The striking vastness of the world’s largest surface freshwater resource, the Laurentian Great Lakes, has generated the fallacy that they are not highly vulnerable to climate change. This fallacy has created a great lapse in our research and understanding of the effects of climate change on...

"Investor-owned corporations dominate today's political economy, and are designed primarily to optimize profit. This solely financial focus sidelines the equally important goals of protecting the environment, paying living wages, and being responsible community members. However, as Melissa K....

Drinking water, beaches, a livable climate, clean air, forests, fisheries, and parks are all commons, shared by many users with diffuse and overlapping interests. These public natural resources are susceptible to depletion, overuse, erosion, and extinction; and they are under increasing...

The current global economic system, which is fueled by externalizing environmental costs, growing exponentially, consuming more, and a widening wealth gap between rich and poor, is misaligned to meet the climate imperative to rapidly reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs). Amidst this system breakdown...

Climate change, system change, and the path forward / Melissa K. Scanlan -- The joyful economy : rising up from the devastation of people and nature / James Gustave Speth -- Environmentalism for the next economy / Jedediah Purdy -- Reframing rights and responsibilities to prioritize nature /...

This article provides an overview of the Great Lakes as both a shared commons and a public trust. It outlines the challenges facing management of any commons and highlights the importance of the Public Trust Doctrine as a way to manage shared waters. This provides a backdrop for understanding...

This Article explains that Great Lakes water is a commons and a public trust; this water should be delivered as a freely accessible public good for domestic use; and the United States and Canada should not allow private corporations to take Great Lakes trust water out of the public commons...

The public trust doctrine is rooted in ancient Roman law and the Wisconsin Constitution. Ancient Roman jurists believed that the natural law concept that the waters are common to all was not subject to the changing whims of legis- latures. Similarly, modern theorists assert that a...

Over half the United States population currently lives near a coast. As shorelines are used by more people, developed by private owners, and altered by extreme weather, competition over access to water and beaches will intensify, as will the need for a clearer legal theory capable of...