From historic regulatory rollbacks to less visible hopeful signs, UCLA School of Law faculty are available to discuss the legal and policy context of the 56th Earth Day, April 22. Contact info below, or for personal assistance: media@law.ucla.edu or Carl Marziali carl@lindavistapr.com, Geoffrey Baum geoff@lindavistapr.com, or Evan George, Emmett Institute on Climate Change & the Environment george@law.ucla.edu.

The Undercurrent of Resistance on this Earth Day

The invisible undercurrents of today become the dominant waves of tomorrow. What we call "legal imagination" — the creative development and testing of new legal tools, doctrines, and governance arrangements — rarely announces its victories in advance. The first Earth Day succeeded not because of spontaneous outrage alone, but because (of) a decade of preparatory work. --Alejandro Camacho

Alejandro Camacho is a Professor of Law affiliated with the Emmett Institute on Climate Change & the Environment, and co-author of Lessons for a Warming Planet: A Vital History of US Environmental Law. He has studied the full sweep of environmental law in the country’s history, and finds reason for hope on one of the bleakest Earth Days for the environmental movement. Contact: camacho@law.ucla.edu

One Less Visible Sign: Clear Air Over Los Angeles

The story of how Southern California cleaned up its air is centrally a story about how government at the local, state, and ultimately federal level worked for decades to solve a remarkably complex and intractable problem. Governments acted because of incredible public support and pressure to do something. The Los Angeles story shows that ambitious policy drives innovation and that even in the face of powerful industry opposition, the public matters — a lot. --Ann Carlson

Ann Carlson is the Shirley Shapiro Professor of Environmental Law, founding director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, and a former acting administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. She is an expert on clean air regulations and author of Smog and Sunshine: The Surprising Story of How Los Angeles Cleaned Up its Air. Contact: carlson@law.ucla.edu

Chinese Green Energy Threatens America’s Post-War Narrative

The story America told itself in past decades was that it was a beacon of freedom and progress, and the other side represented control and stagnation. In recent years, America and China have been developing a new story in the environmental context that threatens to upend those roles. --Alex Wang

Alex L. Wang is a professor at UCLA School of Law and the author of Chinese Global Environmentalism. He can discuss the emergence of two powerful, opposing forces: Chinese global environmentalism and American carbon coercion. Contact: wang@law.ucla.edu

When Carbon Offsets Become Carbon Colonialism

Carbon markets depend on the fiction that planting trees in Kenya or preserving forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo can meaningfully compensate for the ongoing combustion of fossil fuels in industrialized economies. They cannot. Meanwhile, the people living on the land that carbon markets covet are paying a devastating price. --Kate Mackintosh

Kate Mackintosh is executive director of The Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA School of Law (Europe), based in The Netherlands. The Promise Institute focuses on the intersection of international human rights law, international criminal law, and environmental protection, and advocates for the codification of a new international crime of ecocide. In an amicus brief to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Mackintosh and her co-authors argue that carbon offset markets are enabling colonialist land grabs for illusory climate benefits. Contact: mackintosh@law.ucla.edu

When CO2 Reductions Are Not Enough

Between 2001 and now, the fraction of sunlight reflected by the Earth has decreased from 29.3% to 28.6%. That change is huge. It’s similar to the change in reflectivity that would come from scenarios of stratospheric aerosol injection that would aim to cool the Earth a degree or so – except that it’s in the wrong direction. --Ted Parson

Edward (Ted) Parson is the Distinguished Dan and Rae Emmett Professor of Environmental Law and faculty director of the Emmett Institute. Parson is the world’s leading expert on legal and governance issues raised by climate engineering technologies, including geoengineering and Earth system interventions. He also specializes in the emerging opportunities to address global warming by reducing emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. He has worked and consulted for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress and the U.N. Environment Programme, among others. Contact: parson@law.ucla.edu

Additional UCLA Law Experts

UCLA School of Law faculty are available to comment on a wide range of international and domestic legal issues shaping the current political landscape, including international law and the law of armed conflict, presidential and executive power, foreign relations law, election regulation, constitutional law, and federal–state relations.

Media Contacts: media@law.ucla.edu

Carl Marziali carl@lindavistapr.com 

Geoffrey Baum geoff@lindavistapr.com