Perspective

This conference was a great experience and came at a great time in the
school year. This experience was exactly what I needed to root me for the
rest of the school year and reinvigorate my interest in the law.

The whole trip was made possible because of so many people's time and
effort. Thank you to the school for the generous funding, the ELC
executives for all their hard work, the drivers who transported us safely,
and our gracious hosts at the University of Oregon who really know how to
organize a conference!

The conference started off on an excellent note with the key-note address
of Pablo Fajardo. From what I understood of his presentation - Pablo and
his community had been affected by the activities of mining companies in
Ecuador for many years - years before he decided to pursue his legal
studies. It was amazingly inspirational to hear how he was motivated to go
to law school by what he saw in his community. It seems like a much more
logical reason/motivation to go to law school than any reason I can come
up with. His dedication and passion for helping his people and bringing
justice to the region are admirable. It was shocking to learn that his
brother had been assassinated and that he had had to relocate his family
in order to protect them. I saw Pablo again the next morning at the Human
Rights and Environment talk as well as at the ELAW party at the end of the
conference. Each time he was smiling and full of energy. I hope to learn
from his passion, conviction, and optimism.

The Human Rights and Environment talk was very interesting and really made
me wish that UVIC offered this course. Maybe this should be a project for
us? Maybe we can create a directed studies - student seminar-like class
under this topic. Just something to think about…..

OK, Jensen. I thoroughly enjoyed his presentations (I went to all three)
because they offered such a genuinely different perspective on the issue
of the environment and how we humans interact with it. It is sometimes
hard to reconcile aspects of his presentation - at times the talk flowed
like a calm nature walk through the forest, and at other times, the talk
was militant and angry. Whatever you took the dominant theme of his talk
to be, I feel like he expressed many thoughts and ideas that other people
secretly wish to articulate, or ideas, that while lacking realistic depth,
are useful in fostering discussion and making people think about new
ideas.

What I really did enjoy about his presentation was the implied concept of
NGO and civil society cooperation and infighting. I do not know if this
was an implied theme or if it was pretty obvious, but I found his
criticisms to be apt. Not all environmentalists can be lawyers, activists,
educators, scientists, etc. But ALL environmentalists need to support each
other's efforts - we may not have the exact same final result in mind, but
we do all agree that the environment is a non-renewable resource that we
must protect now while we can. I felt that Jensen was advocating for more
unity and cooperation among environmentalists - a much needed reminder for
the whole community.

Seeing so many powerful passionate women at this conference was also
inspirational. Zhang Jingjing, Lucia Xiloj, and Carla Garcia were dynamos
- all great presenters with amazing stories to share.

The number of panels and the wealth of knowledge of the presenters was
truly impressive and made for an excellent conference.

Irene and Erin

PS. Here is a selection of pictures from the event!

Blow up dams or use tort law

This is a picture of a few of us outside the frat house post-singalong.

Other than the singalong, what I most appreciated about the conference was the variety of speakers and panels. The two that I got the most out of were from disparate ends of the spectrum.

I'll put it out there: I'm a Derrick fan. Like Tharani and Mike, I appreciate the radical viewpoint he brings to the table. While not all of us are talking to trees, blowing up dams and cheering every time the Dow drops another point, some of us need to be doing that sort of thing. Not only does it keep moderate environmentalists from being viewed as the extremists, but it keeps things exciting. What other speaker at that conference could boast full audience support for dismantling western society?

Contrasting Derrick's keynote and his panel on how to avoid getting classified as an ecoterrorist was the group of lawyers who spoke about applying common law tort doctrines to obtain compensation for those affected by global warming. Being the expert in tort law that I am, the idea definitely seemed like a bit of a stretch. But all three lawyers explained clearly how doctrines like nuisance can be used to litigate against major polluters. They were specific and detailed, supplementing the overall ideas with actual jurisprudence. Matthew Pawa showed us the case being led against major greenhouse gas emitters on behalf of a tiny shoal island community in Alaska, which is being slowly swallowed by raising ocean levels. Another lawyer spoke about cases where he had used the tresspass doctrine to successfully sue air polluters on behalf of those suffering the effects of a contaminated local atmosphere. Cool!

Thanks to Michaelin for organizing, the ELC and all who made the trip possible.

A Sound in the Forest: Trees and Climate Change

Doug Heiken (pictured, left) from the NGO Oregon Wild appeared at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference last weekend as part of a panel on forests and climate change. His talk took the form of contrasting myths and realities about forests. These are some of the issues that his presentation touched on.

Forest Fires
Claim: It is sometimes said that forests are not good places to store carbon because forest fires can release stored carbon through combustion. e.g. "when a tree burns it releases all the carbon it previously stored"
In Reality: Logging a given area of land emits far more carbon than if a forest fire ran through the same area (more than twice as much, in fact) because not all trees are destroyed by forest fires. Large dead trees can last for many decades. Also, forest fires create charcoal - a stable form of carbon that often gets incorporated into the soil. As Mark Harmon, of Oregon State University, said, "If it were the case that when there was a forest fire all of the trees burned up completely, why would there be fights about timber salvage?"

China
Claim: China's forests are rapidly shrinking as they are quickly cut down as a consequence of the country's fast economic growth.
Reality: China is one of the areas of the world where forestcover is growing most quickly. That said, the main explanations for this growth are a low baseline and that much of the growth is composed of monoculture plantation forests grown on very short rotations.

Old Forests Good
Claim: Large swathes of forest are frequently protected with the sole benefit that a very small number of animals are protected. For example:

"One Million two hundred thousand acres of land closed to development for the sake of 18 Pygmy Owls. Yes, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service supported by a few radical green environmental groups proposes this huge acreage to be set aside for 18 Pygmy Owls." (Source: The Most Expensive Animal Alive? by the Pima County Coalition For Multiple Use)

Reality: One of the significant benefits of forests that such analyses ignore is the way that mature forests act as carbon sinks. Mature forests capture more carbon during their lifespans than forests that are grown and cut on shorter rotations because of multiple factors, including:

1. Below Ground Sequestration: Forests store massive amounts of carbon in the soil in the form of live and dead roots, woody debris, charcoal, and the vast below-ground ecosystem supported by photosynthate received from trees. Logging cuts off the food supply for the below-ground ecosystem which rapidly dies and decomposes, thereby emitting a significant amont of carbon into the atmosphere after trees are cut. So, it is not the case that the carbon is just embodied in the wood that is then used for things like building houses. (Oregon Wild Report)
2. Temperature and Decomposition: Forests that have been thinned (say, by selective logging) are warmer than they otherwise would be. This is because the decline in forest canopy exposes the soil to more sunlight which raises soil temperature and thereby accelerates the rate of decomposition, which in turn emits more carbon than the forest otherwise would have.

In sum, the presenters at this panel - some of whom had individually spent decades in academia studying forests - were highly skeptical of claims that human beings could manage forests (by cutting them periodically) in a way that would increase the net amount of carbon that the forests absorb when compared to a laissez faire approach that lets old growth forests get even older.

More detail about this and other aspects of the relationship between forests and climate change can be viewed in these slides from Oregon Wild's presentation:

Forest, Carbon, Climate Myths

View more presentations from Doug Heiken. (tags: products wood)

A Retrospective on Urban Design

You know those tea sampler packs, the ones that have an assortment of different teas so you can try a little of everything and see what you like?  That's what PIELC reminded me of.  At any time, a panoply of panels offered a range of flavours to the discerning attendee; some were like soothing herbal concoctions, not accentuating any particular point but simply spreading good energy, while others were like stiff breakfast blends, dark and full of milk, designed to fire up your nerves and set you to work.  And of course, there were any number of green teas, less strident than their breakfastey bedfellows, but still possessed of a definite hue and purpose.

I chose to focus my time at the conference on panels involving innovations in green urban design.  I was initially interested in exploring more technical topics, such as the pros and cons of nuclear power, but it turns out you need a secret decoder ring for those presentations and I had forgotten mine.  Cars on roads, though, that's something my brain gets right now!  Hooray!

While some panels never got past vague comments to the effect that "we need to pollute less", there were also a number of concrete ideas being kicked around.  Here are some of the panels I scribbled about in my notes:

Restructuring Cities: This was one of the first panels I attended, and probably the high-point of the conference for me.  One reservation that I'd often had about innovations in green design was that they seemed like great ideas for some hypothetical future city we might build, but most of our cities have inconveniently decided to exist right now.  So, short of bulldozing the lot of them and starting fresh, how do we fix what we've got?  Well, panellists Mark Schlosberg, Nico Larco and Mark Gillem had some ideas.  Using a roadway redesign proposal they were currently promoting for their own city, they discussed the outdated design philosophies that have led to many current traffic systems being so inefficient, necessitating long drives to reach even nearby destinations.  They then described some ludicrously simple solutions based on clever road designs in other cities, and even discussed how they'd managed to g! et local businesses on board with the idea!

Energy Solutions for Sustainable Neighbourhoods: Many of us have probably tried out those energy-efficient light-bulbs, but how much good is that going to do?  Not much, suggest panellists Clark Brockman, John Sorenson, and Jeff Hammarlund.  Noting that household lighting and appliances constitute only a tiny fraction of power use, with most power going to warm or cool buildings and heat water, the panellists discussed areas where improvements in energy efficiency might yield a better bang for our buck.  I was particularly intrigued by a European design based on solar panels, but with a twist - instead of channelling the solar power into photovoltaic cells, the energy is used directly to heat water, which is then sent via insulated pipes to all the buildings in the area, providing hot water and building heat while cutting electricity out of the picture entirely.  Some cities have supposedly achieved total energy-ind! ependence using systems like these.  The panellists then looked at legislative and financial barriers to implementing similar solutions here, and how they might be overcome.

Permaculture: This was largely a feel-good panel that didn't get down to much concrete discussion, but there was an interesting bit on how the current zoning system (in Oregon, at least; I don't know if it's the same here) assumes that a piece of land can only be used for one purpose, and why this sometimes makes things difficult for innovators who are developing ideas on how we can use the same amount of land more efficiently.

Energy Efficiency: Our Cleanest Source of Power: If we can meet our power needs far better by making existing infrastructure more efficient rather than by putting up new power plants, then why aren't we doing that?  In a revealing analysis, panellists Steve Weiss, Linda Dethman, Jana M. Linderman and David Naccarato dissected the current billing system used by power companies, where profits are based on the amount of power used, and explained why that could actually cause power companies to lose money if they became more efficient.  To their credit, however, the panellists were not simply throwing stones at "the evil power companies"; rather than being judgmental, they proposed practical reforms to how power companies control their billing rates (roughly, by billing based on number of subscribers rather than the amount of power they use, although it was a bit more complicated than that), allowing them to make the same amount ! of money while eliminating their disincentive to adopt more efficient measures.  This was followed by what was essentially an "Advertising 101" crash-course which highlighted how the environmentalist movement has failed to make effective use of certain aspects of human psychology.

-Ethan

Derek Jensen = plutonic environmental love.

The PIELC was as interesting and stimulating as I expected...I found it exciting to be around environmental activists and lawyers who are fighting in causes that were just an idea to me, issues that I felt were important but I wasn't sure what was being done around the world about them. After hearing Zhang Jingjing from China (Director of Litigation at the Centre for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims) talk about her work in helping victims from "cancer villages" speak out against corporations that polluted their communities, as well as hearing from a young lawyer in Panama who is working to combat development and destruction of mangrove forests close to the canal, I realized I am merely a drop in the bucket. There is a whole movement of social justice in the legal field, and these lawyers emphasized the need to remain interconnected, to be aware of the work and efforts of each other and not to get apathetic or hopeless about the movements you believe in.
This was their message, and it was positive. I had heard it before.

Derek Jensen, who I had not heard before, was not as positive.

I went to all three of his sessions, including the one on "Terrorism, Property Crimes and the Future of Environmental Activism," and it was exactly what I needed to hear. Derek's message was that we are living in an unsustainable industrial society, and it needs to stop, or we are going to (and we already have) destroy the earth to the point where any form of life won't be able to exist, much less humans. That much I was able to understand..he also talked in abstract about paramilitary, violence against women, how much he dislikes Richard Dawkins, gendered power struggles, impoverished communities, talking to rivers, saving salmon, burning dams and living at home with his mom (Derek and I have a lot in common). In his presentation, Derek urged the audience to be radical in their environmental movements...complacently thinking that we're not contributing to the problem because we compost or don't use very much toilet paper (I'm not sure where he was going with that one..) is not enough. As Derek alluded to FBI informants and how environmental activists can be unfairly portrayed at terrorists, some disgruntled audience members accused him of fear-mongering...but that's not really what I took from what he said. He was encouraging people to be aware of the nature of the country and society that they live in, to make informed decisions about which side of environmental movements they want to be on, to think about whether their role is to be a public one or one that is more underground. Not everyone needs to be chained to a tree or in the middle of a protest to create change...people need to be activists in their own way. (Derek said that, not me..but then he kind of took it back when he said that we should go destroy all the dams in America, so who knows..) Derek Jensen is provoking and what he talks about is scarily true. He's there because someone needs to be that radical. If everyone was like him though, I'm not sure that much effective change would occur.

Some people found his ideas too radical or unrealistic. I really found them refreshing after several panels describing environmental detriments that I think we're all aware of, but that didn't go into depth about concrete action that we can take.
Some people didn't like his stream-of-consciousness way of talking. I think of him as an environmental poet.
Some people definitely found him too negative. I think he sees the peril that our world is in and it drives him crazy.

I echo Mike: I like extremists because they give me ideas I wouldn't otherwise have.

Thank you so so much to the Law Foundation for making this trip possible.

-Tharani

Branding catastrophe

One idea that came up a few times at PIELC is that the terms "global warming" and "climate change" are both ineffective in conveying the urgency and importance of the situation, and more than that are sorta, well, lame. Although "anthropogenic climate change" is probably technically the most correct term, in that it captures the fact that the phenomenon is caused by humans and is not a blanket increase in temperature so much as a radical change in weather patterns accompanying an increase in mean global temperature, "change" is at best a neutral term, and can be a massively positive thing, as some guy down south pointed out last year. "Warming" is even more problematic, because warmth is generally seen as a positive attribute, and seems to imply an upper limit in the context of temperature: warm is less than hot. It was even suggested that "global warming" was coined by Karl Rove, though that was the first time I'd heard that. James Kunstler named his book The Long Emergency which seems to capture something distinctive about the phenomenon, but is hopelessly nonspecific. At the conference Matt Pawa used "global heating" which gets around the warm/hot problem, but still doesn't quite sound right.

Does anyone have any ideas for new names? And is it even worthwhile trying to come up with new name, or are "climate change" and "global warming" too deeply embedded in our consciousness at this point? Do you think it even matters?

A taxonomy of approaches to climate change

I think my favourite thing about PIELC is its diversity. It is huge, in terms of number of attendees and scope. For example, the keynote speakers included:

• a toxics regulator from the California Environmental Protection Agency;
• a lawyer suing large greenhouse gas emitters on behalf of a remote Alaskan village that is being eroded by rising sea levels;
• the lawyer who turned a law school paper into Doe v. Unocal;
• a former diplomat who drew links between the collapse of communism, the current financial crisis, and our need to transition to post-carbon economy;
• and a writer who advocates a rapid transition away from civilization (he also sells t-shirts on his website.)

Encountering this diversity of approaches to environmentalism and environmental law got me thinking about about the different approaches people bring to the issue of climate change, and I've come up with a tentative taxonomy. I don't think anyone who has thought seriously about climate change believes there is just one answer to the problem, but each of us approaches the issue from a particular perspective. Having heard and read what a number of people have had to say about climate change, I have identified (at least) three approaches. There is obvious overlap between the three categories, and I'm not sure this list is exhaustive, but my interest here is in cataloguing and distinguishing the analytic frames people bring to bear on the problem. Here is what I have so far:

1. Climate change as technical problem. The issue of climate change is one of technology: climate change is caused by bad technologies that emit excessive amounts of greenhouse gases, and can be solved by replacing those technologies, or employing other technologies to mitigate the effects of climate change. Solar power, hybrid vehicles, carbon capture and sequestration, and artificial volcanoes are all technical answers to climate change. My sense is that scientists, and especially engineers, are inclined to use this approach.


2. Climate change as economic problem. The way we allocate and value resources has led to climate change, and a shift in the allocation and valuation of resources is what will drive the changes we need to reduce global warming. I think this is the dominant frame of analysis right now, at least in terms of policy responses: approaches like carbon taxes and cap-and-trade are fundamentally economic in character, in that they seek to tie emissions limits to the cost of emitting. I don't think this is that much of a surprise, since, for at least the last twenty or twenty-five years, political and policy analysis has been primarily economic in nature. For what it's worth, this is the approach I am inclined to take.


3. Climate change as lifestyle problem. Our way of life has caused climate change, and our way of life has to change if we are going to solve climate change. My sense is that this approach is especially appealing to old-school movement environmentalists; after all, it fits with their long-term claim that our lifestyle is unsustainable and needs to be changed. And linking climate change to lifestyle has given new life to old environmentalist ideas, like local-sourcing, energy-use reduction, vegetarianism, the de-industrialization of farming, reducing logging, and the list could go on.

What's interesting to me about these different approaches is that sometimes well-intentioned people working towards the same goal can completely talk past one another. For example, at last year's PIELC I went to a talk on global policy responses to climate change, a primarily "type-2" panel. Panelists discussed developments in international cap-and-trade schemes, and transition possibilities for domestic industries. At the end, a woman got up to ask a question. She had clearly been involved in the environmental movement for a long time (quite possibly longer than I'd been alive), and had clearly not heard what she had come to hear. She spoke quite passionately about how living organisms in soil sequester carbon, and how the chemicals used in non-organic farming kill those organisms, and how we could end climate change today if we would just stop poisoning the soil, and how she couldn't understand why the panelists weren't talking about that. In essence, she was advocating at "type-3" solution. The panelists were at a loss; even though they were talking about the same issue, they were approaching it in such different terms that it was hard for any meaningful dialogue to happen.

I guess my point is that all these approaches are valuable and indeed necessary for dealing with climate change, and that we need to be aware of our own inclinations and predispositions as we work towards dealing with perhaps the most dangerous threat facing the planet today.

What do you think? Did I miss any approaches? And what approach do you think you are most inclined to use?

Anarchy and the Global South - The Problem and the Solution

My highlight from this year's PIELC had to be standing in a decommissioned frat house and singing songs with a large group of amazing and dedicated environmental lawyers from around the world. The positive vibe which coursed through the room was encouraging. It was hard not to leave that night without feeling (at least) a little optimism about the type of change that each of these people were creating through their own actions.

I was lucky enough to  talk with one of the key note speakers named Pablo from Ecuador that night. I remember saying something along the lines of "I hope we can do something about the accounatiblity of Canadian mining companies operating in your country." He immediately said (in Spanish); "No amigo. Debamos hacer algo/ We must do something." He was right. Everyone in the room really held that message close to their hearts and the majority had acted on it in a big way.

I cannot say that I came away from what little exposure I had to Derek Jensen feeling the same shimmer of optimism or encouragement. He is a controversial figure. At the PIELC he was preaching to the choir so to speak. Nontheless, I wondered how many people were actually alienated by his message. Without a doubt he is right about the problems. The industrial revolution has represented a 'progress trap' of sorts (for more on this idea see Ronald Wright's A Short History of Progress or his Massey Lecture Series from a couple of years back). But is Jensen right about the 'solution'? Is it not more effective to seek an alliance with the masses rather than aggresively attack them? Is it wrong to use the negative of fear as a motivator rather than postive of encouragement? The 'slower' appraoch will paradoxically bring change quicker. Walk through the open door rather than trying to break through the locked one that is continuosly being reinforced in response to your efforts.

Thank you to the ELC for funding this trip. As always, the experience was a much needed push in the right direction at a time of year when most law students need a shove.

A request: human rights and the environment

After seeing a few talks by John Bonine and Svitlana Kravchenko I'd like to write something, either a post here or something a bit longer somewhere else, on the subject of human rights and the environment. Specifically I want to look at the implications of constitutionalizing a right to a clean and healthy environment. However, I only the most limited sense of the literature on the subject. For obvious reasons I'm most interested in the Canadian case, thought other Commonwealth countries and the U.S. might be interesting too. If you have any good leads please leave them in the comments.

chick-chick-chickens!

UVic has bunnies, UofO has chickens (at least when there are crazy hippie buses parked outside the law school :)

toxic chemicals and why we need to "design with complete intention"

I went to hear Claudia Polsky speak about the use and effects of toxic chemicals in consumer products. On top of being a talented and engaging presenter, she was a very good educator and presented some convincing and seemingly balanced information.

What are the effects of using all these toxic chemicals? The cause-effect relationship is often not 100% direct, but the take home point is that toxics that we produce and use are having a lot of long term effects on us and all other living things in our ecosphere. The overarching problem is that we do not and often cannot anticipate all of the effects that these chemicals will have.

One oft-cited example of the effects of toxic bioaccumulation are beached, dead whales that need to be disposed of according to biohazard procedures. A new example that Claudia gave was that one in 50 female polar bears are now hermaphrodites as a result of hormonal disruption.

Just trace amounts of copper, released through the use of car brake pads, cause salmon to lose their sense of smell and therefore their ability to detect predators.

Bioaccumulation of flame retardants in peregrine falcon eggs is causing neurological/ behavioural changes so severe that the birds no longer know how to care for their young properly.

In humans, some of the indicators of toxic contamination are measured through (the skyrocketing) rates of cancer and autism. Good quote from Claudia: “Why do we ‘race for the cure’ but crawl toward prevention?”

Why is it happening? Short answer: because we don’t know any better and we do not follow the precautionary principle. Many chemicals are used in products and/or added to food before we know that they are or will be problematic. There are also a lot of economic reasons. Also, the more geographically dispersed a supply chain is, the less regulatory control there is over chemicals added to the product or used in the production process.

What can be done? The US has a very poor federal statute that grandfathers 62,000 chemicals and gives the EPA virtually no ability to regulate chemicals. As a result, some of the progressive states (i.e. Cali) have been passing individual chemical bans. There are many limitations to this approach: labourious, too many chemicals and too few banning bills, often leads to regrettable substitutes that cause more problems.

Currently Cali has two bills that establish broad authority for the state to regulate chemicals and establish information sharing and research initiatives to advance both industry and consumer knowledge.

Other pressures for reform come through data on bioaccumulation effects, the increased number of consumer recalls, and the advances of other jurisdictions (e.g. EU adopted “REACH” program where if there is not enough data on the chemical then it will not be permitted on the market).

‘The Market’ plays a pivotal role in what and how chemicals are used. Until there is more complete information about toxic chemical effects in the market, it will continue to send false cost signals and perpetrate poor health and long term cost choices.

Another big next step is to mandate ingredient disclosure on all consumer products. The more we know, the better choices we can make for our own health… theoretically. A good example of this is in NY where they passed a law requiring nutrition information be disclosed at restaurants. Once people knew a frappuccino had 600 calories and 23g fat (why was this a big surprise?!) and stopped buying it, Starbucks responded by developing the 250 calorie, 2g fat Vivano. Changes? People are a little healthier, no change in revenues, no jobs lost. The market can adjust and will respond to better information on toxic chemicals used in our products and food.

Big lesson: we need to know more, employ our knowledge, err on the side of precaution and “design with complete intention.”

friday photo dump

Checking out some of the booths.


Taking advantage of the free coffee.


ELC director Claire Hutton in an international panel moderated by ELC Legal Director Calvin Sandborn.


The session (above) on Indigenous enforcement of environmental laws was packed to the windows, to the walls.


The future.

You can't be an Environmentalist without getting a Vasectomy.

The conference is awesome.  My favourite feature is the extremists.  They range from proselytizing vegetarians -- "You can't be a meat-eating environmentalist." -- to voluntary human extinction advocates who distribute bumper stickers that say "Thank you for not breeding." and "Vasectomy prevents Abortion."  The extinction people also have a double-sided handout with 3 columns: reasons people say they want to have babies; the corresponding *real* reason they want to have babies; and suggested alternatives.  There are over 30 reasons listed, such as "Pregnancy and childbirth are life experiences", which *really* means "My life choices have been limited by social indoctrination", to which the suggested alternative is "Rent a pregnancy simulator and choose different life experiences."

 

I like extremists because they make me think "I wouldn't do that, but I guess I could do this" -- "this" being something moderate along the same lines.  Extremists give me ideas I would never have otherwise.

 

Today's lunch time keynote speaker is Derrick Jensen, who -- if I understand correctly -- thinks we should bring an end to our current industrial civilization because it's unsustainable.  I genuinely can't wait.

 

-Mike

Environmental Assessment around the world

This session was riveting for anyone waist-deep in environmental impact assessment (EIA) research – e.g., me. The multi-national panelists discussed the problems encountered in EIA in their respective countries. Marketa Visinkova, a lawyer practicing in the Czech Republic, noted that during the initial screening process, nearly all projects are determined not to require any EIA. The reasons given for these decisions are sparse. Visinkova also explained the phenomenon of ‘salami slicing’: assessing mega projects as several smaller projects. She gave the example of a highway assessed and built as several small stretches of road so that cumulative impacts were never studied. When it came time to assess the highway passing through a highly sensitive area where impacts would be large, the road had already been built behind and ahead of the area – this was the last stretch of highway to be built and by that time the project could not be stopped.

Interestingly, a similar thing happens to projects in Canada, although none of the panelists were from Canada or had studied Canadian EIA.

One common theme among the panelists was the importance of public participation in EIA. Unfortunately, in many countries, the knowledge of local and indigenous peoples is undervalued or ignored. I suppose we should be thankful that at least, in Canada, people are not forced off their land at gunpoint.

*****

Unrelated note: there is no internet access in the rooms - only at school and in the hotel lobby - so updates may not be as frequent as we would like.

Also, everyone is accounted for as of this afternoon!

Day One (lunch break)

Most of us met for lunch at the Holy Cow Cafe. The food here is ridiculously good.
The morning panels were awesome; we spread out to cover as many topics as we could.
That rhyme was unintentional.

We're here!

The U of O law school building makes us green with envy (pun intended).

travel schematics

Some of us are getting to Eugene via bicycle on rainbows.

prologue

Tomorrow the first wave of students will advance, leaving Victoria early in the morning. They will arrive at the beautiful University of Oregon in time to see the stellar keynote speakers. Gradually, carload after carload will arrive (carbon offset, of course), until by the next morning, we number 38 strong. This is by far the most students we have ever taken to the PIELC, and we hope Eugene is ready for us.

What unites these 38 people? For some it's a passion for public interest law; for others it's a passion for frisbee. Some seek knowledge; some seek rejuvenation and a renewed enthusiasm for legal studies; others simply seek reassurance that law school was not a terrible decision.

Right now we’re making final preparations: packing bags, checking maps, circling sessions in the conference program. Depending on internet access, we hope to log in frequently and allow everyone to share their stories and experiences.

Like last year, our goal for this blog is to be informative and fun. There are some budding photographers in our group too, so we hope to throw in a few photos.

Finally, we’d like to thank our generous sponsors, the Law Foundation of British Columbia and, indirectly, the TULA foundation, for making this trip possible.

Enjoy.