Class Information
Climate Change Law is an evolving discipline. There is no canon of climate change law. This course has three parts. In the first part, we will at the basic science of climate change and how to mitigate it. In the second, we will look at the law of climate change mitigation, including the Paris Agreement and other international agreements. The third part is a practical look at helping clients plan for the impacts of climate change. Being in Louisiana, we will take a hard look at flooding, flood insurance, and flood-related litigation. Following our hurricane theme we will look at wind (homeowner’s) insurance and the crisis in affordable insurance in Louisiana and Florida. We will also look at the water shortages in the West and how they stem more from the water rights regimes than from the drought. At the end of the course, you should be better able to tell fact from fiction in climate reporting and you should be able to help yourself and your clients make better decisions about the legal and financial risks posed by extreme weather events.
All the materials for this course are public domain and will be posted or linked to on this site.
Attendance
Under the new law school attendance policy, you will need to log into Moodle during the first 15 minutes of class and record your attendance. If you are delayed, you will be able to log in as late. Occasional late attendance will not count against you, but a consistent pattern of late attendance will be a problem. Instructions for marking attendance are here: Moodle: How to use the Attendance activity (Students)
Poll Everywhere
We will use Poll Everywhere for polling during the class sessions. You respond through a URL and you do not need to buy a license. You need to set up your username and log on for Poll Everywhere. You must use your real name because this will be used to track your participation.
Unless we are doing a check in where I ask everyone to log in to make sure things are working, the polls are set up so your name will only be visible to me. Any polls that ask for personal information or opinions will be anonymous (I will not be able to see your name) to encourage you to be honest. The in-class polls will not be graded, but participation will count toward class participation points. Class participation can raise or lower your grade by up to 0.3 points.