City of New York v. BP Plc , S.D.N.Y., No. 1:18-cv-182, 7/19/18 .
The Children’s Climate Case – Juliana v. United States
Court Documents
Juliana v. United States, No. 6:15-CV-01517-TC – First Amended Complaint
Juliana v. United States, No. 6:15-CV-01517-TC – Federal Defendants First Motion to Dismiss
Juliana v. United States, No. 6:15-CV-01517-TC, 2016 WL 6661146 (D. Or. Nov. 10, 2016) – District Court Finds that Children have standing under public trust doctrine to bring climate action.
Juliana v. United States, 947 F.3d 1159 (9th Cir. 2020) – 9th Circuit dismissed the case based on the inability of the court to craft a remedy.
Expert Reports
The Economics of Climate Change – Expert Report Of Joseph E. Stiglitz, Ph.D.
South Asia’s Hotspots : Impacts of Temperature and Precipitation Changes on Living Standards
From the World Bank site:
South Asia is highly vulnerable to climate change. Average temperatures have been rising throughout the region, and rainfall has become more erratic. These changes are projected to continue accruing over the coming decades.South Asia’s Hotspots: The Impact of Temperature and Precipitation Changes on Living Standards is the first book of its kind to provide granular spatial analysis of the long-term impacts of changes in average temperature and precipitation on one of the world’s poorest regions. South Asia’s Hotspots finds that higher temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns will reduce living standards in communities across South Asia—locations that the book terms “hotspots.” More than 800 million people in South Asia currently live in communities that are projected to become hotspots under a carbon-intensive climate scenario. Global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will reduce the severity of hotspots. Diverse and robust development is the best overall prescription to help people in hotspots. The book also suggests actions tailored to each country in the region—such as increasing employment in nonagricultural sectors, improving educational attainment, and expanding access to electricity— that would offset the declines in living standards associated with hotspots. South Asia’s Hotspots complements previous studies detailing the impacts of sea-level rise and extreme events on the people of South Asia. Together, these bodies of work create a sound analytical basis for investing in targeted policies and actions to build climate resilience throughout the region.
Takings Cases Relevant to Climate Change
Judge dismisses City of Oakland climate case based on nuisance – 2018
From the Opinion:
It may seem peculiar that an earlier order refused to remand this action to state court on the ground that plaintiffs’ claims were necessarily governed by federal law, while the current order concludes that federal common law should not be extended to provide relief. There is, however, no inconsistency. It remains proper for the scope of plaintiffs’ claims to be decided under federal law, given the international reach of the alleged wrong and given that the instrumentality of the alleged harm is the navigable waters of the United States. Although the scope of plaintiffs’ claims is determined by federal law, there are sound reasons why regulation of the worldwide problem of global warming should be determined by our political branches, not by our judiciary.
Underwater: Rising Seas, Chronic Floods, and the Implications for US Coastal Real Estate (2018)
This is a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists on the potential impact of various rates of sea level rise on residential and coastal real estate, using data on the coastal real estate from Zillow.
The Public Trust Doctrine and Sea Level Rise
This report looks at the legal implications as the mean high tide line – the demarcation between public and private land in California – moves inland with sea level rise.
Disaster Tourism: Honest Altruism or Vulgar Voyerism?
(Student post from my coastal law class, 2010)
Dark tourism is tourism involving travel to sites associated with death and suffering. Thanatourism, derived from the Ancient Greek word thanatos for the personification of death, is associated with dark tourism but refers more specifically to violent death. Dark tourism and the dark tourists are motivated by death and disaster and apocalypse rather than by sun and sea and sand and pastoral living, with even ecotourism and adventure travel no longer stimulating enough.
Dusky Gopher Frog – Endangered Species Act in the Supreme Court
Ownership of Submerged Lands in Louisiana
INVENTORY OF STATE LANDS OFFICE OF STATE LANDS DIVISION OF ADMINISTRATION (2018)
The state does not have clear title to an estimated 286,467 acres of water bottoms, as private parties also claim ownership of these lands. These “dualclaimed” water bottoms cause several issues, including restricted public access, negative economic impacts, and potentially reduced revenue generating opportunities.
This article analyzes whether fisherman and hunters should have access to open water around privately owned coastal wetlands.
The Freeze Statute allows landowners to keep the royalties from oil and gas production on private land that has become state property through subsidence/sea level rise.
Law Professor’s Brief on Louisiana Public Trust Doctrine
Kelly Haggar, Legal Aspects of Coastal Change (2016)
Coastal change is unlikely to require new law but properly dealing with its effects and planning our response to them will require more than just a good understanding of present law. Statutes rest on fundamental – but often unstated – societal assumptions favoring some outcomes and denying others. For example, Western societies presume land should remain in commerce and always be productive.
Virtually all of the major cases and controversies concerning water and/or coastal issues arising around the nation in recent years – property damage and land loss during hurricanes due to exploration and production (E & P) canals, increased expenses to levee boards from a subset of those same E & P canals, diversions affecting oyster beds, beach front lot owners objecting to beach restoration projects, Anthropogenic climate change causing increasing hurricane damage – were all resolved by applying existing law. Many of those laws are not just based upon Roman laws going back over 2,000 years; some are almost word-for-word copies of them.
Unfortunately, much of the general public either does not understand the basic principles of land use and tort or perhaps simply wishes for different outcomes despite existing (and well-settled) laws. Worse, there does not seem to be sufficient appreciation of the underlying geological factors driving some of the changes in and along our coasts, marshes, and swamps.
Law as an institution has never attempted to “control nature” per se but it most assuredly attempts to specify and control who gains and who loses - and why – when a river changes course, when new land forms at the beach, and when a dispute breaks out as to “what is a beach?” and “who owns it?”
A general overview of the major cases and an explanation of why they turned out as they did will better enable coastal planners to find – and stay within – more realistic limits of what can and cannot be accomplished within the framework of our existing laws. Moreover, if American society does determine a new direction in coastal programs is needed, a fuller understanding of current law will likely allow better choices to be consciously made. However, since law can only help illuminate the choices and assign the risks to various parties, ultimately geology – not law – is the key to future decisions about our coastlines.
Louisiana Attorney General Sues the Corps over Intracoastal Canal
Louisiana v. United States – Complaint in Intracoastal Canal Litigation
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry discussion lawsuit and explaining that climate change is a hoax and that sea level is rising. – Facebook video on the AG Facebook page.
The AG said that the sea level is not rising, but is declining – see the recording starting about 9:00 (-8.00 remaining). (He also said that he was an environmental sciences major at ULL, so we should believe him.) This is true if you look at the tide gauge in Juno, Alaska, where the land is still rapidly uplifting from the ice age. if you look at actual sea level rise, it is about 3.4mm a year, and the tide gauge at Grand Isle shows (relative) sea level rise of more than 9mm a year from the subsidence and sea level rise.
Louisiana Canals and Their Influence on Wetland Development – 1973
Coastal Louisiana, according to recent measurements,
has 4,572 miles of canals. This network can be divided into
five types; drainage and reclamation, trapping, logging,
petroleum and transportation. All of these were constructed
in response to a particular economic interest and provided
access to the resources in the marsh-swamp complex. These
channels, consequently, would not be a landscape feature
had it not been for the wetland resources.