JASON J. CZARNEZKI

I just finished reading Peter Hessler’s River Town.  I earlier reviewed his second book, Oracle Bones.  Oracle Bones is the easier read and easier to engage, as it’s style is more journalistic like that of Jon Krakauer.  I found River Town harder to get into, but once I did I found it to be the first book (of the many I’ve read about China) that actually brought me back to my own experience in China.  It was an excellent read and now it is the book that I will recommend to people when they ask me to describe what it was like to life in China for a year.  The book described all the challenging and fascinating aspects of our experience: getting sick from the pollution; struggles with the languages; choosing to become regulars at local establishments; the stares and laughs; having more time when isolated in China; teaching Chinese students; etc.  I highly recommend the book.

…Friday, September 23, 2011.  Mark your calendars.  The Call for Abstracts will be announced in the spring.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — Nov. 22, 2010
 
SOUTH ROYALTON, VT –– Vermont Law School will release its inaugural “Top 10 Environmental Watch List” on Jan. 3, 2011, to spotlight the most critical environmental law and policy issues of 2010 and how they may play out in 2011.

Produced by the nation’s top-ranked environmental law school, the Watch List will evaluate judicial, regulatory, legislative and other actions from 2010, a major year for environmental news. More than a compilation of the year’s top stories, the Watch List will be a predictive, analytical look forward intended to help the media in reporting further on the causes, consequences and solutions to environmental challenges that significantly affect human beings and the natural world.

The Watch List was selected by VLS’s Environmental Law Center faculty with assistance from student staffers at the school’s Vermont Journal of Environmental Law, who together researched dozens of issues before deciding on the Top 10. In a series of concise briefs, the Watch List will provide scholarly insight and common-sense analysis intended to promote public understanding of the critical environmental issues of our time.

The Vermont Law Top 10 Environmental Watch List will be published on the VLS home page, http://www.vermontlaw.edu/

I just want to publicly thank the exceptional faculty and staff at The Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources and the Environment at the University of Utah’s  S.J. Quinney College of Law for organizing such a fantastic visit for me.

I’ve written before about the high speed rail saga in WI.  Now this: LaHood says Wisconsin high-speed rail cash could go to N.C., elsewhere.

I just finished my talk on “Climate Policy and US-China Relations” in downtown Salt Lake City.  I really didn’t know what to expect in terms of discussing climate change at a law firm in Utah.  All in all it went OK, and the view of the mountains from the 22nd floor offices of Holland & Hart was absolutely spectacular.   I had anticipated at least one climate skeptic and had prepared a response but no such questions arose.  Instead most folks seems interested in (1) my argument that the Chinese have accepted a cold and Darwinist reality that only economic powers will have the resources to adapt to climate change and thus China sees no need to curb their emissions or limit economic growth, and (2) whether China, and the U.S., are actively preparing climate adaptation measures and projects.

All is all, I’m very much enjoying my time at the University of Utah and the Stegner Center.  It’s great to meet environmental law professors at another school, and I’ve been able to catch up with some old friends as well.

Today I delivered the Stegner Center Young Scholar Lecture at the University of Utah entitled “The Environment, Food, and Law.”  Turnout was good and everyone has been wonderful in planning my visit.  The talk was about the environmental harms of the modern industrial food system, and discusses the role of informational regulation and structural change (e.g.,  access to different food models) in achieving a more sustainable food system.  This builds upon my forthcoming article in the Stanford Law Environmental Law Journal and my forthcoming piece in the University of Utah’s Journal of Land, Resources & the Environment.

The talk when relatively well, mostly because the topic of food and the environment has grown sexy thanks to folks like Michael Pollan, but the topic also proves challenging given the diverse and complex set of concerns and interests.  What is clear is that on the labeling front, I need to make a better case as to what circumstances eco-labeling is most effective, and, on the structural front, I still need better data on successful initiatives to create a sustainable food systems from a planning and/or implementation perspective.  Finally, I need to think harder about how this all relates to food costs.

Given the complexity of food and ag systems I’m really excited about the new book contract I’ve just signed with co-authors Professor Mary Jane Angelo (University of Florida) and Bill Eubanks entitled “Food, Agriculture Policy, and the Environment: History, Law & Proposals for Reform” (Environmental Law Institute Press, forthcoming 2012).

Tomorrow is talk #2 in Salt Lake City entitled, “Climate Policy and US-China Relations.”  More details here.

Greenwire is reporting that “[t]he leading candidate to become chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee today boosted his conservative credentials, laying out a plan to cut federal government spending levels including freezing programs that support energy efficiency retrofits in homes and efficiency labeling for appliances.”  This is unfortunate given the continued democratization of carbon emissions and the need to make such sources more energy efficient (e.g., homes, cars), and the need to influence individual behavior that impacts the envirionments by providing consumers with better information (e.g., eco-labeling, Energy Star labeling).

In route to my lectures at the University of Utah College of Law, I stopped in Milwaukee for 38 hours to see friends, family and former colleagues at Marquette University Law School.  I was able to have dinner at my favorite Milwaukee restaurant Crazy Water and tried a surprisingly good restaurant that I hadn’t been to before.

Now I’m in Salt Lake City, and it’s clear I’ve developed a somewhat new fascination with the West.  I think this started when I drove cr0ss-country last year and loved the mountains of Wyoming, and has taken hold since teaching Natural Resources Law again and discussing all the federal lands and national parks of the West.  I think this will be cured only by a two-month trek of natural resources in the West.  For now, I’ll enjoy the beauty of the Wasatch and Oquirrh mountain ranges out my window.  But my fascination also results from my strong distaste for the sprawl and low-lying development of western cities.

I have been chosen as the 2010 Stegner Center Distinguished Young Scholar.  See here (page 8).  The announcement is here about my CLE presentation in Salt Lake City on ‘Climate Policy and U.S.-China Relations’ on Nov. 17.  I’ll also be presenting on ‘The Environment, Law, and Food’ on Nov. 16 at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law next week as well.  See schedules here.