What the Frack?!?

I thought technological advances were supposed to lead to a cleaner, greener way of life. Turns out America, the oil and gas addict, has just used these advances to wring every last drop of gas out of our land. Our newest peddler goes by the name of hydraulic fracturing. Oil and gas companies drill down into coal beds and marcellus shale, they then pump massive amounts of water filled with sand, lubrication and various chemical cocktails down into the shale and coal formations. The hydraulic pressure fractures the formation and the sand and chemicals hold the fractures open, allowing the companies to extract natural gas from the well. Genuine proponents of natural gas and fracking, who are not just benefiting monetarily from the practice, cite fracking as a temporary stopover between obtaining our energy from petroleum and coal and the clean, green future. Natural gas emits 30% less CO2 than petroleum and 45% less than coal. Plus we can get it right here in the States, which creates jobs at home and avoids funding the wars against us in the Middle East.
But if the Massey Coal Mine disaster in West Virginia and the BP oil spill this year taught us anything (jury is out on whether it has), it is both that the Earth is a powerful thing and manipulating its resources must be done with extreme caution and also, that industries with massive monetary incentives are willing to plow recklessly toward the money and must be regulated by a thoughtful and independent agency.

The problem with fracking is that it prolongs our dependence on fossil fuels, consumes vast amounts of water, contaminates that water and cannot account for it all staying out of our homes and communities. The other problem with fracking is that we don't know what the problem with fracking is yet. Industry cannot be allowed to plow forward until the full implications of pumping chemical-filled water into the ground and fracturing rock formations in order to release gas are known. Even the casual bystander has to have their trepidations about the process.

In areas of the country where hydraulic fracturing has been taking place, citizens report their water turning cloudy with grayish sediment..frothy, brown, slimy, oily, odiforous... Citizens report fishkills, wells drying up, trees and grass dying, getting blisters from their showers...the list goes on. And this water cannot be contained.
Companies attempt to pump the water back to the surface but some is left "stranded, meaning they could contaminate groundwater far in the future as the water table rises. Some water will just naturally make its way through an unseen crack in the rock formation. And even if the water goes down and comes back up according to plan, 60,000 to 150,000 gallons of water per well, will be drawn from somewhere in our environment, filled with chemicals, gel and sand and then processed (our water treatment systems do not currently have the capacity to treat this much water) and put back into our environment.



In 2005, Congress exempted fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act, thereby washing their hands of the issue. This is unacceptable as the National Petroleum Council estimates that sixty to eighty percent of all wells drilled in the next decade will require fracturing, and is not occurring in isolation of humanity. Once again, environmental regulation has been left to the states. New York, has actually been slow to allow hydraulic fracturing and this is in part due to the states mini-NEPA (SEQRA), which requires an environmental impact assessment before drilling commences. The draft of the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement was posted by the NY Department of Environmental Protection on September 30, 2009 and the comment period ended two months later, this updated the 1992 statement which did not address horizontal drilling or high volume hydraulic fracking. The DEP is still going through the many comments they received on the draft.

In the meantime, however, those applying for a permit to drill will be able to go forward under the current Mineral Resources regulation program which requires an individual, site-specific environmental review. The New York State Assembly, however, overwhelmingly passed legislation on June 14, 2010 placing a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing until a closer review of its effects can be undertaken. The moratorium would have lasted until May 15, 2011. On December 13, 2010, however, Governor Patterson vetoed the bill and enacted an Executive Order. The Order institutes a moratorium until July 1, 2011 but is only on horizontal wells.



The same issues of drinking water contamination and other water problems have been linked to vertical wells. Vertical wells, go straight down and have one contact point with the rock formation, while horizontal wells go down and then run through the natural gas-holding formation. Further, gas companies have already threatened to drill vertically and then convert those wells to horizontal wells as soon as the moratorium ends.

The EPA is in the midst of a two-year investigation of hydraulic fracturing and its potential effects on groundwater. The preliminary investigation included public meetings in many of the affected areas of the country, including Binghamton, New York. The public meetings occurred this past summer and the study will commence in early 2011 with the results expected by the end of 2012. The next governor would do well by repealing the Order and waiting for the finalized DEP Supplemental GEIS as well as the EPA study. This technology puts too much at risk to allow industry giants to shove us toward another disaster.

Pass the Buck

In 1986, the Khian Sea, a cargo ship, was loaded with some 14,000 tons of toxic incinerator ash in Philadelphia and sent to the Bahamas to dispose of it. They were turned away by many islands until the Haitian government issued a permit after the Khian Sea deceived the Haitians telling them the ash was a useful fertilizer. Greenpeace alerted the Haitian government after the Khian Sea had placed several tons of ash on the beach. The government revoked the permit and ordered the removal of the ash. The ship, however, disappeared in the night, leaving behind several tons of toxic ash that remains on a Haitian beach today. It is largely believed that the remainder of the ash was dumped in the Indian Ocean.


This tragic, and all too common event, led to the creation of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal (Basel Convention), in 1989. Like many other international treaties, it was designed with substantial input from the U.S. government, in this case, the Reagan Administration. And like other treaties, it remains on the shelf in the U.S. Congress, because while it has been signed, Congress has failed to ratify it by properly amending our domestic hazardous waste laws, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Representatives Greene and Thompson recently introduced legislation that would allow ratification. Further, EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, has listed "cleaning up e-waste" as a top priority.

However, while the Basel Convention has been ratified by over 170 countries, the U.S. is in the company of Haiti and Afghanistan as the only countries that have failed to ratify. The Convention controls the trade of hazardous waste from more developed to less developed countries. So while most of the world has made great strides in keeping hazardous waste from being dumped on countries that are desperate and unable to safely process the waste, the United States has moved from dumping ash on countries to dumping electronic waste on them.

In 2007, the EPA estimated that the United States generated over 3 million tons of e-waste. Where do our computers, cell phones and monitors go when we throw them out or donate them? The scary truth is that many times they are thrown on a cargo ship like the Khian Sea and sent to a developing nation. There, workers, including children, are exposed to toxic chemicals as the electronics are burned in open pits or placed in acid baths to separate the metals. This exposure leads to organ and nerve damage in local workers and is devastating to the surrounding environment. With cheap labor and lax environmental regulations these developing nations find it worthwhile to mine the waste for valuable substances.

E-waste is the fastest growing waste stream in the United States and there is currently no framework to oversee its safe disposal. Corporations are not held accountable for their unsustainable production of electronics. Technology is loaded with hazardous substances and becomes obsolete to the point that it is less expensive to buy a new device than to repair the old. The corporations then bear no responsibility when the electronic must be disposed of.

This issue is maddening (if you click on one link click on this one) and is indicative of systemic problems currently facing the U.S. First, somehow the corporate interests are overwhelming the common sense inclination to keep our country from pouring toxic waste on developing nations. An unregulated free market will dump toxic waste on starving orphans....and it is! Second, the U.S. Congress confuses making a free will decision to tackle international issues with international solutions with submitting to the will of "the international community" (how that became a dirty phrase in politics, I will never know). Judith Resnik, et al. recently tackled the same irrational fears regarding the Kyoto Protocol discussing the inability of any issue to be truly local or national or international in todays flat world. Politicians must reframe our role within the international community from a potential dangerous submission to merely voluntary cooperation and one of many checks on our "balanced" government.

Similar to regulating carbon, states, recently including New York, have taken the lead in attempting to regulate their disposal of e-waste. But these regulations are leading to an indecipherable web of inconsistent rules that no one can follow. It is time for common sense, sustainable solutions to overcome the corporate interest of putting a product in the consumers hands without bearing any responsibility for what's in it or where it ends up.

RCRA establishes regulations on treatment, storage, transport and disposal of hazardous waste but it only regulates industry. Congress must amend RCRA to encompass electronic waste from households and place the responsibility where is belongs, with those that set the wheel in motion, the corporations. Corporations must provide free recycling for electronic waste and be held accountable for their share of the electronic waste stream. Further, electronics contain lead, cadmium, mercury and other toxic metals and flame retardants that are unnecessary. These hazardous substances must be banned so that when a computer monitor somehow makes its way to a landfill it will not leach these substances into the environment. These substances are already banned in the EU, so it is possible. Finally, the Basel Convention must be ratified to assure that the developing world does not end up serving as a landfill for the developed world.

NYC Takes Matters Into Its Own Hands

Some New Yorkers may forget, amidst the taxis, skyscrapers and concrete, but city-living is eco-living. Cities use land and resources very efficiently. New Yorkers crowd onto the subway and engage in carpooling en masse. Many buildings taking up merely an acre of land and house hundreds of people, thereby preventing urban sprawl and the destruction of green space.
The problem is that the City’s rich industrial history has contaminated a great deal of land and any developer that touches it may incur CERCLA (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act) liability. 42 U.S.C. § 9601. CERCLA, more commonly known as Superfund, imposes strict liability for clean up to, among others, current site owners. Liability became so great in some instances that owners abandoned their property altogether, leaving open, and many times seeping, sores throughout the City.

These sores, better known as brownfields, are defined under New York’s Environmental Conservation law as: “any real property, the development or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a contaminant.” N.Y. Envtl. Conserv. Law § 27-1405-2. To encourage the development of brownfields, the New York State Legislature enacted the Brownfield Cleanup Program Act in 2003, and authorized the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to administer the program. The Program limits liability for participants in addition to providing tax credits. The Program, however, can be cumbersome, the tax credits accumulate faster than the State budget can handle and the prerequisites for entering the program are very stringent.

By 2030, New York City expects to add nearly one million people and according to Mayor Blumberg’s sustainability plan, PlaNYC, the City may currently have 7600 acres of brownfields. Most of New York City’s brownfields, however, do not qualify for the State Program. The City’s brownfields generally have historic fill, petroleum spills, e-designations (notice of the presence of an environmental requirement pertaining to potentially hazardous materials, contamination, or noise or air quality impacts on a particular tax lot) and other forms of moderate contamination that do not rise to the level necessary to enroll in the State Program.

Land values are so high in New York City, however, that tax incentives may not be necessary to induce developers. Release from liability under the State Superfund Program may suffice. To that end, the City Council passed the New York City Brownfield and Community Revitalization Act (NYC BCP), which created the Mayor’s Office of Environmental Remediation (OER) in 2009. In October 2009, the OER adopted the Local Brownfield Cleanup Program Requirements. NEW YORK, N.Y., R.C.N.Y., tit. 43, ch. 14 § 43.

NYC BCP is open to all real property in the City except for those already enrolled in the State Program, those on the DEC’s Registry of Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Sites and those subject to various other state and federal lists and enforcement. OER may also reject an application upon a determination that the public interest would not be served. Applicants must schedule a pre-application meeting with OER and bring with them a pre-application worksheet summarizing development plans and any known environmental information for the site. After discussing the suitability of the site for the NYC BCP, the OER may issue a pre-enrollment letter of intent to work with the developer. The applicant must then prepare a Local Brownfield Clean Up Agreement, Remedial Investigation Report, Remedial Action Plan, a Citizen Participation Plan, a proposed document repository, a draft fact sheet and an application. The Clean Up Agreement describes the site boundaries and provides the City with access to the site along with any environmental reports or tests and includes a one thousand dollar enrollment fee. The fee may be waived in certain circumstances, such as when the site is used for affordable housing or community buildings. A Remedial Investigation Report defines the extent and type of contamination and is used to select an appropriate remedy. The Report must identify all sources of potential contamination based on a review of past use, define the contamination vertically and laterally, contain a human health exposure assessment, define the contaminants effect on surrounding media and contain sufficient data to support the Reports conclusions. The Remedial Action Work Plan (RAWP) describes all actions necessary to render the site safe for the environment, public health and its intended use. The Plan is subject to a 30-day public comment period and must be approved by OER. The Plan may also include a Sustainability Statement, however, it is not required. The Citizen Participant Plan includes providing a public document repository with all site documents as well as the creation of a Site Contact List, which includes all owners and occupants of property adjacent to the site, administrators of nearby schools, hospitals, day care centers, local community boards and elected officials. Individuals can also request to be place on the List. A fact sheet is provided to everyone on the list before the RAWP 30 day comment period, at the beginning of remedial action and at the completion of remedial action.

If OER approves the application the enrollee remains responsible for obtaining all necessary permits. An NYC Green Team, however, has been created within OER to assist enrollees in obtaining all necessary permits. When remedial action is complete the enrollee must submit a Remedial Action Report. This Report will include any engineering controls and institutional controls used to protect the area surrounding the site from residual contamination along with the mechanisms that will be implemented to monitor, maintain and report on these controls. The Report will also include a Site Management Plan, which will provide for periodic inspections to protect the public and environment. The enrollee must also file an OER-approved Declaration of Covenants and Restrictions with the local recording office, which will run with the property and allow OER access to the site for inspection purposes. At this time, the OER will issue a Notice of Completion that acknowledges that the enrollee has no further environmental liability with the City and is assignable to the enrollee’s successors and assigns which take title to the site.


The issue then, is whether there will be any State liability. OER is working closely with the DEC to ensure that compliance with NYC BCP will eliminate all brownfield liability for developers. A Memorandum of Agreement between DEC and OER dated August 5, 2010, states that the DEC “[g]enerally…agrees that a site is of no further interest and it does not plan or anticipate taking administrative or judicial enforcement action seeking to require a removal or remedial action under CERCLA… or the ECL” while a site is in compliance with NYC BCP. The DEC, however, goes on to state that they are not granting liability releases under BCP and they can take action where they deem appropriate. The City is the first in the nation to partner with the State on a regulatory framework to cleanup brownfields and the first site is already enrolled; the MJM Construction is slated to open the Pelham Parkway Towers, an affordable housing complex, in the Bronx in June 2011.

The Clean Development Mechanism

This past semester, my last at Villanova Law, I took an International Environmental Law course. While enrolled in this course I wrote an article entitled, Sustainable Solutions: A Holistic Proposal for Clean Development Mechanism Reform.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a compromise under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce the price of meeting emissions caps by Annex I Parties (developed country members) as well as provide investment for non-Annex I Parties (developing and undeveloped members). It was very hard to get developed and less developed countries on the same page when negotiating the Kyoto Protocol. The position of the developed countries is 1) it is too expensive to make the emissions cuts required and 2) climate change is a worldwide problem and there are emerging economies that are not under caps and are pouring out greenhouse gasses, we need a way to get these countries under caps. They want them under caps for two reasons: 1) to solve climate change and 2) they think that non-capped countries will have an economic advantage.

Developing and underdeveloped countries on the other hand say to developed countries, "This is your fault, you clean it up. We are just starting to turn our lights on and you can't place expensive caps on us after getting rich on cheap dirty fuels for the past 100 years."



The CDM is the compromise between these two positions. Under the Kyoto Protocol the Annex I countries must reduce their emissions by a certain percentage. They can do this by taking action at home and because of the CDM they can also do it by creating projects in non-Annex I countries. It is generally less expensive to reduce emissions in less developed countries because their infrastructure can be out of date, therefore a cheap fix can reduce a lot of emissions. When these projects reduce emissions the Annex I country gets the credits and can put it toward their emissions reduction commitments.

The problems for the CDM lie in the fact that they are required to implement sustainable projects that are equitably distributed. The CDM has no mechanism for incentivizing these requirements. Therefore, the majority of projects are located where the most emissions are including China, India, Brazil and Mexico.


Also, renewable energy projects, which are more expensive to create are losing out super-pollutant reduction with few co-benefits. Sub-saharan Africa is not receiving much aid at all and is therefore falling even farther behind while investments are flowing into countries that are economically stable. The CDM also does not account for the social and environmental damage done when, under its auspices, hydrodams wipe out ecosystems or large corporations buy up swaths of land in exchange for very little.

A brilliant article that informs my article and frames a potential mechanism to incorporate sustainability and geographic distribution is, John Copeland Nagle's article: Discounting China's CDM Dams.


The commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012. If the climate regime is to avoid exacerbating inequities and taking the easy route for the sake of immediate gratification over sustainable solutions the CDM must be reformed. My article provides an introduction to the CDM and its role in the climate regime, looks at its successes and shortcomings and proposes two complementary reforms that would create a comprehensive and equitable solution.

BTLB: The Article; Updated

An article I completed in December, 2009, Signing the New Social Contract: Energy Efficient Light Bulbs Won’t Cut it Anymore - Exploring the Path Toward Officially Combating Global Climate Change was partially the inspiration for this blog. I wanted to continue the conversation. And as with everything "climate change", it is out of date before it is printed. This post will serve as an update to that article. The article made a general argument about human consumption, American culture and the need for stepping stones on the path to necessary, binding climate legislation. I separated the article into three sections: Executive (EPA), Judicial (public nuisance cases) and Legislative (the cap and trade bill) and I'll do the same here, providing a brief update on each (this is best read and understood in conjunction with the article).

EPA:



Our friends at the EPA are moving cautiously to apply the Endangerment Finding. They are facing a great deal of push back from Congress. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) continues to rail against the EPA and West Virginia Sen. John Rockefeller (D) has issued a plan that would suspend EPA action in order to give Congress more time to act on the climate and energy bill. The EPA is still methodically moving forward while maintaining their desire for a more complete solution from Congress. EPA Administrator Jackson issued a letter last month responding to inquiries from Sen. Rockefeller and followed up at the beginning of the month by clarifying what the new regulations will look like pursuant to the Endangerment Finding: Admn. Jackson stated, "If you're smaller than 75,000 tons for the next two years, you would not need a permit," and said her comments applied to the years 2011-2012. Two-thirds of the stationary-source emissions are from sources emitting more than 100,000 tons per year, she said. The EPA says it intends to pursue regulation of smaller sources after 2016. The hope, however, is that legislation will be in place before then that will make these regulation irrelevant.

Public Nuisance Cases:

Connecticut v. American Electric Power: The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected on March 5 requests both for rehearing by the original panel and for en banc review by the entire panel of circuit judges. The Second Circuit’s rehearing denial in American Electric Power started running a 90-day clock within which the defendants may petition for review by the U.S. Supreme Court.


Native Village of Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corporation: This case is currently being briefed in the Ninth Circuit. The Native Village is asking the court to overturn a dismissal at the district court level.

Comer v. Murphy Oil: The Fifth Circuit vacated its original decision and agreed to rehear that matter en banc. In the October 2009 Comer decision, the Fifth Circuit allowed a putative class of Gulf Coast residents and property owners to proceed with a suit against energy, fossil fuel, and chemical companies for Hurricane Katrina damage.

Cap and Trade?:



Cap and trade is dead. This is the greatest change since my article was written. A new plan is going to be introduced in April. That plan, still being written, will include a cap on greenhouse gas emissions only for utilities, at least at first, with other industries phased in perhaps years later. It is also said to include a modest tax on gasoline, diesel fuel and aviation fuel, accompanied by new incentives for oil and gas drilling, nuclear power plant construction, carbon capture and storage, and renewable energy sources like wind and solar. But perhaps like health reform, we must start small to get somewhere big. The environmental laws passed in the 70's were a shadow of what they have become and we can only hope that the same will be true if this new bill makes its way through.

Think Green

Alright, I loved Avatar. There I said it, and I mean it. The movie was a clever, overdone, parody, of the human incapability to live in harmony with their surroundings, and I appreciated it. Spoiler Alert: At the end of the film, the main character, Jake Sully, has shed his barbaric notions of nature existing for human exploitation and accepted his role as a piece of nature's interconnected web. The part that really struck me, however, that was he chose to leave behind his Earthly body in exchange for his Avatar of a Na'vi humanoid body, even though truly it was only a body and his mind had long been converted. It led me to wonder if there is something about being a human that is innately incompatible with environmentalism.

There are two components to understanding the incompatibility: self-interest and lack of foresight (what I affectionately refer to as the Wal-Mart couch phenomenon).

That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. -Aristotle

The first component was most famously describe in Garrett Hardin's, 1968 article, The Tragedy of the Commons. The article explains that when there is a resource open to the public, individuals acting rationally, will exploit and deplete the resource even when it is in no one's best interest for it to no longer exist. Central to the article is an example regarding a shared pasture where farmers allow their cows to graze but put so many cows in the pasture that it turns into a useless dust bowl. It remains rational however, to continue adding cows up to that point, because the individual receives all of the benefit of the additional cow being able to graze and the damage caused is shared by all. In the realm of climate change and the enormous atmospheric commons the only way to protect the common is to charge a fee at the door.

The political will to regulate the climate commons, however, must be driven by the public and with each successive snow storm, Americans are making my head spin. Climate change is a global, transgenerational issue that will require up front investment for long term gains. Humans are not wired for these issues. This is why Wal-Mart, and other stores like it, are so successful in my estimation. Americans would rather buy a new couch every five years for less than save up and make the initial investment in a couch whose frame has a lifetime guarantee and won't need to be reupholstered for twenty years. (Caveat: I realize that this hypothetical is problematic for low-income people but I use it as a broader metaphor for American foresight).

As explained in Al Gore's, Our Choice and well as in the recent study by the American Psychology Association, humans are wired for automatic responses to things such as snakes, cars speeding toward them and the smell of fire. These survival responses are unsuited to motivating the behaviors necessary to combat climate change (or health care reform, i.e. preventative medicine). It is unfortunate to think that local floods, droughts, storms and species extinction may be necessary for the survival response to kick in. But that may be the case and even more disconcerting is that current weather events are being misunderstood. The harsh winter which has dumped record snow totals on the mid-Atlantic has been used by climate change deniers to fuel skeptics. A parody of this logic was artfully done on a recent Daily Show episode. Weather is a collection of short term events while climate change is a general trend over years. The two must not be confused.

A recent article in the New York Times Magazine entitled "Is There an Ecological Unconscious?" , however, gives some hope to those of us who wish humanity would make a "Jake Sully" conversion without avatars. Being human may not be entirely incompatible with environmentalism after all. The article explains that humans are more at ease when they are

living sustainably and an emerging field of ecopsychologists believe that growing grief, despair and anxiety are consequences of dismissing deep-rooted ecological instincts." The article goes on to explain that over the past hundred years humans have engaged in a mind - body split, which gives them free reign to destroy the world. Humans, and Americans in particular, need to embrace the interdependence of our actions on the world around us. Further it needs to be made abundantly clear that investments today will save a great deal in the future as the environment is tied not only to our mind's ease but also our wallets.

The Center for Research on Environmental Decisions has compiled a useful guide on climate change communication. It is important to show Americans that it is in their self interest to combat climate change as well as mend the split between mind and nature and use it to propel the essential energy revolution. Change only emerges when the public demands it and therefore the first step must be fostering a change in mindset and a true understanding of climate change realities throughout the general public. This can no longer be a political issue. Americans react when matters are close to home. Arguments abound for combatting climate change (scientific, economic, moral, national security, ecological, psychological, allergies...) and one or a combination should reach even the most skeptical.

Reducing the Risk Surplus

On New Years Eve I was driving to Vermont to meet up with my college friends for a good 'ol fashioned 'Barn Dance.' Everything on the radio was feeling very profound, most likely a combination of my own year end self-reflection and a marketing ploy that had read my mind and tapped right into it. And what better to get me going than the author of "The Big Questions," Steven Landsburg telling me to think hard about what kind of lawyer I wanted to be on NPR's Talk of the Nation.

Landsburg, has come up with what he calls, "the economist's golden rule." The rule states that you should account for the effects you are having on other people the same that you account the effects on yourself. Now while he admits that this is not always possible, human nature is such that some things are more important to you

than the general public, it serves as an interesting guidepost and perhaps an even more interesting experiment. Even just thinking about what that would look like may surprise you. I encourage you to engage in the experiment and let me in on any epiphanies! I plan on doing the same.

But Landsburg went on: Can you be a lawyer and follow the economists golden rule? Many lawyers just transfer wealth from one individual or company to another and some defend actions that are clearly not in the best interest of other people as a whole. So Lansburg left me with: You can be a lawyer and follow the rule but you must think hard about the kind of lawyer you want to be. To follow the rule you must leave the world wealthier than you found it.

So I thought about my career path, as an aspiring environmental attorney, and how I could formulate an economic framework that would allow me to determine by the end of it whether I had followed the economist's golden rule.

In his new book, What the Dog Saw, Malcom Gladwell revamps an old New Yorker article entitled Blowup. In the article he discusses the work Target Risk by Gerald Wilde. I discovered within the chapter an opportunity to calculate my effect. What Wilde observed throughout the course of his work, looking at human reaction to risk, was that changes that one would think would make conditions safer don't. For example when anti-lock breaks were installed in taxis there were more accidents! The drivers felt safer and therefore they drove faster and more recklessly. Humans have a tendency to want to consume the savings they acquire by reducing risk and therefore act more dangerously in some other area. In Sweden in the 1960s the government switched the side of the road people drove on and accidents went down, people were more uncomfortable and therefore more cautious. Some argue that this creates risk-homeostasis, however in the realm of climate change and energy consumption I would argue we are running a risk surplus and don't even realize we're driving on the wrong side of the road!

Energy consumption is increasing despite 2009 being the hottest year on record in the Southern Hemisphere. Moreso, consumption of as Tom Friedman calls them in Hot, Flat and Crowded, the fuels from hell, is increasing faster than the consumption of renewable fuels. This is why small positive action (recycling) cannot be a license for large negative action (driving an SUV), we cannot cash in small environmental victories for even more dangerous behavior. We need to act like we are driving on the wrong side of the road and we need to do it for a long time.

So as an environmental attorney my goal is to reduce the risk surplus by reminding my clients and adversaries and anyone who will listen that unsustainable behavior is dangerous and limited responsibility cannot be cashed in for recklessness.

Signing the New Social Contract

Last semester I wrote an article under the guidance of Professor Todd Aagaard at VLS. The article is entitled Signing the New Social Contract: Energy Efficient Light Bulbs Won't Cut it Anymore. The article argues that while the 'Go Green' movement marks significant progress in the mindset of the citizen-consumer and corporate America that mindset must be met by real and significant commitments. The article calls for comprehensive climate change legislation but envisions the new EPA regulations and climate change court cases as stepping stones that will bring the citizen-consumer, corporate America and the US government face-to-face thus forcing them to acknowledge the need to legislation specifically tailored to climate change. Two articles in particular helped shape my argument that these three entities need to be brought together in a mutually reinforcing way and that the leap from socially conscience behavior to real commitments is necessary to combat climate change. They are The Responsibility Revolution and A New Social Contract. I hope you enjoy the article.

Bright Idea

Welcome to Beyond the Light Bulb. I have decided that the new year and a new decade deserve a new and more dedicated way of thinking from me. My resolution this year is to truly THINK HARD. And it is through BTLB that I hope to accomplish this. My mission is to provide a jumping point for critical thought and discussion. This is a blog about global climate change, but more importantly, about global climate change in context. No problem, and certainly no problem this massive, occurs in isolation. I come across interesting people and ideas on a day-to-day basis; BTLB will challenge me to go beyond these initial bright ideas connect them to other bright ideas and place them within their larger societal, economic, political, legal and environmental context. Further, I refuse to accept easy solutions to global climate change. They do not exist. There are small things (like energy-efficient light bulbs) that can add up to big things, but the scale and scope of the necessary changes are mind boggling. Researchers at the Carbon Mitigation Initiative have put together a helpful resource they call stabilization wedges that help to comprehend the enormity of the challenge we face. It is with this enormity that I will go forward in trying to connect some of the dots within the Green Revolution. I will go beyond the initial bright ideas and the easy solutions, I will go beyond the light bulb and I hope you will join me.