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The law surrounding the health effects of tobacco are an important precedent for many environmental law issues (see here and here ). Now Martin Olszynski, Sharon Mascher, and Meinhard Doelle recently posted "From Smokes to Smokestacks: Lessons from Tobacco for the Future of Climate Change Liability" . The abstract: In this article, we imagine a future Canada (circa 2030) wherein the world has managed to avoid the worst climate change but nevertheless has begun to experience considerable warming. Governments of all levels, but especially provincial ones, are incurring unprecedented costs to mitigate the effects of climate change and to adapt to new and uncertain climatic regimes. We then consider how legislatures might respond to these challenges. In our view, the answer may lie in the unprecedented story of tobacco liability, and especially the promulgation in the late 1990s of provincial legislation specifically designed to enable provinces to recover the public healthcare c

A little while back Resources for the Future posted a paper by H. Spencer Banzhaf on the history of an economic idea with major implications for the way environmental law plays out (particularly when cost-benefit analysis is involved), "The Environmental Turn in Natural Resource Economics: John Krutilla and 'Conservation Reconsidered'" . The abstract: John Krutilla Environmentalism in the United States historically has been divided into its utilitarian and preservationist impulses, represented by Gifford Pinchot and John Muir, respectively. Pinchot advocated conservation of natural resources to be used for human purposes; Muir advocated protection from humans, for nature’s own sake. In the first half of the twentieth century, natural resource economics was firmly on Pinchot's side of that schism. That position began to change as the postwar environmental movement gained momentum. In particular, John Krutilla, an economist at Resources for the Future, pushed econom

The EPA Alumni Association recently published online Protecting the Environment: A Half Century of Progress . There's an Overview , as well as seven reports on topics such as air pollution , water pollution , toxic substances , and so on. From the introduction: Over the past half century, our country has made enormous strides improving the environment. The laws that were passed to protect the environment and the public policy decisions that were made have yielded substantial progress. The air is demonstrably cleaner, our waterways are getting cleaner, our drinking water is safer, there are lower levels of exposure to toxic chemicals affecting people and wildlife than would have occurred, toxic waste sites are being cleaned up, and millions of acres of the most scenic and valuable parts of our country’s landscape — parks, wilderness areas, and wildlife refuges — are being protected. None of this has come easily. There have frequently been significant costs. The decision-making proce