JASON J. CZARNEZKI

A post from Jeffery Polubinski, a second year law student at VLS and a joint-research project student for 2011-2012 with the US-China Partnership for Environmental Law.
http://chinaenvironmentalgovernance.com/2011/10/11/chinas-post-fukushima-nuclear-vision/

The GOP Presidential Primary remains fascinating. And now this…Cain tied with Romney nationally. Thus, until primary filing deadlines start to pass, I’ll stick with my year long prediction: Sarah Palin will run for President and win the GOP nomination. And a rhetorical question: Regardless of what you think of Herman Cain, why do so many not take his campaign seriously?

Steph Tai (Wisconsin Law) has posted her paper The Rise of U.S. Food Sustainability Litigation on SSRN. The Abstract:

This article provides one of the first critical looks at the interface between the values of the sustainable food movement and its rising use of litigation. In particular, it focuses on two growing areas of food sustainability litigation"challenges to CAFOs and challenges to the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the food system"chosen because they involve growing sectors of U.S. agriculture over which members of the sustainable food movement have raised significant concerns.

The article begins by describing the sustainable food movement, including how the movement fits in with factors that sociologists use to characterize social movements, as well as the values seemingly held by the sustainable food movement. The article next provides a brief introduction into CAFOs and GMOs. In doing so, the article explores the types of concerns expressed by the sustainable food movement regarding these issues by examining some popular literature coming out of the sustainable food movement. The article then analyzes CAFO and GMO litigation in the United States arising from the sustainable food movement. In examining this litigation, the article observes how these challenges relate to some of the purported goals of the various sustainable food movements, yet may not fully succeed in advancing some of the broader visions of the movements. The article then explains that the inadequacy of these legal efforts result from particular ways in which existing legal avenues fail to mesh with the values of the food sustainability movements. This article concludes by drawing from studies of other historical movements and argues that the food sustainability movement, if it is to succeed in transforming the U.S. food system, must seek reform not only through substantive changes to agricultural and food policy, but also through the creation of additional legal avenues for its values to be meaningfully expressed.

NYT: The Not-So-Green Mountains
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/opinion/the-not-so-green-mountains.xml

This a fascinating graph showing the relationship between educational attainment and support for Obama in the last presidential election. That said, I’m skeptical that "white-collar" America is the key to overcoming the President’s disfavor of "blue-collar" American as the NY Times article suggests. Maybe this is true in NC and VA, but I think demographics (e.g., Latino and Hispanic voters) may prove more important in the West and South (e.g., CO, FL, NV). In any event, you can see that in terms of baseline electoral votes, the Democrats have a position of strength compared to the Republicans. Given the economy and the enthusiasm gap among Dems, this has the makings to be a 2000/2004 style close election.

China Environmental Governance Blog reports, "A recent report on global CO2 trends done by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency for the European Commission, found that as of 2010, China’s per capita CO2 emissions are larger than France’s and Spain’s and could overtake the US by 2017 if growth doesn’t slow." But the question for me is how much of these emissions totals are from manufacturing goods destined for export to the West.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/is-junk-food-really-cheaper.html?_r=1

http://www.vermontlaw.edu/x13194.xml

http://chinaenvironmentalgovernance.com/2011/09/27/can-the-world-handle-chinas-consumers/

Last week we hosted the Second Annual Colloquium for Environmental Scholarship at Vermont Law School, a gathering of 44 scholars from around the world who presented their works-in-progress to their colleagues (and that number does not include the Vermont Law School environmental faculty that served as moderators and paper discussants). The event went well and highlights included the Energy Panel as Hope Babcock (Georgetown) and the Vermont energy faculty (Michael Dworkin and Don Kreis) debated the merits of the closure of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power facility, the jam-packed panel featuring presenters and audience members from China, Hong Kong, Sweden, Australia, and the U.S., and the awesome food provided by Kismet and Vermont Law School’s very own Chef Jeff. One comment from a participant was "There was a special spirit about this event and goodwill that is rare in those other settings that everyone felt." Another senior scholar emailed me to say, "Please keep doing this one — two years in and you’re already on my ‘don’t miss’ list." This would not have been possible without the great work of everyone who coordinated and attended the event–Thank you all! For an account of the event, see this post from Dave Owen at Environmental Law Prof Blog.