Keynote: Motivating Private Climate Governance: The Role of the Efficiency Gap

The topic of this symposium, “Environmental Sustainability and Private Governance,” is important and timely. In response to the shrinking federal role in environmental protection, many policy advocates have focused on the role of states and cities, but this symposium focuses on another important source of sustainability initiatives: the private sector, including corporations, households, civic and cultural organizations, religious organizations, private hospitals, colleges and universities, and other organizations. States, cities, and other subnational government responses are increasingly important, but the limited geographic reach of subnational governments constrains their ability to address many environmental problems. For instance, although twenty states have set quantified greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions targets and are adopting policies to reduce emissions, almost two-thirds of United States GHG emissions arise from the thirty states that do not have GHG targets. Private governance initiatives offer an opportunity to fill the gap

Private Governance Responses to Climate Change: The Case of Global Civil Aviation

This Article explores how private governance can reduce the climate effects of global civil aviation. The civil aviation sector is a major contributor to climate change, accounting for emissions comparable to a top ten emitting country. National and international governmental bodies have taken important steps to address civil aviation, but the measures adopted to date are widely acknowledged to be inadequate. Civil aviation poses particularly difficult challenges for government climate mitigation efforts. Many civil aviation firms operate globally, emissions often occur outside of national boundaries, nations differ on their respective responsibilities, and demand is growing rapidly. Although promising new technologies are emerging, they will take time to develop and adopt. This Article argues that private initiatives can overcome many of these barriers. Private initiatives can motivate civil aviation firms to act absent government pressure at the national level and can create pressure for mitigation that transcends national boundaries. The Article argues that it is time to develop a private climate governance agenda for civil aviation and identifies examples of the types of existing and new initiatives that could be included in the effort. If public and private policymakers can overcome the tendency to focus almost exclusively on public governance, private initiatives can yield large and prompt emissions reductions from global civil aviation, buy time for more comprehensive government measures, and complement the government measures when they occur

Consumption, Happiness, and Climate Change

In this article, we explore the implications of this literature for understanding the relationship between climate change policies and consumption. We identify a number of ways in which accounting for the implications of the new happiness literature could lead to laws and policies that influence consumption in ways that increase the prospects for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in developed and developing countries. We do not examine every nuance of the growing happiness literature, but we provide a brief introduction and observations that we hope will stimulate further efforts by academicians and policymakers.happiness, life satisfaction, subjective well-being

Bilateral Hip Apophysitis in Young Athlete: A Case Report

Background and Purpose: Today, children are beginning to partake organized sports at a younger age. With this increased demand on their young bodies, the medical field is seeing an increase in acute and overuse injuries. Muscle imbalance and weakness have been linked to overuse injuries in athletes. The purpose of this case study is to examine the benefit and treatment effect of physical therapy guided exercise focusing on the individuals\u27 muscle imbalances and correcting movement patterns to relieve stress on the iliac crest. Case Description: Patient was a 16-year-old female who was seen at Physical Therapy for bilateral hip pain. She was an active high school student who participated in cross country, basketball and track, track being her main sport. Intervention: The clinic implemented an eight-phase lower extremity protocol. The protocol focused on hip strengthening and movement correction and awareness. Outcomes: The patient was able to demonstrated above normal strength in her hips and more importantly a balance in strength between her left and right hips. She also reported 0/10 pain with activity and sprinting. The running evaluation showed an improvement in knee valgus and improved running mechanics. Discussion: Overall, the patient had great results due to her motivation and willingness to adhere to the protocol, home exercise program and restrictions. The patient showed substantial strength gains, a reduction in pain and improved running mechanics

Effect of Lifestyle Modifications on Blood Pressure and BMI in Overweight or Obese Adults with Primary Hypertension

Hypertension (HTN) and obesity contribute to poor cardiovascular outcomes which can be managed with diet and exercise lifestyle changes. In addition, self-awareness (SA) of eating patterns can be a useful tool to promote adherence to lifestyle changes. The purpose of this project was to determine the effect of lifestyle education, the DASH diet, and tools to increase SA for adult clinic patients who were overweight with hypertension. The REAP and PIH tools were utilized to increase patients’ SA of their diagnosis and current dietary habits. A literature search over five databases was conducted and analyzed thoroughly. National guidelines strongly recommend nonpharmacological interventions for adults who have a BMI \u3e25 and HTN, including weight loss (WL), heart-healthy diet, sodium reduction, and increased physical activity (Whelton, et al., 2018). The literature identified aerobic exercise and the DASH diet as the best options for BP reduction and WL, while increasing participant’s SA allows for a greater sense of self-worth and motivation to follow through with their WL (Jarl, et al., 2014; Kurcharska, et al., 2018). Patients included were recruited from a primary care clinic, 18 years old, had a BMI \u3e25, and diagnosed with HTN. Education about HTN, obesity, the DASH diet, aerobic exercise, and how the REAP and PIH tools can raise SA about eating habits was proved monthly for 3 months. Participants’ scores and demographics were recorded at baseline and at 3-months and were analyzed. Data between the pre- and post-intervention groups were analyzed using paired sample t-tests. The mean pre-intervention and post-intervention scores were analyzed using paired t-tests. No significant difference in BP and BMI was found, however there was a significant increase in PIH and REAP scores. The results demonstrated that a three-month program to reduce blood pressure and BMI may need a longer period of time to be successful. However, there were secondary outcomes that demonstrated increased self-awareness of eating habits and personal knowledge of their disease process

Effect of Lifestyle Modifications on Blood Pressure and BMI in Overweight or Obese Adults with Primary Hypertension

Hypertension (HTN) and obesity contribute to poor cardiovascular outcomes which can be managed with diet and exercise lifestyle changes. In addition, self-awareness (SA) of eating patterns can be a useful tool to promote adherence to lifestyle changes. The purpose of this project was to determine the effect of lifestyle education, the DASH diet, and tools to increase SA for adult clinic patients who were overweight with hypertension. The REAP and PIH tools were utilized to increase patients’ SA of their diagnosis and current dietary habits. A literature search over five databases was conducted and analyzed thoroughly. National guidelines strongly recommend nonpharmacological interventions for adults who have a BMI \u3e25 and HTN, including weight loss (WL), heart-healthy diet, sodium reduction, and increased physical activity (Whelton, et al., 2018). The literature identified aerobic exercise and the DASH diet as the best options for BP reduction and WL, while increasing participant’s SA allows for a greater sense of self-worth and motivation to follow through with their WL (Jarl, et al., 2014; Kurcharska, et al., 2018). Patients included were recruited from a primary care clinic, 18 years old, had a BMI \u3e25, and diagnosed with HTN. Education about HTN, obesity, the DASH diet, aerobic exercise, and how the REAP and PIH tools can raise SA about eating habits was proved monthly for 3 months. Participants’ scores and demographics were recorded at baseline and at 3-months and were analyzed. Data between the pre- and post-intervention groups were analyzed using paired sample t-tests. The mean pre-intervention and post-intervention scores were analyzed using paired t-tests. No significant difference in BP and BMI was found, however there was a significant increase in PIH and REAP scores. The results demonstrated that a three-month program to reduce blood pressure and BMI may need a longer period of time to be successful. However, there were secondary outcomes that demonstrated increased self-awareness of eating habits and personal knowledge of their disease process

Private Environmental Governance

Environmental law has quietly transformed from a positive law field deeply rooted in administrative law to one that is also heavily rooted in private law and private governance. After two decades (1970-1990) of remarkable activity, more than two decades have now passed without a major federal environmental statute (1991-2012). Whether the appropriate next step is expansion or contraction, reforms to the federal statutory framework have stalled. Federal regulatory activity and state and local measures have filled some of the gap, but private governance efforts – the pursuit of public ends through private standards, monitoring, enforcement, and dispute resolution – now play an important role. Corporations report that their toxics use is regulated more by private supply chain contract requirements than the federal toxics statute. The fate of 14% of the temperate forests and 7% of the fisheries around the world is in the hands of private certification systems. More money is spent on private environmental inspections than on the entire federal environmental enforcement office. The emergence of private governance is hiding in plain view because the conceptual model by which environmental law is viewed and the metrics by which legal activity is measured do not square easily with private governance. Environmental preferences are expressed in private market decisions, not through voting or lobbying. Standard-setting, enforcement, and dispute resolution occur through private actions and institutions, not legislatures, agencies and courts. This Article demonstrates the value of conceptualizing seemingly disparate private activities as a discrete new model of environmental governance. Viewing private environmental governance in this way provides new insights about collective action problems, re-frames the standards used for environmental instrument choice, and suggests new actors and actions to address environmental problems

Reconceptualizing the Future of Environmental Law: The Role of Private Climate Governance

The title of this Symposium, Reconceptualizing the Future of Environmental Law, accurately captures the challenge facing environmental law scholars and policymakers in 2015. The success of environmental law in the future will not arise from doubling down on the approaches developed over the last 50 years. Instead, it will arise from our willingness to learn from the past without being bound by the conceptual frameworks that dominated the early development of the field. In particular, a successful future for environmental law is more likely to emerge if we acknowledge that the environmental problems, policy plasticity, and regulatory institutions that shaped the early decades of the field are no longer dominant, and if we develop new responses that reflect the shifts that have occurred on each of these points. I begin by identifying several important shifts in environmental problems, policy plasticity, and institutions. I then explore how new conceptual frameworks--sometimes explicit and sometimes not-- are already leading to new responses to some of the most challenging environmental issues. No environmental issue is more challenging than climate change, and physicist Jonathan Gilligan and I have argued for a conceptual shift that involves recognizing the opportunity to buy time with private governance. We have not argued that private governance is a complete response or that it is the only new approach to climate change, but we have asserted that private initiatives can achieve a private governance wedge--emissions reductions that grow each year and average a billion tons per year over the 2016-2025 period. By drawing on existing efficiency incentives and motivations to reduce corporate and household carbon emissions, private initiatives can buy time while national and international governmental processes are in gridlock. In addition, many of these initiatives can complement a carbon price after it is adopted. The challenge is to make the conceptual shift: to move beyond the early history of environmental law and recognize that environmental governance is not synonymous with public governance

Disclosure of Private Climate Transition Risks

This Article identifies a gap in the securities disclosure regime for climate change and demonstrates how filling the gap can improve fi nancial disclosures and accelerate climate change mitigation. Private climate initiatives have proliferated in the last decade. Often led by advocacy groups, these private initiatives have used naming and shaming campaigns and other means to induce investors, lenders, insurers, retail customers, supply chain customers, and employees to pressure firms to engage in climate change mitigation. Based on an empirical assessment of the annual reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by Fortune 100 firms and the largest firms in several fossil fuel-heavy sectors, this Article concludes that roughly a third of these firms disclose the risks and opportunities posed by private environmental governance (PEG) initiatives. The assessment also finds, however, that disclosures vary substantially among similar firms and among similar sectors. The Article argues that this heterogeneity in disclosure is not surprising given that the SEC\u27s 2010 climate guidance and other disclosure regimes do not call sufficient attention to PEG climate initiatives, and many lawyers think of environmental risks as synonymous with governmental regulatory risks. The legal literature on climate transition risk focuses principally on whether regulatory and market- based risks should be disclosed, but it overlooks the importance of the material risks posed by PEG climate initiatives. PEG climate ini- tiatives pose a discrete form of climate transition risk for many firms, and revisions to the SEC guidance and other disclosure regimes to account for PEG climate initiatives can be adopted more quickly, produce more complete financial disclosures, and yield greater and more durable emissions reductions than many other approaches

Climate Change: The China Problem

The central problem confronting climate change scholars and policymakers is how to create incentives for China and the United States to make prompt, large emissions reductions. China recently surpassed the United States as the largest greenhouse gas emitter, and its projected future emissions far outstrip those of any other nation. Although the United States has been the largest emitter for years, China\u27s emissions have enabled critics in the United States to argue that domestic reductions will be ineffective and will transfer jobs to China. These two aspects of the China Problem, Chinese emissions and their influence on the political process in the United States, result in a mutually supportive but ultimately destructive dance between the two countries. This article argues that a post-Kyoto international agreement and other measures are necessary but will not create sufficient incentives to induce China, and ultimately the United States, to act. Instead, the article draws on the fact that the United States and Europe account for 41% of Chinese exports to propose a novel means of changing both countries\u27 incentives. The article suggests that private or public schemes in the United States and Europe to disclose product carbon emissions and corporate carbon footprints can create consumer and other pressure that will induce firms to impose supply chain requirements on Chinese and other suppliers. This form of global private governance can create market-based incentives for China and the United States to reduce emissions directly and to make credible emissions reduction commitments in the post-Kyoto era