As an Environmental Law Professor at the University of Oregon, Ms. Wood is uniquely positioned to evaluate the success, or lack thereof, of environmental legislation and regulation since its inception. The power of this book, however, is in its relevance to both the present day and the future, as we face a rapidly changing world with intensifying environmental consequences. The issues addressed in this book are not about the aesthetic desirability of a clean environment, but the absolute survival necessity of reclaiming the legal foundation that can sustain a delicate ecological balance, rather than the status quo that exacerbates the severe ecological imbalance threatening ourselves and certainly our children.
Surveying past failures of environmental law, Ms. Wood challenges us to consider the imminent threat and pervasive consequences specifically of climate change, which she appropriately re-terms as climate emergency. The problem isn't a benign "warming" of the planet, or even what some see as a hum-drum acknowledgment that the climate is changing. It is the fact that our obsession with all things economic and material is placing us on a path to a radically different world of climate extremes. Her impassioned call to awareness - isn't about something that "might" someday affect us - it is to recognize that relying on ineffectual environmental law is currently having truly disastrous consequences. As global, "average" temperatures rise, they exacerbate patterns of both drought and flooding, as well as intensifying extreme storm conditions like typhoons and hurricanes. These weather patterns are but the tip of the iceberg (a metaphorical iceberg that isn't melting - but can easily take down not only the Titanic, but any and all luxury cruise ships that continue on autopilot).
The last person I would expect to highlight the hopeless failure of current environmental law would be an environmental law professor, and I think this is a courageous and profoundly honest book. It is a call to reclaim the essential foundation of law itself, its purpose and meaning. The success of utilizing legal technicalities has biased courts and governmental bureaucracies toward the letter of the law - indeed we've gotten lost among the dotted `i's and crossed `t's and have sacrificed completely the spirit and intent of our environmental laws. While it appears the author is advocating a paradigm change, and that's a helpful construct to use, the actual problem is we've lost sight of the sun itself - the organizing principle of our legal maze, without which we are subject to a piecemeal, chaotic, relativistic, legal universe now threatening all we hold dear. To reclaim the legal foundation of the trust doctrine, as conceptualized here, based constitutionally on the ecological/natural world, provides an otherwise lacking common-sense approach to a legal system hopelessly complex, irrelevant and impotent. It can offer the environmental protections and behavioral guidance that we rely on a legal system to provide.
Reclaiming language, Ms Wood advocates a conservative perspective in the absolute truest sense of the word, in response to the radically extremist perspective that we can live without regard to the consequences of blind resource extraction and pollution. The denialist outrage that often greets books such as this is nothing more than the cries of withdrawal of those powerfully addicted to greedy dreams of unlimited materialism.
Ms. Wood masterfully contrasts the imminent threat of ecological crisis as perversely matched in degree by the impotence of existing environmental law. Seeing grievous past failures and a searingly bleak future prospect as she assesses where our current legal and ecological climate is leading us, she does not blink, there are no blinders, there is no denial. It is difficult sharing in her perception of the current state of the world. But such acute perception of "what is", also lends itself to a tangible, meaningful vision of what could be.
Despite years of increasing pessimism, I experienced this book as tremendously inspiring, and dare I say, cautiously hopeful. Content aside, it is an immensely enjoyable book to read - the author uses words, concepts and history like the strokes from an artist's brush to provide context, impact and vivid color to a very bleak topic. If you value democracy this is a very important book to read. If law is to have any validity or meaning in the future, this book is a vital statement as for rescuing it from its lost moorings. And if you simply cherish our world with all its ecological richness and beauty - and have a desire to see it continue, this is an absolutely essential book to read. Then, buy it for those others we know in the regulative bureaucracy, the courts, the legislative branch and for any engaged citizen of our commons.
- Paperback: 460 pages
- Publisher: Cambridge University Press (September 30, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0521144116
- ISBN-13: 978-0521144117
- Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
- Average Customer Review: 32 customer reviews
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Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#887,087 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #389 in Environmental & Natural Resources Law (Books)
- #2376 in Administrative Law (Books)
- #1767 in Environmental Engineering (Books)
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