Adaptive Law in the Anthropocene

The sky has fallen. We are now firmly rooted in a new epoch scientists have named the Anthropocene, where the activities of humans will most certainly negatively impact the trajectory of Earth and its inhabitants. What the Anthropocene fully holds is uncertain, but there are a few clues. The global ecology is shifting. The oceans are dying. The planet is getting hotter and drier, and its storms increasingly volatile. Amidst this changing climate is evidence of a failed approach to economic development in the Global South. Globally, the poor are becoming poorer. Inequality reigns as the global economy shrinks. This thought piece and essay explores these twin issues—human-created climate change and neoliberal economic development—and argues that they are linked in ways not fully addressed by the emerging discourse on climate change adaptation. In particular, this essay argues that reliance on neoliberal economic development institutions and methodologies to engage in the climate change adaptation project will render states in the Global South even more vulnerable and less resilient in the face of climate change. This essay offers a preliminary agenda and suggested starting points for scholars seeking to apply adaptive legal principles to international development

Mexican Energy Reform, Climate Change, and Energy Justice in Indigenous Communities

Mexico’s recent energy reform portends a new era of private engagement in the oil and gas sectors. According to government officials and industry leaders, the opening of energy reserves for private development will spur economic growth and establish the country as a leader in the energy arena. This article examines whether the reforms could also lead to community-led growth in the renewable energy sector, specifically in Oaxaca, Mexico, which has been identified as one of the windiest places in the world and is currently already the site of extensive wind energy development. Building on my prior work exploring the impact of renewable energy development on indigenous communities in Oaxaca, this article presents a framework to explore the aspects of the energy reform that could lead to greater participation in renewable energy development by communities who have historically disproportionately borne the brunt of the country’s energy development in the country. This article utilizes the theory of energy justice, which incorporates principles of environmental justice and climate justice as well as energy democracy, to consider whether opening the Mexican energy market to private participation and increased competition in the electricity sector could render communities more resilient in the face of climate change and better able to meet their energy needs

Beyond Zero-Sum Environmentalism

Environmental law and environmental protection are often portrayed as requiring trade offs: “jobs versus environment,” “markets versus regulation,” “enforcement versus incentives .” In the summer of 2016, members of the Environmental Law Collaborative gathered to consider how environmentalism and environmental regulation can advance beyond this framing to include new constituents and offer new pathways to tackle the many significant challenges ahead . Months later, the initial activities of the Trump Administration highlighted the use of zero-sum rhetoric, with the appointment of government officials and the issuance of executive orders that indeed seem to view environmental issues as in a zero-sum relationship with jobs or economic progress . In the essays below, the authors explore the meaning and the role of zero-sum environmentalism as a first step in moving beyond it

Adaptive Law in the Anthropocene

The sky has fallen. We are now firmly rooted in a new epoch scientists have named the Anthropocene, where the activities of humans will most certainly negatively impact the trajectory of Earth and its inhabitants. What the Anthropocene fully holds is uncertain, but there are a few clues. The global ecology is shifting. The oceans are dying. The planet is getting hotter and drier, and its storms increasingly volatile. Amidst this changing climate is evidence of a failed approach to economic development in the Global South. Globally, the poor are becoming poorer. Inequality reigns as the global economy shrinks. This thought piece and essay explores these twin issues—human-created climate change and neoliberal economic development—and argues that they are linked in ways not fully addressed by the emerging discourse on climate change adaptation. In particular, this essay argues that reliance on neoliberal economic development institutions and methodologies to engage in the climate change adaptation project will render states in the Global South even more vulnerable and less resilient in the face of climate change. This essay offers a preliminary agenda and suggested starting points for scholars seeking to apply adaptive legal principles to international development

Beyond Zero-Sum Environmentalism

Environmental law and environmental protection are often portrayed as requiring trade offs: “jobs versus environment,” “markets versus regulation,” “enforcement versus incentives .” In the summer of 2016, members of the Environmental Law Collaborative gathered to consider how environmentalism and environmental regulation can advance beyond this framing to include new constituents and offer new pathways to tackle the many significant challenges ahead . Months later, the initial activities of the Trump Administration highlighted the use of zero-sum rhetoric, with the appointment of government officials and the issuance of executive orders that indeed seem to view environmental issues as in a zero-sum relationship with jobs or economic progress . In the essays below, the authors explore the meaning and the role of zero-sum environmentalism as a first step in moving beyond it

Beyond Zero-Sum Environmentalism

Environmental law and environmental protection are often portrayed as requiring trade offs: “jobs versus environment,” “markets versus regulation,” “enforcement versus incentives .” In the summer of 2016, members of the Environmental Law Collaborative gathered to consider how environmentalism and environmental regulation can advance beyond this framing to include new constituents and offer new pathways to tackle the many significant challenges ahead . Months later, the initial activities of the Trump Administration highlighted the use of zero-sum rhetoric, with the appointment of government officials and the issuance of executive orders that indeed seem to view environmental issues as in a zero-sum relationship with jobs or economic progress . In the essays below, the authors explore the meaning and the role of zero-sum environmentalism as a first step in moving beyond it

Study of energy response and resolution of the ATLAS barrel calorimeter to hadrons of energies from 20 to 350GeV

A fully instrumented slice of the ATLAS detector was exposed to test beams from the SPS (Super Proton Synchrotron) at CERN in 2004. In this paper, the results of the measurements of the response of the barrel calorimeter to hadrons with energies in the range 20-350 GeV and beam impact points and angles corresponding to pseudo-rapidity values in the range 0.2-0.65 are reported. The results are compared to the predictions of a simulation program using the Geant 4 toolkit. (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier B.V