The final lecture reviews topics discussed in previous lectures by imagining an ideal society. Professor Wargo talks about success stories in land management in the Adirondacks and pesticide regulation, and notes ongoing challenges in food safety, drinking water quality, personal consumption, population control, and the creation of parks and protected areas. He lectures about the fractured nature of environmental management at different levels of government, and the way governmental and corporate secrecy have affected environmental regulation. He ends the lecture with advice for students.

24 - Reflections and Lessons

The lecture discusses the various factors affecting the expansion of the U.S. renewable energy portfolio, as well as the importance of energy efficiency and changes to current consumption. As a case study, Professor Wargo discusses the nine-year effort to create Cape Wind, a wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts. The project has faced opposition for a number of reasons, including noise and disruption of use of private property. The lecture ties the development of more renewable energy options to issues of property rights and discusses ways to overcome challenges in siting, in noise pollution, and in the impacts on wildlife (i.e. avian mortality as a result of wind farms).

23 - Renewable Energy Policies

The lecture begins a discussion of present and future energy demands and the ways in which we invest in different forms of energy by focusing on nuclear energy use globally. The risks associated with nuclear energy are described, including risk of human error leading to a mass evacuation event, and the challenges faced in finding an adequate nuclear waste storage facility for the United States. Such a facility would be need to be able to store nuclear waste for a million years or more, due to the long half-lives of nuclear waste. The lecture describes the disaster that took place at Chernobyl nuclear plant, and the wide-ranging effects of that disaster on the natural and built environments as well as human health.

22 - The Past and Future of Nuclear Power

The lecture critiques the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) certification system, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). The criteria for being highly rated under LEED emphasize energy efficiency and minimizing waste, but do not prioritize environmental health and limiting use of dangerous plastics and chemicals. USGBC is a non-profit organization, not a government agency, and has employees of for-profit organizations on its board of directors. The lecture discusses the implications of having a non-profit organization run this system and be responsible for evaluating environmental quality in architecture and construction.

21 - Certification: Design and Green Architecture

The lecture reviews the legal and economic strategies that can be used to manage coastal development. Over half of the United States population lives in coastal areas and will be affected by sea level rise and more intense storms. The lecture looks at the conflict between property rights and efforts to protect coastal ecosystems through the use of eminent domain to create national seashores. Barrier islands such as Fire Island National Seashore and Cape Cod National Seashore are used as case studies; a variety of strategies have been employed to manage these constantly moving islands. The lecture also discusses the role insurance plays in coastal settlement patterns; changes in insurers' policies in high-risk coastal areas could change the way people settle in coastal regions.

20 - Managing Coastal Conservation and Development

The lecture addresses the issue of takings and when the government has the right to seize private property for the public good. The government is required to compensate property owners in some circumstances. Through legal cases, Professor Wargo gives some examples of when compensation is required and why takings are an important management tool for environmental managers.

19 - Land Use Law and Property Rights

The lecture centers on public lands management and the effect of property rights on sustainable resource management. Property rights create a complex set of relationships that complicate effective environmental management. Popular conceptions of wilderness also make it difficult to manage public lands sustainably, since people view wilderness as a place of freedom, without regulation. Managing property rights and people's concept of right to wilderness are the central issues facing natural resource managers and public lands managers. As a result, it is important to consider external forces, such as climate change, that influence one's ability to exercise property rights.

18 - Property Rights and Public Lands Management

By reviewing the conservation history of the Adirondack Park, this lecture examines strategies to manage land use and natural resources in protected areas. The Adirondacks has been protected since the 1880s and became a national park in the 1970s. The government manages the park for a variety of uses, including recreational, ecological, and natural resource-related uses. The multiple uses of the park create conflict amongst stakeholders and require regulations that prevent certain types of development. The lecture reviews regulations and zoning ordinances that protect public lands.

17 - Land Use and Conservation Law: The Adirondack History

This lecture continues the previous class's discussion of tobacco law. In this class, Professor Wargo highlights the unique issues of freedom of choice and freedom of speech that tobacco regulation create, as tobacco regulation restricts individual choice and corporate freedom of speech via advertising restrictions. Tobacco law also illustrates the difficulties of managing environmental hazards in the face of an industry with the resources to fund its own research and to fight regulation at every step of the process. The passing of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in 2009 is held up as a success story in tobacco regulation, as it places stricter standards on tobacco corporations.

16 - Evolution of Tobacco Law

Plastics are omnipresent but minimally understood and regulated in the United States. The lecture focuses on the dangers that chemicals in plastics pose to human health, particularly via leaching into food and water. Plastics are regulated by the Toxic Substance Control Act, which gives the Environmental Protection Agency the responsibility of testing to ensure that plastics do not adversely affect human health. When plastics can leach into food, the Food and Drug Administration can demand testing. Professor Wargo shows how oversights have led to limited labeling of hazardous plastics, which results in consumers having limited means of protecting themselves from harm

14 - The Quiet Revolution in Plastics

The lecture explores the development of scientific proof of the harm that tobacco poses to human health and the legal tools used to regulate its use. The government has used warnings, control over advertising, and age restrictions to regulate tobacco. The tobacco industry has been able to complicate efforts to impose stricter regulations on tobacco consumption due to its power in the media due to ad sales and government due to the importance of cigarette sales taxes to state governments.

15 - The Tobacco Paradigm

The United States' fragmented, piecemeal approach to environmental law is presented through the cases that led to the creation of major environmental statutes such as the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The variety of federal agencies and levels of government that participate in creating and implementing regulation contribute to the fragmentation of American environmental law. Environmental law seeks to balance the costs of environmental degradation with the economic benefits that companies reap. However, the uncertainty of environmental costs leads to a slow and ineffective regulation process.

02 - Principals and Strategies in Environmental Law

Professor John Wargo introduces the central question of the course, "Can law shape a sustainable future for ten billion people?" The purpose of the course is to examine the most important U.S. laws adopted over the past forty years, and to evaluate their effectiveness. Lectures will present histories of nuclear experimentation, industrial and organic agriculture, air quality, plastics, wilderness, green building certification, and land use regulation. By the end of the course students will be exposed to diverse statutory and regulatory strategies to prevent pollution, reduce wastes, protect human health, conserve energy, and to protect wild lands.

01 - Course Overview: Science and Law

The lecture discusses developments in air quality monitoring and regulation in the United States, with an emphasis on regulating vehicle emissions. Monitoring takes place at fixed points with results being averaged over three years, and this data informs air quality standard setting. Studies have found that this form of monitoring underreports the amount of pollution that children and other susceptible populations (i.e. bus and truck drivers) are exposed to. Professor Wargo details ways in which individuals are exposed to heightened air pollution on a daily basis and the policy responses at the federal, state, and local levels.

13 - Vehicle Emissions and Public Transit

The lecture describes the Clean Air Act and the way the federal government measures air quality as well as improvements in air quality. Professor Wargo reviews challenges in regulating air quality, reasons for lack of adequate enforcement, and approaches to setting ambient air quality standards. The lecture focuses predominantly on vehicle emissions, and the difficulty that regulators face when trying to decrease particulate matter expelled by cars. The public health impacts of poor air quality, particularly in urban areas, are discussed as well.

12 - Air Quality Law: Margins of Safety

The lecture reviews water law in the United States, and highlights challenges inherent in regulating water quality. Aging water infrastructure, pesticide and herbicide application, and surface water runoff all pose challenges in maintaining a clean drinking water supply. The lecture covers pesticide management through the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). The management of pesticides and herbicides in drinking water has been heavily influenced by the economic concerns of pesticide and herbicide users as well as the municipal water agencies charged with testing water regularly for regulated chemicals. The lecture concludes with the regulation history of atrazine, a commonly used herbicide that research has shown to be hormonally active.

10 - Safe Drinking Water: Science and Law

This lecture presents three cases: Bates v. Dow, a lawsuit brought by peanut growers against the producers of a pesticide that degraded their soil; the Alar case, in which environmental organizations and the media successfully pressured EPA to ban a carcinogenic pesticide used on apples; and the Texas Cattlemen's Association's lawsuit against Oprah Winfrey for her coverage of Mad Cow Disease. Using these three cases, Professor Wargo discusses the legal concepts of preemption and defamation. He gives an overview of their origin and use in regulating agriculture and protecting human health and the environment. Through the Texas Cattlemen's Association case, he shows the effect of state "veggie libel" laws on free speech.

11 - Safety Claims and Free Speech: Preemption and Defamation

The change from smaller, more diverse farms to larger single-crop farms in the US has led to greater reliance on pesticides for pest management. Other changes as the US food system becomes more commercialized include: increased use of additives, higher food prices, more water and energy consumption for agriculture, and more pesticide residues entering food through processing. Pesticides have also been used to combat insect-borne diseases, like malaria. The lecture provides an overview of relevant food, agriculture, and pesticide law, and covers the changes in pesticide use as scientific knowledge of a given chemical (i.e. DDT) improves.

08 - Chemically Dependent Agriculture

The lecture charts the evolution of pesticide regulation in the United States. The evolution of the management and regulation of pesticides reflects changes in scientific understanding of pesticides as well as changes in human values. As technology allowed for testing of pesticides at smaller and smaller concentrations, restrictions on pesticide use grew. The government's growing understanding of cumulative risk also has led to changes in pesticide testing and regulation.

09 - Risk and Law: Pesticide Paradigm

The military's use of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques as a training site is discussed to highlight the challenges involved in identifying and restoring hazardous sites. Political opposition is faced while attempting to get a site recognized as hazardous, deciding how to compensate those affected, and determining an appropriate level of environmental restoration. The recurring theme of government secrecy and its effect on efforts to protect the environment is also covered during this lecture, as the US military is reluctant to allow researchers to examine testing grounds. The reclamation of these sites involves many environmental statutes, including the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

06 - Marine Food Chains: Mercury

Environmental Politics and Law - Video

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