
Lecture Description
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.
Reading assignment:
Wargo, Green Intelligence, prologue
Weinberg, Understanding Environmental Law, chapter 1
Course Index
- Introduction to the Course
- Principles and Strategies in Environmental Law
- Nuclear Experiments
- Nuclear Secrecy and Ecology
- Preparing for Nuclear War: NEPA
- Marine Food-Chains: Mercury
- Site Restoration Law
- Chemically Dependent Agriculture
- Risk and Law: Pesticide Paradigm
- Safe Drinking Water: Science and Law
- Safety Claims and Free Speech: Preemption and Defamation
- Air Quality Law: Margins of Safety
- Vehicle Emissions and Public Transit
- The Quiet Revolution in Plastics
- The Tobacco Paradigm
- Evolution of Tobacco Law
- Land Use and Conservation Law: The Adirondack History
- Property Rights and Public Lands Management
- Land Use Law and Property Rights
- Managing Coastal Resources in an Era of Climate Change
- Certification: Design and Green Architecture
- Past and Future of Nuclear Power
- Renewable Energy Policies
- Reflection and Lessons
Course Description
Can law change human behavior to be less environmentally damaging? Law will be examined through case histories including: environmental effects of national security, pesticides, air pollution, consumer products, plastics, parks and protected area management, land use, urban growth and sprawl, public/private transit, drinking water standards, food safety, and hazardous site restoration. In each case we will review the structure of law and evaluate its strengths and weaknesses.
Course Structure:
This Yale College course, taught on campus twice per week for 50 minutes, was recorded for Open Yale Courses in Spring 2010.