The history of environmental justice litigation in federal, state, and administrative courts illustrates how difficult it is to remedy intersectional harm using a single legal tool. In the United States, there is no federal “environmental justice law” that litigants can wield in court. The...

Anthropogenic Environmental Degradation describes environmental degradation caused by effects or processes derived from human activities, as opposed to effects or processes that occur in the natural environment without human influences. There are a plethora of laws and regulations both, local...

Given the high levels of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere and the likelihood of growing emissions in the future, even aggressive limits on greenhouse gas emissions might ultimately fail to prevent dangerous climate disruptions. To prepare for this risk, some scientists have started to...

Innovations impact societies in a variety of ways. Successful innovations are utility enhancing, in that they create a higher degree of benefits that offset any of the potential disadvantages of the innovation. Unsuccessful innovations suffer from the reverse, in that they result in more...

This article offers a discussion of the U.S. agricultural sector and its current focus on an industrialized model of production. Challenges to the longterm sustainability of this approach are presented and an approach based more on natural processes is advocated. The article was prepared for the...

The processes of discerning the causes of medical injury, and sometimes attributing them to errors by medical professionals, are fraught with legal and political controversy. This short descriptive essay presents several key features of how Japan, the United States, and Taiwan address the...

The promise of biotechnology has been tantalizingly just beyond reach for a number of years. Biotechnology is often touted as a means of increasing agricultural production, improving sustainability, and offering more nutritious food to the public. Promises of increased yield — more food for a...

This manuscript summarizes a speech given at Tallinn University of Technology in Estonia on May 14, 2013. The speech begins with a discussion of ethical theory and how it can be applied to the topic of government regulation of business, and proceeds to summarize some recent studies on the costs...

With an expanding market for what is now known as "complimentary and alternative" medicine (CAM), states are increasingly facing the issue of who can and who should be allowed to practice medicine. Of necessity, this question also concerns whom patients may see to treat their ailments. This...

Has the United States suffered a regulatory breakdown? The answer to this question might appear to be an obvious “yes.” Over the past several years, the nation has suffered not only a sustained economic downturn triggered by a cataclysmic financial crisis but also one of the worst...