Blog

If the role of the environmental justice scholar, as the venerable Robert Bullard contends, is to support environmental justice communities, then the responsibility of the environmental law classroom is to develop legal scaffolding to protect ecologies and inhabitants. Rebecca Bratspies and Carmen Gonzalez’s Teaching Environmental Law in Context succeeds as an indispensable reference and support tool for classrooms and others seeking a deeper understanding of environmental protection, law, and policy. Within the book’s immersive take on a suite of pressing environmental issues, the Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) chapter stands out for its methodical approach to framing quantitative aspects of environmental decision-making.

As the release date of my forthcoming book, Unlearn Power: Strengthening Communities in the Age of Environmental Crisis, approaches, naturally, I've been asked, "What's the book about?" But given the amalgamation of ecological devastation across the planet, with fallout and stakes unevenly felt across socioeconomic lines and underscored by political forces that engage in climate denialism and assaults on democratic institutions, I urge that "Why Unlearn Power?" is the more apropos question.

Energy justice mandates that renewable energy transitions center marginalized and historically overburdened households, including fenceline and extraction communities, that have faced heightened burdens from the prevalent fossil fuel-based energy system, and further have been mostly overlooked by the burgeoning renewable energy sector.