JASON J. CZARNEZKI

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and the Land Use Law Center announce two new free resources – the Technical Guidance Manual for Sustainable Neighborhoods and the Neighborhood Development Floating Zone – to help local governments leverage the LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) rating system as a sustainability tool. The LEED-ND rating system aligns the principles of smart growth, New Urbanism, and green building into a set of national standards for green planning and design at the neighborhood scale. Accompanied by case studies of how municipalities have leveraged LEED-ND as a sustainability tool, theTechnical Guidance Manual for Sustainable Neighborhoods will assist local governments in using the LEED-ND criteria to audit their land use regulations, plans, and policies to promote more environmentally sound and economically robust communities. Augmenting the manual, the Neighborhood Development Floating Zone is a model ordinance to help local governments foster green community development using the LEED-ND rating system. The Floating Zone is offered as a cost-effective and efficient tool that can be used by local governments hoping to incentivize the private sector to follow green neighborhood development principles when the more extensive zoning update process laid out in the manual is not an option. Both resources are available for download at no cost:

Click here for the Technical Guidance Manual for Sustainable Neighborhoods
Click here for the Neighborhood Development Floating Zone

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/09/06/u-s-china-strike-new-climate-agreement-at-g-20-summit/

With the upcoming NYC primary elections, here’s the link to the mayoral sustainability forum in case you haven’t seen it: http://nylcvef.org/mayoral-forum-on-sustainability-a-great-success/

I wrote earlier about my lingering concerns about the Fukushima disaster. Bad news continues with this NY Times article "Errors Cast Doubt on Japan’s Cleanup of Nuclear Accident Site."

http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013/08/27/vermont-yankee-nuclear-plant-shut-down/VthM9oe73f8zeaHdWJJOVN/story.html

I had an absolutely great birthday weekend. I stayed with my family in a yurt in the Maine woods to do a little walking in the forest and enjoy spooky stories by the campfire. It is a new venture called Maine Forest Yurts and owned by Survivor winner Bob Crowley (which was fun even though I’ve never watched the show). We hope to return in the winter. We also spent a day on my partner’s childhood home–Peaks Island in Casco Bay–mostly enjoying Sandy Beach. Finally, we took the Kancamagus Scenic Byway through White Mountain National Forest. The highlight for me was in the Visitor Center. When I mentioned to the Forest Ranger that I taught Natural Resources Law, she then decided to go into a fantastic lecture to my older daughter about the different missions of the U.S. Forest Service versus the National Park Service, that they were part of different agencies (USDA v. Interior) and what could be done in a National Forest (e.g., logging and timber sales) that could not be done in a National Park. Hopefully, I will explain it all as well to my students this Fall. Highlights not related to natural resources included eggplant italian sandwiches at Amato’s and ice cream at Slick’s in Woodsville, NH.

Pace Law School seeks to hire a tenure-track or tenured faculty member in environmental law broadly, including energy law, land use law, natural resources law, and international environmental law. Entry-level and lateral candidates will be considered. Please send a c.v. to Professor Darren Rosenblum, Appointments Committee Chair, at drosenblum.

The point of view for determining history is fascinating. A friend of mine grew up in Apartheid South Africa. Growing up, she was told that Nelson Mandela was a terrorist in jail. Our Chinese friends, when they come to the U.S., are sometimes shocked to find out that many or most Americans view Taiwan as an independent country, consider Tibet invaded by Chinese forces, and may know that the Chinese province of Xinjiang was the East Turkistan Republic until entered by China’s PLA in 1949. (Imagine if someone from another country told you that they consider Florida to be an independent country occupied by the U.S. government.) I also recall visiting Jefferson’s Monticello, when a family from the southern U.S., lamented how things would be different if their side had won the "war of northern aggression." The point is in no way to criticize or judge but to point out that historical perspective is fascinating and the history post-9/11 period of the U.S. that is yet to be written may prove to be especially interesting, depending on who gets to write the history.

The cool thing about science is that it’s tentative and as scientific research goes on and conclusions are drawn, we get more nuanced data and information about the world around us. I remember when I first learned about the greenhouse effect and saw the accompanying figure in my science textbook. (Just search "greenhouse effect" on Google Images and you’ll see you’ve seen the figure with the sun’s rays bouncing off the earth and being trapped in the atmosphere at some point in your life.) I thought, "Thank goodness for the greenhouse effect, allowing the earth to be at the proper temperature for humanity to exist. Then I remember the new version of the figure which added automobiles and power plants to the earth’s surface and the term "global warming." And I thought, "This can’t be good. Too many greenhouse gases will make it too hot." Then I remember the change from the term "global warming" to "global climate change" as a way to acknowledge the change in climate and weather patters due to global average temperatures increasing. The movie "An Inconvenient Truth" was released in 2006, and, in 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) wrote, “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.” Now a new report by the IPCC, states that the authors are now 95 percent to 100 percent confident that human activity is the primary influence on planetary warming. OK, so I, like Al Gore, hope we’re all wrong about climate change, but given the best available scientific data, it’s well past time to act. (Hello, U.S. and China!?!?)

This all brings me to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. A steadily increasing number of news sources are raising concerns about the continuing public health and environmental concerns as a result of the disaster, including pollution in the Pacific Ocean, children being born with thyroid problems and contamination of the food system (including the U.S. West Coast). See here, here and here. At the same time, an increasing number of news sources are saying the public health impacts are not as severe as these competing news reports or as initially anticipated. See here and here and here. I am convinced there are certainly some negative environmental and health effects associated with such a nuclear disaster, though I am far less certain and have far less knowledge about the scope and severity of these effects. I am looking to science as a guide. It seems we should be concerned, perhaps even seriously concerned. How can science inform us about the appropriate response? And once science does, will we even pay attention or care? If past is prologue, we have little reason to be optimistic.

I earlier wrote about the new legal challenges facing the Public Trust Doctrine in Wisconsin. Now it seems that the Wisconsin’s shoreland zoning rules are at risk. See these sites:

http://www.thedatabank.com/dpg/307/pm.asp?id=44644&nav=1&aacwc=371563075077338044644135822108
http://thepoliticalenvironment.blogspot.com/2013/08/walker-co-want-to-make-shoreline.html
http://milwaukeeriverkeeper.org/content/please-attend-shoreland-zoning-hearing-tomorrow-delafield-or-send-written-comments
http://wisconsinlakes.org/index.php/current-legislative-a-legal-issues/135-2013-shoreland-zoning-rules-revision-nr115

http://www.jsonline.com/sports/outdoors/onot28-b9962481z1-217268301.html

H/T: Joe Czarnezki (aka my Dad)