and simply assembled in the United States?  For instance, just 40% of the Ford Focus in made in the USA, and just 15% of that car is made in Mexico, with the remainder coming from non-North American parts suppliers.  Most "American" cars are really smorgasbords of parts suppliers shipped from the world over to a factory in the US.  At the very least, that provides factory assemply jobs for US workers.  But if we just consider the environmental impact for a minute, would the carbon footprints of those cars be lower if all the parts were made in one place in China, assembled in China, and then those cars were shipped to their US destinations?

While I can't answer that question directly, a really interesting November, 2011 paper, Moving Containers Efficiently with Less Impact: Modeling and Decision-Support Architecture for Clean Port Technologies, by Josh Newell and Mansour Rahimi at USC's School of Policy Planning and Development, traces the important steps in answering carbon footprint issues in the supply chain.  In particular, Chapter 2 in the report models the emissions from real container shipments of an undisclosed toy manufacturer from manufacturing destinations in China to various retail destinations across the US.

The report noted that there were three main contributors to carbon footprints, each of which were potential variables: 

The first is the land contribution, which is partitioned into China and United States segments, and is further partitioned into truck and rail segments. The second contribution comes from the sea, which is portioned into cruising speed, and slow speed segments. The third contribution comes from port operations for loading and unloading containers.

In general, the report concluded:

For the average container shipped from China to various U.S. destination zip codes, a carbon footprint of 2,821 kilograms per container per trip was determined. Transport by container ship is the most efficient in terms of CO2 burned per mile. So it is possible for a container to travel a greater distance, yet have a smaller carbon footprint than one that uses land transportation (train/truck) for a greater portion of the distance.

So there you have it:  2,821 kilograms per container on average.  And the further the container goes by ship, the lower the CO2 emissions.  A similar NRDC study studying retail apparel shipments from China to Denver compared air to ship transit and concluded:

[T]he truck-air-truck pathway emits over 5 times more soot (particulates) and 35 times more greenhouse gases than rail-ship-rail, sending an additional 99 tonnes [sic] of greenhouse gases into the air. On the ocean leg alone, a retailer would reduce GHG emissions by 99% sending cargo by ship instead of plane. Using this method, a retailer could send 101 full containers by ship and still emit fewer GHGs than one container sent by plane.

So ships are cleaner than air transit, too.  And what if we could make ship transit cleaner, with greener fuels and such?

All of this brings me back to my new question.  If ship transport is relatively green (and we could likely make it greener), and we can run ships all around the world and ship things in containers for relatively low costs, would it be better from a carbon emissions perspective to build all the parts near an assembly site for a product in China and ship it here, or build parts around the world and assemble it in the US?  This presumes, of course, that we cannot convince manufacturers to both build the parts and assemble them in the US, which seems to be an industrial model that has gone the way of the dodo bird for economic reasons. 

The implications seem vast to me for our industrial areas, both for how we conceive of them in economic and environmental terms in this global age.  If the shipping container has changed the economics of manufacturing (anyone interested in this must read Marc Levinson's excellent The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger), might it also change the environmental aspects of manufacturing, too?  And if so, what might this mean for our city's industrial areas, and in particular, how we contemplate their environmental footprints?  I'd be curious if anyone has studied this particular issue. 

Stephen R. Miller

Craig on the Clean Water Act, Climate Change, and Energy Production

Robin Kundis Craig (Utah) has posted The Clean Water Act, Climate Change, and Energy Production: A Call for Principled Flexibility Regarding 'Existing Uses,' forthcoming in the George Washington Journal of Energy & Environmental Law.  The abstract:

Numerous provisions of the Clean Water Act affect electricity generation, from potential siting restrictions that arise as a result of Section 404’s restrictions on discharges of dredged or fill material to effluent limitations that require power plants to cool their spent cooling water before returning it to streams, rivers, and lakes. This article focuses on two aspects of the Clean Water Act that directly raise — and, in a climate change era — will increasingly force — confrontations between electricity production, on the one hand, and water quality and aquatic ecosystem protections, on the other: (1) water quality standards, including both the Act’s antidegradation policy and states’ implementation of their standards through Section 401’s requirement that states certify federally-controlled discharges within their borders; and (2) Section 316’s requirement for cooling water intake protections, which — together with thermal discharge requirements to comply with water quality standards — is becoming increasingly important for thermoelectric plants.

After reviewing the history and import of the Clean Water Act for electricity production, this article discusses how climate change impacts on both water quality and electricity demand and production are likely to sharpen the perceived conflicts between the Act’s water quality requirements and goals and future energy policy. Applying the paradigm of principled flexibility, this article concludes that a key component of future energy and water quality policy should be the recognition that stationarity is dead on both sides of the equation — that is, while energy demands and production capability will be changing in response to climate change, so will aquatic ecosystems and the relevance of existing water quality standards. As a result, different kinds of decisions may be warranted for electricity production in and near aquatic ecosystems that climate change is fairly clearly destroying than for electricity production in and near aquatic ecosystems where strict enforcement of the Clean Water Act’s “existing use” requirements is likely to enhance the ecosystem’s ability to adapt to — and survive — climate change.

Matt Festa